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diff --git a/old/766-h.htm b/old/766-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index b417be2..0000000 --- a/old/766-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,52908 +0,0 @@ -<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" -"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> -<head> -<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> -<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> -<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens</title> - -<style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> - -body { margin-left: 20%; - margin-right: 20%; - text-align: justify; } - -h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: -normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} - -h1 {font-size: 300%; - margin-top: 0.6em; - margin-bottom: 0.6em; - letter-spacing: 0.12em; - word-spacing: 0.2em; - text-indent: 0em;} -h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} -h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} -h4 {font-size: 120%;} -h5 {font-size: 110%;} - -.no-break {page-break-before: avoid;} /* for epubs */ - -div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} - -hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} - -p {text-indent: 1em; - margin-top: 0.25em; - margin-bottom: 0.25em; } - -p.poem {text-indent: 0%; - margin-left: 10%; - font-size: 90%; - margin-top: 1em; - margin-bottom: 1em; } - -p.letter {text-indent: 0%; - margin-left: 10%; - margin-right: 10%; - margin-top: 1em; - margin-bottom: 1em; } - -p.noindent {text-indent: 0% } - -p.center {text-align: center; - text-indent: 0em; - margin-top: 1em; - margin-bottom: 1em; } - -p.right {text-align: right; - margin-right: 10%; - margin-top: 1em; - margin-bottom: 1em; } - -div.fig { display:block; - margin:0 auto; - text-align:center; - margin-top: 1em; - margin-bottom: 1em;} - -a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} -a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} -a:hover {color:red} - -</style> -</head> -<body> - -<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens</div> -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online -at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> -<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: David Copperfield</div> -<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Charles Dickens</div> -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: December, 1996 [eBook #766]<br /> -[Most recently updated: October 25, 2022]</div> -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> -<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Jo Churcher and David Widger</div> -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DAVID COPPERFIELD ***</div> - -<h1>DAVID COPPERFIELD</h1> - -<h2 class="no-break">By Charles Dickens</h2> - -<hr /> - -<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> -<img src="images/0008.jpg" alt="0008 " width="100%" /> -</div> - -<h5> -<a href="images/0008.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /></a> -</h5> - -<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> -<img src="images/0009.jpg" alt="0009 " width="100%" /> -</div> - -<h5> -<a href="images/0009.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /></a> -</h5> - -<p class="center"> -AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED<br/> -TO<br/> -THE HON. Mr. AND Mrs. RICHARD WATSON,<br/> -OF<br/> -ROCKINGHAM, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE. -</p> - -<hr /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2>CONTENTS</h2> - -<table summary="" style=""> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2H_PREF1">PREFACE TO 1850 EDITION</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2H_PREF2">PREFACE TO THE CHARLES DICKENS EDITION</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0003"><b>THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE OF DAVID COPPERFIELD THE YOUNGER</b></a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0001">CHAPTER 1. — I AM BORN</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0002">CHAPTER 2. — I OBSERVE</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0003">CHAPTER 3. — I HAVE A CHANGE</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0004">CHAPTER 4. — I FALL INTO DISGRACE</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0005">CHAPTER 5. — I AM SENT AWAY FROM HOME</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0006">CHAPTER 6. — I ENLARGE MY CIRCLE OF ACQUAINTANCE </a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0007">CHAPTER 7. — MY ‘FIRST HALF’ AT SALEM HOUSE</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0008">CHAPTER 8. — MY HOLIDAYS. ESPECIALLY ONE HAPPY AFTERNOON</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0009">CHAPTER 9. — I HAVE A MEMORABLE BIRTHDAY</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0010">CHAPTER 10. — I BECOME NEGLECTED, AND AM PROVIDED FOR</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0011">CHAPTER 11. — I BEGIN LIFE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT, AND DON’T LIKE IT</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0012">CHAPTER 12. — LIKING LIFE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT NO BETTER, I FORM A GREAT RESOLUTION</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0013">CHAPTER 13. — THE SEQUEL OF MY RESOLUTION</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0014">CHAPTER 14. — MY AUNT MAKES UP HER MIND ABOUT ME </a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0015">CHAPTER 15. — I MAKE ANOTHER BEGINNING</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0016">CHAPTER 16. — I AM A NEW BOY IN MORE SENSES THAN ONE</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0017">CHAPTER 17. — SOMEBODY TURNS UP</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0018">CHAPTER 18. — A RETROSPECT</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0019">CHAPTER 19. — I LOOK ABOUT ME, AND MAKE A DISCOVERY</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0020">CHAPTER 20. — STEERFORTH’S HOME</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0021">CHAPTER 21. — LITTLE EM’LY</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0022">CHAPTER 22. — SOME OLD SCENES, AND SOME NEW PEOPLE</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0023">CHAPTER 23. — I CORROBORATE Mr. DICK, AND CHOOSE A PROFESSION</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0024">CHAPTER 24. — MY FIRST DISSIPATION</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0025">CHAPTER 25. — GOOD AND BAD ANGELS</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0026">CHAPTER 26. — I FALL INTO CAPTIVITY</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0027">CHAPTER 27. — TOMMY TRADDLES</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0028">CHAPTER 28. — Mr. MICAWBER’S GAUNTLET</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0029">CHAPTER 29. — I VISIT STEERFORTH AT HIS HOME, AGAIN</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0030">CHAPTER 30. — A LOSS</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0031">CHAPTER 31. — A GREATER LOSS</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0032">CHAPTER 32. — THE BEGINNING OF A LONG JOURNEY </a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0033">CHAPTER 33. — BLISSFUL</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0034">CHAPTER 34. — MY AUNT ASTONISHES ME</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0035">CHAPTER 35. — DEPRESSION</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0036">CHAPTER 36. — ENTHUSIASM</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0037">CHAPTER 37. — A LITTLE COLD WATER</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0038">CHAPTER 38. — A DISSOLUTION OF PARTNERSHIP</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0039">CHAPTER 39. — WICKFIELD AND HEEP</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0040">CHAPTER 40. — THE WANDERER</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0041">CHAPTER 41. — DORA’S AUNTS</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0042">CHAPTER 42. — MISCHIEF</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0043">CHAPTER 43. — ANOTHER RETROSPECT</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0044">CHAPTER 44. — OUR HOUSEKEEPING</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0045">CHAPTER 45. — MR. DICK FULFILS MY AUNT’S PREDICTIONS</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0046">CHAPTER 46. — INTELLIGENCE</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0047">CHAPTER 47. — MARTHA</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0048">CHAPTER 48. — DOMESTIC</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0049">CHAPTER 49. — I AM INVOLVED IN MYSTERY</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0050">CHAPTER 50. — Mr. PEGGOTTY’S DREAM COMES TRUE </a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0051">CHAPTER 51. — THE BEGINNING OF A LONGER JOURNEY </a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0052">CHAPTER 52. — I ASSIST AT AN EXPLOSION</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0053">CHAPTER 53. — ANOTHER RETROSPECT</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0054">CHAPTER 54. — Mr. MICAWBER’S TRANSACTIONS</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0055">CHAPTER 55. — TEMPEST</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0056">CHAPTER 56. — THE NEW WOUND, AND THE OLD</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0057">CHAPTER 57. — THE EMIGRANTS</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0058">CHAPTER 58. — ABSENCE</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0059">CHAPTER 59. — RETURN</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0060">CHAPTER 60. — AGNES</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0061">CHAPTER 61. — I AM SHOWN TWO INTERESTING PENITENTS</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0062">CHAPTER 62. — A LIGHT SHINES ON MY WAY</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0063">CHAPTER 63. — A VISITOR</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#link2HCH0064">CHAPTER 64. — A LAST RETROSPECT</a></td> -</tr> - -</table> - -<hr /> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2H_PREF1"></a>PREFACE TO 1850 EDITION</h2> - -<p> -I do not find it easy to get sufficiently far away from this Book, in the first -sensations of having finished it, to refer to it with the composure which this -formal heading would seem to require. My interest in it, is so recent and -strong; and my mind is so divided between pleasure and regret—pleasure in -the achievement of a long design, regret in the separation from many -companions—that I am in danger of wearying the reader whom I love, with -personal confidences, and private emotions. -</p> - -<p> -Besides which, all that I could say of the Story, to any purpose, I have -endeavoured to say in it. -</p> - -<p> -It would concern the reader little, perhaps, to know, how sorrowfully the pen -is laid down at the close of a two-years’ imaginative task; or how an -Author feels as if he were dismissing some portion of himself into the shadowy -world, when a crowd of the creatures of his brain are going from him for ever. -Yet, I have nothing else to tell; unless, indeed, I were to confess (which -might be of less moment still) that no one can ever believe this Narrative, in -the reading, more than I have believed it in the writing. -</p> - -<p> -Instead of looking back, therefore, I will look forward. I cannot close this -Volume more agreeably to myself, than with a hopeful glance towards the time -when I shall again put forth my two green leaves once a month, and with a -faithful remembrance of the genial sun and showers that have fallen on these -leaves of David Copperfield, and made me happy. -</p> - -<p class="letter"> -London,<br/> -<i>October</i>, 1850. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2H_PREF2"></a>PREFACE TO THE CHARLES DICKENS EDITION</h2> - -<p> -I REMARKED in the original Preface to this Book, that I did not find it easy to -get sufficiently far away from it, in the first sensations of having finished -it, to refer to it with the composure which this formal heading would seem to -require. My interest in it was so recent and strong, and my mind was so divided -between pleasure and regret—pleasure in the achievement of a long design, -regret in the separation from many companions—that I was in danger of -wearying the reader with personal confidences and private emotions. -</p> - -<p> -Besides which, all that I could have said of the Story to any purpose, I had -endeavoured to say in it. -</p> - -<p> -It would concern the reader little, perhaps, to know how sorrowfully the pen is -laid down at the close of a two-years’ imaginative task; or how an Author -feels as if he were dismissing some portion of himself into the shadowy world, -when a crowd of the creatures of his brain are going from him for ever. Yet, I -had nothing else to tell; unless, indeed, I were to confess (which might be of -less moment still), that no one can ever believe this Narrative, in the -reading, more than I believed it in the writing. -</p> - -<p> -So true are these avowals at the present day, that I can now only take the -reader into one confidence more. Of all my books, I like this the best. It will -be easily believed that I am a fond parent to every child of my fancy, and that -no one can ever love that family as dearly as I love them. But, like many fond -parents, I have in my heart of hearts a favourite child. And his name is -</p> - -<p> -DAVID COPPERFIELD. -</p> - -<p class="letter"> -1869 -</p> - -<hr /> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2H_4_0003"></a>THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE OF DAVID -COPPERFIELD THE YOUNGER</h2> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0001"></a>CHAPTER 1. I AM BORN</h2> - -<p> -Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station -will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. To begin my life with the -beginning of my life, I record that I was born (as I have been informed and -believe) on a Friday, at twelve o’clock at night. It was remarked that -the clock began to strike, and I began to cry, simultaneously. -</p> - -<p> -In consideration of the day and hour of my birth, it was declared by the nurse, -and by some sage women in the neighbourhood who had taken a lively interest in -me several months before there was any possibility of our becoming personally -acquainted, first, that I was destined to be unlucky in life; and secondly, -that I was privileged to see ghosts and spirits; both these gifts inevitably -attaching, as they believed, to all unlucky infants of either gender, born -towards the small hours on a Friday night. -</p> - -<p> -I need say nothing here, on the first head, because nothing can show better -than my history whether that prediction was verified or falsified by the -result. On the second branch of the question, I will only remark, that unless I -ran through that part of my inheritance while I was still a baby, I have not -come into it yet. But I do not at all complain of having been kept out of this -property; and if anybody else should be in the present enjoyment of it, he is -heartily welcome to keep it. -</p> - -<p> -I was born with a caul, which was advertised for sale, in the newspapers, at -the low price of fifteen guineas. Whether sea-going people were short of money -about that time, or were short of faith and preferred cork jackets, I -don’t know; all I know is, that there was but one solitary bidding, and -that was from an attorney connected with the bill-broking business, who offered -two pounds in cash, and the balance in sherry, but declined to be guaranteed -from drowning on any higher bargain. Consequently the advertisement was -withdrawn at a dead loss—for as to sherry, my poor dear mother’s -own sherry was in the market then—and ten years afterwards, the caul was -put up in a raffle down in our part of the country, to fifty members at -half-a-crown a head, the winner to spend five shillings. I was present myself, -and I remember to have felt quite uncomfortable and confused, at a part of -myself being disposed of in that way. The caul was won, I recollect, by an old -lady with a hand-basket, who, very reluctantly, produced from it the stipulated -five shillings, all in halfpence, and twopence halfpenny short—as it took -an immense time and a great waste of arithmetic, to endeavour without any -effect to prove to her. It is a fact which will be long remembered as -remarkable down there, that she was never drowned, but died triumphantly in -bed, at ninety-two. I have understood that it was, to the last, her proudest -boast, that she never had been on the water in her life, except upon a bridge; -and that over her tea (to which she was extremely partial) she, to the last, -expressed her indignation at the impiety of mariners and others, who had the -presumption to go ‘meandering’ about the world. It was in vain to -represent to her that some conveniences, tea perhaps included, resulted from -this objectionable practice. She always returned, with greater emphasis and -with an instinctive knowledge of the strength of her objection, ‘Let us -have no meandering.’ -</p> - -<p> -Not to meander myself, at present, I will go back to my birth. -</p> - -<p> -I was born at Blunderstone, in Suffolk, or ‘there by’, as they say -in Scotland. I was a posthumous child. My father’s eyes had closed upon -the light of this world six months, when mine opened on it. There is something -strange to me, even now, in the reflection that he never saw me; and something -stranger yet in the shadowy remembrance that I have of my first childish -associations with his white grave-stone in the churchyard, and of the -indefinable compassion I used to feel for it lying out alone there in the dark -night, when our little parlour was warm and bright with fire and candle, and -the doors of our house were—almost cruelly, it seemed to me -sometimes—bolted and locked against it. -</p> - -<p> -An aunt of my father’s, and consequently a great-aunt of mine, of whom I -shall have more to relate by and by, was the principal magnate of our family. -Miss Trotwood, or Miss Betsey, as my poor mother always called her, when she -sufficiently overcame her dread of this formidable personage to mention her at -all (which was seldom), had been married to a husband younger than herself, who -was very handsome, except in the sense of the homely adage, ‘handsome is, -that handsome does’—for he was strongly suspected of having beaten -Miss Betsey, and even of having once, on a disputed question of supplies, made -some hasty but determined arrangements to throw her out of a two pair of -stairs’ window. These evidences of an incompatibility of temper induced -Miss Betsey to pay him off, and effect a separation by mutual consent. He went -to India with his capital, and there, according to a wild legend in our family, -he was once seen riding on an elephant, in company with a Baboon; but I think -it must have been a Baboo—or a Begum. Anyhow, from India tidings of his -death reached home, within ten years. How they affected my aunt, nobody knew; -for immediately upon the separation, she took her maiden name again, bought a -cottage in a hamlet on the sea-coast a long way off, established herself there -as a single woman with one servant, and was understood to live secluded, ever -afterwards, in an inflexible retirement. -</p> - -<p> -My father had once been a favourite of hers, I believe; but she was mortally -affronted by his marriage, on the ground that my mother was ‘a wax -doll’. She had never seen my mother, but she knew her to be not yet -twenty. My father and Miss Betsey never met again. He was double my -mother’s age when he married, and of but a delicate constitution. He died -a year afterwards, and, as I have said, six months before I came into the -world. -</p> - -<p> -This was the state of matters, on the afternoon of, what I may be excused for -calling, that eventful and important Friday. I can make no claim therefore to -have known, at that time, how matters stood; or to have any remembrance, -founded on the evidence of my own senses, of what follows. -</p> - -<p> -My mother was sitting by the fire, but poorly in health, and very low in -spirits, looking at it through her tears, and desponding heavily about herself -and the fatherless little stranger, who was already welcomed by some grosses of -prophetic pins, in a drawer upstairs, to a world not at all excited on the -subject of his arrival; my mother, I say, was sitting by the fire, that bright, -windy March afternoon, very timid and sad, and very doubtful of ever coming -alive out of the trial that was before her, when, lifting her eyes as she dried -them, to the window opposite, she saw a strange lady coming up the garden. -</p> - -<p> -My mother had a sure foreboding at the second glance, that it was Miss Betsey. -The setting sun was glowing on the strange lady, over the garden-fence, and she -came walking up to the door with a fell rigidity of figure and composure of -countenance that could have belonged to nobody else. -</p> - -<p> -When she reached the house, she gave another proof of her identity. My father -had often hinted that she seldom conducted herself like any ordinary Christian; -and now, instead of ringing the bell, she came and looked in at that identical -window, pressing the end of her nose against the glass to that extent, that my -poor dear mother used to say it became perfectly flat and white in a moment. -</p> - -<p> -She gave my mother such a turn, that I have always been convinced I am indebted -to Miss Betsey for having been born on a Friday. -</p> - -<p> -My mother had left her chair in her agitation, and gone behind it in the -corner. Miss Betsey, looking round the room, slowly and inquiringly, began on -the other side, and carried her eyes on, like a Saracen’s Head in a Dutch -clock, until they reached my mother. Then she made a frown and a gesture to my -mother, like one who was accustomed to be obeyed, to come and open the door. My -mother went. -</p> - -<p> -‘Mrs. David Copperfield, I think,’ said Miss Betsey; the emphasis -referring, perhaps, to my mother’s mourning weeds, and her condition. -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes,’ said my mother, faintly. -</p> - -<p> -‘Miss Trotwood,’ said the visitor. ‘You have heard of her, I -dare say?’ -</p> - -<p> -My mother answered she had had that pleasure. And she had a disagreeable -consciousness of not appearing to imply that it had been an overpowering -pleasure. -</p> - -<p> -‘Now you see her,’ said Miss Betsey. My mother bent her head, and -begged her to walk in. -</p> - -<p> -They went into the parlour my mother had come from, the fire in the best room -on the other side of the passage not being lighted—not having been -lighted, indeed, since my father’s funeral; and when they were both -seated, and Miss Betsey said nothing, my mother, after vainly trying to -restrain herself, began to cry. ‘Oh tut, tut, tut!’ said Miss -Betsey, in a hurry. ‘Don’t do that! Come, come!’ -</p> - -<p> -My mother couldn’t help it notwithstanding, so she cried until she had -had her cry out. -</p> - -<p> -‘Take off your cap, child,’ said Miss Betsey, ‘and let me see -you.’ -</p> - -<p> -My mother was too much afraid of her to refuse compliance with this odd -request, if she had any disposition to do so. Therefore she did as she was -told, and did it with such nervous hands that her hair (which was luxuriant and -beautiful) fell all about her face. -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, bless my heart!’ exclaimed Miss Betsey. ‘You are a very -Baby!’ -</p> - -<p> -My mother was, no doubt, unusually youthful in appearance even for her years; -she hung her head, as if it were her fault, poor thing, and said, sobbing, that -indeed she was afraid she was but a childish widow, and would be but a childish -mother if she lived. In a short pause which ensued, she had a fancy that she -felt Miss Betsey touch her hair, and that with no ungentle hand; but, looking -at her, in her timid hope, she found that lady sitting with the skirt of her -dress tucked up, her hands folded on one knee, and her feet upon the fender, -frowning at the fire. -</p> - -<p> -‘In the name of Heaven,’ said Miss Betsey, suddenly, ‘why -Rookery?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Do you mean the house, ma’am?’ asked my mother. -</p> - -<p> -‘Why Rookery?’ said Miss Betsey. ‘Cookery would have been -more to the purpose, if you had had any practical ideas of life, either of -you.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘The name was Mr. Copperfield’s choice,’ returned my mother. -‘When he bought the house, he liked to think that there were rooks about -it.’ -</p> - -<p> -The evening wind made such a disturbance just now, among some tall old -elm-trees at the bottom of the garden, that neither my mother nor Miss Betsey -could forbear glancing that way. As the elms bent to one another, like giants -who were whispering secrets, and after a few seconds of such repose, fell into -a violent flurry, tossing their wild arms about, as if their late confidences -were really too wicked for their peace of mind, some weatherbeaten ragged old -rooks’-nests, burdening their higher branches, swung like wrecks upon a -stormy sea. -</p> - -<p> -‘Where are the birds?’ asked Miss Betsey. -</p> - -<p> -‘The—?’ My mother had been thinking of something else. -</p> - -<p> -‘The rooks—what has become of them?’ asked Miss Betsey. -</p> - -<p> -‘There have not been any since we have lived here,’ said my mother. -‘We thought—Mr. Copperfield thought—it was quite a large -rookery; but the nests were very old ones, and the birds have deserted them a -long while.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘David Copperfield all over!’ cried Miss Betsey. ‘David -Copperfield from head to foot! Calls a house a rookery when there’s not a -rook near it, and takes the birds on trust, because he sees the nests!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Mr. Copperfield,’ returned my mother, ‘is dead, and if you -dare to speak unkindly of him to me—’ -</p> - -<p> -My poor dear mother, I suppose, had some momentary intention of committing an -assault and battery upon my aunt, who could easily have settled her with one -hand, even if my mother had been in far better training for such an encounter -than she was that evening. But it passed with the action of rising from her -chair; and she sat down again very meekly, and fainted. -</p> - -<p> -When she came to herself, or when Miss Betsey had restored her, whichever it -was, she found the latter standing at the window. The twilight was by this time -shading down into darkness; and dimly as they saw each other, they could not -have done that without the aid of the fire. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well?’ said Miss Betsey, coming back to her chair, as if she had -only been taking a casual look at the prospect; ‘and when do you -expect—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I am all in a tremble,’ faltered my mother. ‘I don’t -know what’s the matter. I shall die, I am sure!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No, no, no,’ said Miss Betsey. ‘Have some tea.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh dear me, dear me, do you think it will do me any good?’ cried -my mother in a helpless manner. -</p> - -<p> -‘Of course it will,’ said Miss Betsey. ‘It’s nothing -but fancy. What do you call your girl?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I don’t know that it will be a girl, yet, ma’am,’ said -my mother innocently. -</p> - -<p> -‘Bless the Baby!’ exclaimed Miss Betsey, unconsciously quoting the -second sentiment of the pincushion in the drawer upstairs, but applying it to -my mother instead of me, ‘I don’t mean that. I mean your -servant-girl.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Peggotty,’ said my mother. -</p> - -<p> -‘Peggotty!’ repeated Miss Betsey, with some indignation. ‘Do -you mean to say, child, that any human being has gone into a Christian church, -and got herself named Peggotty?’ ‘It’s her surname,’ -said my mother, faintly. ‘Mr. Copperfield called her by it, because her -Christian name was the same as mine.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Here! Peggotty!’ cried Miss Betsey, opening the parlour door. -‘Tea. Your mistress is a little unwell. Don’t dawdle.’ -</p> - -<p> -Having issued this mandate with as much potentiality as if she had been a -recognized authority in the house ever since it had been a house, and having -looked out to confront the amazed Peggotty coming along the passage with a -candle at the sound of a strange voice, Miss Betsey shut the door again, and -sat down as before: with her feet on the fender, the skirt of her dress tucked -up, and her hands folded on one knee. -</p> - -<p> -‘You were speaking about its being a girl,’ said Miss Betsey. -‘I have no doubt it will be a girl. I have a presentiment that it must be -a girl. Now child, from the moment of the birth of this girl—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Perhaps boy,’ my mother took the liberty of putting in. -</p> - -<p> -‘I tell you I have a presentiment that it must be a girl,’ returned -Miss Betsey. ‘Don’t contradict. From the moment of this -girl’s birth, child, I intend to be her friend. I intend to be her -godmother, and I beg you’ll call her Betsey Trotwood Copperfield. There -must be no mistakes in life with THIS Betsey Trotwood. There must be no -trifling with HER affections, poor dear. She must be well brought up, and well -guarded from reposing any foolish confidences where they are not deserved. I -must make that MY care.’ -</p> - -<p> -There was a twitch of Miss Betsey’s head, after each of these sentences, -as if her own old wrongs were working within her, and she repressed any plainer -reference to them by strong constraint. So my mother suspected, at least, as -she observed her by the low glimmer of the fire: too much scared by Miss -Betsey, too uneasy in herself, and too subdued and bewildered altogether, to -observe anything very clearly, or to know what to say. -</p> - -<p> -‘And was David good to you, child?’ asked Miss Betsey, when she had -been silent for a little while, and these motions of her head had gradually -ceased. ‘Were you comfortable together?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘We were very happy,’ said my mother. ‘Mr. Copperfield was -only too good to me.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘What, he spoilt you, I suppose?’ returned Miss Betsey. -</p> - -<p> -‘For being quite alone and dependent on myself in this rough world again, -yes, I fear he did indeed,’ sobbed my mother. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well! Don’t cry!’ said Miss Betsey. ‘You were not -equally matched, child—if any two people can be equally matched—and -so I asked the question. You were an orphan, weren’t you?’ -‘Yes.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And a governess?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I was nursery-governess in a family where Mr. Copperfield came to visit. -Mr. Copperfield was very kind to me, and took a great deal of notice of me, and -paid me a good deal of attention, and at last proposed to me. And I accepted -him. And so we were married,’ said my mother simply. -</p> - -<p> -‘Ha! Poor Baby!’ mused Miss Betsey, with her frown still bent upon -the fire. ‘Do you know anything?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I beg your pardon, ma’am,’ faltered my mother. -</p> - -<p> -‘About keeping house, for instance,’ said Miss Betsey. -</p> - -<p> -‘Not much, I fear,’ returned my mother. ‘Not so much as I -could wish. But Mr. Copperfield was teaching me—’ -</p> - -<p> -(‘Much he knew about it himself!’) said Miss Betsey in a -parenthesis. —‘And I hope I should have improved, being very -anxious to learn, and he very patient to teach me, if the great misfortune of -his death’—my mother broke down again here, and could get no -farther. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, well!’ said Miss Betsey. —‘I kept my -housekeeping-book regularly, and balanced it with Mr. Copperfield every -night,’ cried my mother in another burst of distress, and breaking down -again. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, well!’ said Miss Betsey. ‘Don’t cry any -more.’ —‘And I am sure we never had a word of difference -respecting it, except when Mr. Copperfield objected to my threes and fives -being too much like each other, or to my putting curly tails to my sevens and -nines,’ resumed my mother in another burst, and breaking down again. -</p> - -<p> -‘You’ll make yourself ill,’ said Miss Betsey, ‘and you -know that will not be good either for you or for my god-daughter. Come! You -mustn’t do it!’ -</p> - -<p> -This argument had some share in quieting my mother, though her increasing -indisposition had a larger one. There was an interval of silence, only broken -by Miss Betsey’s occasionally ejaculating ‘Ha!’ as she sat -with her feet upon the fender. -</p> - -<p> -‘David had bought an annuity for himself with his money, I know,’ -said she, by and by. ‘What did he do for you?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Mr. Copperfield,’ said my mother, answering with some difficulty, -‘was so considerate and good as to secure the reversion of a part of it -to me.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘How much?’ asked Miss Betsey. -</p> - -<p> -‘A hundred and five pounds a year,’ said my mother. -</p> - -<p> -‘He might have done worse,’ said my aunt. -</p> - -<p> -The word was appropriate to the moment. My mother was so much worse that -Peggotty, coming in with the teaboard and candles, and seeing at a glance how -ill she was,—as Miss Betsey might have done sooner if there had been -light enough,—conveyed her upstairs to her own room with all speed; and -immediately dispatched Ham Peggotty, her nephew, who had been for some days -past secreted in the house, unknown to my mother, as a special messenger in -case of emergency, to fetch the nurse and doctor. -</p> - -<p> -Those allied powers were considerably astonished, when they arrived within a -few minutes of each other, to find an unknown lady of portentous appearance, -sitting before the fire, with her bonnet tied over her left arm, stopping her -ears with jewellers’ cotton. Peggotty knowing nothing about her, and my -mother saying nothing about her, she was quite a mystery in the parlour; and -the fact of her having a magazine of jewellers’ cotton in her pocket, and -sticking the article in her ears in that way, did not detract from the -solemnity of her presence. -</p> - -<p> -The doctor having been upstairs and come down again, and having satisfied -himself, I suppose, that there was a probability of this unknown lady and -himself having to sit there, face to face, for some hours, laid himself out to -be polite and social. He was the meekest of his sex, the mildest of little men. -He sidled in and out of a room, to take up the less space. He walked as softly -as the Ghost in Hamlet, and more slowly. He carried his head on one side, -partly in modest depreciation of himself, partly in modest propitiation of -everybody else. It is nothing to say that he hadn’t a word to throw at a -dog. He couldn’t have thrown a word at a mad dog. He might have offered -him one gently, or half a one, or a fragment of one; for he spoke as slowly as -he walked; but he wouldn’t have been rude to him, and he couldn’t -have been quick with him, for any earthly consideration. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Chillip, looking mildly at my aunt with his head on one side, and making -her a little bow, said, in allusion to the jewellers’ cotton, as he -softly touched his left ear: -</p> - -<p> -‘Some local irritation, ma’am?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘What!’ replied my aunt, pulling the cotton out of one ear like a -cork. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Chillip was so alarmed by her abruptness—as he told my mother -afterwards—that it was a mercy he didn’t lose his presence of mind. -But he repeated sweetly: -</p> - -<p> -‘Some local irritation, ma’am?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Nonsense!’ replied my aunt, and corked herself again, at one blow. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Chillip could do nothing after this, but sit and look at her feebly, as she -sat and looked at the fire, until he was called upstairs again. After some -quarter of an hour’s absence, he returned. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well?’ said my aunt, taking the cotton out of the ear nearest to -him. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, ma’am,’ returned Mr. Chillip, ‘we are—we -are progressing slowly, ma’am.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Ba—a—ah!’ said my aunt, with a perfect shake on the -contemptuous interjection. And corked herself as before. -</p> - -<p> -Really—really—as Mr. Chillip told my mother, he was almost shocked; -speaking in a professional point of view alone, he was almost shocked. But he -sat and looked at her, notwithstanding, for nearly two hours, as she sat -looking at the fire, until he was again called out. After another absence, he -again returned. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well?’ said my aunt, taking out the cotton on that side again. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, ma’am,’ returned Mr. Chillip, ‘we are—we -are progressing slowly, ma’am.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Ya—a—ah!’ said my aunt. With such a snarl at him, that -Mr. Chillip absolutely could not bear it. It was really calculated to break his -spirit, he said afterwards. He preferred to go and sit upon the stairs, in the -dark and a strong draught, until he was again sent for. -</p> - -<p> -Ham Peggotty, who went to the national school, and was a very dragon at his -catechism, and who may therefore be regarded as a credible witness, reported -next day, that happening to peep in at the parlour-door an hour after this, he -was instantly descried by Miss Betsey, then walking to and fro in a state of -agitation, and pounced upon before he could make his escape. That there were -now occasional sounds of feet and voices overhead which he inferred the cotton -did not exclude, from the circumstance of his evidently being clutched by the -lady as a victim on whom to expend her superabundant agitation when the sounds -were loudest. That, marching him constantly up and down by the collar (as if he -had been taking too much laudanum), she, at those times, shook him, rumpled his -hair, made light of his linen, stopped his ears as if she confounded them with -her own, and otherwise tousled and maltreated him. This was in part confirmed -by his aunt, who saw him at half past twelve o’clock, soon after his -release, and affirmed that he was then as red as I was. -</p> - -<p> -The mild Mr. Chillip could not possibly bear malice at such a time, if at any -time. He sidled into the parlour as soon as he was at liberty, and said to my -aunt in his meekest manner: -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, ma’am, I am happy to congratulate you.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘What upon?’ said my aunt, sharply. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Chillip was fluttered again, by the extreme severity of my aunt’s -manner; so he made her a little bow and gave her a little smile, to mollify -her. -</p> - -<p> -‘Mercy on the man, what’s he doing!’ cried my aunt, -impatiently. ‘Can’t he speak?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Be calm, my dear ma’am,’ said Mr. Chillip, in his softest -accents. -</p> - -<p> -‘There is no longer any occasion for uneasiness, ma’am. Be -calm.’ -</p> - -<p> -It has since been considered almost a miracle that my aunt didn’t shake -him, and shake what he had to say, out of him. She only shook her own head at -him, but in a way that made him quail. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, ma’am,’ resumed Mr. Chillip, as soon as he had -courage, ‘I am happy to congratulate you. All is now over, ma’am, -and well over.’ -</p> - -<p> -During the five minutes or so that Mr. Chillip devoted to the delivery of this -oration, my aunt eyed him narrowly. -</p> - -<p> -‘How is she?’ said my aunt, folding her arms with her bonnet still -tied on one of them. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, ma’am, she will soon be quite comfortable, I hope,’ -returned Mr. Chillip. ‘Quite as comfortable as we can expect a young -mother to be, under these melancholy domestic circumstances. There cannot be -any objection to your seeing her presently, ma’am. It may do her -good.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And SHE. How is SHE?’ said my aunt, sharply. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Chillip laid his head a little more on one side, and looked at my aunt like -an amiable bird. -</p> - -<p> -‘The baby,’ said my aunt. ‘How is she?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Ma’am,’ returned Mr. Chillip, ‘I apprehended you had -known. It’s a boy.’ -</p> - -<p> -My aunt said never a word, but took her bonnet by the strings, in the manner of -a sling, aimed a blow at Mr. Chillip’s head with it, put it on bent, -walked out, and never came back. She vanished like a discontented fairy; or -like one of those supernatural beings, whom it was popularly supposed I was -entitled to see; and never came back any more. -</p> - -<p> -No. I lay in my basket, and my mother lay in her bed; but Betsey Trotwood -Copperfield was for ever in the land of dreams and shadows, the tremendous -region whence I had so lately travelled; and the light upon the window of our -room shone out upon the earthly bourne of all such travellers, and the mound -above the ashes and the dust that once was he, without whom I had never been. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0002"></a>CHAPTER 2. I OBSERVE</h2> - -<p> -The first objects that assume a distinct presence before me, as I look far -back, into the blank of my infancy, are my mother with her pretty hair and -youthful shape, and Peggotty with no shape at all, and eyes so dark that they -seemed to darken their whole neighbourhood in her face, and cheeks and arms so -hard and red that I wondered the birds didn’t peck her in preference to -apples. -</p> - -<p> -I believe I can remember these two at a little distance apart, dwarfed to my -sight by stooping down or kneeling on the floor, and I going unsteadily from -the one to the other. I have an impression on my mind which I cannot -distinguish from actual remembrance, of the touch of Peggotty’s -forefinger as she used to hold it out to me, and of its being roughened by -needlework, like a pocket nutmeg-grater. -</p> - -<p> -This may be fancy, though I think the memory of most of us can go farther back -into such times than many of us suppose; just as I believe the power of -observation in numbers of very young children to be quite wonderful for its -closeness and accuracy. Indeed, I think that most grown men who are remarkable -in this respect, may with greater propriety be said not to have lost the -faculty, than to have acquired it; the rather, as I generally observe such men -to retain a certain freshness, and gentleness, and capacity of being pleased, -which are also an inheritance they have preserved from their childhood. -</p> - -<p> -I might have a misgiving that I am ‘meandering’ in stopping to say -this, but that it brings me to remark that I build these conclusions, in part -upon my own experience of myself; and if it should appear from anything I may -set down in this narrative that I was a child of close observation, or that as -a man I have a strong memory of my childhood, I undoubtedly lay claim to both -of these characteristics. -</p> - -<p> -Looking back, as I was saying, into the blank of my infancy, the first objects -I can remember as standing out by themselves from a confusion of things, are my -mother and Peggotty. What else do I remember? Let me see. -</p> - -<p> -There comes out of the cloud, our house—not new to me, but quite -familiar, in its earliest remembrance. On the ground-floor is Peggotty’s -kitchen, opening into a back yard; with a pigeon-house on a pole, in the -centre, without any pigeons in it; a great dog-kennel in a corner, without any -dog; and a quantity of fowls that look terribly tall to me, walking about, in a -menacing and ferocious manner. There is one cock who gets upon a post to crow, -and seems to take particular notice of me as I look at him through the kitchen -window, who makes me shiver, he is so fierce. Of the geese outside the -side-gate who come waddling after me with their long necks stretched out when I -go that way, I dream at night: as a man environed by wild beasts might dream of -lions. -</p> - -<p> -Here is a long passage—what an enormous perspective I make of -it!—leading from Peggotty’s kitchen to the front door. A dark -store-room opens out of it, and that is a place to be run past at night; for I -don’t know what may be among those tubs and jars and old tea-chests, when -there is nobody in there with a dimly-burning light, letting a mouldy air come -out of the door, in which there is the smell of soap, pickles, pepper, candles, -and coffee, all at one whiff. Then there are the two parlours: the parlour in -which we sit of an evening, my mother and I and Peggotty—for Peggotty is -quite our companion, when her work is done and we are alone—and the best -parlour where we sit on a Sunday; grandly, but not so comfortably. There is -something of a doleful air about that room to me, for Peggotty has told -me—I don’t know when, but apparently ages ago—about my -father’s funeral, and the company having their black cloaks put on. One -Sunday night my mother reads to Peggotty and me in there, how Lazarus was -raised up from the dead. And I am so frightened that they are afterwards -obliged to take me out of bed, and show me the quiet churchyard out of the -bedroom window, with the dead all lying in their graves at rest, below the -solemn moon. -</p> - -<p> -There is nothing half so green that I know anywhere, as the grass of that -churchyard; nothing half so shady as its trees; nothing half so quiet as its -tombstones. The sheep are feeding there, when I kneel up, early in the morning, -in my little bed in a closet within my mother’s room, to look out at it; -and I see the red light shining on the sun-dial, and think within myself, -‘Is the sun-dial glad, I wonder, that it can tell the time again?’ -</p> - -<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> -<img src="images/0041.jpg" alt="0041 " width="100%" /> -</div> - -<h5> -<a href="images/0041.jpg"> -<img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /></a> -</h5> - -<p> -Here is our pew in the church. What a high-backed pew! With a window near it, -out of which our house can be seen, and IS seen many times during the -morning’s service, by Peggotty, who likes to make herself as sure as she -can that it’s not being robbed, or is not in flames. But though -Peggotty’s eye wanders, she is much offended if mine does, and frowns to -me, as I stand upon the seat, that I am to look at the clergyman. But I -can’t always look at him—I know him without that white thing on, -and I am afraid of his wondering why I stare so, and perhaps stopping the -service to inquire—and what am I to do? It’s a dreadful thing to -gape, but I must do something. I look at my mother, but she pretends not to see -me. I look at a boy in the aisle, and he makes faces at me. I look at the -sunlight coming in at the open door through the porch, and there I see a stray -sheep—I don’t mean a sinner, but mutton—half making up his -mind to come into the church. I feel that if I looked at him any longer, I -might be tempted to say something out loud; and what would become of me then! I -look up at the monumental tablets on the wall, and try to think of Mr. Bodgers -late of this parish, and what the feelings of Mrs. Bodgers must have been, when -affliction sore, long time Mr. Bodgers bore, and physicians were in vain. I -wonder whether they called in Mr. Chillip, and he was in vain; and if so, how -he likes to be reminded of it once a week. I look from Mr. Chillip, in his -Sunday neckcloth, to the pulpit; and think what a good place it would be to -play in, and what a castle it would make, with another boy coming up the stairs -to attack it, and having the velvet cushion with the tassels thrown down on his -head. In time my eyes gradually shut up; and, from seeming to hear the -clergyman singing a drowsy song in the heat, I hear nothing, until I fall off -the seat with a crash, and am taken out, more dead than alive, by Peggotty. -</p> - -<p> -And now I see the outside of our house, with the latticed bedroom-windows -standing open to let in the sweet-smelling air, and the ragged old -rooks’-nests still dangling in the elm-trees at the bottom of the front -garden. Now I am in the garden at the back, beyond the yard where the empty -pigeon-house and dog-kennel are—a very preserve of butterflies, as I -remember it, with a high fence, and a gate and padlock; where the fruit -clusters on the trees, riper and richer than fruit has ever been since, in any -other garden, and where my mother gathers some in a basket, while I stand by, -bolting furtive gooseberries, and trying to look unmoved. A great wind rises, -and the summer is gone in a moment. We are playing in the winter twilight, -dancing about the parlour. When my mother is out of breath and rests herself in -an elbow-chair, I watch her winding her bright curls round her fingers, and -straitening her waist, and nobody knows better than I do that she likes to look -so well, and is proud of being so pretty. -</p> - -<p> -That is among my very earliest impressions. That, and a sense that we were both -a little afraid of Peggotty, and submitted ourselves in most things to her -direction, were among the first opinions—if they may be so -called—that I ever derived from what I saw. -</p> - -<p> -Peggotty and I were sitting one night by the parlour fire, alone. I had been -reading to Peggotty about crocodiles. I must have read very perspicuously, or -the poor soul must have been deeply interested, for I remember she had a cloudy -impression, after I had done, that they were a sort of vegetable. I was tired -of reading, and dead sleepy; but having leave, as a high treat, to sit up until -my mother came home from spending the evening at a neighbour’s, I would -rather have died upon my post (of course) than have gone to bed. I had reached -that stage of sleepiness when Peggotty seemed to swell and grow immensely -large. I propped my eyelids open with my two forefingers, and looked -perseveringly at her as she sat at work; at the little bit of wax-candle she -kept for her thread—how old it looked, being so wrinkled in all -directions!—at the little house with a thatched roof, where the -yard-measure lived; at her work-box with a sliding lid, with a view of St. -Paul’s Cathedral (with a pink dome) painted on the top; at the brass -thimble on her finger; at herself, whom I thought lovely. I felt so sleepy, -that I knew if I lost sight of anything for a moment, I was gone. -</p> - -<p> -‘Peggotty,’ says I, suddenly, ‘were you ever married?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Lord, Master Davy,’ replied Peggotty. ‘What’s put -marriage in your head?’ -</p> - -<p> -She answered with such a start, that it quite awoke me. And then she stopped in -her work, and looked at me, with her needle drawn out to its thread’s -length. -</p> - -<p> -‘But WERE you ever married, Peggotty?’ says I. ‘You are a -very handsome woman, an’t you?’ -</p> - -<p> -I thought her in a different style from my mother, certainly; but of another -school of beauty, I considered her a perfect example. There was a red velvet -footstool in the best parlour, on which my mother had painted a nosegay. The -ground-work of that stool, and Peggotty’s complexion appeared to me to be -one and the same thing. The stool was smooth, and Peggotty was rough, but that -made no difference. -</p> - -<p> -‘Me handsome, Davy!’ said Peggotty. ‘Lawk, no, my dear! But -what put marriage in your head?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I don’t know!—You mustn’t marry more than one person -at a time, may you, Peggotty?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Certainly not,’ says Peggotty, with the promptest decision. -</p> - -<p> -‘But if you marry a person, and the person dies, why then you may marry -another person, mayn’t you, Peggotty?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘YOU MAY,’ says Peggotty, ‘if you choose, my dear. -That’s a matter of opinion.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘But what is your opinion, Peggotty?’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -I asked her, and looked curiously at her, because she looked so curiously at -me. -</p> - -<p> -‘My opinion is,’ said Peggotty, taking her eyes from me, after a -little indecision and going on with her work, ‘that I never was married -myself, Master Davy, and that I don’t expect to be. That’s all I -know about the subject.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You an’t cross, I suppose, Peggotty, are you?’ said I, after -sitting quiet for a minute. -</p> - -<p> -I really thought she was, she had been so short with me; but I was quite -mistaken: for she laid aside her work (which was a stocking of her own), and -opening her arms wide, took my curly head within them, and gave it a good -squeeze. I know it was a good squeeze, because, being very plump, whenever she -made any little exertion after she was dressed, some of the buttons on the back -of her gown flew off. And I recollect two bursting to the opposite side of the -parlour, while she was hugging me. -</p> - -<p> -‘Now let me hear some more about the Crorkindills,’ said Peggotty, -who was not quite right in the name yet, ‘for I an’t heard half -enough.’ -</p> - -<p> -I couldn’t quite understand why Peggotty looked so queer, or why she was -so ready to go back to the crocodiles. However, we returned to those monsters, -with fresh wakefulness on my part, and we left their eggs in the sand for the -sun to hatch; and we ran away from them, and baffled them by constantly -turning, which they were unable to do quickly, on account of their unwieldy -make; and we went into the water after them, as natives, and put sharp pieces -of timber down their throats; and in short we ran the whole crocodile gauntlet. -I did, at least; but I had my doubts of Peggotty, who was thoughtfully sticking -her needle into various parts of her face and arms, all the time. -</p> - -<p> -We had exhausted the crocodiles, and begun with the alligators, when the -garden-bell rang. We went out to the door; and there was my mother, looking -unusually pretty, I thought, and with her a gentleman with beautiful black hair -and whiskers, who had walked home with us from church last Sunday. -</p> - -<p> -As my mother stooped down on the threshold to take me in her arms and kiss me, -the gentleman said I was a more highly privileged little fellow than a -monarch—or something like that; for my later understanding comes, I am -sensible, to my aid here. -</p> - -<p> -‘What does that mean?’ I asked him, over her shoulder. -</p> - -<p> -He patted me on the head; but somehow, I didn’t like him or his deep -voice, and I was jealous that his hand should touch my mother’s in -touching me—which it did. I put it away, as well as I could. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, Davy!’ remonstrated my mother. -</p> - -<p> -‘Dear boy!’ said the gentleman. ‘I cannot wonder at his -devotion!’ -</p> - -<p> -I never saw such a beautiful colour on my mother’s face before. She -gently chid me for being rude; and, keeping me close to her shawl, turned to -thank the gentleman for taking so much trouble as to bring her home. She put -out her hand to him as she spoke, and, as he met it with his own, she glanced, -I thought, at me. -</p> - -<p> -‘Let us say “good night”, my fine boy,’ said the -gentleman, when he had bent his head—I saw him!—over my -mother’s little glove. -</p> - -<p> -‘Good night!’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Come! Let us be the best friends in the world!’ said the -gentleman, laughing. ‘Shake hands!’ -</p> - -<p> -My right hand was in my mother’s left, so I gave him the other. -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, that’s the Wrong hand, Davy!’ laughed the gentleman. -</p> - -<p> -My mother drew my right hand forward, but I was resolved, for my former reason, -not to give it him, and I did not. I gave him the other, and he shook it -heartily, and said I was a brave fellow, and went away. -</p> - -<p> -At this minute I see him turn round in the garden, and give us a last look with -his ill-omened black eyes, before the door was shut. -</p> - -<p> -Peggotty, who had not said a word or moved a finger, secured the fastenings -instantly, and we all went into the parlour. My mother, contrary to her usual -habit, instead of coming to the elbow-chair by the fire, remained at the other -end of the room, and sat singing to herself. —‘Hope you have had a -pleasant evening, ma’am,’ said Peggotty, standing as stiff as a -barrel in the centre of the room, with a candlestick in her hand. -</p> - -<p> -‘Much obliged to you, Peggotty,’ returned my mother, in a cheerful -voice, ‘I have had a VERY pleasant evening.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘A stranger or so makes an agreeable change,’ suggested Peggotty. -</p> - -<p> -‘A very agreeable change, indeed,’ returned my mother. -</p> - -<p> -Peggotty continuing to stand motionless in the middle of the room, and my -mother resuming her singing, I fell asleep, though I was not so sound asleep -but that I could hear voices, without hearing what they said. When I half awoke -from this uncomfortable doze, I found Peggotty and my mother both in tears, and -both talking. -</p> - -<p> -‘Not such a one as this, Mr. Copperfield wouldn’t have -liked,’ said Peggotty. ‘That I say, and that I swear!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Good Heavens!’ cried my mother, ‘you’ll drive me mad! -Was ever any poor girl so ill-used by her servants as I am! Why do I do myself -the injustice of calling myself a girl? Have I never been married, -Peggotty?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘God knows you have, ma’am,’ returned Peggotty. ‘Then, -how can you dare,’ said my mother—‘you know I don’t -mean how can you dare, Peggotty, but how can you have the heart—to make -me so uncomfortable and say such bitter things to me, when you are well aware -that I haven’t, out of this place, a single friend to turn to?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘The more’s the reason,’ returned Peggotty, ‘for saying -that it won’t do. No! That it won’t do. No! No price could make it -do. No!’—I thought Peggotty would have thrown the candlestick away, -she was so emphatic with it. -</p> - -<p> -‘How can you be so aggravating,’ said my mother, shedding more -tears than before, ‘as to talk in such an unjust manner! How can you go -on as if it was all settled and arranged, Peggotty, when I tell you over and -over again, you cruel thing, that beyond the commonest civilities nothing has -passed! You talk of admiration. What am I to do? If people are so silly as to -indulge the sentiment, is it my fault? What am I to do, I ask you? Would you -wish me to shave my head and black my face, or disfigure myself with a burn, or -a scald, or something of that sort? I dare say you would, Peggotty. I dare say -you’d quite enjoy it.’ -</p> - -<p> -Peggotty seemed to take this aspersion very much to heart, I thought. -</p> - -<p> -‘And my dear boy,’ cried my mother, coming to the elbow-chair in -which I was, and caressing me, ‘my own little Davy! Is it to be hinted to -me that I am wanting in affection for my precious treasure, the dearest little -fellow that ever was!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Nobody never went and hinted no such a thing,’ said Peggotty. -</p> - -<p> -‘You did, Peggotty!’ returned my mother. ‘You know you did. -What else was it possible to infer from what you said, you unkind creature, -when you know as well as I do, that on his account only last quarter I -wouldn’t buy myself a new parasol, though that old green one is frayed -the whole way up, and the fringe is perfectly mangy? You know it is, Peggotty. -You can’t deny it.’ Then, turning affectionately to me, with her -cheek against mine, ‘Am I a naughty mama to you, Davy? Am I a nasty, -cruel, selfish, bad mama? Say I am, my child; say “yes”, dear boy, -and Peggotty will love you; and Peggotty’s love is a great deal better -than mine, Davy. I don’t love you at all, do I?’ -</p> - -<p> -At this, we all fell a-crying together. I think I was the loudest of the party, -but I am sure we were all sincere about it. I was quite heart-broken myself, -and am afraid that in the first transports of wounded tenderness I called -Peggotty a ‘Beast’. That honest creature was in deep affliction, I -remember, and must have become quite buttonless on the occasion; for a little -volley of those explosives went off, when, after having made it up with my -mother, she kneeled down by the elbow-chair, and made it up with me. -</p> - -<p> -We went to bed greatly dejected. My sobs kept waking me, for a long time; and -when one very strong sob quite hoisted me up in bed, I found my mother sitting -on the coverlet, and leaning over me. I fell asleep in her arms, after that, -and slept soundly. -</p> - -<p> -Whether it was the following Sunday when I saw the gentleman again, or whether -there was any greater lapse of time before he reappeared, I cannot recall. I -don’t profess to be clear about dates. But there he was, in church, and -he walked home with us afterwards. He came in, too, to look at a famous -geranium we had, in the parlour-window. It did not appear to me that he took -much notice of it, but before he went he asked my mother to give him a bit of -the blossom. She begged him to choose it for himself, but he refused to do -that—I could not understand why—so she plucked it for him, and gave -it into his hand. He said he would never, never part with it any more; and I -thought he must be quite a fool not to know that it would fall to pieces in a -day or two. -</p> - -<p> -Peggotty began to be less with us, of an evening, than she had always been. My -mother deferred to her very much—more than usual, it occurred to -me—and we were all three excellent friends; still we were different from -what we used to be, and were not so comfortable among ourselves. Sometimes I -fancied that Peggotty perhaps objected to my mother’s wearing all the -pretty dresses she had in her drawers, or to her going so often to visit at -that neighbour’s; but I couldn’t, to my satisfaction, make out how -it was. -</p> - -<p> -Gradually, I became used to seeing the gentleman with the black whiskers. I -liked him no better than at first, and had the same uneasy jealousy of him; but -if I had any reason for it beyond a child’s instinctive dislike, and a -general idea that Peggotty and I could make much of my mother without any help, -it certainly was not THE reason that I might have found if I had been older. No -such thing came into my mind, or near it. I could observe, in little pieces, as -it were; but as to making a net of a number of these pieces, and catching -anybody in it, that was, as yet, beyond me. -</p> - -<p> -One autumn morning I was with my mother in the front garden, when Mr. -Murdstone—I knew him by that name now—came by, on horseback. He -reined up his horse to salute my mother, and said he was going to Lowestoft to -see some friends who were there with a yacht, and merrily proposed to take me -on the saddle before him if I would like the ride. -</p> - -<p> -The air was so clear and pleasant, and the horse seemed to like the idea of the -ride so much himself, as he stood snorting and pawing at the garden-gate, that -I had a great desire to go. So I was sent upstairs to Peggotty to be made -spruce; and in the meantime Mr. Murdstone dismounted, and, with his -horse’s bridle drawn over his arm, walked slowly up and down on the outer -side of the sweetbriar fence, while my mother walked slowly up and down on the -inner to keep him company. I recollect Peggotty and I peeping out at them from -my little window; I recollect how closely they seemed to be examining the -sweetbriar between them, as they strolled along; and how, from being in a -perfectly angelic temper, Peggotty turned cross in a moment, and brushed my -hair the wrong way, excessively hard. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Murdstone and I were soon off, and trotting along on the green turf by the -side of the road. He held me quite easily with one arm, and I don’t think -I was restless usually; but I could not make up my mind to sit in front of him -without turning my head sometimes, and looking up in his face. He had that kind -of shallow black eye—I want a better word to express an eye that has no -depth in it to be looked into—which, when it is abstracted, seems from -some peculiarity of light to be disfigured, for a moment at a time, by a cast. -Several times when I glanced at him, I observed that appearance with a sort of -awe, and wondered what he was thinking about so closely. His hair and whiskers -were blacker and thicker, looked at so near, than even I had given them credit -for being. A squareness about the lower part of his face, and the dotted -indication of the strong black beard he shaved close every day, reminded me of -the wax-work that had travelled into our neighbourhood some half-a-year before. -This, his regular eyebrows, and the rich white, and black, and brown, of his -complexion—confound his complexion, and his memory!—made me think -him, in spite of my misgivings, a very handsome man. I have no doubt that my -poor dear mother thought him so too. -</p> - -<p> -We went to an hotel by the sea, where two gentlemen were smoking cigars in a -room by themselves. Each of them was lying on at least four chairs, and had a -large rough jacket on. In a corner was a heap of coats and boat-cloaks, and a -flag, all bundled up together. -</p> - -<p> -They both rolled on to their feet in an untidy sort of manner, when we came in, -and said, ‘Halloa, Murdstone! We thought you were dead!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Not yet,’ said Mr. Murdstone. -</p> - -<p> -‘And who’s this shaver?’ said one of the gentlemen, taking -hold of me. -</p> - -<p> -‘That’s Davy,’ returned Mr. Murdstone. -</p> - -<p> -‘Davy who?’ said the gentleman. ‘Jones?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Copperfield,’ said Mr. Murdstone. -</p> - -<p> -‘What! Bewitching Mrs. Copperfield’s encumbrance?’ cried the -gentleman. ‘The pretty little widow?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Quinion,’ said Mr. Murdstone, ‘take care, if you please. -Somebody’s sharp.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Who is?’ asked the gentleman, laughing. I looked up, quickly; -being curious to know. -</p> - -<p> -‘Only Brooks of Sheffield,’ said Mr. Murdstone. -</p> - -<p> -I was quite relieved to find that it was only Brooks of Sheffield; for, at -first, I really thought it was I. -</p> - -<p> -There seemed to be something very comical in the reputation of Mr. Brooks of -Sheffield, for both the gentlemen laughed heartily when he was mentioned, and -Mr. Murdstone was a good deal amused also. After some laughing, the gentleman -whom he had called Quinion, said: -</p> - -<p> -‘And what is the opinion of Brooks of Sheffield, in reference to the -projected business?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, I don’t know that Brooks understands much about it at -present,’ replied Mr. Murdstone; ‘but he is not generally -favourable, I believe.’ -</p> - -<p> -There was more laughter at this, and Mr. Quinion said he would ring the bell -for some sherry in which to drink to Brooks. This he did; and when the wine -came, he made me have a little, with a biscuit, and, before I drank it, stand -up and say, ‘Confusion to Brooks of Sheffield!’ The toast was -received with great applause, and such hearty laughter that it made me laugh -too; at which they laughed the more. In short, we quite enjoyed ourselves. -</p> - -<p> -We walked about on the cliff after that, and sat on the grass, and looked at -things through a telescope—I could make out nothing myself when it was -put to my eye, but I pretended I could—and then we came back to the hotel -to an early dinner. All the time we were out, the two gentlemen smoked -incessantly—which, I thought, if I might judge from the smell of their -rough coats, they must have been doing, ever since the coats had first come -home from the tailor’s. I must not forget that we went on board the -yacht, where they all three descended into the cabin, and were busy with some -papers. I saw them quite hard at work, when I looked down through the open -skylight. They left me, during this time, with a very nice man with a very -large head of red hair and a very small shiny hat upon it, who had got a -cross-barred shirt or waistcoat on, with ‘Skylark’ in capital -letters across the chest. I thought it was his name; and that as he lived on -board ship and hadn’t a street door to put his name on, he put it there -instead; but when I called him Mr. Skylark, he said it meant the vessel. -</p> - -<p> -I observed all day that Mr. Murdstone was graver and steadier than the two -gentlemen. They were very gay and careless. They joked freely with one another, -but seldom with him. It appeared to me that he was more clever and cold than -they were, and that they regarded him with something of my own feeling. I -remarked that, once or twice when Mr. Quinion was talking, he looked at Mr. -Murdstone sideways, as if to make sure of his not being displeased; and that -once when Mr. Passnidge (the other gentleman) was in high spirits, he trod upon -his foot, and gave him a secret caution with his eyes, to observe Mr. -Murdstone, who was sitting stern and silent. Nor do I recollect that Mr. -Murdstone laughed at all that day, except at the Sheffield joke—and that, -by the by, was his own. -</p> - -<p> -We went home early in the evening. It was a very fine evening, and my mother -and he had another stroll by the sweetbriar, while I was sent in to get my tea. -When he was gone, my mother asked me all about the day I had had, and what they -had said and done. I mentioned what they had said about her, and she laughed, -and told me they were impudent fellows who talked nonsense—but I knew it -pleased her. I knew it quite as well as I know it now. I took the opportunity -of asking if she was at all acquainted with Mr. Brooks of Sheffield, but she -answered No, only she supposed he must be a manufacturer in the knife and fork -way. -</p> - -<p> -Can I say of her face—altered as I have reason to remember it, perished -as I know it is—that it is gone, when here it comes before me at this -instant, as distinct as any face that I may choose to look on in a crowded -street? Can I say of her innocent and girlish beauty, that it faded, and was no -more, when its breath falls on my cheek now, as it fell that night? Can I say -she ever changed, when my remembrance brings her back to life, thus only; and, -truer to its loving youth than I have been, or man ever is, still holds fast -what it cherished then? -</p> - -<p> -I write of her just as she was when I had gone to bed after this talk, and she -came to bid me good night. She kneeled down playfully by the side of the bed, -and laying her chin upon her hands, and laughing, said: -</p> - -<p> -‘What was it they said, Davy? Tell me again. I can’t believe -it.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘“Bewitching—“’ I began. -</p> - -<p> -My mother put her hands upon my lips to stop me. -</p> - -<p> -‘It was never bewitching,’ she said, laughing. ‘It never -could have been bewitching, Davy. Now I know it wasn’t!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes, it was. “Bewitching Mrs. Copperfield”,’ I -repeated stoutly. ‘And, “pretty.”’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No, no, it was never pretty. Not pretty,’ interposed my mother, -laying her fingers on my lips again. -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes it was. “Pretty little widow.”’ -</p> - -<p> -‘What foolish, impudent creatures!’ cried my mother, laughing and -covering her face. ‘What ridiculous men! An’t they? Davy -dear—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, Ma.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Don’t tell Peggotty; she might be angry with them. I am dreadfully -angry with them myself; but I would rather Peggotty didn’t know.’ -</p> - -<p> -I promised, of course; and we kissed one another over and over again, and I -soon fell fast asleep. -</p> - -<p> -It seems to me, at this distance of time, as if it were the next day when -Peggotty broached the striking and adventurous proposition I am about to -mention; but it was probably about two months afterwards. -</p> - -<p> -We were sitting as before, one evening (when my mother was out as before), in -company with the stocking and the yard-measure, and the bit of wax, and the box -with St. Paul’s on the lid, and the crocodile book, when Peggotty, after -looking at me several times, and opening her mouth as if she were going to -speak, without doing it—which I thought was merely gaping, or I should -have been rather alarmed—said coaxingly: -</p> - -<p> -‘Master Davy, how should you like to go along with me and spend a -fortnight at my brother’s at Yarmouth? Wouldn’t that be a -treat?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Is your brother an agreeable man, Peggotty?’ I inquired, -provisionally. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, what an agreeable man he is!’ cried Peggotty, holding up her -hands. ‘Then there’s the sea; and the boats and ships; and the -fishermen; and the beach; and Am to play with—’ -</p> - -<p> -Peggotty meant her nephew Ham, mentioned in my first chapter; but she spoke of -him as a morsel of English Grammar. -</p> - -<p> -I was flushed by her summary of delights, and replied that it would indeed be a -treat, but what would my mother say? -</p> - -<p> -‘Why then I’ll as good as bet a guinea,’ said Peggotty, -intent upon my face, ‘that she’ll let us go. I’ll ask her, if -you like, as soon as ever she comes home. There now!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘But what’s she to do while we’re away?’ said I, -putting my small elbows on the table to argue the point. ‘She can’t -live by herself.’ -</p> - -<p> -If Peggotty were looking for a hole, all of a sudden, in the heel of that -stocking, it must have been a very little one indeed, and not worth darning. -</p> - -<p> -‘I say! Peggotty! She can’t live by herself, you know.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, bless you!’ said Peggotty, looking at me again at last. -‘Don’t you know? She’s going to stay for a fortnight with -Mrs. Grayper. Mrs. Grayper’s going to have a lot of company.’ -</p> - -<p> -Oh! If that was it, I was quite ready to go. I waited, in the utmost -impatience, until my mother came home from Mrs. Grayper’s (for it was -that identical neighbour), to ascertain if we could get leave to carry out this -great idea. Without being nearly so much surprised as I had expected, my mother -entered into it readily; and it was all arranged that night, and my board and -lodging during the visit were to be paid for. -</p> - -<p> -The day soon came for our going. It was such an early day that it came soon, -even to me, who was in a fever of expectation, and half afraid that an -earthquake or a fiery mountain, or some other great convulsion of nature, might -interpose to stop the expedition. We were to go in a carrier’s cart, -which departed in the morning after breakfast. I would have given any money to -have been allowed to wrap myself up over-night, and sleep in my hat and boots. -</p> - -<p> -It touches me nearly now, although I tell it lightly, to recollect how eager I -was to leave my happy home; to think how little I suspected what I did leave -for ever. -</p> - -<p> -I am glad to recollect that when the carrier’s cart was at the gate, and -my mother stood there kissing me, a grateful fondness for her and for the old -place I had never turned my back upon before, made me cry. I am glad to know -that my mother cried too, and that I felt her heart beat against mine. -</p> - -<p> -I am glad to recollect that when the carrier began to move, my mother ran out -at the gate, and called to him to stop, that she might kiss me once more. I am -glad to dwell upon the earnestness and love with which she lifted up her face -to mine, and did so. -</p> - -<p> -As we left her standing in the road, Mr. Murdstone came up to where she was, -and seemed to expostulate with her for being so moved. I was looking back round -the awning of the cart, and wondered what business it was of his. Peggotty, who -was also looking back on the other side, seemed anything but satisfied; as the -face she brought back in the cart denoted. -</p> - -<p> -I sat looking at Peggotty for some time, in a reverie on this supposititious -case: whether, if she were employed to lose me like the boy in the fairy tale, -I should be able to track my way home again by the buttons she would shed. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0003"></a>CHAPTER 3. I HAVE A CHANGE</h2> - -<p> -The carrier’s horse was the laziest horse in the world, I should hope, -and shuffled along, with his head down, as if he liked to keep people waiting -to whom the packages were directed. I fancied, indeed, that he sometimes -chuckled audibly over this reflection, but the carrier said he was only -troubled with a cough. The carrier had a way of keeping his head down, like his -horse, and of drooping sleepily forward as he drove, with one of his arms on -each of his knees. I say ‘drove’, but it struck me that the cart -would have gone to Yarmouth quite as well without him, for the horse did all -that; and as to conversation, he had no idea of it but whistling. -</p> - -<p> -Peggotty had a basket of refreshments on her knee, which would have lasted us -out handsomely, if we had been going to London by the same conveyance. We ate a -good deal, and slept a good deal. Peggotty always went to sleep with her chin -upon the handle of the basket, her hold of which never relaxed; and I could not -have believed unless I had heard her do it, that one defenceless woman could -have snored so much. -</p> - -<p> -We made so many deviations up and down lanes, and were such a long time -delivering a bedstead at a public-house, and calling at other places, that I -was quite tired, and very glad, when we saw Yarmouth. It looked rather spongy -and soppy, I thought, as I carried my eye over the great dull waste that lay -across the river; and I could not help wondering, if the world were really as -round as my geography book said, how any part of it came to be so flat. But I -reflected that Yarmouth might be situated at one of the poles; which would -account for it. -</p> - -<p> -As we drew a little nearer, and saw the whole adjacent prospect lying a -straight low line under the sky, I hinted to Peggotty that a mound or so might -have improved it; and also that if the land had been a little more separated -from the sea, and the town and the tide had not been quite so much mixed up, -like toast and water, it would have been nicer. But Peggotty said, with greater -emphasis than usual, that we must take things as we found them, and that, for -her part, she was proud to call herself a Yarmouth Bloater. -</p> - -<p> -When we got into the street (which was strange enough to me) and smelt the -fish, and pitch, and oakum, and tar, and saw the sailors walking about, and the -carts jingling up and down over the stones, I felt that I had done so busy a -place an injustice; and said as much to Peggotty, who heard my expressions of -delight with great complacency, and told me it was well known (I suppose to -those who had the good fortune to be born Bloaters) that Yarmouth was, upon the -whole, the finest place in the universe. -</p> - -<p> -‘Here’s my Am!’ screamed Peggotty, ‘growed out of -knowledge!’ -</p> - -<p> -He was waiting for us, in fact, at the public-house; and asked me how I found -myself, like an old acquaintance. I did not feel, at first, that I knew him as -well as he knew me, because he had never come to our house since the night I -was born, and naturally he had the advantage of me. But our intimacy was much -advanced by his taking me on his back to carry me home. He was, now, a huge, -strong fellow of six feet high, broad in proportion, and round-shouldered; but -with a simpering boy’s face and curly light hair that gave him quite a -sheepish look. He was dressed in a canvas jacket, and a pair of such very stiff -trousers that they would have stood quite as well alone, without any legs in -them. And you couldn’t so properly have said he wore a hat, as that he -was covered in a-top, like an old building, with something pitchy. -</p> - -<p> -Ham carrying me on his back and a small box of ours under his arm, and Peggotty -carrying another small box of ours, we turned down lanes bestrewn with bits of -chips and little hillocks of sand, and went past gas-works, rope-walks, -boat-builders’ yards, shipwrights’ yards, ship-breakers’ -yards, caulkers’ yards, riggers’ lofts, smiths’ forges, and a -great litter of such places, until we came out upon the dull waste I had -already seen at a distance; when Ham said, -</p> - -<p> -‘Yon’s our house, Mas’r Davy!’ -</p> - -<p> -I looked in all directions, as far as I could stare over the wilderness, and -away at the sea, and away at the river, but no house could I make out. There -was a black barge, or some other kind of superannuated boat, not far off, high -and dry on the ground, with an iron funnel sticking out of it for a chimney and -smoking very cosily; but nothing else in the way of a habitation that was -visible to me. -</p> - -<p> -‘That’s not it?’ said I. ‘That ship-looking -thing?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘That’s it, Mas’r Davy,’ returned Ham. -</p> - -<p> -If it had been Aladdin’s palace, roc’s egg and all, I suppose I -could not have been more charmed with the romantic idea of living in it. There -was a delightful door cut in the side, and it was roofed in, and there were -little windows in it; but the wonderful charm of it was, that it was a real -boat which had no doubt been upon the water hundreds of times, and which had -never been intended to be lived in, on dry land. That was the captivation of it -to me. If it had ever been meant to be lived in, I might have thought it small, -or inconvenient, or lonely; but never having been designed for any such use, it -became a perfect abode. -</p> - -<p> -It was beautifully clean inside, and as tidy as possible. There was a table, -and a Dutch clock, and a chest of drawers, and on the chest of drawers there -was a tea-tray with a painting on it of a lady with a parasol, taking a walk -with a military-looking child who was trundling a hoop. The tray was kept from -tumbling down, by a bible; and the tray, if it had tumbled down, would have -smashed a quantity of cups and saucers and a teapot that were grouped around -the book. On the walls there were some common coloured pictures, framed and -glazed, of scripture subjects; such as I have never seen since in the hands of -pedlars, without seeing the whole interior of Peggotty’s brother’s -house again, at one view. Abraham in red going to sacrifice Isaac in blue, and -Daniel in yellow cast into a den of green lions, were the most prominent of -these. Over the little mantelshelf, was a picture of the ‘Sarah -Jane’ lugger, built at Sunderland, with a real little wooden stern stuck -on to it; a work of art, combining composition with carpentry, which I -considered to be one of the most enviable possessions that the world could -afford. There were some hooks in the beams of the ceiling, the use of which I -did not divine then; and some lockers and boxes and conveniences of that sort, -which served for seats and eked out the chairs. -</p> - -<p> -All this I saw in the first glance after I crossed the -threshold—child-like, according to my theory—and then Peggotty -opened a little door and showed me my bedroom. It was the completest and most -desirable bedroom ever seen—in the stern of the vessel; with a little -window, where the rudder used to go through; a little looking-glass, just the -right height for me, nailed against the wall, and framed with oyster-shells; a -little bed, which there was just room enough to get into; and a nosegay of -seaweed in a blue mug on the table. The walls were whitewashed as white as -milk, and the patchwork counterpane made my eyes quite ache with its -brightness. One thing I particularly noticed in this delightful house, was the -smell of fish; which was so searching, that when I took out my -pocket-handkerchief to wipe my nose, I found it smelt exactly as if it had -wrapped up a lobster. On my imparting this discovery in confidence to Peggotty, -she informed me that her brother dealt in lobsters, crabs, and crawfish; and I -afterwards found that a heap of these creatures, in a state of wonderful -conglomeration with one another, and never leaving off pinching whatever they -laid hold of, were usually to be found in a little wooden outhouse where the -pots and kettles were kept. -</p> - -<p> -We were welcomed by a very civil woman in a white apron, whom I had seen -curtseying at the door when I was on Ham’s back, about a quarter of a -mile off. Likewise by a most beautiful little girl (or I thought her so) with a -necklace of blue beads on, who wouldn’t let me kiss her when I offered -to, but ran away and hid herself. By and by, when we had dined in a sumptuous -manner off boiled dabs, melted butter, and potatoes, with a chop for me, a -hairy man with a very good-natured face came home. As he called Peggotty -‘Lass’, and gave her a hearty smack on the cheek, I had no doubt, -from the general propriety of her conduct, that he was her brother; and so he -turned out—being presently introduced to me as Mr. Peggotty, the master -of the house. -</p> - -<p> -‘Glad to see you, sir,’ said Mr. Peggotty. ‘You’ll find -us rough, sir, but you’ll find us ready.’ -</p> - -<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> -<img src="images/0061.jpg" alt="0061 " width="100%" /> -</div> - -<h5> -<a href="images/0061.jpg"> -<img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /></a> -</h5> - -<p> -I thanked him, and replied that I was sure I should be happy in such a -delightful place. -</p> - -<p> -‘How’s your Ma, sir?’ said Mr. Peggotty. ‘Did you leave -her pretty jolly?’ -</p> - -<p> -I gave Mr. Peggotty to understand that she was as jolly as I could wish, and -that she desired her compliments—which was a polite fiction on my part. -</p> - -<p> -‘I’m much obleeged to her, I’m sure,’ said Mr. -Peggotty. ‘Well, sir, if you can make out here, fur a fortnut, -‘long wi’ her,’ nodding at his sister, ‘and Ham, and -little Em’ly, we shall be proud of your company.’ -</p> - -<p> -Having done the honours of his house in this hospitable manner, Mr. Peggotty -went out to wash himself in a kettleful of hot water, remarking that -‘cold would never get his muck off’. He soon returned, greatly -improved in appearance; but so rubicund, that I couldn’t help thinking -his face had this in common with the lobsters, crabs, and crawfish,—that -it went into the hot water very black, and came out very red. -</p> - -<p> -After tea, when the door was shut and all was made snug (the nights being cold -and misty now), it seemed to me the most delicious retreat that the imagination -of man could conceive. To hear the wind getting up out at sea, to know that the -fog was creeping over the desolate flat outside, and to look at the fire, and -think that there was no house near but this one, and this one a boat, was like -enchantment. Little Em’ly had overcome her shyness, and was sitting by my -side upon the lowest and least of the lockers, which was just large enough for -us two, and just fitted into the chimney corner. Mrs. Peggotty with the white -apron, was knitting on the opposite side of the fire. Peggotty at her -needlework was as much at home with St. Paul’s and the bit of wax-candle, -as if they had never known any other roof. Ham, who had been giving me my first -lesson in all-fours, was trying to recollect a scheme of telling fortunes with -the dirty cards, and was printing off fishy impressions of his thumb on all the -cards he turned. Mr. Peggotty was smoking his pipe. I felt it was a time for -conversation and confidence. -</p> - -<p> -‘Mr. Peggotty!’ says I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Sir,’ says he. -</p> - -<p> -‘Did you give your son the name of Ham, because you lived in a sort of -ark?’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Peggotty seemed to think it a deep idea, but answered: -</p> - -<p> -‘No, sir. I never giv him no name.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Who gave him that name, then?’ said I, putting question number two -of the catechism to Mr. Peggotty. -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, sir, his father giv it him,’ said Mr. Peggotty. -</p> - -<p> -‘I thought you were his father!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘My brother Joe was his father,’ said Mr. Peggotty. -</p> - -<p> -‘Dead, Mr. Peggotty?’ I hinted, after a respectful pause. -</p> - -<p> -‘Drowndead,’ said Mr. Peggotty. -</p> - -<p> -I was very much surprised that Mr. Peggotty was not Ham’s father, and -began to wonder whether I was mistaken about his relationship to anybody else -there. I was so curious to know, that I made up my mind to have it out with Mr. -Peggotty. -</p> - -<p> -‘Little Em’ly,’ I said, glancing at her. ‘She is your -daughter, isn’t she, Mr. Peggotty?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No, sir. My brother-in-law, Tom, was her father.’ -</p> - -<p> -I couldn’t help it. ‘—Dead, Mr. Peggotty?’ I hinted, -after another respectful silence. -</p> - -<p> -‘Drowndead,’ said Mr. Peggotty. -</p> - -<p> -I felt the difficulty of resuming the subject, but had not got to the bottom of -it yet, and must get to the bottom somehow. So I said: -</p> - -<p> -‘Haven’t you ANY children, Mr. Peggotty?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No, master,’ he answered with a short laugh. ‘I’m a -bacheldore.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘A bachelor!’ I said, astonished. ‘Why, who’s that, Mr. -Peggotty?’ pointing to the person in the apron who was knitting. -</p> - -<p> -‘That’s Missis Gummidge,’ said Mr. Peggotty. -</p> - -<p> -‘Gummidge, Mr. Peggotty?’ -</p> - -<p> -But at this point Peggotty—I mean my own peculiar Peggotty—made -such impressive motions to me not to ask any more questions, that I could only -sit and look at all the silent company, until it was time to go to bed. Then, -in the privacy of my own little cabin, she informed me that Ham and Em’ly -were an orphan nephew and niece, whom my host had at different times adopted in -their childhood, when they were left destitute: and that Mrs. Gummidge was the -widow of his partner in a boat, who had died very poor. He was but a poor man -himself, said Peggotty, but as good as gold and as true as steel—those -were her similes. The only subject, she informed me, on which he ever showed a -violent temper or swore an oath, was this generosity of his; and if it were -ever referred to, by any one of them, he struck the table a heavy blow with his -right hand (had split it on one such occasion), and swore a dreadful oath that -he would be ‘Gormed’ if he didn’t cut and run for good, if it -was ever mentioned again. It appeared, in answer to my inquiries, that nobody -had the least idea of the etymology of this terrible verb passive to be gormed; -but that they all regarded it as constituting a most solemn imprecation. -</p> - -<p> -I was very sensible of my entertainer’s goodness, and listened to the -women’s going to bed in another little crib like mine at the opposite end -of the boat, and to him and Ham hanging up two hammocks for themselves on the -hooks I had noticed in the roof, in a very luxurious state of mind, enhanced by -my being sleepy. As slumber gradually stole upon me, I heard the wind howling -out at sea and coming on across the flat so fiercely, that I had a lazy -apprehension of the great deep rising in the night. But I bethought myself that -I was in a boat, after all; and that a man like Mr. Peggotty was not a bad -person to have on board if anything did happen. -</p> - -<p> -Nothing happened, however, worse than morning. Almost as soon as it shone upon -the oyster-shell frame of my mirror I was out of bed, and out with little -Em’ly, picking up stones upon the beach. -</p> - -<p> -‘You’re quite a sailor, I suppose?’ I said to Em’ly. I -don’t know that I supposed anything of the kind, but I felt it an act of -gallantry to say something; and a shining sail close to us made such a pretty -little image of itself, at the moment, in her bright eye, that it came into my -head to say this. -</p> - -<p> -‘No,’ replied Em’ly, shaking her head, ‘I’m -afraid of the sea.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Afraid!’ I said, with a becoming air of boldness, and looking very -big at the mighty ocean. ‘I an’t!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Ah! but it’s cruel,’ said Em’ly. ‘I have seen it -very cruel to some of our men. I have seen it tear a boat as big as our house, -all to pieces.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I hope it wasn’t the boat that—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘That father was drownded in?’ said Em’ly. ‘No. Not -that one, I never see that boat.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Nor him?’ I asked her. -</p> - -<p> -Little Em’ly shook her head. ‘Not to remember!’ -</p> - -<p> -Here was a coincidence! I immediately went into an explanation how I had never -seen my own father; and how my mother and I had always lived by ourselves in -the happiest state imaginable, and lived so then, and always meant to live so; -and how my father’s grave was in the churchyard near our house, and -shaded by a tree, beneath the boughs of which I had walked and heard the birds -sing many a pleasant morning. But there were some differences between -Em’ly’s orphanhood and mine, it appeared. She had lost her mother -before her father; and where her father’s grave was no one knew, except -that it was somewhere in the depths of the sea. -</p> - -<p> -‘Besides,’ said Em’ly, as she looked about for shells and -pebbles, ‘your father was a gentleman and your mother is a lady; and my -father was a fisherman and my mother was a fisherman’s daughter, and my -uncle Dan is a fisherman.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Dan is Mr. Peggotty, is he?’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Uncle Dan—yonder,’ answered Em’ly, nodding at the -boat-house. -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes. I mean him. He must be very good, I should think?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Good?’ said Em’ly. ‘If I was ever to be a lady, -I’d give him a sky-blue coat with diamond buttons, nankeen trousers, a -red velvet waistcoat, a cocked hat, a large gold watch, a silver pipe, and a -box of money.’ -</p> - -<p> -I said I had no doubt that Mr. Peggotty well deserved these treasures. I must -acknowledge that I felt it difficult to picture him quite at his ease in the -raiment proposed for him by his grateful little niece, and that I was -particularly doubtful of the policy of the cocked hat; but I kept these -sentiments to myself. -</p> - -<p> -Little Em’ly had stopped and looked up at the sky in her enumeration of -these articles, as if they were a glorious vision. We went on again, picking up -shells and pebbles. -</p> - -<p> -‘You would like to be a lady?’ I said. -</p> - -<p> -Emily looked at me, and laughed and nodded ‘yes’. -</p> - -<p> -‘I should like it very much. We would all be gentlefolks together, then. -Me, and uncle, and Ham, and Mrs. Gummidge. We wouldn’t mind then, when -there comes stormy weather.—-Not for our own sakes, I mean. We would for -the poor fishermen’s, to be sure, and we’d help ‘em with -money when they come to any hurt.’ This seemed to me to be a very -satisfactory and therefore not at all improbable picture. I expressed my -pleasure in the contemplation of it, and little Em’ly was emboldened to -say, shyly, -</p> - -<p> -‘Don’t you think you are afraid of the sea, now?’ -</p> - -<p> -It was quiet enough to reassure me, but I have no doubt if I had seen a -moderately large wave come tumbling in, I should have taken to my heels, with -an awful recollection of her drowned relations. However, I said -‘No,’ and I added, ‘You don’t seem to be either, though -you say you are,’—for she was walking much too near the brink of a -sort of old jetty or wooden causeway we had strolled upon, and I was afraid of -her falling over. -</p> - -<p> -‘I’m not afraid in this way,’ said little Em’ly. -‘But I wake when it blows, and tremble to think of Uncle Dan and Ham and -believe I hear ‘em crying out for help. That’s why I should like so -much to be a lady. But I’m not afraid in this way. Not a bit. Look -here!’ -</p> - -<p> -She started from my side, and ran along a jagged timber which protruded from -the place we stood upon, and overhung the deep water at some height, without -the least defence. The incident is so impressed on my remembrance, that if I -were a draughtsman I could draw its form here, I dare say, accurately as it was -that day, and little Em’ly springing forward to her destruction (as it -appeared to me), with a look that I have never forgotten, directed far out to -sea. -</p> - -<p> -The light, bold, fluttering little figure turned and came back safe to me, and -I soon laughed at my fears, and at the cry I had uttered; fruitlessly in any -case, for there was no one near. But there have been times since, in my -manhood, many times there have been, when I have thought, Is it possible, among -the possibilities of hidden things, that in the sudden rashness of the child -and her wild look so far off, there was any merciful attraction of her into -danger, any tempting her towards him permitted on the part of her dead father, -that her life might have a chance of ending that day? There has been a time -since when I have wondered whether, if the life before her could have been -revealed to me at a glance, and so revealed as that a child could fully -comprehend it, and if her preservation could have depended on a motion of my -hand, I ought to have held it up to save her. There has been a time -since—I do not say it lasted long, but it has been—when I have -asked myself the question, would it have been better for little Em’ly to -have had the waters close above her head that morning in my sight; and when I -have answered Yes, it would have been. -</p> - -<p> -This may be premature. I have set it down too soon, perhaps. But let it stand. -</p> - -<p> -We strolled a long way, and loaded ourselves with things that we thought -curious, and put some stranded starfish carefully back into the water—I -hardly know enough of the race at this moment to be quite certain whether they -had reason to feel obliged to us for doing so, or the reverse—and then -made our way home to Mr. Peggotty’s dwelling. We stopped under the lee of -the lobster-outhouse to exchange an innocent kiss, and went in to breakfast -glowing with health and pleasure. -</p> - -<p> -‘Like two young mavishes,’ Mr. Peggotty said. I knew this meant, in -our local dialect, like two young thrushes, and received it as a compliment. -</p> - -<p> -Of course I was in love with little Em’ly. I am sure I loved that baby -quite as truly, quite as tenderly, with greater purity and more -disinterestedness, than can enter into the best love of a later time of life, -high and ennobling as it is. I am sure my fancy raised up something round that -blue-eyed mite of a child, which etherealized, and made a very angel of her. -If, any sunny forenoon, she had spread a little pair of wings and flown away -before my eyes, I don’t think I should have regarded it as much more than -I had had reason to expect. -</p> - -<p> -We used to walk about that dim old flat at Yarmouth in a loving manner, hours -and hours. The days sported by us, as if Time had not grown up himself yet, but -were a child too, and always at play. I told Em’ly I adored her, and that -unless she confessed she adored me I should be reduced to the necessity of -killing myself with a sword. She said she did, and I have no doubt she did. -</p> - -<p> -As to any sense of inequality, or youthfulness, or other difficulty in our way, -little Em’ly and I had no such trouble, because we had no future. We made -no more provision for growing older, than we did for growing younger. We were -the admiration of Mrs. Gummidge and Peggotty, who used to whisper of an evening -when we sat, lovingly, on our little locker side by side, ‘Lor! -wasn’t it beautiful!’ Mr. Peggotty smiled at us from behind his -pipe, and Ham grinned all the evening and did nothing else. They had something -of the sort of pleasure in us, I suppose, that they might have had in a pretty -toy, or a pocket model of the Colosseum. -</p> - -<p> -I soon found out that Mrs. Gummidge did not always make herself so agreeable as -she might have been expected to do, under the circumstances of her residence -with Mr. Peggotty. Mrs. Gummidge’s was rather a fretful disposition, and -she whimpered more sometimes than was comfortable for other parties in so small -an establishment. I was very sorry for her; but there were moments when it -would have been more agreeable, I thought, if Mrs. Gummidge had had a -convenient apartment of her own to retire to, and had stopped there until her -spirits revived. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Peggotty went occasionally to a public-house called The Willing Mind. I -discovered this, by his being out on the second or third evening of our visit, -and by Mrs. Gummidge’s looking up at the Dutch clock, between eight and -nine, and saying he was there, and that, what was more, she had known in the -morning he would go there. -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Gummidge had been in a low state all day, and had burst into tears in the -forenoon, when the fire smoked. ‘I am a lone lorn creetur’,’ -were Mrs. Gummidge’s words, when that unpleasant occurrence took place, -‘and everythink goes contrary with me.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, it’ll soon leave off,’ said Peggotty—I again mean -our Peggotty—‘and besides, you know, it’s not more -disagreeable to you than to us.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I feel it more,’ said Mrs. Gummidge. -</p> - -<p> -It was a very cold day, with cutting blasts of wind. Mrs. Gummidge’s -peculiar corner of the fireside seemed to me to be the warmest and snuggest in -the place, as her chair was certainly the easiest, but it didn’t suit her -that day at all. She was constantly complaining of the cold, and of its -occasioning a visitation in her back which she called ‘the creeps’. -At last she shed tears on that subject, and said again that she was ‘a -lone lorn creetur’ and everythink went contrary with her’. -</p> - -<p> -‘It is certainly very cold,’ said Peggotty. ‘Everybody must -feel it so.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I feel it more than other people,’ said Mrs. Gummidge. -</p> - -<p> -So at dinner; when Mrs. Gummidge was always helped immediately after me, to -whom the preference was given as a visitor of distinction. The fish were small -and bony, and the potatoes were a little burnt. We all acknowledged that we -felt this something of a disappointment; but Mrs. Gummidge said she felt it -more than we did, and shed tears again, and made that former declaration with -great bitterness. -</p> - -<p> -Accordingly, when Mr. Peggotty came home about nine o’clock, this -unfortunate Mrs. Gummidge was knitting in her corner, in a very wretched and -miserable condition. Peggotty had been working cheerfully. Ham had been -patching up a great pair of waterboots; and I, with little Em’ly by my -side, had been reading to them. Mrs. Gummidge had never made any other remark -than a forlorn sigh, and had never raised her eyes since tea. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, Mates,’ said Mr. Peggotty, taking his seat, ‘and how -are you?’ -</p> - -<p> -We all said something, or looked something, to welcome him, except Mrs. -Gummidge, who only shook her head over her knitting. -</p> - -<p> -‘What’s amiss?’ said Mr. Peggotty, with a clap of his hands. -‘Cheer up, old Mawther!’ (Mr. Peggotty meant old girl.) -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Gummidge did not appear to be able to cheer up. She took out an old black -silk handkerchief and wiped her eyes; but instead of putting it in her pocket, -kept it out, and wiped them again, and still kept it out, ready for use. -</p> - -<p> -‘What’s amiss, dame?’ said Mr. Peggotty. -</p> - -<p> -‘Nothing,’ returned Mrs. Gummidge. ‘You’ve come from -The Willing Mind, Dan’l?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Why yes, I’ve took a short spell at The Willing Mind -tonight,’ said Mr. Peggotty. -</p> - -<p> -‘I’m sorry I should drive you there,’ said Mrs. Gummidge. -</p> - -<p> -‘Drive! I don’t want no driving,’ returned Mr. Peggotty with -an honest laugh. ‘I only go too ready.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Very ready,’ said Mrs. Gummidge, shaking her head, and wiping her -eyes. ‘Yes, yes, very ready. I am sorry it should be along of me that -you’re so ready.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Along o’ you! It an’t along o’ you!’ said Mr. -Peggotty. ‘Don’t ye believe a bit on it.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes, yes, it is,’ cried Mrs. Gummidge. ‘I know what I am. I -know that I am a lone lorn creetur’, and not only that everythink goes -contrary with me, but that I go contrary with everybody. Yes, yes. I feel more -than other people do, and I show it more. It’s my -misfortun’.’ -</p> - -<p> -I really couldn’t help thinking, as I sat taking in all this, that the -misfortune extended to some other members of that family besides Mrs. Gummidge. -But Mr. Peggotty made no such retort, only answering with another entreaty to -Mrs. Gummidge to cheer up. -</p> - -<p> -‘I an’t what I could wish myself to be,’ said Mrs. Gummidge. -‘I am far from it. I know what I am. My troubles has made me contrary. I -feel my troubles, and they make me contrary. I wish I didn’t feel -‘em, but I do. I wish I could be hardened to ‘em, but I an’t. -I make the house uncomfortable. I don’t wonder at it. I’ve made -your sister so all day, and Master Davy.’ -</p> - -<p> -Here I was suddenly melted, and roared out, ‘No, you haven’t, Mrs. -Gummidge,’ in great mental distress. -</p> - -<p> -‘It’s far from right that I should do it,’ said Mrs. -Gummidge. ‘It an’t a fit return. I had better go into the house and -die. I am a lone lorn creetur’, and had much better not make myself -contrary here. If thinks must go contrary with me, and I must go contrary -myself, let me go contrary in my parish. Dan’l, I’d better go into -the house, and die and be a riddance!’ -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Gummidge retired with these words, and betook herself to bed. When she was -gone, Mr. Peggotty, who had not exhibited a trace of any feeling but the -profoundest sympathy, looked round upon us, and nodding his head with a lively -expression of that sentiment still animating his face, said in a whisper: -</p> - -<p> -‘She’s been thinking of the old ‘un!’ -</p> - -<p> -I did not quite understand what old one Mrs. Gummidge was supposed to have -fixed her mind upon, until Peggotty, on seeing me to bed, explained that it was -the late Mr. Gummidge; and that her brother always took that for a received -truth on such occasions, and that it always had a moving effect upon him. Some -time after he was in his hammock that night, I heard him myself repeat to Ham, -‘Poor thing! She’s been thinking of the old ‘un!’ And -whenever Mrs. Gummidge was overcome in a similar manner during the remainder of -our stay (which happened some few times), he always said the same thing in -extenuation of the circumstance, and always with the tenderest commiseration. -</p> - -<p> -So the fortnight slipped away, varied by nothing but the variation of the tide, -which altered Mr. Peggotty’s times of going out and coming in, and -altered Ham’s engagements also. When the latter was unemployed, he -sometimes walked with us to show us the boats and ships, and once or twice he -took us for a row. I don’t know why one slight set of impressions should -be more particularly associated with a place than another, though I believe -this obtains with most people, in reference especially to the associations of -their childhood. I never hear the name, or read the name, of Yarmouth, but I am -reminded of a certain Sunday morning on the beach, the bells ringing for -church, little Em’ly leaning on my shoulder, Ham lazily dropping stones -into the water, and the sun, away at sea, just breaking through the heavy mist, -and showing us the ships, like their own shadows. -</p> - -<p> -At last the day came for going home. I bore up against the separation from Mr. -Peggotty and Mrs. Gummidge, but my agony of mind at leaving little Em’ly -was piercing. We went arm-in-arm to the public-house where the carrier put up, -and I promised, on the road, to write to her. (I redeemed that promise -afterwards, in characters larger than those in which apartments are usually -announced in manuscript, as being to let.) We were greatly overcome at parting; -and if ever, in my life, I have had a void made in my heart, I had one made -that day. -</p> - -<p> -Now, all the time I had been on my visit, I had been ungrateful to my home -again, and had thought little or nothing about it. But I was no sooner turned -towards it, than my reproachful young conscience seemed to point that way with -a ready finger; and I felt, all the more for the sinking of my spirits, that it -was my nest, and that my mother was my comforter and friend. -</p> - -<p> -This gained upon me as we went along; so that the nearer we drew, the more -familiar the objects became that we passed, the more excited I was to get -there, and to run into her arms. But Peggotty, instead of sharing in those -transports, tried to check them (though very kindly), and looked confused and -out of sorts. -</p> - -<p> -Blunderstone Rookery would come, however, in spite of her, when the -carrier’s horse pleased—and did. How well I recollect it, on a cold -grey afternoon, with a dull sky, threatening rain! -</p> - -<p> -The door opened, and I looked, half laughing and half crying in my pleasant -agitation, for my mother. It was not she, but a strange servant. -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, Peggotty!’ I said, ruefully, ‘isn’t she come -home?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes, yes, Master Davy,’ said Peggotty. ‘She’s come -home. Wait a bit, Master Davy, and I’ll—I’ll tell you -something.’ -</p> - -<p> -Between her agitation, and her natural awkwardness in getting out of the cart, -Peggotty was making a most extraordinary festoon of herself, but I felt too -blank and strange to tell her so. When she had got down, she took me by the -hand; led me, wondering, into the kitchen; and shut the door. -</p> - -<p> -‘Peggotty!’ said I, quite frightened. ‘What’s the -matter?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Nothing’s the matter, bless you, Master Davy dear!’ she -answered, assuming an air of sprightliness. -</p> - -<p> -‘Something’s the matter, I’m sure. Where’s mama?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Where’s mama, Master Davy?’ repeated Peggotty. -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes. Why hasn’t she come out to the gate, and what have we come in -here for? Oh, Peggotty!’ My eyes were full, and I felt as if I were going -to tumble down. -</p> - -<p> -‘Bless the precious boy!’ cried Peggotty, taking hold of me. -‘What is it? Speak, my pet!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Not dead, too! Oh, she’s not dead, Peggotty?’ -</p> - -<p> -Peggotty cried out No! with an astonishing volume of voice; and then sat down, -and began to pant, and said I had given her a turn. -</p> - -<p> -I gave her a hug to take away the turn, or to give her another turn in the -right direction, and then stood before her, looking at her in anxious inquiry. -</p> - -<p> -‘You see, dear, I should have told you before now,’ said Peggotty, -‘but I hadn’t an opportunity. I ought to have made it, perhaps, but -I couldn’t azackly’—that was always the substitute for -exactly, in Peggotty’s militia of words—‘bring my mind to -it.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Go on, Peggotty,’ said I, more frightened than before. -</p> - -<p> -‘Master Davy,’ said Peggotty, untying her bonnet with a shaking -hand, and speaking in a breathless sort of way. ‘What do you think? You -have got a Pa!’ -</p> - -<p> -I trembled, and turned white. Something—I don’t know what, or -how—connected with the grave in the churchyard, and the raising of the -dead, seemed to strike me like an unwholesome wind. -</p> - -<p> -‘A new one,’ said Peggotty. -</p> - -<p> -‘A new one?’ I repeated. -</p> - -<p> -Peggotty gave a gasp, as if she were swallowing something that was very hard, -and, putting out her hand, said: -</p> - -<p> -‘Come and see him.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I don’t want to see him.’ —‘And your -mama,’ said Peggotty. -</p> - -<p> -I ceased to draw back, and we went straight to the best parlour, where she left -me. On one side of the fire, sat my mother; on the other, Mr. Murdstone. My -mother dropped her work, and arose hurriedly, but timidly I thought. -</p> - -<p> -‘Now, Clara my dear,’ said Mr. Murdstone. ‘Recollect! control -yourself, always control yourself! Davy boy, how do you do?’ -</p> - -<p> -I gave him my hand. After a moment of suspense, I went and kissed my mother: -she kissed me, patted me gently on the shoulder, and sat down again to her -work. I could not look at her, I could not look at him, I knew quite well that -he was looking at us both; and I turned to the window and looked out there, at -some shrubs that were drooping their heads in the cold. -</p> - -<p> -As soon as I could creep away, I crept upstairs. My old dear bedroom was -changed, and I was to lie a long way off. I rambled downstairs to find anything -that was like itself, so altered it all seemed; and roamed into the yard. I -very soon started back from there, for the empty dog-kennel was filled up with -a great dog—deep mouthed and black-haired like Him—and he was very -angry at the sight of me, and sprang out to get at me. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0004"></a>CHAPTER 4. I FALL INTO DISGRACE</h2> - -<p> -If the room to which my bed was removed were a sentient thing that could give -evidence, I might appeal to it at this day—who sleeps there now, I -wonder!—to bear witness for me what a heavy heart I carried to it. I went -up there, hearing the dog in the yard bark after me all the way while I climbed -the stairs; and, looking as blank and strange upon the room as the room looked -upon me, sat down with my small hands crossed, and thought. -</p> - -<p> -I thought of the oddest things. Of the shape of the room, of the cracks in the -ceiling, of the paper on the walls, of the flaws in the window-glass making -ripples and dimples on the prospect, of the washing-stand being rickety on its -three legs, and having a discontented something about it, which reminded me of -Mrs. Gummidge under the influence of the old one. I was crying all the time, -but, except that I was conscious of being cold and dejected, I am sure I never -thought why I cried. At last in my desolation I began to consider that I was -dreadfully in love with little Em’ly, and had been torn away from her to -come here where no one seemed to want me, or to care about me, half as much as -she did. This made such a very miserable piece of business of it, that I rolled -myself up in a corner of the counterpane, and cried myself to sleep. -</p> - -<p> -I was awoke by somebody saying ‘Here he is!’ and uncovering my hot -head. My mother and Peggotty had come to look for me, and it was one of them -who had done it. -</p> - -<p> -‘Davy,’ said my mother. ‘What’s the matter?’ -</p> - -<p> -I thought it was very strange that she should ask me, and answered, -‘Nothing.’ I turned over on my face, I recollect, to hide my -trembling lip, which answered her with greater truth. ‘Davy,’ said -my mother. ‘Davy, my child!’ -</p> - -<p> -I dare say no words she could have uttered would have affected me so much, -then, as her calling me her child. I hid my tears in the bedclothes, and -pressed her from me with my hand, when she would have raised me up. -</p> - -<p> -‘This is your doing, Peggotty, you cruel thing!’ said my mother. -‘I have no doubt at all about it. How can you reconcile it to your -conscience, I wonder, to prejudice my own boy against me, or against anybody -who is dear to me? What do you mean by it, Peggotty?’ -</p> - -<p> -Poor Peggotty lifted up her hands and eyes, and only answered, in a sort of -paraphrase of the grace I usually repeated after dinner, ‘Lord forgive -you, Mrs. Copperfield, and for what you have said this minute, may you never be -truly sorry!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘It’s enough to distract me,’ cried my mother. ‘In my -honeymoon, too, when my most inveterate enemy might relent, one would think, -and not envy me a little peace of mind and happiness. Davy, you naughty boy! -Peggotty, you savage creature! Oh, dear me!’ cried my mother, turning -from one of us to the other, in her pettish wilful manner, ‘what a -troublesome world this is, when one has the most right to expect it to be as -agreeable as possible!’ -</p> - -<p> -I felt the touch of a hand that I knew was neither hers nor Peggotty’s, -and slipped to my feet at the bed-side. It was Mr. Murdstone’s hand, and -he kept it on my arm as he said: -</p> - -<p> -‘What’s this? Clara, my love, have you forgotten?—Firmness, -my dear!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I am very sorry, Edward,’ said my mother. ‘I meant to be -very good, but I am so uncomfortable.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Indeed!’ he answered. ‘That’s a bad hearing, so soon, -Clara.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I say it’s very hard I should be made so now,’ returned my -mother, pouting; ‘and it is—very hard—isn’t it?’ -</p> - -<p> -He drew her to him, whispered in her ear, and kissed her. I knew as well, when -I saw my mother’s head lean down upon his shoulder, and her arm touch his -neck—I knew as well that he could mould her pliant nature into any form -he chose, as I know, now, that he did it. -</p> - -<p> -‘Go you below, my love,’ said Mr. Murdstone. ‘David and I -will come down, together. My friend,’ turning a darkening face on -Peggotty, when he had watched my mother out, and dismissed her with a nod and a -smile; ‘do you know your mistress’s name?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘She has been my mistress a long time, sir,’ answered Peggotty, -‘I ought to know it.’ ‘That’s true,’ he answered. -‘But I thought I heard you, as I came upstairs, address her by a name -that is not hers. She has taken mine, you know. Will you remember that?’ -</p> - -<p> -Peggotty, with some uneasy glances at me, curtseyed herself out of the room -without replying; seeing, I suppose, that she was expected to go, and had no -excuse for remaining. When we two were left alone, he shut the door, and -sitting on a chair, and holding me standing before him, looked steadily into my -eyes. I felt my own attracted, no less steadily, to his. As I recall our being -opposed thus, face to face, I seem again to hear my heart beat fast and high. -</p> - -<p> -‘David,’ he said, making his lips thin, by pressing them together, -‘if I have an obstinate horse or dog to deal with, what do you think I -do?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I don’t know.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I beat him.’ -</p> - -<p> -I had answered in a kind of breathless whisper, but I felt, in my silence, that -my breath was shorter now. -</p> - -<p> -‘I make him wince, and smart. I say to myself, “I’ll conquer -that fellow”; and if it were to cost him all the blood he had, I should -do it. What is that upon your face?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Dirt,’ I said. -</p> - -<p> -He knew it was the mark of tears as well as I. But if he had asked the question -twenty times, each time with twenty blows, I believe my baby heart would have -burst before I would have told him so. -</p> - -<p> -‘You have a good deal of intelligence for a little fellow,’ he -said, with a grave smile that belonged to him, ‘and you understood me -very well, I see. Wash that face, sir, and come down with me.’ -</p> - -<p> -He pointed to the washing-stand, which I had made out to be like Mrs. Gummidge, -and motioned me with his head to obey him directly. I had little doubt then, -and I have less doubt now, that he would have knocked me down without the least -compunction, if I had hesitated. -</p> - -<p> -‘Clara, my dear,’ he said, when I had done his bidding, and he -walked me into the parlour, with his hand still on my arm; ‘you will not -be made uncomfortable any more, I hope. We shall soon improve our youthful -humours.’ -</p> - -<p> -God help me, I might have been improved for my whole life, I might have been -made another creature perhaps, for life, by a kind word at that season. A word -of encouragement and explanation, of pity for my childish ignorance, of welcome -home, of reassurance to me that it was home, might have made me dutiful to him -in my heart henceforth, instead of in my hypocritical outside, and might have -made me respect instead of hate him. I thought my mother was sorry to see me -standing in the room so scared and strange, and that, presently, when I stole -to a chair, she followed me with her eyes more sorrowfully still—missing, -perhaps, some freedom in my childish tread—but the word was not spoken, -and the time for it was gone. -</p> - -<p> -We dined alone, we three together. He seemed to be very fond of my -mother—I am afraid I liked him none the better for that—and she was -very fond of him. I gathered from what they said, that an elder sister of his -was coming to stay with them, and that she was expected that evening. I am not -certain whether I found out then, or afterwards, that, without being actively -concerned in any business, he had some share in, or some annual charge upon the -profits of, a wine-merchant’s house in London, with which his family had -been connected from his great-grandfather’s time, and in which his sister -had a similar interest; but I may mention it in this place, whether or no. -</p> - -<p> -After dinner, when we were sitting by the fire, and I was meditating an escape -to Peggotty without having the hardihood to slip away, lest it should offend -the master of the house, a coach drove up to the garden-gate and he went out to -receive the visitor. My mother followed him. I was timidly following her, when -she turned round at the parlour door, in the dusk, and taking me in her embrace -as she had been used to do, whispered me to love my new father and be obedient -to him. She did this hurriedly and secretly, as if it were wrong, but tenderly; -and, putting out her hand behind her, held mine in it, until we came near to -where he was standing in the garden, where she let mine go, and drew hers -through his arm. -</p> - -<p> -It was Miss Murdstone who was arrived, and a gloomy-looking lady she was; dark, -like her brother, whom she greatly resembled in face and voice; and with very -heavy eyebrows, nearly meeting over her large nose, as if, being disabled by -the wrongs of her sex from wearing whiskers, she had carried them to that -account. She brought with her two uncompromising hard black boxes, with her -initials on the lids in hard brass nails. When she paid the coachman she took -her money out of a hard steel purse, and she kept the purse in a very jail of a -bag which hung upon her arm by a heavy chain, and shut up like a bite. I had -never, at that time, seen such a metallic lady altogether as Miss Murdstone -was. -</p> - -<p> -She was brought into the parlour with many tokens of welcome, and there -formally recognized my mother as a new and near relation. Then she looked at -me, and said: -</p> - -<p> -‘Is that your boy, sister-in-law?’ -</p> - -<p> -My mother acknowledged me. -</p> - -<p> -‘Generally speaking,’ said Miss Murdstone, ‘I don’t -like boys. How d’ye do, boy?’ -</p> - -<p> -Under these encouraging circumstances, I replied that I was very well, and that -I hoped she was the same; with such an indifferent grace, that Miss Murdstone -disposed of me in two words: -</p> - -<p> -‘Wants manner!’ -</p> - -<p> -Having uttered which, with great distinctness, she begged the favour of being -shown to her room, which became to me from that time forth a place of awe and -dread, wherein the two black boxes were never seen open or known to be left -unlocked, and where (for I peeped in once or twice when she was out) numerous -little steel fetters and rivets, with which Miss Murdstone embellished herself -when she was dressed, generally hung upon the looking-glass in formidable -array. -</p> - -<p> -As well as I could make out, she had come for good, and had no intention of -ever going again. She began to ‘help’ my mother next morning, and -was in and out of the store-closet all day, putting things to rights, and -making havoc in the old arrangements. Almost the first remarkable thing I -observed in Miss Murdstone was, her being constantly haunted by a suspicion -that the servants had a man secreted somewhere on the premises. Under the -influence of this delusion, she dived into the coal-cellar at the most untimely -hours, and scarcely ever opened the door of a dark cupboard without clapping it -to again, in the belief that she had got him. -</p> - -<p> -Though there was nothing very airy about Miss Murdstone, she was a perfect Lark -in point of getting up. She was up (and, as I believe to this hour, looking for -that man) before anybody in the house was stirring. Peggotty gave it as her -opinion that she even slept with one eye open; but I could not concur in this -idea; for I tried it myself after hearing the suggestion thrown out, and found -it couldn’t be done. -</p> - -<p> -On the very first morning after her arrival she was up and ringing her bell at -cock-crow. When my mother came down to breakfast and was going to make the tea, -Miss Murdstone gave her a kind of peck on the cheek, which was her nearest -approach to a kiss, and said: -</p> - -<p> -‘Now, Clara, my dear, I am come here, you know, to relieve you of all the -trouble I can. You’re much too pretty and thoughtless’—my -mother blushed but laughed, and seemed not to dislike this -character—‘to have any duties imposed upon you that can be -undertaken by me. If you’ll be so good as give me your keys, my dear, -I’ll attend to all this sort of thing in future.’ -</p> - -<p> -From that time, Miss Murdstone kept the keys in her own little jail all day, -and under her pillow all night, and my mother had no more to do with them than -I had. -</p> - -<p> -My mother did not suffer her authority to pass from her without a shadow of -protest. One night when Miss Murdstone had been developing certain household -plans to her brother, of which he signified his approbation, my mother suddenly -began to cry, and said she thought she might have been consulted. -</p> - -<p> -‘Clara!’ said Mr. Murdstone sternly. ‘Clara! I wonder at -you.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, it’s very well to say you wonder, Edward!’ cried my -mother, ‘and it’s very well for you to talk about firmness, but you -wouldn’t like it yourself.’ -</p> - -<p> -Firmness, I may observe, was the grand quality on which both Mr. and Miss -Murdstone took their stand. However I might have expressed my comprehension of -it at that time, if I had been called upon, I nevertheless did clearly -comprehend in my own way, that it was another name for tyranny; and for a -certain gloomy, arrogant, devil’s humour, that was in them both. The -creed, as I should state it now, was this. Mr. Murdstone was firm; nobody in -his world was to be so firm as Mr. Murdstone; nobody else in his world was to -be firm at all, for everybody was to be bent to his firmness. Miss Murdstone -was an exception. She might be firm, but only by relationship, and in an -inferior and tributary degree. My mother was another exception. She might be -firm, and must be; but only in bearing their firmness, and firmly believing -there was no other firmness upon earth. -</p> - -<p> -‘It’s very hard,’ said my mother, ‘that in my own -house—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘My own house?’ repeated Mr. Murdstone. ‘Clara!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘OUR own house, I mean,’ faltered my mother, evidently -frightened—‘I hope you must know what I mean, -Edward—it’s very hard that in YOUR own house I may not have a word -to say about domestic matters. I am sure I managed very well before we were -married. There’s evidence,’ said my mother, sobbing; ‘ask -Peggotty if I didn’t do very well when I wasn’t interfered -with!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Edward,’ said Miss Murdstone, ‘let there be an end of this. -I go tomorrow.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Jane Murdstone,’ said her brother, ‘be silent! How dare you -to insinuate that you don’t know my character better than your words -imply?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I am sure,’ my poor mother went on, at a grievous disadvantage, -and with many tears, ‘I don’t want anybody to go. I should be very -miserable and unhappy if anybody was to go. I don’t ask much. I am not -unreasonable. I only want to be consulted sometimes. I am very much obliged to -anybody who assists me, and I only want to be consulted as a mere form, -sometimes. I thought you were pleased, once, with my being a little -inexperienced and girlish, Edward—I am sure you said so—but you -seem to hate me for it now, you are so severe.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Edward,’ said Miss Murdstone, again, ‘let there be an end of -this. I go tomorrow.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Jane Murdstone,’ thundered Mr. Murdstone. ‘Will you be -silent? How dare you?’ -</p> - -<p> -Miss Murdstone made a jail-delivery of her pocket-handkerchief, and held it -before her eyes. -</p> - -<p> -‘Clara,’ he continued, looking at my mother, ‘you surprise -me! You astound me! Yes, I had a satisfaction in the thought of marrying an -inexperienced and artless person, and forming her character, and infusing into -it some amount of that firmness and decision of which it stood in need. But -when Jane Murdstone is kind enough to come to my assistance in this endeavour, -and to assume, for my sake, a condition something like a housekeeper’s, -and when she meets with a base return—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, pray, pray, Edward,’ cried my mother, ‘don’t -accuse me of being ungrateful. I am sure I am not ungrateful. No one ever said -I was before. I have many faults, but not that. Oh, don’t, my -dear!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘When Jane Murdstone meets, I say,’ he went on, after waiting until -my mother was silent, ‘with a base return, that feeling of mine is -chilled and altered.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Don’t, my love, say that!’ implored my mother very -piteously. ‘Oh, don’t, Edward! I can’t bear to hear it. -Whatever I am, I am affectionate. I know I am affectionate. I wouldn’t -say it, if I wasn’t sure that I am. Ask Peggotty. I am sure she’ll -tell you I’m affectionate.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘There is no extent of mere weakness, Clara,’ said Mr. Murdstone in -reply, ‘that can have the least weight with me. You lose breath.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Pray let us be friends,’ said my mother, ‘I couldn’t -live under coldness or unkindness. I am so sorry. I have a great many defects, -I know, and it’s very good of you, Edward, with your strength of mind, to -endeavour to correct them for me. Jane, I don’t object to anything. I -should be quite broken-hearted if you thought of leaving—’ My -mother was too much overcome to go on. -</p> - -<p> -‘Jane Murdstone,’ said Mr. Murdstone to his sister, ‘any -harsh words between us are, I hope, uncommon. It is not my fault that so -unusual an occurrence has taken place tonight. I was betrayed into it by -another. Nor is it your fault. You were betrayed into it by another. Let us -both try to forget it. And as this,’ he added, after these magnanimous -words, ‘is not a fit scene for the boy—David, go to bed!’ -</p> - -<p> -I could hardly find the door, through the tears that stood in my eyes. I was so -sorry for my mother’s distress; but I groped my way out, and groped my -way up to my room in the dark, without even having the heart to say good night -to Peggotty, or to get a candle from her. When her coming up to look for me, an -hour or so afterwards, awoke me, she said that my mother had gone to bed -poorly, and that Mr. and Miss Murdstone were sitting alone. -</p> - -<p> -Going down next morning rather earlier than usual, I paused outside the parlour -door, on hearing my mother’s voice. She was very earnestly and humbly -entreating Miss Murdstone’s pardon, which that lady granted, and a -perfect reconciliation took place. I never knew my mother afterwards to give an -opinion on any matter, without first appealing to Miss Murdstone, or without -having first ascertained by some sure means, what Miss Murdstone’s -opinion was; and I never saw Miss Murdstone, when out of temper (she was infirm -that way), move her hand towards her bag as if she were going to take out the -keys and offer to resign them to my mother, without seeing that my mother was -in a terrible fright. -</p> - -<p> -The gloomy taint that was in the Murdstone blood, darkened the Murdstone -religion, which was austere and wrathful. I have thought, since, that its -assuming that character was a necessary consequence of Mr. Murdstone’s -firmness, which wouldn’t allow him to let anybody off from the utmost -weight of the severest penalties he could find any excuse for. Be this as it -may, I well remember the tremendous visages with which we used to go to church, -and the changed air of the place. Again, the dreaded Sunday comes round, and I -file into the old pew first, like a guarded captive brought to a condemned -service. Again, Miss Murdstone, in a black velvet gown, that looks as if it had -been made out of a pall, follows close upon me; then my mother; then her -husband. There is no Peggotty now, as in the old time. Again, I listen to Miss -Murdstone mumbling the responses, and emphasizing all the dread words with a -cruel relish. Again, I see her dark eyes roll round the church when she says -‘miserable sinners’, as if she were calling all the congregation -names. Again, I catch rare glimpses of my mother, moving her lips timidly -between the two, with one of them muttering at each ear like low thunder. -Again, I wonder with a sudden fear whether it is likely that our good old -clergyman can be wrong, and Mr. and Miss Murdstone right, and that all the -angels in Heaven can be destroying angels. Again, if I move a finger or relax a -muscle of my face, Miss Murdstone pokes me with her prayer-book, and makes my -side ache. -</p> - -<p> -Yes, and again, as we walk home, I note some neighbours looking at my mother -and at me, and whispering. Again, as the three go on arm-in-arm, and I linger -behind alone, I follow some of those looks, and wonder if my mother’s -step be really not so light as I have seen it, and if the gaiety of her beauty -be really almost worried away. Again, I wonder whether any of the neighbours -call to mind, as I do, how we used to walk home together, she and I; and I -wonder stupidly about that, all the dreary dismal day. -</p> - -<p> -There had been some talk on occasions of my going to boarding-school. Mr. and -Miss Murdstone had originated it, and my mother had of course agreed with them. -Nothing, however, was concluded on the subject yet. In the meantime, I learnt -lessons at home. Shall I ever forget those lessons! They were presided over -nominally by my mother, but really by Mr. Murdstone and his sister, who were -always present, and found them a favourable occasion for giving my mother -lessons in that miscalled firmness, which was the bane of both our lives. I -believe I was kept at home for that purpose. I had been apt enough to learn, -and willing enough, when my mother and I had lived alone together. I can -faintly remember learning the alphabet at her knee. To this day, when I look -upon the fat black letters in the primer, the puzzling novelty of their shapes, -and the easy good-nature of O and Q and S, seem to present themselves again -before me as they used to do. But they recall no feeling of disgust or -reluctance. On the contrary, I seem to have walked along a path of flowers as -far as the crocodile-book, and to have been cheered by the gentleness of my -mother’s voice and manner all the way. But these solemn lessons which -succeeded those, I remember as the death-blow of my peace, and a grievous daily -drudgery and misery. They were very long, very numerous, very -hard—perfectly unintelligible, some of them, to me—and I was -generally as much bewildered by them as I believe my poor mother was herself. -</p> - -<p> -Let me remember how it used to be, and bring one morning back again. -</p> - -<p> -I come into the second-best parlour after breakfast, with my books, and an -exercise-book, and a slate. My mother is ready for me at her writing-desk, but -not half so ready as Mr. Murdstone in his easy-chair by the window (though he -pretends to be reading a book), or as Miss Murdstone, sitting near my mother -stringing steel beads. The very sight of these two has such an influence over -me, that I begin to feel the words I have been at infinite pains to get into my -head, all sliding away, and going I don’t know where. I wonder where they -do go, by the by? -</p> - -<p> -I hand the first book to my mother. Perhaps it is a grammar, perhaps a history, -or geography. I take a last drowning look at the page as I give it into her -hand, and start off aloud at a racing pace while I have got it fresh. I trip -over a word. Mr. Murdstone looks up. I trip over another word. Miss Murdstone -looks up. I redden, tumble over half-a-dozen words, and stop. I think my mother -would show me the book if she dared, but she does not dare, and she says -softly: -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, Davy, Davy!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Now, Clara,’ says Mr. Murdstone, ‘be firm with the boy. -Don’t say, “Oh, Davy, Davy!” That’s childish. He knows -his lesson, or he does not know it.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘He does NOT know it,’ Miss Murdstone interposes awfully. -</p> - -<p> -‘I am really afraid he does not,’ says my mother. -</p> - -<p> -‘Then, you see, Clara,’ returns Miss Murdstone, ‘you should -just give him the book back, and make him know it.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes, certainly,’ says my mother; ‘that is what I intend to -do, my dear Jane. Now, Davy, try once more, and don’t be stupid.’ -</p> - -<p> -I obey the first clause of the injunction by trying once more, but am not so -successful with the second, for I am very stupid. I tumble down before I get to -the old place, at a point where I was all right before, and stop to think. But -I can’t think about the lesson. I think of the number of yards of net in -Miss Murdstone’s cap, or of the price of Mr. Murdstone’s -dressing-gown, or any such ridiculous problem that I have no business with, and -don’t want to have anything at all to do with. Mr. Murdstone makes a -movement of impatience which I have been expecting for a long time. Miss -Murdstone does the same. My mother glances submissively at them, shuts the -book, and lays it by as an arrear to be worked out when my other tasks are -done. -</p> - -<p> -There is a pile of these arrears very soon, and it swells like a rolling -snowball. The bigger it gets, the more stupid I get. The case is so hopeless, -and I feel that I am wallowing in such a bog of nonsense, that I give up all -idea of getting out, and abandon myself to my fate. The despairing way in which -my mother and I look at each other, as I blunder on, is truly melancholy. But -the greatest effect in these miserable lessons is when my mother (thinking -nobody is observing her) tries to give me the cue by the motion of her lips. At -that instant, Miss Murdstone, who has been lying in wait for nothing else all -along, says in a deep warning voice: -</p> - -<p> -‘Clara!’ -</p> - -<p> -My mother starts, colours, and smiles faintly. Mr. Murdstone comes out of his -chair, takes the book, throws it at me or boxes my ears with it, and turns me -out of the room by the shoulders. -</p> - -<p> -Even when the lessons are done, the worst is yet to happen, in the shape of an -appalling sum. This is invented for me, and delivered to me orally by Mr. -Murdstone, and begins, ‘If I go into a cheesemonger’s shop, and buy -five thousand double-Gloucester cheeses at fourpence-halfpenny each, present -payment’—at which I see Miss Murdstone secretly overjoyed. I pore -over these cheeses without any result or enlightenment until dinner-time, when, -having made a Mulatto of myself by getting the dirt of the slate into the pores -of my skin, I have a slice of bread to help me out with the cheeses, and am -considered in disgrace for the rest of the evening. -</p> - -<p> -It seems to me, at this distance of time, as if my unfortunate studies -generally took this course. I could have done very well if I had been without -the Murdstones; but the influence of the Murdstones upon me was like the -fascination of two snakes on a wretched young bird. Even when I did get through -the morning with tolerable credit, there was not much gained but dinner; for -Miss Murdstone never could endure to see me untasked, and if I rashly made any -show of being unemployed, called her brother’s attention to me by saying, -‘Clara, my dear, there’s nothing like work—give your boy an -exercise’; which caused me to be clapped down to some new labour, there -and then. As to any recreation with other children of my age, I had very little -of that; for the gloomy theology of the Murdstones made all children out to be -a swarm of little vipers (though there WAS a child once set in the midst of the -Disciples), and held that they contaminated one another. -</p> - -<p> -The natural result of this treatment, continued, I suppose, for some six months -or more, was to make me sullen, dull, and dogged. I was not made the less so by -my sense of being daily more and more shut out and alienated from my mother. I -believe I should have been almost stupefied but for one circumstance. -</p> - -<p> -It was this. My father had left a small collection of books in a little room -upstairs, to which I had access (for it adjoined my own) and which nobody else -in our house ever troubled. From that blessed little room, Roderick Random, -Peregrine Pickle, Humphrey Clinker, Tom Jones, the Vicar of Wakefield, Don -Quixote, Gil Blas, and Robinson Crusoe, came out, a glorious host, to keep me -company. They kept alive my fancy, and my hope of something beyond that place -and time,—they, and the Arabian Nights, and the Tales of the -Genii,—and did me no harm; for whatever harm was in some of them was not -there for me; I knew nothing of it. It is astonishing to me now, how I found -time, in the midst of my porings and blunderings over heavier themes, to read -those books as I did. It is curious to me how I could ever have consoled myself -under my small troubles (which were great troubles to me), by impersonating my -favourite characters in them—as I did—and by putting Mr. and Miss -Murdstone into all the bad ones—which I did too. I have been Tom Jones (a -child’s Tom Jones, a harmless creature) for a week together. I have -sustained my own idea of Roderick Random for a month at a stretch, I verily -believe. I had a greedy relish for a few volumes of Voyages and Travels—I -forget what, now—that were on those shelves; and for days and days I can -remember to have gone about my region of our house, armed with the centre-piece -out of an old set of boot-trees—the perfect realization of Captain -Somebody, of the Royal British Navy, in danger of being beset by savages, and -resolved to sell his life at a great price. The Captain never lost dignity, -from having his ears boxed with the Latin Grammar. I did; but the Captain was a -Captain and a hero, in despite of all the grammars of all the languages in the -world, dead or alive. -</p> - -<p> -This was my only and my constant comfort. When I think of it, the picture -always rises in my mind, of a summer evening, the boys at play in the -churchyard, and I sitting on my bed, reading as if for life. Every barn in the -neighbourhood, every stone in the church, and every foot of the churchyard, had -some association of its own, in my mind, connected with these books, and stood -for some locality made famous in them. I have seen Tom Pipes go climbing up the -church-steeple; I have watched Strap, with the knapsack on his back, stopping -to rest himself upon the wicket-gate; and I know that Commodore Trunnion held -that club with Mr. Pickle, in the parlour of our little village alehouse. -</p> - -<p> -The reader now understands, as well as I do, what I was when I came to that -point of my youthful history to which I am now coming again. -</p> - -<p> -One morning when I went into the parlour with my books, I found my mother -looking anxious, Miss Murdstone looking firm, and Mr. Murdstone binding -something round the bottom of a cane—a lithe and limber cane, which he -left off binding when I came in, and poised and switched in the air. -</p> - -<p> -‘I tell you, Clara,’ said Mr. Murdstone, ‘I have been often -flogged myself.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘To be sure; of course,’ said Miss Murdstone. -</p> - -<p> -‘Certainly, my dear Jane,’ faltered my mother, meekly. -‘But—but do you think it did Edward good?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Do you think it did Edward harm, Clara?’ asked Mr. Murdstone, -gravely. -</p> - -<p> -‘That’s the point,’ said his sister. -</p> - -<p> -To this my mother returned, ‘Certainly, my dear Jane,’ and said no -more. -</p> - -<p> -I felt apprehensive that I was personally interested in this dialogue, and -sought Mr. Murdstone’s eye as it lighted on mine. -</p> - -<p> -‘Now, David,’ he said—and I saw that cast again as he said -it—‘you must be far more careful today than usual.’ He gave -the cane another poise, and another switch; and having finished his preparation -of it, laid it down beside him, with an impressive look, and took up his book. -</p> - -<p> -This was a good freshener to my presence of mind, as a beginning. I felt the -words of my lessons slipping off, not one by one, or line by line, but by the -entire page; I tried to lay hold of them; but they seemed, if I may so express -it, to have put skates on, and to skim away from me with a smoothness there was -no checking. -</p> - -<p> -We began badly, and went on worse. I had come in with an idea of distinguishing -myself rather, conceiving that I was very well prepared; but it turned out to -be quite a mistake. Book after book was added to the heap of failures, Miss -Murdstone being firmly watchful of us all the time. And when we came at last to -the five thousand cheeses (canes he made it that day, I remember), my mother -burst out crying. -</p> - -<p> -‘Clara!’ said Miss Murdstone, in her warning voice. -</p> - -<p> -‘I am not quite well, my dear Jane, I think,’ said my mother. -</p> - -<p> -I saw him wink, solemnly, at his sister, as he rose and said, taking up the -cane: -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, Jane, we can hardly expect Clara to bear, with perfect firmness, -the worry and torment that David has occasioned her today. That would be -stoical. Clara is greatly strengthened and improved, but we can hardly expect -so much from her. David, you and I will go upstairs, boy.’ -</p> - -<p> -As he took me out at the door, my mother ran towards us. Miss Murdstone said, -‘Clara! are you a perfect fool?’ and interfered. I saw my mother -stop her ears then, and I heard her crying. -</p> - -<p> -He walked me up to my room slowly and gravely—I am certain he had a -delight in that formal parade of executing justice—and when we got there, -suddenly twisted my head under his arm. -</p> - -<p> -‘Mr. Murdstone! Sir!’ I cried to him. ‘Don’t! Pray -don’t beat me! I have tried to learn, sir, but I can’t learn while -you and Miss Murdstone are by. I can’t indeed!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Can’t you, indeed, David?’ he said. ‘We’ll try -that.’ -</p> - -<p> -He had my head as in a vice, but I twined round him somehow, and stopped him -for a moment, entreating him not to beat me. It was only a moment that I -stopped him, for he cut me heavily an instant afterwards, and in the same -instant I caught the hand with which he held me in my mouth, between my teeth, -and bit it through. It sets my teeth on edge to think of it. -</p> - -<p> -He beat me then, as if he would have beaten me to death. Above all the noise we -made, I heard them running up the stairs, and crying out—I heard my -mother crying out—and Peggotty. Then he was gone; and the door was locked -outside; and I was lying, fevered and hot, and torn, and sore, and raging in my -puny way, upon the floor. -</p> - -<p> -How well I recollect, when I became quiet, what an unnatural stillness seemed -to reign through the whole house! How well I remember, when my smart and -passion began to cool, how wicked I began to feel! -</p> - -<p> -I sat listening for a long while, but there was not a sound. I crawled up from -the floor, and saw my face in the glass, so swollen, red, and ugly that it -almost frightened me. My stripes were sore and stiff, and made me cry afresh, -when I moved; but they were nothing to the guilt I felt. It lay heavier on my -breast than if I had been a most atrocious criminal, I dare say. -</p> - -<p> -It had begun to grow dark, and I had shut the window (I had been lying, for the -most part, with my head upon the sill, by turns crying, dozing, and looking -listlessly out), when the key was turned, and Miss Murdstone came in with some -bread and meat, and milk. These she put down upon the table without a word, -glaring at me the while with exemplary firmness, and then retired, locking the -door after her. -</p> - -<p> -Long after it was dark I sat there, wondering whether anybody else would come. -When this appeared improbable for that night, I undressed, and went to bed; -and, there, I began to wonder fearfully what would be done to me. Whether it -was a criminal act that I had committed? Whether I should be taken into -custody, and sent to prison? Whether I was at all in danger of being hanged? -</p> - -<p> -I never shall forget the waking, next morning; the being cheerful and fresh for -the first moment, and then the being weighed down by the stale and dismal -oppression of remembrance. Miss Murdstone reappeared before I was out of bed; -told me, in so many words, that I was free to walk in the garden for half an -hour and no longer; and retired, leaving the door open, that I might avail -myself of that permission. -</p> - -<p> -I did so, and did so every morning of my imprisonment, which lasted five days. -If I could have seen my mother alone, I should have gone down on my knees to -her and besought her forgiveness; but I saw no one, Miss Murdstone excepted, -during the whole time—except at evening prayers in the parlour; to which -I was escorted by Miss Murdstone after everybody else was placed; where I was -stationed, a young outlaw, all alone by myself near the door; and whence I was -solemnly conducted by my jailer, before any one arose from the devotional -posture. I only observed that my mother was as far off from me as she could be, -and kept her face another way so that I never saw it; and that Mr. -Murdstone’s hand was bound up in a large linen wrapper. -</p> - -<p> -The length of those five days I can convey no idea of to any one. They occupy -the place of years in my remembrance. The way in which I listened to all the -incidents of the house that made themselves audible to me; the ringing of -bells, the opening and shutting of doors, the murmuring of voices, the -footsteps on the stairs; to any laughing, whistling, or singing, outside, which -seemed more dismal than anything else to me in my solitude and -disgrace—the uncertain pace of the hours, especially at night, when I -would wake thinking it was morning, and find that the family were not yet gone -to bed, and that all the length of night had yet to come—the depressed -dreams and nightmares I had—the return of day, noon, afternoon, evening, -when the boys played in the churchyard, and I watched them from a distance -within the room, being ashamed to show myself at the window lest they should -know I was a prisoner—the strange sensation of never hearing myself -speak—the fleeting intervals of something like cheerfulness, which came -with eating and drinking, and went away with it—the setting in of rain -one evening, with a fresh smell, and its coming down faster and faster between -me and the church, until it and gathering night seemed to quench me in gloom, -and fear, and remorse—all this appears to have gone round and round for -years instead of days, it is so vividly and strongly stamped on my remembrance. -On the last night of my restraint, I was awakened by hearing my own name spoken -in a whisper. I started up in bed, and putting out my arms in the dark, said: -</p> - -<p> -‘Is that you, Peggotty?’ -</p> - -<p> -There was no immediate answer, but presently I heard my name again, in a tone -so very mysterious and awful, that I think I should have gone into a fit, if it -had not occurred to me that it must have come through the keyhole. -</p> - -<p> -I groped my way to the door, and putting my own lips to the keyhole, whispered: -‘Is that you, Peggotty dear?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes, my own precious Davy,’ she replied. ‘Be as soft as a -mouse, or the Cat’ll hear us.’ -</p> - -<p> -I understood this to mean Miss Murdstone, and was sensible of the urgency of -the case; her room being close by. -</p> - -<p> -‘How’s mama, dear Peggotty? Is she very angry with me?’ -</p> - -<p> -I could hear Peggotty crying softly on her side of the keyhole, as I was doing -on mine, before she answered. ‘No. Not very.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘What is going to be done with me, Peggotty dear? Do you know?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘School. Near London,’ was Peggotty’s answer. I was obliged -to get her to repeat it, for she spoke it the first time quite down my throat, -in consequence of my having forgotten to take my mouth away from the keyhole -and put my ear there; and though her words tickled me a good deal, I -didn’t hear them. -</p> - -<p> -‘When, Peggotty?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Tomorrow.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Is that the reason why Miss Murdstone took the clothes out of my -drawers?’ which she had done, though I have forgotten to mention it. -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes,’ said Peggotty. ‘Box.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Shan’t I see mama?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes,’ said Peggotty. ‘Morning.’ -</p> - -<p> -Then Peggotty fitted her mouth close to the keyhole, and delivered these words -through it with as much feeling and earnestness as a keyhole has ever been the -medium of communicating, I will venture to assert: shooting in each broken -little sentence in a convulsive little burst of its own. -</p> - -<p> -‘Davy, dear. If I ain’t been azackly as intimate with you. Lately, -as I used to be. It ain’t because I don’t love you. Just as well -and more, my pretty poppet. It’s because I thought it better for you. And -for someone else besides. Davy, my darling, are you listening? Can you -hear?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Ye-ye-ye-yes, Peggotty!’ I sobbed. -</p> - -<p> -‘My own!’ said Peggotty, with infinite compassion. ‘What I -want to say, is. That you must never forget me. For I’ll never forget -you. And I’ll take as much care of your mama, Davy. As ever I took of -you. And I won’t leave her. The day may come when she’ll be glad to -lay her poor head. On her stupid, cross old Peggotty’s arm again. And -I’ll write to you, my dear. Though I ain’t no scholar. And -I’ll—I’ll—’ Peggotty fell to kissing the keyhole, -as she couldn’t kiss me. -</p> - -<p> -‘Thank you, dear Peggotty!’ said I. ‘Oh, thank you! Thank -you! Will you promise me one thing, Peggotty? Will you write and tell Mr. -Peggotty and little Em’ly, and Mrs. Gummidge and Ham, that I am not so -bad as they might suppose, and that I sent ‘em all my -love—especially to little Em’ly? Will you, if you please, -Peggotty?’ -</p> - -<p> -The kind soul promised, and we both of us kissed the keyhole with the greatest -affection—I patted it with my hand, I recollect, as if it had been her -honest face—and parted. From that night there grew up in my breast a -feeling for Peggotty which I cannot very well define. She did not replace my -mother; no one could do that; but she came into a vacancy in my heart, which -closed upon her, and I felt towards her something I have never felt for any -other human being. It was a sort of comical affection, too; and yet if she had -died, I cannot think what I should have done, or how I should have acted out -the tragedy it would have been to me. -</p> - -<p> -In the morning Miss Murdstone appeared as usual, and told me I was going to -school; which was not altogether such news to me as she supposed. She also -informed me that when I was dressed, I was to come downstairs into the parlour, -and have my breakfast. There, I found my mother, very pale and with red eyes: -into whose arms I ran, and begged her pardon from my suffering soul. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, Davy!’ she said. ‘That you could hurt anyone I love! Try -to be better, pray to be better! I forgive you; but I am so grieved, Davy, that -you should have such bad passions in your heart.’ -</p> - -<p> -They had persuaded her that I was a wicked fellow, and she was more sorry for -that than for my going away. I felt it sorely. I tried to eat my parting -breakfast, but my tears dropped upon my bread-and-butter, and trickled into my -tea. I saw my mother look at me sometimes, and then glance at the watchful Miss -Murdstone, and than look down, or look away. -</p> - -<p> -‘Master Copperfield’s box there!’ said Miss Murdstone, when -wheels were heard at the gate. -</p> - -<p> -I looked for Peggotty, but it was not she; neither she nor Mr. Murdstone -appeared. My former acquaintance, the carrier, was at the door. The box was -taken out to his cart, and lifted in. -</p> - -<p> -‘Clara!’ said Miss Murdstone, in her warning note. -</p> - -<p> -‘Ready, my dear Jane,’ returned my mother. ‘Good-bye, Davy. -You are going for your own good. Good-bye, my child. You will come home in the -holidays, and be a better boy.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Clara!’ Miss Murdstone repeated. -</p> - -<p> -‘Certainly, my dear Jane,’ replied my mother, who was holding me. -‘I forgive you, my dear boy. God bless you!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Clara!’ Miss Murdstone repeated. -</p> - -<p> -Miss Murdstone was good enough to take me out to the cart, and to say on the -way that she hoped I would repent, before I came to a bad end; and then I got -into the cart, and the lazy horse walked off with it. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0005"></a>CHAPTER 5. I AM SENT AWAY FROM HOME</h2> - -<p> -We might have gone about half a mile, and my pocket-handkerchief was quite wet -through, when the carrier stopped short. Looking out to ascertain for what, I -saw, to My amazement, Peggotty burst from a hedge and climb into the cart. She -took me in both her arms, and squeezed me to her stays until the pressure on my -nose was extremely painful, though I never thought of that till afterwards when -I found it very tender. Not a single word did Peggotty speak. Releasing one of -her arms, she put it down in her pocket to the elbow, and brought out some -paper bags of cakes which she crammed into my pockets, and a purse which she -put into my hand, but not one word did she say. After another and a final -squeeze with both arms, she got down from the cart and ran away; and, my belief -is, and has always been, without a solitary button on her gown. I picked up -one, of several that were rolling about, and treasured it as a keepsake for a -long time. -</p> - -<p> -The carrier looked at me, as if to inquire if she were coming back. I shook my -head, and said I thought not. ‘Then come up,’ said the carrier to -the lazy horse; who came up accordingly. -</p> - -<p> -Having by this time cried as much as I possibly could, I began to think it was -of no use crying any more, especially as neither Roderick Random, nor that -Captain in the Royal British Navy, had ever cried, that I could remember, in -trying situations. The carrier, seeing me in this resolution, proposed that my -pocket-handkerchief should be spread upon the horse’s back to dry. I -thanked him, and assented; and particularly small it looked, under those -circumstances. -</p> - -<p> -I had now leisure to examine the purse. It was a stiff leather purse, with a -snap, and had three bright shillings in it, which Peggotty had evidently -polished up with whitening, for my greater delight. But its most precious -contents were two half-crowns folded together in a bit of paper, on which was -written, in my mother’s hand, ‘For Davy. With my love.’ I was -so overcome by this, that I asked the carrier to be so good as to reach me my -pocket-handkerchief again; but he said he thought I had better do without it, -and I thought I really had, so I wiped my eyes on my sleeve and stopped myself. -</p> - -<p> -For good, too; though, in consequence of my previous emotions, I was still -occasionally seized with a stormy sob. After we had jogged on for some little -time, I asked the carrier if he was going all the way. -</p> - -<p> -‘All the way where?’ inquired the carrier. -</p> - -<p> -‘There,’ I said. -</p> - -<p> -‘Where’s there?’ inquired the carrier. -</p> - -<p> -‘Near London,’ I said. -</p> - -<p> -‘Why that horse,’ said the carrier, jerking the rein to point him -out, ‘would be deader than pork afore he got over half the ground.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Are you only going to Yarmouth then?’ I asked. -</p> - -<p> -‘That’s about it,’ said the carrier. ‘And there I shall -take you to the stage-cutch, and the stage-cutch that’ll take you -to—wherever it is.’ -</p> - -<p> -As this was a great deal for the carrier (whose name was Mr. Barkis) to -say—he being, as I observed in a former chapter, of a phlegmatic -temperament, and not at all conversational—I offered him a cake as a mark -of attention, which he ate at one gulp, exactly like an elephant, and which -made no more impression on his big face than it would have done on an -elephant’s. -</p> - -<p> -‘Did SHE make ‘em, now?’ said Mr. Barkis, always leaning -forward, in his slouching way, on the footboard of the cart with an arm on each -knee. -</p> - -<p> -‘Peggotty, do you mean, sir?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Ah!’ said Mr. Barkis. ‘Her.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes. She makes all our pastry, and does all our cooking.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Do she though?’ said Mr. Barkis. He made up his mouth as if to -whistle, but he didn’t whistle. He sat looking at the horse’s ears, -as if he saw something new there; and sat so, for a considerable time. By and -by, he said: -</p> - -<p> -‘No sweethearts, I b’lieve?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Sweetmeats did you say, Mr. Barkis?’ For I thought he wanted -something else to eat, and had pointedly alluded to that description of -refreshment. -</p> - -<p> -‘Hearts,’ said Mr. Barkis. ‘Sweet hearts; no person walks -with her!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘With Peggotty?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Ah!’ he said. ‘Her.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, no. She never had a sweetheart.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Didn’t she, though!’ said Mr. Barkis. -</p> - -<p> -Again he made up his mouth to whistle, and again he didn’t whistle, but -sat looking at the horse’s ears. -</p> - -<p> -‘So she makes,’ said Mr. Barkis, after a long interval of -reflection, ‘all the apple parsties, and doos all the cooking, do -she?’ -</p> - -<p> -I replied that such was the fact. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well. I’ll tell you what,’ said Mr. Barkis. -‘P’raps you might be writin’ to her?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I shall certainly write to her,’ I rejoined. -</p> - -<p> -‘Ah!’ he said, slowly turning his eyes towards me. ‘Well! If -you was writin’ to her, p’raps you’d recollect to say that -Barkis was willin’; would you?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘That Barkis is willing,’ I repeated, innocently. ‘Is that -all the message?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Ye-es,’ he said, considering. ‘Ye-es. Barkis is -willin’.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘But you will be at Blunderstone again tomorrow, Mr. Barkis,’ I -said, faltering a little at the idea of my being far away from it then, and -could give your own message so much better.’ -</p> - -<p> -As he repudiated this suggestion, however, with a jerk of his head, and once -more confirmed his previous request by saying, with profound gravity, -‘Barkis is willin’. That’s the message,’ I readily -undertook its transmission. While I was waiting for the coach in the hotel at -Yarmouth that very afternoon, I procured a sheet of paper and an inkstand, and -wrote a note to Peggotty, which ran thus: ‘My dear Peggotty. I have come -here safe. Barkis is willing. My love to mama. Yours affectionately. P.S. He -says he particularly wants you to know—BARKIS IS WILLING.’ -</p> - -<p> -When I had taken this commission on myself prospectively, Mr. Barkis relapsed -into perfect silence; and I, feeling quite worn out by all that had happened -lately, lay down on a sack in the cart and fell asleep. I slept soundly until -we got to Yarmouth; which was so entirely new and strange to me in the inn-yard -to which we drove, that I at once abandoned a latent hope I had had of meeting -with some of Mr. Peggotty’s family there, perhaps even with little -Em’ly herself. -</p> - -<p> -The coach was in the yard, shining very much all over, but without any horses -to it as yet; and it looked in that state as if nothing was more unlikely than -its ever going to London. I was thinking this, and wondering what would -ultimately become of my box, which Mr. Barkis had put down on the yard-pavement -by the pole (he having driven up the yard to turn his cart), and also what -would ultimately become of me, when a lady looked out of a bow-window where -some fowls and joints of meat were hanging up, and said: -</p> - -<p> -‘Is that the little gentleman from Blunderstone?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes, ma’am,’ I said. -</p> - -<p> -‘What name?’ inquired the lady. -</p> - -<p> -‘Copperfield, ma’am,’ I said. -</p> - -<p> -‘That won’t do,’ returned the lady. ‘Nobody’s -dinner is paid for here, in that name.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Is it Murdstone, ma’am?’ I said. -</p> - -<p> -‘If you’re Master Murdstone,’ said the lady, ‘why do -you go and give another name, first?’ -</p> - -<p> -I explained to the lady how it was, who than rang a bell, and called out, -‘William! show the coffee-room!’ upon which a waiter came running -out of a kitchen on the opposite side of the yard to show it, and seemed a good -deal surprised when he was only to show it to me. -</p> - -<p> -It was a large long room with some large maps in it. I doubt if I could have -felt much stranger if the maps had been real foreign countries, and I cast away -in the middle of them. I felt it was taking a liberty to sit down, with my cap -in my hand, on the corner of the chair nearest the door; and when the waiter -laid a cloth on purpose for me, and put a set of castors on it, I think I must -have turned red all over with modesty. -</p> - -<p> -He brought me some chops, and vegetables, and took the covers off in such a -bouncing manner that I was afraid I must have given him some offence. But he -greatly relieved my mind by putting a chair for me at the table, and saying, -very affably, ‘Now, six-foot! come on!’ -</p> - -<p> -I thanked him, and took my seat at the board; but found it extremely difficult -to handle my knife and fork with anything like dexterity, or to avoid splashing -myself with the gravy, while he was standing opposite, staring so hard, and -making me blush in the most dreadful manner every time I caught his eye. After -watching me into the second chop, he said: -</p> - -<p> -‘There’s half a pint of ale for you. Will you have it now?’ -</p> - -<p> -I thanked him and said, ‘Yes.’ Upon which he poured it out of a jug -into a large tumbler, and held it up against the light, and made it look -beautiful. -</p> - -<p> -‘My eye!’ he said. ‘It seems a good deal, don’t -it?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘It does seem a good deal,’ I answered with a smile. For it was -quite delightful to me, to find him so pleasant. He was a twinkling-eyed, -pimple-faced man, with his hair standing upright all over his head; and as he -stood with one arm a-kimbo, holding up the glass to the light with the other -hand, he looked quite friendly. -</p> - -<p> -‘There was a gentleman here, yesterday,’ he said—‘a -stout gentleman, by the name of Topsawyer—perhaps you know him?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No,’ I said, ‘I don’t think—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘In breeches and gaiters, broad-brimmed hat, grey coat, speckled -choker,’ said the waiter. -</p> - -<p> -‘No,’ I said bashfully, ‘I haven’t the -pleasure—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘He came in here,’ said the waiter, looking at the light through -the tumbler, ‘ordered a glass of this ale—WOULD order it—I -told him not—drank it, and fell dead. It was too old for him. It -oughtn’t to be drawn; that’s the fact.’ -</p> - -<p> -I was very much shocked to hear of this melancholy accident, and said I thought -I had better have some water. -</p> - -<p> -‘Why you see,’ said the waiter, still looking at the light through -the tumbler, with one of his eyes shut up, ‘our people don’t like -things being ordered and left. It offends ‘em. But I’ll drink it, -if you like. I’m used to it, and use is everything. I don’t think -it’ll hurt me, if I throw my head back, and take it off quick. Shall -I?’ -</p> - -<p> -I replied that he would much oblige me by drinking it, if he thought he could -do it safely, but by no means otherwise. When he did throw his head back, and -take it off quick, I had a horrible fear, I confess, of seeing him meet the -fate of the lamented Mr. Topsawyer, and fall lifeless on the carpet. But it -didn’t hurt him. On the contrary, I thought he seemed the fresher for it. -</p> - -<p> -‘What have we got here?’ he said, putting a fork into my dish. -‘Not chops?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Chops,’ I said. -</p> - -<p> -‘Lord bless my soul!’ he exclaimed, ‘I didn’t know they -were chops. Why, a chop’s the very thing to take off the bad effects of -that beer! Ain’t it lucky?’ -</p> - -<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> -<img src="images/0101.jpg" alt="0101 " width="100%" /> -</div> - -<h5> -<a href="images/0101.jpg"> -<img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /></a> -</h5> - -<p> -So he took a chop by the bone in one hand, and a potato in the other, and ate -away with a very good appetite, to my extreme satisfaction. He afterwards took -another chop, and another potato; and after that, another chop and another -potato. When we had done, he brought me a pudding, and having set it before me, -seemed to ruminate, and to become absent in his mind for some moments. -</p> - -<p> -‘How’s the pie?’ he said, rousing himself. -</p> - -<p> -‘It’s a pudding,’ I made answer. -</p> - -<p> -‘Pudding!’ he exclaimed. ‘Why, bless me, so it is! -What!’ looking at it nearer. ‘You don’t mean to say -it’s a batter-pudding!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes, it is indeed.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, a batter-pudding,’ he said, taking up a table-spoon, -‘is my favourite pudding! Ain’t that lucky? Come on, little -‘un, and let’s see who’ll get most.’ -</p> - -<p> -The waiter certainly got most. He entreated me more than once to come in and -win, but what with his table-spoon to my tea-spoon, his dispatch to my -dispatch, and his appetite to my appetite, I was left far behind at the first -mouthful, and had no chance with him. I never saw anyone enjoy a pudding so -much, I think; and he laughed, when it was all gone, as if his enjoyment of it -lasted still. -</p> - -<p> -Finding him so very friendly and companionable, it was then that I asked for -the pen and ink and paper, to write to Peggotty. He not only brought it -immediately, but was good enough to look over me while I wrote the letter. When -I had finished it, he asked me where I was going to school. -</p> - -<p> -I said, ‘Near London,’ which was all I knew. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh! my eye!’ he said, looking very low-spirited, ‘I am sorry -for that.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Why?’ I asked him. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, Lord!’ he said, shaking his head, ‘that’s the -school where they broke the boy’s ribs—two ribs—a little boy -he was. I should say he was—let me see—how old are you, -about?’ -</p> - -<p> -I told him between eight and nine. -</p> - -<p> -‘That’s just his age,’ he said. ‘He was eight years and -six months old when they broke his first rib; eight years and eight months old -when they broke his second, and did for him.’ -</p> - -<p> -I could not disguise from myself, or from the waiter, that this was an -uncomfortable coincidence, and inquired how it was done. His answer was not -cheering to my spirits, for it consisted of two dismal words, ‘With -whopping.’ -</p> - -<p> -The blowing of the coach-horn in the yard was a seasonable diversion, which -made me get up and hesitatingly inquire, in the mingled pride and diffidence of -having a purse (which I took out of my pocket), if there were anything to pay. -</p> - -<p> -‘There’s a sheet of letter-paper,’ he returned. ‘Did -you ever buy a sheet of letter-paper?’ -</p> - -<p> -I could not remember that I ever had. -</p> - -<p> -‘It’s dear,’ he said, ‘on account of the duty. -Threepence. That’s the way we’re taxed in this country. -There’s nothing else, except the waiter. Never mind the ink. I lose by -that.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘What should you—what should I—how much ought I to—what -would it be right to pay the waiter, if you please?’ I stammered, -blushing. -</p> - -<p> -‘If I hadn’t a family, and that family hadn’t the -cowpock,’ said the waiter, ‘I wouldn’t take a sixpence. If I -didn’t support a aged pairint, and a lovely sister,’—here the -waiter was greatly agitated—‘I wouldn’t take a farthing. If I -had a good place, and was treated well here, I should beg acceptance of a -trifle, instead of taking of it. But I live on broken wittles—and I sleep -on the coals’—here the waiter burst into tears. -</p> - -<p> -I was very much concerned for his misfortunes, and felt that any recognition -short of ninepence would be mere brutality and hardness of heart. Therefore I -gave him one of my three bright shillings, which he received with much humility -and veneration, and spun up with his thumb, directly afterwards, to try the -goodness of. -</p> - -<p> -It was a little disconcerting to me, to find, when I was being helped up behind -the coach, that I was supposed to have eaten all the dinner without any -assistance. I discovered this, from overhearing the lady in the bow-window say -to the guard, ‘Take care of that child, George, or he’ll -burst!’ and from observing that the women-servants who were about the -place came out to look and giggle at me as a young phenomenon. My unfortunate -friend the waiter, who had quite recovered his spirits, did not appear to be -disturbed by this, but joined in the general admiration without being at all -confused. If I had any doubt of him, I suppose this half awakened it; but I am -inclined to believe that with the simple confidence of a child, and the natural -reliance of a child upon superior years (qualities I am very sorry any children -should prematurely change for worldly wisdom), I had no serious mistrust of him -on the whole, even then. -</p> - -<p> -I felt it rather hard, I must own, to be made, without deserving it, the -subject of jokes between the coachman and guard as to the coach drawing heavy -behind, on account of my sitting there, and as to the greater expediency of my -travelling by waggon. The story of my supposed appetite getting wind among the -outside passengers, they were merry upon it likewise; and asked me whether I -was going to be paid for, at school, as two brothers or three, and whether I -was contracted for, or went upon the regular terms; with other pleasant -questions. But the worst of it was, that I knew I should be ashamed to eat -anything, when an opportunity offered, and that, after a rather light dinner, I -should remain hungry all night—for I had left my cakes behind, at the -hotel, in my hurry. My apprehensions were realized. When we stopped for supper -I couldn’t muster courage to take any, though I should have liked it very -much, but sat by the fire and said I didn’t want anything. This did not -save me from more jokes, either; for a husky-voiced gentleman with a rough -face, who had been eating out of a sandwich-box nearly all the way, except when -he had been drinking out of a bottle, said I was like a boa-constrictor who -took enough at one meal to last him a long time; after which, he actually -brought a rash out upon himself with boiled beef. -</p> - -<p> -We had started from Yarmouth at three o’clock in the afternoon, and we -were due in London about eight next morning. It was Mid-summer weather, and the -evening was very pleasant. When we passed through a village, I pictured to -myself what the insides of the houses were like, and what the inhabitants were -about; and when boys came running after us, and got up behind and swung there -for a little way, I wondered whether their fathers were alive, and whether they -were happy at home. I had plenty to think of, therefore, besides my mind -running continually on the kind of place I was going to—which was an -awful speculation. Sometimes, I remember, I resigned myself to thoughts of home -and Peggotty; and to endeavouring, in a confused blind way, to recall how I had -felt, and what sort of boy I used to be, before I bit Mr. Murdstone: which I -couldn’t satisfy myself about by any means, I seemed to have bitten him -in such a remote antiquity. -</p> - -<p> -The night was not so pleasant as the evening, for it got chilly; and being put -between two gentlemen (the rough-faced one and another) to prevent my tumbling -off the coach, I was nearly smothered by their falling asleep, and completely -blocking me up. They squeezed me so hard sometimes, that I could not help -crying out, ‘Oh! If you please!’—which they didn’t like -at all, because it woke them. Opposite me was an elderly lady in a great fur -cloak, who looked in the dark more like a haystack than a lady, she was wrapped -up to such a degree. This lady had a basket with her, and she hadn’t -known what to do with it, for a long time, until she found that on account of -my legs being short, it could go underneath me. It cramped and hurt me so, that -it made me perfectly miserable; but if I moved in the least, and made a glass -that was in the basket rattle against something else (as it was sure to do), -she gave me the cruellest poke with her foot, and said, ‘Come, -don’t YOU fidget. YOUR bones are young enough, I’m sure!’ -</p> - -<p> -At last the sun rose, and then my companions seemed to sleep easier. The -difficulties under which they had laboured all night, and which had found -utterance in the most terrific gasps and snorts, are not to be conceived. As -the sun got higher, their sleep became lighter, and so they gradually one by -one awoke. I recollect being very much surprised by the feint everybody made, -then, of not having been to sleep at all, and by the uncommon indignation with -which everyone repelled the charge. I labour under the same kind of -astonishment to this day, having invariably observed that of all human -weaknesses, the one to which our common nature is the least disposed to confess -(I cannot imagine why) is the weakness of having gone to sleep in a coach. -</p> - -<p> -What an amazing place London was to me when I saw it in the distance, and how I -believed all the adventures of all my favourite heroes to be constantly -enacting and re-enacting there, and how I vaguely made it out in my own mind to -be fuller of wonders and wickedness than all the cities of the earth, I need -not stop here to relate. We approached it by degrees, and got, in due time, to -the inn in the Whitechapel district, for which we were bound. I forget whether -it was the Blue Bull, or the Blue Boar; but I know it was the Blue Something, -and that its likeness was painted up on the back of the coach. -</p> - -<p> -The guard’s eye lighted on me as he was getting down, and he said at the -booking-office door: -</p> - -<p> -‘Is there anybody here for a yoongster booked in the name of Murdstone, -from Bloonderstone, Sooffolk, to be left till called for?’ -</p> - -<p> -Nobody answered. -</p> - -<p> -‘Try Copperfield, if you please, sir,’ said I, looking helplessly -down. -</p> - -<p> -‘Is there anybody here for a yoongster, booked in the name of Murdstone, -from Bloonderstone, Sooffolk, but owning to the name of Copperfield, to be left -till called for?’ said the guard. ‘Come! IS there anybody?’ -</p> - -<p> -No. There was nobody. I looked anxiously around; but the inquiry made no -impression on any of the bystanders, if I except a man in gaiters, with one -eye, who suggested that they had better put a brass collar round my neck, and -tie me up in the stable. -</p> - -<p> -A ladder was brought, and I got down after the lady, who was like a haystack: -not daring to stir, until her basket was removed. The coach was clear of -passengers by that time, the luggage was very soon cleared out, the horses had -been taken out before the luggage, and now the coach itself was wheeled and -backed off by some hostlers, out of the way. Still, nobody appeared, to claim -the dusty youngster from Blunderstone, Suffolk. -</p> - -<p> -More solitary than Robinson Crusoe, who had nobody to look at him and see that -he was solitary, I went into the booking-office, and, by invitation of the -clerk on duty, passed behind the counter, and sat down on the scale at which -they weighed the luggage. Here, as I sat looking at the parcels, packages, and -books, and inhaling the smell of stables (ever since associated with that -morning), a procession of most tremendous considerations began to march through -my mind. Supposing nobody should ever fetch me, how long would they consent to -keep me there? Would they keep me long enough to spend seven shillings? Should -I sleep at night in one of those wooden bins, with the other luggage, and wash -myself at the pump in the yard in the morning; or should I be turned out every -night, and expected to come again to be left till called for, when the office -opened next day? Supposing there was no mistake in the case, and Mr. Murdstone -had devised this plan to get rid of me, what should I do? If they allowed me to -remain there until my seven shillings were spent, I couldn’t hope to -remain there when I began to starve. That would obviously be inconvenient and -unpleasant to the customers, besides entailing on the Blue Whatever-it-was, the -risk of funeral expenses. If I started off at once, and tried to walk back -home, how could I ever find my way, how could I ever hope to walk so far, how -could I make sure of anyone but Peggotty, even if I got back? If I found out -the nearest proper authorities, and offered myself to go for a soldier, or a -sailor, I was such a little fellow that it was most likely they wouldn’t -take me in. These thoughts, and a hundred other such thoughts, turned me -burning hot, and made me giddy with apprehension and dismay. I was in the -height of my fever when a man entered and whispered to the clerk, who presently -slanted me off the scale, and pushed me over to him, as if I were weighed, -bought, delivered, and paid for. -</p> - -<p> -As I went out of the office, hand in hand with this new acquaintance, I stole a -look at him. He was a gaunt, sallow young man, with hollow cheeks, and a chin -almost as black as Mr. Murdstone’s; but there the likeness ended, for his -whiskers were shaved off, and his hair, instead of being glossy, was rusty and -dry. He was dressed in a suit of black clothes which were rather rusty and dry -too, and rather short in the sleeves and legs; and he had a white neck-kerchief -on, that was not over-clean. I did not, and do not, suppose that this -neck-kerchief was all the linen he wore, but it was all he showed or gave any -hint of. -</p> - -<p> -‘You’re the new boy?’ he said. ‘Yes, sir,’ I -said. -</p> - -<p> -I supposed I was. I didn’t know. -</p> - -<p> -‘I’m one of the masters at Salem House,’ he said. -</p> - -<p> -I made him a bow and felt very much overawed. I was so ashamed to allude to a -commonplace thing like my box, to a scholar and a master at Salem House, that -we had gone some little distance from the yard before I had the hardihood to -mention it. We turned back, on my humbly insinuating that it might be useful to -me hereafter; and he told the clerk that the carrier had instructions to call -for it at noon. -</p> - -<p> -‘If you please, sir,’ I said, when we had accomplished about the -same distance as before, ‘is it far?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘It’s down by Blackheath,’ he said. -</p> - -<p> -‘Is that far, sir?’ I diffidently asked. -</p> - -<p> -‘It’s a good step,’ he said. ‘We shall go by the -stage-coach. It’s about six miles.’ -</p> - -<p> -I was so faint and tired, that the idea of holding out for six miles more, was -too much for me. I took heart to tell him that I had had nothing all night, and -that if he would allow me to buy something to eat, I should be very much -obliged to him. He appeared surprised at this—I see him stop and look at -me now—and after considering for a few moments, said he wanted to call on -an old person who lived not far off, and that the best way would be for me to -buy some bread, or whatever I liked best that was wholesome, and make my -breakfast at her house, where we could get some milk. -</p> - -<p> -Accordingly we looked in at a baker’s window, and after I had made a -series of proposals to buy everything that was bilious in the shop, and he had -rejected them one by one, we decided in favour of a nice little loaf of brown -bread, which cost me threepence. Then, at a grocer’s shop, we bought an -egg and a slice of streaky bacon; which still left what I thought a good deal -of change, out of the second of the bright shillings, and made me consider -London a very cheap place. These provisions laid in, we went on through a great -noise and uproar that confused my weary head beyond description, and over a -bridge which, no doubt, was London Bridge (indeed I think he told me so, but I -was half asleep), until we came to the poor person’s house, which was a -part of some alms-houses, as I knew by their look, and by an inscription on a -stone over the gate which said they were established for twenty-five poor -women. -</p> - -<p> -The Master at Salem House lifted the latch of one of a number of little black -doors that were all alike, and had each a little diamond-paned window on one -side, and another little diamond—paned window above; and we went into the -little house of one of these poor old women, who was blowing a fire to make a -little saucepan boil. On seeing the master enter, the old woman stopped with -the bellows on her knee, and said something that I thought sounded like -‘My Charley!’ but on seeing me come in too, she got up, and rubbing -her hands made a confused sort of half curtsey. -</p> - -<p> -‘Can you cook this young gentleman’s breakfast for him, if you -please?’ said the Master at Salem House. -</p> - -<p> -‘Can I?’ said the old woman. ‘Yes can I, sure!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘How’s Mrs. Fibbitson today?’ said the Master, looking at -another old woman in a large chair by the fire, who was such a bundle of -clothes that I feel grateful to this hour for not having sat upon her by -mistake. -</p> - -<p> -‘Ah, she’s poorly,’ said the first old woman. -‘It’s one of her bad days. If the fire was to go out, through any -accident, I verily believe she’d go out too, and never come to life -again.’ -</p> - -<p> -As they looked at her, I looked at her also. Although it was a warm day, she -seemed to think of nothing but the fire. I fancied she was jealous even of the -saucepan on it; and I have reason to know that she took its impressment into -the service of boiling my egg and broiling my bacon, in dudgeon; for I saw her, -with my own discomfited eyes, shake her fist at me once, when those culinary -operations were going on, and no one else was looking. The sun streamed in at -the little window, but she sat with her own back and the back of the large -chair towards it, screening the fire as if she were sedulously keeping IT warm, -instead of it keeping her warm, and watching it in a most distrustful manner. -The completion of the preparations for my breakfast, by relieving the fire, -gave her such extreme joy that she laughed aloud—and a very unmelodious -laugh she had, I must say. -</p> - -<p> -I sat down to my brown loaf, my egg, and my rasher of bacon, with a basin of -milk besides, and made a most delicious meal. While I was yet in the full -enjoyment of it, the old woman of the house said to the Master: -</p> - -<p> -‘Have you got your flute with you?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes,’ he returned. -</p> - -<p> -‘Have a blow at it,’ said the old woman, coaxingly. -‘Do!’ -</p> - -<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> -<img src="images/0111.jpg" alt="0111 " width="100%" /> -</div> - -<h5> -<a href="images/0111.jpg"> -<img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /></a> -</h5> - -<p> -The Master, upon this, put his hand underneath the skirts of his coat, and -brought out his flute in three pieces, which he screwed together, and began -immediately to play. My impression is, after many years of consideration, that -there never can have been anybody in the world who played worse. He made the -most dismal sounds I have ever heard produced by any means, natural or -artificial. I don’t know what the tunes were—if there were such -things in the performance at all, which I doubt—but the influence of the -strain upon me was, first, to make me think of all my sorrows until I could -hardly keep my tears back; then to take away my appetite; and lastly, to make -me so sleepy that I couldn’t keep my eyes open. They begin to close -again, and I begin to nod, as the recollection rises fresh upon me. Once more -the little room, with its open corner cupboard, and its square-backed chairs, -and its angular little staircase leading to the room above, and its three -peacock’s feathers displayed over the mantelpiece—I remember -wondering when I first went in, what that peacock would have thought if he had -known what his finery was doomed to come to—fades from before me, and I -nod, and sleep. The flute becomes inaudible, the wheels of the coach are heard -instead, and I am on my journey. The coach jolts, I wake with a start, and the -flute has come back again, and the Master at Salem House is sitting with his -legs crossed, playing it dolefully, while the old woman of the house looks on -delighted. She fades in her turn, and he fades, and all fades, and there is no -flute, no Master, no Salem House, no David Copperfield, no anything but heavy -sleep. -</p> - -<p> -I dreamed, I thought, that once while he was blowing into this dismal flute, -the old woman of the house, who had gone nearer and nearer to him in her -ecstatic admiration, leaned over the back of his chair and gave him an -affectionate squeeze round the neck, which stopped his playing for a moment. I -was in the middle state between sleeping and waking, either then or immediately -afterwards; for, as he resumed—it was a real fact that he had stopped -playing—I saw and heard the same old woman ask Mrs. Fibbitson if it -wasn’t delicious (meaning the flute), to which Mrs. Fibbitson replied, -‘Ay, ay! yes!’ and nodded at the fire: to which, I am persuaded, -she gave the credit of the whole performance. -</p> - -<p> -When I seemed to have been dozing a long while, the Master at Salem House -unscrewed his flute into the three pieces, put them up as before, and took me -away. We found the coach very near at hand, and got upon the roof; but I was so -dead sleepy, that when we stopped on the road to take up somebody else, they -put me inside where there were no passengers, and where I slept profoundly, -until I found the coach going at a footpace up a steep hill among green leaves. -Presently, it stopped, and had come to its destination. -</p> - -<p> -A short walk brought us—I mean the Master and me—to Salem House, -which was enclosed with a high brick wall, and looked very dull. Over a door in -this wall was a board with SALEM HOUSE upon it; and through a grating in this -door we were surveyed when we rang the bell by a surly face, which I found, on -the door being opened, belonged to a stout man with a bull-neck, a wooden leg, -overhanging temples, and his hair cut close all round his head. -</p> - -<p> -‘The new boy,’ said the Master. -</p> - -<p> -The man with the wooden leg eyed me all over—it didn’t take long, -for there was not much of me—and locked the gate behind us, and took out -the key. We were going up to the house, among some dark heavy trees, when he -called after my conductor. ‘Hallo!’ -</p> - -<p> -We looked back, and he was standing at the door of a little lodge, where he -lived, with a pair of boots in his hand. -</p> - -<p> -‘Here! The cobbler’s been,’ he said, ‘since -you’ve been out, Mr. Mell, and he says he can’t mend ‘em any -more. He says there ain’t a bit of the original boot left, and he wonders -you expect it.’ -</p> - -<p> -With these words he threw the boots towards Mr. Mell, who went back a few paces -to pick them up, and looked at them (very disconsolately, I was afraid), as we -went on together. I observed then, for the first time, that the boots he had on -were a good deal the worse for wear, and that his stocking was just breaking -out in one place, like a bud. -</p> - -<p> -Salem House was a square brick building with wings; of a bare and unfurnished -appearance. All about it was so very quiet, that I said to Mr. Mell I supposed -the boys were out; but he seemed surprised at my not knowing that it was -holiday-time. That all the boys were at their several homes. That Mr. Creakle, -the proprietor, was down by the sea-side with Mrs. and Miss Creakle; and that I -was sent in holiday-time as a punishment for my misdoing, all of which he -explained to me as we went along. -</p> - -<p> -I gazed upon the schoolroom into which he took me, as the most forlorn and -desolate place I had ever seen. I see it now. A long room with three long rows -of desks, and six of forms, and bristling all round with pegs for hats and -slates. Scraps of old copy-books and exercises litter the dirty floor. Some -silkworms’ houses, made of the same materials, are scattered over the -desks. Two miserable little white mice, left behind by their owner, are running -up and down in a fusty castle made of pasteboard and wire, looking in all the -corners with their red eyes for anything to eat. A bird, in a cage very little -bigger than himself, makes a mournful rattle now and then in hopping on his -perch, two inches high, or dropping from it; but neither sings nor chirps. -There is a strange unwholesome smell upon the room, like mildewed corduroys, -sweet apples wanting air, and rotten books. There could not well be more ink -splashed about it, if it had been roofless from its first construction, and the -skies had rained, snowed, hailed, and blown ink through the varying seasons of -the year. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Mell having left me while he took his irreparable boots upstairs, I went -softly to the upper end of the room, observing all this as I crept along. -Suddenly I came upon a pasteboard placard, beautifully written, which was lying -on the desk, and bore these words: ‘TAKE CARE OF HIM. HE BITES.’ -</p> - -<p> -I got upon the desk immediately, apprehensive of at least a great dog -underneath. But, though I looked all round with anxious eyes, I could see -nothing of him. I was still engaged in peering about, when Mr. Mell came back, -and asked me what I did up there? -</p> - -<p> -‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ says I, ‘if you please, I’m -looking for the dog.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Dog?’ he says. ‘What dog?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Isn’t it a dog, sir?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Isn’t what a dog?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘That’s to be taken care of, sir; that bites.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No, Copperfield,’ says he, gravely, ‘that’s not a dog. -That’s a boy. My instructions are, Copperfield, to put this placard on -your back. I am sorry to make such a beginning with you, but I must do -it.’ With that he took me down, and tied the placard, which was neatly -constructed for the purpose, on my shoulders like a knapsack; and wherever I -went, afterwards, I had the consolation of carrying it. -</p> - -<p> -What I suffered from that placard, nobody can imagine. Whether it was possible -for people to see me or not, I always fancied that somebody was reading it. It -was no relief to turn round and find nobody; for wherever my back was, there I -imagined somebody always to be. That cruel man with the wooden leg aggravated -my sufferings. He was in authority; and if he ever saw me leaning against a -tree, or a wall, or the house, he roared out from his lodge door in a -stupendous voice, ‘Hallo, you sir! You Copperfield! Show that badge -conspicuous, or I’ll report you!’ The playground was a bare -gravelled yard, open to all the back of the house and the offices; and I knew -that the servants read it, and the butcher read it, and the baker read it; that -everybody, in a word, who came backwards and forwards to the house, of a -morning when I was ordered to walk there, read that I was to be taken care of, -for I bit, I recollect that I positively began to have a dread of myself, as a -kind of wild boy who did bite. -</p> - -<p> -There was an old door in this playground, on which the boys had a custom of -carving their names. It was completely covered with such inscriptions. In my -dread of the end of the vacation and their coming back, I could not read a -boy’s name, without inquiring in what tone and with what emphasis HE -would read, ‘Take care of him. He bites.’ There was one boy—a -certain J. Steerforth—who cut his name very deep and very often, who, I -conceived, would read it in a rather strong voice, and afterwards pull my hair. -There was another boy, one Tommy Traddles, who I dreaded would make game of it, -and pretend to be dreadfully frightened of me. There was a third, George -Demple, who I fancied would sing it. I have looked, a little shrinking -creature, at that door, until the owners of all the names—there were -five-and-forty of them in the school then, Mr. Mell said—seemed to send -me to Coventry by general acclamation, and to cry out, each in his own way, -‘Take care of him. He bites!’ -</p> - -<p> -It was the same with the places at the desks and forms. It was the same with -the groves of deserted bedsteads I peeped at, on my way to, and when I was in, -my own bed. I remember dreaming night after night, of being with my mother as -she used to be, or of going to a party at Mr. Peggotty’s, or of -travelling outside the stage-coach, or of dining again with my unfortunate -friend the waiter, and in all these circumstances making people scream and -stare, by the unhappy disclosure that I had nothing on but my little -night-shirt, and that placard. -</p> - -<p> -In the monotony of my life, and in my constant apprehension of the re-opening -of the school, it was such an insupportable affliction! I had long tasks every -day to do with Mr. Mell; but I did them, there being no Mr. and Miss Murdstone -here, and got through them without disgrace. Before, and after them, I walked -about—supervised, as I have mentioned, by the man with the wooden leg. -How vividly I call to mind the damp about the house, the green cracked -flagstones in the court, an old leaky water-butt, and the discoloured trunks of -some of the grim trees, which seemed to have dripped more in the rain than -other trees, and to have blown less in the sun! At one we dined, Mr. Mell and -I, at the upper end of a long bare dining-room, full of deal tables, and -smelling of fat. Then, we had more tasks until tea, which Mr. Mell drank out of -a blue teacup, and I out of a tin pot. All day long, and until seven or eight -in the evening, Mr. Mell, at his own detached desk in the schoolroom, worked -hard with pen, ink, ruler, books, and writing-paper, making out the bills (as I -found) for last half-year. When he had put up his things for the night he took -out his flute, and blew at it, until I almost thought he would gradually blow -his whole being into the large hole at the top, and ooze away at the keys. -</p> - -<p> -I picture my small self in the dimly-lighted rooms, sitting with my head upon -my hand, listening to the doleful performance of Mr. Mell, and conning -tomorrow’s lessons. I picture myself with my books shut up, still -listening to the doleful performance of Mr. Mell, and listening through it to -what used to be at home, and to the blowing of the wind on Yarmouth flats, and -feeling very sad and solitary. I picture myself going up to bed, among the -unused rooms, and sitting on my bed-side crying for a comfortable word from -Peggotty. I picture myself coming downstairs in the morning, and looking -through a long ghastly gash of a staircase window at the school-bell hanging on -the top of an out-house with a weathercock above it; and dreading the time when -it shall ring J. Steerforth and the rest to work: which is only second, in my -foreboding apprehensions, to the time when the man with the wooden leg shall -unlock the rusty gate to give admission to the awful Mr. Creakle. I cannot -think I was a very dangerous character in any of these aspects, but in all of -them I carried the same warning on my back. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Mell never said much to me, but he was never harsh to me. I suppose we were -company to each other, without talking. I forgot to mention that he would talk -to himself sometimes, and grin, and clench his fist, and grind his teeth, and -pull his hair in an unaccountable manner. But he had these peculiarities: and -at first they frightened me, though I soon got used to them. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0006"></a>CHAPTER 6. I ENLARGE MY CIRCLE OF ACQUAINTANCE -</h2> - -<p> -I HAD led this life about a month, when the man with the wooden leg began to -stump about with a mop and a bucket of water, from which I inferred that -preparations were making to receive Mr. Creakle and the boys. I was not -mistaken; for the mop came into the schoolroom before long, and turned out Mr. -Mell and me, who lived where we could, and got on how we could, for some days, -during which we were always in the way of two or three young women, who had -rarely shown themselves before, and were so continually in the midst of dust -that I sneezed almost as much as if Salem House had been a great snuff-box. -</p> - -<p> -One day I was informed by Mr. Mell that Mr. Creakle would be home that evening. -In the evening, after tea, I heard that he was come. Before bedtime, I was -fetched by the man with the wooden leg to appear before him. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Creakle’s part of the house was a good deal more comfortable than -ours, and he had a snug bit of garden that looked pleasant after the dusty -playground, which was such a desert in miniature, that I thought no one but a -camel, or a dromedary, could have felt at home in it. It seemed to me a bold -thing even to take notice that the passage looked comfortable, as I went on my -way, trembling, to Mr. Creakle’s presence: which so abashed me, when I -was ushered into it, that I hardly saw Mrs. Creakle or Miss Creakle (who were -both there, in the parlour), or anything but Mr. Creakle, a stout gentleman -with a bunch of watch-chain and seals, in an arm-chair, with a tumbler and -bottle beside him. -</p> - -<p> -‘So!’ said Mr. Creakle. ‘This is the young gentleman whose -teeth are to be filed! Turn him round.’ -</p> - -<p> -The wooden-legged man turned me about so as to exhibit the placard; and having -afforded time for a full survey of it, turned me about again, with my face to -Mr. Creakle, and posted himself at Mr. Creakle’s side. Mr. -Creakle’s face was fiery, and his eyes were small, and deep in his head; -he had thick veins in his forehead, a little nose, and a large chin. He was -bald on the top of his head; and had some thin wet-looking hair that was just -turning grey, brushed across each temple, so that the two sides interlaced on -his forehead. But the circumstance about him which impressed me most, was, that -he had no voice, but spoke in a whisper. The exertion this cost him, or the -consciousness of talking in that feeble way, made his angry face so much more -angry, and his thick veins so much thicker, when he spoke, that I am not -surprised, on looking back, at this peculiarity striking me as his chief one. -‘Now,’ said Mr. Creakle. ‘What’s the report of this -boy?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘There’s nothing against him yet,’ returned the man with the -wooden leg. ‘There has been no opportunity.’ -</p> - -<p> -I thought Mr. Creakle was disappointed. I thought Mrs. and Miss Creakle (at -whom I now glanced for the first time, and who were, both, thin and quiet) were -not disappointed. -</p> - -<p> -‘Come here, sir!’ said Mr. Creakle, beckoning to me. -</p> - -<p> -‘Come here!’ said the man with the wooden leg, repeating the -gesture. -</p> - -<p> -‘I have the happiness of knowing your father-in-law,’ whispered Mr. -Creakle, taking me by the ear; ‘and a worthy man he is, and a man of a -strong character. He knows me, and I know him. Do YOU know me? Hey?’ said -Mr. Creakle, pinching my ear with ferocious playfulness. -</p> - -<p> -‘Not yet, sir,’ I said, flinching with the pain. -</p> - -<p> -‘Not yet? Hey?’ repeated Mr. Creakle. ‘But you will soon. -Hey?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You will soon. Hey?’ repeated the man with the wooden leg. I -afterwards found that he generally acted, with his strong voice, as Mr. -Creakle’s interpreter to the boys. -</p> - -<p> -I was very much frightened, and said, I hoped so, if he pleased. I felt, all -this while, as if my ear were blazing; he pinched it so hard. -</p> - -<p> -‘I’ll tell you what I am,’ whispered Mr. Creakle, letting it -go at last, with a screw at parting that brought the water into my eyes. -‘I’m a Tartar.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘A Tartar,’ said the man with the wooden leg. -</p> - -<p> -‘When I say I’ll do a thing, I do it,’ said Mr. Creakle; -‘and when I say I will have a thing done, I will have it done.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘—Will have a thing done, I will have it done,’ repeated the -man with the wooden leg. -</p> - -<p> -‘I am a determined character,’ said Mr. Creakle. -‘That’s what I am. I do my duty. That’s what I do. My flesh -and blood’—he looked at Mrs. Creakle as he said -this—‘when it rises against me, is not my flesh and blood. I -discard it. Has that fellow’—to the man with the wooden -leg—‘been here again?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No,’ was the answer. -</p> - -<p> -‘No,’ said Mr. Creakle. ‘He knows better. He knows me. Let -him keep away. I say let him keep away,’ said Mr. Creakle, striking his -hand upon the table, and looking at Mrs. Creakle, ‘for he knows me. Now -you have begun to know me too, my young friend, and you may go. Take him -away.’ -</p> - -<p> -I was very glad to be ordered away, for Mrs. and Miss Creakle were both wiping -their eyes, and I felt as uncomfortable for them as I did for myself. But I had -a petition on my mind which concerned me so nearly, that I couldn’t help -saying, though I wondered at my own courage: -</p> - -<p> -‘If you please, sir—’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Creakle whispered, ‘Hah! What’s this?’ and bent his eyes -upon me, as if he would have burnt me up with them. -</p> - -<p> -‘If you please, sir,’ I faltered, ‘if I might be allowed (I -am very sorry indeed, sir, for what I did) to take this writing off, before the -boys come back—’ -</p> - -<p> -Whether Mr. Creakle was in earnest, or whether he only did it to frighten me, I -don’t know, but he made a burst out of his chair, before which I -precipitately retreated, without waiting for the escort of the man with the -wooden leg, and never once stopped until I reached my own bedroom, where, -finding I was not pursued, I went to bed, as it was time, and lay quaking, for -a couple of hours. -</p> - -<p> -Next morning Mr. Sharp came back. Mr. Sharp was the first master, and superior -to Mr. Mell. Mr. Mell took his meals with the boys, but Mr. Sharp dined and -supped at Mr. Creakle’s table. He was a limp, delicate-looking gentleman, -I thought, with a good deal of nose, and a way of carrying his head on one -side, as if it were a little too heavy for him. His hair was very smooth and -wavy; but I was informed by the very first boy who came back that it was a wig -(a second-hand one HE said), and that Mr. Sharp went out every Saturday -afternoon to get it curled. -</p> - -<p> -It was no other than Tommy Traddles who gave me this piece of intelligence. He -was the first boy who returned. He introduced himself by informing me that I -should find his name on the right-hand corner of the gate, over the top-bolt; -upon that I said, ‘Traddles?’ to which he replied, ‘The -same,’ and then he asked me for a full account of myself and family. -</p> - -<p> -It was a happy circumstance for me that Traddles came back first. He enjoyed my -placard so much, that he saved me from the embarrassment of either disclosure -or concealment, by presenting me to every other boy who came back, great or -small, immediately on his arrival, in this form of introduction, ‘Look -here! Here’s a game!’ Happily, too, the greater part of the boys -came back low-spirited, and were not so boisterous at my expense as I had -expected. Some of them certainly did dance about me like wild Indians, and the -greater part could not resist the temptation of pretending that I was a dog, -and patting and soothing me, lest I should bite, and saying, ‘Lie down, -sir!’ and calling me Towzer. This was naturally confusing, among so many -strangers, and cost me some tears, but on the whole it was much better than I -had anticipated. -</p> - -<p> -I was not considered as being formally received into the school, however, until -J. Steerforth arrived. Before this boy, who was reputed to be a great scholar, -and was very good-looking, and at least half-a-dozen years my senior, I was -carried as before a magistrate. He inquired, under a shed in the playground, -into the particulars of my punishment, and was pleased to express his opinion -that it was ‘a jolly shame’; for which I became bound to him ever -afterwards. -</p> - -<p> -‘What money have you got, Copperfield?’ he said, walking aside with -me when he had disposed of my affair in these terms. I told him seven -shillings. -</p> - -<p> -‘You had better give it to me to take care of,’ he said. ‘At -least, you can if you like. You needn’t if you don’t like.’ -</p> - -<p> -I hastened to comply with his friendly suggestion, and opening Peggotty’s -purse, turned it upside down into his hand. -</p> - -<p> -‘Do you want to spend anything now?’ he asked me. -</p> - -<p> -‘No thank you,’ I replied. -</p> - -<p> -‘You can, if you like, you know,’ said Steerforth. ‘Say the -word.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No, thank you, sir,’ I repeated. -</p> - -<p> -‘Perhaps you’d like to spend a couple of shillings or so, in a -bottle of currant wine by and by, up in the bedroom?’ said Steerforth. -‘You belong to my bedroom, I find.’ -</p> - -<p> -It certainly had not occurred to me before, but I said, Yes, I should like -that. -</p> - -<p> -‘Very good,’ said Steerforth. ‘You’ll be glad to spend -another shilling or so, in almond cakes, I dare say?’ -</p> - -<p> -I said, Yes, I should like that, too. -</p> - -<p> -‘And another shilling or so in biscuits, and another in fruit, eh?’ -said Steerforth. ‘I say, young Copperfield, you’re going it!’ -</p> - -<p> -I smiled because he smiled, but I was a little troubled in my mind, too. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well!’ said Steerforth. ‘We must make it stretch as far as -we can; that’s all. I’ll do the best in my power for you. I can go -out when I like, and I’ll smuggle the prog in.’ With these words he -put the money in his pocket, and kindly told me not to make myself uneasy; he -would take care it should be all right. He was as good as his word, if that -were all right which I had a secret misgiving was nearly all wrong—for I -feared it was a waste of my mother’s two half-crowns—though I had -preserved the piece of paper they were wrapped in: which was a precious saving. -When we went upstairs to bed, he produced the whole seven shillings’ -worth, and laid it out on my bed in the moonlight, saying: -</p> - -<p> -‘There you are, young Copperfield, and a royal spread you’ve -got.’ -</p> - -<p> -I couldn’t think of doing the honours of the feast, at my time of life, -while he was by; my hand shook at the very thought of it. I begged him to do me -the favour of presiding; and my request being seconded by the other boys who -were in that room, he acceded to it, and sat upon my pillow, handing round the -viands—with perfect fairness, I must say—and dispensing the currant -wine in a little glass without a foot, which was his own property. As to me, I -sat on his left hand, and the rest were grouped about us, on the nearest beds -and on the floor. -</p> - -<p> -How well I recollect our sitting there, talking in whispers; or their talking, -and my respectfully listening, I ought rather to say; the moonlight falling a -little way into the room, through the window, painting a pale window on the -floor, and the greater part of us in shadow, except when Steerforth dipped a -match into a phosphorus-box, when he wanted to look for anything on the board, -and shed a blue glare over us that was gone directly! A certain mysterious -feeling, consequent on the darkness, the secrecy of the revel, and the whisper -in which everything was said, steals over me again, and I listen to all they -tell me with a vague feeling of solemnity and awe, which makes me glad that -they are all so near, and frightens me (though I feign to laugh) when Traddles -pretends to see a ghost in the corner. -</p> - -<p> -I heard all kinds of things about the school and all belonging to it. I heard -that Mr. Creakle had not preferred his claim to being a Tartar without reason; -that he was the sternest and most severe of masters; that he laid about him, -right and left, every day of his life, charging in among the boys like a -trooper, and slashing away, unmercifully. That he knew nothing himself, but the -art of slashing, being more ignorant (J. Steerforth said) than the lowest boy -in the school; that he had been, a good many years ago, a small hop-dealer in -the Borough, and had taken to the schooling business after being bankrupt in -hops, and making away with Mrs. Creakle’s money. With a good deal more of -that sort, which I wondered how they knew. -</p> - -<p> -I heard that the man with the wooden leg, whose name was Tungay, was an -obstinate barbarian who had formerly assisted in the hop business, but had come -into the scholastic line with Mr. Creakle, in consequence, as was supposed -among the boys, of his having broken his leg in Mr. Creakle’s service, -and having done a deal of dishonest work for him, and knowing his secrets. I -heard that with the single exception of Mr. Creakle, Tungay considered the -whole establishment, masters and boys, as his natural enemies, and that the -only delight of his life was to be sour and malicious. I heard that Mr. Creakle -had a son, who had not been Tungay’s friend, and who, assisting in the -school, had once held some remonstrance with his father on an occasion when its -discipline was very cruelly exercised, and was supposed, besides, to have -protested against his father’s usage of his mother. I heard that Mr. -Creakle had turned him out of doors, in consequence; and that Mrs. and Miss -Creakle had been in a sad way, ever since. -</p> - -<p> -But the greatest wonder that I heard of Mr. Creakle was, there being one boy in -the school on whom he never ventured to lay a hand, and that boy being J. -Steerforth. Steerforth himself confirmed this when it was stated, and said that -he should like to begin to see him do it. On being asked by a mild boy (not me) -how he would proceed if he did begin to see him do it, he dipped a match into -his phosphorus-box on purpose to shed a glare over his reply, and said he would -commence by knocking him down with a blow on the forehead from the -seven-and-sixpenny ink-bottle that was always on the mantelpiece. We sat in the -dark for some time, breathless. -</p> - -<p> -I heard that Mr. Sharp and Mr. Mell were both supposed to be wretchedly paid; -and that when there was hot and cold meat for dinner at Mr. Creakle’s -table, Mr. Sharp was always expected to say he preferred cold; which was again -corroborated by J. Steerforth, the only parlour-boarder. I heard that Mr. -Sharp’s wig didn’t fit him; and that he needn’t be so -‘bounceable’—somebody else said -‘bumptious’—about it, because his own red hair was very -plainly to be seen behind. -</p> - -<p> -I heard that one boy, who was a coal-merchant’s son, came as a set-off -against the coal-bill, and was called, on that account, ‘Exchange or -Barter’—a name selected from the arithmetic book as expressing this -arrangement. I heard that the table beer was a robbery of parents, and the -pudding an imposition. I heard that Miss Creakle was regarded by the school in -general as being in love with Steerforth; and I am sure, as I sat in the dark, -thinking of his nice voice, and his fine face, and his easy manner, and his -curling hair, I thought it very likely. I heard that Mr. Mell was not a bad -sort of fellow, but hadn’t a sixpence to bless himself with; and that -there was no doubt that old Mrs. Mell, his mother, was as poor as job. I -thought of my breakfast then, and what had sounded like ‘My -Charley!’ but I was, I am glad to remember, as mute as a mouse about it. -</p> - -<p> -The hearing of all this, and a good deal more, outlasted the banquet some time. -The greater part of the guests had gone to bed as soon as the eating and -drinking were over; and we, who had remained whispering and listening -half-undressed, at last betook ourselves to bed, too. -</p> - -<p> -‘Good night, young Copperfield,’ said Steerforth. ‘I’ll -take care of you.’ ‘You’re very kind,’ I gratefully -returned. ‘I am very much obliged to you.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You haven’t got a sister, have you?’ said Steerforth, -yawning. -</p> - -<p> -‘No,’ I answered. -</p> - -<p> -‘That’s a pity,’ said Steerforth. ‘If you had had one, -I should think she would have been a pretty, timid, little, bright-eyed sort of -girl. I should have liked to know her. Good night, young Copperfield.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Good night, sir,’ I replied. -</p> - -<p> -I thought of him very much after I went to bed, and raised myself, I recollect, -to look at him where he lay in the moonlight, with his handsome face turned up, -and his head reclining easily on his arm. He was a person of great power in my -eyes; that was, of course, the reason of my mind running on him. No veiled -future dimly glanced upon him in the moonbeams. There was no shadowy picture of -his footsteps, in the garden that I dreamed of walking in all night. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0007"></a>CHAPTER 7. MY ‘FIRST HALF’ AT SALEM -HOUSE</h2> - -<p> -School began in earnest next day. A profound impression was made upon me, I -remember, by the roar of voices in the schoolroom suddenly becoming hushed as -death when Mr. Creakle entered after breakfast, and stood in the doorway -looking round upon us like a giant in a story-book surveying his captives. -</p> - -<p> -Tungay stood at Mr. Creakle’s elbow. He had no occasion, I thought, to -cry out ‘Silence!’ so ferociously, for the boys were all struck -speechless and motionless. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Creakle was seen to speak, and Tungay was heard, to this effect. -</p> - -<p> -‘Now, boys, this is a new half. Take care what you’re about, in -this new half. Come fresh up to the lessons, I advise you, for I come fresh up -to the punishment. I won’t flinch. It will be of no use your rubbing -yourselves; you won’t rub the marks out that I shall give you. Now get to -work, every boy!’ -</p> - -<p> -When this dreadful exordium was over, and Tungay had stumped out again, Mr. -Creakle came to where I sat, and told me that if I were famous for biting, he -was famous for biting, too. He then showed me the cane, and asked me what I -thought of THAT, for a tooth? Was it a sharp tooth, hey? Was it a double tooth, -hey? Had it a deep prong, hey? Did it bite, hey? Did it bite? At every question -he gave me a fleshy cut with it that made me writhe; so I was very soon made -free of Salem House (as Steerforth said), and was very soon in tears also. -</p> - -<p> -Not that I mean to say these were special marks of distinction, which only I -received. On the contrary, a large majority of the boys (especially the smaller -ones) were visited with similar instances of notice, as Mr. Creakle made the -round of the schoolroom. Half the establishment was writhing and crying, before -the day’s work began; and how much of it had writhed and cried before the -day’s work was over, I am really afraid to recollect, lest I should seem -to exaggerate. -</p> - -<p> -I should think there never can have been a man who enjoyed his profession more -than Mr. Creakle did. He had a delight in cutting at the boys, which was like -the satisfaction of a craving appetite. I am confident that he couldn’t -resist a chubby boy, especially; that there was a fascination in such a -subject, which made him restless in his mind, until he had scored and marked -him for the day. I was chubby myself, and ought to know. I am sure when I think -of the fellow now, my blood rises against him with the disinterested -indignation I should feel if I could have known all about him without having -ever been in his power; but it rises hotly, because I know him to have been an -incapable brute, who had no more right to be possessed of the great trust he -held, than to be Lord High Admiral, or Commander-in-Chief—in either of -which capacities it is probable that he would have done infinitely less -mischief. -</p> - -<p> -Miserable little propitiators of a remorseless Idol, how abject we were to him! -What a launch in life I think it now, on looking back, to be so mean and -servile to a man of such parts and pretensions! -</p> - -<p> -Here I sit at the desk again, watching his eye—humbly watching his eye, -as he rules a ciphering-book for another victim whose hands have just been -flattened by that identical ruler, and who is trying to wipe the sting out with -a pocket-handkerchief. I have plenty to do. I don’t watch his eye in -idleness, but because I am morbidly attracted to it, in a dread desire to know -what he will do next, and whether it will be my turn to suffer, or somebody -else’s. A lane of small boys beyond me, with the same interest in his -eye, watch it too. I think he knows it, though he pretends he don’t. He -makes dreadful mouths as he rules the ciphering-book; and now he throws his eye -sideways down our lane, and we all droop over our books and tremble. A moment -afterwards we are again eyeing him. An unhappy culprit, found guilty of -imperfect exercise, approaches at his command. The culprit falters excuses, and -professes a determination to do better tomorrow. Mr. Creakle cuts a joke before -he beats him, and we laugh at it,—miserable little dogs, we laugh, with -our visages as white as ashes, and our hearts sinking into our boots. -</p> - -<p> -Here I sit at the desk again, on a drowsy summer afternoon. A buzz and hum go -up around me, as if the boys were so many bluebottles. A cloggy sensation of -the lukewarm fat of meat is upon me (we dined an hour or two ago), and my head -is as heavy as so much lead. I would give the world to go to sleep. I sit with -my eye on Mr. Creakle, blinking at him like a young owl; when sleep overpowers -me for a minute, he still looms through my slumber, ruling those -ciphering-books, until he softly comes behind me and wakes me to plainer -perception of him, with a red ridge across my back. -</p> - -<p> -Here I am in the playground, with my eye still fascinated by him, though I -can’t see him. The window at a little distance from which I know he is -having his dinner, stands for him, and I eye that instead. If he shows his face -near it, mine assumes an imploring and submissive expression. If he looks out -through the glass, the boldest boy (Steerforth excepted) stops in the middle of -a shout or yell, and becomes contemplative. One day, Traddles (the most -unfortunate boy in the world) breaks that window accidentally, with a ball. I -shudder at this moment with the tremendous sensation of seeing it done, and -feeling that the ball has bounded on to Mr. Creakle’s sacred head. -</p> - -<p> -Poor Traddles! In a tight sky-blue suit that made his arms and legs like German -sausages, or roly-poly puddings, he was the merriest and most miserable of all -the boys. He was always being caned—I think he was caned every day that -half-year, except one holiday Monday when he was only ruler’d on both -hands—and was always going to write to his uncle about it, and never did. -After laying his head on the desk for a little while, he would cheer up, -somehow, begin to laugh again, and draw skeletons all over his slate, before -his eyes were dry. I used at first to wonder what comfort Traddles found in -drawing skeletons; and for some time looked upon him as a sort of hermit, who -reminded himself by those symbols of mortality that caning couldn’t last -for ever. But I believe he only did it because they were easy, and didn’t -want any features. -</p> - -<p> -He was very honourable, Traddles was, and held it as a solemn duty in the boys -to stand by one another. He suffered for this on several occasions; and -particularly once, when Steerforth laughed in church, and the Beadle thought it -was Traddles, and took him out. I see him now, going away in custody, despised -by the congregation. He never said who was the real offender, though he smarted -for it next day, and was imprisoned so many hours that he came forth with a -whole churchyard-full of skeletons swarming all over his Latin Dictionary. But -he had his reward. Steerforth said there was nothing of the sneak in Traddles, -and we all felt that to be the highest praise. For my part, I could have gone -through a good deal (though I was much less brave than Traddles, and nothing -like so old) to have won such a recompense. -</p> - -<p> -To see Steerforth walk to church before us, arm-in-arm with Miss Creakle, was -one of the great sights of my life. I didn’t think Miss Creakle equal to -little Em’ly in point of beauty, and I didn’t love her (I -didn’t dare); but I thought her a young lady of extraordinary -attractions, and in point of gentility not to be surpassed. When Steerforth, in -white trousers, carried her parasol for her, I felt proud to know him; and -believed that she could not choose but adore him with all her heart. Mr. Sharp -and Mr. Mell were both notable personages in my eyes; but Steerforth was to -them what the sun was to two stars. -</p> - -<p> -Steerforth continued his protection of me, and proved a very useful friend; -since nobody dared to annoy one whom he honoured with his countenance. He -couldn’t—or at all events he didn’t—defend me from Mr. -Creakle, who was very severe with me; but whenever I had been treated worse -than usual, he always told me that I wanted a little of his pluck, and that he -wouldn’t have stood it himself; which I felt he intended for -encouragement, and considered to be very kind of him. There was one advantage, -and only one that I know of, in Mr. Creakle’s severity. He found my -placard in his way when he came up or down behind the form on which I sat, and -wanted to make a cut at me in passing; for this reason it was soon taken off, -and I saw it no more. -</p> - -<p> -An accidental circumstance cemented the intimacy between Steerforth and me, in -a manner that inspired me with great pride and satisfaction, though it -sometimes led to inconvenience. It happened on one occasion, when he was doing -me the honour of talking to me in the playground, that I hazarded the -observation that something or somebody—I forget what now—was like -something or somebody in Peregrine Pickle. He said nothing at the time; but -when I was going to bed at night, asked me if I had got that book? -</p> - -<p> -I told him no, and explained how it was that I had read it, and all those other -books of which I have made mention. -</p> - -<p> -‘And do you recollect them?’ Steerforth said. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh yes,’ I replied; I had a good memory, and I believed I -recollected them very well. -</p> - -<p> -‘Then I tell you what, young Copperfield,’ said Steerforth, -‘you shall tell ‘em to me. I can’t get to sleep very early at -night, and I generally wake rather early in the morning. We’ll go over -‘em one after another. We’ll make some regular Arabian Nights of -it.’ -</p> - -<p> -I felt extremely flattered by this arrangement, and we commenced carrying it -into execution that very evening. What ravages I committed on my favourite -authors in the course of my interpretation of them, I am not in a condition to -say, and should be very unwilling to know; but I had a profound faith in them, -and I had, to the best of my belief, a simple, earnest manner of narrating what -I did narrate; and these qualities went a long way. -</p> - -<p> -The drawback was, that I was often sleepy at night, or out of spirits and -indisposed to resume the story; and then it was rather hard work, and it must -be done; for to disappoint or to displease Steerforth was of course out of the -question. In the morning, too, when I felt weary, and should have enjoyed -another hour’s repose very much, it was a tiresome thing to be roused, -like the Sultana Scheherazade, and forced into a long story before the -getting-up bell rang; but Steerforth was resolute; and as he explained to me, -in return, my sums and exercises, and anything in my tasks that was too hard -for me, I was no loser by the transaction. Let me do myself justice, however. I -was moved by no interested or selfish motive, nor was I moved by fear of him. I -admired and loved him, and his approval was return enough. It was so precious -to me that I look back on these trifles, now, with an aching heart. -</p> - -<p> -Steerforth was considerate, too; and showed his consideration, in one -particular instance, in an unflinching manner that was a little tantalizing, I -suspect, to poor Traddles and the rest. Peggotty’s promised -letter—what a comfortable letter it was!—arrived before ‘the -half’ was many weeks old; and with it a cake in a perfect nest of -oranges, and two bottles of cowslip wine. This treasure, as in duty bound, I -laid at the feet of Steerforth, and begged him to dispense. -</p> - -<p> -‘Now, I’ll tell you what, young Copperfield,’ said he: -‘the wine shall be kept to wet your whistle when you are -story-telling.’ -</p> - -<p> -I blushed at the idea, and begged him, in my modesty, not to think of it. But -he said he had observed I was sometimes hoarse—a little roopy was his -exact expression—and it should be, every drop, devoted to the purpose he -had mentioned. Accordingly, it was locked up in his box, and drawn off by -himself in a phial, and administered to me through a piece of quill in the -cork, when I was supposed to be in want of a restorative. Sometimes, to make it -a more sovereign specific, he was so kind as to squeeze orange juice into it, -or to stir it up with ginger, or dissolve a peppermint drop in it; and although -I cannot assert that the flavour was improved by these experiments, or that it -was exactly the compound one would have chosen for a stomachic, the last thing -at night and the first thing in the morning, I drank it gratefully and was very -sensible of his attention. -</p> - -<p> -We seem, to me, to have been months over Peregrine, and months more over the -other stories. The institution never flagged for want of a story, I am certain; -and the wine lasted out almost as well as the matter. Poor Traddles—I -never think of that boy but with a strange disposition to laugh, and with tears -in my eyes—was a sort of chorus, in general; and affected to be convulsed -with mirth at the comic parts, and to be overcome with fear when there was any -passage of an alarming character in the narrative. This rather put me out, very -often. It was a great jest of his, I recollect, to pretend that he -couldn’t keep his teeth from chattering, whenever mention was made of an -Alguazill in connexion with the adventures of Gil Blas; and I remember that -when Gil Blas met the captain of the robbers in Madrid, this unlucky joker -counterfeited such an ague of terror, that he was overheard by Mr. Creakle, who -was prowling about the passage, and handsomely flogged for disorderly conduct -in the bedroom. Whatever I had within me that was romantic and dreamy, was -encouraged by so much story-telling in the dark; and in that respect the -pursuit may not have been very profitable to me. But the being cherished as a -kind of plaything in my room, and the consciousness that this accomplishment of -mine was bruited about among the boys, and attracted a good deal of notice to -me though I was the youngest there, stimulated me to exertion. In a school -carried on by sheer cruelty, whether it is presided over by a dunce or not, -there is not likely to be much learnt. I believe our boys were, generally, as -ignorant a set as any schoolboys in existence; they were too much troubled and -knocked about to learn; they could no more do that to advantage, than any one -can do anything to advantage in a life of constant misfortune, torment, and -worry. But my little vanity, and Steerforth’s help, urged me on somehow; -and without saving me from much, if anything, in the way of punishment, made -me, for the time I was there, an exception to the general body, insomuch that I -did steadily pick up some crumbs of knowledge. -</p> - -<p> -In this I was much assisted by Mr. Mell, who had a liking for me that I am -grateful to remember. It always gave me pain to observe that Steerforth treated -him with systematic disparagement, and seldom lost an occasion of wounding his -feelings, or inducing others to do so. This troubled me the more for a long -time, because I had soon told Steerforth, from whom I could no more keep such a -secret, than I could keep a cake or any other tangible possession, about the -two old women Mr. Mell had taken me to see; and I was always afraid that -Steerforth would let it out, and twit him with it. -</p> - -<p> -We little thought, any one of us, I dare say, when I ate my breakfast that -first morning, and went to sleep under the shadow of the peacock’s -feathers to the sound of the flute, what consequences would come of the -introduction into those alms-houses of my insignificant person. But the visit -had its unforeseen consequences; and of a serious sort, too, in their way. -</p> - -<p> -One day when Mr. Creakle kept the house from indisposition, which naturally -diffused a lively joy through the school, there was a good deal of noise in the -course of the morning’s work. The great relief and satisfaction -experienced by the boys made them difficult to manage; and though the dreaded -Tungay brought his wooden leg in twice or thrice, and took notes of the -principal offenders’ names, no great impression was made by it, as they -were pretty sure of getting into trouble tomorrow, do what they would, and -thought it wise, no doubt, to enjoy themselves today. -</p> - -<p> -It was, properly, a half-holiday; being Saturday. But as the noise in the -playground would have disturbed Mr. Creakle, and the weather was not favourable -for going out walking, we were ordered into school in the afternoon, and set -some lighter tasks than usual, which were made for the occasion. It was the day -of the week on which Mr. Sharp went out to get his wig curled; so Mr. Mell, who -always did the drudgery, whatever it was, kept school by himself. If I could -associate the idea of a bull or a bear with anyone so mild as Mr. Mell, I -should think of him, in connexion with that afternoon when the uproar was at -its height, as of one of those animals, baited by a thousand dogs. I recall him -bending his aching head, supported on his bony hand, over the book on his desk, -and wretchedly endeavouring to get on with his tiresome work, amidst an uproar -that might have made the Speaker of the House of Commons giddy. Boys started in -and out of their places, playing at puss in the corner with other boys; there -were laughing boys, singing boys, talking boys, dancing boys, howling boys; -boys shuffled with their feet, boys whirled about him, grinning, making faces, -mimicking him behind his back and before his eyes; mimicking his poverty, his -boots, his coat, his mother, everything belonging to him that they should have -had consideration for. -</p> - -<p> -‘Silence!’ cried Mr. Mell, suddenly rising up, and striking his -desk with the book. ‘What does this mean! It’s impossible to bear -it. It’s maddening. How can you do it to me, boys?’ -</p> - -<p> -It was my book that he struck his desk with; and as I stood beside him, -following his eye as it glanced round the room, I saw the boys all stop, some -suddenly surprised, some half afraid, and some sorry perhaps. -</p> - -<p> -Steerforth’s place was at the bottom of the school, at the opposite end -of the long room. He was lounging with his back against the wall, and his hands -in his pockets, and looked at Mr. Mell with his mouth shut up as if he were -whistling, when Mr. Mell looked at him. -</p> - -<p> -‘Silence, Mr. Steerforth!’ said Mr. Mell. -</p> - -<p> -‘Silence yourself,’ said Steerforth, turning red. ‘Whom are -you talking to?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Sit down,’ said Mr. Mell. -</p> - -<p> -‘Sit down yourself,’ said Steerforth, ‘and mind your -business.’ -</p> - -<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> -<img src="images/0135.jpg" alt="0135 " width="100%" /> -</div> - -<h5> -<a href="images/0135.jpg"> -<img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /></a> -</h5> - -<p> -There was a titter, and some applause; but Mr. Mell was so white, that silence -immediately succeeded; and one boy, who had darted out behind him to imitate -his mother again, changed his mind, and pretended to want a pen mended. -</p> - -<p> -‘If you think, Steerforth,’ said Mr. Mell, ‘that I am not -acquainted with the power you can establish over any mind here’—he -laid his hand, without considering what he did (as I supposed), upon my -head—‘or that I have not observed you, within a few minutes, urging -your juniors on to every sort of outrage against me, you are mistaken.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I don’t give myself the trouble of thinking at all about -you,’ said Steerforth, coolly; ‘so I’m not mistaken, as it -happens.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And when you make use of your position of favouritism here, sir,’ -pursued Mr. Mell, with his lip trembling very much, ‘to insult a -gentleman—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘A what?—where is he?’ said Steerforth. -</p> - -<p> -Here somebody cried out, ‘Shame, J. Steerforth! Too bad!’ It was -Traddles; whom Mr. Mell instantly discomfited by bidding him hold his tongue. -—‘To insult one who is not fortunate in life, sir, and who never -gave you the least offence, and the many reasons for not insulting whom you are -old enough and wise enough to understand,’ said Mr. Mell, with his lips -trembling more and more, ‘you commit a mean and base action. You can sit -down or stand up as you please, sir. Copperfield, go on.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Young Copperfield,’ said Steerforth, coming forward up the room, -‘stop a bit. I tell you what, Mr. Mell, once for all. When you take the -liberty of calling me mean or base, or anything of that sort, you are an -impudent beggar. You are always a beggar, you know; but when you do that, you -are an impudent beggar.’ -</p> - -<p> -I am not clear whether he was going to strike Mr. Mell, or Mr. Mell was going -to strike him, or there was any such intention on either side. I saw a rigidity -come upon the whole school as if they had been turned into stone, and found Mr. -Creakle in the midst of us, with Tungay at his side, and Mrs. and Miss Creakle -looking in at the door as if they were frightened. Mr. Mell, with his elbows on -his desk and his face in his hands, sat, for some moments, quite still. -</p> - -<p> -‘Mr. Mell,’ said Mr. Creakle, shaking him by the arm; and his -whisper was so audible now, that Tungay felt it unnecessary to repeat his -words; ‘you have not forgotten yourself, I hope?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No, sir, no,’ returned the Master, showing his face, and shaking -his head, and rubbing his hands in great agitation. ‘No, sir. No. I have -remembered myself, I—no, Mr. Creakle, I have not forgotten myself, -I—I have remembered myself, sir. I—I—could wish you had -remembered me a little sooner, Mr. Creakle. It—it—would have been -more kind, sir, more just, sir. It would have saved me something, sir.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Creakle, looking hard at Mr. Mell, put his hand on Tungay’s shoulder, -and got his feet upon the form close by, and sat upon the desk. After still -looking hard at Mr. Mell from his throne, as he shook his head, and rubbed his -hands, and remained in the same state of agitation, Mr. Creakle turned to -Steerforth, and said: -</p> - -<p> -‘Now, sir, as he don’t condescend to tell me, what is this?’ -</p> - -<p> -Steerforth evaded the question for a little while; looking in scorn and anger -on his opponent, and remaining silent. I could not help thinking even in that -interval, I remember, what a noble fellow he was in appearance, and how homely -and plain Mr. Mell looked opposed to him. -</p> - -<p> -‘What did he mean by talking about favourites, then?’ said -Steerforth at length. -</p> - -<p> -‘Favourites?’ repeated Mr. Creakle, with the veins in his forehead -swelling quickly. ‘Who talked about favourites?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘He did,’ said Steerforth. -</p> - -<p> -‘And pray, what did you mean by that, sir?’ demanded Mr. Creakle, -turning angrily on his assistant. -</p> - -<p> -‘I meant, Mr. Creakle,’ he returned in a low voice, ‘as I -said; that no pupil had a right to avail himself of his position of favouritism -to degrade me.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘To degrade YOU?’ said Mr. Creakle. ‘My stars! But give me -leave to ask you, Mr. What’s-your-name’; and here Mr. Creakle -folded his arms, cane and all, upon his chest, and made such a knot of his -brows that his little eyes were hardly visible below them; ‘whether, when -you talk about favourites, you showed proper respect to me? To me, sir,’ -said Mr. Creakle, darting his head at him suddenly, and drawing it back again, -‘the principal of this establishment, and your employer.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘It was not judicious, sir, I am willing to admit,’ said Mr. Mell. -‘I should not have done so, if I had been cool.’ -</p> - -<p> -Here Steerforth struck in. -</p> - -<p> -‘Then he said I was mean, and then he said I was base, and then I called -him a beggar. If I had been cool, perhaps I shouldn’t have called him a -beggar. But I did, and I am ready to take the consequences of it.’ -</p> - -<p> -Without considering, perhaps, whether there were any consequences to be taken, -I felt quite in a glow at this gallant speech. It made an impression on the -boys too, for there was a low stir among them, though no one spoke a word. -</p> - -<p> -‘I am surprised, Steerforth—although your candour does you -honour,’ said Mr. Creakle, ‘does you honour, certainly—I am -surprised, Steerforth, I must say, that you should attach such an epithet to -any person employed and paid in Salem House, sir.’ -</p> - -<p> -Steerforth gave a short laugh. -</p> - -<p> -‘That’s not an answer, sir,’ said Mr. Creakle, ‘to my -remark. I expect more than that from you, Steerforth.’ -</p> - -<p> -If Mr. Mell looked homely, in my eyes, before the handsome boy, it would be -quite impossible to say how homely Mr. Creakle looked. ‘Let him deny -it,’ said Steerforth. -</p> - -<p> -‘Deny that he is a beggar, Steerforth?’ cried Mr. Creakle. -‘Why, where does he go a-begging?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘If he is not a beggar himself, his near relation’s one,’ -said Steerforth. ‘It’s all the same.’ -</p> - -<p> -He glanced at me, and Mr. Mell’s hand gently patted me upon the shoulder. -I looked up with a flush upon my face and remorse in my heart, but Mr. -Mell’s eyes were fixed on Steerforth. He continued to pat me kindly on -the shoulder, but he looked at him. -</p> - -<p> -‘Since you expect me, Mr. Creakle, to justify myself,’ said -Steerforth, ‘and to say what I mean,—what I have to say is, that -his mother lives on charity in an alms-house.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Mell still looked at him, and still patted me kindly on the shoulder, and -said to himself, in a whisper, if I heard right: ‘Yes, I thought -so.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Creakle turned to his assistant, with a severe frown and laboured -politeness: -</p> - -<p> -‘Now, you hear what this gentleman says, Mr. Mell. Have the goodness, if -you please, to set him right before the assembled school.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘He is right, sir, without correction,’ returned Mr. Mell, in the -midst of a dead silence; ‘what he has said is true.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Be so good then as declare publicly, will you,’ said Mr. Creakle, -putting his head on one side, and rolling his eyes round the school, -‘whether it ever came to my knowledge until this moment?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I believe not directly,’ he returned. -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, you know not,’ said Mr. Creakle. ‘Don’t you, -man?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I apprehend you never supposed my worldly circumstances to be very -good,’ replied the assistant. ‘You know what my position is, and -always has been, here.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I apprehend, if you come to that,’ said Mr. Creakle, with his -veins swelling again bigger than ever, ‘that you’ve been in a wrong -position altogether, and mistook this for a charity school. Mr. Mell, -we’ll part, if you please. The sooner the better.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘There is no time,’ answered Mr. Mell, rising, ‘like the -present.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Sir, to you!’ said Mr. Creakle. -</p> - -<p> -‘I take my leave of you, Mr. Creakle, and all of you,’ said Mr. -Mell, glancing round the room, and again patting me gently on the shoulders. -‘James Steerforth, the best wish I can leave you is that you may come to -be ashamed of what you have done today. At present I would prefer to see you -anything rather than a friend, to me, or to anyone in whom I feel an -interest.’ -</p> - -<p> -Once more he laid his hand upon my shoulder; and then taking his flute and a -few books from his desk, and leaving the key in it for his successor, he went -out of the school, with his property under his arm. Mr. Creakle then made a -speech, through Tungay, in which he thanked Steerforth for asserting (though -perhaps too warmly) the independence and respectability of Salem House; and -which he wound up by shaking hands with Steerforth, while we gave three -cheers—I did not quite know what for, but I supposed for Steerforth, and -so joined in them ardently, though I felt miserable. Mr. Creakle then caned -Tommy Traddles for being discovered in tears, instead of cheers, on account of -Mr. Mell’s departure; and went back to his sofa, or his bed, or wherever -he had come from. -</p> - -<p> -We were left to ourselves now, and looked very blank, I recollect, on one -another. For myself, I felt so much self-reproach and contrition for my part in -what had happened, that nothing would have enabled me to keep back my tears but -the fear that Steerforth, who often looked at me, I saw, might think it -unfriendly—or, I should rather say, considering our relative ages, and -the feeling with which I regarded him, undutiful—if I showed the emotion -which distressed me. He was very angry with Traddles, and said he was glad he -had caught it. -</p> - -<p> -Poor Traddles, who had passed the stage of lying with his head upon the desk, -and was relieving himself as usual with a burst of skeletons, said he -didn’t care. Mr. Mell was ill-used. -</p> - -<p> -‘Who has ill-used him, you girl?’ said Steerforth. -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, you have,’ returned Traddles. -</p> - -<p> -‘What have I done?’ said Steerforth. -</p> - -<p> -‘What have you done?’ retorted Traddles. ‘Hurt his feelings, -and lost him his situation.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘His feelings?’ repeated Steerforth disdainfully. ‘His -feelings will soon get the better of it, I’ll be bound. His feelings are -not like yours, Miss Traddles. As to his situation—which was a precious -one, wasn’t it?—do you suppose I am not going to write home, and -take care that he gets some money? Polly?’ -</p> - -<p> -We thought this intention very noble in Steerforth, whose mother was a widow, -and rich, and would do almost anything, it was said, that he asked her. We were -all extremely glad to see Traddles so put down, and exalted Steerforth to the -skies: especially when he told us, as he condescended to do, that what he had -done had been done expressly for us, and for our cause; and that he had -conferred a great boon upon us by unselfishly doing it. But I must say that -when I was going on with a story in the dark that night, Mr. Mell’s old -flute seemed more than once to sound mournfully in my ears; and that when at -last Steerforth was tired, and I lay down in my bed, I fancied it playing so -sorrowfully somewhere, that I was quite wretched. -</p> - -<p> -I soon forgot him in the contemplation of Steerforth, who, in an easy amateur -way, and without any book (he seemed to me to know everything by heart), took -some of his classes until a new master was found. The new master came from a -grammar school; and before he entered on his duties, dined in the parlour one -day, to be introduced to Steerforth. Steerforth approved of him highly, and -told us he was a Brick. Without exactly understanding what learned distinction -was meant by this, I respected him greatly for it, and had no doubt whatever of -his superior knowledge: though he never took the pains with me—not that I -was anybody—that Mr. Mell had taken. -</p> - -<p> -There was only one other event in this half-year, out of the daily school-life, -that made an impression upon me which still survives. It survives for many -reasons. -</p> - -<p> -One afternoon, when we were all harassed into a state of dire confusion, and -Mr. Creakle was laying about him dreadfully, Tungay came in, and called out in -his usual strong way: ‘Visitors for Copperfield!’ -</p> - -<p> -A few words were interchanged between him and Mr. Creakle, as, who the visitors -were, and what room they were to be shown into; and then I, who had, according -to custom, stood up on the announcement being made, and felt quite faint with -astonishment, was told to go by the back stairs and get a clean frill on, -before I repaired to the dining-room. These orders I obeyed, in such a flutter -and hurry of my young spirits as I had never known before; and when I got to -the parlour door, and the thought came into my head that it might be my -mother—I had only thought of Mr. or Miss Murdstone until then—I -drew back my hand from the lock, and stopped to have a sob before I went in. -</p> - -<p> -At first I saw nobody; but feeling a pressure against the door, I looked round -it, and there, to my amazement, were Mr. Peggotty and Ham, ducking at me with -their hats, and squeezing one another against the wall. I could not help -laughing; but it was much more in the pleasure of seeing them, than at the -appearance they made. We shook hands in a very cordial way; and I laughed and -laughed, until I pulled out my pocket-handkerchief and wiped my eyes. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Peggotty (who never shut his mouth once, I remember, during the visit) -showed great concern when he saw me do this, and nudged Ham to say something. -</p> - -<p> -‘Cheer up, Mas’r Davy bor’!’ said Ham, in his simpering -way. ‘Why, how you have growed!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Am I grown?’ I said, drying my eyes. I was not crying at anything -in particular that I know of; but somehow it made me cry, to see old friends. -</p> - -<p> -‘Growed, Mas’r Davy bor’? Ain’t he growed!’ said -Ham. -</p> - -<p> -‘Ain’t he growed!’ said Mr. Peggotty. -</p> - -<p> -They made me laugh again by laughing at each other, and then we all three -laughed until I was in danger of crying again. -</p> - -<p> -‘Do you know how mama is, Mr. Peggotty?’ I said. ‘And how my -dear, dear, old Peggotty is?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oncommon,’ said Mr. Peggotty. -</p> - -<p> -‘And little Em’ly, and Mrs. Gummidge?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘On—common,’ said Mr. Peggotty. -</p> - -<p> -There was a silence. Mr. Peggotty, to relieve it, took two prodigious lobsters, -and an enormous crab, and a large canvas bag of shrimps, out of his pockets, -and piled them up in Ham’s arms. -</p> - -<p> -‘You see,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘knowing as you was partial to -a little relish with your wittles when you was along with us, we took the -liberty. The old Mawther biled ‘em, she did. Mrs. Gummidge biled -‘em. Yes,’ said Mr. Peggotty, slowly, who I thought appeared to -stick to the subject on account of having no other subject ready, ‘Mrs. -Gummidge, I do assure you, she biled ‘em.’ -</p> - -<p> -I expressed my thanks; and Mr. Peggotty, after looking at Ham, who stood -smiling sheepishly over the shellfish, without making any attempt to help him, -said: -</p> - -<p> -‘We come, you see, the wind and tide making in our favour, in one of our -Yarmouth lugs to Gravesen’. My sister she wrote to me the name of this -here place, and wrote to me as if ever I chanced to come to Gravesen’, I -was to come over and inquire for Mas’r Davy and give her dooty, humbly -wishing him well and reporting of the fam’ly as they was oncommon -toe-be-sure. Little Em’ly, you see, she’ll write to my sister when -I go back, as I see you and as you was similarly oncommon, and so we make it -quite a merry-go-rounder.’ -</p> - -<p> -I was obliged to consider a little before I understood what Mr. Peggotty meant -by this figure, expressive of a complete circle of intelligence. I then thanked -him heartily; and said, with a consciousness of reddening, that I supposed -little Em’ly was altered too, since we used to pick up shells and pebbles -on the beach? -</p> - -<p> -‘She’s getting to be a woman, that’s wot she’s getting -to be,’ said Mr. Peggotty. ‘Ask HIM.’ He meant Ham, who -beamed with delight and assent over the bag of shrimps. -</p> - -<p> -‘Her pretty face!’ said Mr. Peggotty, with his own shining like a -light. -</p> - -<p> -‘Her learning!’ said Ham. -</p> - -<p> -‘Her writing!’ said Mr. Peggotty. ‘Why it’s as black as -jet! And so large it is, you might see it anywheres.’ -</p> - -<p> -It was perfectly delightful to behold with what enthusiasm Mr. Peggotty became -inspired when he thought of his little favourite. He stands before me again, -his bluff hairy face irradiating with a joyful love and pride, for which I can -find no description. His honest eyes fire up, and sparkle, as if their depths -were stirred by something bright. His broad chest heaves with pleasure. His -strong loose hands clench themselves, in his earnestness; and he emphasizes -what he says with a right arm that shows, in my pigmy view, like a -sledge-hammer. -</p> - -<p> -Ham was quite as earnest as he. I dare say they would have said much more about -her, if they had not been abashed by the unexpected coming in of Steerforth, -who, seeing me in a corner speaking with two strangers, stopped in a song he -was singing, and said: ‘I didn’t know you were here, young -Copperfield!’ (for it was not the usual visiting room) and crossed by us -on his way out. -</p> - -<p> -I am not sure whether it was in the pride of having such a friend as -Steerforth, or in the desire to explain to him how I came to have such a friend -as Mr. Peggotty, that I called to him as he was going away. But I said, -modestly—Good Heaven, how it all comes back to me this long time -afterwards—! -</p> - -<p> -‘Don’t go, Steerforth, if you please. These are two Yarmouth -boatmen—very kind, good people—who are relations of my nurse, and -have come from Gravesend to see me.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Aye, aye?’ said Steerforth, returning. ‘I am glad to see -them. How are you both?’ -</p> - -<p> -There was an ease in his manner—a gay and light manner it was, but not -swaggering—which I still believe to have borne a kind of enchantment with -it. I still believe him, in virtue of this carriage, his animal spirits, his -delightful voice, his handsome face and figure, and, for aught I know, of some -inborn power of attraction besides (which I think a few people possess), to -have carried a spell with him to which it was a natural weakness to yield, and -which not many persons could withstand. I could not but see how pleased they -were with him, and how they seemed to open their hearts to him in a moment. -</p> - -<p> -‘You must let them know at home, if you please, Mr. Peggotty,’ I -said, ‘when that letter is sent, that Mr. Steerforth is very kind to me, -and that I don’t know what I should ever do here without him.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Nonsense!’ said Steerforth, laughing. ‘You mustn’t -tell them anything of the sort.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And if Mr. Steerforth ever comes into Norfolk or Suffolk, Mr. -Peggotty,’ I said, ‘while I am there, you may depend upon it I -shall bring him to Yarmouth, if he will let me, to see your house. You never -saw such a good house, Steerforth. It’s made out of a boat!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Made out of a boat, is it?’ said Steerforth. ‘It’s the -right sort of a house for such a thorough-built boatman.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘So ‘tis, sir, so ‘tis, sir,’ said Ham, grinning. -‘You’re right, young gen’l’m’n! Mas’r Davy -bor’, gen’l’m’n’s right. A thorough-built -boatman! Hor, hor! That’s what he is, too!’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Peggotty was no less pleased than his nephew, though his modesty forbade -him to claim a personal compliment so vociferously. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, sir,’ he said, bowing and chuckling, and tucking in the ends -of his neckerchief at his breast: ‘I thankee, sir, I thankee! I do my -endeavours in my line of life, sir.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘The best of men can do no more, Mr. Peggotty,’ said Steerforth. He -had got his name already. -</p> - -<p> -‘I’ll pound it, it’s wot you do yourself, sir,’ said -Mr. Peggotty, shaking his head, ‘and wot you do well—right well! I -thankee, sir. I’m obleeged to you, sir, for your welcoming manner of me. -I’m rough, sir, but I’m ready—least ways, I hope I’m -ready, you unnerstand. My house ain’t much for to see, sir, but -it’s hearty at your service if ever you should come along with -Mas’r Davy to see it. I’m a reg’lar Dodman, I am,’ said -Mr. Peggotty, by which he meant snail, and this was in allusion to his being -slow to go, for he had attempted to go after every sentence, and had somehow or -other come back again; ‘but I wish you both well, and I wish you -happy!’ -</p> - -<p> -Ham echoed this sentiment, and we parted with them in the heartiest manner. I -was almost tempted that evening to tell Steerforth about pretty little -Em’ly, but I was too timid of mentioning her name, and too much afraid of -his laughing at me. I remember that I thought a good deal, and in an uneasy -sort of way, about Mr. Peggotty having said that she was getting on to be a -woman; but I decided that was nonsense. -</p> - -<p> -We transported the shellfish, or the ‘relish’ as Mr. Peggotty had -modestly called it, up into our room unobserved, and made a great supper that -evening. But Traddles couldn’t get happily out of it. He was too -unfortunate even to come through a supper like anybody else. He was taken ill -in the night—quite prostrate he was—in consequence of Crab; and -after being drugged with black draughts and blue pills, to an extent which -Demple (whose father was a doctor) said was enough to undermine a horse’s -constitution, received a caning and six chapters of Greek Testament for -refusing to confess. -</p> - -<p> -The rest of the half-year is a jumble in my recollection of the daily strife -and struggle of our lives; of the waning summer and the changing season; of the -frosty mornings when we were rung out of bed, and the cold, cold smell of the -dark nights when we were rung into bed again; of the evening schoolroom dimly -lighted and indifferently warmed, and the morning schoolroom which was nothing -but a great shivering-machine; of the alternation of boiled beef with roast -beef, and boiled mutton with roast mutton; of clods of bread-and-butter, -dog’s-eared lesson-books, cracked slates, tear-blotted copy-books, -canings, rulerings, hair-cuttings, rainy Sundays, suet-puddings, and a dirty -atmosphere of ink, surrounding all. -</p> - -<p> -I well remember though, how the distant idea of the holidays, after seeming for -an immense time to be a stationary speck, began to come towards us, and to grow -and grow. How from counting months, we came to weeks, and then to days; and how -I then began to be afraid that I should not be sent for and when I learnt from -Steerforth that I had been sent for, and was certainly to go home, had dim -forebodings that I might break my leg first. How the breaking-up day changed -its place fast, at last, from the week after next to next week, this week, the -day after tomorrow, tomorrow, today, tonight—when I was inside the -Yarmouth mail, and going home. -</p> - -<p> -I had many a broken sleep inside the Yarmouth mail, and many an incoherent -dream of all these things. But when I awoke at intervals, the ground outside -the window was not the playground of Salem House, and the sound in my ears was -not the sound of Mr. Creakle giving it to Traddles, but the sound of the -coachman touching up the horses. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0008"></a>CHAPTER 8. MY HOLIDAYS. ESPECIALLY ONE HAPPY -AFTERNOON</h2> - -<p> -When we arrived before day at the inn where the mail stopped, which was not the -inn where my friend the waiter lived, I was shown up to a nice little bedroom, -with DOLPHIN painted on the door. Very cold I was, I know, notwithstanding the -hot tea they had given me before a large fire downstairs; and very glad I was -to turn into the Dolphin’s bed, pull the Dolphin’s blankets round -my head, and go to sleep. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Barkis the carrier was to call for me in the morning at nine o’clock. -I got up at eight, a little giddy from the shortness of my night’s rest, -and was ready for him before the appointed time. He received me exactly as if -not five minutes had elapsed since we were last together, and I had only been -into the hotel to get change for sixpence, or something of that sort. -</p> - -<p> -As soon as I and my box were in the cart, and the carrier seated, the lazy -horse walked away with us all at his accustomed pace. -</p> - -<p> -‘You look very well, Mr. Barkis,’ I said, thinking he would like to -know it. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Barkis rubbed his cheek with his cuff, and then looked at his cuff as if he -expected to find some of the bloom upon it; but made no other acknowledgement -of the compliment. -</p> - -<p> -‘I gave your message, Mr. Barkis,’ I said: ‘I wrote to -Peggotty.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Ah!’ said Mr. Barkis. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Barkis seemed gruff, and answered drily. -</p> - -<p> -‘Wasn’t it right, Mr. Barkis?’ I asked, after a little -hesitation. -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, no,’ said Mr. Barkis. -</p> - -<p> -‘Not the message?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘The message was right enough, perhaps,’ said Mr. Barkis; -‘but it come to an end there.’ -</p> - -<p> -Not understanding what he meant, I repeated inquisitively: ‘Came to an -end, Mr. Barkis?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Nothing come of it,’ he explained, looking at me sideways. -‘No answer.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘There was an answer expected, was there, Mr. Barkis?’ said I, -opening my eyes. For this was a new light to me. -</p> - -<p> -‘When a man says he’s willin’,’ said Mr. Barkis, -turning his glance slowly on me again, ‘it’s as much as to say, -that man’s a-waitin’ for a answer.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, Mr. Barkis?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Well,’ said Mr. Barkis, carrying his eyes back to his -horse’s ears; ‘that man’s been a-waitin’ for a answer -ever since.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Have you told her so, Mr. Barkis?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No—no,’ growled Mr. Barkis, reflecting about it. ‘I -ain’t got no call to go and tell her so. I never said six words to her -myself, I ain’t a-goin’ to tell her so.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Would you like me to do it, Mr. Barkis?’ said I, doubtfully. -‘You might tell her, if you would,’ said Mr. Barkis, with another -slow look at me, ‘that Barkis was a-waitin’ for a answer. Says -you—what name is it?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Her name?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Ah!’ said Mr. Barkis, with a nod of his head. -</p> - -<p> -‘Peggotty.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Chrisen name? Or nat’ral name?’ said Mr. Barkis. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, it’s not her Christian name. Her Christian name is -Clara.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Is it though?’ said Mr. Barkis. -</p> - -<p> -He seemed to find an immense fund of reflection in this circumstance, and sat -pondering and inwardly whistling for some time. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well!’ he resumed at length. ‘Says you, “Peggotty! -Barkis is waitin’ for a answer.” Says she, perhaps, “Answer -to what?” Says you, “To what I told you.” “What is -that?” says she. “Barkis is willin’,” says you.’ -</p> - -<p> -This extremely artful suggestion Mr. Barkis accompanied with a nudge of his -elbow that gave me quite a stitch in my side. After that, he slouched over his -horse in his usual manner; and made no other reference to the subject except, -half an hour afterwards, taking a piece of chalk from his pocket, and writing -up, inside the tilt of the cart, ‘Clara Peggotty’—apparently -as a private memorandum. -</p> - -<p> -Ah, what a strange feeling it was to be going home when it was not home, and to -find that every object I looked at, reminded me of the happy old home, which -was like a dream I could never dream again! The days when my mother and I and -Peggotty were all in all to one another, and there was no one to come between -us, rose up before me so sorrowfully on the road, that I am not sure I was glad -to be there—not sure but that I would rather have remained away, and -forgotten it in Steerforth’s company. But there I was; and soon I was at -our house, where the bare old elm-trees wrung their many hands in the bleak -wintry air, and shreds of the old rooks’-nests drifted away upon the -wind. -</p> - -<p> -The carrier put my box down at the garden-gate, and left me. I walked along the -path towards the house, glancing at the windows, and fearing at every step to -see Mr. Murdstone or Miss Murdstone lowering out of one of them. No face -appeared, however; and being come to the house, and knowing how to open the -door, before dark, without knocking, I went in with a quiet, timid step. -</p> - -<p> -God knows how infantine the memory may have been, that was awakened within me -by the sound of my mother’s voice in the old parlour, when I set foot in -the hall. She was singing in a low tone. I think I must have lain in her arms, -and heard her singing so to me when I was but a baby. The strain was new to me, -and yet it was so old that it filled my heart brim-full; like a friend come -back from a long absence. -</p> - -<p> -I believed, from the solitary and thoughtful way in which my mother murmured -her song, that she was alone. And I went softly into the room. She was sitting -by the fire, suckling an infant, whose tiny hand she held against her neck. Her -eyes were looking down upon its face, and she sat singing to it. I was so far -right, that she had no other companion. -</p> - -<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> -<img src="images/0151.jpg" alt="0151 " width="100%" /> -</div> - -<h5> -<a href="images/0151.jpg"> -<img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /></a> -</h5> - -<p> -I spoke to her, and she started, and cried out. But seeing me, she called me -her dear Davy, her own boy! and coming half across the room to meet me, kneeled -down upon the ground and kissed me, and laid my head down on her bosom near the -little creature that was nestling there, and put its hand to my lips. -</p> - -<p> -I wish I had died. I wish I had died then, with that feeling in my heart! I -should have been more fit for Heaven than I ever have been since. -</p> - -<p> -‘He is your brother,’ said my mother, fondling me. ‘Davy, my -pretty boy! My poor child!’ Then she kissed me more and more, and clasped -me round the neck. This she was doing when Peggotty came running in, and -bounced down on the ground beside us, and went mad about us both for a quarter -of an hour. -</p> - -<p> -It seemed that I had not been expected so soon, the carrier being much before -his usual time. It seemed, too, that Mr. and Miss Murdstone had gone out upon a -visit in the neighbourhood, and would not return before night. I had never -hoped for this. I had never thought it possible that we three could be together -undisturbed, once more; and I felt, for the time, as if the old days were come -back. -</p> - -<p> -We dined together by the fireside. Peggotty was in attendance to wait upon us, -but my mother wouldn’t let her do it, and made her dine with us. I had my -own old plate, with a brown view of a man-of-war in full sail upon it, which -Peggotty had hoarded somewhere all the time I had been away, and would not have -had broken, she said, for a hundred pounds. I had my own old mug with David on -it, and my own old little knife and fork that wouldn’t cut. -</p> - -<p> -While we were at table, I thought it a favourable occasion to tell Peggotty -about Mr. Barkis, who, before I had finished what I had to tell her, began to -laugh, and throw her apron over her face. -</p> - -<p> -‘Peggotty,’ said my mother. ‘What’s the matter?’ -</p> - -<p> -Peggotty only laughed the more, and held her apron tight over her face when my -mother tried to pull it away, and sat as if her head were in a bag. -</p> - -<p> -‘What are you doing, you stupid creature?’ said my mother, -laughing. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, drat the man!’ cried Peggotty. ‘He wants to marry -me.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘It would be a very good match for you; wouldn’t it?’ said my -mother. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh! I don’t know,’ said Peggotty. ‘Don’t ask me. -I wouldn’t have him if he was made of gold. Nor I wouldn’t have -anybody.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Then, why don’t you tell him so, you ridiculous thing?’ said -my mother. -</p> - -<p> -‘Tell him so,’ retorted Peggotty, looking out of her apron. -‘He has never said a word to me about it. He knows better. If he was to -make so bold as say a word to me, I should slap his face.’ -</p> - -<p> -Her own was as red as ever I saw it, or any other face, I think; but she only -covered it again, for a few moments at a time, when she was taken with a -violent fit of laughter; and after two or three of those attacks, went on with -her dinner. -</p> - -<p> -I remarked that my mother, though she smiled when Peggotty looked at her, -became more serious and thoughtful. I had seen at first that she was changed. -Her face was very pretty still, but it looked careworn, and too delicate; and -her hand was so thin and white that it seemed to me to be almost transparent. -But the change to which I now refer was superadded to this: it was in her -manner, which became anxious and fluttered. At last she said, putting out her -hand, and laying it affectionately on the hand of her old servant, -</p> - -<p> -‘Peggotty, dear, you are not going to be married?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Me, ma’am?’ returned Peggotty, staring. ‘Lord bless -you, no!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Not just yet?’ said my mother, tenderly. -</p> - -<p> -‘Never!’ cried Peggotty. -</p> - -<p> -My mother took her hand, and said: -</p> - -<p> -‘Don’t leave me, Peggotty. Stay with me. It will not be for long, -perhaps. What should I ever do without you!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Me leave you, my precious!’ cried Peggotty. ‘Not for all the -world and his wife. Why, what’s put that in your silly little -head?’—For Peggotty had been used of old to talk to my mother -sometimes like a child. -</p> - -<p> -But my mother made no answer, except to thank her, and Peggotty went running on -in her own fashion. -</p> - -<p> -‘Me leave you? I think I see myself. Peggotty go away from you? I should -like to catch her at it! No, no, no,’ said Peggotty, shaking her head, -and folding her arms; ‘not she, my dear. It isn’t that there -ain’t some Cats that would be well enough pleased if she did, but they -sha’n’t be pleased. They shall be aggravated. I’ll stay with -you till I am a cross cranky old woman. And when I’m too deaf, and too -lame, and too blind, and too mumbly for want of teeth, to be of any use at all, -even to be found fault with, than I shall go to my Davy, and ask him to take me -in.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And, Peggotty,’ says I, ‘I shall be glad to see you, and -I’ll make you as welcome as a queen.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Bless your dear heart!’ cried Peggotty. ‘I know you -will!’ And she kissed me beforehand, in grateful acknowledgement of my -hospitality. After that, she covered her head up with her apron again and had -another laugh about Mr. Barkis. After that, she took the baby out of its little -cradle, and nursed it. After that, she cleared the dinner table; after that, -came in with another cap on, and her work-box, and the yard-measure, and the -bit of wax-candle, all just the same as ever. -</p> - -<p> -We sat round the fire, and talked delightfully. I told them what a hard master -Mr. Creakle was, and they pitied me very much. I told them what a fine fellow -Steerforth was, and what a patron of mine, and Peggotty said she would walk a -score of miles to see him. I took the little baby in my arms when it was awake, -and nursed it lovingly. When it was asleep again, I crept close to my -mother’s side according to my old custom, broken now a long time, and sat -with my arms embracing her waist, and my little red cheek on her shoulder, and -once more felt her beautiful hair drooping over me—like an angel’s -wing as I used to think, I recollect—and was very happy indeed. -</p> - -<p> -While I sat thus, looking at the fire, and seeing pictures in the red-hot -coals, I almost believed that I had never been away; that Mr. and Miss -Murdstone were such pictures, and would vanish when the fire got low; and that -there was nothing real in all that I remembered, save my mother, Peggotty, and -I. -</p> - -<p> -Peggotty darned away at a stocking as long as she could see, and then sat with -it drawn on her left hand like a glove, and her needle in her right, ready to -take another stitch whenever there was a blaze. I cannot conceive whose -stockings they can have been that Peggotty was always darning, or where such an -unfailing supply of stockings in want of darning can have come from. From my -earliest infancy she seems to have been always employed in that class of -needlework, and never by any chance in any other. -</p> - -<p> -‘I wonder,’ said Peggotty, who was sometimes seized with a fit of -wondering on some most unexpected topic, ‘what’s become of -Davy’s great-aunt?’ ‘Lor, Peggotty!’ observed my -mother, rousing herself from a reverie, ‘what nonsense you talk!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, but I really do wonder, ma’am,’ said Peggotty. -</p> - -<p> -‘What can have put such a person in your head?’ inquired my mother. -‘Is there nobody else in the world to come there?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I don’t know how it is,’ said Peggotty, ‘unless -it’s on account of being stupid, but my head never can pick and choose -its people. They come and they go, and they don’t come and they -don’t go, just as they like. I wonder what’s become of her?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘How absurd you are, Peggotty!’ returned my mother. ‘One -would suppose you wanted a second visit from her.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Lord forbid!’ cried Peggotty. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well then, don’t talk about such uncomfortable things, -there’s a good soul,’ said my mother. ‘Miss Betsey is shut up -in her cottage by the sea, no doubt, and will remain there. At all events, she -is not likely ever to trouble us again.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No!’ mused Peggotty. ‘No, that ain’t likely at -all.—-I wonder, if she was to die, whether she’d leave Davy -anything?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Good gracious me, Peggotty,’ returned my mother, ‘what a -nonsensical woman you are! when you know that she took offence at the poor dear -boy’s ever being born at all.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I suppose she wouldn’t be inclined to forgive him now,’ -hinted Peggotty. -</p> - -<p> -‘Why should she be inclined to forgive him now?’ said my mother, -rather sharply. -</p> - -<p> -‘Now that he’s got a brother, I mean,’ said Peggotty. -</p> - -<p> -My mother immediately began to cry, and wondered how Peggotty dared to say such -a thing. -</p> - -<p> -‘As if this poor little innocent in its cradle had ever done any harm to -you or anybody else, you jealous thing!’ said she. ‘You had much -better go and marry Mr. Barkis, the carrier. Why don’t you?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I should make Miss Murdstone happy, if I was to,’ said Peggotty. -</p> - -<p> -‘What a bad disposition you have, Peggotty!’ returned my mother. -‘You are as jealous of Miss Murdstone as it is possible for a ridiculous -creature to be. You want to keep the keys yourself, and give out all the -things, I suppose? I shouldn’t be surprised if you did. When you know -that she only does it out of kindness and the best intentions! You know she -does, Peggotty—you know it well.’ -</p> - -<p> -Peggotty muttered something to the effect of ‘Bother the best -intentions!’ and something else to the effect that there was a little too -much of the best intentions going on. -</p> - -<p> -‘I know what you mean, you cross thing,’ said my mother. ‘I -understand you, Peggotty, perfectly. You know I do, and I wonder you -don’t colour up like fire. But one point at a time. Miss Murdstone is the -point now, Peggotty, and you sha’n’t escape from it. Haven’t -you heard her say, over and over again, that she thinks I am too thoughtless -and too—a—a—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Pretty,’ suggested Peggotty. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well,’ returned my mother, half laughing, ‘and if she is so -silly as to say so, can I be blamed for it?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No one says you can,’ said Peggotty. -</p> - -<p> -‘No, I should hope not, indeed!’ returned my mother. -‘Haven’t you heard her say, over and over again, that on this -account she wished to spare me a great deal of trouble, which she thinks I am -not suited for, and which I really don’t know myself that I AM suited -for; and isn’t she up early and late, and going to and fro -continually—and doesn’t she do all sorts of things, and grope into -all sorts of places, coal-holes and pantries and I don’t know where, that -can’t be very agreeable—and do you mean to insinuate that there is -not a sort of devotion in that?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I don’t insinuate at all,’ said Peggotty. -</p> - -<p> -‘You do, Peggotty,’ returned my mother. ‘You never do -anything else, except your work. You are always insinuating. You revel in it. -And when you talk of Mr. Murdstone’s good intentions—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I never talked of ‘em,’ said Peggotty. -</p> - -<p> -‘No, Peggotty,’ returned my mother, ‘but you insinuated. -That’s what I told you just now. That’s the worst of you. You WILL -insinuate. I said, at the moment, that I understood you, and you see I did. -When you talk of Mr. Murdstone’s good intentions, and pretend to slight -them (for I don’t believe you really do, in your heart, Peggotty), you -must be as well convinced as I am how good they are, and how they actuate him -in everything. If he seems to have been at all stern with a certain person, -Peggotty—you understand, and so I am sure does Davy, that I am not -alluding to anybody present—it is solely because he is satisfied that it -is for a certain person’s benefit. He naturally loves a certain person, -on my account; and acts solely for a certain person’s good. He is better -able to judge of it than I am; for I very well know that I am a weak, light, -girlish creature, and that he is a firm, grave, serious man. And he -takes,’ said my mother, with the tears which were engendered in her -affectionate nature, stealing down her face, ‘he takes great pains with -me; and I ought to be very thankful to him, and very submissive to him even in -my thoughts; and when I am not, Peggotty, I worry and condemn myself, and feel -doubtful of my own heart, and don’t know what to do.’ -</p> - -<p> -Peggotty sat with her chin on the foot of the stocking, looking silently at the -fire. -</p> - -<p> -‘There, Peggotty,’ said my mother, changing her tone, -‘don’t let us fall out with one another, for I couldn’t bear -it. You are my true friend, I know, if I have any in the world. When I call you -a ridiculous creature, or a vexatious thing, or anything of that sort, -Peggotty, I only mean that you are my true friend, and always have been, ever -since the night when Mr. Copperfield first brought me home here, and you came -out to the gate to meet me.’ -</p> - -<p> -Peggotty was not slow to respond, and ratify the treaty of friendship by giving -me one of her best hugs. I think I had some glimpses of the real character of -this conversation at the time; but I am sure, now, that the good creature -originated it, and took her part in it, merely that my mother might comfort -herself with the little contradictory summary in which she had indulged. The -design was efficacious; for I remember that my mother seemed more at ease -during the rest of the evening, and that Peggotty observed her less. -</p> - -<p> -When we had had our tea, and the ashes were thrown up, and the candles snuffed, -I read Peggotty a chapter out of the Crocodile Book, in remembrance of old -times—she took it out of her pocket: I don’t know whether she had -kept it there ever since—and then we talked about Salem House, which -brought me round again to Steerforth, who was my great subject. We were very -happy; and that evening, as the last of its race, and destined evermore to -close that volume of my life, will never pass out of my memory. -</p> - -<p> -It was almost ten o’clock before we heard the sound of wheels. We all got -up then; and my mother said hurriedly that, as it was so late, and Mr. and Miss -Murdstone approved of early hours for young people, perhaps I had better go to -bed. I kissed her, and went upstairs with my candle directly, before they came -in. It appeared to my childish fancy, as I ascended to the bedroom where I had -been imprisoned, that they brought a cold blast of air into the house which -blew away the old familiar feeling like a feather. -</p> - -<p> -I felt uncomfortable about going down to breakfast in the morning, as I had -never set eyes on Mr. Murdstone since the day when I committed my memorable -offence. However, as it must be done, I went down, after two or three false -starts half-way, and as many runs back on tiptoe to my own room, and presented -myself in the parlour. -</p> - -<p> -He was standing before the fire with his back to it, while Miss Murdstone made -the tea. He looked at me steadily as I entered, but made no sign of recognition -whatever. I went up to him, after a moment of confusion, and said: ‘I beg -your pardon, sir. I am very sorry for what I did, and I hope you will forgive -me.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I am glad to hear you are sorry, David,’ he replied. -</p> - -<p> -The hand he gave me was the hand I had bitten. I could not restrain my eye from -resting for an instant on a red spot upon it; but it was not so red as I -turned, when I met that sinister expression in his face. -</p> - -<p> -‘How do you do, ma’am?’ I said to Miss Murdstone. -</p> - -<p> -‘Ah, dear me!’ sighed Miss Murdstone, giving me the tea-caddy scoop -instead of her fingers. ‘How long are the holidays?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘A month, ma’am.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Counting from when?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘From today, ma’am.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh!’ said Miss Murdstone. ‘Then here’s one day -off.’ -</p> - -<p> -She kept a calendar of the holidays in this way, and every morning checked a -day off in exactly the same manner. She did it gloomily until she came to ten, -but when she got into two figures she became more hopeful, and, as the time -advanced, even jocular. -</p> - -<p> -It was on this very first day that I had the misfortune to throw her, though -she was not subject to such weakness in general, into a state of violent -consternation. I came into the room where she and my mother were sitting; and -the baby (who was only a few weeks old) being on my mother’s lap, I took -it very carefully in my arms. Suddenly Miss Murdstone gave such a scream that I -all but dropped it. -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear Jane!’ cried my mother. -</p> - -<p> -‘Good heavens, Clara, do you see?’ exclaimed Miss Murdstone. -</p> - -<p> -‘See what, my dear Jane?’ said my mother; ‘where?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘He’s got it!’ cried Miss Murdstone. ‘The boy has got -the baby!’ -</p> - -<p> -She was limp with horror; but stiffened herself to make a dart at me, and take -it out of my arms. Then, she turned faint; and was so very ill that they were -obliged to give her cherry brandy. I was solemnly interdicted by her, on her -recovery, from touching my brother any more on any pretence whatever; and my -poor mother, who, I could see, wished otherwise, meekly confirmed the -interdict, by saying: ‘No doubt you are right, my dear Jane.’ -</p> - -<p> -On another occasion, when we three were together, this same dear baby—it -was truly dear to me, for our mother’s sake—was the innocent -occasion of Miss Murdstone’s going into a passion. My mother, who had -been looking at its eyes as it lay upon her lap, said: -</p> - -<p> -‘Davy! come here!’ and looked at mine. -</p> - -<p> -I saw Miss Murdstone lay her beads down. -</p> - -<p> -‘I declare,’ said my mother, gently, ‘they are exactly alike. -I suppose they are mine. I think they are the colour of mine. But they are -wonderfully alike.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘What are you talking about, Clara?’ said Miss Murdstone. -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear Jane,’ faltered my mother, a little abashed by the harsh -tone of this inquiry, ‘I find that the baby’s eyes and Davy’s -are exactly alike.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Clara!’ said Miss Murdstone, rising angrily, ‘you are a -positive fool sometimes.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear Jane,’ remonstrated my mother. -</p> - -<p> -‘A positive fool,’ said Miss Murdstone. ‘Who else could -compare my brother’s baby with your boy? They are not at all alike. They -are exactly unlike. They are utterly dissimilar in all respects. I hope they -will ever remain so. I will not sit here, and hear such comparisons -made.’ With that she stalked out, and made the door bang after her. -</p> - -<p> -In short, I was not a favourite with Miss Murdstone. In short, I was not a -favourite there with anybody, not even with myself; for those who did like me -could not show it, and those who did not, showed it so plainly that I had a -sensitive consciousness of always appearing constrained, boorish, and dull. -</p> - -<p> -I felt that I made them as uncomfortable as they made me. If I came into the -room where they were, and they were talking together and my mother seemed -cheerful, an anxious cloud would steal over her face from the moment of my -entrance. If Mr. Murdstone were in his best humour, I checked him. If Miss -Murdstone were in her worst, I intensified it. I had perception enough to know -that my mother was the victim always; that she was afraid to speak to me or to -be kind to me, lest she should give them some offence by her manner of doing -so, and receive a lecture afterwards; that she was not only ceaselessly afraid -of her own offending, but of my offending, and uneasily watched their looks if -I only moved. Therefore I resolved to keep myself as much out of their way as I -could; and many a wintry hour did I hear the church clock strike, when I was -sitting in my cheerless bedroom, wrapped in my little great-coat, poring over a -book. -</p> - -<p> -In the evening, sometimes, I went and sat with Peggotty in the kitchen. There I -was comfortable, and not afraid of being myself. But neither of these resources -was approved of in the parlour. The tormenting humour which was dominant there -stopped them both. I was still held to be necessary to my poor mother’s -training, and, as one of her trials, could not be suffered to absent myself. -</p> - -<p> -‘David,’ said Mr. Murdstone, one day after dinner when I was going -to leave the room as usual; ‘I am sorry to observe that you are of a -sullen disposition.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘As sulky as a bear!’ said Miss Murdstone. -</p> - -<p> -I stood still, and hung my head. -</p> - -<p> -‘Now, David,’ said Mr. Murdstone, ‘a sullen obdurate -disposition is, of all tempers, the worst.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And the boy’s is, of all such dispositions that ever I have -seen,’ remarked his sister, ‘the most confirmed and stubborn. I -think, my dear Clara, even you must observe it?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I beg your pardon, my dear Jane,’ said my mother, ‘but are -you quite sure—I am certain you’ll excuse me, my dear -Jane—that you understand Davy?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I should be somewhat ashamed of myself, Clara,’ returned Miss -Murdstone, ‘if I could not understand the boy, or any boy. I don’t -profess to be profound; but I do lay claim to common sense.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No doubt, my dear Jane,’ returned my mother, ‘your -understanding is very vigorous—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh dear, no! Pray don’t say that, Clara,’ interposed Miss -Murdstone, angrily. -</p> - -<p> -‘But I am sure it is,’ resumed my mother; ‘and everybody -knows it is. I profit so much by it myself, in many ways—at least I ought -to—that no one can be more convinced of it than myself; and therefore I -speak with great diffidence, my dear Jane, I assure you.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘We’ll say I don’t understand the boy, Clara,’ returned -Miss Murdstone, arranging the little fetters on her wrists. ‘We’ll -agree, if you please, that I don’t understand him at all. He is much too -deep for me. But perhaps my brother’s penetration may enable him to have -some insight into his character. And I believe my brother was speaking on the -subject when we—not very decently—interrupted him.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I think, Clara,’ said Mr. Murdstone, in a low grave voice, -‘that there may be better and more dispassionate judges of such a -question than you.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Edward,’ replied my mother, timidly, ‘you are a far better -judge of all questions than I pretend to be. Both you and Jane are. I only -said—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You only said something weak and inconsiderate,’ he replied. -‘Try not to do it again, my dear Clara, and keep a watch upon -yourself.’ -</p> - -<p> -My mother’s lips moved, as if she answered ‘Yes, my dear -Edward,’ but she said nothing aloud. -</p> - -<p> -‘I was sorry, David, I remarked,’ said Mr. Murdstone, turning his -head and his eyes stiffly towards me, ‘to observe that you are of a -sullen disposition. This is not a character that I can suffer to develop itself -beneath my eyes without an effort at improvement. You must endeavour, sir, to -change it. We must endeavour to change it for you.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ I faltered. ‘I have never meant to -be sullen since I came back.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Don’t take refuge in a lie, sir!’ he returned so fiercely, -that I saw my mother involuntarily put out her trembling hand as if to -interpose between us. ‘You have withdrawn yourself in your sullenness to -your own room. You have kept your own room when you ought to have been here. -You know now, once for all, that I require you to be here, and not there. -Further, that I require you to bring obedience here. You know me, David. I will -have it done.’ -</p> - -<p> -Miss Murdstone gave a hoarse chuckle. -</p> - -<p> -‘I will have a respectful, prompt, and ready bearing towards -myself,’ he continued, ‘and towards Jane Murdstone, and towards -your mother. I will not have this room shunned as if it were infected, at the -pleasure of a child. Sit down.’ -</p> - -<p> -He ordered me like a dog, and I obeyed like a dog. -</p> - -<p> -‘One thing more,’ he said. ‘I observe that you have an -attachment to low and common company. You are not to associate with servants. -The kitchen will not improve you, in the many respects in which you need -improvement. Of the woman who abets you, I say nothing—since you, -Clara,’ addressing my mother in a lower voice, ‘from old -associations and long-established fancies, have a weakness respecting her which -is not yet overcome.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘A most unaccountable delusion it is!’ cried Miss Murdstone. -</p> - -<p> -‘I only say,’ he resumed, addressing me, ‘that I disapprove -of your preferring such company as Mistress Peggotty, and that it is to be -abandoned. Now, David, you understand me, and you know what will be the -consequence if you fail to obey me to the letter.’ -</p> - -<p> -I knew well—better perhaps than he thought, as far as my poor mother was -concerned—and I obeyed him to the letter. I retreated to my own room no -more; I took refuge with Peggotty no more; but sat wearily in the parlour day -after day, looking forward to night, and bedtime. -</p> - -<p> -What irksome constraint I underwent, sitting in the same attitude hours upon -hours, afraid to move an arm or a leg lest Miss Murdstone should complain (as -she did on the least pretence) of my restlessness, and afraid to move an eye -lest she should light on some look of dislike or scrutiny that would find new -cause for complaint in mine! What intolerable dulness to sit listening to the -ticking of the clock; and watching Miss Murdstone’s little shiny steel -beads as she strung them; and wondering whether she would ever be married, and -if so, to what sort of unhappy man; and counting the divisions in the moulding -of the chimney-piece; and wandering away, with my eyes, to the ceiling, among -the curls and corkscrews in the paper on the wall! -</p> - -<p> -What walks I took alone, down muddy lanes, in the bad winter weather, carrying -that parlour, and Mr. and Miss Murdstone in it, everywhere: a monstrous load -that I was obliged to bear, a daymare that there was no possibility of breaking -in, a weight that brooded on my wits, and blunted them! -</p> - -<p> -What meals I had in silence and embarrassment, always feeling that there were a -knife and fork too many, and that mine; an appetite too many, and that mine; a -plate and chair too many, and those mine; a somebody too many, and that I! -</p> - -<p> -What evenings, when the candles came, and I was expected to employ myself, but, -not daring to read an entertaining book, pored over some hard-headed, -harder-hearted treatise on arithmetic; when the tables of weights and measures -set themselves to tunes, as ‘Rule Britannia’, or ‘Away with -Melancholy’; when they wouldn’t stand still to be learnt, but would -go threading my grandmother’s needle through my unfortunate head, in at -one ear and out at the other! What yawns and dozes I lapsed into, in spite of -all my care; what starts I came out of concealed sleeps with; what answers I -never got, to little observations that I rarely made; what a blank space I -seemed, which everybody overlooked, and yet was in everybody’s way; what -a heavy relief it was to hear Miss Murdstone hail the first stroke of nine at -night, and order me to bed! -</p> - -<p> -Thus the holidays lagged away, until the morning came when Miss Murdstone said: -‘Here’s the last day off!’ and gave me the closing cup of tea -of the vacation. -</p> - -<p> -I was not sorry to go. I had lapsed into a stupid state; but I was recovering a -little and looking forward to Steerforth, albeit Mr. Creakle loomed behind him. -Again Mr. Barkis appeared at the gate, and again Miss Murdstone in her warning -voice, said: ‘Clara!’ when my mother bent over me, to bid me -farewell. -</p> - -<p> -I kissed her, and my baby brother, and was very sorry then; but not sorry to go -away, for the gulf between us was there, and the parting was there, every day. -And it is not so much the embrace she gave me, that lives in my mind, though it -was as fervent as could be, as what followed the embrace. -</p> - -<p> -I was in the carrier’s cart when I heard her calling to me. I looked out, -and she stood at the garden-gate alone, holding her baby up in her arms for me -to see. It was cold still weather; and not a hair of her head, nor a fold of -her dress, was stirred, as she looked intently at me, holding up her child. -</p> - -<p> -So I lost her. So I saw her afterwards, in my sleep at school—a silent -presence near my bed—looking at me with the same intent -face—holding up her baby in her arms. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0009"></a>CHAPTER 9. I HAVE A MEMORABLE BIRTHDAY</h2> - -<p> -I PASS over all that happened at school, until the anniversary of my birthday -came round in March. Except that Steerforth was more to be admired than ever, I -remember nothing. He was going away at the end of the half-year, if not sooner, -and was more spirited and independent than before in my eyes, and therefore -more engaging than before; but beyond this I remember nothing. The great -remembrance by which that time is marked in my mind, seems to have swallowed up -all lesser recollections, and to exist alone. -</p> - -<p> -It is even difficult for me to believe that there was a gap of full two months -between my return to Salem House and the arrival of that birthday. I can only -understand that the fact was so, because I know it must have been so; otherwise -I should feel convinced that there was no interval, and that the one occasion -trod upon the other’s heels. -</p> - -<p> -How well I recollect the kind of day it was! I smell the fog that hung about -the place; I see the hoar frost, ghostly, through it; I feel my rimy hair fall -clammy on my cheek; I look along the dim perspective of the schoolroom, with a -sputtering candle here and there to light up the foggy morning, and the breath -of the boys wreathing and smoking in the raw cold as they blow upon their -fingers, and tap their feet upon the floor. It was after breakfast, and we had -been summoned in from the playground, when Mr. Sharp entered and said: -</p> - -<p> -‘David Copperfield is to go into the parlour.’ -</p> - -<p> -I expected a hamper from Peggotty, and brightened at the order. Some of the -boys about me put in their claim not to be forgotten in the distribution of the -good things, as I got out of my seat with great alacrity. -</p> - -<p> -‘Don’t hurry, David,’ said Mr. Sharp. ‘There’s -time enough, my boy, don’t hurry.’ -</p> - -<p> -I might have been surprised by the feeling tone in which he spoke, if I had -given it a thought; but I gave it none until afterwards. I hurried away to the -parlour; and there I found Mr. Creakle, sitting at his breakfast with the cane -and a newspaper before him, and Mrs. Creakle with an opened letter in her hand. -But no hamper. -</p> - -<p> -‘David Copperfield,’ said Mrs. Creakle, leading me to a sofa, and -sitting down beside me. ‘I want to speak to you very particularly. I have -something to tell you, my child.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Creakle, at whom of course I looked, shook his head without looking at me, -and stopped up a sigh with a very large piece of buttered toast. -</p> - -<p> -‘You are too young to know how the world changes every day,’ said -Mrs. Creakle, ‘and how the people in it pass away. But we all have to -learn it, David; some of us when we are young, some of us when we are old, some -of us at all times of our lives.’ -</p> - -<p> -I looked at her earnestly. -</p> - -<p> -‘When you came away from home at the end of the vacation,’ said -Mrs. Creakle, after a pause, ‘were they all well?’ After another -pause, ‘Was your mama well?’ -</p> - -<p> -I trembled without distinctly knowing why, and still looked at her earnestly, -making no attempt to answer. -</p> - -<p> -‘Because,’ said she, ‘I grieve to tell you that I hear this -morning your mama is very ill.’ -</p> - -<p> -A mist rose between Mrs. Creakle and me, and her figure seemed to move in it -for an instant. Then I felt the burning tears run down my face, and it was -steady again. -</p> - -<p> -‘She is very dangerously ill,’ she added. -</p> - -<p> -I knew all now. -</p> - -<p> -‘She is dead.’ -</p> - -<p> -There was no need to tell me so. I had already broken out into a desolate cry, -and felt an orphan in the wide world. -</p> - -<p> -She was very kind to me. She kept me there all day, and left me alone -sometimes; and I cried, and wore myself to sleep, and awoke and cried again. -When I could cry no more, I began to think; and then the oppression on my -breast was heaviest, and my grief a dull pain that there was no ease for. -</p> - -<p> -And yet my thoughts were idle; not intent on the calamity that weighed upon my -heart, but idly loitering near it. I thought of our house shut up and hushed. I -thought of the little baby, who, Mrs. Creakle said, had been pining away for -some time, and who, they believed, would die too. I thought of my -father’s grave in the churchyard, by our house, and of my mother lying -there beneath the tree I knew so well. I stood upon a chair when I was left -alone, and looked into the glass to see how red my eyes were, and how sorrowful -my face. I considered, after some hours were gone, if my tears were really hard -to flow now, as they seemed to be, what, in connexion with my loss, it would -affect me most to think of when I drew near home—for I was going home to -the funeral. I am sensible of having felt that a dignity attached to me among -the rest of the boys, and that I was important in my affliction. -</p> - -<p> -If ever child were stricken with sincere grief, I was. But I remember that this -importance was a kind of satisfaction to me, when I walked in the playground -that afternoon while the boys were in school. When I saw them glancing at me -out of the windows, as they went up to their classes, I felt distinguished, and -looked more melancholy, and walked slower. When school was over, and they came -out and spoke to me, I felt it rather good in myself not to be proud to any of -them, and to take exactly the same notice of them all, as before. -</p> - -<p> -I was to go home next night; not by the mail, but by the heavy night-coach, -which was called the Farmer, and was principally used by country-people -travelling short intermediate distances upon the road. We had no story-telling -that evening, and Traddles insisted on lending me his pillow. I don’t -know what good he thought it would do me, for I had one of my own: but it was -all he had to lend, poor fellow, except a sheet of letter-paper full of -skeletons; and that he gave me at parting, as a soother of my sorrows and a -contribution to my peace of mind. -</p> - -<p> -I left Salem House upon the morrow afternoon. I little thought then that I left -it, never to return. We travelled very slowly all night, and did not get into -Yarmouth before nine or ten o’clock in the morning. I looked out for Mr. -Barkis, but he was not there; and instead of him a fat, short-winded, -merry-looking, little old man in black, with rusty little bunches of ribbons at -the knees of his breeches, black stockings, and a broad-brimmed hat, came -puffing up to the coach window, and said: -</p> - -<p> -‘Master Copperfield?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes, sir.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Will you come with me, young sir, if you please,’ he said, opening -the door, ‘and I shall have the pleasure of taking you home.’ -</p> - -<p> -I put my hand in his, wondering who he was, and we walked away to a shop in a -narrow street, on which was written OMER, DRAPER, TAILOR, HABERDASHER, FUNERAL -FURNISHER, &c. It was a close and stifling little shop; full of all sorts -of clothing, made and unmade, including one window full of beaver-hats and -bonnets. We went into a little back-parlour behind the shop, where we found -three young women at work on a quantity of black materials, which were heaped -upon the table, and little bits and cuttings of which were littered all over -the floor. There was a good fire in the room, and a breathless smell of warm -black crape—I did not know what the smell was then, but I know now. -</p> - -<p> -The three young women, who appeared to be very industrious and comfortable, -raised their heads to look at me, and then went on with their work. Stitch, -stitch, stitch. At the same time there came from a workshop across a little -yard outside the window, a regular sound of hammering that kept a kind of tune: -RAT—tat-tat, RAT—tat-tat, RAT—tat-tat, without any variation. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well,’ said my conductor to one of the three young women. -‘How do you get on, Minnie?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘We shall be ready by the trying-on time,’ she replied gaily, -without looking up. ‘Don’t you be afraid, father.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Omer took off his broad-brimmed hat, and sat down and panted. He was so fat -that he was obliged to pant some time before he could say: -</p> - -<p> -‘That’s right.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Father!’ said Minnie, playfully. ‘What a porpoise you do -grow!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, I don’t know how it is, my dear,’ he replied, -considering about it. ‘I am rather so.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You are such a comfortable man, you see,’ said Minnie. ‘You -take things so easy.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No use taking ‘em otherwise, my dear,’ said Mr. Omer. -</p> - -<p> -‘No, indeed,’ returned his daughter. ‘We are all pretty gay -here, thank Heaven! Ain’t we, father?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I hope so, my dear,’ said Mr. Omer. ‘As I have got my breath -now, I think I’ll measure this young scholar. Would you walk into the -shop, Master Copperfield?’ -</p> - -<p> -I preceded Mr. Omer, in compliance with his request; and after showing me a -roll of cloth which he said was extra super, and too good mourning for anything -short of parents, he took my various dimensions, and put them down in a book. -While he was recording them he called my attention to his stock in trade, and -to certain fashions which he said had ‘just come up’, and to -certain other fashions which he said had ‘just gone out’. -</p> - -<p> -‘And by that sort of thing we very often lose a little mint of -money,’ said Mr. Omer. ‘But fashions are like human beings. They -come in, nobody knows when, why, or how; and they go out, nobody knows when, -why, or how. Everything is like life, in my opinion, if you look at it in that -point of view.’ -</p> - -<p> -I was too sorrowful to discuss the question, which would possibly have been -beyond me under any circumstances; and Mr. Omer took me back into the parlour, -breathing with some difficulty on the way. -</p> - -<p> -He then called down a little break-neck range of steps behind a door: -‘Bring up that tea and bread-and-butter!’ which, after some time, -during which I sat looking about me and thinking, and listening to the -stitching in the room and the tune that was being hammered across the yard, -appeared on a tray, and turned out to be for me. -</p> - -<p> -‘I have been acquainted with you,’ said Mr. Omer, after watching me -for some minutes, during which I had not made much impression on the breakfast, -for the black things destroyed my appetite, ‘I have been acquainted with -you a long time, my young friend.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Have you, sir?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘All your life,’ said Mr. Omer. ‘I may say before it. I knew -your father before you. He was five foot nine and a half, and he lays in -five-and-twen-ty foot of ground.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘RAT—tat-tat, RAT—tat-tat, RAT—tat-tat,’ across -the yard. -</p> - -<p> -‘He lays in five and twen-ty foot of ground, if he lays in a -fraction,’ said Mr. Omer, pleasantly. ‘It was either his request or -her direction, I forget which.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Do you know how my little brother is, sir?’ I inquired. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Omer shook his head. -</p> - -<p> -‘RAT—tat-tat, RAT—tat-tat, RAT—tat-tat.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘He is in his mother’s arms,’ said he. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, poor little fellow! Is he dead?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Don’t mind it more than you can help,’ said Mr. Omer. -‘Yes. The baby’s dead.’ -</p> - -<p> -My wounds broke out afresh at this intelligence. I left the scarcely-tasted -breakfast, and went and rested my head on another table, in a corner of the -little room, which Minnie hastily cleared, lest I should spot the mourning that -was lying there with my tears. She was a pretty, good-natured girl, and put my -hair away from my eyes with a soft, kind touch; but she was very cheerful at -having nearly finished her work and being in good time, and was so different -from me! -</p> - -<p> -Presently the tune left off, and a good-looking young fellow came across the -yard into the room. He had a hammer in his hand, and his mouth was full of -little nails, which he was obliged to take out before he could speak. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, Joram!’ said Mr. Omer. ‘How do you get on?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘All right,’ said Joram. ‘Done, sir.’ -</p> - -<p> -Minnie coloured a little, and the other two girls smiled at one another. -</p> - -<p> -‘What! you were at it by candle-light last night, when I was at the club, -then? Were you?’ said Mr. Omer, shutting up one eye. -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes,’ said Joram. ‘As you said we could make a little trip -of it, and go over together, if it was done, Minnie and me—and -you.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh! I thought you were going to leave me out altogether,’ said Mr. -Omer, laughing till he coughed. -</p> - -<p> -‘—As you was so good as to say that,’ resumed the young man, -‘why I turned to with a will, you see. Will you give me your opinion of -it?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I will,’ said Mr. Omer, rising. ‘My dear’; and he -stopped and turned to me: ‘would you like to see your—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No, father,’ Minnie interposed. -</p> - -<p> -‘I thought it might be agreeable, my dear,’ said Mr. Omer. -‘But perhaps you’re right.’ -</p> - -<p> -I can’t say how I knew it was my dear, dear mother’s coffin that -they went to look at. I had never heard one making; I had never seen one that I -know of.—but it came into my mind what the noise was, while it was going -on; and when the young man entered, I am sure I knew what he had been doing. -</p> - -<p> -The work being now finished, the two girls, whose names I had not heard, -brushed the shreds and threads from their dresses, and went into the shop to -put that to rights, and wait for customers. Minnie stayed behind to fold up -what they had made, and pack it in two baskets. This she did upon her knees, -humming a lively little tune the while. Joram, who I had no doubt was her -lover, came in and stole a kiss from her while she was busy (he didn’t -appear to mind me, at all), and said her father was gone for the chaise, and he -must make haste and get himself ready. Then he went out again; and then she put -her thimble and scissors in her pocket, and stuck a needle threaded with black -thread neatly in the bosom of her gown, and put on her outer clothing smartly, -at a little glass behind the door, in which I saw the reflection of her pleased -face. -</p> - -<p> -All this I observed, sitting at the table in the corner with my head leaning on -my hand, and my thoughts running on very different things. The chaise soon came -round to the front of the shop, and the baskets being put in first, I was put -in next, and those three followed. I remember it as a kind of half chaise-cart, -half pianoforte-van, painted of a sombre colour, and drawn by a black horse -with a long tail. There was plenty of room for us all. -</p> - -<p> -I do not think I have ever experienced so strange a feeling in my life (I am -wiser now, perhaps) as that of being with them, remembering how they had been -employed, and seeing them enjoy the ride. I was not angry with them; I was more -afraid of them, as if I were cast away among creatures with whom I had no -community of nature. They were very cheerful. The old man sat in front to -drive, and the two young people sat behind him, and whenever he spoke to them -leaned forward, the one on one side of his chubby face and the other on the -other, and made a great deal of him. They would have talked to me too, but I -held back, and moped in my corner; scared by their love-making and hilarity, -though it was far from boisterous, and almost wondering that no judgement came -upon them for their hardness of heart. -</p> - -<p> -So, when they stopped to bait the horse, and ate and drank and enjoyed -themselves, I could touch nothing that they touched, but kept my fast unbroken. -So, when we reached home, I dropped out of the chaise behind, as quickly as -possible, that I might not be in their company before those solemn windows, -looking blindly on me like closed eyes once bright. And oh, how little need I -had had to think what would move me to tears when I came back—seeing the -window of my mother’s room, and next it that which, in the better time, -was mine! -</p> - -<p> -I was in Peggotty’s arms before I got to the door, and she took me into -the house. Her grief burst out when she first saw me; but she controlled it -soon, and spoke in whispers, and walked softly, as if the dead could be -disturbed. She had not been in bed, I found, for a long time. She sat up at -night still, and watched. As long as her poor dear pretty was above the ground, -she said, she would never desert her. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Murdstone took no heed of me when I went into the parlour where he was, but -sat by the fireside, weeping silently, and pondering in his elbow-chair. Miss -Murdstone, who was busy at her writing-desk, which was covered with letters and -papers, gave me her cold finger-nails, and asked me, in an iron whisper, if I -had been measured for my mourning. -</p> - -<p> -I said: ‘Yes.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And your shirts,’ said Miss Murdstone; ‘have you brought -‘em home?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes, ma’am. I have brought home all my clothes.’ -</p> - -<p> -This was all the consolation that her firmness administered to me. I do not -doubt that she had a choice pleasure in exhibiting what she called her -self-command, and her firmness, and her strength of mind, and her common sense, -and the whole diabolical catalogue of her unamiable qualities, on such an -occasion. She was particularly proud of her turn for business; and she showed -it now in reducing everything to pen and ink, and being moved by nothing. All -the rest of that day, and from morning to night afterwards, she sat at that -desk, scratching composedly with a hard pen, speaking in the same imperturbable -whisper to everybody; never relaxing a muscle of her face, or softening a tone -of her voice, or appearing with an atom of her dress astray. -</p> - -<p> -Her brother took a book sometimes, but never read it that I saw. He would open -it and look at it as if he were reading, but would remain for a whole hour -without turning the leaf, and then put it down and walk to and fro in the room. -I used to sit with folded hands watching him, and counting his footsteps, hour -after hour. He very seldom spoke to her, and never to me. He seemed to be the -only restless thing, except the clocks, in the whole motionless house. -</p> - -<p> -In these days before the funeral, I saw but little of Peggotty, except that, in -passing up or down stairs, I always found her close to the room where my mother -and her baby lay, and except that she came to me every night, and sat by my -bed’s head while I went to sleep. A day or two before the burial—I -think it was a day or two before, but I am conscious of confusion in my mind -about that heavy time, with nothing to mark its progress—she took me into -the room. I only recollect that underneath some white covering on the bed, with -a beautiful cleanliness and freshness all around it, there seemed to me to lie -embodied the solemn stillness that was in the house; and that when she would -have turned the cover gently back, I cried: ‘Oh no! oh no!’ and -held her hand. -</p> - -<p> -If the funeral had been yesterday, I could not recollect it better. The very -air of the best parlour, when I went in at the door, the bright condition of -the fire, the shining of the wine in the decanters, the patterns of the glasses -and plates, the faint sweet smell of cake, the odour of Miss Murdstone’s -dress, and our black clothes. Mr. Chillip is in the room, and comes to speak to -me. -</p> - -<p> -‘And how is Master David?’ he says, kindly. -</p> - -<p> -I cannot tell him very well. I give him my hand, which he holds in his. -</p> - -<p> -‘Dear me!’ says Mr. Chillip, meekly smiling, with something shining -in his eye. ‘Our little friends grow up around us. They grow out of our -knowledge, ma’am?’ This is to Miss Murdstone, who makes no reply. -</p> - -<p> -‘There is a great improvement here, ma’am?’ says Mr. Chillip. -</p> - -<p> -Miss Murdstone merely answers with a frown and a formal bend: Mr. Chillip, -discomfited, goes into a corner, keeping me with him, and opens his mouth no -more. -</p> - -<p> -I remark this, because I remark everything that happens, not because I care -about myself, or have done since I came home. And now the bell begins to sound, -and Mr. Omer and another come to make us ready. As Peggotty was wont to tell -me, long ago, the followers of my father to the same grave were made ready in -the same room. -</p> - -<p> -There are Mr. Murdstone, our neighbour Mr. Grayper, Mr. Chillip, and I. When we -go out to the door, the Bearers and their load are in the garden; and they move -before us down the path, and past the elms, and through the gate, and into the -churchyard, where I have so often heard the birds sing on a summer morning. -</p> - -<p> -We stand around the grave. The day seems different to me from every other day, -and the light not of the same colour—of a sadder colour. Now there is a -solemn hush, which we have brought from home with what is resting in the mould; -and while we stand bareheaded, I hear the voice of the clergyman, sounding -remote in the open air, and yet distinct and plain, saying: ‘I am the -Resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord!’ Then I hear sobs; and, -standing apart among the lookers-on, I see that good and faithful servant, whom -of all the people upon earth I love the best, and unto whom my childish heart -is certain that the Lord will one day say: ‘Well done.’ -</p> - -<p> -There are many faces that I know, among the little crowd; faces that I knew in -church, when mine was always wondering there; faces that first saw my mother, -when she came to the village in her youthful bloom. I do not mind them—I -mind nothing but my grief—and yet I see and know them all; and even in -the background, far away, see Minnie looking on, and her eye glancing on her -sweetheart, who is near me. -</p> - -<p> -It is over, and the earth is filled in, and we turn to come away. Before us -stands our house, so pretty and unchanged, so linked in my mind with the young -idea of what is gone, that all my sorrow has been nothing to the sorrow it -calls forth. But they take me on; and Mr. Chillip talks to me; and when we get -home, puts some water to my lips; and when I ask his leave to go up to my room, -dismisses me with the gentleness of a woman. -</p> - -<p> -All this, I say, is yesterday’s event. Events of later date have floated -from me to the shore where all forgotten things will reappear, but this stands -like a high rock in the ocean. -</p> - -<p> -I knew that Peggotty would come to me in my room. The Sabbath stillness of the -time (the day was so like Sunday! I have forgotten that) was suited to us both. -She sat down by my side upon my little bed; and holding my hand, and sometimes -putting it to her lips, and sometimes smoothing it with hers, as she might have -comforted my little brother, told me, in her way, all that she had to tell -concerning what had happened. -</p> - -<p> -‘She was never well,’ said Peggotty, ‘for a long time. She -was uncertain in her mind, and not happy. When her baby was born, I thought at -first she would get better, but she was more delicate, and sunk a little every -day. She used to like to sit alone before her baby came, and then she cried; -but afterwards she used to sing to it—so soft, that I once thought, when -I heard her, it was like a voice up in the air, that was rising away. -</p> - -<p> -‘I think she got to be more timid, and more frightened-like, of late; and -that a hard word was like a blow to her. But she was always the same to me. She -never changed to her foolish Peggotty, didn’t my sweet girl.’ -</p> - -<p> -Here Peggotty stopped, and softly beat upon my hand a little while. -</p> - -<p> -‘The last time that I saw her like her own old self, was the night when -you came home, my dear. The day you went away, she said to me, “I never -shall see my pretty darling again. Something tells me so, that tells the truth, -I know.” -</p> - -<p> -‘She tried to hold up after that; and many a time, when they told her she -was thoughtless and light-hearted, made believe to be so; but it was all a -bygone then. She never told her husband what she had told me—she was -afraid of saying it to anybody else—till one night, a little more than a -week before it happened, when she said to him: “My dear, I think I am -dying.” -</p> - -<p> -‘“It’s off my mind now, Peggotty,” she told me, when I -laid her in her bed that night. “He will believe it more and more, poor -fellow, every day for a few days to come; and then it will be past. I am very -tired. If this is sleep, sit by me while I sleep: don’t leave me. God -bless both my children! God protect and keep my fatherless boy!” -</p> - -<p> -‘I never left her afterwards,’ said Peggotty. ‘She often -talked to them two downstairs—for she loved them; she couldn’t bear -not to love anyone who was about her—but when they went away from her -bed-side, she always turned to me, as if there was rest where Peggotty was, and -never fell asleep in any other way. -</p> - -<p> -‘On the last night, in the evening, she kissed me, and said: “If my -baby should die too, Peggotty, please let them lay him in my arms, and bury us -together.” (It was done; for the poor lamb lived but a day beyond her.) -“Let my dearest boy go with us to our resting-place,” she said, -“and tell him that his mother, when she lay here, blessed him not once, -but a thousand times.”’ -</p> - -<p> -Another silence followed this, and another gentle beating on my hand. -</p> - -<p> -‘It was pretty far in the night,’ said Peggotty, ‘when she -asked me for some drink; and when she had taken it, gave me such a patient -smile, the dear!—so beautiful! -</p> - -<p> -‘Daybreak had come, and the sun was rising, when she said to me, how kind -and considerate Mr. Copperfield had always been to her, and how he had borne -with her, and told her, when she doubted herself, that a loving heart was -better and stronger than wisdom, and that he was a happy man in hers. -“Peggotty, my dear,” she said then, “put me nearer to -you,” for she was very weak. “Lay your good arm underneath my -neck,” she said, “and turn me to you, for your face is going far -off, and I want it to be near.” I put it as she asked; and oh Davy! the -time had come when my first parting words to you were true—when she was -glad to lay her poor head on her stupid cross old Peggotty’s -arm—and she died like a child that had gone to sleep!’ -</p> - -<p> -Thus ended Peggotty’s narration. From the moment of my knowing of the -death of my mother, the idea of her as she had been of late had vanished from -me. I remembered her, from that instant, only as the young mother of my -earliest impressions, who had been used to wind her bright curls round and -round her finger, and to dance with me at twilight in the parlour. What -Peggotty had told me now, was so far from bringing me back to the later period, -that it rooted the earlier image in my mind. It may be curious, but it is true. -In her death she winged her way back to her calm untroubled youth, and -cancelled all the rest. -</p> - -<p> -The mother who lay in the grave, was the mother of my infancy; the little -creature in her arms, was myself, as I had once been, hushed for ever on her -bosom. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0010"></a>CHAPTER 10. I BECOME NEGLECTED, AND AM PROVIDED -FOR</h2> - -<p> -The first act of business Miss Murdstone performed when the day of the -solemnity was over, and light was freely admitted into the house, was to give -Peggotty a month’s warning. Much as Peggotty would have disliked such a -service, I believe she would have retained it, for my sake, in preference to -the best upon earth. She told me we must part, and told me why; and we condoled -with one another, in all sincerity. -</p> - -<p> -As to me or my future, not a word was said, or a step taken. Happy they would -have been, I dare say, if they could have dismissed me at a month’s -warning too. I mustered courage once, to ask Miss Murdstone when I was going -back to school; and she answered dryly, she believed I was not going back at -all. I was told nothing more. I was very anxious to know what was going to be -done with me, and so was Peggotty; but neither she nor I could pick up any -information on the subject. -</p> - -<p> -There was one change in my condition, which, while it relieved me of a great -deal of present uneasiness, might have made me, if I had been capable of -considering it closely, yet more uncomfortable about the future. It was this. -The constraint that had been put upon me, was quite abandoned. I was so far -from being required to keep my dull post in the parlour, that on several -occasions, when I took my seat there, Miss Murdstone frowned to me to go away. -I was so far from being warned off from Peggotty’s society, that, -provided I was not in Mr. Murdstone’s, I was never sought out or inquired -for. At first I was in daily dread of his taking my education in hand again, or -of Miss Murdstone’s devoting herself to it; but I soon began to think -that such fears were groundless, and that all I had to anticipate was neglect. -</p> - -<p> -I do not conceive that this discovery gave me much pain then. I was still giddy -with the shock of my mother’s death, and in a kind of stunned state as to -all tributary things. I can recollect, indeed, to have speculated, at odd -times, on the possibility of my not being taught any more, or cared for any -more; and growing up to be a shabby, moody man, lounging an idle life away, -about the village; as well as on the feasibility of my getting rid of this -picture by going away somewhere, like the hero in a story, to seek my fortune: -but these were transient visions, daydreams I sat looking at sometimes, as if -they were faintly painted or written on the wall of my room, and which, as they -melted away, left the wall blank again. -</p> - -<p> -‘Peggotty,’ I said in a thoughtful whisper, one evening, when I was -warming my hands at the kitchen fire, ‘Mr. Murdstone likes me less than -he used to. He never liked me much, Peggotty; but he would rather not even see -me now, if he can help it.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Perhaps it’s his sorrow,’ said Peggotty, stroking my hair. -</p> - -<p> -‘I am sure, Peggotty, I am sorry too. If I believed it was his sorrow, I -should not think of it at all. But it’s not that; oh, no, it’s not -that.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘How do you know it’s not that?’ said Peggotty, after a -silence. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, his sorrow is another and quite a different thing. He is sorry at -this moment, sitting by the fireside with Miss Murdstone; but if I was to go -in, Peggotty, he would be something besides.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘What would he be?’ said Peggotty. -</p> - -<p> -‘Angry,’ I answered, with an involuntary imitation of his dark -frown. ‘If he was only sorry, he wouldn’t look at me as he does. I -am only sorry, and it makes me feel kinder.’ -</p> - -<p> -Peggotty said nothing for a little while; and I warmed my hands, as silent as -she. -</p> - -<p> -‘Davy,’ she said at length. -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes, Peggotty?’ ‘I have tried, my dear, all ways I could -think of—all the ways there are, and all the ways there ain’t, in -short—to get a suitable service here, in Blunderstone; but there’s -no such a thing, my love.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And what do you mean to do, Peggotty,’ says I, wistfully. -‘Do you mean to go and seek your fortune?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I expect I shall be forced to go to Yarmouth,’ replied Peggotty, -‘and live there.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You might have gone farther off,’ I said, brightening a little, -‘and been as bad as lost. I shall see you sometimes, my dear old -Peggotty, there. You won’t be quite at the other end of the world, will -you?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Contrary ways, please God!’ cried Peggotty, with great animation. -‘As long as you are here, my pet, I shall come over every week of my life -to see you. One day, every week of my life!’ -</p> - -<p> -I felt a great weight taken off my mind by this promise: but even this was not -all, for Peggotty went on to say: -</p> - -<p> -‘I’m a-going, Davy, you see, to my brother’s, first, for -another fortnight’s visit—just till I have had time to look about -me, and get to be something like myself again. Now, I have been thinking that -perhaps, as they don’t want you here at present, you might be let to go -along with me.’ -</p> - -<p> -If anything, short of being in a different relation to every one about me, -Peggotty excepted, could have given me a sense of pleasure at that time, it -would have been this project of all others. The idea of being again surrounded -by those honest faces, shining welcome on me; of renewing the peacefulness of -the sweet Sunday morning, when the bells were ringing, the stones dropping in -the water, and the shadowy ships breaking through the mist; of roaming up and -down with little Em’ly, telling her my troubles, and finding charms -against them in the shells and pebbles on the beach; made a calm in my heart. -It was ruffled next moment, to be sure, by a doubt of Miss Murdstone’s -giving her consent; but even that was set at rest soon, for she came out to -take an evening grope in the store-closet while we were yet in conversation, -and Peggotty, with a boldness that amazed me, broached the topic on the spot. -</p> - -<p> -‘The boy will be idle there,’ said Miss Murdstone, looking into a -pickle-jar, ‘and idleness is the root of all evil. But, to be sure, he -would be idle here—or anywhere, in my opinion.’ -</p> - -<p> -Peggotty had an angry answer ready, I could see; but she swallowed it for my -sake, and remained silent. -</p> - -<p> -‘Humph!’ said Miss Murdstone, still keeping her eye on the pickles; -‘it is of more importance than anything else—it is of paramount -importance—that my brother should not be disturbed or made uncomfortable. -I suppose I had better say yes.’ -</p> - -<p> -I thanked her, without making any demonstration of joy, lest it should induce -her to withdraw her assent. Nor could I help thinking this a prudent course, -since she looked at me out of the pickle-jar, with as great an access of -sourness as if her black eyes had absorbed its contents. However, the -permission was given, and was never retracted; for when the month was out, -Peggotty and I were ready to depart. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Barkis came into the house for Peggotty’s boxes. I had never known -him to pass the garden-gate before, but on this occasion he came into the -house. And he gave me a look as he shouldered the largest box and went out, -which I thought had meaning in it, if meaning could ever be said to find its -way into Mr. Barkis’s visage. -</p> - -<p> -Peggotty was naturally in low spirits at leaving what had been her home so many -years, and where the two strong attachments of her life—for my mother and -myself—had been formed. She had been walking in the churchyard, too, very -early; and she got into the cart, and sat in it with her handkerchief at her -eyes. -</p> - -<p> -So long as she remained in this condition, Mr. Barkis gave no sign of life -whatever. He sat in his usual place and attitude like a great stuffed figure. -But when she began to look about her, and to speak to me, he nodded his head -and grinned several times. I have not the least notion at whom, or what he -meant by it. -</p> - -<p> -‘It’s a beautiful day, Mr. Barkis!’ I said, as an act of -politeness. -</p> - -<p> -‘It ain’t bad,’ said Mr. Barkis, who generally qualified his -speech, and rarely committed himself. -</p> - -<p> -‘Peggotty is quite comfortable now, Mr. Barkis,’ I remarked, for -his satisfaction. -</p> - -<p> -‘Is she, though?’ said Mr. Barkis. -</p> - -<p> -After reflecting about it, with a sagacious air, Mr. Barkis eyed her, and said: -</p> - -<p> -‘ARE you pretty comfortable?’ -</p> - -<p> -Peggotty laughed, and answered in the affirmative. -</p> - -<p> -‘But really and truly, you know. Are you?’ growled Mr. Barkis, -sliding nearer to her on the seat, and nudging her with his elbow. ‘Are -you? Really and truly pretty comfortable? Are you? Eh?’ -</p> - -<p> -At each of these inquiries Mr. Barkis shuffled nearer to her, and gave her -another nudge; so that at last we were all crowded together in the left-hand -corner of the cart, and I was so squeezed that I could hardly bear it. -</p> - -<p> -Peggotty calling his attention to my sufferings, Mr. Barkis gave me a little -more room at once, and got away by degrees. But I could not help observing that -he seemed to think he had hit upon a wonderful expedient for expressing himself -in a neat, agreeable, and pointed manner, without the inconvenience of -inventing conversation. He manifestly chuckled over it for some time. By and by -he turned to Peggotty again, and repeating, ‘Are you pretty comfortable -though?’ bore down upon us as before, until the breath was nearly edged -out of my body. By and by he made another descent upon us with the same -inquiry, and the same result. At length, I got up whenever I saw him coming, -and standing on the foot-board, pretended to look at the prospect; after which -I did very well. -</p> - -<p> -He was so polite as to stop at a public-house, expressly on our account, and -entertain us with broiled mutton and beer. Even when Peggotty was in the act of -drinking, he was seized with one of those approaches, and almost choked her. -But as we drew nearer to the end of our journey, he had more to do and less -time for gallantry; and when we got on Yarmouth pavement, we were all too much -shaken and jolted, I apprehend, to have any leisure for anything else. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Peggotty and Ham waited for us at the old place. They received me and -Peggotty in an affectionate manner, and shook hands with Mr. Barkis, who, with -his hat on the very back of his head, and a shame-faced leer upon his -countenance, and pervading his very legs, presented but a vacant appearance, I -thought. They each took one of Peggotty’s trunks, and we were going away, -when Mr. Barkis solemnly made a sign to me with his forefinger to come under an -archway. -</p> - -<p> -‘I say,’ growled Mr. Barkis, ‘it was all right.’ -</p> - -<p> -I looked up into his face, and answered, with an attempt to be very profound: -‘Oh!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘It didn’t come to a end there,’ said Mr. Barkis, nodding -confidentially. ‘It was all right.’ -</p> - -<p> -Again I answered, ‘Oh!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You know who was willin’,’ said my friend. ‘It was -Barkis, and Barkis only.’ -</p> - -<p> -I nodded assent. -</p> - -<p> -‘It’s all right,’ said Mr. Barkis, shaking hands; -‘I’m a friend of your’n. You made it all right, first. -It’s all right.’ -</p> - -<p> -In his attempts to be particularly lucid, Mr. Barkis was so extremely -mysterious, that I might have stood looking in his face for an hour, and most -assuredly should have got as much information out of it as out of the face of a -clock that had stopped, but for Peggotty’s calling me away. As we were -going along, she asked me what he had said; and I told her he had said it was -all right. -</p> - -<p> -‘Like his impudence,’ said Peggotty, ‘but I don’t mind -that! Davy dear, what should you think if I was to think of being -married?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Why—I suppose you would like me as much then, Peggotty, as you do -now?’ I returned, after a little consideration. -</p> - -<p> -Greatly to the astonishment of the passengers in the street, as well as of her -relations going on before, the good soul was obliged to stop and embrace me on -the spot, with many protestations of her unalterable love. -</p> - -<p> -‘Tell me what should you say, darling?’ she asked again, when this -was over, and we were walking on. -</p> - -<p> -‘If you were thinking of being married—to Mr. Barkis, -Peggotty?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes,’ said Peggotty. -</p> - -<p> -‘I should think it would be a very good thing. For then you know, -Peggotty, you would always have the horse and cart to bring you over to see me, -and could come for nothing, and be sure of coming.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘The sense of the dear!’ cried Peggotty. ‘What I have been -thinking of, this month back! Yes, my precious; and I think I should be more -independent altogether, you see; let alone my working with a better heart in my -own house, than I could in anybody else’s now. I don’t know what I -might be fit for, now, as a servant to a stranger. And I shall be always near -my pretty’s resting-place,’ said Peggotty, musing, ‘and be -able to see it when I like; and when I lie down to rest, I may be laid not far -off from my darling girl!’ -</p> - -<p> -We neither of us said anything for a little while. -</p> - -<p> -‘But I wouldn’t so much as give it another thought,’ said -Peggotty, cheerily ‘if my Davy was anyways against it—not if I had -been asked in church thirty times three times over, and was wearing out the -ring in my pocket.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Look at me, Peggotty,’ I replied; ‘and see if I am not -really glad, and don’t truly wish it!’ As indeed I did, with all my -heart. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, my life,’ said Peggotty, giving me a squeeze, ‘I have -thought of it night and day, every way I can, and I hope the right way; but -I’ll think of it again, and speak to my brother about it, and in the -meantime we’ll keep it to ourselves, Davy, you and me. Barkis is a good -plain creature,’ said Peggotty, ‘and if I tried to do my duty by -him, I think it would be my fault if I wasn’t—if I wasn’t -pretty comfortable,’ said Peggotty, laughing heartily. This quotation -from Mr. Barkis was so appropriate, and tickled us both so much, that we -laughed again and again, and were quite in a pleasant humour when we came -within view of Mr. Peggotty’s cottage. -</p> - -<p> -It looked just the same, except that it may, perhaps, have shrunk a little in -my eyes; and Mrs. Gummidge was waiting at the door as if she had stood there -ever since. All within was the same, down to the seaweed in the blue mug in my -bedroom. I went into the out-house to look about me; and the very same -lobsters, crabs, and crawfish possessed by the same desire to pinch the world -in general, appeared to be in the same state of conglomeration in the same old -corner. -</p> - -<p> -But there was no little Em’ly to be seen, so I asked Mr. Peggotty where -she was. -</p> - -<p> -‘She’s at school, sir,’ said Mr. Peggotty, wiping the heat -consequent on the porterage of Peggotty’s box from his forehead; -‘she’ll be home,’ looking at the Dutch clock, ‘in from -twenty minutes to half-an-hour’s time. We all on us feel the loss of her, -bless ye!’ -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Gummidge moaned. -</p> - -<p> -‘Cheer up, Mawther!’ cried Mr. Peggotty. -</p> - -<p> -‘I feel it more than anybody else,’ said Mrs. Gummidge; -‘I’m a lone lorn creetur’, and she used to be a’most -the only thing that didn’t go contrary with me.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Gummidge, whimpering and shaking her head, applied herself to blowing the -fire. Mr. Peggotty, looking round upon us while she was so engaged, said in a -low voice, which he shaded with his hand: ‘The old ‘un!’ From -this I rightly conjectured that no improvement had taken place since my last -visit in the state of Mrs. Gummidge’s spirits. -</p> - -<p> -Now, the whole place was, or it should have been, quite as delightful a place -as ever; and yet it did not impress me in the same way. I felt rather -disappointed with it. Perhaps it was because little Em’ly was not at -home. I knew the way by which she would come, and presently found myself -strolling along the path to meet her. -</p> - -<p> -A figure appeared in the distance before long, and I soon knew it to be -Em’ly, who was a little creature still in stature, though she was grown. -But when she drew nearer, and I saw her blue eyes looking bluer, and her -dimpled face looking brighter, and her whole self prettier and gayer, a curious -feeling came over me that made me pretend not to know her, and pass by as if I -were looking at something a long way off. I have done such a thing since in -later life, or I am mistaken. -</p> - -<p> -Little Em’ly didn’t care a bit. She saw me well enough; but instead -of turning round and calling after me, ran away laughing. This obliged me to -run after her, and she ran so fast that we were very near the cottage before I -caught her. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, it’s you, is it?’ said little Em’ly. -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, you knew who it was, Em’ly,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘And didn’t YOU know who it was?’ said Em’ly. I was -going to kiss her, but she covered her cherry lips with her hands, and said she -wasn’t a baby now, and ran away, laughing more than ever, into the house. -</p> - -<p> -She seemed to delight in teasing me, which was a change in her I wondered at -very much. The tea table was ready, and our little locker was put out in its -old place, but instead of coming to sit by me, she went and bestowed her -company upon that grumbling Mrs. Gummidge: and on Mr. Peggotty’s -inquiring why, rumpled her hair all over her face to hide it, and could do -nothing but laugh. -</p> - -<p> -‘A little puss, it is!’ said Mr. Peggotty, patting her with his -great hand. -</p> - -<p> -‘So sh’ is! so sh’ is!’ cried Ham. ‘Mas’r -Davy bor’, so sh’ is!’ and he sat and chuckled at her for -some time, in a state of mingled admiration and delight, that made his face a -burning red. -</p> - -<p> -Little Em’ly was spoiled by them all, in fact; and by no one more than -Mr. Peggotty himself, whom she could have coaxed into anything, by only going -and laying her cheek against his rough whisker. That was my opinion, at least, -when I saw her do it; and I held Mr. Peggotty to be thoroughly in the right. -But she was so affectionate and sweet-natured, and had such a pleasant manner -of being both sly and shy at once, that she captivated me more than ever. -</p> - -<p> -She was tender-hearted, too; for when, as we sat round the fire after tea, an -allusion was made by Mr. Peggotty over his pipe to the loss I had sustained, -the tears stood in her eyes, and she looked at me so kindly across the table, -that I felt quite thankful to her. -</p> - -<p> -‘Ah!’ said Mr. Peggotty, taking up her curls, and running them over -his hand like water, ‘here’s another orphan, you see, sir. And -here,’ said Mr. Peggotty, giving Ham a backhanded knock in the chest, -‘is another of ‘em, though he don’t look much like it.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘If I had you for my guardian, Mr. Peggotty,’ said I, shaking my -head, ‘I don’t think I should FEEL much like it.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Well said, Mas’r Davy bor’!’ cried Ham, in an ecstasy. -‘Hoorah! Well said! Nor more you wouldn’t! Hor! -Hor!’—Here he returned Mr. Peggotty’s back-hander, and little -Em’ly got up and kissed Mr. Peggotty. ‘And how’s your friend, -sir?’ said Mr. Peggotty to me. -</p> - -<p> -‘Steerforth?’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘That’s the name!’ cried Mr. Peggotty, turning to Ham. -‘I knowed it was something in our way.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You said it was Rudderford,’ observed Ham, laughing. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well!’ retorted Mr. Peggotty. ‘And ye steer with a rudder, -don’t ye? It ain’t fur off. How is he, sir?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘He was very well indeed when I came away, Mr. Peggotty.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘There’s a friend!’ said Mr. Peggotty, stretching out his -pipe. ‘There’s a friend, if you talk of friends! Why, Lord love my -heart alive, if it ain’t a treat to look at him!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘He is very handsome, is he not?’ said I, my heart warming with -this praise. -</p> - -<p> -‘Handsome!’ cried Mr. Peggotty. ‘He stands up to you -like—like a—why I don’t know what he don’t stand up to -you like. He’s so bold!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes! That’s just his character,’ said I. ‘He’s -as brave as a lion, and you can’t think how frank he is, Mr. -Peggotty.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And I do suppose, now,’ said Mr. Peggotty, looking at me through -the smoke of his pipe, ‘that in the way of book-larning he’d take -the wind out of a’most anything.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes,’ said I, delighted; ‘he knows everything. He is -astonishingly clever.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘There’s a friend!’ murmured Mr. Peggotty, with a grave toss -of his head. -</p> - -<p> -‘Nothing seems to cost him any trouble,’ said I. ‘He knows a -task if he only looks at it. He is the best cricketer you ever saw. He will -give you almost as many men as you like at draughts, and beat you -easily.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Peggotty gave his head another toss, as much as to say: ‘Of course he -will.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘He is such a speaker,’ I pursued, ‘that he can win anybody -over; and I don’t know what you’d say if you were to hear him sing, -Mr. Peggotty.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Peggotty gave his head another toss, as much as to say: ‘I have no -doubt of it.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Then, he’s such a generous, fine, noble fellow,’ said I, -quite carried away by my favourite theme, ‘that it’s hardly -possible to give him as much praise as he deserves. I am sure I can never feel -thankful enough for the generosity with which he has protected me, so much -younger and lower in the school than himself.’ -</p> - -<p> -I was running on, very fast indeed, when my eyes rested on little -Em’ly’s face, which was bent forward over the table, listening with -the deepest attention, her breath held, her blue eyes sparkling like jewels, -and the colour mantling in her cheeks. She looked so extraordinarily earnest -and pretty, that I stopped in a sort of wonder; and they all observed her at -the same time, for as I stopped, they laughed and looked at her. -</p> - -<p> -‘Em’ly is like me,’ said Peggotty, ‘and would like to -see him.’ -</p> - -<p> -Em’ly was confused by our all observing her, and hung down her head, and -her face was covered with blushes. Glancing up presently through her stray -curls, and seeing that we were all looking at her still (I am sure I, for one, -could have looked at her for hours), she ran away, and kept away till it was -nearly bedtime. -</p> - -<p> -I lay down in the old little bed in the stern of the boat, and the wind came -moaning on across the flat as it had done before. But I could not help -fancying, now, that it moaned of those who were gone; and instead of thinking -that the sea might rise in the night and float the boat away, I thought of the -sea that had risen, since I last heard those sounds, and drowned my happy home. -I recollect, as the wind and water began to sound fainter in my ears, putting a -short clause into my prayers, petitioning that I might grow up to marry little -Em’ly, and so dropping lovingly asleep. -</p> - -<p> -The days passed pretty much as they had passed before, except—it was a -great exception—that little Em’ly and I seldom wandered on the -beach now. She had tasks to learn, and needle-work to do; and was absent during -a great part of each day. But I felt that we should not have had those old -wanderings, even if it had been otherwise. Wild and full of childish whims as -Em’ly was, she was more of a little woman than I had supposed. She seemed -to have got a great distance away from me, in little more than a year. She -liked me, but she laughed at me, and tormented me; and when I went to meet her, -stole home another way, and was laughing at the door when I came back, -disappointed. The best times were when she sat quietly at work in the doorway, -and I sat on the wooden step at her feet, reading to her. It seems to me, at -this hour, that I have never seen such sunlight as on those bright April -afternoons; that I have never seen such a sunny little figure as I used to see, -sitting in the doorway of the old boat; that I have never beheld such sky, such -water, such glorified ships sailing away into golden air. -</p> - -<p> -On the very first evening after our arrival, Mr. Barkis appeared in an -exceedingly vacant and awkward condition, and with a bundle of oranges tied up -in a handkerchief. As he made no allusion of any kind to this property, he was -supposed to have left it behind him by accident when he went away; until Ham, -running after him to restore it, came back with the information that it was -intended for Peggotty. After that occasion he appeared every evening at exactly -the same hour, and always with a little bundle, to which he never alluded, and -which he regularly put behind the door and left there. These offerings of -affection were of a most various and eccentric description. Among them I -remember a double set of pigs’ trotters, a huge pin-cushion, half a -bushel or so of apples, a pair of jet earrings, some Spanish onions, a box of -dominoes, a canary bird and cage, and a leg of pickled pork. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Barkis’s wooing, as I remember it, was altogether of a peculiar kind. -He very seldom said anything; but would sit by the fire in much the same -attitude as he sat in his cart, and stare heavily at Peggotty, who was -opposite. One night, being, as I suppose, inspired by love, he made a dart at -the bit of wax-candle she kept for her thread, and put it in his -waistcoat-pocket and carried it off. After that, his great delight was to -produce it when it was wanted, sticking to the lining of his pocket, in a -partially melted state, and pocket it again when it was done with. He seemed to -enjoy himself very much, and not to feel at all called upon to talk. Even when -he took Peggotty out for a walk on the flats, he had no uneasiness on that -head, I believe; contenting himself with now and then asking her if she was -pretty comfortable; and I remember that sometimes, after he was gone, Peggotty -would throw her apron over her face, and laugh for half-an-hour. Indeed, we -were all more or less amused, except that miserable Mrs. Gummidge, whose -courtship would appear to have been of an exactly parallel nature, she was so -continually reminded by these transactions of the old one. -</p> - -<p> -At length, when the term of my visit was nearly expired, it was given out that -Peggotty and Mr. Barkis were going to make a day’s holiday together, and -that little Em’ly and I were to accompany them. I had but a broken sleep -the night before, in anticipation of the pleasure of a whole day with -Em’ly. We were all astir betimes in the morning; and while we were yet at -breakfast, Mr. Barkis appeared in the distance, driving a chaise-cart towards -the object of his affections. -</p> - -<p> -Peggotty was dressed as usual, in her neat and quiet mourning; but Mr. Barkis -bloomed in a new blue coat, of which the tailor had given him such good -measure, that the cuffs would have rendered gloves unnecessary in the coldest -weather, while the collar was so high that it pushed his hair up on end on the -top of his head. His bright buttons, too, were of the largest size. Rendered -complete by drab pantaloons and a buff waistcoat, I thought Mr. Barkis a -phenomenon of respectability. -</p> - -<p> -When we were all in a bustle outside the door, I found that Mr. Peggotty was -prepared with an old shoe, which was to be thrown after us for luck, and which -he offered to Mrs. Gummidge for that purpose. -</p> - -<p> -‘No. It had better be done by somebody else, Dan’l,’ said -Mrs. Gummidge. ‘I’m a lone lorn creetur’ myself, and -everythink that reminds me of creetur’s that ain’t lone and lorn, -goes contrary with me.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Come, old gal!’ cried Mr. Peggotty. ‘Take and heave -it.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No, Dan’l,’ returned Mrs. Gummidge, whimpering and shaking -her head. ‘If I felt less, I could do more. You don’t feel like me, -Dan’l; thinks don’t go contrary with you, nor you with them; you -had better do it yourself.’ -</p> - -<p> -But here Peggotty, who had been going about from one to another in a hurried -way, kissing everybody, called out from the cart, in which we all were by this -time (Em’ly and I on two little chairs, side by side), that Mrs. Gummidge -must do it. So Mrs. Gummidge did it; and, I am sorry to relate, cast a damp -upon the festive character of our departure, by immediately bursting into -tears, and sinking subdued into the arms of Ham, with the declaration that she -knowed she was a burden, and had better be carried to the House at once. Which -I really thought was a sensible idea, that Ham might have acted on. -</p> - -<p> -Away we went, however, on our holiday excursion; and the first thing we did was -to stop at a church, where Mr. Barkis tied the horse to some rails, and went in -with Peggotty, leaving little Em’ly and me alone in the chaise. I took -that occasion to put my arm round Em’ly’s waist, and propose that -as I was going away so very soon now, we should determine to be very -affectionate to one another, and very happy, all day. Little Em’ly -consenting, and allowing me to kiss her, I became desperate; informing her, I -recollect, that I never could love another, and that I was prepared to shed the -blood of anybody who should aspire to her affections. -</p> - -<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> -<img src="images/0193.jpg" alt="0193 " width="100%" /> -</div> - -<h5> -<a href="images/0193.jpg"> -<img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /></a> -</h5> - -<p> -How merry little Em’ly made herself about it! With what a demure -assumption of being immensely older and wiser than I, the fairy little woman -said I was ‘a silly boy’; and then laughed so charmingly that I -forgot the pain of being called by that disparaging name, in the pleasure of -looking at her. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Barkis and Peggotty were a good while in the church, but came out at last, -and then we drove away into the country. As we were going along, Mr. Barkis -turned to me, and said, with a wink,—by the by, I should hardly have -thought, before, that he could wink: -</p> - -<p> -‘What name was it as I wrote up in the cart?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Clara Peggotty,’ I answered. -</p> - -<p> -‘What name would it be as I should write up now, if there was a tilt -here?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Clara Peggotty, again?’ I suggested. -</p> - -<p> -‘Clara Peggotty BARKIS!’ he returned, and burst into a roar of -laughter that shook the chaise. -</p> - -<p> -In a word, they were married, and had gone into the church for no other -purpose. Peggotty was resolved that it should be quietly done; and the clerk -had given her away, and there had been no witnesses of the ceremony. She was a -little confused when Mr. Barkis made this abrupt announcement of their union, -and could not hug me enough in token of her unimpaired affection; but she soon -became herself again, and said she was very glad it was over. -</p> - -<p> -We drove to a little inn in a by-road, where we were expected, and where we had -a very comfortable dinner, and passed the day with great satisfaction. If -Peggotty had been married every day for the last ten years, she could hardly -have been more at her ease about it; it made no sort of difference in her: she -was just the same as ever, and went out for a stroll with little Em’ly -and me before tea, while Mr. Barkis philosophically smoked his pipe, and -enjoyed himself, I suppose, with the contemplation of his happiness. If so, it -sharpened his appetite; for I distinctly call to mind that, although he had -eaten a good deal of pork and greens at dinner, and had finished off with a -fowl or two, he was obliged to have cold boiled bacon for tea, and disposed of -a large quantity without any emotion. -</p> - -<p> -I have often thought, since, what an odd, innocent, out-of-the-way kind of -wedding it must have been! We got into the chaise again soon after dark, and -drove cosily back, looking up at the stars, and talking about them. I was their -chief exponent, and opened Mr. Barkis’s mind to an amazing extent. I told -him all I knew, but he would have believed anything I might have taken it into -my head to impart to him; for he had a profound veneration for my abilities, -and informed his wife in my hearing, on that very occasion, that I was ‘a -young Roeshus’—by which I think he meant prodigy. -</p> - -<p> -When we had exhausted the subject of the stars, or rather when I had exhausted -the mental faculties of Mr. Barkis, little Em’ly and I made a cloak of an -old wrapper, and sat under it for the rest of the journey. Ah, how I loved her! -What happiness (I thought) if we were married, and were going away anywhere to -live among the trees and in the fields, never growing older, never growing -wiser, children ever, rambling hand in hand through sunshine and among flowery -meadows, laying down our heads on moss at night, in a sweet sleep of purity and -peace, and buried by the birds when we were dead! Some such picture, with no -real world in it, bright with the light of our innocence, and vague as the -stars afar off, was in my mind all the way. I am glad to think there were two -such guileless hearts at Peggotty’s marriage as little -Em’ly’s and mine. I am glad to think the Loves and Graces took such -airy forms in its homely procession. -</p> - -<p> -Well, we came to the old boat again in good time at night; and there Mr. and -Mrs. Barkis bade us good-bye, and drove away snugly to their own home. I felt -then, for the first time, that I had lost Peggotty. I should have gone to bed -with a sore heart indeed under any other roof but that which sheltered little -Em’ly’s head. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Peggotty and Ham knew what was in my thoughts as well as I did, and were -ready with some supper and their hospitable faces to drive it away. Little -Em’ly came and sat beside me on the locker for the only time in all that -visit; and it was altogether a wonderful close to a wonderful day. -</p> - -<p> -It was a night tide; and soon after we went to bed, Mr. Peggotty and Ham went -out to fish. I felt very brave at being left alone in the solitary house, the -protector of Em’ly and Mrs. Gummidge, and only wished that a lion or a -serpent, or any ill-disposed monster, would make an attack upon us, that I -might destroy him, and cover myself with glory. But as nothing of the sort -happened to be walking about on Yarmouth flats that night, I provided the best -substitute I could by dreaming of dragons until morning. -</p> - -<p> -With morning came Peggotty; who called to me, as usual, under my window as if -Mr. Barkis the carrier had been from first to last a dream too. After breakfast -she took me to her own home, and a beautiful little home it was. Of all the -moveables in it, I must have been impressed by a certain old bureau of some -dark wood in the parlour (the tile-floored kitchen was the general -sitting-room), with a retreating top which opened, let down, and became a desk, -within which was a large quarto edition of Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. This -precious volume, of which I do not recollect one word, I immediately discovered -and immediately applied myself to; and I never visited the house afterwards, -but I kneeled on a chair, opened the casket where this gem was enshrined, -spread my arms over the desk, and fell to devouring the book afresh. I was -chiefly edified, I am afraid, by the pictures, which were numerous, and -represented all kinds of dismal horrors; but the Martyrs and Peggotty’s -house have been inseparable in my mind ever since, and are now. -</p> - -<p> -I took leave of Mr. Peggotty, and Ham, and Mrs. Gummidge, and little -Em’ly, that day; and passed the night at Peggotty’s, in a little -room in the roof (with the Crocodile Book on a shelf by the bed’s head) -which was to be always mine, Peggotty said, and should always be kept for me in -exactly the same state. -</p> - -<p> -‘Young or old, Davy dear, as long as I am alive and have this house over -my head,’ said Peggotty, ‘you shall find it as if I expected you -here directly minute. I shall keep it every day, as I used to keep your old -little room, my darling; and if you was to go to China, you might think of it -as being kept just the same, all the time you were away.’ -</p> - -<p> -I felt the truth and constancy of my dear old nurse, with all my heart, and -thanked her as well as I could. That was not very well, for she spoke to me -thus, with her arms round my neck, in the morning, and I was going home in the -morning, and I went home in the morning, with herself and Mr. Barkis in the -cart. They left me at the gate, not easily or lightly; and it was a strange -sight to me to see the cart go on, taking Peggotty away, and leaving me under -the old elm-trees looking at the house, in which there was no face to look on -mine with love or liking any more. -</p> - -<p> -And now I fell into a state of neglect, which I cannot look back upon without -compassion. I fell at once into a solitary condition,—apart from all -friendly notice, apart from the society of all other boys of my own age, apart -from all companionship but my own spiritless thoughts,—which seems to -cast its gloom upon this paper as I write. -</p> - -<p> -What would I have given, to have been sent to the hardest school that ever was -kept!—to have been taught something, anyhow, anywhere! No such hope -dawned upon me. They disliked me; and they sullenly, sternly, steadily, -overlooked me. I think Mr. Murdstone’s means were straitened at about -this time; but it is little to the purpose. He could not bear me; and in -putting me from him he tried, as I believe, to put away the notion that I had -any claim upon him—and succeeded. -</p> - -<p> -I was not actively ill-used. I was not beaten, or starved; but the wrong that -was done to me had no intervals of relenting, and was done in a systematic, -passionless manner. Day after day, week after week, month after month, I was -coldly neglected. I wonder sometimes, when I think of it, what they would have -done if I had been taken with an illness; whether I should have lain down in my -lonely room, and languished through it in my usual solitary way, or whether -anybody would have helped me out. -</p> - -<p> -When Mr. and Miss Murdstone were at home, I took my meals with them; in their -absence, I ate and drank by myself. At all times I lounged about the house and -neighbourhood quite disregarded, except that they were jealous of my making any -friends: thinking, perhaps, that if I did, I might complain to someone. For -this reason, though Mr. Chillip often asked me to go and see him (he was a -widower, having, some years before that, lost a little small light-haired wife, -whom I can just remember connecting in my own thoughts with a pale -tortoise-shell cat), it was but seldom that I enjoyed the happiness of passing -an afternoon in his closet of a surgery; reading some book that was new to me, -with the smell of the whole Pharmacopoeia coming up my nose, or pounding -something in a mortar under his mild directions. -</p> - -<p> -For the same reason, added no doubt to the old dislike of her, I was seldom -allowed to visit Peggotty. Faithful to her promise, she either came to see me, -or met me somewhere near, once every week, and never empty-handed; but many and -bitter were the disappointments I had, in being refused permission to pay a -visit to her at her house. Some few times, however, at long intervals, I was -allowed to go there; and then I found out that Mr. Barkis was something of a -miser, or as Peggotty dutifully expressed it, was ‘a little near’, -and kept a heap of money in a box under his bed, which he pretended was only -full of coats and trousers. In this coffer, his riches hid themselves with such -a tenacious modesty, that the smallest instalments could only be tempted out by -artifice; so that Peggotty had to prepare a long and elaborate scheme, a very -Gunpowder Plot, for every Saturday’s expenses. -</p> - -<p> -All this time I was so conscious of the waste of any promise I had given, and -of my being utterly neglected, that I should have been perfectly miserable, I -have no doubt, but for the old books. They were my only comfort; and I was as -true to them as they were to me, and read them over and over I don’t know -how many times more. -</p> - -<p> -I now approach a period of my life, which I can never lose the remembrance of, -while I remember anything: and the recollection of which has often, without my -invocation, come before me like a ghost, and haunted happier times. -</p> - -<p> -I had been out, one day, loitering somewhere, in the listless, meditative -manner that my way of life engendered, when, turning the corner of a lane near -our house, I came upon Mr. Murdstone walking with a gentleman. I was confused, -and was going by them, when the gentleman cried: -</p> - -<p> -‘What! Brooks!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No, sir, David Copperfield,’ I said. -</p> - -<p> -‘Don’t tell me. You are Brooks,’ said the gentleman. -‘You are Brooks of Sheffield. That’s your name.’ -</p> - -<p> -At these words, I observed the gentleman more attentively. His laugh coming to -my remembrance too, I knew him to be Mr. Quinion, whom I had gone over to -Lowestoft with Mr. Murdstone to see, before—it is no matter—I need -not recall when. -</p> - -<p> -‘And how do you get on, and where are you being educated, Brooks?’ -said Mr. Quinion. -</p> - -<p> -He had put his hand upon my shoulder, and turned me about, to walk with them. I -did not know what to reply, and glanced dubiously at Mr. Murdstone. -</p> - -<p> -‘He is at home at present,’ said the latter. ‘He is not being -educated anywhere. I don’t know what to do with him. He is a difficult -subject.’ -</p> - -<p> -That old, double look was on me for a moment; and then his eyes darkened with a -frown, as it turned, in its aversion, elsewhere. -</p> - -<p> -‘Humph!’ said Mr. Quinion, looking at us both, I thought. -‘Fine weather!’ -</p> - -<p> -Silence ensued, and I was considering how I could best disengage my shoulder -from his hand, and go away, when he said: -</p> - -<p> -‘I suppose you are a pretty sharp fellow still? Eh, Brooks?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Aye! He is sharp enough,’ said Mr. Murdstone, impatiently. -‘You had better let him go. He will not thank you for troubling -him.’ -</p> - -<p> -On this hint, Mr. Quinion released me, and I made the best of my way home. -Looking back as I turned into the front garden, I saw Mr. Murdstone leaning -against the wicket of the churchyard, and Mr. Quinion talking to him. They were -both looking after me, and I felt that they were speaking of me. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Quinion lay at our house that night. After breakfast, the next morning, I -had put my chair away, and was going out of the room, when Mr. Murdstone called -me back. He then gravely repaired to another table, where his sister sat -herself at her desk. Mr. Quinion, with his hands in his pockets, stood looking -out of window; and I stood looking at them all. -</p> - -<p> -‘David,’ said Mr. Murdstone, ‘to the young this is a world -for action; not for moping and droning in.’ —‘As you -do,’ added his sister. -</p> - -<p> -‘Jane Murdstone, leave it to me, if you please. I say, David, to the -young this is a world for action, and not for moping and droning in. It is -especially so for a young boy of your disposition, which requires a great deal -of correcting; and to which no greater service can be done than to force it to -conform to the ways of the working world, and to bend it and break it.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘For stubbornness won’t do here,’ said his sister ‘What -it wants is, to be crushed. And crushed it must be. Shall be, too!’ -</p> - -<p> -He gave her a look, half in remonstrance, half in approval, and went on: -</p> - -<p> -‘I suppose you know, David, that I am not rich. At any rate, you know it -now. You have received some considerable education already. Education is -costly; and even if it were not, and I could afford it, I am of opinion that it -would not be at all advantageous to you to be kept at school. What is before -you, is a fight with the world; and the sooner you begin it, the better.’ -</p> - -<p> -I think it occurred to me that I had already begun it, in my poor way: but it -occurs to me now, whether or no. -</p> - -<p> -‘You have heard the “counting-house” mentioned -sometimes,’ said Mr. Murdstone. -</p> - -<p> -‘The counting-house, sir?’ I repeated. ‘Of Murdstone and -Grinby, in the wine trade,’ he replied. -</p> - -<p> -I suppose I looked uncertain, for he went on hastily: -</p> - -<p> -‘You have heard the “counting-house” mentioned, or the -business, or the cellars, or the wharf, or something about it.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I think I have heard the business mentioned, sir,’ I said, -remembering what I vaguely knew of his and his sister’s resources. -‘But I don’t know when.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘It does not matter when,’ he returned. ‘Mr. Quinion manages -that business.’ -</p> - -<p> -I glanced at the latter deferentially as he stood looking out of window. -</p> - -<p> -‘Mr. Quinion suggests that it gives employment to some other boys, and -that he sees no reason why it shouldn’t, on the same terms, give -employment to you.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘He having,’ Mr. Quinion observed in a low voice, and half turning -round, ‘no other prospect, Murdstone.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Murdstone, with an impatient, even an angry gesture, resumed, without -noticing what he had said: -</p> - -<p> -‘Those terms are, that you will earn enough for yourself to provide for -your eating and drinking, and pocket-money. Your lodging (which I have arranged -for) will be paid by me. So will your washing—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘—Which will be kept down to my estimate,’ said his sister. -</p> - -<p> -‘Your clothes will be looked after for you, too,’ said Mr. -Murdstone; ‘as you will not be able, yet awhile, to get them for -yourself. So you are now going to London, David, with Mr. Quinion, to begin the -world on your own account.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘In short, you are provided for,’ observed his sister; ‘and -will please to do your duty.’ -</p> - -<p> -Though I quite understood that the purpose of this announcement was to get rid -of me, I have no distinct remembrance whether it pleased or frightened me. My -impression is, that I was in a state of confusion about it, and, oscillating -between the two points, touched neither. Nor had I much time for the clearing -of my thoughts, as Mr. Quinion was to go upon the morrow. -</p> - -<p> -Behold me, on the morrow, in a much-worn little white hat, with a black crape -round it for my mother, a black jacket, and a pair of hard, stiff corduroy -trousers—which Miss Murdstone considered the best armour for the legs in -that fight with the world which was now to come off. Behold me so attired, and -with my little worldly all before me in a small trunk, sitting, a lone lorn -child (as Mrs. Gummidge might have said), in the post-chaise that was carrying -Mr. Quinion to the London coach at Yarmouth! See, how our house and church are -lessening in the distance; how the grave beneath the tree is blotted out by -intervening objects; how the spire points upwards from my old playground no -more, and the sky is empty! -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0011"></a>CHAPTER 11. I BEGIN LIFE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT, AND -DON’T LIKE IT</h2> - -<p> -I know enough of the world now, to have almost lost the capacity of being much -surprised by anything; but it is matter of some surprise to me, even now, that -I can have been so easily thrown away at such an age. A child of excellent -abilities, and with strong powers of observation, quick, eager, delicate, and -soon hurt bodily or mentally, it seems wonderful to me that nobody should have -made any sign in my behalf. But none was made; and I became, at ten years old, -a little labouring hind in the service of Murdstone and Grinby. -</p> - -<p> -Murdstone and Grinby’s warehouse was at the waterside. It was down in -Blackfriars. Modern improvements have altered the place; but it was the last -house at the bottom of a narrow street, curving down hill to the river, with -some stairs at the end, where people took boat. It was a crazy old house with a -wharf of its own, abutting on the water when the tide was in, and on the mud -when the tide was out, and literally overrun with rats. Its panelled rooms, -discoloured with the dirt and smoke of a hundred years, I dare say; its -decaying floors and staircase; the squeaking and scuffling of the old grey rats -down in the cellars; and the dirt and rottenness of the place; are things, not -of many years ago, in my mind, but of the present instant. They are all before -me, just as they were in the evil hour when I went among them for the first -time, with my trembling hand in Mr. Quinion’s. -</p> - -<p> -Murdstone and Grinby’s trade was among a good many kinds of people, but -an important branch of it was the supply of wines and spirits to certain packet -ships. I forget now where they chiefly went, but I think there were some among -them that made voyages both to the East and West Indies. I know that a great -many empty bottles were one of the consequences of this traffic, and that -certain men and boys were employed to examine them against the light, and -reject those that were flawed, and to rinse and wash them. When the empty -bottles ran short, there were labels to be pasted on full ones, or corks to be -fitted to them, or seals to be put upon the corks, or finished bottles to be -packed in casks. All this work was my work, and of the boys employed upon it I -was one. -</p> - -<p> -There were three or four of us, counting me. My working place was established -in a corner of the warehouse, where Mr. Quinion could see me, when he chose to -stand up on the bottom rail of his stool in the counting-house, and look at me -through a window above the desk. Hither, on the first morning of my so -auspiciously beginning life on my own account, the oldest of the regular boys -was summoned to show me my business. His name was Mick Walker, and he wore a -ragged apron and a paper cap. He informed me that his father was a bargeman, -and walked, in a black velvet head-dress, in the Lord Mayor’s Show. He -also informed me that our principal associate would be another boy whom he -introduced by the—to me—extraordinary name of Mealy Potatoes. I -discovered, however, that this youth had not been christened by that name, but -that it had been bestowed upon him in the warehouse, on account of his -complexion, which was pale or mealy. Mealy’s father was a waterman, who -had the additional distinction of being a fireman, and was engaged as such at -one of the large theatres; where some young relation of Mealy’s—I -think his little sister—did Imps in the Pantomimes. -</p> - -<p> -No words can express the secret agony of my soul as I sunk into this -companionship; compared these henceforth everyday associates with those of my -happier childhood—not to say with Steerforth, Traddles, and the rest of -those boys; and felt my hopes of growing up to be a learned and distinguished -man, crushed in my bosom. The deep remembrance of the sense I had, of being -utterly without hope now; of the shame I felt in my position; of the misery it -was to my young heart to believe that day by day what I had learned, and -thought, and delighted in, and raised my fancy and my emulation up by, would -pass away from me, little by little, never to be brought back any more; cannot -be written. As often as Mick Walker went away in the course of that forenoon, I -mingled my tears with the water in which I was washing the bottles; and sobbed -as if there were a flaw in my own breast, and it were in danger of bursting. -</p> - -<p> -The counting-house clock was at half past twelve, and there was general -preparation for going to dinner, when Mr. Quinion tapped at the counting-house -window, and beckoned to me to go in. I went in, and found there a stoutish, -middle-aged person, in a brown surtout and black tights and shoes, with no more -hair upon his head (which was a large one, and very shining) than there is upon -an egg, and with a very extensive face, which he turned full upon me. His -clothes were shabby, but he had an imposing shirt-collar on. He carried a -jaunty sort of a stick, with a large pair of rusty tassels to it; and a -quizzing-glass hung outside his coat,—for ornament, I afterwards found, -as he very seldom looked through it, and couldn’t see anything when he -did. -</p> - -<p> -‘This,’ said Mr. Quinion, in allusion to myself, ‘is -he.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘This,’ said the stranger, with a certain condescending roll in his -voice, and a certain indescribable air of doing something genteel, which -impressed me very much, ‘is Master Copperfield. I hope I see you well, -sir?’ -</p> - -<p> -I said I was very well, and hoped he was. I was sufficiently ill at ease, -Heaven knows; but it was not in my nature to complain much at that time of my -life, so I said I was very well, and hoped he was. -</p> - -<p> -‘I am,’ said the stranger, ‘thank Heaven, quite well. I have -received a letter from Mr. Murdstone, in which he mentions that he would desire -me to receive into an apartment in the rear of my house, which is at present -unoccupied—and is, in short, to be let as a—in short,’ said -the stranger, with a smile and in a burst of confidence, ‘as a -bedroom—the young beginner whom I have now the pleasure to—’ -and the stranger waved his hand, and settled his chin in his shirt-collar. -</p> - -<p> -‘This is Mr. Micawber,’ said Mr. Quinion to me. -</p> - -<p> -‘Ahem!’ said the stranger, ‘that is my name.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Mr. Micawber,’ said Mr. Quinion, ‘is known to Mr. Murdstone. -He takes orders for us on commission, when he can get any. He has been written -to by Mr. Murdstone, on the subject of your lodgings, and he will receive you -as a lodger.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘My address,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘is Windsor Terrace, City -Road. I—in short,’ said Mr. Micawber, with the same genteel air, -and in another burst of confidence—‘I live there.’ -</p> - -<p> -I made him a bow. -</p> - -<p> -‘Under the impression,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘that your -peregrinations in this metropolis have not as yet been extensive, and that you -might have some difficulty in penetrating the arcana of the Modern Babylon in -the direction of the City Road,—in short,’ said Mr. Micawber, in -another burst of confidence, ‘that you might lose yourself—I shall -be happy to call this evening, and install you in the knowledge of the nearest -way.’ -</p> - -<p> -I thanked him with all my heart, for it was friendly in him to offer to take -that trouble. -</p> - -<p> -‘At what hour,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘shall I—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘At about eight,’ said Mr. Quinion. -</p> - -<p> -‘At about eight,’ said Mr. Micawber. ‘I beg to wish you good -day, Mr. Quinion. I will intrude no longer.’ -</p> - -<p> -So he put on his hat, and went out with his cane under his arm: very upright, -and humming a tune when he was clear of the counting-house. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Quinion then formally engaged me to be as useful as I could in the -warehouse of Murdstone and Grinby, at a salary, I think, of six shillings a -week. I am not clear whether it was six or seven. I am inclined to believe, -from my uncertainty on this head, that it was six at first and seven -afterwards. He paid me a week down (from his own pocket, I believe), and I gave -Mealy sixpence out of it to get my trunk carried to Windsor Terrace that night: -it being too heavy for my strength, small as it was. I paid sixpence more for -my dinner, which was a meat pie and a turn at a neighbouring pump; and passed -the hour which was allowed for that meal, in walking about the streets. -</p> - -<p> -At the appointed time in the evening, Mr. Micawber reappeared. I washed my -hands and face, to do the greater honour to his gentility, and we walked to our -house, as I suppose I must now call it, together; Mr. Micawber impressing the -name of streets, and the shapes of corner houses upon me, as we went along, -that I might find my way back, easily, in the morning. -</p> - -<p> -Arrived at this house in Windsor Terrace (which I noticed was shabby like -himself, but also, like himself, made all the show it could), he presented me -to Mrs. Micawber, a thin and faded lady, not at all young, who was sitting in -the parlour (the first floor was altogether unfurnished, and the blinds were -kept down to delude the neighbours), with a baby at her breast. This baby was -one of twins; and I may remark here that I hardly ever, in all my experience of -the family, saw both the twins detached from Mrs. Micawber at the same time. -One of them was always taking refreshment. -</p> - -<p> -There were two other children; Master Micawber, aged about four, and Miss -Micawber, aged about three. These, and a dark-complexioned young woman, with a -habit of snorting, who was servant to the family, and informed me, before half -an hour had expired, that she was ‘a Orfling’, and came from St. -Luke’s workhouse, in the neighbourhood, completed the establishment. My -room was at the top of the house, at the back: a close chamber; stencilled all -over with an ornament which my young imagination represented as a blue muffin; -and very scantily furnished. -</p> - -<p> -‘I never thought,’ said Mrs. Micawber, when she came up, twin and -all, to show me the apartment, and sat down to take breath, ‘before I was -married, when I lived with papa and mama, that I should ever find it necessary -to take a lodger. But Mr. Micawber being in difficulties, all considerations of -private feeling must give way.’ -</p> - -<p> -I said: ‘Yes, ma’am.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Mr. Micawber’s difficulties are almost overwhelming just at -present,’ said Mrs. Micawber; ‘and whether it is possible to bring -him through them, I don’t know. When I lived at home with papa and mama, -I really should have hardly understood what the word meant, in the sense in -which I now employ it, but experientia does it,—as papa used to -say.’ -</p> - -<p> -I cannot satisfy myself whether she told me that Mr. Micawber had been an -officer in the Marines, or whether I have imagined it. I only know that I -believe to this hour that he WAS in the Marines once upon a time, without -knowing why. He was a sort of town traveller for a number of miscellaneous -houses, now; but made little or nothing of it, I am afraid. -</p> - -<p> -‘If Mr. Micawber’s creditors will not give him time,’ said -Mrs. Micawber, ‘they must take the consequences; and the sooner they -bring it to an issue the better. Blood cannot be obtained from a stone, neither -can anything on account be obtained at present (not to mention law expenses) -from Mr. Micawber.’ -</p> - -<p> -I never can quite understand whether my precocious self-dependence confused -Mrs. Micawber in reference to my age, or whether she was so full of the subject -that she would have talked about it to the very twins if there had been nobody -else to communicate with, but this was the strain in which she began, and she -went on accordingly all the time I knew her. -</p> - -<p> -Poor Mrs. Micawber! She said she had tried to exert herself, and so, I have no -doubt, she had. The centre of the street door was perfectly covered with a -great brass-plate, on which was engraved ‘Mrs. Micawber’s Boarding -Establishment for Young Ladies’: but I never found that any young lady -had ever been to school there; or that any young lady ever came, or proposed to -come; or that the least preparation was ever made to receive any young lady. -The only visitors I ever saw, or heard of, were creditors. THEY used to come at -all hours, and some of them were quite ferocious. One dirty-faced man, I think -he was a boot-maker, used to edge himself into the passage as early as seven -o’clock in the morning, and call up the stairs to Mr. -Micawber—‘Come! You ain’t out yet, you know. Pay us, will -you? Don’t hide, you know; that’s mean. I wouldn’t be mean if -I was you. Pay us, will you? You just pay us, d’ye hear? Come!’ -Receiving no answer to these taunts, he would mount in his wrath to the words -‘swindlers’ and ‘robbers’; and these being ineffectual -too, would sometimes go to the extremity of crossing the street, and roaring up -at the windows of the second floor, where he knew Mr. Micawber was. At these -times, Mr. Micawber would be transported with grief and mortification, even to -the length (as I was once made aware by a scream from his wife) of making -motions at himself with a razor; but within half-an-hour afterwards, he would -polish up his shoes with extraordinary pains, and go out, humming a tune with a -greater air of gentility than ever. Mrs. Micawber was quite as elastic. I have -known her to be thrown into fainting fits by the king’s taxes at three -o’clock, and to eat lamb chops, breaded, and drink warm ale (paid for -with two tea-spoons that had gone to the pawnbroker’s) at four. On one -occasion, when an execution had just been put in, coming home through some -chance as early as six o’clock, I saw her lying (of course with a twin) -under the grate in a swoon, with her hair all torn about her face; but I never -knew her more cheerful than she was, that very same night, over a veal cutlet -before the kitchen fire, telling me stories about her papa and mama, and the -company they used to keep. -</p> - -<p> -In this house, and with this family, I passed my leisure time. My own exclusive -breakfast of a penny loaf and a pennyworth of milk, I provided myself. I kept -another small loaf, and a modicum of cheese, on a particular shelf of a -particular cupboard, to make my supper on when I came back at night. This made -a hole in the six or seven shillings, I know well; and I was out at the -warehouse all day, and had to support myself on that money all the week. From -Monday morning until Saturday night, I had no advice, no counsel, no -encouragement, no consolation, no assistance, no support, of any kind, from -anyone, that I can call to mind, as I hope to go to heaven! -</p> - -<p> -I was so young and childish, and so little qualified—how could I be -otherwise?—to undertake the whole charge of my own existence, that often, -in going to Murdstone and Grinby’s, of a morning, I could not resist the -stale pastry put out for sale at half-price at the pastrycooks’ doors, -and spent in that the money I should have kept for my dinner. Then, I went -without my dinner, or bought a roll or a slice of pudding. I remember two -pudding shops, between which I was divided, according to my finances. One was -in a court close to St. Martin’s Church—at the back of the -church,—which is now removed altogether. The pudding at that shop was -made of currants, and was rather a special pudding, but was dear, twopennyworth -not being larger than a pennyworth of more ordinary pudding. A good shop for -the latter was in the Strand—somewhere in that part which has been -rebuilt since. It was a stout pale pudding, heavy and flabby, and with great -flat raisins in it, stuck in whole at wide distances apart. It came up hot at -about my time every day, and many a day did I dine off it. When I dined -regularly and handsomely, I had a saveloy and a penny loaf, or a fourpenny -plate of red beef from a cook’s shop; or a plate of bread and cheese and -a glass of beer, from a miserable old public-house opposite our place of -business, called the Lion, or the Lion and something else that I have -forgotten. Once, I remember carrying my own bread (which I had brought from -home in the morning) under my arm, wrapped in a piece of paper, like a book, -and going to a famous alamode beef-house near Drury Lane, and ordering a -‘small plate’ of that delicacy to eat with it. What the waiter -thought of such a strange little apparition coming in all alone, I don’t -know; but I can see him now, staring at me as I ate my dinner, and bringing up -the other waiter to look. I gave him a halfpenny for himself, and I wish he -hadn’t taken it. -</p> - -<p> -We had half-an-hour, I think, for tea. When I had money enough, I used to get -half-a-pint of ready-made coffee and a slice of bread and butter. When I had -none, I used to look at a venison shop in Fleet Street; or I have strolled, at -such a time, as far as Covent Garden Market, and stared at the pineapples. I -was fond of wandering about the Adelphi, because it was a mysterious place, -with those dark arches. I see myself emerging one evening from some of these -arches, on a little public-house close to the river, with an open space before -it, where some coal-heavers were dancing; to look at whom I sat down upon a -bench. I wonder what they thought of me! -</p> - -<p> -I was such a child, and so little, that frequently when I went into the bar of -a strange public-house for a glass of ale or porter, to moisten what I had had -for dinner, they were afraid to give it me. I remember one hot evening I went -into the bar of a public-house, and said to the landlord: ‘What is your -best—your very best—ale a glass?’ For it was a special -occasion. I don’t know what. It may have been my birthday. -</p> - -<p> -‘Twopence-halfpenny,’ says the landlord, ‘is the price of the -Genuine Stunning ale.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Then,’ says I, producing the money, ‘just draw me a glass of -the Genuine Stunning, if you please, with a good head to it.’ -</p> - -<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> -<img src="images/0211.jpg" alt="0211 " width="100%" /> -</div> - -<h5> -<a href="images/0211.jpg"> -<img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /></a> -</h5> - -<p> -The landlord looked at me in return over the bar, from head to foot, with a -strange smile on his face; and instead of drawing the beer, looked round the -screen and said something to his wife. She came out from behind it, with her -work in her hand, and joined him in surveying me. Here we stand, all three, -before me now. The landlord in his shirt-sleeves, leaning against the bar -window-frame; his wife looking over the little half-door; and I, in some -confusion, looking up at them from outside the partition. They asked me a good -many questions; as, what my name was, how old I was, where I lived, how I was -employed, and how I came there. To all of which, that I might commit nobody, I -invented, I am afraid, appropriate answers. They served me with the ale, though -I suspect it was not the Genuine Stunning; and the landlord’s wife, -opening the little half-door of the bar, and bending down, gave me my money -back, and gave me a kiss that was half admiring and half compassionate, but all -womanly and good, I am sure. -</p> - -<p> -I know I do not exaggerate, unconsciously and unintentionally, the scantiness -of my resources or the difficulties of my life. I know that if a shilling were -given me by Mr. Quinion at any time, I spent it in a dinner or a tea. I know -that I worked, from morning until night, with common men and boys, a shabby -child. I know that I lounged about the streets, insufficiently and -unsatisfactorily fed. I know that, but for the mercy of God, I might easily -have been, for any care that was taken of me, a little robber or a little -vagabond. -</p> - -<p> -Yet I held some station at Murdstone and Grinby’s too. Besides that Mr. -Quinion did what a careless man so occupied, and dealing with a thing so -anomalous, could, to treat me as one upon a different footing from the rest, I -never said, to man or boy, how it was that I came to be there, or gave the -least indication of being sorry that I was there. That I suffered in secret, -and that I suffered exquisitely, no one ever knew but I. How much I suffered, -it is, as I have said already, utterly beyond my power to tell. But I kept my -own counsel, and I did my work. I knew from the first, that, if I could not do -my work as well as any of the rest, I could not hold myself above slight and -contempt. I soon became at least as expeditious and as skilful as either of the -other boys. Though perfectly familiar with them, my conduct and manner were -different enough from theirs to place a space between us. They and the men -generally spoke of me as ‘the little gent’, or ‘the young -Suffolker.’ A certain man named Gregory, who was foreman of the packers, -and another named Tipp, who was the carman, and wore a red jacket, used to -address me sometimes as ‘David’: but I think it was mostly when we -were very confidential, and when I had made some efforts to entertain them, -over our work, with some results of the old readings; which were fast perishing -out of my remembrance. Mealy Potatoes uprose once, and rebelled against my -being so distinguished; but Mick Walker settled him in no time. -</p> - -<p> -My rescue from this kind of existence I considered quite hopeless, and -abandoned, as such, altogether. I am solemnly convinced that I never for one -hour was reconciled to it, or was otherwise than miserably unhappy; but I bore -it; and even to Peggotty, partly for the love of her and partly for shame, -never in any letter (though many passed between us) revealed the truth. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Micawber’s difficulties were an addition to the distressed state of -my mind. In my forlorn state I became quite attached to the family, and used to -walk about, busy with Mrs. Micawber’s calculations of ways and means, and -heavy with the weight of Mr. Micawber’s debts. On a Saturday night, which -was my grand treat,—partly because it was a great thing to walk home with -six or seven shillings in my pocket, looking into the shops and thinking what -such a sum would buy, and partly because I went home early,—Mrs. Micawber -would make the most heart-rending confidences to me; also on a Sunday morning, -when I mixed the portion of tea or coffee I had bought over-night, in a little -shaving-pot, and sat late at my breakfast. It was nothing at all unusual for -Mr. Micawber to sob violently at the beginning of one of these Saturday night -conversations, and sing about Jack’s delight being his lovely Nan, -towards the end of it. I have known him come home to supper with a flood of -tears, and a declaration that nothing was now left but a jail; and go to bed -making a calculation of the expense of putting bow-windows to the house, -‘in case anything turned up’, which was his favourite expression. -And Mrs. Micawber was just the same. -</p> - -<p> -A curious equality of friendship, originating, I suppose, in our respective -circumstances, sprung up between me and these people, notwithstanding the -ludicrous disparity in our years. But I never allowed myself to be prevailed -upon to accept any invitation to eat and drink with them out of their stock -(knowing that they got on badly with the butcher and baker, and had often not -too much for themselves), until Mrs. Micawber took me into her entire -confidence. This she did one evening as follows: -</p> - -<p> -‘Master Copperfield,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘I make no stranger -of you, and therefore do not hesitate to say that Mr. Micawber’s -difficulties are coming to a crisis.’ -</p> - -<p> -It made me very miserable to hear it, and I looked at Mrs. Micawber’s red -eyes with the utmost sympathy. -</p> - -<p> -‘With the exception of the heel of a Dutch cheese—which is not -adapted to the wants of a young family’—said Mrs. Micawber, -‘there is really not a scrap of anything in the larder. I was accustomed -to speak of the larder when I lived with papa and mama, and I use the word -almost unconsciously. What I mean to express is, that there is nothing to eat -in the house.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Dear me!’ I said, in great concern. -</p> - -<p> -I had two or three shillings of my week’s money in my pocket—from -which I presume that it must have been on a Wednesday night when we held this -conversation—and I hastily produced them, and with heartfelt emotion -begged Mrs. Micawber to accept of them as a loan. But that lady, kissing me, -and making me put them back in my pocket, replied that she couldn’t think -of it. -</p> - -<p> -‘No, my dear Master Copperfield,’ said she, ‘far be it from -my thoughts! But you have a discretion beyond your years, and can render me -another kind of service, if you will; and a service I will thankfully accept -of.’ -</p> - -<p> -I begged Mrs. Micawber to name it. -</p> - -<p> -‘I have parted with the plate myself,’ said Mrs. Micawber. -‘Six tea, two salt, and a pair of sugars, I have at different times -borrowed money on, in secret, with my own hands. But the twins are a great tie; -and to me, with my recollections, of papa and mama, these transactions are very -painful. There are still a few trifles that we could part with. Mr. -Micawber’s feelings would never allow him to dispose of them; and -Clickett’—this was the girl from the workhouse—‘being -of a vulgar mind, would take painful liberties if so much confidence was -reposed in her. Master Copperfield, if I might ask you—’ -</p> - -<p> -I understood Mrs. Micawber now, and begged her to make use of me to any extent. -I began to dispose of the more portable articles of property that very evening; -and went out on a similar expedition almost every morning, before I went to -Murdstone and Grinby’s. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Micawber had a few books on a little chiffonier, which he called the -library; and those went first. I carried them, one after another, to a -bookstall in the City Road—one part of which, near our house, was almost -all bookstalls and bird shops then—and sold them for whatever they would -bring. The keeper of this bookstall, who lived in a little house behind it, -used to get tipsy every night, and to be violently scolded by his wife every -morning. More than once, when I went there early, I had audience of him in a -turn-up bedstead, with a cut in his forehead or a black eye, bearing witness to -his excesses over-night (I am afraid he was quarrelsome in his drink), and he, -with a shaking hand, endeavouring to find the needful shillings in one or other -of the pockets of his clothes, which lay upon the floor, while his wife, with a -baby in her arms and her shoes down at heel, never left off rating him. -Sometimes he had lost his money, and then he would ask me to call again; but -his wife had always got some—had taken his, I dare say, while he was -drunk—and secretly completed the bargain on the stairs, as we went down -together. At the pawnbroker’s shop, too, I began to be very well known. -The principal gentleman who officiated behind the counter, took a good deal of -notice of me; and often got me, I recollect, to decline a Latin noun or -adjective, or to conjugate a Latin verb, in his ear, while he transacted my -business. After all these occasions Mrs. Micawber made a little treat, which -was generally a supper; and there was a peculiar relish in these meals which I -well remember. -</p> - -<p> -At last Mr. Micawber’s difficulties came to a crisis, and he was arrested -early one morning, and carried over to the King’s Bench Prison in the -Borough. He told me, as he went out of the house, that the God of day had now -gone down upon him—and I really thought his heart was broken and mine -too. But I heard, afterwards, that he was seen to play a lively game at -skittles, before noon. -</p> - -<p> -On the first Sunday after he was taken there, I was to go and see him, and have -dinner with him. I was to ask my way to such a place, and just short of that -place I should see such another place, and just short of that I should see a -yard, which I was to cross, and keep straight on until I saw a turnkey. All -this I did; and when at last I did see a turnkey (poor little fellow that I -was!), and thought how, when Roderick Random was in a debtors’ prison, -there was a man there with nothing on him but an old rug, the turnkey swam -before my dimmed eyes and my beating heart. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Micawber was waiting for me within the gate, and we went up to his room -(top story but one), and cried very much. He solemnly conjured me, I remember, -to take warning by his fate; and to observe that if a man had twenty pounds -a-year for his income, and spent nineteen pounds nineteen shillings and -sixpence, he would be happy, but that if he spent twenty pounds one he would be -miserable. After which he borrowed a shilling of me for porter, gave me a -written order on Mrs. Micawber for the amount, and put away his -pocket-handkerchief, and cheered up. -</p> - -<p> -We sat before a little fire, with two bricks put within the rusted grate, one -on each side, to prevent its burning too many coals; until another debtor, who -shared the room with Mr. Micawber, came in from the bakehouse with the loin of -mutton which was our joint-stock repast. Then I was sent up to ‘Captain -Hopkins’ in the room overhead, with Mr. Micawber’s compliments, and -I was his young friend, and would Captain Hopkins lend me a knife and fork. -</p> - -<p> -Captain Hopkins lent me the knife and fork, with his compliments to Mr. -Micawber. There was a very dirty lady in his little room, and two wan girls, -his daughters, with shock heads of hair. I thought it was better to borrow -Captain Hopkins’s knife and fork, than Captain Hopkins’s comb. The -Captain himself was in the last extremity of shabbiness, with large whiskers, -and an old, old brown great-coat with no other coat below it. I saw his bed -rolled up in a corner; and what plates and dishes and pots he had, on a shelf; -and I divined (God knows how) that though the two girls with the shock heads of -hair were Captain Hopkins’s children, the dirty lady was not married to -Captain Hopkins. My timid station on his threshold was not occupied more than a -couple of minutes at most; but I came down again with all this in my knowledge, -as surely as the knife and fork were in my hand. -</p> - -<p> -There was something gipsy-like and agreeable in the dinner, after all. I took -back Captain Hopkins’s knife and fork early in the afternoon, and went -home to comfort Mrs. Micawber with an account of my visit. She fainted when she -saw me return, and made a little jug of egg-hot afterwards to console us while -we talked it over. -</p> - -<p> -I don’t know how the household furniture came to be sold for the family -benefit, or who sold it, except that I did not. Sold it was, however, and -carried away in a van; except the bed, a few chairs, and the kitchen table. -With these possessions we encamped, as it were, in the two parlours of the -emptied house in Windsor Terrace; Mrs. Micawber, the children, the Orfling, and -myself; and lived in those rooms night and day. I have no idea for how long, -though it seems to me for a long time. At last Mrs. Micawber resolved to move -into the prison, where Mr. Micawber had now secured a room to himself. So I -took the key of the house to the landlord, who was very glad to get it; and the -beds were sent over to the King’s Bench, except mine, for which a little -room was hired outside the walls in the neighbourhood of that Institution, very -much to my satisfaction, since the Micawbers and I had become too used to one -another, in our troubles, to part. The Orfling was likewise accommodated with -an inexpensive lodging in the same neighbourhood. Mine was a quiet back-garret -with a sloping roof, commanding a pleasant prospect of a timberyard; and when I -took possession of it, with the reflection that Mr. Micawber’s troubles -had come to a crisis at last, I thought it quite a paradise. -</p> - -<p> -All this time I was working at Murdstone and Grinby’s in the same common -way, and with the same common companions, and with the same sense of unmerited -degradation as at first. But I never, happily for me no doubt, made a single -acquaintance, or spoke to any of the many boys whom I saw daily in going to the -warehouse, in coming from it, and in prowling about the streets at meal-times. -I led the same secretly unhappy life; but I led it in the same lonely, -self-reliant manner. The only changes I am conscious of are, firstly, that I -had grown more shabby, and secondly, that I was now relieved of much of the -weight of Mr. and Mrs. Micawber’s cares; for some relatives or friends -had engaged to help them at their present pass, and they lived more comfortably -in the prison than they had lived for a long while out of it. I used to -breakfast with them now, in virtue of some arrangement, of which I have -forgotten the details. I forget, too, at what hour the gates were opened in the -morning, admitting of my going in; but I know that I was often up at six -o’clock, and that my favourite lounging-place in the interval was old -London Bridge, where I was wont to sit in one of the stone recesses, watching -the people going by, or to look over the balustrades at the sun shining in the -water, and lighting up the golden flame on the top of the Monument. The Orfling -met me here sometimes, to be told some astonishing fictions respecting the -wharves and the Tower; of which I can say no more than that I hope I believed -them myself. In the evening I used to go back to the prison, and walk up and -down the parade with Mr. Micawber; or play casino with Mrs. Micawber, and hear -reminiscences of her papa and mama. Whether Mr. Murdstone knew where I was, I -am unable to say. I never told them at Murdstone and Grinby’s. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Micawber’s affairs, although past their crisis, were very much -involved by reason of a certain ‘Deed’, of which I used to hear a -great deal, and which I suppose, now, to have been some former composition with -his creditors, though I was so far from being clear about it then, that I am -conscious of having confounded it with those demoniacal parchments which are -held to have, once upon a time, obtained to a great extent in Germany. At last -this document appeared to be got out of the way, somehow; at all events it -ceased to be the rock-ahead it had been; and Mrs. Micawber informed me that -‘her family’ had decided that Mr. Micawber should apply for his -release under the Insolvent Debtors Act, which would set him free, she -expected, in about six weeks. -</p> - -<p> -‘And then,’ said Mr. Micawber, who was present, ‘I have no -doubt I shall, please Heaven, begin to be beforehand with the world, and to -live in a perfectly new manner, if—in short, if anything turns up.’ -</p> - -<p> -By way of going in for anything that might be on the cards, I call to mind that -Mr. Micawber, about this time, composed a petition to the House of Commons, -praying for an alteration in the law of imprisonment for debt. I set down this -remembrance here, because it is an instance to myself of the manner in which I -fitted my old books to my altered life, and made stories for myself, out of the -streets, and out of men and women; and how some main points in the character I -shall unconsciously develop, I suppose, in writing my life, were gradually -forming all this while. -</p> - -<p> -There was a club in the prison, in which Mr. Micawber, as a gentleman, was a -great authority. Mr. Micawber had stated his idea of this petition to the club, -and the club had strongly approved of the same. Wherefore Mr. Micawber (who was -a thoroughly good-natured man, and as active a creature about everything but -his own affairs as ever existed, and never so happy as when he was busy about -something that could never be of any profit to him) set to work at the -petition, invented it, engrossed it on an immense sheet of paper, spread it out -on a table, and appointed a time for all the club, and all within the walls if -they chose, to come up to his room and sign it. -</p> - -<p> -When I heard of this approaching ceremony, I was so anxious to see them all -come in, one after another, though I knew the greater part of them already, and -they me, that I got an hour’s leave of absence from Murdstone and -Grinby’s, and established myself in a corner for that purpose. As many of -the principal members of the club as could be got into the small room without -filling it, supported Mr. Micawber in front of the petition, while my old -friend Captain Hopkins (who had washed himself, to do honour to so solemn an -occasion) stationed himself close to it, to read it to all who were -unacquainted with its contents. The door was then thrown open, and the general -population began to come in, in a long file: several waiting outside, while one -entered, affixed his signature, and went out. To everybody in succession, -Captain Hopkins said: ‘Have you read -it?’—‘No.’—-’Would you like to hear it -read?’ If he weakly showed the least disposition to hear it, Captain -Hopkins, in a loud sonorous voice, gave him every word of it. The Captain would -have read it twenty thousand times, if twenty thousand people would have heard -him, one by one. I remember a certain luscious roll he gave to such phrases as -‘The people’s representatives in Parliament assembled,’ -‘Your petitioners therefore humbly approach your honourable house,’ -‘His gracious Majesty’s unfortunate subjects,’ as if the -words were something real in his mouth, and delicious to taste; Mr. Micawber, -meanwhile, listening with a little of an author’s vanity, and -contemplating (not severely) the spikes on the opposite wall. -</p> - -<p> -As I walked to and fro daily between Southwark and Blackfriars, and lounged -about at meal-times in obscure streets, the stones of which may, for anything I -know, be worn at this moment by my childish feet, I wonder how many of these -people were wanting in the crowd that used to come filing before me in review -again, to the echo of Captain Hopkins’s voice! When my thoughts go back, -now, to that slow agony of my youth, I wonder how much of the histories I -invented for such people hangs like a mist of fancy over well-remembered facts! -When I tread the old ground, I do not wonder that I seem to see and pity, going -on before me, an innocent romantic boy, making his imaginative world out of -such strange experiences and sordid things! -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0012"></a>CHAPTER 12. LIKING LIFE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT NO -BETTER, I FORM A GREAT RESOLUTION</h2> - -<p> -In due time, Mr. Micawber’s petition was ripe for hearing; and that -gentleman was ordered to be discharged under the Act, to my great joy. His -creditors were not implacable; and Mrs. Micawber informed me that even the -revengeful boot-maker had declared in open court that he bore him no malice, -but that when money was owing to him he liked to be paid. He said he thought it -was human nature. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Micawber returned to the King’s Bench when his case was over, as some -fees were to be settled, and some formalities observed, before he could be -actually released. The club received him with transport, and held an harmonic -meeting that evening in his honour; while Mrs. Micawber and I had a -lamb’s fry in private, surrounded by the sleeping family. -</p> - -<p> -‘On such an occasion I will give you, Master Copperfield,’ said -Mrs. Micawber, ‘in a little more flip,’ for we had been having some -already, ‘the memory of my papa and mama.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Are they dead, ma’am?’ I inquired, after drinking the toast -in a wine-glass. -</p> - -<p> -‘My mama departed this life,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘before Mr. -Micawber’s difficulties commenced, or at least before they became -pressing. My papa lived to bail Mr. Micawber several times, and then expired, -regretted by a numerous circle.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Micawber shook her head, and dropped a pious tear upon the twin who -happened to be in hand. -</p> - -<p> -As I could hardly hope for a more favourable opportunity of putting a question -in which I had a near interest, I said to Mrs. Micawber: -</p> - -<p> -‘May I ask, ma’am, what you and Mr. Micawber intend to do, now that -Mr. Micawber is out of his difficulties, and at liberty? Have you settled -yet?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘My family,’ said Mrs. Micawber, who always said those two words -with an air, though I never could discover who came under the denomination, -‘my family are of opinion that Mr. Micawber should quit London, and exert -his talents in the country. Mr. Micawber is a man of great talent, Master -Copperfield.’ -</p> - -<p> -I said I was sure of that. -</p> - -<p> -‘Of great talent,’ repeated Mrs. Micawber. ‘My family are of -opinion, that, with a little interest, something might be done for a man of his -ability in the Custom House. The influence of my family being local, it is -their wish that Mr. Micawber should go down to Plymouth. They think it -indispensable that he should be upon the spot.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘That he may be ready?’ I suggested. -</p> - -<p> -‘Exactly,’ returned Mrs. Micawber. ‘That he may be -ready—in case of anything turning up.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And do you go too, ma’am?’ -</p> - -<p> -The events of the day, in combination with the twins, if not with the flip, had -made Mrs. Micawber hysterical, and she shed tears as she replied: -</p> - -<p> -‘I never will desert Mr. Micawber. Mr. Micawber may have concealed his -difficulties from me in the first instance, but his sanguine temper may have -led him to expect that he would overcome them. The pearl necklace and bracelets -which I inherited from mama, have been disposed of for less than half their -value; and the set of coral, which was the wedding gift of my papa, has been -actually thrown away for nothing. But I never will desert Mr. Micawber. -No!’ cried Mrs. Micawber, more affected than before, ‘I never will -do it! It’s of no use asking me!’ -</p> - -<p> -I felt quite uncomfortable—as if Mrs. Micawber supposed I had asked her -to do anything of the sort!—and sat looking at her in alarm. -</p> - -<p> -‘Mr. Micawber has his faults. I do not deny that he is improvident. I do -not deny that he has kept me in the dark as to his resources and his -liabilities both,’ she went on, looking at the wall; ‘but I never -will desert Mr. Micawber!’ -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Micawber having now raised her voice into a perfect scream, I was so -frightened that I ran off to the club-room, and disturbed Mr. Micawber in the -act of presiding at a long table, and leading the chorus of -</p> - -<p class="poem"> -Gee up, Dobbin,<br/> -Gee ho, Dobbin,<br/> -Gee up, Dobbin,<br/> -Gee up, and gee ho—o—o! -</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -—with the tidings that Mrs. Micawber was in an alarming state, upon which -he immediately burst into tears, and came away with me with his waistcoat full -of the heads and tails of shrimps, of which he had been partaking. -</p> - -<p> -‘Emma, my angel!’ cried Mr. Micawber, running into the room; -‘what is the matter?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I never will desert you, Micawber!’ she exclaimed. -</p> - -<p> -‘My life!’ said Mr. Micawber, taking her in his arms. ‘I am -perfectly aware of it.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘He is the parent of my children! He is the father of my twins! He is the -husband of my affections,’ cried Mrs. Micawber, struggling; ‘and I -ne—ver—will—desert Mr. Micawber!’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Micawber was so deeply affected by this proof of her devotion (as to me, I -was dissolved in tears), that he hung over her in a passionate manner, -imploring her to look up, and to be calm. But the more he asked Mrs. Micawber -to look up, the more she fixed her eyes on nothing; and the more he asked her -to compose herself, the more she wouldn’t. Consequently Mr. Micawber was -soon so overcome, that he mingled his tears with hers and mine; until he begged -me to do him the favour of taking a chair on the staircase, while he got her -into bed. I would have taken my leave for the night, but he would not hear of -my doing that until the strangers’ bell should ring. So I sat at the -staircase window, until he came out with another chair and joined me. -</p> - -<p> -‘How is Mrs. Micawber now, sir?’ I said. -</p> - -<p> -‘Very low,’ said Mr. Micawber, shaking his head; ‘reaction. -Ah, this has been a dreadful day! We stand alone now—everything is gone -from us!’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Micawber pressed my hand, and groaned, and afterwards shed tears. I was -greatly touched, and disappointed too, for I had expected that we should be -quite gay on this happy and long-looked-for occasion. But Mr. and Mrs. Micawber -were so used to their old difficulties, I think, that they felt quite -shipwrecked when they came to consider that they were released from them. All -their elasticity was departed, and I never saw them half so wretched as on this -night; insomuch that when the bell rang, and Mr. Micawber walked with me to the -lodge, and parted from me there with a blessing, I felt quite afraid to leave -him by himself, he was so profoundly miserable. -</p> - -<p> -But through all the confusion and lowness of spirits in which we had been, so -unexpectedly to me, involved, I plainly discerned that Mr. and Mrs. Micawber -and their family were going away from London, and that a parting between us was -near at hand. It was in my walk home that night, and in the sleepless hours -which followed when I lay in bed, that the thought first occurred to -me—though I don’t know how it came into my head—which -afterwards shaped itself into a settled resolution. -</p> - -<p> -I had grown to be so accustomed to the Micawbers, and had been so intimate with -them in their distresses, and was so utterly friendless without them, that the -prospect of being thrown upon some new shift for a lodging, and going once more -among unknown people, was like being that moment turned adrift into my present -life, with such a knowledge of it ready made as experience had given me. All -the sensitive feelings it wounded so cruelly, all the shame and misery it kept -alive within my breast, became more poignant as I thought of this; and I -determined that the life was unendurable. -</p> - -<p> -That there was no hope of escape from it, unless the escape was my own act, I -knew quite well. I rarely heard from Miss Murdstone, and never from Mr. -Murdstone: but two or three parcels of made or mended clothes had come up for -me, consigned to Mr. Quinion, and in each there was a scrap of paper to the -effect that J. M. trusted D. C. was applying himself to business, and devoting -himself wholly to his duties—not the least hint of my ever being anything -else than the common drudge into which I was fast settling down. -</p> - -<p> -The very next day showed me, while my mind was in the first agitation of what -it had conceived, that Mrs. Micawber had not spoken of their going away without -warrant. They took a lodging in the house where I lived, for a week; at the -expiration of which time they were to start for Plymouth. Mr. Micawber himself -came down to the counting-house, in the afternoon, to tell Mr. Quinion that he -must relinquish me on the day of his departure, and to give me a high -character, which I am sure I deserved. And Mr. Quinion, calling in Tipp the -carman, who was a married man, and had a room to let, quartered me -prospectively on him—by our mutual consent, as he had every reason to -think; for I said nothing, though my resolution was now taken. -</p> - -<p> -I passed my evenings with Mr. and Mrs. Micawber, during the remaining term of -our residence under the same roof; and I think we became fonder of one another -as the time went on. On the last Sunday, they invited me to dinner; and we had -a loin of pork and apple sauce, and a pudding. I had bought a spotted wooden -horse over-night as a parting gift to little Wilkins Micawber—that was -the boy—and a doll for little Emma. I had also bestowed a shilling on the -Orfling, who was about to be disbanded. -</p> - -<p> -We had a very pleasant day, though we were all in a tender state about our -approaching separation. -</p> - -<p> -‘I shall never, Master Copperfield,’ said Mrs. Micawber, -‘revert to the period when Mr. Micawber was in difficulties, without -thinking of you. Your conduct has always been of the most delicate and obliging -description. You have never been a lodger. You have been a friend.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear,’ said Mr. Micawber; ‘Copperfield,’ for so he -had been accustomed to call me, of late, ‘has a heart to feel for the -distresses of his fellow-creatures when they are behind a cloud, and a head to -plan, and a hand to—in short, a general ability to dispose of such -available property as could be made away with.’ -</p> - -<p> -I expressed my sense of this commendation, and said I was very sorry we were -going to lose one another. -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear young friend,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘I am older than -you; a man of some experience in life, and—and of some experience, in -short, in difficulties, generally speaking. At present, and until something -turns up (which I am, I may say, hourly expecting), I have nothing to bestow -but advice. Still my advice is so far worth taking, that—in short, that I -have never taken it myself, and am the’—here Mr. Micawber, who had -been beaming and smiling, all over his head and face, up to the present moment, -checked himself and frowned—‘the miserable wretch you -behold.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear Micawber!’ urged his wife. -</p> - -<p> -‘I say,’ returned Mr. Micawber, quite forgetting himself, and -smiling again, ‘the miserable wretch you behold. My advice is, never do -tomorrow what you can do today. Procrastination is the thief of time. Collar -him!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘My poor papa’s maxim,’ Mrs. Micawber observed. -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘your papa was very well in his -way, and Heaven forbid that I should disparage him. Take him for all in all, we -ne’er shall—in short, make the acquaintance, probably, of anybody -else possessing, at his time of life, the same legs for gaiters, and able to -read the same description of print, without spectacles. But he applied that -maxim to our marriage, my dear; and that was so far prematurely entered into, -in consequence, that I never recovered the expense.’ Mr. Micawber looked -aside at Mrs. Micawber, and added: ‘Not that I am sorry for it. Quite the -contrary, my love.’ After which, he was grave for a minute or so. -</p> - -<p> -‘My other piece of advice, Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber, -‘you know. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen -nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual -expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery. The blossom is -blighted, the leaf is withered, the god of day goes down upon the dreary scene, -and—and in short you are for ever floored. As I am!’ -</p> - -<p> -To make his example the more impressive, Mr. Micawber drank a glass of punch -with an air of great enjoyment and satisfaction, and whistled the College -Hornpipe. -</p> - -<p> -I did not fail to assure him that I would store these precepts in my mind, -though indeed I had no need to do so, for, at the time, they affected me -visibly. Next morning I met the whole family at the coach office, and saw them, -with a desolate heart, take their places outside, at the back. -</p> - -<p> -‘Master Copperfield,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘God bless you! I -never can forget all that, you know, and I never would if I could.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘farewell! Every happiness -and prosperity! If, in the progress of revolving years, I could persuade myself -that my blighted destiny had been a warning to you, I should feel that I had -not occupied another man’s place in existence altogether in vain. In case -of anything turning up (of which I am rather confident), I shall be extremely -happy if it should be in my power to improve your prospects.’ -</p> - -<p> -I think, as Mrs. Micawber sat at the back of the coach, with the children, and -I stood in the road looking wistfully at them, a mist cleared from her eyes, -and she saw what a little creature I really was. I think so, because she -beckoned to me to climb up, with quite a new and motherly expression in her -face, and put her arm round my neck, and gave me just such a kiss as she might -have given to her own boy. I had barely time to get down again before the coach -started, and I could hardly see the family for the handkerchiefs they waved. It -was gone in a minute. The Orfling and I stood looking vacantly at each other in -the middle of the road, and then shook hands and said good-bye; she going back, -I suppose, to St. Luke’s workhouse, as I went to begin my weary day at -Murdstone and Grinby’s. -</p> - -<p> -But with no intention of passing many more weary days there. No. I had resolved -to run away.—-To go, by some means or other, down into the country, to -the only relation I had in the world, and tell my story to my aunt, Miss -Betsey. I have already observed that I don’t know how this desperate idea -came into my brain. But, once there, it remained there; and hardened into a -purpose than which I have never entertained a more determined purpose in my -life. I am far from sure that I believed there was anything hopeful in it, but -my mind was thoroughly made up that it must be carried into execution. -</p> - -<p> -Again, and again, and a hundred times again, since the night when the thought -had first occurred to me and banished sleep, I had gone over that old story of -my poor mother’s about my birth, which it had been one of my great -delights in the old time to hear her tell, and which I knew by heart. My aunt -walked into that story, and walked out of it, a dread and awful personage; but -there was one little trait in her behaviour which I liked to dwell on, and -which gave me some faint shadow of encouragement. I could not forget how my -mother had thought that she felt her touch her pretty hair with no ungentle -hand; and though it might have been altogether my mother’s fancy, and -might have had no foundation whatever in fact, I made a little picture, out of -it, of my terrible aunt relenting towards the girlish beauty that I recollected -so well and loved so much, which softened the whole narrative. It is very -possible that it had been in my mind a long time, and had gradually engendered -my determination. -</p> - -<p> -As I did not even know where Miss Betsey lived, I wrote a long letter to -Peggotty, and asked her, incidentally, if she remembered; pretending that I had -heard of such a lady living at a certain place I named at random, and had a -curiosity to know if it were the same. In the course of that letter, I told -Peggotty that I had a particular occasion for half a guinea; and that if she -could lend me that sum until I could repay it, I should be very much obliged to -her, and would tell her afterwards what I had wanted it for. -</p> - -<p> -Peggotty’s answer soon arrived, and was, as usual, full of affectionate -devotion. She enclosed the half guinea (I was afraid she must have had a world -of trouble to get it out of Mr. Barkis’s box), and told me that Miss -Betsey lived near Dover, but whether at Dover itself, at Hythe, Sandgate, or -Folkestone, she could not say. One of our men, however, informing me on my -asking him about these places, that they were all close together, I deemed this -enough for my object, and resolved to set out at the end of that week. -</p> - -<p> -Being a very honest little creature, and unwilling to disgrace the memory I was -going to leave behind me at Murdstone and Grinby’s, I considered myself -bound to remain until Saturday night; and, as I had been paid a week’s -wages in advance when I first came there, not to present myself in the -counting-house at the usual hour, to receive my stipend. For this express -reason, I had borrowed the half-guinea, that I might not be without a fund for -my travelling-expenses. Accordingly, when the Saturday night came, and we were -all waiting in the warehouse to be paid, and Tipp the carman, who always took -precedence, went in first to draw his money, I shook Mick Walker by the hand; -asked him, when it came to his turn to be paid, to say to Mr. Quinion that I -had gone to move my box to Tipp’s; and, bidding a last good night to -Mealy Potatoes, ran away. -</p> - -<p> -My box was at my old lodging, over the water, and I had written a direction for -it on the back of one of our address cards that we nailed on the casks: -‘Master David, to be left till called for, at the Coach Office, -Dover.’ This I had in my pocket ready to put on the box, after I should -have got it out of the house; and as I went towards my lodging, I looked about -me for someone who would help me to carry it to the booking-office. -</p> - -<p> -There was a long-legged young man with a very little empty donkey-cart, -standing near the Obelisk, in the Blackfriars Road, whose eye I caught as I was -going by, and who, addressing me as ‘Sixpenn’orth of bad -ha’pence,’ hoped ‘I should know him agin to swear -to’—in allusion, I have no doubt, to my staring at him. I stopped -to assure him that I had not done so in bad manners, but uncertain whether he -might or might not like a job. -</p> - -<p> -‘Wot job?’ said the long-legged young man. -</p> - -<p> -‘To move a box,’ I answered. -</p> - -<p> -‘Wot box?’ said the long-legged young man. -</p> - -<p> -I told him mine, which was down that street there, and which I wanted him to -take to the Dover coach office for sixpence. -</p> - -<p> -‘Done with you for a tanner!’ said the long-legged young man, and -directly got upon his cart, which was nothing but a large wooden tray on -wheels, and rattled away at such a rate, that it was as much as I could do to -keep pace with the donkey. -</p> - -<p> -There was a defiant manner about this young man, and particularly about the way -in which he chewed straw as he spoke to me, that I did not much like; as the -bargain was made, however, I took him upstairs to the room I was leaving, and -we brought the box down, and put it on his cart. Now, I was unwilling to put -the direction-card on there, lest any of my landlord’s family should -fathom what I was doing, and detain me; so I said to the young man that I would -be glad if he would stop for a minute, when he came to the dead-wall of the -King’s Bench prison. The words were no sooner out of my mouth, than he -rattled away as if he, my box, the cart, and the donkey, were all equally mad; -and I was quite out of breath with running and calling after him, when I caught -him at the place appointed. -</p> - -<p> -Being much flushed and excited, I tumbled my half-guinea out of my pocket in -pulling the card out. I put it in my mouth for safety, and though my hands -trembled a good deal, had just tied the card on very much to my satisfaction, -when I felt myself violently chucked under the chin by the long-legged young -man, and saw my half-guinea fly out of my mouth into his hand. -</p> - -<p> -‘Wot!’ said the young man, seizing me by my jacket collar, with a -frightful grin. ‘This is a pollis case, is it? You’re a-going to -bolt, are you? Come to the pollis, you young warmin, come to the pollis!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You give me my money back, if you please,’ said I, very much -frightened; ‘and leave me alone.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Come to the pollis!’ said the young man. ‘You shall prove it -yourn to the pollis.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Give me my box and money, will you,’ I cried, bursting into tears. -</p> - -<p> -The young man still replied: ‘Come to the pollis!’ and was dragging -me against the donkey in a violent manner, as if there were any affinity -between that animal and a magistrate, when he changed his mind, jumped into the -cart, sat upon my box, and, exclaiming that he would drive to the pollis -straight, rattled away harder than ever. -</p> - -<p> -I ran after him as fast as I could, but I had no breath to call out with, and -should not have dared to call out, now, if I had. I narrowly escaped being run -over, twenty times at least, in half a mile. Now I lost him, now I saw him, now -I lost him, now I was cut at with a whip, now shouted at, now down in the mud, -now up again, now running into somebody’s arms, now running headlong at a -post. At length, confused by fright and heat, and doubting whether half London -might not by this time be turning out for my apprehension, I left the young man -to go where he would with my box and money; and, panting and crying, but never -stopping, faced about for Greenwich, which I had understood was on the Dover -Road: taking very little more out of the world, towards the retreat of my aunt, -Miss Betsey, than I had brought into it, on the night when my arrival gave her -so much umbrage. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0013"></a>CHAPTER 13. THE SEQUEL OF MY RESOLUTION</h2> - -<p> -For anything I know, I may have had some wild idea of running all the way to -Dover, when I gave up the pursuit of the young man with the donkey-cart, and -started for Greenwich. My scattered senses were soon collected as to that -point, if I had; for I came to a stop in the Kent Road, at a terrace with a -piece of water before it, and a great foolish image in the middle, blowing a -dry shell. Here I sat down on a doorstep, quite spent and exhausted with the -efforts I had already made, and with hardly breath enough to cry for the loss -of my box and half-guinea. -</p> - -<p> -It was by this time dark; I heard the clocks strike ten, as I sat resting. But -it was a summer night, fortunately, and fine weather. When I had recovered my -breath, and had got rid of a stifling sensation in my throat, I rose up and -went on. In the midst of my distress, I had no notion of going back. I doubt if -I should have had any, though there had been a Swiss snow-drift in the Kent -Road. -</p> - -<p> -But my standing possessed of only three-halfpence in the world (and I am sure I -wonder how they came to be left in my pocket on a Saturday night!) troubled me -none the less because I went on. I began to picture to myself, as a scrap of -newspaper intelligence, my being found dead in a day or two, under some hedge; -and I trudged on miserably, though as fast as I could, until I happened to pass -a little shop, where it was written up that ladies’ and gentlemen’s -wardrobes were bought, and that the best price was given for rags, bones, and -kitchen-stuff. The master of this shop was sitting at the door in his -shirt-sleeves, smoking; and as there were a great many coats and pairs of -trousers dangling from the low ceiling, and only two feeble candles burning -inside to show what they were, I fancied that he looked like a man of a -revengeful disposition, who had hung all his enemies, and was enjoying himself. -</p> - -<p> -My late experiences with Mr. and Mrs. Micawber suggested to me that here might -be a means of keeping off the wolf for a little while. I went up the next -by-street, took off my waistcoat, rolled it neatly under my arm, and came back -to the shop door. -</p> - -<p> -‘If you please, sir,’ I said, ‘I am to sell this for a fair -price.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Dolloby—Dolloby was the name over the shop door, at least—took -the waistcoat, stood his pipe on its head, against the door-post, went into the -shop, followed by me, snuffed the two candles with his fingers, spread the -waistcoat on the counter, and looked at it there, held it up against the light, -and looked at it there, and ultimately said: -</p> - -<p> -‘What do you call a price, now, for this here little weskit?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh! you know best, sir,’ I returned modestly. -</p> - -<p> -‘I can’t be buyer and seller too,’ said Mr. Dolloby. -‘Put a price on this here little weskit.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Would eighteenpence be?’—I hinted, after some hesitation. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Dolloby rolled it up again, and gave it me back. ‘I should rob my -family,’ he said, ‘if I was to offer ninepence for it.’ -</p> - -<p> -This was a disagreeable way of putting the business; because it imposed upon -me, a perfect stranger, the unpleasantness of asking Mr. Dolloby to rob his -family on my account. My circumstances being so very pressing, however, I said -I would take ninepence for it, if he pleased. Mr. Dolloby, not without some -grumbling, gave ninepence. I wished him good night, and walked out of the shop -the richer by that sum, and the poorer by a waistcoat. But when I buttoned my -jacket, that was not much. Indeed, I foresaw pretty clearly that my jacket -would go next, and that I should have to make the best of my way to Dover in a -shirt and a pair of trousers, and might deem myself lucky if I got there even -in that trim. But my mind did not run so much on this as might be supposed. -Beyond a general impression of the distance before me, and of the young man -with the donkey-cart having used me cruelly, I think I had no very urgent sense -of my difficulties when I once again set off with my ninepence in my pocket. -</p> - -<p> -A plan had occurred to me for passing the night, which I was going to carry -into execution. This was, to lie behind the wall at the back of my old school, -in a corner where there used to be a haystack. I imagined it would be a kind of -company to have the boys, and the bedroom where I used to tell the stories, so -near me: although the boys would know nothing of my being there, and the -bedroom would yield me no shelter. -</p> - -<p> -I had had a hard day’s work, and was pretty well jaded when I came -climbing out, at last, upon the level of Blackheath. It cost me some trouble to -find out Salem House; but I found it, and I found a haystack in the corner, and -I lay down by it; having first walked round the wall, and looked up at the -windows, and seen that all was dark and silent within. Never shall I forget the -lonely sensation of first lying down, without a roof above my head! -</p> - -<p> -Sleep came upon me as it came on many other outcasts, against whom house-doors -were locked, and house-dogs barked, that night—and I dreamed of lying on -my old school-bed, talking to the boys in my room; and found myself sitting -upright, with Steerforth’s name upon my lips, looking wildly at the stars -that were glistening and glimmering above me. When I remembered where I was at -that untimely hour, a feeling stole upon me that made me get up, afraid of I -don’t know what, and walk about. But the fainter glimmering of the stars, -and the pale light in the sky where the day was coming, reassured me: and my -eyes being very heavy, I lay down again and slept—though with a knowledge -in my sleep that it was cold—until the warm beams of the sun, and the -ringing of the getting-up bell at Salem House, awoke me. If I could have hoped -that Steerforth was there, I would have lurked about until he came out alone; -but I knew he must have left long since. Traddles still remained, perhaps, but -it was very doubtful; and I had not sufficient confidence in his discretion or -good luck, however strong my reliance was on his good nature, to wish to trust -him with my situation. So I crept away from the wall as Mr. Creakle’s -boys were getting up, and struck into the long dusty track which I had first -known to be the Dover Road when I was one of them, and when I little expected -that any eyes would ever see me the wayfarer I was now, upon it. -</p> - -<p> -What a different Sunday morning from the old Sunday morning at Yarmouth! In due -time I heard the church-bells ringing, as I plodded on; and I met people who -were going to church; and I passed a church or two where the congregation were -inside, and the sound of singing came out into the sunshine, while the beadle -sat and cooled himself in the shade of the porch, or stood beneath the -yew-tree, with his hand to his forehead, glowering at me going by. But the -peace and rest of the old Sunday morning were on everything, except me. That -was the difference. I felt quite wicked in my dirt and dust, with my tangled -hair. But for the quiet picture I had conjured up, of my mother in her youth -and beauty, weeping by the fire, and my aunt relenting to her, I hardly think I -should have had the courage to go on until next day. But it always went before -me, and I followed. -</p> - -<p> -I got, that Sunday, through three-and-twenty miles on the straight road, though -not very easily, for I was new to that kind of toil. I see myself, as evening -closes in, coming over the bridge at Rochester, footsore and tired, and eating -bread that I had bought for supper. One or two little houses, with the notice, -‘Lodgings for Travellers’, hanging out, had tempted me; but I was -afraid of spending the few pence I had, and was even more afraid of the vicious -looks of the trampers I had met or overtaken. I sought no shelter, therefore, -but the sky; and toiling into Chatham,—which, in that night’s -aspect, is a mere dream of chalk, and drawbridges, and mastless ships in a -muddy river, roofed like Noah’s arks,—crept, at last, upon a sort -of grass-grown battery overhanging a lane, where a sentry was walking to and -fro. Here I lay down, near a cannon; and, happy in the society of the -sentry’s footsteps, though he knew no more of my being above him than the -boys at Salem House had known of my lying by the wall, slept soundly until -morning. -</p> - -<p> -Very stiff and sore of foot I was in the morning, and quite dazed by the -beating of drums and marching of troops, which seemed to hem me in on every -side when I went down towards the long narrow street. Feeling that I could go -but a very little way that day, if I were to reserve any strength for getting -to my journey’s end, I resolved to make the sale of my jacket its -principal business. Accordingly, I took the jacket off, that I might learn to -do without it; and carrying it under my arm, began a tour of inspection of the -various slop-shops. -</p> - -<p> -It was a likely place to sell a jacket in; for the dealers in second-hand -clothes were numerous, and were, generally speaking, on the look-out for -customers at their shop doors. But as most of them had, hanging up among their -stock, an officer’s coat or two, epaulettes and all, I was rendered timid -by the costly nature of their dealings, and walked about for a long time -without offering my merchandise to anyone. -</p> - -<p> -This modesty of mine directed my attention to the marine-store shops, and such -shops as Mr. Dolloby’s, in preference to the regular dealers. At last I -found one that I thought looked promising, at the corner of a dirty lane, -ending in an enclosure full of stinging-nettles, against the palings of which -some second-hand sailors’ clothes, that seemed to have overflowed the -shop, were fluttering among some cots, and rusty guns, and oilskin hats, and -certain trays full of so many old rusty keys of so many sizes that they seemed -various enough to open all the doors in the world. -</p> - -<p> -Into this shop, which was low and small, and which was darkened rather than -lighted by a little window, overhung with clothes, and was descended into by -some steps, I went with a palpitating heart; which was not relieved when an -ugly old man, with the lower part of his face all covered with a stubbly grey -beard, rushed out of a dirty den behind it, and seized me by the hair of my -head. He was a dreadful old man to look at, in a filthy flannel waistcoat, and -smelling terribly of rum. His bedstead, covered with a tumbled and ragged piece -of patchwork, was in the den he had come from, where another little window -showed a prospect of more stinging-nettles, and a lame donkey. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, what do you want?’ grinned this old man, in a fierce, -monotonous whine. ‘Oh, my eyes and limbs, what do you want? Oh, my lungs -and liver, what do you want? Oh, goroo, goroo!’ -</p> - -<p> -I was so much dismayed by these words, and particularly by the repetition of -the last unknown one, which was a kind of rattle in his throat, that I could -make no answer; hereupon the old man, still holding me by the hair, repeated: -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, what do you want? Oh, my eyes and limbs, what do you want? Oh, my -lungs and liver, what do you want? Oh, goroo!’—which he screwed out -of himself, with an energy that made his eyes start in his head. -</p> - -<p> -‘I wanted to know,’ I said, trembling, ‘if you would buy a -jacket.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, let’s see the jacket!’ cried the old man. ‘Oh, my -heart on fire, show the jacket to us! Oh, my eyes and limbs, bring the jacket -out!’ -</p> - -<p> -With that he took his trembling hands, which were like the claws of a great -bird, out of my hair; and put on a pair of spectacles, not at all ornamental to -his inflamed eyes. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, how much for the jacket?’ cried the old man, after examining -it. ‘Oh—goroo!—how much for the jacket?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Half-a-crown,’ I answered, recovering myself. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, my lungs and liver,’ cried the old man, ‘no! Oh, my -eyes, no! Oh, my limbs, no! Eighteenpence. Goroo!’ -</p> - -<p> -Every time he uttered this ejaculation, his eyes seemed to be in danger of -starting out; and every sentence he spoke, he delivered in a sort of tune, -always exactly the same, and more like a gust of wind, which begins low, mounts -up high, and falls again, than any other comparison I can find for it. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well,’ said I, glad to have closed the bargain, ‘I’ll -take eighteenpence.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, my liver!’ cried the old man, throwing the jacket on a shelf. -‘Get out of the shop! Oh, my lungs, get out of the shop! Oh, my eyes and -limbs—goroo!—don’t ask for money; make it an exchange.’ -I never was so frightened in my life, before or since; but I told him humbly -that I wanted money, and that nothing else was of any use to me, but that I -would wait for it, as he desired, outside, and had no wish to hurry him. So I -went outside, and sat down in the shade in a corner. And I sat there so many -hours, that the shade became sunlight, and the sunlight became shade again, and -still I sat there waiting for the money. -</p> - -<p> -There never was such another drunken madman in that line of business, I hope. -That he was well known in the neighbourhood, and enjoyed the reputation of -having sold himself to the devil, I soon understood from the visits he received -from the boys, who continually came skirmishing about the shop, shouting that -legend, and calling to him to bring out his gold. ‘You ain’t poor, -you know, Charley, as you pretend. Bring out your gold. Bring out some of the -gold you sold yourself to the devil for. Come! It’s in the lining of the -mattress, Charley. Rip it open and let’s have some!’ This, and many -offers to lend him a knife for the purpose, exasperated him to such a degree, -that the whole day was a succession of rushes on his part, and flights on the -part of the boys. Sometimes in his rage he would take me for one of them, and -come at me, mouthing as if he were going to tear me in pieces; then, -remembering me, just in time, would dive into the shop, and lie upon his bed, -as I thought from the sound of his voice, yelling in a frantic way, to his own -windy tune, the ‘Death of Nelson’; with an Oh! before every line, -and innumerable Goroos interspersed. As if this were not bad enough for me, the -boys, connecting me with the establishment, on account of the patience and -perseverance with which I sat outside, half-dressed, pelted me, and used me -very ill all day. -</p> - -<p> -He made many attempts to induce me to consent to an exchange; at one time -coming out with a fishing-rod, at another with a fiddle, at another with a -cocked hat, at another with a flute. But I resisted all these overtures, and -sat there in desperation; each time asking him, with tears in my eyes, for my -money or my jacket. At last he began to pay me in halfpence at a time; and was -full two hours getting by easy stages to a shilling. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, my eyes and limbs!’ he then cried, peeping hideously out of -the shop, after a long pause, ‘will you go for twopence more?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I can’t,’ I said; ‘I shall be starved.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, my lungs and liver, will you go for threepence?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I would go for nothing, if I could,’ I said, ‘but I want the -money badly.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, go-roo!’ (it is really impossible to express how he twisted -this ejaculation out of himself, as he peeped round the door-post at me, -showing nothing but his crafty old head); ‘will you go for -fourpence?’ -</p> - -<p> -I was so faint and weary that I closed with this offer; and taking the money -out of his claw, not without trembling, went away more hungry and thirsty than -I had ever been, a little before sunset. But at an expense of threepence I soon -refreshed myself completely; and, being in better spirits then, limped seven -miles upon my road. -</p> - -<p> -My bed at night was under another haystack, where I rested comfortably, after -having washed my blistered feet in a stream, and dressed them as well as I was -able, with some cool leaves. When I took the road again next morning, I found -that it lay through a succession of hop-grounds and orchards. It was -sufficiently late in the year for the orchards to be ruddy with ripe apples; -and in a few places the hop-pickers were already at work. I thought it all -extremely beautiful, and made up my mind to sleep among the hops that night: -imagining some cheerful companionship in the long perspectives of poles, with -the graceful leaves twining round them. -</p> - -<p> -The trampers were worse than ever that day, and inspired me with a dread that -is yet quite fresh in my mind. Some of them were most ferocious-looking -ruffians, who stared at me as I went by; and stopped, perhaps, and called after -me to come back and speak to them, and when I took to my heels, stoned me. I -recollect one young fellow—a tinker, I suppose, from his wallet and -brazier—who had a woman with him, and who faced about and stared at me -thus; and then roared to me in such a tremendous voice to come back, that I -halted and looked round. -</p> - -<p> -‘Come here, when you’re called,’ said the tinker, ‘or -I’ll rip your young body open.’ -</p> - -<p> -I thought it best to go back. As I drew nearer to them, trying to propitiate -the tinker by my looks, I observed that the woman had a black eye. -</p> - -<p> -‘Where are you going?’ said the tinker, gripping the bosom of my -shirt with his blackened hand. -</p> - -<p> -‘I am going to Dover,’ I said. -</p> - -<p> -‘Where do you come from?’ asked the tinker, giving his hand another -turn in my shirt, to hold me more securely. -</p> - -<p> -‘I come from London,’ I said. -</p> - -<p> -‘What lay are you upon?’ asked the tinker. ‘Are you a -prig?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘N-no,’ I said. -</p> - -<p> -‘Ain’t you, by G—? If you make a brag of your honesty to -me,’ said the tinker, ‘I’ll knock your brains out.’ -</p> - -<p> -With his disengaged hand he made a menace of striking me, and then looked at me -from head to foot. -</p> - -<p> -‘Have you got the price of a pint of beer about you?’ said the -tinker. ‘If you have, out with it, afore I take it away!’ -</p> - -<p> -I should certainly have produced it, but that I met the woman’s look, and -saw her very slightly shake her head, and form ‘No!’ with her lips. -</p> - -<p> -‘I am very poor,’ I said, attempting to smile, ‘and have got -no money.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, what do you mean?’ said the tinker, looking so sternly at me, -that I almost feared he saw the money in my pocket. -</p> - -<p> -‘Sir!’ I stammered. -</p> - -<p> -‘What do you mean,’ said the tinker, ‘by wearing my -brother’s silk handkerchief! Give it over here!’ And he had mine -off my neck in a moment, and tossed it to the woman. -</p> - -<p> -The woman burst into a fit of laughter, as if she thought this a joke, and -tossed it back to me, nodded once, as slightly as before, and made the word -‘Go!’ with her lips. Before I could obey, however, the tinker -seized the handkerchief out of my hand with a roughness that threw me away like -a feather, and putting it loosely round his own neck, turned upon the woman -with an oath, and knocked her down. I never shall forget seeing her fall -backward on the hard road, and lie there with her bonnet tumbled off, and her -hair all whitened in the dust; nor, when I looked back from a distance, seeing -her sitting on the pathway, which was a bank by the roadside, wiping the blood -from her face with a corner of her shawl, while he went on ahead. -</p> - -<p> -This adventure frightened me so, that, afterwards, when I saw any of these -people coming, I turned back until I could find a hiding-place, where I -remained until they had gone out of sight; which happened so often, that I was -very seriously delayed. But under this difficulty, as under all the other -difficulties of my journey, I seemed to be sustained and led on by my fanciful -picture of my mother in her youth, before I came into the world. It always kept -me company. It was there, among the hops, when I lay down to sleep; it was with -me on my waking in the morning; it went before me all day. I have associated -it, ever since, with the sunny street of Canterbury, dozing as it were in the -hot light; and with the sight of its old houses and gateways, and the stately, -grey Cathedral, with the rooks sailing round the towers. When I came, at last, -upon the bare, wide downs near Dover, it relieved the solitary aspect of the -scene with hope; and not until I reached that first great aim of my journey, -and actually set foot in the town itself, on the sixth day of my flight, did it -desert me. But then, strange to say, when I stood with my ragged shoes, and my -dusty, sunburnt, half-clothed figure, in the place so long desired, it seemed -to vanish like a dream, and to leave me helpless and dispirited. -</p> - -<p> -I inquired about my aunt among the boatmen first, and received various answers. -One said she lived in the South Foreland Light, and had singed her whiskers by -doing so; another, that she was made fast to the great buoy outside the -harbour, and could only be visited at half-tide; a third, that she was locked -up in Maidstone jail for child-stealing; a fourth, that she was seen to mount a -broom in the last high wind, and make direct for Calais. The fly-drivers, among -whom I inquired next, were equally jocose and equally disrespectful; and the -shopkeepers, not liking my appearance, generally replied, without hearing what -I had to say, that they had got nothing for me. I felt more miserable and -destitute than I had done at any period of my running away. My money was all -gone, I had nothing left to dispose of; I was hungry, thirsty, and worn out; -and seemed as distant from my end as if I had remained in London. -</p> - -<p> -The morning had worn away in these inquiries, and I was sitting on the step of -an empty shop at a street corner, near the market-place, deliberating upon -wandering towards those other places which had been mentioned, when a -fly-driver, coming by with his carriage, dropped a horsecloth. Something -good-natured in the man’s face, as I handed it up, encouraged me to ask -him if he could tell me where Miss Trotwood lived; though I had asked the -question so often, that it almost died upon my lips. -</p> - -<p> -‘Trotwood,’ said he. ‘Let me see. I know the name, too. Old -lady?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes,’ I said, ‘rather.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Pretty stiff in the back?’ said he, making himself upright. -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I should think it very likely.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Carries a bag?’ said he—‘bag with a good deal of room -in it—is gruffish, and comes down upon you, sharp?’ -</p> - -<p> -My heart sank within me as I acknowledged the undoubted accuracy of this -description. -</p> - -<p> -‘Why then, I tell you what,’ said he. ‘If you go up -there,’ pointing with his whip towards the heights, ‘and keep right -on till you come to some houses facing the sea, I think you’ll hear of -her. My opinion is she won’t stand anything, so here’s a penny for -you.’ -</p> - -<p> -I accepted the gift thankfully, and bought a loaf with it. Dispatching this -refreshment by the way, I went in the direction my friend had indicated, and -walked on a good distance without coming to the houses he had mentioned. At -length I saw some before me; and approaching them, went into a little shop (it -was what we used to call a general shop, at home), and inquired if they could -have the goodness to tell me where Miss Trotwood lived. I addressed myself to a -man behind the counter, who was weighing some rice for a young woman; but the -latter, taking the inquiry to herself, turned round quickly. -</p> - -<p> -‘My mistress?’ she said. ‘What do you want with her, -boy?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I want,’ I replied, ‘to speak to her, if you please.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘To beg of her, you mean,’ retorted the damsel. -</p> - -<p> -‘No,’ I said, ‘indeed.’ But suddenly remembering that -in truth I came for no other purpose, I held my peace in confusion, and felt my -face burn. -</p> - -<p> -My aunt’s handmaid, as I supposed she was from what she had said, put her -rice in a little basket and walked out of the shop; telling me that I could -follow her, if I wanted to know where Miss Trotwood lived. I needed no second -permission; though I was by this time in such a state of consternation and -agitation, that my legs shook under me. I followed the young woman, and we soon -came to a very neat little cottage with cheerful bow-windows: in front of it, a -small square gravelled court or garden full of flowers, carefully tended, and -smelling deliciously. -</p> - -<p> -‘This is Miss Trotwood’s,’ said the young woman. ‘Now -you know; and that’s all I have got to say.’ With which words she -hurried into the house, as if to shake off the responsibility of my appearance; -and left me standing at the garden-gate, looking disconsolately over the top of -it towards the parlour window, where a muslin curtain partly undrawn in the -middle, a large round green screen or fan fastened on to the windowsill, a -small table, and a great chair, suggested to me that my aunt might be at that -moment seated in awful state. -</p> - -<p> -My shoes were by this time in a woeful condition. The soles had shed themselves -bit by bit, and the upper leathers had broken and burst until the very shape -and form of shoes had departed from them. My hat (which had served me for a -night-cap, too) was so crushed and bent, that no old battered handleless -saucepan on a dunghill need have been ashamed to vie with it. My shirt and -trousers, stained with heat, dew, grass, and the Kentish soil on which I had -slept—and torn besides—might have frightened the birds from my -aunt’s garden, as I stood at the gate. My hair had known no comb or brush -since I left London. My face, neck, and hands, from unaccustomed exposure to -the air and sun, were burnt to a berry-brown. From head to foot I was powdered -almost as white with chalk and dust, as if I had come out of a lime-kiln. In -this plight, and with a strong consciousness of it, I waited to introduce -myself to, and make my first impression on, my formidable aunt. -</p> - -<p> -The unbroken stillness of the parlour window leading me to infer, after a -while, that she was not there, I lifted up my eyes to the window above it, -where I saw a florid, pleasant-looking gentleman, with a grey head, who shut up -one eye in a grotesque manner, nodded his head at me several times, shook it at -me as often, laughed, and went away. -</p> - -<p> -I had been discomposed enough before; but I was so much the more discomposed by -this unexpected behaviour, that I was on the point of slinking off, to think -how I had best proceed, when there came out of the house a lady with her -handkerchief tied over her cap, and a pair of gardening gloves on her hands, -wearing a gardening pocket like a toll-man’s apron, and carrying a great -knife. I knew her immediately to be Miss Betsey, for she came stalking out of -the house exactly as my poor mother had so often described her stalking up our -garden at Blunderstone Rookery. -</p> - -<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> -<img src="images/0245.jpg" alt="0245 " width="100%" /> -</div> - -<h5> -<a href="images/0245.jpg"> -<img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /></a> -</h5> - -<p> -‘Go away!’ said Miss Betsey, shaking her head, and making a distant -chop in the air with her knife. ‘Go along! No boys here!’ -</p> - -<p> -I watched her, with my heart at my lips, as she marched to a corner of her -garden, and stooped to dig up some little root there. Then, without a scrap of -courage, but with a great deal of desperation, I went softly in and stood -beside her, touching her with my finger. -</p> - -<p> -‘If you please, ma’am,’ I began. -</p> - -<p> -She started and looked up. -</p> - -<p> -‘If you please, aunt.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘EH?’ exclaimed Miss Betsey, in a tone of amazement I have never -heard approached. -</p> - -<p> -‘If you please, aunt, I am your nephew.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, Lord!’ said my aunt. And sat flat down in the garden-path. -</p> - -<p> -‘I am David Copperfield, of Blunderstone, in Suffolk—where you -came, on the night when I was born, and saw my dear mama. I have been very -unhappy since she died. I have been slighted, and taught nothing, and thrown -upon myself, and put to work not fit for me. It made me run away to you. I was -robbed at first setting out, and have walked all the way, and have never slept -in a bed since I began the journey.’ Here my self-support gave way all at -once; and with a movement of my hands, intended to show her my ragged state, -and call it to witness that I had suffered something, I broke into a passion of -crying, which I suppose had been pent up within me all the week. -</p> - -<p> -My aunt, with every sort of expression but wonder discharged from her -countenance, sat on the gravel, staring at me, until I began to cry; when she -got up in a great hurry, collared me, and took me into the parlour. Her first -proceeding there was to unlock a tall press, bring out several bottles, and -pour some of the contents of each into my mouth. I think they must have been -taken out at random, for I am sure I tasted aniseed water, anchovy sauce, and -salad dressing. When she had administered these restoratives, as I was still -quite hysterical, and unable to control my sobs, she put me on the sofa, with a -shawl under my head, and the handkerchief from her own head under my feet, lest -I should sully the cover; and then, sitting herself down behind the green fan -or screen I have already mentioned, so that I could not see her face, -ejaculated at intervals, ‘Mercy on us!’ letting those exclamations -off like minute guns. -</p> - -<p> -After a time she rang the bell. ‘Janet,’ said my aunt, when her -servant came in. ‘Go upstairs, give my compliments to Mr. Dick, and say I -wish to speak to him.’ -</p> - -<p> -Janet looked a little surprised to see me lying stiffly on the sofa (I was -afraid to move lest it should be displeasing to my aunt), but went on her -errand. My aunt, with her hands behind her, walked up and down the room, until -the gentleman who had squinted at me from the upper window came in laughing. -</p> - -<p> -‘Mr. Dick,’ said my aunt, ‘don’t be a fool, because -nobody can be more discreet than you can, when you choose. We all know that. So -don’t be a fool, whatever you are.’ -</p> - -<p> -The gentleman was serious immediately, and looked at me, I thought, as if he -would entreat me to say nothing about the window. -</p> - -<p> -‘Mr. Dick,’ said my aunt, ‘you have heard me mention David -Copperfield? Now don’t pretend not to have a memory, because you and I -know better.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘David Copperfield?’ said Mr. Dick, who did not appear to me to -remember much about it. ‘David Copperfield? Oh yes, to be sure. David, -certainly.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Well,’ said my aunt, ‘this is his boy—his son. He -would be as like his father as it’s possible to be, if he was not so like -his mother, too.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘His son?’ said Mr. Dick. ‘David’s son? Indeed!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes,’ pursued my aunt, ‘and he has done a pretty piece of -business. He has run away. Ah! His sister, Betsey Trotwood, never would have -run away.’ My aunt shook her head firmly, confident in the character and -behaviour of the girl who never was born. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh! you think she wouldn’t have run away?’ said Mr. Dick. -</p> - -<p> -‘Bless and save the man,’ exclaimed my aunt, sharply, ‘how he -talks! Don’t I know she wouldn’t? She would have lived with her -god-mother, and we should have been devoted to one another. Where, in the name -of wonder, should his sister, Betsey Trotwood, have run from, or to?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Nowhere,’ said Mr. Dick. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well then,’ returned my aunt, softened by the reply, ‘how -can you pretend to be wool-gathering, Dick, when you are as sharp as a -surgeon’s lancet? Now, here you see young David Copperfield, and the -question I put to you is, what shall I do with him?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘What shall you do with him?’ said Mr. Dick, feebly, scratching his -head. ‘Oh! do with him?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes,’ said my aunt, with a grave look, and her forefinger held up. -‘Come! I want some very sound advice.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, if I was you,’ said Mr. Dick, considering, and looking -vacantly at me, ‘I should—’ The contemplation of me seemed to -inspire him with a sudden idea, and he added, briskly, ‘I should wash -him!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Janet,’ said my aunt, turning round with a quiet triumph, which I -did not then understand, ‘Mr. Dick sets us all right. Heat the -bath!’ -</p> - -<p> -Although I was deeply interested in this dialogue, I could not help observing -my aunt, Mr. Dick, and Janet, while it was in progress, and completing a survey -I had already been engaged in making of the room. -</p> - -<p> -My aunt was a tall, hard-featured lady, but by no means ill-looking. There was -an inflexibility in her face, in her voice, in her gait and carriage, amply -sufficient to account for the effect she had made upon a gentle creature like -my mother; but her features were rather handsome than otherwise, though -unbending and austere. I particularly noticed that she had a very quick, bright -eye. Her hair, which was grey, was arranged in two plain divisions, under what -I believe would be called a mob-cap; I mean a cap, much more common then than -now, with side-pieces fastening under the chin. Her dress was of a lavender -colour, and perfectly neat; but scantily made, as if she desired to be as -little encumbered as possible. I remember that I thought it, in form, more like -a riding-habit with the superfluous skirt cut off, than anything else. She wore -at her side a gentleman’s gold watch, if I might judge from its size and -make, with an appropriate chain and seals; she had some linen at her throat not -unlike a shirt-collar, and things at her wrists like little shirt-wristbands. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Dick, as I have already said, was grey-headed, and florid: I should have -said all about him, in saying so, had not his head been curiously -bowed—not by age; it reminded me of one of Mr. Creakle’s -boys’ heads after a beating—and his grey eyes prominent and large, -with a strange kind of watery brightness in them that made me, in combination -with his vacant manner, his submission to my aunt, and his childish delight -when she praised him, suspect him of being a little mad; though, if he were -mad, how he came to be there puzzled me extremely. He was dressed like any -other ordinary gentleman, in a loose grey morning coat and waistcoat, and white -trousers; and had his watch in his fob, and his money in his pockets: which he -rattled as if he were very proud of it. -</p> - -<p> -Janet was a pretty blooming girl, of about nineteen or twenty, and a perfect -picture of neatness. Though I made no further observation of her at the moment, -I may mention here what I did not discover until afterwards, namely, that she -was one of a series of protegees whom my aunt had taken into her service -expressly to educate in a renouncement of mankind, and who had generally -completed their abjuration by marrying the baker. -</p> - -<p> -The room was as neat as Janet or my aunt. As I laid down my pen, a moment -since, to think of it, the air from the sea came blowing in again, mixed with -the perfume of the flowers; and I saw the old-fashioned furniture brightly -rubbed and polished, my aunt’s inviolable chair and table by the round -green fan in the bow-window, the drugget-covered carpet, the cat, the -kettle-holder, the two canaries, the old china, the punchbowl full of dried -rose-leaves, the tall press guarding all sorts of bottles and pots, and, -wonderfully out of keeping with the rest, my dusty self upon the sofa, taking -note of everything. -</p> - -<p> -Janet had gone away to get the bath ready, when my aunt, to my great alarm, -became in one moment rigid with indignation, and had hardly voice to cry out, -‘Janet! Donkeys!’ -</p> - -<p> -Upon which, Janet came running up the stairs as if the house were in flames, -darted out on a little piece of green in front, and warned off two -saddle-donkeys, lady-ridden, that had presumed to set hoof upon it; while my -aunt, rushing out of the house, seized the bridle of a third animal laden with -a bestriding child, turned him, led him forth from those sacred precincts, and -boxed the ears of the unlucky urchin in attendance who had dared to profane -that hallowed ground. -</p> - -<p> -To this hour I don’t know whether my aunt had any lawful right of way -over that patch of green; but she had settled it in her own mind that she had, -and it was all the same to her. The one great outrage of her life, demanding to -be constantly avenged, was the passage of a donkey over that immaculate spot. -In whatever occupation she was engaged, however interesting to her the -conversation in which she was taking part, a donkey turned the current of her -ideas in a moment, and she was upon him straight. Jugs of water, and -watering-pots, were kept in secret places ready to be discharged on the -offending boys; sticks were laid in ambush behind the door; sallies were made -at all hours; and incessant war prevailed. Perhaps this was an agreeable -excitement to the donkey-boys; or perhaps the more sagacious of the donkeys, -understanding how the case stood, delighted with constitutional obstinacy in -coming that way. I only know that there were three alarms before the bath was -ready; and that on the occasion of the last and most desperate of all, I saw my -aunt engage, single-handed, with a sandy-headed lad of fifteen, and bump his -sandy head against her own gate, before he seemed to comprehend what was the -matter. These interruptions were of the more ridiculous to me, because she was -giving me broth out of a table-spoon at the time (having firmly persuaded -herself that I was actually starving, and must receive nourishment at first in -very small quantities), and, while my mouth was yet open to receive the spoon, -she would put it back into the basin, cry ‘Janet! Donkeys!’ and go -out to the assault. -</p> - -<p> -The bath was a great comfort. For I began to be sensible of acute pains in my -limbs from lying out in the fields, and was now so tired and low that I could -hardly keep myself awake for five minutes together. When I had bathed, they (I -mean my aunt and Janet) enrobed me in a shirt and a pair of trousers belonging -to Mr. Dick, and tied me up in two or three great shawls. What sort of bundle I -looked like, I don’t know, but I felt a very hot one. Feeling also very -faint and drowsy, I soon lay down on the sofa again and fell asleep. -</p> - -<p> -It might have been a dream, originating in the fancy which had occupied my mind -so long, but I awoke with the impression that my aunt had come and bent over -me, and had put my hair away from my face, and laid my head more comfortably, -and had then stood looking at me. The words, ‘Pretty fellow,’ or -‘Poor fellow,’ seemed to be in my ears, too; but certainly there -was nothing else, when I awoke, to lead me to believe that they had been -uttered by my aunt, who sat in the bow-window gazing at the sea from behind the -green fan, which was mounted on a kind of swivel, and turned any way. -</p> - -<p> -We dined soon after I awoke, off a roast fowl and a pudding; I sitting at -table, not unlike a trussed bird myself, and moving my arms with considerable -difficulty. But as my aunt had swathed me up, I made no complaint of being -inconvenienced. All this time I was deeply anxious to know what she was going -to do with me; but she took her dinner in profound silence, except when she -occasionally fixed her eyes on me sitting opposite, and said, ‘Mercy upon -us!’ which did not by any means relieve my anxiety. -</p> - -<p> -The cloth being drawn, and some sherry put upon the table (of which I had a -glass), my aunt sent up for Mr. Dick again, who joined us, and looked as wise -as he could when she requested him to attend to my story, which she elicited -from me, gradually, by a course of questions. During my recital, she kept her -eyes on Mr. Dick, who I thought would have gone to sleep but for that, and who, -whensoever he lapsed into a smile, was checked by a frown from my aunt. -</p> - -<p> -‘Whatever possessed that poor unfortunate Baby, that she must go and be -married again,’ said my aunt, when I had finished, ‘I can’t -conceive.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Perhaps she fell in love with her second husband,’ Mr. Dick -suggested. -</p> - -<p> -‘Fell in love!’ repeated my aunt. ‘What do you mean? What -business had she to do it?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Perhaps,’ Mr. Dick simpered, after thinking a little, ‘she -did it for pleasure.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Pleasure, indeed!’ replied my aunt. ‘A mighty pleasure for -the poor Baby to fix her simple faith upon any dog of a fellow, certain to -ill-use her in some way or other. What did she propose to herself, I should -like to know! She had had one husband. She had seen David Copperfield out of -the world, who was always running after wax dolls from his cradle. She had got -a baby—oh, there were a pair of babies when she gave birth to this child -sitting here, that Friday night!—and what more did she want?’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Dick secretly shook his head at me, as if he thought there was no getting -over this. -</p> - -<p> -‘She couldn’t even have a baby like anybody else,’ said my -aunt. ‘Where was this child’s sister, Betsey Trotwood? Not -forthcoming. Don’t tell me!’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Dick seemed quite frightened. -</p> - -<p> -‘That little man of a doctor, with his head on one side,’ said my -aunt, ‘Jellips, or whatever his name was, what was he about? All he could -do, was to say to me, like a robin redbreast—as he -is—“It’s a boy.” A boy! Yah, the imbecility of the -whole set of ‘em!’ -</p> - -<p> -The heartiness of the ejaculation startled Mr. Dick exceedingly; and me, too, -if I am to tell the truth. -</p> - -<p> -‘And then, as if this was not enough, and she had not stood sufficiently -in the light of this child’s sister, Betsey Trotwood,’ said my -aunt, ‘she marries a second time—goes and marries a -Murderer—or a man with a name like it—and stands in THIS -child’s light! And the natural consequence is, as anybody but a baby -might have foreseen, that he prowls and wanders. He’s as like Cain before -he was grown up, as he can be.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Dick looked hard at me, as if to identify me in this character. -</p> - -<p> -‘And then there’s that woman with the Pagan name,’ said my -aunt, ‘that Peggotty, she goes and gets married next. Because she has not -seen enough of the evil attending such things, she goes and gets married next, -as the child relates. I only hope,’ said my aunt, shaking her head, -‘that her husband is one of those Poker husbands who abound in the -newspapers, and will beat her well with one.’ -</p> - -<p> -I could not bear to hear my old nurse so decried, and made the subject of such -a wish. I told my aunt that indeed she was mistaken. That Peggotty was the -best, the truest, the most faithful, most devoted, and most self-denying friend -and servant in the world; who had ever loved me dearly, who had ever loved my -mother dearly; who had held my mother’s dying head upon her arm, on whose -face my mother had imprinted her last grateful kiss. And my remembrance of them -both, choking me, I broke down as I was trying to say that her home was my -home, and that all she had was mine, and that I would have gone to her for -shelter, but for her humble station, which made me fear that I might bring some -trouble on her—I broke down, I say, as I was trying to say so, and laid -my face in my hands upon the table. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, well!’ said my aunt, ‘the child is right to stand by -those who have stood by him—Janet! Donkeys!’ -</p> - -<p> -I thoroughly believe that but for those unfortunate donkeys, we should have -come to a good understanding; for my aunt had laid her hand on my shoulder, and -the impulse was upon me, thus emboldened, to embrace her and beseech her -protection. But the interruption, and the disorder she was thrown into by the -struggle outside, put an end to all softer ideas for the present, and kept my -aunt indignantly declaiming to Mr. Dick about her determination to appeal for -redress to the laws of her country, and to bring actions for trespass against -the whole donkey proprietorship of Dover, until tea-time. -</p> - -<p> -After tea, we sat at the window—on the look-out, as I imagined, from my -aunt’s sharp expression of face, for more invaders—until dusk, when -Janet set candles, and a backgammon-board, on the table, and pulled down the -blinds. -</p> - -<p> -‘Now, Mr. Dick,’ said my aunt, with her grave look, and her -forefinger up as before, ‘I am going to ask you another question. Look at -this child.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘David’s son?’ said Mr. Dick, with an attentive, puzzled -face. -</p> - -<p> -‘Exactly so,’ returned my aunt. ‘What would you do with him, -now?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Do with David’s son?’ said Mr. Dick. -</p> - -<p> -‘Ay,’ replied my aunt, ‘with David’s son.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh!’ said Mr. Dick. ‘Yes. Do with—I should put him to -bed.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Janet!’ cried my aunt, with the same complacent triumph that I had -remarked before. ‘Mr. Dick sets us all right. If the bed is ready, -we’ll take him up to it.’ -</p> - -<p> -Janet reporting it to be quite ready, I was taken up to it; kindly, but in some -sort like a prisoner; my aunt going in front and Janet bringing up the rear. -The only circumstance which gave me any new hope, was my aunt’s stopping -on the stairs to inquire about a smell of fire that was prevalent there; and -janet’s replying that she had been making tinder down in the kitchen, of -my old shirt. But there were no other clothes in my room than the odd heap of -things I wore; and when I was left there, with a little taper which my aunt -forewarned me would burn exactly five minutes, I heard them lock my door on the -outside. Turning these things over in my mind I deemed it possible that my -aunt, who could know nothing of me, might suspect I had a habit of running -away, and took precautions, on that account, to have me in safe keeping. -</p> - -<p> -The room was a pleasant one, at the top of the house, overlooking the sea, on -which the moon was shining brilliantly. After I had said my prayers, and the -candle had burnt out, I remember how I still sat looking at the moonlight on -the water, as if I could hope to read my fortune in it, as in a bright book; or -to see my mother with her child, coming from Heaven, along that shining path, -to look upon me as she had looked when I last saw her sweet face. I remember -how the solemn feeling with which at length I turned my eyes away, yielded to -the sensation of gratitude and rest which the sight of the white-curtained -bed—and how much more the lying softly down upon it, nestling in the -snow-white sheets!—inspired. I remember how I thought of all the solitary -places under the night sky where I had slept, and how I prayed that I never -might be houseless any more, and never might forget the houseless. I remember -how I seemed to float, then, down the melancholy glory of that track upon the -sea, away into the world of dreams. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0014"></a>CHAPTER 14. MY AUNT MAKES UP HER MIND ABOUT ME -</h2> - -<p> -On going down in the morning, I found my aunt musing so profoundly over the -breakfast table, with her elbow on the tray, that the contents of the urn had -overflowed the teapot and were laying the whole table-cloth under water, when -my entrance put her meditations to flight. I felt sure that I had been the -subject of her reflections, and was more than ever anxious to know her -intentions towards me. Yet I dared not express my anxiety, lest it should give -her offence. -</p> - -<p> -My eyes, however, not being so much under control as my tongue, were attracted -towards my aunt very often during breakfast. I never could look at her for a -few moments together but I found her looking at me—in an odd thoughtful -manner, as if I were an immense way off, instead of being on the other side of -the small round table. When she had finished her breakfast, my aunt very -deliberately leaned back in her chair, knitted her brows, folded her arms, and -contemplated me at her leisure, with such a fixedness of attention that I was -quite overpowered by embarrassment. Not having as yet finished my own -breakfast, I attempted to hide my confusion by proceeding with it; but my knife -tumbled over my fork, my fork tripped up my knife, I chipped bits of bacon a -surprising height into the air instead of cutting them for my own eating, and -choked myself with my tea, which persisted in going the wrong way instead of -the right one, until I gave in altogether, and sat blushing under my -aunt’s close scrutiny. -</p> - -<p> -‘Hallo!’ said my aunt, after a long time. -</p> - -<p> -I looked up, and met her sharp bright glance respectfully. -</p> - -<p> -‘I have written to him,’ said my aunt. -</p> - -<p> -‘To—?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘To your father-in-law,’ said my aunt. ‘I have sent him a -letter that I’ll trouble him to attend to, or he and I will fall out, I -can tell him!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Does he know where I am, aunt?’ I inquired, alarmed. -</p> - -<p> -‘I have told him,’ said my aunt, with a nod. -</p> - -<p> -‘Shall I—be—given up to him?’ I faltered. -</p> - -<p> -‘I don’t know,’ said my aunt. ‘We shall see.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh! I can’t think what I shall do,’ I exclaimed, ‘if I -have to go back to Mr. Murdstone!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I don’t know anything about it,’ said my aunt, shaking her -head. ‘I can’t say, I am sure. We shall see.’ -</p> - -<p> -My spirits sank under these words, and I became very downcast and heavy of -heart. My aunt, without appearing to take much heed of me, put on a coarse -apron with a bib, which she took out of the press; washed up the teacups with -her own hands; and, when everything was washed and set in the tray again, and -the cloth folded and put on the top of the whole, rang for Janet to remove it. -She next swept up the crumbs with a little broom (putting on a pair of gloves -first), until there did not appear to be one microscopic speck left on the -carpet; next dusted and arranged the room, which was dusted and arranged to a -hair’s breadth already. When all these tasks were performed to her -satisfaction, she took off the gloves and apron, folded them up, put them in -the particular corner of the press from which they had been taken, brought out -her work-box to her own table in the open window, and sat down, with the green -fan between her and the light, to work. -</p> - -<p> -‘I wish you’d go upstairs,’ said my aunt, as she threaded her -needle, ‘and give my compliments to Mr. Dick, and I’ll be glad to -know how he gets on with his Memorial.’ -</p> - -<p> -I rose with all alacrity, to acquit myself of this commission. -</p> - -<p> -‘I suppose,’ said my aunt, eyeing me as narrowly as she had eyed -the needle in threading it, ‘you think Mr. Dick a short name, eh?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I thought it was rather a short name, yesterday,’ I confessed. -</p> - -<p> -‘You are not to suppose that he hasn’t got a longer name, if he -chose to use it,’ said my aunt, with a loftier air. -‘Babley—Mr. Richard Babley—that’s the gentleman’s -true name.’ -</p> - -<p> -I was going to suggest, with a modest sense of my youth and the familiarity I -had been already guilty of, that I had better give him the full benefit of that -name, when my aunt went on to say: -</p> - -<p> -‘But don’t you call him by it, whatever you do. He can’t bear -his name. That’s a peculiarity of his. Though I don’t know that -it’s much of a peculiarity, either; for he has been ill-used enough, by -some that bear it, to have a mortal antipathy for it, Heaven knows. Mr. Dick is -his name here, and everywhere else, now—if he ever went anywhere else, -which he don’t. So take care, child, you don’t call him anything -BUT Mr. Dick.’ -</p> - -<p> -I promised to obey, and went upstairs with my message; thinking, as I went, -that if Mr. Dick had been working at his Memorial long, at the same rate as I -had seen him working at it, through the open door, when I came down, he was -probably getting on very well indeed. I found him still driving at it with a -long pen, and his head almost laid upon the paper. He was so intent upon it, -that I had ample leisure to observe the large paper kite in a corner, the -confusion of bundles of manuscript, the number of pens, and, above all, the -quantity of ink (which he seemed to have in, in half-gallon jars by the dozen), -before he observed my being present. -</p> - -<p> -‘Ha! Phoebus!’ said Mr. Dick, laying down his pen. ‘How does -the world go? I’ll tell you what,’ he added, in a lower tone, -‘I shouldn’t wish it to be mentioned, but it’s -a—’ here he beckoned to me, and put his lips close to my -ear—‘it’s a mad world. Mad as Bedlam, boy!’ said Mr. -Dick, taking snuff from a round box on the table, and laughing heartily. -</p> - -<p> -Without presuming to give my opinion on this question, I delivered my message. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well,’ said Mr. Dick, in answer, ‘my compliments to her, and -I—I believe I have made a start. I think I have made a start,’ said -Mr. Dick, passing his hand among his grey hair, and casting anything but a -confident look at his manuscript. ‘You have been to school?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes, sir,’ I answered; ‘for a short time.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Do you recollect the date,’ said Mr. Dick, looking earnestly at -me, and taking up his pen to note it down, ‘when King Charles the First -had his head cut off?’ I said I believed it happened in the year sixteen -hundred and forty-nine. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well,’ returned Mr. Dick, scratching his ear with his pen, and -looking dubiously at me. ‘So the books say; but I don’t see how -that can be. Because, if it was so long ago, how could the people about him -have made that mistake of putting some of the trouble out of his head, after it -was taken off, into mine?’ -</p> - -<p> -I was very much surprised by the inquiry; but could give no information on this -point. -</p> - -<p> -‘It’s very strange,’ said Mr. Dick, with a despondent look -upon his papers, and with his hand among his hair again, ‘that I never -can get that quite right. I never can make that perfectly clear. But no matter, -no matter!’ he said cheerfully, and rousing himself, ‘there’s -time enough! My compliments to Miss Trotwood, I am getting on very well -indeed.’ -</p> - -<p> -I was going away, when he directed my attention to the kite. -</p> - -<p> -‘What do you think of that for a kite?’ he said. -</p> - -<p> -I answered that it was a beautiful one. I should think it must have been as -much as seven feet high. -</p> - -<p> -‘I made it. We’ll go and fly it, you and I,’ said Mr. Dick. -‘Do you see this?’ -</p> - -<p> -He showed me that it was covered with manuscript, very closely and laboriously -written; but so plainly, that as I looked along the lines, I thought I saw some -allusion to King Charles the First’s head again, in one or two places. -</p> - -<p> -‘There’s plenty of string,’ said Mr. Dick, ‘and when it -flies high, it takes the facts a long way. That’s my manner of diffusing -‘em. I don’t know where they may come down. It’s according to -circumstances, and the wind, and so forth; but I take my chance of that.’ -</p> - -<p> -His face was so very mild and pleasant, and had something so reverend in it, -though it was hale and hearty, that I was not sure but that he was having a -good-humoured jest with me. So I laughed, and he laughed, and we parted the -best friends possible. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, child,’ said my aunt, when I went downstairs. ‘And -what of Mr. Dick, this morning?’ -</p> - -<p> -I informed her that he sent his compliments, and was getting on very well -indeed. -</p> - -<p> -‘What do you think of him?’ said my aunt. -</p> - -<p> -I had some shadowy idea of endeavouring to evade the question, by replying that -I thought him a very nice gentleman; but my aunt was not to be so put off, for -she laid her work down in her lap, and said, folding her hands upon it: -</p> - -<p> -‘Come! Your sister Betsey Trotwood would have told me what she thought of -anyone, directly. Be as like your sister as you can, and speak out!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Is he—is Mr. Dick—I ask because I don’t know, -aunt—is he at all out of his mind, then?’ I stammered; for I felt I -was on dangerous ground. -</p> - -<p> -‘Not a morsel,’ said my aunt. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, indeed!’ I observed faintly. -</p> - -<p> -‘If there is anything in the world,’ said my aunt, with great -decision and force of manner, ‘that Mr. Dick is not, it’s -that.’ -</p> - -<p> -I had nothing better to offer, than another timid, ‘Oh, indeed!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘He has been CALLED mad,’ said my aunt. ‘I have a selfish -pleasure in saying he has been called mad, or I should not have had the benefit -of his society and advice for these last ten years and upwards—in fact, -ever since your sister, Betsey Trotwood, disappointed me.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘So long as that?’ I said. -</p> - -<p> -‘And nice people they were, who had the audacity to call him mad,’ -pursued my aunt. ‘Mr. Dick is a sort of distant connexion of -mine—it doesn’t matter how; I needn’t enter into that. If it -hadn’t been for me, his own brother would have shut him up for life. -That’s all.’ -</p> - -<p> -I am afraid it was hypocritical in me, but seeing that my aunt felt strongly on -the subject, I tried to look as if I felt strongly too. -</p> - -<p> -‘A proud fool!’ said my aunt. ‘Because his brother was a -little eccentric—though he is not half so eccentric as a good many -people—he didn’t like to have him visible about his house, and sent -him away to some private asylum-place: though he had been left to his -particular care by their deceased father, who thought him almost a natural. And -a wise man he must have been to think so! Mad himself, no doubt.’ -</p> - -<p> -Again, as my aunt looked quite convinced, I endeavoured to look quite convinced -also. -</p> - -<p> -‘So I stepped in,’ said my aunt, ‘and made him an offer. I -said, “Your brother’s sane—a great deal more sane than you -are, or ever will be, it is to be hoped. Let him have his little income, and -come and live with me. I am not afraid of him, I am not proud, I am ready to -take care of him, and shall not ill-treat him as some people (besides the -asylum-folks) have done.” After a good deal of squabbling,’ said my -aunt, ‘I got him; and he has been here ever since. He is the most -friendly and amenable creature in existence; and as for advice!—But -nobody knows what that man’s mind is, except myself.’ -</p> - -<p> -My aunt smoothed her dress and shook her head, as if she smoothed defiance of -the whole world out of the one, and shook it out of the other. -</p> - -<p> -‘He had a favourite sister,’ said my aunt, ‘a good creature, -and very kind to him. But she did what they all do—took a husband. And HE -did what they all do—made her wretched. It had such an effect upon the -mind of Mr. Dick (that’s not madness, I hope!) that, combined with his -fear of his brother, and his sense of his unkindness, it threw him into a -fever. That was before he came to me, but the recollection of it is oppressive -to him even now. Did he say anything to you about King Charles the First, -child?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes, aunt.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Ah!’ said my aunt, rubbing her nose as if she were a little vexed. -‘That’s his allegorical way of expressing it. He connects his -illness with great disturbance and agitation, naturally, and that’s the -figure, or the simile, or whatever it’s called, which he chooses to use. -And why shouldn’t he, if he thinks proper!’ -</p> - -<p> -I said: ‘Certainly, aunt.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘It’s not a business-like way of speaking,’ said my aunt, -‘nor a worldly way. I am aware of that; and that’s the reason why I -insist upon it, that there shan’t be a word about it in his -Memorial.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Is it a Memorial about his own history that he is writing, aunt?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes, child,’ said my aunt, rubbing her nose again. ‘He is -memorializing the Lord Chancellor, or the Lord Somebody or other—one of -those people, at all events, who are paid to be memorialized—about his -affairs. I suppose it will go in, one of these days. He hasn’t been able -to draw it up yet, without introducing that mode of expressing himself; but it -don’t signify; it keeps him employed.’ -</p> - -<p> -In fact, I found out afterwards that Mr. Dick had been for upwards of ten years -endeavouring to keep King Charles the First out of the Memorial; but he had -been constantly getting into it, and was there now. -</p> - -<p> -‘I say again,’ said my aunt, ‘nobody knows what that -man’s mind is except myself; and he’s the most amenable and -friendly creature in existence. If he likes to fly a kite sometimes, what of -that! Franklin used to fly a kite. He was a Quaker, or something of that sort, -if I am not mistaken. And a Quaker flying a kite is a much more ridiculous -object than anybody else.’ -</p> - -<p> -If I could have supposed that my aunt had recounted these particulars for my -especial behoof, and as a piece of confidence in me, I should have felt very -much distinguished, and should have augured favourably from such a mark of her -good opinion. But I could hardly help observing that she had launched into -them, chiefly because the question was raised in her own mind, and with very -little reference to me, though she had addressed herself to me in the absence -of anybody else. -</p> - -<p> -At the same time, I must say that the generosity of her championship of poor -harmless Mr. Dick, not only inspired my young breast with some selfish hope for -myself, but warmed it unselfishly towards her. I believe that I began to know -that there was something about my aunt, notwithstanding her many eccentricities -and odd humours, to be honoured and trusted in. Though she was just as sharp -that day as on the day before, and was in and out about the donkeys just as -often, and was thrown into a tremendous state of indignation, when a young man, -going by, ogled Janet at a window (which was one of the gravest misdemeanours -that could be committed against my aunt’s dignity), she seemed to me to -command more of my respect, if not less of my fear. -</p> - -<p> -The anxiety I underwent, in the interval which necessarily elapsed before a -reply could be received to her letter to Mr. Murdstone, was extreme; but I made -an endeavour to suppress it, and to be as agreeable as I could in a quiet way, -both to my aunt and Mr. Dick. The latter and I would have gone out to fly the -great kite; but that I had still no other clothes than the anything but -ornamental garments with which I had been decorated on the first day, and which -confined me to the house, except for an hour after dark, when my aunt, for my -health’s sake, paraded me up and down on the cliff outside, before going -to bed. At length the reply from Mr. Murdstone came, and my aunt informed me, -to my infinite terror, that he was coming to speak to her herself on the next -day. On the next day, still bundled up in my curious habiliments, I sat -counting the time, flushed and heated by the conflict of sinking hopes and -rising fears within me; and waiting to be startled by the sight of the gloomy -face, whose non-arrival startled me every minute. -</p> - -<p> -My aunt was a little more imperious and stern than usual, but I observed no -other token of her preparing herself to receive the visitor so much dreaded by -me. She sat at work in the window, and I sat by, with my thoughts running -astray on all possible and impossible results of Mr. Murdstone’s visit, -until pretty late in the afternoon. Our dinner had been indefinitely postponed; -but it was growing so late, that my aunt had ordered it to be got ready, when -she gave a sudden alarm of donkeys, and to my consternation and amazement, I -beheld Miss Murdstone, on a side-saddle, ride deliberately over the sacred -piece of green, and stop in front of the house, looking about her. -</p> - -<p> -‘Go along with you!’ cried my aunt, shaking her head and her fist -at the window. ‘You have no business there. How dare you trespass? Go -along! Oh! you bold-faced thing!’ -</p> - -<p> -My aunt was so exasperated by the coolness with which Miss Murdstone looked -about her, that I really believe she was motionless, and unable for the moment -to dart out according to custom. I seized the opportunity to inform her who it -was; and that the gentleman now coming near the offender (for the way up was -very steep, and he had dropped behind), was Mr. Murdstone himself. -</p> - -<p> -‘I don’t care who it is!’ cried my aunt, still shaking her -head and gesticulating anything but welcome from the bow-window. ‘I -won’t be trespassed upon. I won’t allow it. Go away! Janet, turn -him round. Lead him off!’ and I saw, from behind my aunt, a sort of -hurried battle-piece, in which the donkey stood resisting everybody, with all -his four legs planted different ways, while Janet tried to pull him round by -the bridle, Mr. Murdstone tried to lead him on, Miss Murdstone struck at Janet -with a parasol, and several boys, who had come to see the engagement, shouted -vigorously. But my aunt, suddenly descrying among them the young malefactor who -was the donkey’s guardian, and who was one of the most inveterate -offenders against her, though hardly in his teens, rushed out to the scene of -action, pounced upon him, captured him, dragged him, with his jacket over his -head, and his heels grinding the ground, into the garden, and, calling upon -Janet to fetch the constables and justices, that he might be taken, tried, and -executed on the spot, held him at bay there. This part of the business, -however, did not last long; for the young rascal, being expert at a variety of -feints and dodges, of which my aunt had no conception, soon went whooping away, -leaving some deep impressions of his nailed boots in the flower-beds, and -taking his donkey in triumph with him. -</p> - -<p> -Miss Murdstone, during the latter portion of the contest, had dismounted, and -was now waiting with her brother at the bottom of the steps, until my aunt -should be at leisure to receive them. My aunt, a little ruffled by the combat, -marched past them into the house, with great dignity, and took no notice of -their presence, until they were announced by Janet. -</p> - -<p> -‘Shall I go away, aunt?’ I asked, trembling. -</p> - -<p> -‘No, sir,’ said my aunt. ‘Certainly not!’ With which -she pushed me into a corner near her, and fenced Me in with a chair, as if it -were a prison or a bar of justice. This position I continued to occupy during -the whole interview, and from it I now saw Mr. and Miss Murdstone enter the -room. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh!’ said my aunt, ‘I was not aware at first to whom I had -the pleasure of objecting. But I don’t allow anybody to ride over that -turf. I make no exceptions. I don’t allow anybody to do it.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Your regulation is rather awkward to strangers,’ said Miss -Murdstone. -</p> - -<p> -‘Is it!’ said my aunt. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Murdstone seemed afraid of a renewal of hostilities, and interposing began: -</p> - -<p> -‘Miss Trotwood!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I beg your pardon,’ observed my aunt with a keen look. ‘You -are the Mr. Murdstone who married the widow of my late nephew, David -Copperfield, of Blunderstone Rookery!—Though why Rookery, I don’t -know!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I am,’ said Mr. Murdstone. -</p> - -<p> -‘You’ll excuse my saying, sir,’ returned my aunt, ‘that -I think it would have been a much better and happier thing if you had left that -poor child alone.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I so far agree with what Miss Trotwood has remarked,’ observed -Miss Murdstone, bridling, ‘that I consider our lamented Clara to have -been, in all essential respects, a mere child.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘It is a comfort to you and me, ma’am,’ said my aunt, -‘who are getting on in life, and are not likely to be made unhappy by our -personal attractions, that nobody can say the same of us.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No doubt!’ returned Miss Murdstone, though, I thought, not with a -very ready or gracious assent. ‘And it certainly might have been, as you -say, a better and happier thing for my brother if he had never entered into -such a marriage. I have always been of that opinion.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I have no doubt you have,’ said my aunt. ‘Janet,’ -ringing the bell, ‘my compliments to Mr. Dick, and beg him to come -down.’ -</p> - -<p> -Until he came, my aunt sat perfectly upright and stiff, frowning at the wall. -When he came, my aunt performed the ceremony of introduction. -</p> - -<p> -‘Mr. Dick. An old and intimate friend. On whose judgement,’ said my -aunt, with emphasis, as an admonition to Mr. Dick, who was biting his -forefinger and looking rather foolish, ‘I rely.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Dick took his finger out of his mouth, on this hint, and stood among the -group, with a grave and attentive expression of face. -</p> - -<p> -My aunt inclined her head to Mr. Murdstone, who went on: -</p> - -<p> -‘Miss Trotwood: on the receipt of your letter, I considered it an act of -greater justice to myself, and perhaps of more respect to you—s’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Thank you,’ said my aunt, still eyeing him keenly. ‘You -needn’t mind me.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘To answer it in person, however inconvenient the journey,’ pursued -Mr. Murdstone, ‘rather than by letter. This unhappy boy who has run away -from his friends and his occupation—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And whose appearance,’ interposed his sister, directing general -attention to me in my indefinable costume, ‘is perfectly scandalous and -disgraceful.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Jane Murdstone,’ said her brother, ‘have the goodness not to -interrupt me. This unhappy boy, Miss Trotwood, has been the occasion of much -domestic trouble and uneasiness; both during the lifetime of my late dear wife, -and since. He has a sullen, rebellious spirit; a violent temper; and an -untoward, intractable disposition. Both my sister and myself have endeavoured -to correct his vices, but ineffectually. And I have felt—we both have -felt, I may say; my sister being fully in my confidence—that it is right -you should receive this grave and dispassionate assurance from our lips.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘It can hardly be necessary for me to confirm anything stated by my -brother,’ said Miss Murdstone; ‘but I beg to observe, that, of all -the boys in the world, I believe this is the worst boy.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Strong!’ said my aunt, shortly. -</p> - -<p> -‘But not at all too strong for the facts,’ returned Miss Murdstone. -</p> - -<p> -‘Ha!’ said my aunt. ‘Well, sir?’ -</p> - -<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> -<img src="images/0265.jpg" alt="0265 " width="100%" /> -</div> - -<h5> -<a href="images/0265.jpg"> -<img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /></a> -</h5> - -<p> -‘I have my own opinions,’ resumed Mr. Murdstone, whose face -darkened more and more, the more he and my aunt observed each other, which they -did very narrowly, ‘as to the best mode of bringing him up; they are -founded, in part, on my knowledge of him, and in part on my knowledge of my own -means and resources. I am responsible for them to myself, I act upon them, and -I say no more about them. It is enough that I place this boy under the eye of a -friend of my own, in a respectable business; that it does not please him; that -he runs away from it; makes himself a common vagabond about the country; and -comes here, in rags, to appeal to you, Miss Trotwood. I wish to set before you, -honourably, the exact consequences—so far as they are within my -knowledge—of your abetting him in this appeal.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘But about the respectable business first,’ said my aunt. ‘If -he had been your own boy, you would have put him to it, just the same, I -suppose?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘If he had been my brother’s own boy,’ returned Miss -Murdstone, striking in, ‘his character, I trust, would have been -altogether different.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Or if the poor child, his mother, had been alive, he would still have -gone into the respectable business, would he?’ said my aunt. -</p> - -<p> -‘I believe,’ said Mr. Murdstone, with an inclination of his head, -‘that Clara would have disputed nothing which myself and my sister Jane -Murdstone were agreed was for the best.’ -</p> - -<p> -Miss Murdstone confirmed this with an audible murmur. -</p> - -<p> -‘Humph!’ said my aunt. ‘Unfortunate baby!’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Dick, who had been rattling his money all this time, was rattling it so -loudly now, that my aunt felt it necessary to check him with a look, before -saying: -</p> - -<p> -‘The poor child’s annuity died with her?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Died with her,’ replied Mr. Murdstone. -</p> - -<p> -‘And there was no settlement of the little property—the house and -garden—the what’s-its-name Rookery without any rooks in -it—upon her boy?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘It had been left to her, unconditionally, by her first husband,’ -Mr. Murdstone began, when my aunt caught him up with the greatest irascibility -and impatience. -</p> - -<p> -‘Good Lord, man, there’s no occasion to say that. Left to her -unconditionally! I think I see David Copperfield looking forward to any -condition of any sort or kind, though it stared him point-blank in the face! Of -course it was left to her unconditionally. But when she married -again—when she took that most disastrous step of marrying you, in -short,’ said my aunt, ‘to be plain—did no one put in a word -for the boy at that time?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘My late wife loved her second husband, ma’am,’ said Mr. -Murdstone, ‘and trusted implicitly in him.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Your late wife, sir, was a most unworldly, most unhappy, most -unfortunate baby,’ returned my aunt, shaking her head at him. -‘That’s what she was. And now, what have you got to say -next?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Merely this, Miss Trotwood,’ he returned. ‘I am here to take -David back—to take him back unconditionally, to dispose of him as I think -proper, and to deal with him as I think right. I am not here to make any -promise, or give any pledge to anybody. You may possibly have some idea, Miss -Trotwood, of abetting him in his running away, and in his complaints to you. -Your manner, which I must say does not seem intended to propitiate, induces me -to think it possible. Now I must caution you that if you abet him once, you -abet him for good and all; if you step in between him and me, now, you must -step in, Miss Trotwood, for ever. I cannot trifle, or be trifled with. I am -here, for the first and last time, to take him away. Is he ready to go? If he -is not—and you tell me he is not; on any pretence; it is indifferent to -me what—my doors are shut against him henceforth, and yours, I take it -for granted, are open to him.’ -</p> - -<p> -To this address, my aunt had listened with the closest attention, sitting -perfectly upright, with her hands folded on one knee, and looking grimly on the -speaker. When he had finished, she turned her eyes so as to command Miss -Murdstone, without otherwise disturbing her attitude, and said: -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, ma’am, have YOU got anything to remark?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Indeed, Miss Trotwood,’ said Miss Murdstone, ‘all that I -could say has been so well said by my brother, and all that I know to be the -fact has been so plainly stated by him, that I have nothing to add except my -thanks for your politeness. For your very great politeness, I am sure,’ -said Miss Murdstone; with an irony which no more affected my aunt, than it -discomposed the cannon I had slept by at Chatham. -</p> - -<p> -‘And what does the boy say?’ said my aunt. ‘Are you ready to -go, David?’ -</p> - -<p> -I answered no, and entreated her not to let me go. I said that neither Mr. nor -Miss Murdstone had ever liked me, or had ever been kind to me. That they had -made my mama, who always loved me dearly, unhappy about me, and that I knew it -well, and that Peggotty knew it. I said that I had been more miserable than I -thought anybody could believe, who only knew how young I was. And I begged and -prayed my aunt—I forget in what terms now, but I remember that they -affected me very much then—to befriend and protect me, for my -father’s sake. -</p> - -<p> -‘Mr. Dick,’ said my aunt, ‘what shall I do with this -child?’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Dick considered, hesitated, brightened, and rejoined, ‘Have him -measured for a suit of clothes directly.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Mr. Dick,’ said my aunt triumphantly, ‘give me your hand, -for your common sense is invaluable.’ Having shaken it with great -cordiality, she pulled me towards her and said to Mr. Murdstone: -</p> - -<p> -‘You can go when you like; I’ll take my chance with the boy. If -he’s all you say he is, at least I can do as much for him then, as you -have done. But I don’t believe a word of it.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Miss Trotwood,’ rejoined Mr. Murdstone, shrugging his shoulders, -as he rose, ‘if you were a gentleman—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Bah! Stuff and nonsense!’ said my aunt. ‘Don’t talk to -me!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘How exquisitely polite!’ exclaimed Miss Murdstone, rising. -‘Overpowering, really!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Do you think I don’t know,’ said my aunt, turning a deaf ear -to the sister, and continuing to address the brother, and to shake her head at -him with infinite expression, ‘what kind of life you must have led that -poor, unhappy, misdirected baby? Do you think I don’t know what a woeful -day it was for the soft little creature when you first came in her -way—smirking and making great eyes at her, I’ll be bound, as if you -couldn’t say boh! to a goose!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I never heard anything so elegant!’ said Miss Murdstone. -</p> - -<p> -‘Do you think I can’t understand you as well as if I had seen -you,’ pursued my aunt, ‘now that I DO see and hear you—which, -I tell you candidly, is anything but a pleasure to me? Oh yes, bless us! who so -smooth and silky as Mr. Murdstone at first! The poor, benighted innocent had -never seen such a man. He was made of sweetness. He worshipped her. He doted on -her boy—tenderly doted on him! He was to be another father to him, and -they were all to live together in a garden of roses, weren’t they? Ugh! -Get along with you, do!’ said my aunt. -</p> - -<p> -‘I never heard anything like this person in my life!’ exclaimed -Miss Murdstone. -</p> - -<p> -‘And when you had made sure of the poor little fool,’ said my -aunt—‘God forgive me that I should call her so, and she gone where -YOU won’t go in a hurry—because you had not done wrong enough to -her and hers, you must begin to train her, must you? begin to break her, like a -poor caged bird, and wear her deluded life away, in teaching her to sing YOUR -notes?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘This is either insanity or intoxication,’ said Miss Murdstone, in -a perfect agony at not being able to turn the current of my aunt’s -address towards herself; ‘and my suspicion is that it’s -intoxication.’ -</p> - -<p> -Miss Betsey, without taking the least notice of the interruption, continued to -address herself to Mr. Murdstone as if there had been no such thing. -</p> - -<p> -‘Mr. Murdstone,’ she said, shaking her finger at him, ‘you -were a tyrant to the simple baby, and you broke her heart. She was a loving -baby—I know that; I knew it, years before you ever saw her—and -through the best part of her weakness you gave her the wounds she died of. -There is the truth for your comfort, however you like it. And you and your -instruments may make the most of it.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Allow me to inquire, Miss Trotwood,’ interposed Miss Murdstone, -‘whom you are pleased to call, in a choice of words in which I am not -experienced, my brother’s instruments?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘It was clear enough, as I have told you, years before YOU ever saw -her—and why, in the mysterious dispensations of Providence, you ever did -see her, is more than humanity can comprehend—it was clear enough that -the poor soft little thing would marry somebody, at some time or other; but I -did hope it wouldn’t have been as bad as it has turned out. That was the -time, Mr. Murdstone, when she gave birth to her boy here,’ said my aunt; -‘to the poor child you sometimes tormented her through afterwards, which -is a disagreeable remembrance and makes the sight of him odious now. Aye, aye! -you needn’t wince!’ said my aunt. ‘I know it’s true -without that.’ -</p> - -<p> -He had stood by the door, all this while, observant of her with a smile upon -his face, though his black eyebrows were heavily contracted. I remarked now, -that, though the smile was on his face still, his colour had gone in a moment, -and he seemed to breathe as if he had been running. -</p> - -<p> -‘Good day, sir,’ said my aunt, ‘and good-bye! Good day to -you, too, ma’am,’ said my aunt, turning suddenly upon his sister. -‘Let me see you ride a donkey over my green again, and as sure as you -have a head upon your shoulders, I’ll knock your bonnet off, and tread -upon it!’ -</p> - -<p> -It would require a painter, and no common painter too, to depict my -aunt’s face as she delivered herself of this very unexpected sentiment, -and Miss Murdstone’s face as she heard it. But the manner of the speech, -no less than the matter, was so fiery, that Miss Murdstone, without a word in -answer, discreetly put her arm through her brother’s, and walked -haughtily out of the cottage; my aunt remaining in the window looking after -them; prepared, I have no doubt, in case of the donkey’s reappearance, to -carry her threat into instant execution. -</p> - -<p> -No attempt at defiance being made, however, her face gradually relaxed, and -became so pleasant, that I was emboldened to kiss and thank her; which I did -with great heartiness, and with both my arms clasped round her neck. I then -shook hands with Mr. Dick, who shook hands with me a great many times, and -hailed this happy close of the proceedings with repeated bursts of laughter. -</p> - -<p> -‘You’ll consider yourself guardian, jointly with me, of this child, -Mr. Dick,’ said my aunt. -</p> - -<p> -‘I shall be delighted,’ said Mr. Dick, ‘to be the guardian of -David’s son.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Very good,’ returned my aunt, ‘that’s settled. I have -been thinking, do you know, Mr. Dick, that I might call him Trotwood?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Certainly, certainly. Call him Trotwood, certainly,’ said Mr. -Dick. ‘David’s son’s Trotwood.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Trotwood Copperfield, you mean,’ returned my aunt. -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes, to be sure. Yes. Trotwood Copperfield,’ said Mr. Dick, a -little abashed. -</p> - -<p> -My aunt took so kindly to the notion, that some ready-made clothes, which were -purchased for me that afternoon, were marked ‘Trotwood -Copperfield’, in her own handwriting, and in indelible marking-ink, -before I put them on; and it was settled that all the other clothes which were -ordered to be made for me (a complete outfit was bespoke that afternoon) should -be marked in the same way. -</p> - -<p> -Thus I began my new life, in a new name, and with everything new about me. Now -that the state of doubt was over, I felt, for many days, like one in a dream. I -never thought that I had a curious couple of guardians, in my aunt and Mr. -Dick. I never thought of anything about myself, distinctly. The two things -clearest in my mind were, that a remoteness had come upon the old Blunderstone -life—which seemed to lie in the haze of an immeasurable distance; and -that a curtain had for ever fallen on my life at Murdstone and Grinby’s. -No one has ever raised that curtain since. I have lifted it for a moment, even -in this narrative, with a reluctant hand, and dropped it gladly. The -remembrance of that life is fraught with so much pain to me, with so much -mental suffering and want of hope, that I have never had the courage even to -examine how long I was doomed to lead it. Whether it lasted for a year, or -more, or less, I do not know. I only know that it was, and ceased to be; and -that I have written, and there I leave it. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0015"></a>CHAPTER 15. I MAKE ANOTHER BEGINNING</h2> - -<p> -Mr. Dick and I soon became the best of friends, and very often, when his -day’s work was done, went out together to fly the great kite. Every day -of his life he had a long sitting at the Memorial, which never made the least -progress, however hard he laboured, for King Charles the First always strayed -into it, sooner or later, and then it was thrown aside, and another one begun. -The patience and hope with which he bore these perpetual disappointments, the -mild perception he had that there was something wrong about King Charles the -First, the feeble efforts he made to keep him out, and the certainty with which -he came in, and tumbled the Memorial out of all shape, made a deep impression -on me. What Mr. Dick supposed would come of the Memorial, if it were completed; -where he thought it was to go, or what he thought it was to do; he knew no more -than anybody else, I believe. Nor was it at all necessary that he should -trouble himself with such questions, for if anything were certain under the -sun, it was certain that the Memorial never would be finished. It was quite an -affecting sight, I used to think, to see him with the kite when it was up a -great height in the air. What he had told me, in his room, about his belief in -its disseminating the statements pasted on it, which were nothing but old -leaves of abortive Memorials, might have been a fancy with him sometimes; but -not when he was out, looking up at the kite in the sky, and feeling it pull and -tug at his hand. He never looked so serene as he did then. I used to fancy, as -I sat by him of an evening, on a green slope, and saw him watch the kite high -in the quiet air, that it lifted his mind out of its confusion, and bore it -(such was my boyish thought) into the skies. As he wound the string in and it -came lower and lower down out of the beautiful light, until it fluttered to the -ground, and lay there like a dead thing, he seemed to wake gradually out of a -dream; and I remember to have seen him take it up, and look about him in a lost -way, as if they had both come down together, so that I pitied him with all my -heart. -</p> - -<p> -While I advanced in friendship and intimacy with Mr. Dick, I did not go -backward in the favour of his staunch friend, my aunt. She took so kindly to -me, that, in the course of a few weeks, she shortened my adopted name of -Trotwood into Trot; and even encouraged me to hope, that if I went on as I had -begun, I might take equal rank in her affections with my sister Betsey -Trotwood. -</p> - -<p> -‘Trot,’ said my aunt one evening, when the backgammon-board was -placed as usual for herself and Mr. Dick, ‘we must not forget your -education.’ -</p> - -<p> -This was my only subject of anxiety, and I felt quite delighted by her -referring to it. -</p> - -<p> -‘Should you like to go to school at Canterbury?’ said my aunt. -</p> - -<p> -I replied that I should like it very much, as it was so near her. -</p> - -<p> -‘Good,’ said my aunt. ‘Should you like to go tomorrow?’ -</p> - -<p> -Being already no stranger to the general rapidity of my aunt’s -evolutions, I was not surprised by the suddenness of the proposal, and said: -‘Yes.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Good,’ said my aunt again. ‘Janet, hire the grey pony and -chaise tomorrow morning at ten o’clock, and pack up Master -Trotwood’s clothes tonight.’ -</p> - -<p> -I was greatly elated by these orders; but my heart smote me for my selfishness, -when I witnessed their effect on Mr. Dick, who was so low-spirited at the -prospect of our separation, and played so ill in consequence, that my aunt, -after giving him several admonitory raps on the knuckles with her dice-box, -shut up the board, and declined to play with him any more. But, on hearing from -my aunt that I should sometimes come over on a Saturday, and that he could -sometimes come and see me on a Wednesday, he revived; and vowed to make another -kite for those occasions, of proportions greatly surpassing the present one. In -the morning he was downhearted again, and would have sustained himself by -giving me all the money he had in his possession, gold and silver too, if my -aunt had not interposed, and limited the gift to five shillings, which, at his -earnest petition, were afterwards increased to ten. We parted at the -garden-gate in a most affectionate manner, and Mr. Dick did not go into the -house until my aunt had driven me out of sight of it. -</p> - -<p> -My aunt, who was perfectly indifferent to public opinion, drove the grey pony -through Dover in a masterly manner; sitting high and stiff like a state -coachman, keeping a steady eye upon him wherever he went, and making a point of -not letting him have his own way in any respect. When we came into the country -road, she permitted him to relax a little, however; and looking at me down in a -valley of cushion by her side, asked me whether I was happy? -</p> - -<p> -‘Very happy indeed, thank you, aunt,’ I said. -</p> - -<p> -She was much gratified; and both her hands being occupied, patted me on the -head with her whip. -</p> - -<p> -‘Is it a large school, aunt?’ I asked. -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, I don’t know,’ said my aunt. ‘We are going to Mr. -Wickfield’s first.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Does he keep a school?’ I asked. -</p> - -<p> -‘No, Trot,’ said my aunt. ‘He keeps an office.’ -</p> - -<p> -I asked for no more information about Mr. Wickfield, as she offered none, and -we conversed on other subjects until we came to Canterbury, where, as it was -market-day, my aunt had a great opportunity of insinuating the grey pony among -carts, baskets, vegetables, and huckster’s goods. The hair-breadth turns -and twists we made, drew down upon us a variety of speeches from the people -standing about, which were not always complimentary; but my aunt drove on with -perfect indifference, and I dare say would have taken her own way with as much -coolness through an enemy’s country. -</p> - -<p> -At length we stopped before a very old house bulging out over the road; a house -with long low lattice-windows bulging out still farther, and beams with carved -heads on the ends bulging out too, so that I fancied the whole house was -leaning forward, trying to see who was passing on the narrow pavement below. It -was quite spotless in its cleanliness. The old-fashioned brass knocker on the -low arched door, ornamented with carved garlands of fruit and flowers, twinkled -like a star; the two stone steps descending to the door were as white as if -they had been covered with fair linen; and all the angles and corners, and -carvings and mouldings, and quaint little panes of glass, and quainter little -windows, though as old as the hills, were as pure as any snow that ever fell -upon the hills. -</p> - -<p> -When the pony-chaise stopped at the door, and my eyes were intent upon the -house, I saw a cadaverous face appear at a small window on the ground floor (in -a little round tower that formed one side of the house), and quickly disappear. -The low arched door then opened, and the face came out. It was quite as -cadaverous as it had looked in the window, though in the grain of it there was -that tinge of red which is sometimes to be observed in the skins of red-haired -people. It belonged to a red-haired person—a youth of fifteen, as I take -it now, but looking much older—whose hair was cropped as close as the -closest stubble; who had hardly any eyebrows, and no eyelashes, and eyes of a -red-brown, so unsheltered and unshaded, that I remember wondering how he went -to sleep. He was high-shouldered and bony; dressed in decent black, with a -white wisp of a neckcloth; buttoned up to the throat; and had a long, lank, -skeleton hand, which particularly attracted my attention, as he stood at the -pony’s head, rubbing his chin with it, and looking up at us in the -chaise. -</p> - -<p> -‘Is Mr. Wickfield at home, Uriah Heep?’ said my aunt. -</p> - -<p> -‘Mr. Wickfield’s at home, ma’am,’ said Uriah Heep, -‘if you’ll please to walk in there’—pointing with his -long hand to the room he meant. -</p> - -<p> -We got out; and leaving him to hold the pony, went into a long low parlour -looking towards the street, from the window of which I caught a glimpse, as I -went in, of Uriah Heep breathing into the pony’s nostrils, and -immediately covering them with his hand, as if he were putting some spell upon -him. Opposite to the tall old chimney-piece were two portraits: one of a -gentleman with grey hair (though not by any means an old man) and black -eyebrows, who was looking over some papers tied together with red tape; the -other, of a lady, with a very placid and sweet expression of face, who was -looking at me. -</p> - -<p> -I believe I was turning about in search of Uriah’s picture, when, a door -at the farther end of the room opening, a gentleman entered, at sight of whom I -turned to the first-mentioned portrait again, to make quite sure that it had -not come out of its frame. But it was stationary; and as the gentleman advanced -into the light, I saw that he was some years older than when he had had his -picture painted. -</p> - -<p> -‘Miss Betsey Trotwood,’ said the gentleman, ‘pray walk in. I -was engaged for a moment, but you’ll excuse my being busy. You know my -motive. I have but one in life.’ -</p> - -<p> -Miss Betsey thanked him, and we went into his room, which was furnished as an -office, with books, papers, tin boxes, and so forth. It looked into a garden, -and had an iron safe let into the wall; so immediately over the mantelshelf, -that I wondered, as I sat down, how the sweeps got round it when they swept the -chimney. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, Miss Trotwood,’ said Mr. Wickfield; for I soon found that it -was he, and that he was a lawyer, and steward of the estates of a rich -gentleman of the county; ‘what wind blows you here? Not an ill wind, I -hope?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No,’ replied my aunt. ‘I have not come for any law.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘That’s right, ma’am,’ said Mr. Wickfield. ‘You -had better come for anything else.’ His hair was quite white now, though -his eyebrows were still black. He had a very agreeable face, and, I thought, -was handsome. There was a certain richness in his complexion, which I had been -long accustomed, under Peggotty’s tuition, to connect with port wine; and -I fancied it was in his voice too, and referred his growing corpulency to the -same cause. He was very cleanly dressed, in a blue coat, striped waistcoat, and -nankeen trousers; and his fine frilled shirt and cambric neckcloth looked -unusually soft and white, reminding my strolling fancy (I call to mind) of the -plumage on the breast of a swan. -</p> - -<p> -‘This is my nephew,’ said my aunt. -</p> - -<p> -‘Wasn’t aware you had one, Miss Trotwood,’ said Mr. -Wickfield. -</p> - -<p> -‘My grand-nephew, that is to say,’ observed my aunt. -</p> - -<p> -‘Wasn’t aware you had a grand-nephew, I give you my word,’ -said Mr. Wickfield. -</p> - -<p> -‘I have adopted him,’ said my aunt, with a wave of her hand, -importing that his knowledge and his ignorance were all one to her, ‘and -I have brought him here, to put to a school where he may be thoroughly well -taught, and well treated. Now tell me where that school is, and what it is, and -all about it.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Before I can advise you properly,’ said Mr. -Wickfield—‘the old question, you know. What’s your motive in -this?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Deuce take the man!’ exclaimed my aunt. ‘Always fishing for -motives, when they’re on the surface! Why, to make the child happy and -useful.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘It must be a mixed motive, I think,’ said Mr. Wickfield, shaking -his head and smiling incredulously. -</p> - -<p> -‘A mixed fiddlestick,’ returned my aunt. ‘You claim to have -one plain motive in all you do yourself. You don’t suppose, I hope, that -you are the only plain dealer in the world?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Ay, but I have only one motive in life, Miss Trotwood,’ he -rejoined, smiling. ‘Other people have dozens, scores, hundreds. I have -only one. There’s the difference. However, that’s beside the -question. The best school? Whatever the motive, you want the best?’ -</p> - -<p> -My aunt nodded assent. -</p> - -<p> -‘At the best we have,’ said Mr. Wickfield, considering, ‘your -nephew couldn’t board just now.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘But he could board somewhere else, I suppose?’ suggested my aunt. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Wickfield thought I could. After a little discussion, he proposed to take -my aunt to the school, that she might see it and judge for herself; also, to -take her, with the same object, to two or three houses where he thought I could -be boarded. My aunt embracing the proposal, we were all three going out -together, when he stopped and said: -</p> - -<p> -‘Our little friend here might have some motive, perhaps, for objecting to -the arrangements. I think we had better leave him behind?’ -</p> - -<p> -My aunt seemed disposed to contest the point; but to facilitate matters I said -I would gladly remain behind, if they pleased; and returned into Mr. -Wickfield’s office, where I sat down again, in the chair I had first -occupied, to await their return. -</p> - -<p> -It so happened that this chair was opposite a narrow passage, which ended in -the little circular room where I had seen Uriah Heep’s pale face looking -out of the window. Uriah, having taken the pony to a neighbouring stable, was -at work at a desk in this room, which had a brass frame on the top to hang -paper upon, and on which the writing he was making a copy of was then hanging. -Though his face was towards me, I thought, for some time, the writing being -between us, that he could not see me; but looking that way more attentively, it -made me uncomfortable to observe that, every now and then, his sleepless eyes -would come below the writing, like two red suns, and stealthily stare at me for -I dare say a whole minute at a time, during which his pen went, or pretended to -go, as cleverly as ever. I made several attempts to get out of their -way—such as standing on a chair to look at a map on the other side of the -room, and poring over the columns of a Kentish newspaper—but they always -attracted me back again; and whenever I looked towards those two red suns, I -was sure to find them, either just rising or just setting. -</p> - -<p> -At length, much to my relief, my aunt and Mr. Wickfield came back, after a -pretty long absence. They were not so successful as I could have wished; for -though the advantages of the school were undeniable, my aunt had not approved -of any of the boarding-houses proposed for me. -</p> - -<p> -‘It’s very unfortunate,’ said my aunt. ‘I don’t -know what to do, Trot.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘It does happen unfortunately,’ said Mr. Wickfield. ‘But -I’ll tell you what you can do, Miss Trotwood.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘What’s that?’ inquired my aunt. -</p> - -<p> -‘Leave your nephew here, for the present. He’s a quiet fellow. He -won’t disturb me at all. It’s a capital house for study. As quiet -as a monastery, and almost as roomy. Leave him here.’ -</p> - -<p> -My aunt evidently liked the offer, though she was delicate of accepting it. So -did I. ‘Come, Miss Trotwood,’ said Mr. Wickfield. ‘This is -the way out of the difficulty. It’s only a temporary arrangement, you -know. If it don’t act well, or don’t quite accord with our mutual -convenience, he can easily go to the right-about. There will be time to find -some better place for him in the meanwhile. You had better determine to leave -him here for the present!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I am very much obliged to you,’ said my aunt; ‘and so is he, -I see; but—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Come! I know what you mean,’ cried Mr. Wickfield. ‘You shall -not be oppressed by the receipt of favours, Miss Trotwood. You may pay for him, -if you like. We won’t be hard about terms, but you shall pay if you -will.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘On that understanding,’ said my aunt, ‘though it -doesn’t lessen the real obligation, I shall be very glad to leave -him.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Then come and see my little housekeeper,’ said Mr. Wickfield. -</p> - -<p> -We accordingly went up a wonderful old staircase; with a balustrade so broad -that we might have gone up that, almost as easily; and into a shady old -drawing-room, lighted by some three or four of the quaint windows I had looked -up at from the street: which had old oak seats in them, that seemed to have -come of the same trees as the shining oak floor, and the great beams in the -ceiling. It was a prettily furnished room, with a piano and some lively -furniture in red and green, and some flowers. It seemed to be all old nooks and -corners; and in every nook and corner there was some queer little table, or -cupboard, or bookcase, or seat, or something or other, that made me think there -was not such another good corner in the room; until I looked at the next one, -and found it equal to it, if not better. On everything there was the same air -of retirement and cleanliness that marked the house outside. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Wickfield tapped at a door in a corner of the panelled wall, and a girl of -about my own age came quickly out and kissed him. On her face, I saw -immediately the placid and sweet expression of the lady whose picture had -looked at me downstairs. It seemed to my imagination as if the portrait had -grown womanly, and the original remained a child. Although her face was quite -bright and happy, there was a tranquillity about it, and about her—a -quiet, good, calm spirit—that I never have forgotten; that I shall never -forget. This was his little housekeeper, his daughter Agnes, Mr. Wickfield -said. When I heard how he said it, and saw how he held her hand, I guessed what -the one motive of his life was. -</p> - -<p> -She had a little basket-trifle hanging at her side, with keys in it; and she -looked as staid and as discreet a housekeeper as the old house could have. She -listened to her father as he told her about me, with a pleasant face; and when -he had concluded, proposed to my aunt that we should go upstairs and see my -room. We all went together, she before us: and a glorious old room it was, with -more oak beams, and diamond panes; and the broad balustrade going all the way -up to it. -</p> - -<p> -I cannot call to mind where or when, in my childhood, I had seen a stained -glass window in a church. Nor do I recollect its subject. But I know that when -I saw her turn round, in the grave light of the old staircase, and wait for us, -above, I thought of that window; and I associated something of its tranquil -brightness with Agnes Wickfield ever afterwards. -</p> - -<p> -My aunt was as happy as I was, in the arrangement made for me; and we went down -to the drawing-room again, well pleased and gratified. As she would not hear of -staying to dinner, lest she should by any chance fail to arrive at home with -the grey pony before dark; and as I apprehend Mr. Wickfield knew her too well -to argue any point with her; some lunch was provided for her there, and Agnes -went back to her governess, and Mr. Wickfield to his office. So we were left to -take leave of one another without any restraint. -</p> - -<p> -She told me that everything would be arranged for me by Mr. Wickfield, and that -I should want for nothing, and gave me the kindest words and the best advice. -</p> - -<p> -‘Trot,’ said my aunt in conclusion, ‘be a credit to yourself, -to me, and Mr. Dick, and Heaven be with you!’ -</p> - -<p> -I was greatly overcome, and could only thank her, again and again, and send my -love to Mr. Dick. -</p> - -<p> -‘Never,’ said my aunt, ‘be mean in anything; never be false; -never be cruel. Avoid those three vices, Trot, and I can always be hopeful of -you.’ -</p> - -<p> -I promised, as well as I could, that I would not abuse her kindness or forget -her admonition. -</p> - -<p> -‘The pony’s at the door,’ said my aunt, ‘and I am off! -Stay here.’ With these words she embraced me hastily, and went out of the -room, shutting the door after her. At first I was startled by so abrupt a -departure, and almost feared I had displeased her; but when I looked into the -street, and saw how dejectedly she got into the chaise, and drove away without -looking up, I understood her better and did not do her that injustice. -</p> - -<p> -By five o’clock, which was Mr. Wickfield’s dinner-hour, I had -mustered up my spirits again, and was ready for my knife and fork. The cloth -was only laid for us two; but Agnes was waiting in the drawing-room before -dinner, went down with her father, and sat opposite to him at table. I doubted -whether he could have dined without her. -</p> - -<p> -We did not stay there, after dinner, but came upstairs into the drawing-room -again: in one snug corner of which, Agnes set glasses for her father, and a -decanter of port wine. I thought he would have missed its usual flavour, if it -had been put there for him by any other hands. -</p> - -<p> -There he sat, taking his wine, and taking a good deal of it, for two hours; -while Agnes played on the piano, worked, and talked to him and me. He was, for -the most part, gay and cheerful with us; but sometimes his eyes rested on her, -and he fell into a brooding state, and was silent. She always observed this -quickly, I thought, and always roused him with a question or caress. Then he -came out of his meditation, and drank more wine. -</p> - -<p> -Agnes made the tea, and presided over it; and the time passed away after it, as -after dinner, until she went to bed; when her father took her in his arms and -kissed her, and, she being gone, ordered candles in his office. Then I went to -bed too. -</p> - -<p> -But in the course of the evening I had rambled down to the door, and a little -way along the street, that I might have another peep at the old houses, and the -grey Cathedral; and might think of my coming through that old city on my -journey, and of my passing the very house I lived in, without knowing it. As I -came back, I saw Uriah Heep shutting up the office; and feeling friendly -towards everybody, went in and spoke to him, and at parting, gave him my hand. -But oh, what a clammy hand his was! as ghostly to the touch as to the sight! I -rubbed mine afterwards, to warm it, AND TO RUB HIS OFF. -</p> - -<p> -It was such an uncomfortable hand, that, when I went to my room, it was still -cold and wet upon my memory. Leaning out of the window, and seeing one of the -faces on the beam-ends looking at me sideways, I fancied it was Uriah Heep got -up there somehow, and shut him out in a hurry. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0016"></a>CHAPTER 16. I AM A NEW BOY IN MORE SENSES THAN -ONE</h2> - -<p> -Next morning, after breakfast, I entered on school life again. I went, -accompanied by Mr. Wickfield, to the scene of my future studies—a grave -building in a courtyard, with a learned air about it that seemed very well -suited to the stray rooks and jackdaws who came down from the Cathedral towers -to walk with a clerkly bearing on the grass-plot—and was introduced to my -new master, Doctor Strong. -</p> - -<p> -Doctor Strong looked almost as rusty, to my thinking, as the tall iron rails -and gates outside the house; and almost as stiff and heavy as the great stone -urns that flanked them, and were set up, on the top of the red-brick wall, at -regular distances all round the court, like sublimated skittles, for Time to -play at. He was in his library (I mean Doctor Strong was), with his clothes not -particularly well brushed, and his hair not particularly well combed; his -knee-smalls unbraced; his long black gaiters unbuttoned; and his shoes yawning -like two caverns on the hearth-rug. Turning upon me a lustreless eye, that -reminded me of a long-forgotten blind old horse who once used to crop the -grass, and tumble over the graves, in Blunderstone churchyard, he said he was -glad to see me: and then he gave me his hand; which I didn’t know what to -do with, as it did nothing for itself. -</p> - -<p> -But, sitting at work, not far from Doctor Strong, was a very pretty young -lady—whom he called Annie, and who was his daughter, I supposed—who -got me out of my difficulty by kneeling down to put Doctor Strong’s shoes -on, and button his gaiters, which she did with great cheerfulness and -quickness. When she had finished, and we were going out to the schoolroom, I -was much surprised to hear Mr. Wickfield, in bidding her good morning, address -her as ‘Mrs. Strong’; and I was wondering could she be Doctor -Strong’s son’s wife, or could she be Mrs. Doctor Strong, when -Doctor Strong himself unconsciously enlightened me. -</p> - -<p> -‘By the by, Wickfield,’ he said, stopping in a passage with his -hand on my shoulder; ‘you have not found any suitable provision for my -wife’s cousin yet?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No,’ said Mr. Wickfield. ‘No. Not yet.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I could wish it done as soon as it can be done, Wickfield,’ said -Doctor Strong, ‘for Jack Maldon is needy, and idle; and of those two bad -things, worse things sometimes come. What does Doctor Watts say,’ he -added, looking at me, and moving his head to the time of his quotation, -‘“Satan finds some mischief still, for idle hands to -do.”’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Egad, Doctor,’ returned Mr. Wickfield, ‘if Doctor Watts knew -mankind, he might have written, with as much truth, “Satan finds some -mischief still, for busy hands to do.” The busy people achieve their full -share of mischief in the world, you may rely upon it. What have the people been -about, who have been the busiest in getting money, and in getting power, this -century or two? No mischief?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Jack Maldon will never be very busy in getting either, I expect,’ -said Doctor Strong, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. -</p> - -<p> -‘Perhaps not,’ said Mr. Wickfield; ‘and you bring me back to -the question, with an apology for digressing. No, I have not been able to -dispose of Mr. Jack Maldon yet. I believe,’ he said this with some -hesitation, ‘I penetrate your motive, and it makes the thing more -difficult.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘My motive,’ returned Doctor Strong, ‘is to make some -suitable provision for a cousin, and an old playfellow, of -Annie’s.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes, I know,’ said Mr. Wickfield; ‘at home or abroad.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Aye!’ replied the Doctor, apparently wondering why he emphasized -those words so much. ‘At home or abroad.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Your own expression, you know,’ said Mr. Wickfield. ‘Or -abroad.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Surely,’ the Doctor answered. ‘Surely. One or other.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘One or other? Have you no choice?’ asked Mr. Wickfield. -</p> - -<p> -‘No,’ returned the Doctor. -</p> - -<p> -‘No?’ with astonishment. -</p> - -<p> -‘Not the least.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No motive,’ said Mr. Wickfield, ‘for meaning abroad, and not -at home?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No,’ returned the Doctor. -</p> - -<p> -‘I am bound to believe you, and of course I do believe you,’ said -Mr. Wickfield. ‘It might have simplified my office very much, if I had -known it before. But I confess I entertained another impression.’ -</p> - -<p> -Doctor Strong regarded him with a puzzled and doubting look, which almost -immediately subsided into a smile that gave me great encouragement; for it was -full of amiability and sweetness, and there was a simplicity in it, and indeed -in his whole manner, when the studious, pondering frost upon it was got -through, very attractive and hopeful to a young scholar like me. Repeating -‘no’, and ‘not the least’, and other short assurances -to the same purport, Doctor Strong jogged on before us, at a queer, uneven -pace; and we followed: Mr. Wickfield, looking grave, I observed, and shaking -his head to himself, without knowing that I saw him. -</p> - -<p> -The schoolroom was a pretty large hall, on the quietest side of the house, -confronted by the stately stare of some half-dozen of the great urns, and -commanding a peep of an old secluded garden belonging to the Doctor, where the -peaches were ripening on the sunny south wall. There were two great aloes, in -tubs, on the turf outside the windows; the broad hard leaves of which plant -(looking as if they were made of painted tin) have ever since, by association, -been symbolical to me of silence and retirement. About five-and-twenty boys -were studiously engaged at their books when we went in, but they rose to give -the Doctor good morning, and remained standing when they saw Mr. Wickfield and -me. -</p> - -<p> -‘A new boy, young gentlemen,’ said the Doctor; ‘Trotwood -Copperfield.’ -</p> - -<p> -One Adams, who was the head-boy, then stepped out of his place and welcomed me. -He looked like a young clergyman, in his white cravat, but he was very affable -and good-humoured; and he showed me my place, and presented me to the masters, -in a gentlemanly way that would have put me at my ease, if anything could. -</p> - -<p> -It seemed to me so long, however, since I had been among such boys, or among -any companions of my own age, except Mick Walker and Mealy Potatoes, that I -felt as strange as ever I have done in my life. I was so conscious of having -passed through scenes of which they could have no knowledge, and of having -acquired experiences foreign to my age, appearance, and condition as one of -them, that I half believed it was an imposture to come there as an ordinary -little schoolboy. I had become, in the Murdstone and Grinby time, however short -or long it may have been, so unused to the sports and games of boys, that I -knew I was awkward and inexperienced in the commonest things belonging to them. -Whatever I had learnt, had so slipped away from me in the sordid cares of my -life from day to night, that now, when I was examined about what I knew, I knew -nothing, and was put into the lowest form of the school. But, troubled as I -was, by my want of boyish skill, and of book-learning too, I was made -infinitely more uncomfortable by the consideration, that, in what I did know, I -was much farther removed from my companions than in what I did not. My mind ran -upon what they would think, if they knew of my familiar acquaintance with the -King’s Bench Prison? Was there anything about me which would reveal my -proceedings in connexion with the Micawber family—all those pawnings, and -sellings, and suppers—in spite of myself? Suppose some of the boys had -seen me coming through Canterbury, wayworn and ragged, and should find me out? -What would they say, who made so light of money, if they could know how I had -scraped my halfpence together, for the purchase of my daily saveloy and beer, -or my slices of pudding? How would it affect them, who were so innocent of -London life, and London streets, to discover how knowing I was (and was ashamed -to be) in some of the meanest phases of both? All this ran in my head so much, -on that first day at Doctor Strong’s, that I felt distrustful of my -slightest look and gesture; shrunk within myself whensoever I was approached by -one of my new schoolfellows; and hurried off the minute school was over, afraid -of committing myself in my response to any friendly notice or advance. -</p> - -<p> -But there was such an influence in Mr. Wickfield’s old house, that when I -knocked at it, with my new school-books under my arm, I began to feel my -uneasiness softening away. As I went up to my airy old room, the grave shadow -of the staircase seemed to fall upon my doubts and fears, and to make the past -more indistinct. I sat there, sturdily conning my books, until dinner-time (we -were out of school for good at three); and went down, hopeful of becoming a -passable sort of boy yet. -</p> - -<p> -Agnes was in the drawing-room, waiting for her father, who was detained by -someone in his office. She met me with her pleasant smile, and asked me how I -liked the school. I told her I should like it very much, I hoped; but I was a -little strange to it at first. -</p> - -<p> -‘You have never been to school,’ I said, ‘have you?’ -‘Oh yes! Every day.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Ah, but you mean here, at your own home?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Papa couldn’t spare me to go anywhere else,’ she answered, -smiling and shaking her head. ‘His housekeeper must be in his house, you -know.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘He is very fond of you, I am sure,’ I said. -</p> - -<p> -She nodded ‘Yes,’ and went to the door to listen for his coming up, -that she might meet him on the stairs. But, as he was not there, she came back -again. -</p> - -<p> -‘Mama has been dead ever since I was born,’ she said, in her quiet -way. ‘I only know her picture, downstairs. I saw you looking at it -yesterday. Did you think whose it was?’ -</p> - -<p> -I told her yes, because it was so like herself. -</p> - -<p> -‘Papa says so, too,’ said Agnes, pleased. ‘Hark! That’s -papa now!’ -</p> - -<p> -Her bright calm face lighted up with pleasure as she went to meet him, and as -they came in, hand in hand. He greeted me cordially; and told me I should -certainly be happy under Doctor Strong, who was one of the gentlest of men. -</p> - -<p> -‘There may be some, perhaps—I don’t know that there -are—who abuse his kindness,’ said Mr. Wickfield. ‘Never be -one of those, Trotwood, in anything. He is the least suspicious of mankind; and -whether that’s a merit, or whether it’s a blemish, it deserves -consideration in all dealings with the Doctor, great or small.’ -</p> - -<p> -He spoke, I thought, as if he were weary, or dissatisfied with something; but I -did not pursue the question in my mind, for dinner was just then announced, and -we went down and took the same seats as before. -</p> - -<p> -We had scarcely done so, when Uriah Heep put in his red head and his lank hand -at the door, and said: -</p> - -<p> -‘Here’s Mr. Maldon begs the favour of a word, sir.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I am but this moment quit of Mr. Maldon,’ said his master. -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes, sir,’ returned Uriah; ‘but Mr. Maldon has come back, -and he begs the favour of a word.’ -</p> - -<p> -As he held the door open with his hand, Uriah looked at me, and looked at -Agnes, and looked at the dishes, and looked at the plates, and looked at every -object in the room, I thought,—yet seemed to look at nothing; he made -such an appearance all the while of keeping his red eyes dutifully on his -master. ‘I beg your pardon. It’s only to say, on reflection,’ -observed a voice behind Uriah, as Uriah’s head was pushed away, and the -speaker’s substituted—‘pray excuse me for this -intrusion—that as it seems I have no choice in the matter, the sooner I -go abroad the better. My cousin Annie did say, when we talked of it, that she -liked to have her friends within reach rather than to have them banished, and -the old Doctor—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Doctor Strong, was that?’ Mr. Wickfield interposed, gravely. -</p> - -<p> -‘Doctor Strong, of course,’ returned the other; ‘I call him -the old Doctor; it’s all the same, you know.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I don’t know,’ returned Mr. Wickfield. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, Doctor Strong,’ said the other—‘Doctor Strong -was of the same mind, I believed. But as it appears from the course you take -with me he has changed his mind, why there’s no more to be said, except -that the sooner I am off, the better. Therefore, I thought I’d come back -and say, that the sooner I am off the better. When a plunge is to be made into -the water, it’s of no use lingering on the bank.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘There shall be as little lingering as possible, in your case, Mr. -Maldon, you may depend upon it,’ said Mr. Wickfield. -</p> - -<p> -‘Thank’ee,’ said the other. ‘Much obliged. I -don’t want to look a gift-horse in the mouth, which is not a gracious -thing to do; otherwise, I dare say, my cousin Annie could easily arrange it in -her own way. I suppose Annie would only have to say to the old -Doctor—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Meaning that Mrs. Strong would only have to say to her husband—do -I follow you?’ said Mr. Wickfield. -</p> - -<p> -‘Quite so,’ returned the other, ‘—would only have to -say, that she wanted such and such a thing to be so and so; and it would be so -and so, as a matter of course.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And why as a matter of course, Mr. Maldon?’ asked Mr. Wickfield, -sedately eating his dinner. -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, because Annie’s a charming young girl, and the old -Doctor—Doctor Strong, I mean—is not quite a charming young -boy,’ said Mr. Jack Maldon, laughing. ‘No offence to anybody, Mr. -Wickfield. I only mean that I suppose some compensation is fair and reasonable -in that sort of marriage.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Compensation to the lady, sir?’ asked Mr. Wickfield gravely. -</p> - -<p> -‘To the lady, sir,’ Mr. Jack Maldon answered, laughing. But -appearing to remark that Mr. Wickfield went on with his dinner in the same -sedate, immovable manner, and that there was no hope of making him relax a -muscle of his face, he added: ‘However, I have said what I came to say, -and, with another apology for this intrusion, I may take myself off. Of course -I shall observe your directions, in considering the matter as one to be -arranged between you and me solely, and not to be referred to, up at the -Doctor’s.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Have you dined?’ asked Mr. Wickfield, with a motion of his hand -towards the table. -</p> - -<p> -‘Thank’ee. I am going to dine,’ said Mr. Maldon, ‘with -my cousin Annie. Good-bye!’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Wickfield, without rising, looked after him thoughtfully as he went out. He -was rather a shallow sort of young gentleman, I thought, with a handsome face, -a rapid utterance, and a confident, bold air. And this was the first I ever saw -of Mr. Jack Maldon; whom I had not expected to see so soon, when I heard the -Doctor speak of him that morning. -</p> - -<p> -When we had dined, we went upstairs again, where everything went on exactly as -on the previous day. Agnes set the glasses and decanters in the same corner, -and Mr. Wickfield sat down to drink, and drank a good deal. Agnes played the -piano to him, sat by him, and worked and talked, and played some games at -dominoes with me. In good time she made tea; and afterwards, when I brought -down my books, looked into them, and showed me what she knew of them (which was -no slight matter, though she said it was), and what was the best way to learn -and understand them. I see her, with her modest, orderly, placid manner, and I -hear her beautiful calm voice, as I write these words. The influence for all -good, which she came to exercise over me at a later time, begins already to -descend upon my breast. I love little Em’ly, and I don’t love -Agnes—no, not at all in that way—but I feel that there are -goodness, peace, and truth, wherever Agnes is; and that the soft light of the -coloured window in the church, seen long ago, falls on her always, and on me -when I am near her, and on everything around. -</p> - -<p> -The time having come for her withdrawal for the night, and she having left us, -I gave Mr. Wickfield my hand, preparatory to going away myself. But he checked -me and said: ‘Should you like to stay with us, Trotwood, or to go -elsewhere?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘To stay,’ I answered, quickly. -</p> - -<p> -‘You are sure?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘If you please. If I may!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, it’s but a dull life that we lead here, boy, I am -afraid,’ he said. -</p> - -<p> -‘Not more dull for me than Agnes, sir. Not dull at all!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Than Agnes,’ he repeated, walking slowly to the great -chimney-piece, and leaning against it. ‘Than Agnes!’ -</p> - -<p> -He had drank wine that evening (or I fancied it), until his eyes were -bloodshot. Not that I could see them now, for they were cast down, and shaded -by his hand; but I had noticed them a little while before. -</p> - -<p> -‘Now I wonder,’ he muttered, ‘whether my Agnes tires of me. -When should I ever tire of her! But that’s different, that’s quite -different.’ -</p> - -<p> -He was musing, not speaking to me; so I remained quiet. -</p> - -<p> -‘A dull old house,’ he said, ‘and a monotonous life; but I -must have her near me. I must keep her near me. If the thought that I may die -and leave my darling, or that my darling may die and leave me, comes like a -spectre, to distress my happiest hours, and is only to be drowned -in—’ -</p> - -<p> -He did not supply the word; but pacing slowly to the place where he had sat, -and mechanically going through the action of pouring wine from the empty -decanter, set it down and paced back again. -</p> - -<p> -‘If it is miserable to bear, when she is here,’ he said, -‘what would it be, and she away? No, no, no. I cannot try that.’ -</p> - -<p> -He leaned against the chimney-piece, brooding so long that I could not decide -whether to run the risk of disturbing him by going, or to remain quietly where -I was, until he should come out of his reverie. At length he aroused himself, -and looked about the room until his eyes encountered mine. -</p> - -<p> -‘Stay with us, Trotwood, eh?’ he said in his usual manner, and as -if he were answering something I had just said. ‘I am glad of it. You are -company to us both. It is wholesome to have you here. Wholesome for me, -wholesome for Agnes, wholesome perhaps for all of us.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I am sure it is for me, sir,’ I said. ‘I am so glad to be -here.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘That’s a fine fellow!’ said Mr. Wickfield. ‘As long as -you are glad to be here, you shall stay here.’ He shook hands with me -upon it, and clapped me on the back; and told me that when I had anything to do -at night after Agnes had left us, or when I wished to read for my own pleasure, -I was free to come down to his room, if he were there and if I desired it for -company’s sake, and to sit with him. I thanked him for his consideration; -and, as he went down soon afterwards, and I was not tired, went down too, with -a book in my hand, to avail myself, for half-an-hour, of his permission. -</p> - -<p> -But, seeing a light in the little round office, and immediately feeling myself -attracted towards Uriah Heep, who had a sort of fascination for me, I went in -there instead. I found Uriah reading a great fat book, with such demonstrative -attention, that his lank forefinger followed up every line as he read, and made -clammy tracks along the page (or so I fully believed) like a snail. -</p> - -<p> -‘You are working late tonight, Uriah,’ says I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes, Master Copperfield,’ says Uriah. -</p> - -<p> -As I was getting on the stool opposite, to talk to him more conveniently, I -observed that he had not such a thing as a smile about him, and that he could -only widen his mouth and make two hard creases down his cheeks, one on each -side, to stand for one. -</p> - -<p> -‘I am not doing office-work, Master Copperfield,’ said Uriah. -</p> - -<p> -‘What work, then?’ I asked. -</p> - -<p> -‘I am improving my legal knowledge, Master Copperfield,’ said -Uriah. ‘I am going through Tidd’s Practice. Oh, what a writer Mr. -Tidd is, Master Copperfield!’ -</p> - -<p> -My stool was such a tower of observation, that as I watched him reading on -again, after this rapturous exclamation, and following up the lines with his -forefinger, I observed that his nostrils, which were thin and pointed, with -sharp dints in them, had a singular and most uncomfortable way of expanding and -contracting themselves—that they seemed to twinkle instead of his eyes, -which hardly ever twinkled at all. -</p> - -<p> -‘I suppose you are quite a great lawyer?’ I said, after looking at -him for some time. -</p> - -<p> -‘Me, Master Copperfield?’ said Uriah. ‘Oh, no! I’m a -very umble person.’ -</p> - -<p> -It was no fancy of mine about his hands, I observed; for he frequently ground -the palms against each other as if to squeeze them dry and warm, besides often -wiping them, in a stealthy way, on his pocket-handkerchief. -</p> - -<p> -‘I am well aware that I am the umblest person going,’ said Uriah -Heep, modestly; ‘let the other be where he may. My mother is likewise a -very umble person. We live in a numble abode, Master Copperfield, but have much -to be thankful for. My father’s former calling was umble. He was a -sexton.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘What is he now?’ I asked. -</p> - -<p> -‘He is a partaker of glory at present, Master Copperfield,’ said -Uriah Heep. ‘But we have much to be thankful for. How much have I to be -thankful for in living with Mr. Wickfield!’ -</p> - -<p> -I asked Uriah if he had been with Mr. Wickfield long? -</p> - -<p> -‘I have been with him, going on four year, Master Copperfield,’ -said Uriah; shutting up his book, after carefully marking the place where he -had left off. ‘Since a year after my father’s death. How much have -I to be thankful for, in that! How much have I to be thankful for, in Mr. -Wickfield’s kind intention to give me my articles, which would otherwise -not lay within the umble means of mother and self!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Then, when your articled time is over, you’ll be a regular lawyer, -I suppose?’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘With the blessing of Providence, Master Copperfield,’ returned -Uriah. -</p> - -<p> -‘Perhaps you’ll be a partner in Mr. Wickfield’s business, one -of these days,’ I said, to make myself agreeable; ‘and it will be -Wickfield and Heep, or Heep late Wickfield.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh no, Master Copperfield,’ returned Uriah, shaking his head, -‘I am much too umble for that!’ -</p> - -<p> -He certainly did look uncommonly like the carved face on the beam outside my -window, as he sat, in his humility, eyeing me sideways, with his mouth widened, -and the creases in his cheeks. -</p> - -<p> -‘Mr. Wickfield is a most excellent man, Master Copperfield,’ said -Uriah. ‘If you have known him long, you know it, I am sure, much better -than I can inform you.’ -</p> - -<p> -I replied that I was certain he was; but that I had not known him long myself, -though he was a friend of my aunt’s. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, indeed, Master Copperfield,’ said Uriah. ‘Your aunt is a -sweet lady, Master Copperfield!’ -</p> - -<p> -He had a way of writhing when he wanted to express enthusiasm, which was very -ugly; and which diverted my attention from the compliment he had paid my -relation, to the snaky twistings of his throat and body. -</p> - -<p> -‘A sweet lady, Master Copperfield!’ said Uriah Heep. ‘She has -a great admiration for Miss Agnes, Master Copperfield, I believe?’ -</p> - -<p> -I said, ‘Yes,’ boldly; not that I knew anything about it, Heaven -forgive me! -</p> - -<p> -‘I hope you have, too, Master Copperfield,’ said Uriah. ‘But -I am sure you must have.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Everybody must have,’ I returned. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, thank you, Master Copperfield,’ said Uriah Heep, ‘for -that remark! It is so true! Umble as I am, I know it is so true! Oh, thank you, -Master Copperfield!’ He writhed himself quite off his stool in the -excitement of his feelings, and, being off, began to make arrangements for -going home. -</p> - -<p> -‘Mother will be expecting me,’ he said, referring to a pale, -inexpressive-faced watch in his pocket, ‘and getting uneasy; for though -we are very umble, Master Copperfield, we are much attached to one another. If -you would come and see us, any afternoon, and take a cup of tea at our lowly -dwelling, mother would be as proud of your company as I should be.’ -</p> - -<p> -I said I should be glad to come. -</p> - -<p> -‘Thank you, Master Copperfield,’ returned Uriah, putting his book -away upon the shelf—‘I suppose you stop here, some time, Master -Copperfield?’ -</p> - -<p> -I said I was going to be brought up there, I believed, as long as I remained at -school. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, indeed!’ exclaimed Uriah. ‘I should think YOU would come -into the business at last, Master Copperfield!’ -</p> - -<p> -I protested that I had no views of that sort, and that no such scheme was -entertained in my behalf by anybody; but Uriah insisted on blandly replying to -all my assurances, ‘Oh, yes, Master Copperfield, I should think you -would, indeed!’ and, ‘Oh, indeed, Master Copperfield, I should -think you would, certainly!’ over and over again. Being, at last, ready -to leave the office for the night, he asked me if it would suit my convenience -to have the light put out; and on my answering ‘Yes,’ instantly -extinguished it. After shaking hands with me—his hand felt like a fish, -in the dark—he opened the door into the street a very little, and crept -out, and shut it, leaving me to grope my way back into the house: which cost me -some trouble and a fall over his stool. This was the proximate cause, I -suppose, of my dreaming about him, for what appeared to me to be half the -night; and dreaming, among other things, that he had launched Mr. -Peggotty’s house on a piratical expedition, with a black flag at the -masthead, bearing the inscription ‘Tidd’s Practice’, under -which diabolical ensign he was carrying me and little Em’ly to the -Spanish Main, to be drowned. -</p> - -<p> -I got a little the better of my uneasiness when I went to school next day, and -a good deal the better next day, and so shook it off by degrees, that in less -than a fortnight I was quite at home, and happy, among my new companions. I was -awkward enough in their games, and backward enough in their studies; but custom -would improve me in the first respect, I hoped, and hard work in the second. -Accordingly, I went to work very hard, both in play and in earnest, and gained -great commendation. And, in a very little while, the Murdstone and Grinby life -became so strange to me that I hardly believed in it, while my present life -grew so familiar, that I seemed to have been leading it a long time. -</p> - -<p> -Doctor Strong’s was an excellent school; as different from Mr. -Creakle’s as good is from evil. It was very gravely and decorously -ordered, and on a sound system; with an appeal, in everything, to the honour -and good faith of the boys, and an avowed intention to rely on their possession -of those qualities unless they proved themselves unworthy of it, which worked -wonders. We all felt that we had a part in the management of the place, and in -sustaining its character and dignity. Hence, we soon became warmly attached to -it—I am sure I did for one, and I never knew, in all my time, of any -other boy being otherwise—and learnt with a good will, desiring to do it -credit. We had noble games out of hours, and plenty of liberty; but even then, -as I remember, we were well spoken of in the town, and rarely did any disgrace, -by our appearance or manner, to the reputation of Doctor Strong and Doctor -Strong’s boys. -</p> - -<p> -Some of the higher scholars boarded in the Doctor’s house, and through -them I learned, at second hand, some particulars of the Doctor’s -history—as, how he had not yet been married twelve months to the -beautiful young lady I had seen in the study, whom he had married for love; for -she had not a sixpence, and had a world of poor relations (so our fellows said) -ready to swarm the Doctor out of house and home. Also, how the Doctor’s -cogitating manner was attributable to his being always engaged in looking out -for Greek roots; which, in my innocence and ignorance, I supposed to be a -botanical furor on the Doctor’s part, especially as he always looked at -the ground when he walked about, until I understood that they were roots of -words, with a view to a new Dictionary which he had in contemplation. Adams, -our head-boy, who had a turn for mathematics, had made a calculation, I was -informed, of the time this Dictionary would take in completing, on the -Doctor’s plan, and at the Doctor’s rate of going. He considered -that it might be done in one thousand six hundred and forty-nine years, -counting from the Doctor’s last, or sixty-second, birthday. -</p> - -<p> -But the Doctor himself was the idol of the whole school: and it must have been -a badly composed school if he had been anything else, for he was the kindest of -men; with a simple faith in him that might have touched the stone hearts of the -very urns upon the wall. As he walked up and down that part of the courtyard -which was at the side of the house, with the stray rooks and jackdaws looking -after him with their heads cocked slyly, as if they knew how much more knowing -they were in worldly affairs than he, if any sort of vagabond could only get -near enough to his creaking shoes to attract his attention to one sentence of a -tale of distress, that vagabond was made for the next two days. It was so -notorious in the house, that the masters and head-boys took pains to cut these -marauders off at angles, and to get out of windows, and turn them out of the -courtyard, before they could make the Doctor aware of their presence; which was -sometimes happily effected within a few yards of him, without his knowing -anything of the matter, as he jogged to and fro. Outside his own domain, and -unprotected, he was a very sheep for the shearers. He would have taken his -gaiters off his legs, to give away. In fact, there was a story current among us -(I have no idea, and never had, on what authority, but I have believed it for -so many years that I feel quite certain it is true), that on a frosty day, one -winter-time, he actually did bestow his gaiters on a beggar-woman, who -occasioned some scandal in the neighbourhood by exhibiting a fine infant from -door to door, wrapped in those garments, which were universally recognized, -being as well known in the vicinity as the Cathedral. The legend added that the -only person who did not identify them was the Doctor himself, who, when they -were shortly afterwards displayed at the door of a little second-hand shop of -no very good repute, where such things were taken in exchange for gin, was more -than once observed to handle them approvingly, as if admiring some curious -novelty in the pattern, and considering them an improvement on his own. -</p> - -<p> -It was very pleasant to see the Doctor with his pretty young wife. He had a -fatherly, benignant way of showing his fondness for her, which seemed in itself -to express a good man. I often saw them walking in the garden where the peaches -were, and I sometimes had a nearer observation of them in the study or the -parlour. She appeared to me to take great care of the Doctor, and to like him -very much, though I never thought her vitally interested in the Dictionary: -some cumbrous fragments of which work the Doctor always carried in his pockets, -and in the lining of his hat, and generally seemed to be expounding to her as -they walked about. -</p> - -<p> -I saw a good deal of Mrs. Strong, both because she had taken a liking for me on -the morning of my introduction to the Doctor, and was always afterwards kind to -me, and interested in me; and because she was very fond of Agnes, and was often -backwards and forwards at our house. There was a curious constraint between her -and Mr. Wickfield, I thought (of whom she seemed to be afraid), that never wore -off. When she came there of an evening, she always shrunk from accepting his -escort home, and ran away with me instead. And sometimes, as we were running -gaily across the Cathedral yard together, expecting to meet nobody, we would -meet Mr. Jack Maldon, who was always surprised to see us. -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Strong’s mama was a lady I took great delight in. Her name was Mrs. -Markleham; but our boys used to call her the Old Soldier, on account of her -generalship, and the skill with which she marshalled great forces of relations -against the Doctor. She was a little, sharp-eyed woman, who used to wear, when -she was dressed, one unchangeable cap, ornamented with some artificial flowers, -and two artificial butterflies supposed to be hovering above the flowers. There -was a superstition among us that this cap had come from France, and could only -originate in the workmanship of that ingenious nation: but all I certainly know -about it, is, that it always made its appearance of an evening, wheresoever -Mrs. Markleham made HER appearance; that it was carried about to friendly -meetings in a Hindoo basket; that the butterflies had the gift of trembling -constantly; and that they improved the shining hours at Doctor Strong’s -expense, like busy bees. -</p> - -<p> -I observed the Old Soldier—not to adopt the name disrespectfully—to -pretty good advantage, on a night which is made memorable to me by something -else I shall relate. It was the night of a little party at the Doctor’s, -which was given on the occasion of Mr. Jack Maldon’s departure for India, -whither he was going as a cadet, or something of that kind: Mr. Wickfield -having at length arranged the business. It happened to be the Doctor’s -birthday, too. We had had a holiday, had made presents to him in the morning, -had made a speech to him through the head-boy, and had cheered him until we -were hoarse, and until he had shed tears. And now, in the evening, Mr. -Wickfield, Agnes, and I, went to have tea with him in his private capacity. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Jack Maldon was there, before us. Mrs. Strong, dressed in white, with -cherry-coloured ribbons, was playing the piano, when we went in; and he was -leaning over her to turn the leaves. The clear red and white of her complexion -was not so blooming and flower-like as usual, I thought, when she turned round; -but she looked very pretty, Wonderfully pretty. -</p> - -<p> -‘I have forgotten, Doctor,’ said Mrs. Strong’s mama, when we -were seated, ‘to pay you the compliments of the day—though they -are, as you may suppose, very far from being mere compliments in my case. Allow -me to wish you many happy returns.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I thank you, ma’am,’ replied the Doctor. -</p> - -<p> -‘Many, many, many, happy returns,’ said the Old Soldier. ‘Not -only for your own sake, but for Annie’s, and John Maldon’s, and -many other people’s. It seems but yesterday to me, John, when you were a -little creature, a head shorter than Master Copperfield, making baby love to -Annie behind the gooseberry bushes in the back-garden.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear mama,’ said Mrs. Strong, ‘never mind that -now.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Annie, don’t be absurd,’ returned her mother. ‘If you -are to blush to hear of such things now you are an old married woman, when are -you not to blush to hear of them?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Old?’ exclaimed Mr. Jack Maldon. ‘Annie? Come!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes, John,’ returned the Soldier. ‘Virtually, an old married -woman. Although not old by years—for when did you ever hear me say, or -who has ever heard me say, that a girl of twenty was old by years!—your -cousin is the wife of the Doctor, and, as such, what I have described her. It -is well for you, John, that your cousin is the wife of the Doctor. You have -found in him an influential and kind friend, who will be kinder yet, I venture -to predict, if you deserve it. I have no false pride. I never hesitate to -admit, frankly, that there are some members of our family who want a friend. -You were one yourself, before your cousin’s influence raised up one for -you.’ -</p> - -<p> -The Doctor, in the goodness of his heart, waved his hand as if to make light of -it, and save Mr. Jack Maldon from any further reminder. But Mrs. Markleham -changed her chair for one next the Doctor’s, and putting her fan on his -coat-sleeve, said: -</p> - -<p> -‘No, really, my dear Doctor, you must excuse me if I appear to dwell on -this rather, because I feel so very strongly. I call it quite my monomania, it -is such a subject of mine. You are a blessing to us. You really are a Boon, you -know.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Nonsense, nonsense,’ said the Doctor. -</p> - -<p> -‘No, no, I beg your pardon,’ retorted the Old Soldier. ‘With -nobody present, but our dear and confidential friend Mr. Wickfield, I cannot -consent to be put down. I shall begin to assert the privileges of a -mother-in-law, if you go on like that, and scold you. I am perfectly honest and -outspoken. What I am saying, is what I said when you first overpowered me with -surprise—you remember how surprised I was?—by proposing for Annie. -Not that there was anything so very much out of the way, in the mere fact of -the proposal—it would be ridiculous to say that!—but because, you -having known her poor father, and having known her from a baby six months old, -I hadn’t thought of you in such a light at all, or indeed as a marrying -man in any way,—simply that, you know.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Aye, aye,’ returned the Doctor, good-humouredly. ‘Never -mind.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘But I DO mind,’ said the Old Soldier, laying her fan upon his -lips. ‘I mind very much. I recall these things that I may be contradicted -if I am wrong. Well! Then I spoke to Annie, and I told her what had happened. I -said, “My dear, here’s Doctor Strong has positively been and made -you the subject of a handsome declaration and an offer.” Did I press it -in the least? No. I said, “Now, Annie, tell me the truth this moment; is -your heart free?” “Mama,” she said crying, “I am -extremely young”—which was perfectly true—“and I hardly -know if I have a heart at all.” “Then, my dear,” I said, -“you may rely upon it, it’s free. At all events, my love,” -said I, “Doctor Strong is in an agitated state of mind, and must be -answered. He cannot be kept in his present state of suspense.” -“Mama,” said Annie, still crying, “would he be unhappy -without me? If he would, I honour and respect him so much, that I think I will -have him.” So it was settled. And then, and not till then, I said to -Annie, “Annie, Doctor Strong will not only be your husband, but he will -represent your late father: he will represent the head of our family, he will -represent the wisdom and station, and I may say the means, of our family; and -will be, in short, a Boon to it.” I used the word at the time, and I have -used it again, today. If I have any merit it is consistency.’ -</p> - -<p> -The daughter had sat quite silent and still during this speech, with her eyes -fixed on the ground; her cousin standing near her, and looking on the ground -too. She now said very softly, in a trembling voice: -</p> - -<p> -‘Mama, I hope you have finished?’ ‘No, my dear Annie,’ -returned the Old Soldier, ‘I have not quite finished. Since you ask me, -my love, I reply that I have not. I complain that you really are a little -unnatural towards your own family; and, as it is of no use complaining to you. -I mean to complain to your husband. Now, my dear Doctor, do look at that silly -wife of yours.’ -</p> - -<p> -As the Doctor turned his kind face, with its smile of simplicity and -gentleness, towards her, she drooped her head more. I noticed that Mr. -Wickfield looked at her steadily. -</p> - -<p> -‘When I happened to say to that naughty thing, the other day,’ -pursued her mother, shaking her head and her fan at her, playfully, ‘that -there was a family circumstance she might mention to you—indeed, I think, -was bound to mention—she said, that to mention it was to ask a favour; -and that, as you were too generous, and as for her to ask was always to have, -she wouldn’t.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Annie, my dear,’ said the Doctor. ‘That was wrong. It robbed -me of a pleasure.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Almost the very words I said to her!’ exclaimed her mother. -‘Now really, another time, when I know what she would tell you but for -this reason, and won’t, I have a great mind, my dear Doctor, to tell you -myself.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I shall be glad if you will,’ returned the Doctor. -</p> - -<p> -‘Shall I?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Certainly.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, then, I will!’ said the Old Soldier. ‘That’s a -bargain.’ And having, I suppose, carried her point, she tapped the -Doctor’s hand several times with her fan (which she kissed first), and -returned triumphantly to her former station. -</p> - -<p> -Some more company coming in, among whom were the two masters and Adams, the -talk became general; and it naturally turned on Mr. Jack Maldon, and his -voyage, and the country he was going to, and his various plans and prospects. -He was to leave that night, after supper, in a post-chaise, for Gravesend; -where the ship, in which he was to make the voyage, lay; and was to be -gone—unless he came home on leave, or for his health—I don’t -know how many years. I recollect it was settled by general consent that India -was quite a misrepresented country, and had nothing objectionable in it, but a -tiger or two, and a little heat in the warm part of the day. For my own part, I -looked on Mr. Jack Maldon as a modern Sindbad, and pictured him the bosom -friend of all the Rajahs in the East, sitting under canopies, smoking curly -golden pipes—a mile long, if they could be straightened out. -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Strong was a very pretty singer: as I knew, who often heard her singing by -herself. But, whether she was afraid of singing before people, or was out of -voice that evening, it was certain that she couldn’t sing at all. She -tried a duet, once, with her cousin Maldon, but could not so much as begin; and -afterwards, when she tried to sing by herself, although she began sweetly, her -voice died away on a sudden, and left her quite distressed, with her head -hanging down over the keys. The good Doctor said she was nervous, and, to -relieve her, proposed a round game at cards; of which he knew as much as of the -art of playing the trombone. But I remarked that the Old Soldier took him into -custody directly, for her partner; and instructed him, as the first preliminary -of initiation, to give her all the silver he had in his pocket. -</p> - -<p> -We had a merry game, not made the less merry by the Doctor’s mistakes, of -which he committed an innumerable quantity, in spite of the watchfulness of the -butterflies, and to their great aggravation. Mrs. Strong had declined to play, -on the ground of not feeling very well; and her cousin Maldon had excused -himself because he had some packing to do. When he had done it, however, he -returned, and they sat together, talking, on the sofa. From time to time she -came and looked over the Doctor’s hand, and told him what to play. She -was very pale, as she bent over him, and I thought her finger trembled as she -pointed out the cards; but the Doctor was quite happy in her attention, and -took no notice of this, if it were so. -</p> - -<p> -At supper, we were hardly so gay. Everyone appeared to feel that a parting of -that sort was an awkward thing, and that the nearer it approached, the more -awkward it was. Mr. Jack Maldon tried to be very talkative, but was not at his -ease, and made matters worse. And they were not improved, as it appeared to me, -by the Old Soldier: who continually recalled passages of Mr. Jack -Maldon’s youth. -</p> - -<p> -The Doctor, however, who felt, I am sure, that he was making everybody happy, -was well pleased, and had no suspicion but that we were all at the utmost -height of enjoyment. -</p> - -<p> -‘Annie, my dear,’ said he, looking at his watch, and filling his -glass, ‘it is past your cousin Jack’s time, and we must not detain -him, since time and tide—both concerned in this case—wait for no -man. Mr. Jack Maldon, you have a long voyage, and a strange country, before -you; but many men have had both, and many men will have both, to the end of -time. The winds you are going to tempt, have wafted thousands upon thousands to -fortune, and brought thousands upon thousands happily back.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘It’s an affecting thing,’ said Mrs. -Markleham—‘however it’s viewed, it’s affecting, to see -a fine young man one has known from an infant, going away to the other end of -the world, leaving all he knows behind, and not knowing what’s before -him. A young man really well deserves constant support and patronage,’ -looking at the Doctor, ‘who makes such sacrifices.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Time will go fast with you, Mr. Jack Maldon,’ pursued the Doctor, -‘and fast with all of us. Some of us can hardly expect, perhaps, in the -natural course of things, to greet you on your return. The next best thing is -to hope to do it, and that’s my case. I shall not weary you with good -advice. You have long had a good model before you, in your cousin Annie. -Imitate her virtues as nearly as you can.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Markleham fanned herself, and shook her head. -</p> - -<p> -‘Farewell, Mr. Jack,’ said the Doctor, standing up; on which we all -stood up. ‘A prosperous voyage out, a thriving career abroad, and a happy -return home!’ -</p> - -<p> -We all drank the toast, and all shook hands with Mr. Jack Maldon; after which -he hastily took leave of the ladies who were there, and hurried to the door, -where he was received, as he got into the chaise, with a tremendous broadside -of cheers discharged by our boys, who had assembled on the lawn for the -purpose. Running in among them to swell the ranks, I was very near the chaise -when it rolled away; and I had a lively impression made upon me, in the midst -of the noise and dust, of having seen Mr. Jack Maldon rattle past with an -agitated face, and something cherry-coloured in his hand. -</p> - -<p> -After another broadside for the Doctor, and another for the Doctor’s -wife, the boys dispersed, and I went back into the house, where I found the -guests all standing in a group about the Doctor, discussing how Mr. Jack Maldon -had gone away, and how he had borne it, and how he had felt it, and all the -rest of it. In the midst of these remarks, Mrs. Markleham cried: -‘Where’s Annie?’ -</p> - -<p> -No Annie was there; and when they called to her, no Annie replied. But all -pressing out of the room, in a crowd, to see what was the matter, we found her -lying on the hall floor. There was great alarm at first, until it was found -that she was in a swoon, and that the swoon was yielding to the usual means of -recovery; when the Doctor, who had lifted her head upon his knee, put her curls -aside with his hand, and said, looking around: -</p> - -<p> -‘Poor Annie! She’s so faithful and tender-hearted! It’s the -parting from her old playfellow and friend—her favourite -cousin—that has done this. Ah! It’s a pity! I am very sorry!’ -</p> - -<p> -When she opened her eyes, and saw where she was, and that we were all standing -about her, she arose with assistance: turning her head, as she did so, to lay -it on the Doctor’s shoulder—or to hide it, I don’t know -which. We went into the drawing-room, to leave her with the Doctor and her -mother; but she said, it seemed, that she was better than she had been since -morning, and that she would rather be brought among us; so they brought her in, -looking very white and weak, I thought, and sat her on a sofa. -</p> - -<p> -‘Annie, my dear,’ said her mother, doing something to her dress. -‘See here! You have lost a bow. Will anybody be so good as find a ribbon; -a cherry-coloured ribbon?’ -</p> - -<p> -It was the one she had worn at her bosom. We all looked for it; I myself looked -everywhere, I am certain—but nobody could find it. -</p> - -<p> -‘Do you recollect where you had it last, Annie?’ said her mother. -</p> - -<p> -I wondered how I could have thought she looked white, or anything but burning -red, when she answered that she had had it safe, a little while ago, she -thought, but it was not worth looking for. -</p> - -<p> -Nevertheless, it was looked for again, and still not found. She entreated that -there might be no more searching; but it was still sought for, in a desultory -way, until she was quite well, and the company took their departure. -</p> - -<p> -We walked very slowly home, Mr. Wickfield, Agnes, and I—Agnes and I -admiring the moonlight, and Mr. Wickfield scarcely raising his eyes from the -ground. When we, at last, reached our own door, Agnes discovered that she had -left her little reticule behind. Delighted to be of any service to her, I ran -back to fetch it. -</p> - -<p> -I went into the supper-room where it had been left, which was deserted and -dark. But a door of communication between that and the Doctor’s study, -where there was a light, being open, I passed on there, to say what I wanted, -and to get a candle. -</p> - -<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> -<img src="images/0305.jpg" alt="0305 " width="100%" /> -</div> - -<h5> -<a href="images/0305.jpg"> -<img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /></a> -</h5> - -<p> -The Doctor was sitting in his easy-chair by the fireside, and his young wife -was on a stool at his feet. The Doctor, with a complacent smile, was reading -aloud some manuscript explanation or statement of a theory out of that -interminable Dictionary, and she was looking up at him. But with such a face as -I never saw. It was so beautiful in its form, it was so ashy pale, it was so -fixed in its abstraction, it was so full of a wild, sleep-walking, dreamy -horror of I don’t know what. The eyes were wide open, and her brown hair -fell in two rich clusters on her shoulders, and on her white dress, disordered -by the want of the lost ribbon. Distinctly as I recollect her look, I cannot -say of what it was expressive, I cannot even say of what it is expressive to me -now, rising again before my older judgement. Penitence, humiliation, shame, -pride, love, and trustfulness—I see them all; and in them all, I see that -horror of I don’t know what. -</p> - -<p> -My entrance, and my saying what I wanted, roused her. It disturbed the Doctor -too, for when I went back to replace the candle I had taken from the table, he -was patting her head, in his fatherly way, and saying he was a merciless drone -to let her tempt him into reading on; and he would have her go to bed. -</p> - -<p> -But she asked him, in a rapid, urgent manner, to let her stay—to let her -feel assured (I heard her murmur some broken words to this effect) that she was -in his confidence that night. And, as she turned again towards him, after -glancing at me as I left the room and went out at the door, I saw her cross her -hands upon his knee, and look up at him with the same face, something quieted, -as he resumed his reading. -</p> - -<p> -It made a great impression on me, and I remembered it a long time afterwards; -as I shall have occasion to narrate when the time comes. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0017"></a>CHAPTER 17. SOMEBODY TURNS UP</h2> - -<p> -It has not occurred to me to mention Peggotty since I ran away; but, of course, -I wrote her a letter almost as soon as I was housed at Dover, and another, and -a longer letter, containing all particulars fully related, when my aunt took me -formally under her protection. On my being settled at Doctor Strong’s I -wrote to her again, detailing my happy condition and prospects. I never could -have derived anything like the pleasure from spending the money Mr. Dick had -given me, that I felt in sending a gold half-guinea to Peggotty, per post, -enclosed in this last letter, to discharge the sum I had borrowed of her: in -which epistle, not before, I mentioned about the young man with the -donkey-cart. -</p> - -<p> -To these communications Peggotty replied as promptly, if not as concisely, as a -merchant’s clerk. Her utmost powers of expression (which were certainly -not great in ink) were exhausted in the attempt to write what she felt on the -subject of my journey. Four sides of incoherent and interjectional beginnings -of sentences, that had no end, except blots, were inadequate to afford her any -relief. But the blots were more expressive to me than the best composition; for -they showed me that Peggotty had been crying all over the paper, and what could -I have desired more? -</p> - -<p> -I made out, without much difficulty, that she could not take quite kindly to my -aunt yet. The notice was too short after so long a prepossession the other way. -We never knew a person, she wrote; but to think that Miss Betsey should seem to -be so different from what she had been thought to be, was a Moral!—that -was her word. She was evidently still afraid of Miss Betsey, for she sent her -grateful duty to her but timidly; and she was evidently afraid of me, too, and -entertained the probability of my running away again soon: if I might judge -from the repeated hints she threw out, that the coach-fare to Yarmouth was -always to be had of her for the asking. -</p> - -<p> -She gave me one piece of intelligence which affected me very much, namely, that -there had been a sale of the furniture at our old home, and that Mr. and Miss -Murdstone were gone away, and the house was shut up, to be let or sold. God -knows I had no part in it while they remained there, but it pained me to think -of the dear old place as altogether abandoned; of the weeds growing tall in the -garden, and the fallen leaves lying thick and wet upon the paths. I imagined -how the winds of winter would howl round it, how the cold rain would beat upon -the window-glass, how the moon would make ghosts on the walls of the empty -rooms, watching their solitude all night. I thought afresh of the grave in the -churchyard, underneath the tree: and it seemed as if the house were dead too, -now, and all connected with my father and mother were faded away. -</p> - -<p> -There was no other news in Peggotty’s letters. Mr. Barkis was an -excellent husband, she said, though still a little near; but we all had our -faults, and she had plenty (though I am sure I don’t know what they -were); and he sent his duty, and my little bedroom was always ready for me. Mr. -Peggotty was well, and Ham was well, and Mrs. Gummidge was but poorly, and -little Em’ly wouldn’t send her love, but said that Peggotty might -send it, if she liked. -</p> - -<p> -All this intelligence I dutifully imparted to my aunt, only reserving to myself -the mention of little Em’ly, to whom I instinctively felt that she would -not very tenderly incline. While I was yet new at Doctor Strong’s, she -made several excursions over to Canterbury to see me, and always at -unseasonable hours: with the view, I suppose, of taking me by surprise. But, -finding me well employed, and bearing a good character, and hearing on all -hands that I rose fast in the school, she soon discontinued these visits. I saw -her on a Saturday, every third or fourth week, when I went over to Dover for a -treat; and I saw Mr. Dick every alternate Wednesday, when he arrived by -stage-coach at noon, to stay until next morning. -</p> - -<p> -On these occasions Mr. Dick never travelled without a leathern writing-desk, -containing a supply of stationery and the Memorial; in relation to which -document he had a notion that time was beginning to press now, and that it -really must be got out of hand. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Dick was very partial to gingerbread. To render his visits the more -agreeable, my aunt had instructed me to open a credit for him at a cake shop, -which was hampered with the stipulation that he should not be served with more -than one shilling’s-worth in the course of any one day. This, and the -reference of all his little bills at the county inn where he slept, to my aunt, -before they were paid, induced me to suspect that he was only allowed to rattle -his money, and not to spend it. I found on further investigation that this was -so, or at least there was an agreement between him and my aunt that he should -account to her for all his disbursements. As he had no idea of deceiving her, -and always desired to please her, he was thus made chary of launching into -expense. On this point, as well as on all other possible points, Mr. Dick was -convinced that my aunt was the wisest and most wonderful of women; as he -repeatedly told me with infinite secrecy, and always in a whisper. -</p> - -<p> -‘Trotwood,’ said Mr. Dick, with an air of mystery, after imparting -this confidence to me, one Wednesday; ‘who’s the man that hides -near our house and frightens her?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Frightens my aunt, sir?’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Dick nodded. ‘I thought nothing would have frightened her,’ he -said, ‘for she’s—’ here he whispered softly, -‘don’t mention it—the wisest and most wonderful of -women.’ Having said which, he drew back, to observe the effect which this -description of her made upon me. -</p> - -<p> -‘The first time he came,’ said Mr. Dick, ‘was—let me -see—sixteen hundred and forty-nine was the date of King Charles’s -execution. I think you said sixteen hundred and forty-nine?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes, sir.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I don’t know how it can be,’ said Mr. Dick, sorely puzzled -and shaking his head. ‘I don’t think I am as old as that.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Was it in that year that the man appeared, sir?’ I asked. -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, really’ said Mr. Dick, ‘I don’t see how it can -have been in that year, Trotwood. Did you get that date out of history?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes, sir.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I suppose history never lies, does it?’ said Mr. Dick, with a -gleam of hope. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh dear, no, sir!’ I replied, most decisively. I was ingenuous and -young, and I thought so. -</p> - -<p> -‘I can’t make it out,’ said Mr. Dick, shaking his head. -‘There’s something wrong, somewhere. However, it was very soon -after the mistake was made of putting some of the trouble out of King -Charles’s head into my head, that the man first came. I was walking out -with Miss Trotwood after tea, just at dark, and there he was, close to our -house.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Walking about?’ I inquired. -</p> - -<p> -‘Walking about?’ repeated Mr. Dick. ‘Let me see, I must -recollect a bit. N-no, no; he was not walking about.’ -</p> - -<p> -I asked, as the shortest way to get at it, what he WAS doing. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, he wasn’t there at all,’ said Mr. Dick, ‘until -he came up behind her, and whispered. Then she turned round and fainted, and I -stood still and looked at him, and he walked away; but that he should have been -hiding ever since (in the ground or somewhere), is the most extraordinary -thing!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘HAS he been hiding ever since?’ I asked. -</p> - -<p> -‘To be sure he has,’ retorted Mr. Dick, nodding his head gravely. -‘Never came out, till last night! We were walking last night, and he came -up behind her again, and I knew him again.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And did he frighten my aunt again?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘All of a shiver,’ said Mr. Dick, counterfeiting that affection and -making his teeth chatter. ‘Held by the palings. Cried. But, Trotwood, -come here,’ getting me close to him, that he might whisper very softly; -‘why did she give him money, boy, in the moonlight?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘He was a beggar, perhaps.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Dick shook his head, as utterly renouncing the suggestion; and having -replied a great many times, and with great confidence, ‘No beggar, no -beggar, no beggar, sir!’ went on to say, that from his window he had -afterwards, and late at night, seen my aunt give this person money outside the -garden rails in the moonlight, who then slunk away—into the ground again, -as he thought probable—and was seen no more: while my aunt came hurriedly -and secretly back into the house, and had, even that morning, been quite -different from her usual self; which preyed on Mr. Dick’s mind. -</p> - -<p> -I had not the least belief, in the outset of this story, that the unknown was -anything but a delusion of Mr. Dick’s, and one of the line of that -ill-fated Prince who occasioned him so much difficulty; but after some -reflection I began to entertain the question whether an attempt, or threat of -an attempt, might have been twice made to take poor Mr. Dick himself from under -my aunt’s protection, and whether my aunt, the strength of whose kind -feeling towards him I knew from herself, might have been induced to pay a price -for his peace and quiet. As I was already much attached to Mr. Dick, and very -solicitous for his welfare, my fears favoured this supposition; and for a long -time his Wednesday hardly ever came round, without my entertaining a misgiving -that he would not be on the coach-box as usual. There he always appeared, -however, grey-headed, laughing, and happy; and he never had anything more to -tell of the man who could frighten my aunt. -</p> - -<p> -These Wednesdays were the happiest days of Mr. Dick’s life; they were far -from being the least happy of mine. He soon became known to every boy in the -school; and though he never took an active part in any game but kite-flying, -was as deeply interested in all our sports as anyone among us. How often have I -seen him, intent upon a match at marbles or pegtop, looking on with a face of -unutterable interest, and hardly breathing at the critical times! How often, at -hare and hounds, have I seen him mounted on a little knoll, cheering the whole -field on to action, and waving his hat above his grey head, oblivious of King -Charles the Martyr’s head, and all belonging to it! How many a summer -hour have I known to be but blissful minutes to him in the cricket-field! How -many winter days have I seen him, standing blue-nosed, in the snow and east -wind, looking at the boys going down the long slide, and clapping his worsted -gloves in rapture! -</p> - -<p> -He was an universal favourite, and his ingenuity in little things was -transcendent. He could cut oranges into such devices as none of us had an idea -of. He could make a boat out of anything, from a skewer upwards. He could turn -cramp-bones into chessmen; fashion Roman chariots from old court cards; make -spoked wheels out of cotton reels, and bird-cages of old wire. But he was -greatest of all, perhaps, in the articles of string and straw; with which we -were all persuaded he could do anything that could be done by hands. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Dick’s renown was not long confined to us. After a few Wednesdays, -Doctor Strong himself made some inquiries of me about him, and I told him all -my aunt had told me; which interested the Doctor so much that he requested, on -the occasion of his next visit, to be presented to him. This ceremony I -performed; and the Doctor begging Mr. Dick, whensoever he should not find me at -the coach office, to come on there, and rest himself until our morning’s -work was over, it soon passed into a custom for Mr. Dick to come on as a matter -of course, and, if we were a little late, as often happened on a Wednesday, to -walk about the courtyard, waiting for me. Here he made the acquaintance of the -Doctor’s beautiful young wife (paler than formerly, all this time; more -rarely seen by me or anyone, I think; and not so gay, but not less beautiful), -and so became more and more familiar by degrees, until, at last, he would come -into the school and wait. He always sat in a particular corner, on a particular -stool, which was called ‘Dick’, after him; here he would sit, with -his grey head bent forward, attentively listening to whatever might be going -on, with a profound veneration for the learning he had never been able to -acquire. -</p> - -<p> -This veneration Mr. Dick extended to the Doctor, whom he thought the most -subtle and accomplished philosopher of any age. It was long before Mr. Dick -ever spoke to him otherwise than bareheaded; and even when he and the Doctor -had struck up quite a friendship, and would walk together by the hour, on that -side of the courtyard which was known among us as The Doctor’s Walk, Mr. -Dick would pull off his hat at intervals to show his respect for wisdom and -knowledge. How it ever came about that the Doctor began to read out scraps of -the famous Dictionary, in these walks, I never knew; perhaps he felt it all the -same, at first, as reading to himself. However, it passed into a custom too; -and Mr. Dick, listening with a face shining with pride and pleasure, in his -heart of hearts believed the Dictionary to be the most delightful book in the -world. -</p> - -<p> -As I think of them going up and down before those schoolroom windows—the -Doctor reading with his complacent smile, an occasional flourish of the -manuscript, or grave motion of his head; and Mr. Dick listening, enchained by -interest, with his poor wits calmly wandering God knows where, upon the wings -of hard words—I think of it as one of the pleasantest things, in a quiet -way, that I have ever seen. I feel as if they might go walking to and fro for -ever, and the world might somehow be the better for it—as if a thousand -things it makes a noise about, were not one half so good for it, or me. -</p> - -<p> -Agnes was one of Mr. Dick’s friends, very soon; and in often coming to -the house, he made acquaintance with Uriah. The friendship between himself and -me increased continually, and it was maintained on this odd footing: that, -while Mr. Dick came professedly to look after me as my guardian, he always -consulted me in any little matter of doubt that arose, and invariably guided -himself by my advice; not only having a high respect for my native sagacity, -but considering that I inherited a good deal from my aunt. -</p> - -<p> -One Thursday morning, when I was about to walk with Mr. Dick from the hotel to -the coach office before going back to school (for we had an hour’s school -before breakfast), I met Uriah in the street, who reminded me of the promise I -had made to take tea with himself and his mother: adding, with a writhe, -‘But I didn’t expect you to keep it, Master Copperfield, -we’re so very umble.’ -</p> - -<p> -I really had not yet been able to make up my mind whether I liked Uriah or -detested him; and I was very doubtful about it still, as I stood looking him in -the face in the street. But I felt it quite an affront to be supposed proud, -and said I only wanted to be asked. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, if that’s all, Master Copperfield,’ said Uriah, -‘and it really isn’t our umbleness that prevents you, will you come -this evening? But if it is our umbleness, I hope you won’t mind owning to -it, Master Copperfield; for we are well aware of our condition.’ -</p> - -<p> -I said I would mention it to Mr. Wickfield, and if he approved, as I had no -doubt he would, I would come with pleasure. So, at six o’clock that -evening, which was one of the early office evenings, I announced myself as -ready, to Uriah. -</p> - -<p> -‘Mother will be proud, indeed,’ he said, as we walked away -together. ‘Or she would be proud, if it wasn’t sinful, Master -Copperfield.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yet you didn’t mind supposing I was proud this morning,’ I -returned. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh dear, no, Master Copperfield!’ returned Uriah. ‘Oh, -believe me, no! Such a thought never came into my head! I shouldn’t have -deemed it at all proud if you had thought US too umble for you. Because we are -so very umble.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Have you been studying much law lately?’ I asked, to change the -subject. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, Master Copperfield,’ he said, with an air of self-denial, -‘my reading is hardly to be called study. I have passed an hour or two in -the evening, sometimes, with Mr. Tidd.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Rather hard, I suppose?’ said I. ‘He is hard to me -sometimes,’ returned Uriah. ‘But I don’t know what he might -be to a gifted person.’ -</p> - -<p> -After beating a little tune on his chin as he walked on, with the two -forefingers of his skeleton right hand, he added: -</p> - -<p> -‘There are expressions, you see, Master Copperfield—Latin words and -terms—in Mr. Tidd, that are trying to a reader of my umble -attainments.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Would you like to be taught Latin?’ I said briskly. ‘I will -teach it you with pleasure, as I learn it.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, thank you, Master Copperfield,’ he answered, shaking his head. -‘I am sure it’s very kind of you to make the offer, but I am much -too umble to accept it.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘What nonsense, Uriah!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, indeed you must excuse me, Master Copperfield! I am greatly obliged, -and I should like it of all things, I assure you; but I am far too umble. There -are people enough to tread upon me in my lowly state, without my doing outrage -to their feelings by possessing learning. Learning ain’t for me. A person -like myself had better not aspire. If he is to get on in life, he must get on -umbly, Master Copperfield!’ -</p> - -<p> -I never saw his mouth so wide, or the creases in his cheeks so deep, as when he -delivered himself of these sentiments: shaking his head all the time, and -writhing modestly. -</p> - -<p> -‘I think you are wrong, Uriah,’ I said. ‘I dare say there are -several things that I could teach you, if you would like to learn them.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, I don’t doubt that, Master Copperfield,’ he answered; -‘not in the least. But not being umble yourself, you don’t judge -well, perhaps, for them that are. I won’t provoke my betters with -knowledge, thank you. I’m much too umble. Here is my umble dwelling, -Master Copperfield!’ -</p> - -<p> -We entered a low, old-fashioned room, walked straight into from the street, and -found there Mrs. Heep, who was the dead image of Uriah, only short. She -received me with the utmost humility, and apologized to me for giving her son a -kiss, observing that, lowly as they were, they had their natural affections, -which they hoped would give no offence to anyone. It was a perfectly decent -room, half parlour and half kitchen, but not at all a snug room. The tea-things -were set upon the table, and the kettle was boiling on the hob. There was a -chest of drawers with an escritoire top, for Uriah to read or write at of an -evening; there was Uriah’s blue bag lying down and vomiting papers; there -was a company of Uriah’s books commanded by Mr. Tidd; there was a corner -cupboard: and there were the usual articles of furniture. I don’t -remember that any individual object had a bare, pinched, spare look; but I do -remember that the whole place had. -</p> - -<p> -It was perhaps a part of Mrs. Heep’s humility, that she still wore weeds. -Notwithstanding the lapse of time that had occurred since Mr. Heep’s -decease, she still wore weeds. I think there was some compromise in the cap; -but otherwise she was as weedy as in the early days of her mourning. -</p> - -<p> -‘This is a day to be remembered, my Uriah, I am sure,’ said Mrs. -Heep, making the tea, ‘when Master Copperfield pays us a visit.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I said you’d think so, mother,’ said Uriah. -</p> - -<p> -‘If I could have wished father to remain among us for any reason,’ -said Mrs. Heep, ‘it would have been, that he might have known his company -this afternoon.’ -</p> - -<p> -I felt embarrassed by these compliments; but I was sensible, too, of being -entertained as an honoured guest, and I thought Mrs. Heep an agreeable woman. -</p> - -<p> -‘My Uriah,’ said Mrs. Heep, ‘has looked forward to this, sir, -a long while. He had his fears that our umbleness stood in the way, and I -joined in them myself. Umble we are, umble we have been, umble we shall ever -be,’ said Mrs. Heep. -</p> - -<p> -‘I am sure you have no occasion to be so, ma’am,’ I said, -‘unless you like.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Thank you, sir,’ retorted Mrs. Heep. ‘We know our station -and are thankful in it.’ -</p> - -<p> -I found that Mrs. Heep gradually got nearer to me, and that Uriah gradually got -opposite to me, and that they respectfully plied me with the choicest of the -eatables on the table. There was nothing particularly choice there, to be sure; -but I took the will for the deed, and felt that they were very attentive. -Presently they began to talk about aunts, and then I told them about mine; and -about fathers and mothers, and then I told them about mine; and then Mrs. Heep -began to talk about fathers-in-law, and then I began to tell her about -mine—but stopped, because my aunt had advised me to observe a silence on -that subject. A tender young cork, however, would have had no more chance -against a pair of corkscrews, or a tender young tooth against a pair of -dentists, or a little shuttlecock against two battledores, than I had against -Uriah and Mrs. Heep. They did just what they liked with me; and wormed things -out of me that I had no desire to tell, with a certainty I blush to think of, -the more especially, as in my juvenile frankness, I took some credit to myself -for being so confidential and felt that I was quite the patron of my two -respectful entertainers. -</p> - -<p> -They were very fond of one another: that was certain. I take it, that had its -effect upon me, as a touch of nature; but the skill with which the one followed -up whatever the other said, was a touch of art which I was still less proof -against. When there was nothing more to be got out of me about myself (for on -the Murdstone and Grinby life, and on my journey, I was dumb), they began about -Mr. Wickfield and Agnes. Uriah threw the ball to Mrs. Heep, Mrs. Heep caught it -and threw it back to Uriah, Uriah kept it up a little while, then sent it back -to Mrs. Heep, and so they went on tossing it about until I had no idea who had -got it, and was quite bewildered. The ball itself was always changing too. Now -it was Mr. Wickfield, now Agnes, now the excellence of Mr. Wickfield, now my -admiration of Agnes; now the extent of Mr. Wickfield’s business and -resources, now our domestic life after dinner; now, the wine that Mr. Wickfield -took, the reason why he took it, and the pity that it was he took so much; now -one thing, now another, then everything at once; and all the time, without -appearing to speak very often, or to do anything but sometimes encourage them a -little, for fear they should be overcome by their humility and the honour of my -company, I found myself perpetually letting out something or other that I had -no business to let out and seeing the effect of it in the twinkling of -Uriah’s dinted nostrils. -</p> - -<p> -I had begun to be a little uncomfortable, and to wish myself well out of the -visit, when a figure coming down the street passed the door—it stood open -to air the room, which was warm, the weather being close for the time of -year—came back again, looked in, and walked in, exclaiming loudly, -‘Copperfield! Is it possible?’ -</p> - -<p> -It was Mr. Micawber! It was Mr. Micawber, with his eye-glass, and his -walking-stick, and his shirt-collar, and his genteel air, and the condescending -roll in his voice, all complete! -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber, putting out his hand, -‘this is indeed a meeting which is calculated to impress the mind with a -sense of the instability and uncertainty of all human—in short, it is a -most extraordinary meeting. Walking along the street, reflecting upon the -probability of something turning up (of which I am at present rather sanguine), -I find a young but valued friend turn up, who is connected with the most -eventful period of my life; I may say, with the turning-point of my existence. -Copperfield, my dear fellow, how do you do?’ -</p> - -<p> -I cannot say—I really cannot say—that I was glad to see Mr. -Micawber there; but I was glad to see him too, and shook hands with him, -heartily, inquiring how Mrs. Micawber was. -</p> - -<p> -‘Thank you,’ said Mr. Micawber, waving his hand as of old, and -settling his chin in his shirt-collar. ‘She is tolerably convalescent. -The twins no longer derive their sustenance from Nature’s founts—in -short,’ said Mr. Micawber, in one of his bursts of confidence, -‘they are weaned—and Mrs. Micawber is, at present, my travelling -companion. She will be rejoiced, Copperfield, to renew her acquaintance with -one who has proved himself in all respects a worthy minister at the sacred -altar of friendship.’ -</p> - -<p> -I said I should be delighted to see her. -</p> - -<p> -‘You are very good,’ said Mr. Micawber. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Micawber then smiled, settled his chin again, and looked about him. -</p> - -<p> -‘I have discovered my friend Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber -genteelly, and without addressing himself particularly to anyone, ‘not in -solitude, but partaking of a social meal in company with a widow lady, and one -who is apparently her offspring—in short,’ said Mr. Micawber, in -another of his bursts of confidence, ‘her son. I shall esteem it an -honour to be presented.’ -</p> - -<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> -<img src="images/0319.jpg" alt="0319 " width="100%" /> -</div> - -<h5> -<a href="images/0319.jpg"> -<img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /></a> -</h5> - -<p> -I could do no less, under these circumstances, than make Mr. Micawber known to -Uriah Heep and his mother; which I accordingly did. As they abased themselves -before him, Mr. Micawber took a seat, and waved his hand in his most courtly -manner. -</p> - -<p> -‘Any friend of my friend Copperfield’s,’ said Mr. Micawber, -‘has a personal claim upon myself.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘We are too umble, sir,’ said Mrs. Heep, ‘my son and me, to -be the friends of Master Copperfield. He has been so good as take his tea with -us, and we are thankful to him for his company, also to you, sir, for your -notice.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Ma’am,’ returned Mr. Micawber, with a bow, ‘you are -very obliging: and what are you doing, Copperfield? Still in the wine -trade?’ -</p> - -<p> -I was excessively anxious to get Mr. Micawber away; and replied, with my hat in -my hand, and a very red face, I have no doubt, that I was a pupil at Doctor -Strong’s. -</p> - -<p> -‘A pupil?’ said Mr. Micawber, raising his eyebrows. ‘I am -extremely happy to hear it. Although a mind like my friend -Copperfield’s’—to Uriah and Mrs. Heep—‘does not -require that cultivation which, without his knowledge of men and things, it -would require, still it is a rich soil teeming with latent vegetation—in -short,’ said Mr. Micawber, smiling, in another burst of confidence, -‘it is an intellect capable of getting up the classics to any -extent.’ -</p> - -<p> -Uriah, with his long hands slowly twining over one another, made a ghastly -writhe from the waist upwards, to express his concurrence in this estimation of -me. -</p> - -<p> -‘Shall we go and see Mrs. Micawber, sir?’ I said, to get Mr. -Micawber away. -</p> - -<p> -‘If you will do her that favour, Copperfield,’ replied Mr. -Micawber, rising. ‘I have no scruple in saying, in the presence of our -friends here, that I am a man who has, for some years, contended against the -pressure of pecuniary difficulties.’ I knew he was certain to say -something of this kind; he always would be so boastful about his difficulties. -‘Sometimes I have risen superior to my difficulties. Sometimes my -difficulties have—in short, have floored me. There have been times when I -have administered a succession of facers to them; there have been times when -they have been too many for me, and I have given in, and said to Mrs. Micawber, -in the words of Cato, “Plato, thou reasonest well. It’s all up now. -I can show fight no more.” But at no time of my life,’ said Mr. -Micawber, ‘have I enjoyed a higher degree of satisfaction than in pouring -my griefs (if I may describe difficulties, chiefly arising out of warrants of -attorney and promissory notes at two and four months, by that word) into the -bosom of my friend Copperfield.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Micawber closed this handsome tribute by saying, ‘Mr. Heep! Good -evening. Mrs. Heep! Your servant,’ and then walking out with me in his -most fashionable manner, making a good deal of noise on the pavement with his -shoes, and humming a tune as we went. -</p> - -<p> -It was a little inn where Mr. Micawber put up, and he occupied a little room in -it, partitioned off from the commercial room, and strongly flavoured with -tobacco-smoke. I think it was over the kitchen, because a warm greasy smell -appeared to come up through the chinks in the floor, and there was a flabby -perspiration on the walls. I know it was near the bar, on account of the smell -of spirits and jingling of glasses. Here, recumbent on a small sofa, underneath -a picture of a race-horse, with her head close to the fire, and her feet -pushing the mustard off the dumb-waiter at the other end of the room, was Mrs. -Micawber, to whom Mr. Micawber entered first, saying, ‘My dear, allow me -to introduce to you a pupil of Doctor Strong’s.’ -</p> - -<p> -I noticed, by the by, that although Mr. Micawber was just as much confused as -ever about my age and standing, he always remembered, as a genteel thing, that -I was a pupil of Doctor Strong’s. -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Micawber was amazed, but very glad to see me. I was very glad to see her -too, and, after an affectionate greeting on both sides, sat down on the small -sofa near her. -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘if you will mention to -Copperfield what our present position is, which I have no doubt he will like to -know, I will go and look at the paper the while, and see whether anything turns -up among the advertisements.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I thought you were at Plymouth, ma’am,’ I said to Mrs. -Micawber, as he went out. -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear Master Copperfield,’ she replied, ‘we went to -Plymouth.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘To be on the spot,’ I hinted. -</p> - -<p> -‘Just so,’ said Mrs. Micawber. ‘To be on the spot. But, the -truth is, talent is not wanted in the Custom House. The local influence of my -family was quite unavailing to obtain any employment in that department, for a -man of Mr. Micawber’s abilities. They would rather NOT have a man of Mr. -Micawber’s abilities. He would only show the deficiency of the others. -Apart from which,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘I will not disguise from -you, my dear Master Copperfield, that when that branch of my family which is -settled in Plymouth, became aware that Mr. Micawber was accompanied by myself, -and by little Wilkins and his sister, and by the twins, they did not receive -him with that ardour which he might have expected, being so newly released from -captivity. In fact,’ said Mrs. Micawber, lowering her -voice,—‘this is between ourselves—our reception was -cool.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Dear me!’ I said. -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes,’ said Mrs. Micawber. ‘It is truly painful to -contemplate mankind in such an aspect, Master Copperfield, but our reception -was, decidedly, cool. There is no doubt about it. In fact, that branch of my -family which is settled in Plymouth became quite personal to Mr. Micawber, -before we had been there a week.’ -</p> - -<p> -I said, and thought, that they ought to be ashamed of themselves. -</p> - -<p> -‘Still, so it was,’ continued Mrs. Micawber. ‘Under such -circumstances, what could a man of Mr. Micawber’s spirit do? But one -obvious course was left. To borrow, of that branch of my family, the money to -return to London, and to return at any sacrifice.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Then you all came back again, ma’am?’ I said. -</p> - -<p> -‘We all came back again,’ replied Mrs. Micawber. ‘Since then, -I have consulted other branches of my family on the course which it is most -expedient for Mr. Micawber to take—for I maintain that he must take some -course, Master Copperfield,’ said Mrs. Micawber, argumentatively. -‘It is clear that a family of six, not including a domestic, cannot live -upon air.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Certainly, ma’am,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘The opinion of those other branches of my family,’ pursued Mrs. -Micawber, ‘is, that Mr. Micawber should immediately turn his attention to -coals.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘To what, ma’am?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘To coals,’ said Mrs. Micawber. ‘To the coal trade. Mr. -Micawber was induced to think, on inquiry, that there might be an opening for a -man of his talent in the Medway Coal Trade. Then, as Mr. Micawber very properly -said, the first step to be taken clearly was, to come and see the Medway. Which -we came and saw. I say “we”, Master Copperfield; for I never -will,’ said Mrs. Micawber with emotion, ‘I never will desert Mr. -Micawber.’ -</p> - -<p> -I murmured my admiration and approbation. -</p> - -<p> -‘We came,’ repeated Mrs. Micawber, ‘and saw the Medway. My -opinion of the coal trade on that river is, that it may require talent, but -that it certainly requires capital. Talent, Mr. Micawber has; capital, Mr. -Micawber has not. We saw, I think, the greater part of the Medway; and that is -my individual conclusion. Being so near here, Mr. Micawber was of opinion that -it would be rash not to come on, and see the Cathedral. Firstly, on account of -its being so well worth seeing, and our never having seen it; and secondly, on -account of the great probability of something turning up in a cathedral town. -We have been here,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘three days. Nothing has, -as yet, turned up; and it may not surprise you, my dear Master Copperfield, so -much as it would a stranger, to know that we are at present waiting for a -remittance from London, to discharge our pecuniary obligations at this hotel. -Until the arrival of that remittance,’ said Mrs. Micawber with much -feeling, ‘I am cut off from my home (I allude to lodgings in -Pentonville), from my boy and girl, and from my twins.’ -</p> - -<p> -I felt the utmost sympathy for Mr. and Mrs. Micawber in this anxious extremity, -and said as much to Mr. Micawber, who now returned: adding that I only wished I -had money enough, to lend them the amount they needed. Mr. Micawber’s -answer expressed the disturbance of his mind. He said, shaking hands with me, -‘Copperfield, you are a true friend; but when the worst comes to the -worst, no man is without a friend who is possessed of shaving materials.’ -At this dreadful hint Mrs. Micawber threw her arms round Mr. Micawber’s -neck and entreated him to be calm. He wept; but so far recovered, almost -immediately, as to ring the bell for the waiter, and bespeak a hot kidney -pudding and a plate of shrimps for breakfast in the morning. -</p> - -<p> -When I took my leave of them, they both pressed me so much to come and dine -before they went away, that I could not refuse. But, as I knew I could not come -next day, when I should have a good deal to prepare in the evening, Mr. -Micawber arranged that he would call at Doctor Strong’s in the course of -the morning (having a presentiment that the remittance would arrive by that -post), and propose the day after, if it would suit me better. Accordingly I was -called out of school next forenoon, and found Mr. Micawber in the parlour; who -had called to say that the dinner would take place as proposed. When I asked -him if the remittance had come, he pressed my hand and departed. -</p> - -<p> -As I was looking out of window that same evening, it surprised me, and made me -rather uneasy, to see Mr. Micawber and Uriah Heep walk past, arm in arm: Uriah -humbly sensible of the honour that was done him, and Mr. Micawber taking a -bland delight in extending his patronage to Uriah. But I was still more -surprised, when I went to the little hotel next day at the appointed -dinner-hour, which was four o’clock, to find, from what Mr. Micawber -said, that he had gone home with Uriah, and had drunk brandy-and-water at Mrs. -Heep’s. -</p> - -<p> -‘And I’ll tell you what, my dear Copperfield,’ said Mr. -Micawber, ‘your friend Heep is a young fellow who might be -attorney-general. If I had known that young man, at the period when my -difficulties came to a crisis, all I can say is, that I believe my creditors -would have been a great deal better managed than they were.’ -</p> - -<p> -I hardly understood how this could have been, seeing that Mr. Micawber had paid -them nothing at all as it was; but I did not like to ask. Neither did I like to -say, that I hoped he had not been too communicative to Uriah; or to inquire if -they had talked much about me. I was afraid of hurting Mr. Micawber’s -feelings, or, at all events, Mrs. Micawber’s, she being very sensitive; -but I was uncomfortable about it, too, and often thought about it afterwards. -</p> - -<p> -We had a beautiful little dinner. Quite an elegant dish of fish; the kidney-end -of a loin of veal, roasted; fried sausage-meat; a partridge, and a pudding. -There was wine, and there was strong ale; and after dinner Mrs. Micawber made -us a bowl of hot punch with her own hands. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Micawber was uncommonly convivial. I never saw him such good company. He -made his face shine with the punch, so that it looked as if it had been -varnished all over. He got cheerfully sentimental about the town, and proposed -success to it; observing that Mrs. Micawber and himself had been made extremely -snug and comfortable there and that he never should forget the agreeable hours -they had passed in Canterbury. He proposed me afterwards; and he, and Mrs. -Micawber, and I, took a review of our past acquaintance, in the course of which -we sold the property all over again. Then I proposed Mrs. Micawber: or, at -least, said, modestly, ‘If you’ll allow me, Mrs. Micawber, I shall -now have the pleasure of drinking your health, ma’am.’ On which Mr. -Micawber delivered an eulogium on Mrs. Micawber’s character, and said she -had ever been his guide, philosopher, and friend, and that he would recommend -me, when I came to a marrying time of life, to marry such another woman, if -such another woman could be found. -</p> - -<p> -As the punch disappeared, Mr. Micawber became still more friendly and -convivial. Mrs. Micawber’s spirits becoming elevated, too, we sang -‘Auld Lang Syne’. When we came to ‘Here’s a hand, my -trusty frere’, we all joined hands round the table; and when we declared -we would ‘take a right gude Willie Waught’, and hadn’t the -least idea what it meant, we were really affected. -</p> - -<p> -In a word, I never saw anybody so thoroughly jovial as Mr. Micawber was, down -to the very last moment of the evening, when I took a hearty farewell of -himself and his amiable wife. Consequently, I was not prepared, at seven -o’clock next morning, to receive the following communication, dated half -past nine in the evening; a quarter of an hour after I had left him:— -</p> - -<p> -‘My DEAR YOUNG FRIEND, -</p> - -<p> -‘The die is cast—all is over. Hiding the ravages of care with a -sickly mask of mirth, I have not informed you, this evening, that there is no -hope of the remittance! Under these circumstances, alike humiliating to endure, -humiliating to contemplate, and humiliating to relate, I have discharged the -pecuniary liability contracted at this establishment, by giving a note of hand, -made payable fourteen days after date, at my residence, Pentonville, London. -When it becomes due, it will not be taken up. The result is destruction. The -bolt is impending, and the tree must fall. -</p> - -<p> -‘Let the wretched man who now addresses you, my dear Copperfield, be a -beacon to you through life. He writes with that intention, and in that hope. If -he could think himself of so much use, one gleam of day might, by possibility, -penetrate into the cheerless dungeon of his remaining existence—though -his longevity is, at present (to say the least of it), extremely problematical. -</p> - -<p> -‘This is the last communication, my dear Copperfield, you will ever -receive -</p> - -<p class="right"> -‘From <br/> -‘The <br/> -‘Beggared Outcast, <br/> -‘WILKINS MICAWBER.’ -</p> - -<p> -I was so shocked by the contents of this heart-rending letter, that I ran off -directly towards the little hotel with the intention of taking it on my way to -Doctor Strong’s, and trying to soothe Mr. Micawber with a word of -comfort. But, half-way there, I met the London coach with Mr. and Mrs. Micawber -up behind; Mr. Micawber, the very picture of tranquil enjoyment, smiling at -Mrs. Micawber’s conversation, eating walnuts out of a paper bag, with a -bottle sticking out of his breast pocket. As they did not see me, I thought it -best, all things considered, not to see them. So, with a great weight taken off -my mind, I turned into a by-street that was the nearest way to school, and -felt, upon the whole, relieved that they were gone; though I still liked them -very much, nevertheless. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0018"></a>CHAPTER 18. A RETROSPECT</h2> - -<p> -My school-days! The silent gliding on of my existence—the unseen, unfelt -progress of my life—from childhood up to youth! Let me think, as I look -back upon that flowing water, now a dry channel overgrown with leaves, whether -there are any marks along its course, by which I can remember how it ran. -</p> - -<p> -A moment, and I occupy my place in the Cathedral, where we all went together, -every Sunday morning, assembling first at school for that purpose. The earthy -smell, the sunless air, the sensation of the world being shut out, the -resounding of the organ through the black and white arched galleries and -aisles, are wings that take me back, and hold me hovering above those days, in -a half-sleeping and half-waking dream. -</p> - -<p> -I am not the last boy in the school. I have risen in a few months, over several -heads. But the first boy seems to me a mighty creature, dwelling afar off, -whose giddy height is unattainable. Agnes says ‘No,’ but I say -‘Yes,’ and tell her that she little thinks what stores of knowledge -have been mastered by the wonderful Being, at whose place she thinks I, even I, -weak aspirant, may arrive in time. He is not my private friend and public -patron, as Steerforth was, but I hold him in a reverential respect. I chiefly -wonder what he’ll be, when he leaves Doctor Strong’s, and what -mankind will do to maintain any place against him. -</p> - -<p> -But who is this that breaks upon me? This is Miss Shepherd, whom I love. -</p> - -<p> -Miss Shepherd is a boarder at the Misses Nettingalls’ establishment. I -adore Miss Shepherd. She is a little girl, in a spencer, with a round face and -curly flaxen hair. The Misses Nettingalls’ young ladies come to the -Cathedral too. I cannot look upon my book, for I must look upon Miss Shepherd. -When the choristers chaunt, I hear Miss Shepherd. In the service I mentally -insert Miss Shepherd’s name—I put her in among the Royal Family. At -home, in my own room, I am sometimes moved to cry out, ‘Oh, Miss -Shepherd!’ in a transport of love. -</p> - -<p> -For some time, I am doubtful of Miss Shepherd’s feelings, but, at length, -Fate being propitious, we meet at the dancing-school. I have Miss Shepherd for -my partner. I touch Miss Shepherd’s glove, and feel a thrill go up the -right arm of my jacket, and come out at my hair. I say nothing to Miss -Shepherd, but we understand each other. Miss Shepherd and myself live but to be -united. -</p> - -<p> -Why do I secretly give Miss Shepherd twelve Brazil nuts for a present, I -wonder? They are not expressive of affection, they are difficult to pack into a -parcel of any regular shape, they are hard to crack, even in room doors, and -they are oily when cracked; yet I feel that they are appropriate to Miss -Shepherd. Soft, seedy biscuits, also, I bestow upon Miss Shepherd; and oranges -innumerable. Once, I kiss Miss Shepherd in the cloak-room. Ecstasy! What are my -agony and indignation next day, when I hear a flying rumour that the Misses -Nettingall have stood Miss Shepherd in the stocks for turning in her toes! -</p> - -<p> -Miss Shepherd being the one pervading theme and vision of my life, how do I -ever come to break with her? I can’t conceive. And yet a coolness grows -between Miss Shepherd and myself. Whispers reach me of Miss Shepherd having -said she wished I wouldn’t stare so, and having avowed a preference for -Master Jones—for Jones! a boy of no merit whatever! The gulf between me -and Miss Shepherd widens. At last, one day, I meet the Misses -Nettingalls’ establishment out walking. Miss Shepherd makes a face as she -goes by, and laughs to her companion. All is over. The devotion of a -life—it seems a life, it is all the same—is at an end; Miss -Shepherd comes out of the morning service, and the Royal Family know her no -more. -</p> - -<p> -I am higher in the school, and no one breaks my peace. I am not at all polite, -now, to the Misses Nettingalls’ young ladies, and shouldn’t dote on -any of them, if they were twice as many and twenty times as beautiful. I think -the dancing-school a tiresome affair, and wonder why the girls can’t -dance by themselves and leave us alone. I am growing great in Latin verses, and -neglect the laces of my boots. Doctor Strong refers to me in public as a -promising young scholar. Mr. Dick is wild with joy, and my aunt remits me a -guinea by the next post. -</p> - -<p> -The shade of a young butcher rises, like the apparition of an armed head in -Macbeth. Who is this young butcher? He is the terror of the youth of -Canterbury. There is a vague belief abroad, that the beef suet with which he -anoints his hair gives him unnatural strength, and that he is a match for a -man. He is a broad-faced, bull-necked, young butcher, with rough red cheeks, an -ill-conditioned mind, and an injurious tongue. His main use of this tongue, is, -to disparage Doctor Strong’s young gentlemen. He says, publicly, that if -they want anything he’ll give it ‘em. He names individuals among -them (myself included), whom he could undertake to settle with one hand, and -the other tied behind him. He waylays the smaller boys to punch their -unprotected heads, and calls challenges after me in the open streets. For these -sufficient reasons I resolve to fight the butcher. -</p> - -<p> -It is a summer evening, down in a green hollow, at the corner of a wall. I meet -the butcher by appointment. I am attended by a select body of our boys; the -butcher, by two other butchers, a young publican, and a sweep. The -preliminaries are adjusted, and the butcher and myself stand face to face. In a -moment the butcher lights ten thousand candles out of my left eyebrow. In -another moment, I don’t know where the wall is, or where I am, or where -anybody is. I hardly know which is myself and which the butcher, we are always -in such a tangle and tussle, knocking about upon the trodden grass. Sometimes I -see the butcher, bloody but confident; sometimes I see nothing, and sit gasping -on my second’s knee; sometimes I go in at the butcher madly, and cut my -knuckles open against his face, without appearing to discompose him at all. At -last I awake, very queer about the head, as from a giddy sleep, and see the -butcher walking off, congratulated by the two other butchers and the sweep and -publican, and putting on his coat as he goes; from which I augur, justly, that -the victory is his. -</p> - -<p> -I am taken home in a sad plight, and I have beef-steaks put to my eyes, and am -rubbed with vinegar and brandy, and find a great puffy place bursting out on my -upper lip, which swells immoderately. For three or four days I remain at home, -a very ill-looking subject, with a green shade over my eyes; and I should be -very dull, but that Agnes is a sister to me, and condoles with me, and reads to -me, and makes the time light and happy. Agnes has my confidence completely, -always; I tell her all about the butcher, and the wrongs he has heaped upon me; -she thinks I couldn’t have done otherwise than fight the butcher, while -she shrinks and trembles at my having fought him. -</p> - -<p> -Time has stolen on unobserved, for Adams is not the head-boy in the days that -are come now, nor has he been this many and many a day. Adams has left the -school so long, that when he comes back, on a visit to Doctor Strong, there are -not many there, besides myself, who know him. Adams is going to be called to -the bar almost directly, and is to be an advocate, and to wear a wig. I am -surprised to find him a meeker man than I had thought, and less imposing in -appearance. He has not staggered the world yet, either; for it goes on (as well -as I can make out) pretty much the same as if he had never joined it. -</p> - -<p> -A blank, through which the warriors of poetry and history march on in stately -hosts that seem to have no end—and what comes next! I am the head-boy, -now! I look down on the line of boys below me, with a condescending interest in -such of them as bring to my mind the boy I was myself, when I first came there. -That little fellow seems to be no part of me; I remember him as something left -behind upon the road of life—as something I have passed, rather than have -actually been—and almost think of him as of someone else. -</p> - -<p> -And the little girl I saw on that first day at Mr. Wickfield’s, where is -she? Gone also. In her stead, the perfect likeness of the picture, a child -likeness no more, moves about the house; and Agnes—my sweet sister, as I -call her in my thoughts, my counsellor and friend, the better angel of the -lives of all who come within her calm, good, self-denying influence—is -quite a woman. -</p> - -<p> -What other changes have come upon me, besides the changes in my growth and -looks, and in the knowledge I have garnered all this while? I wear a gold watch -and chain, a ring upon my little finger, and a long-tailed coat; and I use a -great deal of bear’s grease—which, taken in conjunction with the -ring, looks bad. Am I in love again? I am. I worship the eldest Miss Larkins. -</p> - -<p> -The eldest Miss Larkins is not a little girl. She is a tall, dark, black-eyed, -fine figure of a woman. The eldest Miss Larkins is not a chicken; for the -youngest Miss Larkins is not that, and the eldest must be three or four years -older. Perhaps the eldest Miss Larkins may be about thirty. My passion for her -is beyond all bounds. -</p> - -<p> -The eldest Miss Larkins knows officers. It is an awful thing to bear. I see -them speaking to her in the street. I see them cross the way to meet her, when -her bonnet (she has a bright taste in bonnets) is seen coming down the -pavement, accompanied by her sister’s bonnet. She laughs and talks, and -seems to like it. I spend a good deal of my own spare time in walking up and -down to meet her. If I can bow to her once in the day (I know her to bow to, -knowing Mr. Larkins), I am happier. I deserve a bow now and then. The raging -agonies I suffer on the night of the Race Ball, where I know the eldest Miss -Larkins will be dancing with the military, ought to have some compensation, if -there be even-handed justice in the world. -</p> - -<p> -My passion takes away my appetite, and makes me wear my newest silk neckerchief -continually. I have no relief but in putting on my best clothes, and having my -boots cleaned over and over again. I seem, then, to be worthier of the eldest -Miss Larkins. Everything that belongs to her, or is connected with her, is -precious to me. Mr. Larkins (a gruff old gentleman with a double chin, and one -of his eyes immovable in his head) is fraught with interest to me. When I -can’t meet his daughter, I go where I am likely to meet him. To say -‘How do you do, Mr. Larkins? Are the young ladies and all the family -quite well?’ seems so pointed, that I blush. -</p> - -<p> -I think continually about my age. Say I am seventeen, and say that seventeen is -young for the eldest Miss Larkins, what of that? Besides, I shall be -one-and-twenty in no time almost. I regularly take walks outside Mr. -Larkins’s house in the evening, though it cuts me to the heart to see the -officers go in, or to hear them up in the drawing-room, where the eldest Miss -Larkins plays the harp. I even walk, on two or three occasions, in a sickly, -spoony manner, round and round the house after the family are gone to bed, -wondering which is the eldest Miss Larkins’s chamber (and pitching, I -dare say now, on Mr. Larkins’s instead); wishing that a fire would burst -out; that the assembled crowd would stand appalled; that I, dashing through -them with a ladder, might rear it against her window, save her in my arms, go -back for something she had left behind, and perish in the flames. For I am -generally disinterested in my love, and think I could be content to make a -figure before Miss Larkins, and expire. -</p> - -<p> -Generally, but not always. Sometimes brighter visions rise before me. When I -dress (the occupation of two hours), for a great ball given at the -Larkins’s (the anticipation of three weeks), I indulge my fancy with -pleasing images. I picture myself taking courage to make a declaration to Miss -Larkins. I picture Miss Larkins sinking her head upon my shoulder, and saying, -‘Oh, Mr. Copperfield, can I believe my ears!’ I picture Mr. Larkins -waiting on me next morning, and saying, ‘My dear Copperfield, my daughter -has told me all. Youth is no objection. Here are twenty thousand pounds. Be -happy!’ I picture my aunt relenting, and blessing us; and Mr. Dick and -Doctor Strong being present at the marriage ceremony. I am a sensible fellow, I -believe—I believe, on looking back, I mean—and modest I am sure; -but all this goes on notwithstanding. I repair to the enchanted house, where -there are lights, chattering, music, flowers, officers (I am sorry to see), and -the eldest Miss Larkins, a blaze of beauty. She is dressed in blue, with blue -flowers in her hair—forget-me-nots—as if SHE had any need to wear -forget-me-nots. It is the first really grown-up party that I have ever been -invited to, and I am a little uncomfortable; for I appear not to belong to -anybody, and nobody appears to have anything to say to me, except Mr. Larkins, -who asks me how my schoolfellows are, which he needn’t do, as I have not -come there to be insulted. -</p> - -<p> -But after I have stood in the doorway for some time, and feasted my eyes upon -the goddess of my heart, she approaches me—she, the eldest Miss -Larkins!—and asks me pleasantly, if I dance? -</p> - -<p> -I stammer, with a bow, ‘With you, Miss Larkins.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘With no one else?’ inquires Miss Larkins. -</p> - -<p> -‘I should have no pleasure in dancing with anyone else.’ -</p> - -<p> -Miss Larkins laughs and blushes (or I think she blushes), and says, ‘Next -time but one, I shall be very glad.’ -</p> - -<p> -The time arrives. ‘It is a waltz, I think,’ Miss Larkins doubtfully -observes, when I present myself. ‘Do you waltz? If not, Captain -Bailey—’ -</p> - -<p> -But I do waltz (pretty well, too, as it happens), and I take Miss Larkins out. -I take her sternly from the side of Captain Bailey. He is wretched, I have no -doubt; but he is nothing to me. I have been wretched, too. I waltz with the -eldest Miss Larkins! I don’t know where, among whom, or how long. I only -know that I swim about in space, with a blue angel, in a state of blissful -delirium, until I find myself alone with her in a little room, resting on a -sofa. She admires a flower (pink camellia japonica, price half-a-crown), in my -button-hole. I give it her, and say: -</p> - -<p> -‘I ask an inestimable price for it, Miss Larkins.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Indeed! What is that?’ returns Miss Larkins. -</p> - -<p> -‘A flower of yours, that I may treasure it as a miser does gold.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You’re a bold boy,’ says Miss Larkins. ‘There.’ -</p> - -<p> -She gives it me, not displeased; and I put it to my lips, and then into my -breast. Miss Larkins, laughing, draws her hand through my arm, and says, -‘Now take me back to Captain Bailey.’ -</p> - -<p> -I am lost in the recollection of this delicious interview, and the waltz, when -she comes to me again, with a plain elderly gentleman who has been playing -whist all night, upon her arm, and says: -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh! here is my bold friend! Mr. Chestle wants to know you, Mr. -Copperfield.’ -</p> - -<p> -I feel at once that he is a friend of the family, and am much gratified. -</p> - -<p> -‘I admire your taste, sir,’ says Mr. Chestle. ‘It does you -credit. I suppose you don’t take much interest in hops; but I am a pretty -large grower myself; and if you ever like to come over to our -neighbourhood—neighbourhood of Ashford—and take a run about our -place,—we shall be glad for you to stop as long as you like.’ -</p> - -<p> -I thank Mr. Chestle warmly, and shake hands. I think I am in a happy dream. I -waltz with the eldest Miss Larkins once again. She says I waltz so well! I go -home in a state of unspeakable bliss, and waltz in imagination, all night long, -with my arm round the blue waist of my dear divinity. For some days afterwards, -I am lost in rapturous reflections; but I neither see her in the street, nor -when I call. I am imperfectly consoled for this disappointment by the sacred -pledge, the perished flower. -</p> - -<p> -‘Trotwood,’ says Agnes, one day after dinner. ‘Who do you -think is going to be married tomorrow? Someone you admire.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Not you, I suppose, Agnes?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Not me!’ raising her cheerful face from the music she is copying. -‘Do you hear him, Papa?—The eldest Miss Larkins.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘To—to Captain Bailey?’ I have just enough power to ask. -</p> - -<p> -‘No; to no Captain. To Mr. Chestle, a hop-grower.’ -</p> - -<p> -I am terribly dejected for about a week or two. I take off my ring, I wear my -worst clothes, I use no bear’s grease, and I frequently lament over the -late Miss Larkins’s faded flower. Being, by that time, rather tired of -this kind of life, and having received new provocation from the butcher, I -throw the flower away, go out with the butcher, and gloriously defeat him. -</p> - -<p> -This, and the resumption of my ring, as well as of the bear’s grease in -moderation, are the last marks I can discern, now, in my progress to seventeen. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0019"></a>CHAPTER 19. I LOOK ABOUT ME, AND MAKE A -DISCOVERY</h2> - -<p> -I am doubtful whether I was at heart glad or sorry, when my school-days drew to -an end, and the time came for my leaving Doctor Strong’s. I had been very -happy there, I had a great attachment for the Doctor, and I was eminent and -distinguished in that little world. For these reasons I was sorry to go; but -for other reasons, unsubstantial enough, I was glad. Misty ideas of being a -young man at my own disposal, of the importance attaching to a young man at his -own disposal, of the wonderful things to be seen and done by that magnificent -animal, and the wonderful effects he could not fail to make upon society, lured -me away. So powerful were these visionary considerations in my boyish mind, -that I seem, according to my present way of thinking, to have left school -without natural regret. The separation has not made the impression on me, that -other separations have. I try in vain to recall how I felt about it, and what -its circumstances were; but it is not momentous in my recollection. I suppose -the opening prospect confused me. I know that my juvenile experiences went for -little or nothing then; and that life was more like a great fairy story, which -I was just about to begin to read, than anything else. -</p> - -<p> -My aunt and I had held many grave deliberations on the calling to which I -should be devoted. For a year or more I had endeavoured to find a satisfactory -answer to her often-repeated question, ‘What I would like to be?’ -But I had no particular liking, that I could discover, for anything. If I could -have been inspired with a knowledge of the science of navigation, taken the -command of a fast-sailing expedition, and gone round the world on a triumphant -voyage of discovery, I think I might have considered myself completely suited. -But, in the absence of any such miraculous provision, my desire was to apply -myself to some pursuit that would not lie too heavily upon her purse; and to do -my duty in it, whatever it might be. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Dick had regularly assisted at our councils, with a meditative and sage -demeanour. He never made a suggestion but once; and on that occasion (I -don’t know what put it in his head), he suddenly proposed that I should -be ‘a Brazier’. My aunt received this proposal so very -ungraciously, that he never ventured on a second; but ever afterwards confined -himself to looking watchfully at her for her suggestions, and rattling his -money. -</p> - -<p> -‘Trot, I tell you what, my dear,’ said my aunt, one morning in the -Christmas season when I left school: ‘as this knotty point is still -unsettled, and as we must not make a mistake in our decision if we can help it, -I think we had better take a little breathing-time. In the meanwhile, you must -try to look at it from a new point of view, and not as a schoolboy.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I will, aunt.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘It has occurred to me,’ pursued my aunt, ‘that a little -change, and a glimpse of life out of doors, may be useful in helping you to -know your own mind, and form a cooler judgement. Suppose you were to go down -into the old part of the country again, for instance, and see that—that -out-of-the-way woman with the savagest of names,’ said my aunt, rubbing -her nose, for she could never thoroughly forgive Peggotty for being so called. -</p> - -<p> -‘Of all things in the world, aunt, I should like it best!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Well,’ said my aunt, ‘that’s lucky, for I should like -it too. But it’s natural and rational that you should like it. And I am -very well persuaded that whatever you do, Trot, will always be natural and -rational.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I hope so, aunt.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Your sister, Betsey Trotwood,’ said my aunt, ‘would have -been as natural and rational a girl as ever breathed. You’ll be worthy of -her, won’t you?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I hope I shall be worthy of YOU, aunt. That will be enough for -me.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘It’s a mercy that poor dear baby of a mother of yours didn’t -live,’ said my aunt, looking at me approvingly, ‘or she’d -have been so vain of her boy by this time, that her soft little head would have -been completely turned, if there was anything of it left to turn.’ (My -aunt always excused any weakness of her own in my behalf, by transferring it in -this way to my poor mother.) ‘Bless me, Trotwood, how you do remind me of -her!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Pleasantly, I hope, aunt?’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘He’s as like her, Dick,’ said my aunt, emphatically, -‘he’s as like her, as she was that afternoon before she began to -fret—bless my heart, he’s as like her, as he can look at me out of -his two eyes!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Is he indeed?’ said Mr. Dick. -</p> - -<p> -‘And he’s like David, too,’ said my aunt, decisively. -</p> - -<p> -‘He is very like David!’ said Mr. Dick. -</p> - -<p> -‘But what I want you to be, Trot,’ resumed my aunt, ‘—I -don’t mean physically, but morally; you are very well -physically—is, a firm fellow. A fine firm fellow, with a will of your -own. With resolution,’ said my aunt, shaking her cap at me, and clenching -her hand. ‘With determination. With character, Trot—with strength -of character that is not to be influenced, except on good reason, by anybody, -or by anything. That’s what I want you to be. That’s what your -father and mother might both have been, Heaven knows, and been the better for -it.’ -</p> - -<p> -I intimated that I hoped I should be what she described. -</p> - -<p> -‘That you may begin, in a small way, to have a reliance upon yourself, -and to act for yourself,’ said my aunt, ‘I shall send you upon your -trip, alone. I did think, once, of Mr. Dick’s going with you; but, on -second thoughts, I shall keep him to take care of me.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Dick, for a moment, looked a little disappointed; until the honour and -dignity of having to take care of the most wonderful woman in the world, -restored the sunshine to his face. -</p> - -<p> -‘Besides,’ said my aunt, ‘there’s the -Memorial—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, certainly,’ said Mr. Dick, in a hurry, ‘I intend, -Trotwood, to get that done immediately—it really must be done -immediately! And then it will go in, you know—and then—’ said -Mr. Dick, after checking himself, and pausing a long time, -‘there’ll be a pretty kettle of fish!’ -</p> - -<p> -In pursuance of my aunt’s kind scheme, I was shortly afterwards fitted -out with a handsome purse of money, and a portmanteau, and tenderly dismissed -upon my expedition. At parting, my aunt gave me some good advice, and a good -many kisses; and said that as her object was that I should look about me, and -should think a little, she would recommend me to stay a few days in London, if -I liked it, either on my way down into Suffolk, or in coming back. In a word, I -was at liberty to do what I would, for three weeks or a month; and no other -conditions were imposed upon my freedom than the before-mentioned thinking and -looking about me, and a pledge to write three times a week and faithfully -report myself. -</p> - -<p> -I went to Canterbury first, that I might take leave of Agnes and Mr. Wickfield -(my old room in whose house I had not yet relinquished), and also of the good -Doctor. Agnes was very glad to see me, and told me that the house had not been -like itself since I had left it. -</p> - -<p> -‘I am sure I am not like myself when I am away,’ said I. ‘I -seem to want my right hand, when I miss you. Though that’s not saying -much; for there’s no head in my right hand, and no heart. Everyone who -knows you, consults with you, and is guided by you, Agnes.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Everyone who knows me, spoils me, I believe,’ she answered, -smiling. -</p> - -<p> -‘No. It’s because you are like no one else. You are so good, and so -sweet-tempered. You have such a gentle nature, and you are always right.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You talk,’ said Agnes, breaking into a pleasant laugh, as she sat -at work, ‘as if I were the late Miss Larkins.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Come! It’s not fair to abuse my confidence,’ I answered, -reddening at the recollection of my blue enslaver. ‘But I shall confide -in you, just the same, Agnes. I can never grow out of that. Whenever I fall -into trouble, or fall in love, I shall always tell you, if you’ll let -me—even when I come to fall in love in earnest.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, you have always been in earnest!’ said Agnes, laughing again. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh! that was as a child, or a schoolboy,’ said I, laughing in my -turn, not without being a little shame-faced. ‘Times are altering now, -and I suppose I shall be in a terrible state of earnestness one day or other. -My wonder is, that you are not in earnest yourself, by this time, Agnes.’ -</p> - -<p> -Agnes laughed again, and shook her head. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, I know you are not!’ said I, ‘because if you had been -you would have told me. Or at least’—for I saw a faint blush in her -face, ‘you would have let me find it out for myself. But there is no one -that I know of, who deserves to love you, Agnes. Someone of a nobler character, -and more worthy altogether than anyone I have ever seen here, must rise up, -before I give my consent. In the time to come, I shall have a wary eye on all -admirers; and shall exact a great deal from the successful one, I assure -you.’ -</p> - -<p> -We had gone on, so far, in a mixture of confidential jest and earnest, that had -long grown naturally out of our familiar relations, begun as mere children. But -Agnes, now suddenly lifting up her eyes to mine, and speaking in a different -manner, said: -</p> - -<p> -‘Trotwood, there is something that I want to ask you, and that I may not -have another opportunity of asking for a long time, perhaps—something I -would ask, I think, of no one else. Have you observed any gradual alteration in -Papa?’ -</p> - -<p> -I had observed it, and had often wondered whether she had too. I must have -shown as much, now, in my face; for her eyes were in a moment cast down, and I -saw tears in them. -</p> - -<p> -‘Tell me what it is,’ she said, in a low voice. -</p> - -<p> -‘I think—shall I be quite plain, Agnes, liking him so much?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes,’ she said. -</p> - -<p> -‘I think he does himself no good by the habit that has increased upon him -since I first came here. He is often very nervous—or I fancy so.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘It is not fancy,’ said Agnes, shaking her head. -</p> - -<p> -‘His hand trembles, his speech is not plain, and his eyes look wild. I -have remarked that at those times, and when he is least like himself, he is -most certain to be wanted on some business.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘By Uriah,’ said Agnes. -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes; and the sense of being unfit for it, or of not having understood -it, or of having shown his condition in spite of himself, seems to make him so -uneasy, that next day he is worse, and next day worse, and so he becomes jaded -and haggard. Do not be alarmed by what I say, Agnes, but in this state I saw -him, only the other evening, lay down his head upon his desk, and shed tears -like a child.’ -</p> - -<p> -Her hand passed softly before my lips while I was yet speaking, and in a moment -she had met her father at the door of the room, and was hanging on his -shoulder. The expression of her face, as they both looked towards me, I felt to -be very touching. There was such deep fondness for him, and gratitude to him -for all his love and care, in her beautiful look; and there was such a fervent -appeal to me to deal tenderly by him, even in my inmost thoughts, and to let no -harsh construction find any place against him; she was, at once, so proud of -him and devoted to him, yet so compassionate and sorry, and so reliant upon me -to be so, too; that nothing she could have said would have expressed more to -me, or moved me more. -</p> - -<p> -We were to drink tea at the Doctor’s. We went there at the usual hour; -and round the study fireside found the Doctor, and his young wife, and her -mother. The Doctor, who made as much of my going away as if I were going to -China, received me as an honoured guest; and called for a log of wood to be -thrown on the fire, that he might see the face of his old pupil reddening in -the blaze. -</p> - -<p> -‘I shall not see many more new faces in Trotwood’s stead, -Wickfield,’ said the Doctor, warming his hands; ‘I am getting lazy, -and want ease. I shall relinquish all my young people in another six months, -and lead a quieter life.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You have said so, any time these ten years, Doctor,’ Mr. Wickfield -answered. -</p> - -<p> -‘But now I mean to do it,’ returned the Doctor. ‘My first -master will succeed me—I am in earnest at last—so you’ll soon -have to arrange our contracts, and to bind us firmly to them, like a couple of -knaves.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And to take care,’ said Mr. Wickfield, ‘that you’re -not imposed on, eh? As you certainly would be, in any contract you should make -for yourself. Well! I am ready. There are worse tasks than that, in my -calling.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I shall have nothing to think of then,’ said the Doctor, with a -smile, ‘but my Dictionary; and this other -contract-bargain—Annie.’ -</p> - -<p> -As Mr. Wickfield glanced towards her, sitting at the tea table by Agnes, she -seemed to me to avoid his look with such unwonted hesitation and timidity, that -his attention became fixed upon her, as if something were suggested to his -thoughts. -</p> - -<p> -‘There is a post come in from India, I observe,’ he said, after a -short silence. -</p> - -<p> -‘By the by! and letters from Mr. Jack Maldon!’ said the Doctor. -</p> - -<p> -‘Indeed!’ ‘Poor dear Jack!’ said Mrs. Markleham, -shaking her head. ‘That trying climate!—like living, they tell me, -on a sand-heap, underneath a burning-glass! He looked strong, but he -wasn’t. My dear Doctor, it was his spirit, not his constitution, that he -ventured on so boldly. Annie, my dear, I am sure you must perfectly recollect -that your cousin never was strong—not what can be called ROBUST, you -know,’ said Mrs. Markleham, with emphasis, and looking round upon us -generally, ‘—from the time when my daughter and himself were -children together, and walking about, arm-in-arm, the livelong day.’ -</p> - -<p> -Annie, thus addressed, made no reply. -</p> - -<p> -‘Do I gather from what you say, ma’am, that Mr. Maldon is -ill?’ asked Mr. Wickfield. -</p> - -<p> -‘Ill!’ replied the Old Soldier. ‘My dear sir, he’s all -sorts of things.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Except well?’ said Mr. Wickfield. -</p> - -<p> -‘Except well, indeed!’ said the Old Soldier. ‘He has had -dreadful strokes of the sun, no doubt, and jungle fevers and agues, and every -kind of thing you can mention. As to his liver,’ said the Old Soldier -resignedly, ‘that, of course, he gave up altogether, when he first went -out!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Does he say all this?’ asked Mr. Wickfield. -</p> - -<p> -‘Say? My dear sir,’ returned Mrs. Markleham, shaking her head and -her fan, ‘you little know my poor Jack Maldon when you ask that question. -Say? Not he. You might drag him at the heels of four wild horses first.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Mama!’ said Mrs. Strong. -</p> - -<p> -‘Annie, my dear,’ returned her mother, ‘once for all, I must -really beg that you will not interfere with me, unless it is to confirm what I -say. You know as well as I do that your cousin Maldon would be dragged at the -heels of any number of wild horses—why should I confine myself to four! I -WON’T confine myself to four—eight, sixteen, two-and-thirty, rather -than say anything calculated to overturn the Doctor’s plans.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Wickfield’s plans,’ said the Doctor, stroking his face, and -looking penitently at his adviser. ‘That is to say, our joint plans for -him. I said myself, abroad or at home.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And I said’ added Mr. Wickfield gravely, ‘abroad. I was the -means of sending him abroad. It’s my responsibility.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh! Responsibility!’ said the Old Soldier. ‘Everything was -done for the best, my dear Mr. Wickfield; everything was done for the kindest -and best, we know. But if the dear fellow can’t live there, he -can’t live there. And if he can’t live there, he’ll die -there, sooner than he’ll overturn the Doctor’s plans. I know -him,’ said the Old Soldier, fanning herself, in a sort of calm prophetic -agony, ‘and I know he’ll die there, sooner than he’ll -overturn the Doctor’s plans.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, well, ma’am,’ said the Doctor cheerfully, ‘I am -not bigoted to my plans, and I can overturn them myself. I can substitute some -other plans. If Mr. Jack Maldon comes home on account of ill health, he must -not be allowed to go back, and we must endeavour to make some more suitable and -fortunate provision for him in this country.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Markleham was so overcome by this generous speech—which, I need not -say, she had not at all expected or led up to—that she could only tell -the Doctor it was like himself, and go several times through that operation of -kissing the sticks of her fan, and then tapping his hand with it. After which -she gently chid her daughter Annie, for not being more demonstrative when such -kindnesses were showered, for her sake, on her old playfellow; and entertained -us with some particulars concerning other deserving members of her family, whom -it was desirable to set on their deserving legs. -</p> - -<p> -All this time, her daughter Annie never once spoke, or lifted up her eyes. All -this time, Mr. Wickfield had his glance upon her as she sat by his own -daughter’s side. It appeared to me that he never thought of being -observed by anyone; but was so intent upon her, and upon his own thoughts in -connexion with her, as to be quite absorbed. He now asked what Mr. Jack Maldon -had actually written in reference to himself, and to whom he had written? -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, here,’ said Mrs. Markleham, taking a letter from the -chimney-piece above the Doctor’s head, ‘the dear fellow says to the -Doctor himself—where is it? Oh!—“I am sorry to inform you -that my health is suffering severely, and that I fear I may be reduced to the -necessity of returning home for a time, as the only hope of restoration.” -That’s pretty plain, poor fellow! His only hope of restoration! But -Annie’s letter is plainer still. Annie, show me that letter again.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Not now, mama,’ she pleaded in a low tone. -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear, you absolutely are, on some subjects, one of the most -ridiculous persons in the world,’ returned her mother, ‘and perhaps -the most unnatural to the claims of your own family. We never should have heard -of the letter at all, I believe, unless I had asked for it myself. Do you call -that confidence, my love, towards Doctor Strong? I am surprised. You ought to -know better.’ -</p> - -<p> -The letter was reluctantly produced; and as I handed it to the old lady, I saw -how the unwilling hand from which I took it, trembled. -</p> - -<p> -‘Now let us see,’ said Mrs. Markleham, putting her glass to her -eye, ‘where the passage is. “The remembrance of old times, my -dearest Annie”—and so forth—it’s not there. “The -amiable old Proctor”—who’s he? Dear me, Annie, how illegibly -your cousin Maldon writes, and how stupid I am! “Doctor,” of -course. Ah! amiable indeed!’ Here she left off, to kiss her fan again, -and shake it at the Doctor, who was looking at us in a state of placid -satisfaction. ‘Now I have found it. “You may not be surprised to -hear, Annie,”—no, to be sure, knowing that he never was really -strong; what did I say just now?—“that I have undergone so much in -this distant place, as to have decided to leave it at all hazards; on sick -leave, if I can; on total resignation, if that is not to be obtained. What I -have endured, and do endure here, is insupportable.” And but for the -promptitude of that best of creatures,’ said Mrs. Markleham, telegraphing -the Doctor as before, and refolding the letter, ‘it would be -insupportable to me to think of.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Wickfield said not one word, though the old lady looked to him as if for -his commentary on this intelligence; but sat severely silent, with his eyes -fixed on the ground. Long after the subject was dismissed, and other topics -occupied us, he remained so; seldom raising his eyes, unless to rest them for a -moment, with a thoughtful frown, upon the Doctor, or his wife, or both. -</p> - -<p> -The Doctor was very fond of music. Agnes sang with great sweetness and -expression, and so did Mrs. Strong. They sang together, and played duets -together, and we had quite a little concert. But I remarked two things: first, -that though Annie soon recovered her composure, and was quite herself, there -was a blank between her and Mr. Wickfield which separated them wholly from each -other; secondly, that Mr. Wickfield seemed to dislike the intimacy between her -and Agnes, and to watch it with uneasiness. And now, I must confess, the -recollection of what I had seen on that night when Mr. Maldon went away, first -began to return upon me with a meaning it had never had, and to trouble me. The -innocent beauty of her face was not as innocent to me as it had been; I -mistrusted the natural grace and charm of her manner; and when I looked at -Agnes by her side, and thought how good and true Agnes was, suspicions arose -within me that it was an ill-assorted friendship. -</p> - -<p> -She was so happy in it herself, however, and the other was so happy too, that -they made the evening fly away as if it were but an hour. It closed in an -incident which I well remember. They were taking leave of each other, and Agnes -was going to embrace her and kiss her, when Mr. Wickfield stepped between them, -as if by accident, and drew Agnes quickly away. Then I saw, as though all the -intervening time had been cancelled, and I were still standing in the doorway -on the night of the departure, the expression of that night in the face of Mrs. -Strong, as it confronted his. -</p> - -<p> -I cannot say what an impression this made upon me, or how impossible I found -it, when I thought of her afterwards, to separate her from this look, and -remember her face in its innocent loveliness again. It haunted me when I got -home. I seemed to have left the Doctor’s roof with a dark cloud lowering -on it. The reverence that I had for his grey head, was mingled with -commiseration for his faith in those who were treacherous to him, and with -resentment against those who injured him. The impending shadow of a great -affliction, and a great disgrace that had no distinct form in it yet, fell like -a stain upon the quiet place where I had worked and played as a boy, and did it -a cruel wrong. I had no pleasure in thinking, any more, of the grave old -broad-leaved aloe-trees, which remained shut up in themselves a hundred years -together, and of the trim smooth grass-plot, and the stone urns, and the -Doctor’s walk, and the congenial sound of the Cathedral bell hovering -above them all. It was as if the tranquil sanctuary of my boyhood had been -sacked before my face, and its peace and honour given to the winds. -</p> - -<p> -But morning brought with it my parting from the old house, which Agnes had -filled with her influence; and that occupied my mind sufficiently. I should be -there again soon, no doubt; I might sleep again—perhaps often—in my -old room; but the days of my inhabiting there were gone, and the old time was -past. I was heavier at heart when I packed up such of my books and clothes as -still remained there to be sent to Dover, than I cared to show to Uriah Heep; -who was so officious to help me, that I uncharitably thought him mighty glad -that I was going. -</p> - -<p> -I got away from Agnes and her father, somehow, with an indifferent show of -being very manly, and took my seat upon the box of the London coach. I was so -softened and forgiving, going through the town, that I had half a mind to nod -to my old enemy the butcher, and throw him five shillings to drink. But he -looked such a very obdurate butcher as he stood scraping the great block in the -shop, and moreover, his appearance was so little improved by the loss of a -front tooth which I had knocked out, that I thought it best to make no -advances. -</p> - -<p> -The main object on my mind, I remember, when we got fairly on the road, was to -appear as old as possible to the coachman, and to speak extremely gruff. The -latter point I achieved at great personal inconvenience; but I stuck to it, -because I felt it was a grown-up sort of thing. -</p> - -<p> -‘You are going through, sir?’ said the coachman. -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes, William,’ I said, condescendingly (I knew him); ‘I am -going to London. I shall go down into Suffolk afterwards.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Shooting, sir?’ said the coachman. -</p> - -<p> -He knew as well as I did that it was just as likely, at that time of year, I -was going down there whaling; but I felt complimented, too. -</p> - -<p> -‘I don’t know,’ I said, pretending to be undecided, -‘whether I shall take a shot or not.’ ‘Birds is got wery shy, -I’m told,’ said William. -</p> - -<p> -‘So I understand,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Is Suffolk your county, sir?’ asked William. -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes,’ I said, with some importance. ‘Suffolk’s my -county.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I’m told the dumplings is uncommon fine down there,’ said -William. -</p> - -<p> -I was not aware of it myself, but I felt it necessary to uphold the -institutions of my county, and to evince a familiarity with them; so I shook my -head, as much as to say, ‘I believe you!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And the Punches,’ said William. ‘There’s cattle! A -Suffolk Punch, when he’s a good un, is worth his weight in gold. Did you -ever breed any Suffolk Punches yourself, sir?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘N-no,’ I said, ‘not exactly.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Here’s a gen’lm’n behind me, I’ll pound -it,’ said William, ‘as has bred ‘em by wholesale.’ -</p> - -<p> -The gentleman spoken of was a gentleman with a very unpromising squint, and a -prominent chin, who had a tall white hat on with a narrow flat brim, and whose -close-fitting drab trousers seemed to button all the way up outside his legs -from his boots to his hips. His chin was cocked over the coachman’s -shoulder, so near to me, that his breath quite tickled the back of my head; and -as I looked at him, he leered at the leaders with the eye with which he -didn’t squint, in a very knowing manner. -</p> - -<p> -‘Ain’t you?’ asked William. -</p> - -<p> -‘Ain’t I what?’ said the gentleman behind. -</p> - -<p> -‘Bred them Suffolk Punches by wholesale?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I should think so,’ said the gentleman. ‘There ain’t -no sort of orse that I ain’t bred, and no sort of dorg. Orses and dorgs -is some men’s fancy. They’re wittles and drink to me—lodging, -wife, and children—reading, writing, and Arithmetic—snuff, -tobacker, and sleep.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘That ain’t a sort of man to see sitting behind a coach-box, is it -though?’ said William in my ear, as he handled the reins. -</p> - -<p> -I construed this remark into an indication of a wish that he should have my -place, so I blushingly offered to resign it. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, if you don’t mind, sir,’ said William, ‘I think -it would be more correct.’ -</p> - -<p> -I have always considered this as the first fall I had in life. When I booked my -place at the coach office I had had ‘Box Seat’ written against the -entry, and had given the book-keeper half-a-crown. I was got up in a special -great-coat and shawl, expressly to do honour to that distinguished eminence; -had glorified myself upon it a good deal; and had felt that I was a credit to -the coach. And here, in the very first stage, I was supplanted by a shabby man -with a squint, who had no other merit than smelling like a livery-stables, and -being able to walk across me, more like a fly than a human being, while the -horses were at a canter! -</p> - -<p> -A distrust of myself, which has often beset me in life on small occasions, when -it would have been better away, was assuredly not stopped in its growth by this -little incident outside the Canterbury coach. It was in vain to take refuge in -gruffness of speech. I spoke from the pit of my stomach for the rest of the -journey, but I felt completely extinguished, and dreadfully young. -</p> - -<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> -<img src="images/0349.jpg" alt="0349 " width="100%" /> -</div> - -<h5> -<a href="images/0349.jpg"> -<img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /></a> -</h5> - -<p> -It was curious and interesting, nevertheless, to be sitting up there behind -four horses: well educated, well dressed, and with plenty of money in my -pocket; and to look out for the places where I had slept on my weary journey. I -had abundant occupation for my thoughts, in every conspicuous landmark on the -road. When I looked down at the trampers whom we passed, and saw that -well-remembered style of face turned up, I felt as if the tinker’s -blackened hand were in the bosom of my shirt again. When we clattered through -the narrow street of Chatham, and I caught a glimpse, in passing, of the lane -where the old monster lived who had bought my jacket, I stretched my neck -eagerly to look for the place where I had sat, in the sun and in the shade, -waiting for my money. When we came, at last, within a stage of London, and -passed the veritable Salem House where Mr. Creakle had laid about him with a -heavy hand, I would have given all I had, for lawful permission to get down and -thrash him, and let all the boys out like so many caged sparrows. -</p> - -<p> -We went to the Golden Cross at Charing Cross, then a mouldy sort of -establishment in a close neighbourhood. A waiter showed me into the -coffee-room; and a chambermaid introduced me to my small bedchamber, which -smelt like a hackney-coach, and was shut up like a family vault. I was still -painfully conscious of my youth, for nobody stood in any awe of me at all: the -chambermaid being utterly indifferent to my opinions on any subject, and the -waiter being familiar with me, and offering advice to my inexperience. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well now,’ said the waiter, in a tone of confidence, ‘what -would you like for dinner? Young gentlemen likes poultry in general: have a -fowl!’ -</p> - -<p> -I told him, as majestically as I could, that I wasn’t in the humour for a -fowl. -</p> - -<p> -‘Ain’t you?’ said the waiter. ‘Young gentlemen is -generally tired of beef and mutton: have a weal cutlet!’ -</p> - -<p> -I assented to this proposal, in default of being able to suggest anything else. -</p> - -<p> -‘Do you care for taters?’ said the waiter, with an insinuating -smile, and his head on one side. ‘Young gentlemen generally has been -overdosed with taters.’ -</p> - -<p> -I commanded him, in my deepest voice, to order a veal cutlet and potatoes, and -all things fitting; and to inquire at the bar if there were any letters for -Trotwood Copperfield, Esquire—which I knew there were not, and -couldn’t be, but thought it manly to appear to expect. -</p> - -<p> -He soon came back to say that there were none (at which I was much surprised) -and began to lay the cloth for my dinner in a box by the fire. While he was so -engaged, he asked me what I would take with it; and on my replying ‘Half -a pint of sherry,’ thought it a favourable opportunity, I am afraid, to -extract that measure of wine from the stale leavings at the bottoms of several -small decanters. I am of this opinion, because, while I was reading the -newspaper, I observed him behind a low wooden partition, which was his private -apartment, very busy pouring out of a number of those vessels into one, like a -chemist and druggist making up a prescription. When the wine came, too, I -thought it flat; and it certainly had more English crumbs in it, than were to -be expected in a foreign wine in anything like a pure state, but I was bashful -enough to drink it, and say nothing. -</p> - -<p> -Being then in a pleasant frame of mind (from which I infer that poisoning is -not always disagreeable in some stages of the process), I resolved to go to the -play. It was Covent Garden Theatre that I chose; and there, from the back of a -centre box, I saw Julius Caesar and the new Pantomime. To have all those noble -Romans alive before me, and walking in and out for my entertainment, instead of -being the stern taskmasters they had been at school, was a most novel and -delightful effect. But the mingled reality and mystery of the whole show, the -influence upon me of the poetry, the lights, the music, the company, the smooth -stupendous changes of glittering and brilliant scenery, were so dazzling, and -opened up such illimitable regions of delight, that when I came out into the -rainy street, at twelve o’clock at night, I felt as if I had come from -the clouds, where I had been leading a romantic life for ages, to a bawling, -splashing, link-lighted, umbrella-struggling, hackney-coach-jostling, -patten-clinking, muddy, miserable world. -</p> - -<p> -I had emerged by another door, and stood in the street for a little while, as -if I really were a stranger upon earth: but the unceremonious pushing and -hustling that I received, soon recalled me to myself, and put me in the road -back to the hotel; whither I went, revolving the glorious vision all the way; -and where, after some porter and oysters, I sat revolving it still, at past one -o’clock, with my eyes on the coffee-room fire. -</p> - -<p> -I was so filled with the play, and with the past—for it was, in a manner, -like a shining transparency, through which I saw my earlier life moving -along—that I don’t know when the figure of a handsome well-formed -young man dressed with a tasteful easy negligence which I have reason to -remember very well, became a real presence to me. But I recollect being -conscious of his company without having noticed his coming in—and my -still sitting, musing, over the coffee-room fire. -</p> - -<p> -At last I rose to go to bed, much to the relief of the sleepy waiter, who had -got the fidgets in his legs, and was twisting them, and hitting them, and -putting them through all kinds of contortions in his small pantry. In going -towards the door, I passed the person who had come in, and saw him plainly. I -turned directly, came back, and looked again. He did not know me, but I knew -him in a moment. -</p> - -<p> -At another time I might have wanted the confidence or the decision to speak to -him, and might have put it off until next day, and might have lost him. But, in -the then condition of my mind, where the play was still running high, his -former protection of me appeared so deserving of my gratitude, and my old love -for him overflowed my breast so freshly and spontaneously, that I went up to -him at once, with a fast-beating heart, and said: -</p> - -<p> -‘Steerforth! won’t you speak to me?’ -</p> - -<p> -He looked at me—just as he used to look, sometimes—but I saw no -recognition in his face. -</p> - -<p> -‘You don’t remember me, I am afraid,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘My God!’ he suddenly exclaimed. ‘It’s little -Copperfield!’ -</p> - -<p> -I grasped him by both hands, and could not let them go. But for very shame, and -the fear that it might displease him, I could have held him round the neck and -cried. -</p> - -<p> -‘I never, never, never was so glad! My dear Steerforth, I am so overjoyed -to see you!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And I am rejoiced to see you, too!’ he said, shaking my hands -heartily. ‘Why, Copperfield, old boy, don’t be overpowered!’ -And yet he was glad, too, I thought, to see how the delight I had in meeting -him affected me. -</p> - -<p> -I brushed away the tears that my utmost resolution had not been able to keep -back, and I made a clumsy laugh of it, and we sat down together, side by side. -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, how do you come to be here?’ said Steerforth, clapping me on -the shoulder. -</p> - -<p> -‘I came here by the Canterbury coach, today. I have been adopted by an -aunt down in that part of the country, and have just finished my education -there. How do YOU come to be here, Steerforth?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, I am what they call an Oxford man,’ he returned; ‘that -is to say, I get bored to death down there, periodically—and I am on my -way now to my mother’s. You’re a devilish amiable-looking fellow, -Copperfield. Just what you used to be, now I look at you! Not altered in the -least!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I knew you immediately,’ I said; ‘but you are more easily -remembered.’ -</p> - -<p> -He laughed as he ran his hand through the clustering curls of his hair, and -said gaily: -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes, I am on an expedition of duty. My mother lives a little way out of -town; and the roads being in a beastly condition, and our house tedious enough, -I remained here tonight instead of going on. I have not been in town -half-a-dozen hours, and those I have been dozing and grumbling away at the -play.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I have been at the play, too,’ said I. ‘At Covent Garden. -What a delightful and magnificent entertainment, Steerforth!’ -</p> - -<p> -Steerforth laughed heartily. -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear young Davy,’ he said, clapping me on the shoulder again, -‘you are a very Daisy. The daisy of the field, at sunrise, is not fresher -than you are. I have been at Covent Garden, too, and there never was a more -miserable business. Holloa, you sir!’ -</p> - -<p> -This was addressed to the waiter, who had been very attentive to our -recognition, at a distance, and now came forward deferentially. -</p> - -<p> -‘Where have you put my friend, Mr. Copperfield?’ said Steerforth. -</p> - -<p> -‘Beg your pardon, sir?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Where does he sleep? What’s his number? You know what I -mean,’ said Steerforth. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, sir,’ said the waiter, with an apologetic air. ‘Mr. -Copperfield is at present in forty-four, sir.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And what the devil do you mean,’ retorted Steerforth, ‘by -putting Mr. Copperfield into a little loft over a stable?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, you see we wasn’t aware, sir,’ returned the waiter, -still apologetically, ‘as Mr. Copperfield was anyways particular. We can -give Mr. Copperfield seventy-two, sir, if it would be preferred. Next you, -sir.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Of course it would be preferred,’ said Steerforth. ‘And do -it at once.’ The waiter immediately withdrew to make the exchange. -Steerforth, very much amused at my having been put into forty-four, laughed -again, and clapped me on the shoulder again, and invited me to breakfast with -him next morning at ten o’clock—an invitation I was only too proud -and happy to accept. It being now pretty late, we took our candles and went -upstairs, where we parted with friendly heartiness at his door, and where I -found my new room a great improvement on my old one, it not being at all musty, -and having an immense four-post bedstead in it, which was quite a little landed -estate. Here, among pillows enough for six, I soon fell asleep in a blissful -condition, and dreamed of ancient Rome, Steerforth, and friendship, until the -early morning coaches, rumbling out of the archway underneath, made me dream of -thunder and the gods. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0020"></a>CHAPTER 20. STEERFORTH’S HOME</h2> - -<p> -When the chambermaid tapped at my door at eight o’clock, and informed me -that my shaving-water was outside, I felt severely the having no occasion for -it, and blushed in my bed. The suspicion that she laughed too, when she said -it, preyed upon my mind all the time I was dressing; and gave me, I was -conscious, a sneaking and guilty air when I passed her on the staircase, as I -was going down to breakfast. I was so sensitively aware, indeed, of being -younger than I could have wished, that for some time I could not make up my -mind to pass her at all, under the ignoble circumstances of the case; but, -hearing her there with a broom, stood peeping out of window at King Charles on -horseback, surrounded by a maze of hackney-coaches, and looking anything but -regal in a drizzling rain and a dark-brown fog, until I was admonished by the -waiter that the gentleman was waiting for me. -</p> - -<p> -It was not in the coffee-room that I found Steerforth expecting me, but in a -snug private apartment, red-curtained and Turkey-carpeted, where the fire burnt -bright, and a fine hot breakfast was set forth on a table covered with a clean -cloth; and a cheerful miniature of the room, the fire, the breakfast, -Steerforth, and all, was shining in the little round mirror over the sideboard. -I was rather bashful at first, Steerforth being so self-possessed, and elegant, -and superior to me in all respects (age included); but his easy patronage soon -put that to rights, and made me quite at home. I could not enough admire the -change he had wrought in the Golden Cross; or compare the dull forlorn state I -had held yesterday, with this morning’s comfort and this morning’s -entertainment. As to the waiter’s familiarity, it was quenched as if it -had never been. He attended on us, as I may say, in sackcloth and ashes. -</p> - -<p> -‘Now, Copperfield,’ said Steerforth, when we were alone, ‘I -should like to hear what you are doing, and where you are going, and all about -you. I feel as if you were my property.’ Glowing with pleasure to find -that he had still this interest in me, I told him how my aunt had proposed the -little expedition that I had before me, and whither it tended. -</p> - -<p> -‘As you are in no hurry, then,’ said Steerforth, ‘come home -with me to Highgate, and stay a day or two. You will be pleased with my -mother—she is a little vain and prosy about me, but that you can forgive -her—and she will be pleased with you.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I should like to be as sure of that, as you are kind enough to say you -are,’ I answered, smiling. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh!’ said Steerforth, ‘everyone who likes me, has a claim on -her that is sure to be acknowledged.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Then I think I shall be a favourite,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Good!’ said Steerforth. ‘Come and prove it. We will go and -see the lions for an hour or two—it’s something to have a fresh -fellow like you to show them to, Copperfield—and then we’ll journey -out to Highgate by the coach.’ -</p> - -<p> -I could hardly believe but that I was in a dream, and that I should wake -presently in number forty-four, to the solitary box in the coffee-room and the -familiar waiter again. After I had written to my aunt and told her of my -fortunate meeting with my admired old schoolfellow, and my acceptance of his -invitation, we went out in a hackney-chariot, and saw a Panorama and some other -sights, and took a walk through the Museum, where I could not help observing -how much Steerforth knew, on an infinite variety of subjects, and of how little -account he seemed to make his knowledge. -</p> - -<p> -‘You’ll take a high degree at college, Steerforth,’ said I, -‘if you have not done so already; and they will have good reason to be -proud of you.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I take a degree!’ cried Steerforth. ‘Not I! my dear -Daisy—will you mind my calling you Daisy?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Not at all!’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘That’s a good fellow! My dear Daisy,’ said Steerforth, -laughing. ‘I have not the least desire or intention to distinguish myself -in that way. I have done quite sufficient for my purpose. I find that I am -heavy company enough for myself as I am.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘But the fame—’ I was beginning. -</p> - -<p> -‘You romantic Daisy!’ said Steerforth, laughing still more -heartily: ‘why should I trouble myself, that a parcel of heavy-headed -fellows may gape and hold up their hands? Let them do it at some other man. -There’s fame for him, and he’s welcome to it.’ -</p> - -<p> -I was abashed at having made so great a mistake, and was glad to change the -subject. Fortunately it was not difficult to do, for Steerforth could always -pass from one subject to another with a carelessness and lightness that were -his own. -</p> - -<p> -Lunch succeeded to our sight-seeing, and the short winter day wore away so -fast, that it was dusk when the stage-coach stopped with us at an old brick -house at Highgate on the summit of the hill. An elderly lady, though not very -far advanced in years, with a proud carriage and a handsome face, was in the -doorway as we alighted; and greeting Steerforth as ‘My dearest -James,’ folded him in her arms. To this lady he presented me as his -mother, and she gave me a stately welcome. -</p> - -<p> -It was a genteel old-fashioned house, very quiet and orderly. From the windows -of my room I saw all London lying in the distance like a great vapour, with -here and there some lights twinkling through it. I had only time, in dressing, -to glance at the solid furniture, the framed pieces of work (done, I supposed, -by Steerforth’s mother when she was a girl), and some pictures in crayons -of ladies with powdered hair and bodices, coming and going on the walls, as the -newly-kindled fire crackled and sputtered, when I was called to dinner. -</p> - -<p> -There was a second lady in the dining-room, of a slight short figure, dark, and -not agreeable to look at, but with some appearance of good looks too, who -attracted my attention: perhaps because I had not expected to see her; perhaps -because I found myself sitting opposite to her; perhaps because of something -really remarkable in her. She had black hair and eager black eyes, and was -thin, and had a scar upon her lip. It was an old scar—I should rather -call it seam, for it was not discoloured, and had healed years ago—which -had once cut through her mouth, downward towards the chin, but was now barely -visible across the table, except above and on her upper lip, the shape of which -it had altered. I concluded in my own mind that she was about thirty years of -age, and that she wished to be married. She was a little dilapidated—like -a house—with having been so long to let; yet had, as I have said, an -appearance of good looks. Her thinness seemed to be the effect of some wasting -fire within her, which found a vent in her gaunt eyes. -</p> - -<p> -She was introduced as Miss Dartle, and both Steerforth and his mother called -her Rosa. I found that she lived there, and had been for a long time Mrs. -Steerforth’s companion. It appeared to me that she never said anything -she wanted to say, outright; but hinted it, and made a great deal more of it by -this practice. For example, when Mrs. Steerforth observed, more in jest than -earnest, that she feared her son led but a wild life at college, Miss Dartle -put in thus: -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, really? You know how ignorant I am, and that I only ask for -information, but isn’t it always so? I thought that kind of life was on -all hands understood to be—eh?’ ‘It is education for a very -grave profession, if you mean that, Rosa,’ Mrs. Steerforth answered with -some coldness. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh! Yes! That’s very true,’ returned Miss Dartle. ‘But -isn’t it, though?—I want to be put right, if I am -wrong—isn’t it, really?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Really what?’ said Mrs. Steerforth. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh! You mean it’s not!’ returned Miss Dartle. ‘Well, -I’m very glad to hear it! Now, I know what to do! That’s the -advantage of asking. I shall never allow people to talk before me about -wastefulness and profligacy, and so forth, in connexion with that life, any -more.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And you will be right,’ said Mrs. Steerforth. ‘My -son’s tutor is a conscientious gentleman; and if I had not implicit -reliance on my son, I should have reliance on him.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Should you?’ said Miss Dartle. ‘Dear me! Conscientious, is -he? Really conscientious, now?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes, I am convinced of it,’ said Mrs. Steerforth. -</p> - -<p> -‘How very nice!’ exclaimed Miss Dartle. ‘What a comfort! -Really conscientious? Then he’s not—but of course he can’t -be, if he’s really conscientious. Well, I shall be quite happy in my -opinion of him, from this time. You can’t think how it elevates him in my -opinion, to know for certain that he’s really conscientious!’ -</p> - -<p> -Her own views of every question, and her correction of everything that was said -to which she was opposed, Miss Dartle insinuated in the same way: sometimes, I -could not conceal from myself, with great power, though in contradiction even -of Steerforth. An instance happened before dinner was done. Mrs. Steerforth -speaking to me about my intention of going down into Suffolk, I said at hazard -how glad I should be, if Steerforth would only go there with me; and explaining -to him that I was going to see my old nurse, and Mr. Peggotty’s family, I -reminded him of the boatman whom he had seen at school. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh! That bluff fellow!’ said Steerforth. ‘He had a son with -him, hadn’t he?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No. That was his nephew,’ I replied; ‘whom he adopted, -though, as a son. He has a very pretty little niece too, whom he adopted as a -daughter. In short, his house—or rather his boat, for he lives in one, on -dry land—is full of people who are objects of his generosity and -kindness. You would be delighted to see that household.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Should I?’ said Steerforth. ‘Well, I think I should. I must -see what can be done. It would be worth a journey (not to mention the pleasure -of a journey with you, Daisy), to see that sort of people together, and to make -one of ‘em.’ -</p> - -<p> -My heart leaped with a new hope of pleasure. But it was in reference to the -tone in which he had spoken of ‘that sort of people’, that Miss -Dartle, whose sparkling eyes had been watchful of us, now broke in again. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, but, really? Do tell me. Are they, though?’ she said. -</p> - -<p> -‘Are they what? And are who what?’ said Steerforth. -</p> - -<p> -‘That sort of people.—-Are they really animals and clods, and -beings of another order? I want to know SO much.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, there’s a pretty wide separation between them and us,’ -said Steerforth, with indifference. ‘They are not to be expected to be as -sensitive as we are. Their delicacy is not to be shocked, or hurt easily. They -are wonderfully virtuous, I dare say—some people contend for that, at -least; and I am sure I don’t want to contradict them—but they have -not very fine natures, and they may be thankful that, like their coarse rough -skins, they are not easily wounded.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Really!’ said Miss Dartle. ‘Well, I don’t know, now, -when I have been better pleased than to hear that. It’s so consoling! -It’s such a delight to know that, when they suffer, they don’t -feel! Sometimes I have been quite uneasy for that sort of people; but now I -shall just dismiss the idea of them, altogether. Live and learn. I had my -doubts, I confess, but now they’re cleared up. I didn’t know, and -now I do know, and that shows the advantage of asking—don’t -it?’ -</p> - -<p> -I believed that Steerforth had said what he had, in jest, or to draw Miss -Dartle out; and I expected him to say as much when she was gone, and we two -were sitting before the fire. But he merely asked me what I thought of her. -</p> - -<p> -‘She is very clever, is she not?’ I asked. -</p> - -<p> -‘Clever! She brings everything to a grindstone,’ said Steerforth, -and sharpens it, as she has sharpened her own face and figure these years past. -She has worn herself away by constant sharpening. She is all edge.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘What a remarkable scar that is upon her lip!’ I said. -</p> - -<p> -Steerforth’s face fell, and he paused a moment. -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, the fact is,’ he returned, ‘I did that.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘By an unfortunate accident!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No. I was a young boy, and she exasperated me, and I threw a hammer at -her. A promising young angel I must have been!’ I was deeply sorry to -have touched on such a painful theme, but that was useless now. -</p> - -<p> -‘She has borne the mark ever since, as you see,’ said Steerforth; -‘and she’ll bear it to her grave, if she ever rests in -one—though I can hardly believe she will ever rest anywhere. She was the -motherless child of a sort of cousin of my father’s. He died one day. My -mother, who was then a widow, brought her here to be company to her. She has a -couple of thousand pounds of her own, and saves the interest of it every year, -to add to the principal. There’s the history of Miss Rosa Dartle for -you.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And I have no doubt she loves you like a brother?’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Humph!’ retorted Steerforth, looking at the fire. ‘Some -brothers are not loved over much; and some love—but help yourself, -Copperfield! We’ll drink the daisies of the field, in compliment to you; -and the lilies of the valley that toil not, neither do they spin, in compliment -to me—the more shame for me!’ A moody smile that had overspread his -features cleared off as he said this merrily, and he was his own frank, winning -self again. -</p> - -<p> -I could not help glancing at the scar with a painful interest when we went in -to tea. It was not long before I observed that it was the most susceptible part -of her face, and that, when she turned pale, that mark altered first, and -became a dull, lead-coloured streak, lengthening out to its full extent, like a -mark in invisible ink brought to the fire. There was a little altercation -between her and Steerforth about a cast of the dice at backgammon—when I -thought her, for one moment, in a storm of rage; and then I saw it start forth -like the old writing on the wall. -</p> - -<p> -It was no matter of wonder to me to find Mrs. Steerforth devoted to her son. -She seemed to be able to speak or think about nothing else. She showed me his -picture as an infant, in a locket, with some of his baby-hair in it; she showed -me his picture as he had been when I first knew him; and she wore at her breast -his picture as he was now. All the letters he had ever written to her, she kept -in a cabinet near her own chair by the fire; and she would have read me some of -them, and I should have been very glad to hear them too, if he had not -interposed, and coaxed her out of the design. -</p> - -<p> -‘It was at Mr. Creakle’s, my son tells me, that you first became -acquainted,’ said Mrs. Steerforth, as she and I were talking at one -table, while they played backgammon at another. ‘Indeed, I recollect his -speaking, at that time, of a pupil younger than himself who had taken his fancy -there; but your name, as you may suppose, has not lived in my memory.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘He was very generous and noble to me in those days, I assure you, -ma’am,’ said I, ‘and I stood in need of such a friend. I -should have been quite crushed without him.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘He is always generous and noble,’ said Mrs. Steerforth, proudly. -</p> - -<p> -I subscribed to this with all my heart, God knows. She knew I did; for the -stateliness of her manner already abated towards me, except when she spoke in -praise of him, and then her air was always lofty. -</p> - -<p> -‘It was not a fit school generally for my son,’ said she; -‘far from it; but there were particular circumstances to be considered at -the time, of more importance even than that selection. My son’s high -spirit made it desirable that he should be placed with some man who felt its -superiority, and would be content to bow himself before it; and we found such a -man there.’ -</p> - -<p> -I knew that, knowing the fellow. And yet I did not despise him the more for it, -but thought it a redeeming quality in him if he could be allowed any grace for -not resisting one so irresistible as Steerforth. -</p> - -<p> -‘My son’s great capacity was tempted on, there, by a feeling of -voluntary emulation and conscious pride,’ the fond lady went on to say. -‘He would have risen against all constraint; but he found himself the -monarch of the place, and he haughtily determined to be worthy of his station. -It was like himself.’ -</p> - -<p> -I echoed, with all my heart and soul, that it was like himself. -</p> - -<p> -‘So my son took, of his own will, and on no compulsion, to the course in -which he can always, when it is his pleasure, outstrip every competitor,’ -she pursued. ‘My son informs me, Mr. Copperfield, that you were quite -devoted to him, and that when you met yesterday you made yourself known to him -with tears of joy. I should be an affected woman if I made any pretence of -being surprised by my son’s inspiring such emotions; but I cannot be -indifferent to anyone who is so sensible of his merit, and I am very glad to -see you here, and can assure you that he feels an unusual friendship for you, -and that you may rely on his protection.’ -</p> - -<p> -Miss Dartle played backgammon as eagerly as she did everything else. If I had -seen her, first, at the board, I should have fancied that her figure had got -thin, and her eyes had got large, over that pursuit, and no other in the world. -But I am very much mistaken if she missed a word of this, or lost a look of -mine as I received it with the utmost pleasure, and honoured by Mrs. -Steerforth’s confidence, felt older than I had done since I left -Canterbury. -</p> - -<p> -When the evening was pretty far spent, and a tray of glasses and decanters came -in, Steerforth promised, over the fire, that he would seriously think of going -down into the country with me. There was no hurry, he said; a week hence would -do; and his mother hospitably said the same. While we were talking, he more -than once called me Daisy; which brought Miss Dartle out again. -</p> - -<p> -‘But really, Mr. Copperfield,’ she asked, ‘is it a nickname? -And why does he give it you? Is it—eh?—because he thinks you young -and innocent? I am so stupid in these things.’ -</p> - -<p> -I coloured in replying that I believed it was. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh!’ said Miss Dartle. ‘Now I am glad to know that! I ask -for information, and I am glad to know it. He thinks you young and innocent; -and so you are his friend. Well, that’s quite delightful!’ -</p> - -<p> -She went to bed soon after this, and Mrs. Steerforth retired too. Steerforth -and I, after lingering for half-an-hour over the fire, talking about Traddles -and all the rest of them at old Salem House, went upstairs together. -Steerforth’s room was next to mine, and I went in to look at it. It was a -picture of comfort, full of easy-chairs, cushions and footstools, worked by his -mother’s hand, and with no sort of thing omitted that could help to -render it complete. Finally, her handsome features looked down on her darling -from a portrait on the wall, as if it were even something to her that her -likeness should watch him while he slept. -</p> - -<p> -I found the fire burning clear enough in my room by this time, and the curtains -drawn before the windows and round the bed, giving it a very snug appearance. I -sat down in a great chair upon the hearth to meditate on my happiness; and had -enjoyed the contemplation of it for some time, when I found a likeness of Miss -Dartle looking eagerly at me from above the chimney-piece. -</p> - -<p> -It was a startling likeness, and necessarily had a startling look. The painter -hadn’t made the scar, but I made it; and there it was, coming and going; -now confined to the upper lip as I had seen it at dinner, and now showing the -whole extent of the wound inflicted by the hammer, as I had seen it when she -was passionate. -</p> - -<p> -I wondered peevishly why they couldn’t put her anywhere else instead of -quartering her on me. To get rid of her, I undressed quickly, extinguished my -light, and went to bed. But, as I fell asleep, I could not forget that she was -still there looking, ‘Is it really, though? I want to know’; and -when I awoke in the night, I found that I was uneasily asking all sorts of -people in my dreams whether it really was or not—without knowing what I -meant. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0021"></a>CHAPTER 21. LITTLE EM’LY</h2> - -<p> -There was a servant in that house, a man who, I understood, was usually with -Steerforth, and had come into his service at the University, who was in -appearance a pattern of respectability. I believe there never existed in his -station a more respectable-looking man. He was taciturn, soft-footed, very -quiet in his manner, deferential, observant, always at hand when wanted, and -never near when not wanted; but his great claim to consideration was his -respectability. He had not a pliant face, he had rather a stiff neck, rather a -tight smooth head with short hair clinging to it at the sides, a soft way of -speaking, with a peculiar habit of whispering the letter S so distinctly, that -he seemed to use it oftener than any other man; but every peculiarity that he -had he made respectable. If his nose had been upside-down, he would have made -that respectable. He surrounded himself with an atmosphere of respectability, -and walked secure in it. It would have been next to impossible to suspect him -of anything wrong, he was so thoroughly respectable. Nobody could have thought -of putting him in a livery, he was so highly respectable. To have imposed any -derogatory work upon him, would have been to inflict a wanton insult on the -feelings of a most respectable man. And of this, I noticed—the -women-servants in the household were so intuitively conscious, that they always -did such work themselves, and generally while he read the paper by the pantry -fire. -</p> - -<p> -Such a self-contained man I never saw. But in that quality, as in every other -he possessed, he only seemed to be the more respectable. Even the fact that no -one knew his Christian name, seemed to form a part of his respectability. -Nothing could be objected against his surname, Littimer, by which he was known. -Peter might have been hanged, or Tom transported; but Littimer was perfectly -respectable. -</p> - -<p> -It was occasioned, I suppose, by the reverend nature of respectability in the -abstract, but I felt particularly young in this man’s presence. How old -he was himself, I could not guess—and that again went to his credit on -the same score; for in the calmness of respectability he might have numbered -fifty years as well as thirty. -</p> - -<p> -Littimer was in my room in the morning before I was up, to bring me that -reproachful shaving-water, and to put out my clothes. When I undrew the -curtains and looked out of bed, I saw him, in an equable temperature of -respectability, unaffected by the east wind of January, and not even breathing -frostily, standing my boots right and left in the first dancing position, and -blowing specks of dust off my coat as he laid it down like a baby. -</p> - -<p> -I gave him good morning, and asked him what o’clock it was. He took out -of his pocket the most respectable hunting-watch I ever saw, and preventing the -spring with his thumb from opening far, looked in at the face as if he were -consulting an oracular oyster, shut it up again, and said, if I pleased, it was -half past eight. -</p> - -<p> -‘Mr. Steerforth will be glad to hear how you have rested, sir.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Thank you,’ said I, ‘very well indeed. Is Mr. Steerforth -quite well?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Thank you, sir, Mr. Steerforth is tolerably well.’ Another of his -characteristics—no use of superlatives. A cool calm medium always. -</p> - -<p> -‘Is there anything more I can have the honour of doing for you, sir? The -warning-bell will ring at nine; the family take breakfast at half past -nine.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Nothing, I thank you.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I thank YOU, sir, if you please’; and with that, and with a little -inclination of his head when he passed the bed-side, as an apology for -correcting me, he went out, shutting the door as delicately as if I had just -fallen into a sweet sleep on which my life depended. -</p> - -<p> -Every morning we held exactly this conversation: never any more, and never any -less: and yet, invariably, however far I might have been lifted out of myself -over-night, and advanced towards maturer years, by Steerforth’s -companionship, or Mrs. Steerforth’s confidence, or Miss Dartle’s -conversation, in the presence of this most respectable man I became, as our -smaller poets sing, ‘a boy again’. -</p> - -<p> -He got horses for us; and Steerforth, who knew everything, gave me lessons in -riding. He provided foils for us, and Steerforth gave me lessons in -fencing—gloves, and I began, of the same master, to improve in boxing. It -gave me no manner of concern that Steerforth should find me a novice in these -sciences, but I never could bear to show my want of skill before the -respectable Littimer. I had no reason to believe that Littimer understood such -arts himself; he never led me to suppose anything of the kind, by so much as -the vibration of one of his respectable eyelashes; yet whenever he was by, -while we were practising, I felt myself the greenest and most inexperienced of -mortals. -</p> - -<p> -I am particular about this man, because he made a particular effect on me at -that time, and because of what took place thereafter. -</p> - -<p> -The week passed away in a most delightful manner. It passed rapidly, as may be -supposed, to one entranced as I was; and yet it gave me so many occasions for -knowing Steerforth better, and admiring him more in a thousand respects, that -at its close I seemed to have been with him for a much longer time. A dashing -way he had of treating me like a plaything, was more agreeable to me than any -behaviour he could have adopted. It reminded me of our old acquaintance; it -seemed the natural sequel of it; it showed me that he was unchanged; it -relieved me of any uneasiness I might have felt, in comparing my merits with -his, and measuring my claims upon his friendship by any equal standard; above -all, it was a familiar, unrestrained, affectionate demeanour that he used -towards no one else. As he had treated me at school differently from all the -rest, I joyfully believed that he treated me in life unlike any other friend he -had. I believed that I was nearer to his heart than any other friend, and my -own heart warmed with attachment to him. He made up his mind to go with me into -the country, and the day arrived for our departure. He had been doubtful at -first whether to take Littimer or not, but decided to leave him at home. The -respectable creature, satisfied with his lot whatever it was, arranged our -portmanteaux on the little carriage that was to take us into London, as if they -were intended to defy the shocks of ages, and received my modestly proffered -donation with perfect tranquillity. -</p> - -<p> -We bade adieu to Mrs. Steerforth and Miss Dartle, with many thanks on my part, -and much kindness on the devoted mother’s. The last thing I saw was -Littimer’s unruffled eye; fraught, as I fancied, with the silent -conviction that I was very young indeed. -</p> - -<p> -What I felt, in returning so auspiciously to the old familiar places, I shall -not endeavour to describe. We went down by the Mail. I was so concerned, I -recollect, even for the honour of Yarmouth, that when Steerforth said, as we -drove through its dark streets to the inn, that, as well as he could make out, -it was a good, queer, out-of-the-way kind of hole, I was highly pleased. We -went to bed on our arrival (I observed a pair of dirty shoes and gaiters in -connexion with my old friend the Dolphin as we passed that door), and -breakfasted late in the morning. Steerforth, who was in great spirits, had been -strolling about the beach before I was up, and had made acquaintance, he said, -with half the boatmen in the place. Moreover, he had seen, in the distance, -what he was sure must be the identical house of Mr. Peggotty, with smoke coming -out of the chimney; and had had a great mind, he told me, to walk in and swear -he was myself grown out of knowledge. -</p> - -<p> -‘When do you propose to introduce me there, Daisy?’ he said. -‘I am at your disposal. Make your own arrangements.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, I was thinking that this evening would be a good time, Steerforth, -when they are all sitting round the fire. I should like you to see it when -it’s snug, it’s such a curious place.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘So be it!’ returned Steerforth. ‘This evening.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I shall not give them any notice that we are here, you know,’ said -I, delighted. ‘We must take them by surprise.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, of course! It’s no fun,’ said Steerforth, ‘unless -we take them by surprise. Let us see the natives in their aboriginal -condition.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Though they ARE that sort of people that you mentioned,’ I -returned. -</p> - -<p> -‘Aha! What! you recollect my skirmishes with Rosa, do you?’ he -exclaimed with a quick look. ‘Confound the girl, I am half afraid of her. -She’s like a goblin to me. But never mind her. Now what are you going to -do? You are going to see your nurse, I suppose?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, yes,’ I said, ‘I must see Peggotty first of all.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Well,’ replied Steerforth, looking at his watch. ‘Suppose I -deliver you up to be cried over for a couple of hours. Is that long -enough?’ -</p> - -<p> -I answered, laughing, that I thought we might get through it in that time, but -that he must come also; for he would find that his renown had preceded him, and -that he was almost as great a personage as I was. -</p> - -<p> -‘I’ll come anywhere you like,’ said Steerforth, ‘or do -anything you like. Tell me where to come to; and in two hours I’ll -produce myself in any state you please, sentimental or comical.’ -</p> - -<p> -I gave him minute directions for finding the residence of Mr. Barkis, carrier -to Blunderstone and elsewhere; and, on this understanding, went out alone. -There was a sharp bracing air; the ground was dry; the sea was crisp and clear; -the sun was diffusing abundance of light, if not much warmth; and everything -was fresh and lively. I was so fresh and lively myself, in the pleasure of -being there, that I could have stopped the people in the streets and shaken -hands with them. -</p> - -<p> -The streets looked small, of course. The streets that we have only seen as -children always do, I believe, when we go back to them. But I had forgotten -nothing in them, and found nothing changed, until I came to Mr. Omer’s -shop. OMER AND Joram was now written up, where OMER used to be; but the -inscription, DRAPER, TAILOR, HABERDASHER, FUNERAL FURNISHER, &c., remained -as it was. -</p> - -<p> -My footsteps seemed to tend so naturally to the shop door, after I had read -these words from over the way, that I went across the road and looked in. There -was a pretty woman at the back of the shop, dancing a little child in her arms, -while another little fellow clung to her apron. I had no difficulty in -recognizing either Minnie or Minnie’s children. The glass door of the -parlour was not open; but in the workshop across the yard I could faintly hear -the old tune playing, as if it had never left off. -</p> - -<p> -‘Is Mr. Omer at home?’ said I, entering. ‘I should like to -see him, for a moment, if he is.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh yes, sir, he is at home,’ said Minnie; ‘the weather -don’t suit his asthma out of doors. Joe, call your grandfather!’ -</p> - -<p> -The little fellow, who was holding her apron, gave such a lusty shout, that the -sound of it made him bashful, and he buried his face in her skirts, to her -great admiration. I heard a heavy puffing and blowing coming towards us, and -soon Mr. Omer, shorter-winded than of yore, but not much older-looking, stood -before me. -</p> - -<p> -‘Servant, sir,’ said Mr. Omer. ‘What can I do for you, -sir?’ ‘You can shake hands with me, Mr. Omer, if you please,’ -said I, putting out my own. ‘You were very good-natured to me once, when -I am afraid I didn’t show that I thought so.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Was I though?’ returned the old man. ‘I’m glad to hear -it, but I don’t remember when. Are you sure it was me?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Quite.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I think my memory has got as short as my breath,’ said Mr. Omer, -looking at me and shaking his head; ‘for I don’t remember -you.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Don’t you remember your coming to the coach to meet me, and my -having breakfast here, and our riding out to Blunderstone together: you, and I, -and Mrs. Joram, and Mr. Joram too—who wasn’t her husband -then?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, Lord bless my soul!’ exclaimed Mr. Omer, after being thrown -by his surprise into a fit of coughing, ‘you don’t say so! Minnie, -my dear, you recollect? Dear me, yes; the party was a lady, I think?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘My mother,’ I rejoined. -</p> - -<p> -‘To—be—sure,’ said Mr. Omer, touching my waistcoat with -his forefinger, ‘and there was a little child too! There was two parties. -The little party was laid along with the other party. Over at Blunderstone it -was, of course. Dear me! And how have you been since?’ -</p> - -<p> -Very well, I thanked him, as I hoped he had been too. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh! nothing to grumble at, you know,’ said Mr. Omer. ‘I find -my breath gets short, but it seldom gets longer as a man gets older. I take it -as it comes, and make the most of it. That’s the best way, ain’t -it?’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Omer coughed again, in consequence of laughing, and was assisted out of his -fit by his daughter, who now stood close beside us, dancing her smallest child -on the counter. -</p> - -<p> -‘Dear me!’ said Mr. Omer. ‘Yes, to be sure. Two parties! Why, -in that very ride, if you’ll believe me, the day was named for my Minnie -to marry Joram. “Do name it, sir,” says Joram. “Yes, do, -father,” says Minnie. And now he’s come into the business. And look -here! The youngest!’ -</p> - -<p> -Minnie laughed, and stroked her banded hair upon her temples, as her father put -one of his fat fingers into the hand of the child she was dancing on the -counter. -</p> - -<p> -‘Two parties, of course!’ said Mr. Omer, nodding his head -retrospectively. ‘Ex-actly so! And Joram’s at work, at this minute, -on a grey one with silver nails, not this measurement’—the -measurement of the dancing child upon the counter—‘by a good two -inches.—-Will you take something?’ -</p> - -<p> -I thanked him, but declined. -</p> - -<p> -‘Let me see,’ said Mr. Omer. ‘Barkis’s the -carrier’s wife—Peggotty’s the boatman’s -sister—she had something to do with your family? She was in service -there, sure?’ -</p> - -<p> -My answering in the affirmative gave him great satisfaction. -</p> - -<p> -‘I believe my breath will get long next, my memory’s getting so -much so,’ said Mr. Omer. ‘Well, sir, we’ve got a young -relation of hers here, under articles to us, that has as elegant a taste in the -dress-making business—I assure you I don’t believe there’s a -Duchess in England can touch her.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Not little Em’ly?’ said I, involuntarily. -</p> - -<p> -‘Em’ly’s her name,’ said Mr. Omer, ‘and -she’s little too. But if you’ll believe me, she has such a face of -her own that half the women in this town are mad against her.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Nonsense, father!’ cried Minnie. -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear,’ said Mr. Omer, ‘I don’t say it’s the -case with you,’ winking at me, ‘but I say that half the women in -Yarmouth—ah! and in five mile round—are mad against that -girl.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Then she should have kept to her own station in life, father,’ -said Minnie, ‘and not have given them any hold to talk about her, and -then they couldn’t have done it.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Couldn’t have done it, my dear!’ retorted Mr. Omer. -‘Couldn’t have done it! Is that YOUR knowledge of life? What is -there that any woman couldn’t do, that she shouldn’t -do—especially on the subject of another woman’s good looks?’ -</p> - -<p> -I really thought it was all over with Mr. Omer, after he had uttered this -libellous pleasantry. He coughed to that extent, and his breath eluded all his -attempts to recover it with that obstinacy, that I fully expected to see his -head go down behind the counter, and his little black breeches, with the rusty -little bunches of ribbons at the knees, come quivering up in a last ineffectual -struggle. At length, however, he got better, though he still panted hard, and -was so exhausted that he was obliged to sit on the stool of the shop-desk. -</p> - -<p> -‘You see,’ he said, wiping his head, and breathing with difficulty, -‘she hasn’t taken much to any companions here; she hasn’t -taken kindly to any particular acquaintances and friends, not to mention -sweethearts. In consequence, an ill-natured story got about, that Em’ly -wanted to be a lady. Now my opinion is, that it came into circulation -principally on account of her sometimes saying, at the school, that if she was -a lady she would like to do so-and-so for her uncle—don’t you -see?—and buy him such-and-such fine things.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I assure you, Mr. Omer, she has said so to me,’ I returned -eagerly, ‘when we were both children.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Omer nodded his head and rubbed his chin. ‘Just so. Then out of a -very little, she could dress herself, you see, better than most others could -out of a deal, and that made things unpleasant. Moreover, she was rather what -might be called wayward—I’ll go so far as to say what I should call -wayward myself,’ said Mr. Omer; ‘didn’t know her own mind -quite—a little spoiled—and couldn’t, at first, exactly bind -herself down. No more than that was ever said against her, Minnie?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No, father,’ said Mrs. Joram. ‘That’s the worst, I -believe.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘So when she got a situation,’ said Mr. Omer, ‘to keep a -fractious old lady company, they didn’t very well agree, and she -didn’t stop. At last she came here, apprenticed for three years. Nearly -two of ‘em are over, and she has been as good a girl as ever was. Worth -any six! Minnie, is she worth any six, now?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes, father,’ replied Minnie. ‘Never say I detracted from -her!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Very good,’ said Mr. Omer. ‘That’s right. And so, -young gentleman,’ he added, after a few moments’ further rubbing of -his chin, ‘that you may not consider me long-winded as well as -short-breathed, I believe that’s all about it.’ -</p> - -<p> -As they had spoken in a subdued tone, while speaking of Em’ly, I had no -doubt that she was near. On my asking now, if that were not so, Mr. Omer nodded -yes, and nodded towards the door of the parlour. My hurried inquiry if I might -peep in, was answered with a free permission; and, looking through the glass, I -saw her sitting at her work. I saw her, a most beautiful little creature, with -the cloudless blue eyes, that had looked into my childish heart, turned -laughingly upon another child of Minnie’s who was playing near her; with -enough of wilfulness in her bright face to justify what I had heard; with much -of the old capricious coyness lurking in it; but with nothing in her pretty -looks, I am sure, but what was meant for goodness and for happiness, and what -was on a good and happy course. -</p> - -<p> -The tune across the yard that seemed as if it never had left off—alas! it -was the tune that never DOES leave off—was beating, softly, all the -while. -</p> - -<p> -‘Wouldn’t you like to step in,’ said Mr. Omer, ‘and -speak to her? Walk in and speak to her, sir! Make yourself at home!’ -</p> - -<p> -I was too bashful to do so then—I was afraid of confusing her, and I was -no less afraid of confusing myself.—but I informed myself of the hour at -which she left of an evening, in order that our visit might be timed -accordingly; and taking leave of Mr. Omer, and his pretty daughter, and her -little children, went away to my dear old Peggotty’s. -</p> - -<p> -Here she was, in the tiled kitchen, cooking dinner! The moment I knocked at the -door she opened it, and asked me what I pleased to want. I looked at her with a -smile, but she gave me no smile in return. I had never ceased to write to her, -but it must have been seven years since we had met. -</p> - -<p> -‘Is Mr. Barkis at home, ma’am?’ I said, feigning to speak -roughly to her. -</p> - -<p> -‘He’s at home, sir,’ returned Peggotty, ‘but he’s -bad abed with the rheumatics.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Don’t he go over to Blunderstone now?’ I asked. -</p> - -<p> -‘When he’s well he do,’ she answered. -</p> - -<p> -‘Do YOU ever go there, Mrs. Barkis?’ -</p> - -<p> -She looked at me more attentively, and I noticed a quick movement of her hands -towards each other. -</p> - -<p> -‘Because I want to ask a question about a house there, that they call -the—what is it?—the Rookery,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -She took a step backward, and put out her hands in an undecided frightened way, -as if to keep me off. -</p> - -<p> -‘Peggotty!’ I cried to her. -</p> - -<p> -She cried, ‘My darling boy!’ and we both burst into tears, and were -locked in one another’s arms. -</p> - -<p> -What extravagances she committed; what laughing and crying over me; what pride -she showed, what joy, what sorrow that she whose pride and joy I might have -been, could never hold me in a fond embrace; I have not the heart to tell. I -was troubled with no misgiving that it was young in me to respond to her -emotions. I had never laughed and cried in all my life, I dare say—not -even to her—more freely than I did that morning. -</p> - -<p> -‘Barkis will be so glad,’ said Peggotty, wiping her eyes with her -apron, ‘that it’ll do him more good than pints of liniment. May I -go and tell him you are here? Will you come up and see him, my dear?’ -</p> - -<p> -Of course I would. But Peggotty could not get out of the room as easily as she -meant to, for as often as she got to the door and looked round at me, she came -back again to have another laugh and another cry upon my shoulder. At last, to -make the matter easier, I went upstairs with her; and having waited outside for -a minute, while she said a word of preparation to Mr. Barkis, presented myself -before that invalid. -</p> - -<p> -He received me with absolute enthusiasm. He was too rheumatic to be shaken -hands with, but he begged me to shake the tassel on the top of his nightcap, -which I did most cordially. When I sat down by the side of the bed, he said -that it did him a world of good to feel as if he was driving me on the -Blunderstone road again. As he lay in bed, face upward, and so covered, with -that exception, that he seemed to be nothing but a face—like a -conventional cherubim—he looked the queerest object I ever beheld. -</p> - -<p> -‘What name was it, as I wrote up in the cart, sir?’ said Mr. -Barkis, with a slow rheumatic smile. -</p> - -<p> -‘Ah! Mr. Barkis, we had some grave talks about that matter, hadn’t -we?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I was willin’ a long time, sir?’ said Mr. Barkis. -</p> - -<p> -‘A long time,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘And I don’t regret it,’ said Mr. Barkis. ‘Do you -remember what you told me once, about her making all the apple parsties and -doing all the cooking?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes, very well,’ I returned. -</p> - -<p> -‘It was as true,’ said Mr. Barkis, ‘as turnips is. It was as -true,’ said Mr. Barkis, nodding his nightcap, which was his only means of -emphasis, ‘as taxes is. And nothing’s truer than them.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Barkis turned his eyes upon me, as if for my assent to this result of his -reflections in bed; and I gave it. -</p> - -<p> -‘Nothing’s truer than them,’ repeated Mr. Barkis; ‘a -man as poor as I am, finds that out in his mind when he’s laid up. -I’m a very poor man, sir!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I am sorry to hear it, Mr. Barkis.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘A very poor man, indeed I am,’ said Mr. Barkis. -</p> - -<p> -Here his right hand came slowly and feebly from under the bedclothes, and with -a purposeless uncertain grasp took hold of a stick which was loosely tied to -the side of the bed. After some poking about with this instrument, in the -course of which his face assumed a variety of distracted expressions, Mr. -Barkis poked it against a box, an end of which had been visible to me all the -time. Then his face became composed. -</p> - -<p> -‘Old clothes,’ said Mr. Barkis. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh!’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘I wish it was Money, sir,’ said Mr. Barkis. -</p> - -<p> -‘I wish it was, indeed,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘But it AIN’T,’ said Mr. Barkis, opening both his eyes as -wide as he possibly could. -</p> - -<p> -I expressed myself quite sure of that, and Mr. Barkis, turning his eyes more -gently to his wife, said: -</p> - -<p> -‘She’s the usefullest and best of women, C. P. Barkis. All the -praise that anyone can give to C. P. Barkis, she deserves, and more! My dear, -you’ll get a dinner today, for company; something good to eat and drink, -will you?’ -</p> - -<p> -I should have protested against this unnecessary demonstration in my honour, -but that I saw Peggotty, on the opposite side of the bed, extremely anxious I -should not. So I held my peace. -</p> - -<p> -‘I have got a trifle of money somewhere about me, my dear,’ said -Mr. Barkis, ‘but I’m a little tired. If you and Mr. David will -leave me for a short nap, I’ll try and find it when I wake.’ -</p> - -<p> -We left the room, in compliance with this request. When we got outside the -door, Peggotty informed me that Mr. Barkis, being now ‘a little -nearer’ than he used to be, always resorted to this same device before -producing a single coin from his store; and that he endured unheard-of agonies -in crawling out of bed alone, and taking it from that unlucky box. In effect, -we presently heard him uttering suppressed groans of the most dismal nature, as -this magpie proceeding racked him in every joint; but while Peggotty’s -eyes were full of compassion for him, she said his generous impulse would do -him good, and it was better not to check it. So he groaned on, until he had got -into bed again, suffering, I have no doubt, a martyrdom; and then called us in, -pretending to have just woke up from a refreshing sleep, and to produce a -guinea from under his pillow. His satisfaction in which happy imposition on us, -and in having preserved the impenetrable secret of the box, appeared to be a -sufficient compensation to him for all his tortures. -</p> - -<p> -I prepared Peggotty for Steerforth’s arrival and it was not long before -he came. I am persuaded she knew no difference between his having been a -personal benefactor of hers, and a kind friend to me, and that she would have -received him with the utmost gratitude and devotion in any case. But his easy, -spirited good humour; his genial manner, his handsome looks, his natural gift -of adapting himself to whomsoever he pleased, and making direct, when he cared -to do it, to the main point of interest in anybody’s heart; bound her to -him wholly in five minutes. His manner to me, alone, would have won her. But, -through all these causes combined, I sincerely believe she had a kind of -adoration for him before he left the house that night. -</p> - -<p> -He stayed there with me to dinner—if I were to say willingly, I should -not half express how readily and gaily. He went into Mr. Barkis’s room -like light and air, brightening and refreshing it as if he were healthy -weather. There was no noise, no effort, no consciousness, in anything he did; -but in everything an indescribable lightness, a seeming impossibility of doing -anything else, or doing anything better, which was so graceful, so natural, and -agreeable, that it overcomes me, even now, in the remembrance. -</p> - -<p> -We made merry in the little parlour, where the Book of Martyrs, unthumbed since -my time, was laid out upon the desk as of old, and where I now turned over its -terrific pictures, remembering the old sensations they had awakened, but not -feeling them. When Peggotty spoke of what she called my room, and of its being -ready for me at night, and of her hoping I would occupy it, before I could so -much as look at Steerforth, hesitating, he was possessed of the whole case. -</p> - -<p> -‘Of course,’ he said. ‘You’ll sleep here, while we -stay, and I shall sleep at the hotel.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘But to bring you so far,’ I returned, ‘and to separate, -seems bad companionship, Steerforth.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, in the name of Heaven, where do you naturally belong?’ he -said. ‘What is “seems”, compared to that?’ It was -settled at once. -</p> - -<p> -He maintained all his delightful qualities to the last, until we started forth, -at eight o’clock, for Mr. Peggotty’s boat. Indeed, they were more -and more brightly exhibited as the hours went on; for I thought even then, and -I have no doubt now, that the consciousness of success in his determination to -please, inspired him with a new delicacy of perception, and made it, subtle as -it was, more easy to him. If anyone had told me, then, that all this was a -brilliant game, played for the excitement of the moment, for the employment of -high spirits, in the thoughtless love of superiority, in a mere wasteful -careless course of winning what was worthless to him, and next minute thrown -away—I say, if anyone had told me such a lie that night, I wonder in what -manner of receiving it my indignation would have found a vent! Probably only in -an increase, had that been possible, of the romantic feelings of fidelity and -friendship with which I walked beside him, over the dark wintry sands towards -the old boat; the wind sighing around us even more mournfully, than it had -sighed and moaned upon the night when I first darkened Mr. Peggotty’s -door. -</p> - -<p> -‘This is a wild kind of place, Steerforth, is it not?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Dismal enough in the dark,’ he said: ‘and the sea roars as -if it were hungry for us. Is that the boat, where I see a light yonder?’ -‘That’s the boat,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘And it’s the same I saw this morning,’ he returned. ‘I -came straight to it, by instinct, I suppose.’ -</p> - -<p> -We said no more as we approached the light, but made softly for the door. I -laid my hand upon the latch; and whispering Steerforth to keep close to me, -went in. -</p> - -<p> -A murmur of voices had been audible on the outside, and, at the moment of our -entrance, a clapping of hands: which latter noise, I was surprised to see, -proceeded from the generally disconsolate Mrs. Gummidge. But Mrs. Gummidge was -not the only person there who was unusually excited. Mr. Peggotty, his face -lighted up with uncommon satisfaction, and laughing with all his might, held -his rough arms wide open, as if for little Em’ly to run into them; Ham, -with a mixed expression in his face of admiration, exultation, and a lumbering -sort of bashfulness that sat upon him very well, held little Em’ly by the -hand, as if he were presenting her to Mr. Peggotty; little Em’ly herself, -blushing and shy, but delighted with Mr. Peggotty’s delight, as her -joyous eyes expressed, was stopped by our entrance (for she saw us first) in -the very act of springing from Ham to nestle in Mr. Peggotty’s embrace. -In the first glimpse we had of them all, and at the moment of our passing from -the dark cold night into the warm light room, this was the way in which they -were all employed: Mrs. Gummidge in the background, clapping her hands like a -madwoman. -</p> - -<p> -The little picture was so instantaneously dissolved by our going in, that one -might have doubted whether it had ever been. I was in the midst of the -astonished family, face to face with Mr. Peggotty, and holding out my hand to -him, when Ham shouted: -</p> - -<p> -‘Mas’r Davy! It’s Mas’r Davy!’ -</p> - -<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> -<img src="images/0379.jpg" alt="0379 " width="100%" /> -</div> - -<h5> -<a href="images/0379.jpg"> -<img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /></a> -</h5> - -<p> -In a moment we were all shaking hands with one another, and asking one another -how we did, and telling one another how glad we were to meet, and all talking -at once. Mr. Peggotty was so proud and overjoyed to see us, that he did not -know what to say or do, but kept over and over again shaking hands with me, and -then with Steerforth, and then with me, and then ruffling his shaggy hair all -over his head, and laughing with such glee and triumph, that it was a treat to -see him. -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, that you two gent’lmen—gent’lmen -growed—should come to this here roof tonight, of all nights in my -life,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘is such a thing as never happened afore, -I do rightly believe! Em’ly, my darling, come here! Come here, my little -witch! There’s Mas’r Davy’s friend, my dear! There’s -the gent’lman as you’ve heerd on, Em’ly. He comes to see you, -along with Mas’r Davy, on the brightest night of your uncle’s life -as ever was or will be, Gorm the t’other one, and horroar for it!’ -</p> - -<p> -After delivering this speech all in a breath, and with extraordinary animation -and pleasure, Mr. Peggotty put one of his large hands rapturously on each side -of his niece’s face, and kissing it a dozen times, laid it with a gentle -pride and love upon his broad chest, and patted it as if his hand had been a -lady’s. Then he let her go; and as she ran into the little chamber where -I used to sleep, looked round upon us, quite hot and out of breath with his -uncommon satisfaction. -</p> - -<p> -‘If you two gent’lmen—gent’lmen growed now, and such -gent’lmen—’ said Mr. Peggotty. -</p> - -<p> -‘So th’ are, so th’ are!’ cried Ham. ‘Well said! -So th’ are. Mas’r Davy bor’—gent’lmen -growed—so th’ are!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘If you two gent’lmen, gent’lmen growed,’ said Mr. -Peggotty, ‘don’t ex-cuse me for being in a state of mind, when you -understand matters, I’ll arks your pardon. Em’ly, my -dear!—She knows I’m a going to tell,’ here his delight broke -out again, ‘and has made off. Would you be so good as look arter her, -Mawther, for a minute?’ -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Gummidge nodded and disappeared. -</p> - -<p> -‘If this ain’t,’ said Mr. Peggotty, sitting down among us by -the fire, ‘the brightest night o’ my life, I’m a -shellfish—biled too—and more I can’t say. This here little -Em’ly, sir,’ in a low voice to Steerforth, ‘—her as you -see a blushing here just now—’ -</p> - -<p> -Steerforth only nodded; but with such a pleased expression of interest, and of -participation in Mr. Peggotty’s feelings, that the latter answered him as -if he had spoken. -</p> - -<p> -‘To be sure,’ said Mr. Peggotty. ‘That’s her, and so -she is. Thankee, sir.’ -</p> - -<p> -Ham nodded to me several times, as if he would have said so too. -</p> - -<p> -‘This here little Em’ly of ours,’ said Mr. Peggotty, -‘has been, in our house, what I suppose (I’m a ignorant man, but -that’s my belief) no one but a little bright-eyed creetur can be in a -house. She ain’t my child; I never had one; but I couldn’t love her -more. You understand! I couldn’t do it!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I quite understand,’ said Steerforth. -</p> - -<p> -‘I know you do, sir,’ returned Mr. Peggotty, ‘and thankee -again. Mas’r Davy, he can remember what she was; you may judge for your -own self what she is; but neither of you can’t fully know what she has -been, is, and will be, to my loving art. I am rough, sir,’ said Mr. -Peggotty, ‘I am as rough as a Sea Porkypine; but no one, unless, mayhap, -it is a woman, can know, I think, what our little Em’ly is to me. And -betwixt ourselves,’ sinking his voice lower yet, ‘that -woman’s name ain’t Missis Gummidge neither, though she has a world -of merits.’ Mr. Peggotty ruffled his hair again, with both hands, as a -further preparation for what he was going to say, and went on, with a hand upon -each of his knees: -</p> - -<p> -‘There was a certain person as had know’d our Em’ly, from the -time when her father was drownded; as had seen her constant; when a babby, when -a young gal, when a woman. Not much of a person to look at, he -warn’t,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘something o’ my own -build—rough—a good deal o’ the sou’-wester in -him—wery salt—but, on the whole, a honest sort of a chap, with his -art in the right place.’ -</p> - -<p> -I thought I had never seen Ham grin to anything like the extent to which he sat -grinning at us now. -</p> - -<p> -‘What does this here blessed tarpaulin go and do,’ said Mr. -Peggotty, with his face one high noon of enjoyment, ‘but he loses that -there art of his to our little Em’ly. He follers her about, he makes -hisself a sort o’ servant to her, he loses in a great measure his relish -for his wittles, and in the long-run he makes it clear to me wot’s amiss. -Now I could wish myself, you see, that our little Em’ly was in a fair way -of being married. I could wish to see her, at all ewents, under articles to a -honest man as had a right to defend her. I don’t know how long I may -live, or how soon I may die; but I know that if I was capsized, any night, in a -gale of wind in Yarmouth Roads here, and was to see the town-lights shining for -the last time over the rollers as I couldn’t make no head against, I -could go down quieter for thinking “There’s a man ashore there, -iron-true to my little Em’ly, God bless her, and no wrong can touch my -Em’ly while so be as that man lives.”’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Peggotty, in simple earnestness, waved his right arm, as if he were waving -it at the town-lights for the last time, and then, exchanging a nod with Ham, -whose eye he caught, proceeded as before. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well! I counsels him to speak to Em’ly. He’s big enough, but -he’s bashfuller than a little un, and he don’t like. So I speak. -“What! Him!” says Em’ly. “Him that I’ve -know’d so intimate so many years, and like so much. Oh, Uncle! I never -can have him. He’s such a good fellow!” I gives her a kiss, and I -says no more to her than, “My dear, you’re right to speak out, -you’re to choose for yourself, you’re as free as a little -bird.” Then I aways to him, and I says, “I wish it could have been -so, but it can’t. But you can both be as you was, and wot I say to you -is, Be as you was with her, like a man.” He says to me, a-shaking of my -hand, “I will!” he says. And he was—honourable and -manful—for two year going on, and we was just the same at home here as -afore.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Peggotty’s face, which had varied in its expression with the various -stages of his narrative, now resumed all its former triumphant delight, as he -laid a hand upon my knee and a hand upon Steerforth’s (previously wetting -them both, for the greater emphasis of the action), and divided the following -speech between us: -</p> - -<p> -‘All of a sudden, one evening—as it might be tonight—comes -little Em’ly from her work, and him with her! There ain’t so much -in that, you’ll say. No, because he takes care on her, like a brother, -arter dark, and indeed afore dark, and at all times. But this tarpaulin chap, -he takes hold of her hand, and he cries out to me, joyful, “Look here! -This is to be my little wife!” And she says, half bold and half shy, and -half a laughing and half a crying, “Yes, Uncle! If you -please.”—If I please!’ cried Mr. Peggotty, rolling his head -in an ecstasy at the idea; ‘Lord, as if I should do anythink -else!—“If you please, I am steadier now, and I have thought better -of it, and I’ll be as good a little wife as I can to him, for he’s -a dear, good fellow!” Then Missis Gummidge, she claps her hands like a -play, and you come in. Theer! the murder’s out!’ said Mr. -Peggotty—‘You come in! It took place this here present hour; and -here’s the man that’ll marry her, the minute she’s out of her -time.’ -</p> - -<p> -Ham staggered, as well he might, under the blow Mr. Peggotty dealt him in his -unbounded joy, as a mark of confidence and friendship; but feeling called upon -to say something to us, he said, with much faltering and great difficulty: -</p> - -<p> -‘She warn’t no higher than you was, Mas’r Davy—when you -first come—when I thought what she’d grow up to be. I see her grown -up—gent’lmen—like a flower. I’d lay down my life for -her—Mas’r Davy—Oh! most content and cheerful! She’s -more to me—gent’lmen—than—she’s all to me that -ever I can want, and more than ever I—than ever I could say. I—I -love her true. There ain’t a gent’lman in all the land—nor -yet sailing upon all the sea—that can love his lady more than I love her, -though there’s many a common man—would say better—what he -meant.’ -</p> - -<p> -I thought it affecting to see such a sturdy fellow as Ham was now, trembling in -the strength of what he felt for the pretty little creature who had won his -heart. I thought the simple confidence reposed in us by Mr. Peggotty and by -himself, was, in itself, affecting. I was affected by the story altogether. How -far my emotions were influenced by the recollections of my childhood, I -don’t know. Whether I had come there with any lingering fancy that I was -still to love little Em’ly, I don’t know. I know that I was filled -with pleasure by all this; but, at first, with an indescribably sensitive -pleasure, that a very little would have changed to pain. -</p> - -<p> -Therefore, if it had depended upon me to touch the prevailing chord among them -with any skill, I should have made a poor hand of it. But it depended upon -Steerforth; and he did it with such address, that in a few minutes we were all -as easy and as happy as it was possible to be. -</p> - -<p> -‘Mr. Peggotty,’ he said, ‘you are a thoroughly good fellow, -and deserve to be as happy as you are tonight. My hand upon it! Ham, I give you -joy, my boy. My hand upon that, too! Daisy, stir the fire, and make it a brisk -one! and Mr. Peggotty, unless you can induce your gentle niece to come back -(for whom I vacate this seat in the corner), I shall go. Any gap at your -fireside on such a night—such a gap least of all—I wouldn’t -make, for the wealth of the Indies!’ -</p> - -<p> -So Mr. Peggotty went into my old room to fetch little Em’ly. At first -little Em’ly didn’t like to come, and then Ham went. Presently they -brought her to the fireside, very much confused, and very shy,—but she -soon became more assured when she found how gently and respectfully Steerforth -spoke to her; how skilfully he avoided anything that would embarrass her; how -he talked to Mr. Peggotty of boats, and ships, and tides, and fish; how he -referred to me about the time when he had seen Mr. Peggotty at Salem House; how -delighted he was with the boat and all belonging to it; how lightly and easily -he carried on, until he brought us, by degrees, into a charmed circle, and we -were all talking away without any reserve. -</p> - -<p> -Em’ly, indeed, said little all the evening; but she looked, and listened, -and her face got animated, and she was charming. Steerforth told a story of a -dismal shipwreck (which arose out of his talk with Mr. Peggotty), as if he saw -it all before him—and little Em’ly’s eyes were fastened on -him all the time, as if she saw it too. He told us a merry adventure of his -own, as a relief to that, with as much gaiety as if the narrative were as fresh -to him as it was to us—and little Em’ly laughed until the boat rang -with the musical sounds, and we all laughed (Steerforth too), in irresistible -sympathy with what was so pleasant and light-hearted. He got Mr. Peggotty to -sing, or rather to roar, ‘When the stormy winds do blow, do blow, do -blow’; and he sang a sailor’s song himself, so pathetically and -beautifully, that I could have almost fancied that the real wind creeping -sorrowfully round the house, and murmuring low through our unbroken silence, -was there to listen. -</p> - -<p> -As to Mrs. Gummidge, he roused that victim of despondency with a success never -attained by anyone else (so Mr. Peggotty informed me), since the decease of the -old one. He left her so little leisure for being miserable, that she said next -day she thought she must have been bewitched. -</p> - -<p> -But he set up no monopoly of the general attention, or the conversation. When -little Em’ly grew more courageous, and talked (but still bashfully) -across the fire to me, of our old wanderings upon the beach, to pick up shells -and pebbles; and when I asked her if she recollected how I used to be devoted -to her; and when we both laughed and reddened, casting these looks back on the -pleasant old times, so unreal to look at now; he was silent and attentive, and -observed us thoughtfully. She sat, at this time, and all the evening, on the -old locker in her old little corner by the fire—Ham beside her, where I -used to sit. I could not satisfy myself whether it was in her own little -tormenting way, or in a maidenly reserve before us, that she kept quite close -to the wall, and away from him; but I observed that she did so, all the -evening. -</p> - -<p> -As I remember, it was almost midnight when we took our leave. We had had some -biscuit and dried fish for supper, and Steerforth had produced from his pocket -a full flask of Hollands, which we men (I may say we men, now, without a blush) -had emptied. We parted merrily; and as they all stood crowded round the door to -light us as far as they could upon our road, I saw the sweet blue eyes of -little Em’ly peeping after us, from behind Ham, and heard her soft voice -calling to us to be careful how we went. -</p> - -<p> -‘A most engaging little Beauty!’ said Steerforth, taking my arm. -‘Well! It’s a quaint place, and they are quaint company, and -it’s quite a new sensation to mix with them.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘How fortunate we are, too,’ I returned, ‘to have arrived to -witness their happiness in that intended marriage! I never saw people so happy. -How delightful to see it, and to be made the sharers in their honest joy, as we -have been!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘That’s rather a chuckle-headed fellow for the girl; isn’t -he?’ said Steerforth. -</p> - -<p> -He had been so hearty with him, and with them all, that I felt a shock in this -unexpected and cold reply. But turning quickly upon him, and seeing a laugh in -his eyes, I answered, much relieved: -</p> - -<p> -‘Ah, Steerforth! It’s well for you to joke about the poor! You may -skirmish with Miss Dartle, or try to hide your sympathies in jest from me, but -I know better. When I see how perfectly you understand them, how exquisitely -you can enter into happiness like this plain fisherman’s, or humour a -love like my old nurse’s, I know that there is not a joy or sorrow, not -an emotion, of such people, that can be indifferent to you. And I admire and -love you for it, Steerforth, twenty times the more!’ -</p> - -<p> -He stopped, and, looking in my face, said, ‘Daisy, I believe you are in -earnest, and are good. I wish we all were!’ Next moment he was gaily -singing Mr. Peggotty’s song, as we walked at a round pace back to -Yarmouth. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0022"></a>CHAPTER 22. SOME OLD SCENES, AND SOME NEW -PEOPLE</h2> - -<p> -Steerforth and I stayed for more than a fortnight in that part of the country. -We were very much together, I need not say; but occasionally we were asunder -for some hours at a time. He was a good sailor, and I was but an indifferent -one; and when he went out boating with Mr. Peggotty, which was a favourite -amusement of his, I generally remained ashore. My occupation of -Peggotty’s spare-room put a constraint upon me, from which he was free: -for, knowing how assiduously she attended on Mr. Barkis all day, I did not like -to remain out late at night; whereas Steerforth, lying at the Inn, had nothing -to consult but his own humour. Thus it came about, that I heard of his making -little treats for the fishermen at Mr. Peggotty’s house of call, -‘The Willing Mind’, after I was in bed, and of his being afloat, -wrapped in fishermen’s clothes, whole moonlight nights, and coming back -when the morning tide was at flood. By this time, however, I knew that his -restless nature and bold spirits delighted to find a vent in rough toil and -hard weather, as in any other means of excitement that presented itself freshly -to him; so none of his proceedings surprised me. -</p> - -<p> -Another cause of our being sometimes apart, was, that I had naturally an -interest in going over to Blunderstone, and revisiting the old familiar scenes -of my childhood; while Steerforth, after being there once, had naturally no -great interest in going there again. Hence, on three or four days that I can at -once recall, we went our several ways after an early breakfast, and met again -at a late dinner. I had no idea how he employed his time in the interval, -beyond a general knowledge that he was very popular in the place, and had -twenty means of actively diverting himself where another man might not have -found one. -</p> - -<p> -For my own part, my occupation in my solitary pilgrimages was to recall every -yard of the old road as I went along it, and to haunt the old spots, of which I -never tired. I haunted them, as my memory had often done, and lingered among -them as my younger thoughts had lingered when I was far away. The grave beneath -the tree, where both my parents lay—on which I had looked out, when it -was my father’s only, with such curious feelings of compassion, and by -which I had stood, so desolate, when it was opened to receive my pretty mother -and her baby—the grave which Peggotty’s own faithful care had ever -since kept neat, and made a garden of, I walked near, by the hour. It lay a -little off the churchyard path, in a quiet corner, not so far removed but I -could read the names upon the stone as I walked to and fro, startled by the -sound of the church-bell when it struck the hour, for it was like a departed -voice to me. My reflections at these times were always associated with the -figure I was to make in life, and the distinguished things I was to do. My -echoing footsteps went to no other tune, but were as constant to that as if I -had come home to build my castles in the air at a living mother’s side. -</p> - -<p> -There were great changes in my old home. The ragged nests, so long deserted by -the rooks, were gone; and the trees were lopped and topped out of their -remembered shapes. The garden had run wild, and half the windows of the house -were shut up. It was occupied, but only by a poor lunatic gentleman, and the -people who took care of him. He was always sitting at my little window, looking -out into the churchyard; and I wondered whether his rambling thoughts ever went -upon any of the fancies that used to occupy mine, on the rosy mornings when I -peeped out of that same little window in my night-clothes, and saw the sheep -quietly feeding in the light of the rising sun. -</p> - -<p> -Our old neighbours, Mr. and Mrs. Grayper, were gone to South America, and the -rain had made its way through the roof of their empty house, and stained the -outer walls. Mr. Chillip was married again to a tall, raw-boned, high-nosed -wife; and they had a weazen little baby, with a heavy head that it -couldn’t hold up, and two weak staring eyes, with which it seemed to be -always wondering why it had ever been born. -</p> - -<p> -It was with a singular jumble of sadness and pleasure that I used to linger -about my native place, until the reddening winter sun admonished me that it was -time to start on my returning walk. But, when the place was left behind, and -especially when Steerforth and I were happily seated over our dinner by a -blazing fire, it was delicious to think of having been there. So it was, though -in a softened degree, when I went to my neat room at night; and, turning over -the leaves of the crocodile-book (which was always there, upon a little table), -remembered with a grateful heart how blest I was in having such a friend as -Steerforth, such a friend as Peggotty, and such a substitute for what I had -lost as my excellent and generous aunt. -</p> - -<p> -MY nearest way to Yarmouth, in coming back from these long walks, was by a -ferry. It landed me on the flat between the town and the sea, which I could -make straight across, and so save myself a considerable circuit by the high -road. Mr. Peggotty’s house being on that waste-place, and not a hundred -yards out of my track, I always looked in as I went by. Steerforth was pretty -sure to be there expecting me, and we went on together through the frosty air -and gathering fog towards the twinkling lights of the town. -</p> - -<p> -One dark evening, when I was later than usual—for I had, that day, been -making my parting visit to Blunderstone, as we were now about to return -home—I found him alone in Mr. Peggotty’s house, sitting -thoughtfully before the fire. He was so intent upon his own reflections that he -was quite unconscious of my approach. This, indeed, he might easily have been -if he had been less absorbed, for footsteps fell noiselessly on the sandy -ground outside; but even my entrance failed to rouse him. I was standing close -to him, looking at him; and still, with a heavy brow, he was lost in his -meditations. -</p> - -<p> -He gave such a start when I put my hand upon his shoulder, that he made me -start too. -</p> - -<p> -‘You come upon me,’ he said, almost angrily, ‘like a -reproachful ghost!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I was obliged to announce myself, somehow,’ I replied. ‘Have -I called you down from the stars?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No,’ he answered. ‘No.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Up from anywhere, then?’ said I, taking my seat near him. -</p> - -<p> -‘I was looking at the pictures in the fire,’ he returned. -</p> - -<p> -‘But you are spoiling them for me,’ said I, as he stirred it -quickly with a piece of burning wood, striking out of it a train of red-hot -sparks that went careering up the little chimney, and roaring out into the air. -</p> - -<p> -‘You would not have seen them,’ he returned. ‘I detest this -mongrel time, neither day nor night. How late you are! Where have you -been?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I have been taking leave of my usual walk,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘And I have been sitting here,’ said Steerforth, glancing round the -room, ‘thinking that all the people we found so glad on the night of our -coming down, might—to judge from the present wasted air of the -place—be dispersed, or dead, or come to I don’t know what harm. -David, I wish to God I had had a judicious father these last twenty -years!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear Steerforth, what is the matter?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I wish with all my soul I had been better guided!’ he exclaimed. -‘I wish with all my soul I could guide myself better!’ -</p> - -<p> -There was a passionate dejection in his manner that quite amazed me. He was -more unlike himself than I could have supposed possible. -</p> - -<p> -‘It would be better to be this poor Peggotty, or his lout of a -nephew,’ he said, getting up and leaning moodily against the -chimney-piece, with his face towards the fire, ‘than to be myself, twenty -times richer and twenty times wiser, and be the torment to myself that I have -been, in this Devil’s bark of a boat, within the last half-hour!’ -</p> - -<p> -I was so confounded by the alteration in him, that at first I could only -observe him in silence, as he stood leaning his head upon his hand, and looking -gloomily down at the fire. At length I begged him, with all the earnestness I -felt, to tell me what had occurred to cross him so unusually, and to let me -sympathize with him, if I could not hope to advise him. Before I had well -concluded, he began to laugh—fretfully at first, but soon with returning -gaiety. -</p> - -<p> -‘Tut, it’s nothing, Daisy! nothing!’ he replied. ‘I -told you at the inn in London, I am heavy company for myself, sometimes. I have -been a nightmare to myself, just now—must have had one, I think. At odd -dull times, nursery tales come up into the memory, unrecognized for what they -are. I believe I have been confounding myself with the bad boy who -“didn’t care”, and became food for lions—a grander kind -of going to the dogs, I suppose. What old women call the horrors, have been -creeping over me from head to foot. I have been afraid of myself.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You are afraid of nothing else, I think,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Perhaps not, and yet may have enough to be afraid of too,’ he -answered. ‘Well! So it goes by! I am not about to be hipped again, David; -but I tell you, my good fellow, once more, that it would have been well for me -(and for more than me) if I had had a steadfast and judicious father!’ -</p> - -<p> -His face was always full of expression, but I never saw it express such a dark -kind of earnestness as when he said these words, with his glance bent on the -fire. -</p> - -<p> -‘So much for that!’ he said, making as if he tossed something light -into the air, with his hand. “‘Why, being gone, I am a man -again,” like Macbeth. And now for dinner! If I have not (Macbeth-like) -broken up the feast with most admired disorder, Daisy.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘But where are they all, I wonder!’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘God knows,’ said Steerforth. ‘After strolling to the ferry -looking for you, I strolled in here and found the place deserted. That set me -thinking, and you found me thinking.’ -</p> - -<p> -The advent of Mrs. Gummidge with a basket, explained how the house had happened -to be empty. She had hurried out to buy something that was needed, against Mr. -Peggotty’s return with the tide; and had left the door open in the -meanwhile, lest Ham and little Em’ly, with whom it was an early night, -should come home while she was gone. Steerforth, after very much improving Mrs. -Gummidge’s spirits by a cheerful salutation and a jocose embrace, took my -arm, and hurried me away. -</p> - -<p> -He had improved his own spirits, no less than Mrs. Gummidge’s, for they -were again at their usual flow, and he was full of vivacious conversation as we -went along. -</p> - -<p> -‘And so,’ he said, gaily, ‘we abandon this buccaneer life -tomorrow, do we?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘So we agreed,’ I returned. ‘And our places by the coach are -taken, you know.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Ay! there’s no help for it, I suppose,’ said Steerforth. -‘I have almost forgotten that there is anything to do in the world but to -go out tossing on the sea here. I wish there was not.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘As long as the novelty should last,’ said I, laughing. -</p> - -<p> -‘Like enough,’ he returned; ‘though there’s a sarcastic -meaning in that observation for an amiable piece of innocence like my young -friend. Well! I dare say I am a capricious fellow, David. I know I am; but -while the iron is hot, I can strike it vigorously too. I could pass a -reasonably good examination already, as a pilot in these waters, I -think.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Mr. Peggotty says you are a wonder,’ I returned. -</p> - -<p> -‘A nautical phenomenon, eh?’ laughed Steerforth. -</p> - -<p> -‘Indeed he does, and you know how truly; I know how ardent you are in any -pursuit you follow, and how easily you can master it. And that amazes me most -in you, Steerforth—that you should be contented with such fitful uses of -your powers.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Contented?’ he answered, merrily. ‘I am never contented, -except with your freshness, my gentle Daisy. As to fitfulness, I have never -learnt the art of binding myself to any of the wheels on which the Ixions of -these days are turning round and round. I missed it somehow in a bad -apprenticeship, and now don’t care about it.—-You know I have -bought a boat down here?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘What an extraordinary fellow you are, Steerforth!’ I exclaimed, -stopping—for this was the first I had heard of it. ‘When you may -never care to come near the place again!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I don’t know that,’ he returned. ‘I have taken a fancy -to the place. At all events,’ walking me briskly on, ‘I have bought -a boat that was for sale—a clipper, Mr. Peggotty says; and so she -is—and Mr. Peggotty will be master of her in my absence.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Now I understand you, Steerforth!’ said I, exultingly. ‘You -pretend to have bought it for yourself, but you have really done so to confer a -benefit on him. I might have known as much at first, knowing you. My dear kind -Steerforth, how can I tell you what I think of your generosity?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Tush!’ he answered, turning red. ‘The less said, the -better.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Didn’t I know?’ cried I, ‘didn’t I say that -there was not a joy, or sorrow, or any emotion of such honest hearts that was -indifferent to you?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Aye, aye,’ he answered, ‘you told me all that. There let it -rest. We have said enough!’ -</p> - -<p> -Afraid of offending him by pursuing the subject when he made so light of it, I -only pursued it in my thoughts as we went on at even a quicker pace than -before. -</p> - -<p> -‘She must be newly rigged,’ said Steerforth, ‘and I shall -leave Littimer behind to see it done, that I may know she is quite complete. -Did I tell you Littimer had come down?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh yes! came down this morning, with a letter from my mother.’ -</p> - -<p> -As our looks met, I observed that he was pale even to his lips, though he -looked very steadily at me. I feared that some difference between him and his -mother might have led to his being in the frame of mind in which I had found -him at the solitary fireside. I hinted so. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh no!’ he said, shaking his head, and giving a slight laugh. -‘Nothing of the sort! Yes. He is come down, that man of mine.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘The same as ever?’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘The same as ever,’ said Steerforth. ‘Distant and quiet as -the North Pole. He shall see to the boat being fresh named. She’s the -“Stormy Petrel” now. What does Mr. Peggotty care for Stormy -Petrels! I’ll have her christened again.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘By what name?’ I asked. -</p> - -<p> -‘The “Little Em’ly”.’ -</p> - -<p> -As he had continued to look steadily at me, I took it as a reminder that he -objected to being extolled for his consideration. I could not help showing in -my face how much it pleased me, but I said little, and he resumed his usual -smile, and seemed relieved. -</p> - -<p> -‘But see here,’ he said, looking before us, ‘where the -original little Em’ly comes! And that fellow with her, eh? Upon my soul, -he’s a true knight. He never leaves her!’ -</p> - -<p> -Ham was a boat-builder in these days, having improved a natural ingenuity in -that handicraft, until he had become a skilled workman. He was in his -working-dress, and looked rugged enough, but manly withal, and a very fit -protector for the blooming little creature at his side. Indeed, there was a -frankness in his face, an honesty, and an undisguised show of his pride in her, -and his love for her, which were, to me, the best of good looks. I thought, as -they came towards us, that they were well matched even in that particular. -</p> - -<p> -She withdrew her hand timidly from his arm as we stopped to speak to them, and -blushed as she gave it to Steerforth and to me. When they passed on, after we -had exchanged a few words, she did not like to replace that hand, but, still -appearing timid and constrained, walked by herself. I thought all this very -pretty and engaging, and Steerforth seemed to think so too, as we looked after -them fading away in the light of a young moon. -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly there passed us—evidently following them—a young woman -whose approach we had not observed, but whose face I saw as she went by, and -thought I had a faint remembrance of. She was lightly dressed; looked bold, and -haggard, and flaunting, and poor; but seemed, for the time, to have given all -that to the wind which was blowing, and to have nothing in her mind but going -after them. As the dark distant level, absorbing their figures into itself, -left but itself visible between us and the sea and clouds, her figure -disappeared in like manner, still no nearer to them than before. -</p> - -<p> -‘That is a black shadow to be following the girl,’ said Steerforth, -standing still; ‘what does it mean?’ -</p> - -<p> -He spoke in a low voice that sounded almost strange to Me. -</p> - -<p> -‘She must have it in her mind to beg of them, I think,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘A beggar would be no novelty,’ said Steerforth; ‘but it is a -strange thing that the beggar should take that shape tonight.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Why?’ I asked. -</p> - -<p> -‘For no better reason, truly, than because I was thinking,’ he -said, after a pause, ‘of something like it, when it came by. Where the -Devil did it come from, I wonder!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘From the shadow of this wall, I think,’ said I, as we emerged upon -a road on which a wall abutted. -</p> - -<p> -‘It’s gone!’ he returned, looking over his shoulder. -‘And all ill go with it. Now for our dinner!’ -</p> - -<p> -But he looked again over his shoulder towards the sea-line glimmering afar off, -and yet again. And he wondered about it, in some broken expressions, several -times, in the short remainder of our walk; and only seemed to forget it when -the light of fire and candle shone upon us, seated warm and merry, at table. -</p> - -<p> -Littimer was there, and had his usual effect upon me. When I said to him that I -hoped Mrs. Steerforth and Miss Dartle were well, he answered respectfully (and -of course respectably), that they were tolerably well, he thanked me, and had -sent their compliments. This was all, and yet he seemed to me to say as plainly -as a man could say: ‘You are very young, sir; you are exceedingly -young.’ -</p> - -<p> -We had almost finished dinner, when taking a step or two towards the table, -from the corner where he kept watch upon us, or rather upon me, as I felt, he -said to his master: -</p> - -<p> -‘I beg your pardon, sir. Miss Mowcher is down here.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Who?’ cried Steerforth, much astonished. -</p> - -<p> -‘Miss Mowcher, sir.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, what on earth does she do here?’ said Steerforth. -</p> - -<p> -‘It appears to be her native part of the country, sir. She informs me -that she makes one of her professional visits here, every year, sir. I met her -in the street this afternoon, and she wished to know if she might have the -honour of waiting on you after dinner, sir.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Do you know the Giantess in question, Daisy?’ inquired Steerforth. -</p> - -<p> -I was obliged to confess—I felt ashamed, even of being at this -disadvantage before Littimer—that Miss Mowcher and I were wholly -unacquainted. -</p> - -<p> -‘Then you shall know her,’ said Steerforth, ‘for she is one -of the seven wonders of the world. When Miss Mowcher comes, show her in.’ -</p> - -<p> -I felt some curiosity and excitement about this lady, especially as Steerforth -burst into a fit of laughing when I referred to her, and positively refused to -answer any question of which I made her the subject. I remained, therefore, in -a state of considerable expectation until the cloth had been removed some half -an hour, and we were sitting over our decanter of wine before the fire, when -the door opened, and Littimer, with his habitual serenity quite undisturbed, -announced: -</p> - -<p> -‘Miss Mowcher!’ -</p> - -<p> -I looked at the doorway and saw nothing. I was still looking at the doorway, -thinking that Miss Mowcher was a long while making her appearance, when, to my -infinite astonishment, there came waddling round a sofa which stood between me -and it, a pursy dwarf, of about forty or forty-five, with a very large head and -face, a pair of roguish grey eyes, and such extremely little arms, that, to -enable herself to lay a finger archly against her snub nose, as she ogled -Steerforth, she was obliged to meet the finger half-way, and lay her nose -against it. Her chin, which was what is called a double chin, was so fat that -it entirely swallowed up the strings of her bonnet, bow and all. Throat she had -none; waist she had none; legs she had none, worth mentioning; for though she -was more than full-sized down to where her waist would have been, if she had -had any, and though she terminated, as human beings generally do, in a pair of -feet, she was so short that she stood at a common-sized chair as at a table, -resting a bag she carried on the seat. This lady—dressed in an off-hand, -easy style; bringing her nose and her forefinger together, with the difficulty -I have described; standing with her head necessarily on one side, and, with one -of her sharp eyes shut up, making an uncommonly knowing face—after ogling -Steerforth for a few moments, broke into a torrent of words. -</p> - -<p> -‘What! My flower!’ she pleasantly began, shaking her large head at -him. ‘You’re there, are you! Oh, you naughty boy, fie for shame, -what do you do so far away from home? Up to mischief, I’ll be bound. Oh, -you’re a downy fellow, Steerforth, so you are, and I’m another, -ain’t I? Ha, ha, ha! You’d have betted a hundred pound to five, -now, that you wouldn’t have seen me here, wouldn’t you? Bless you, -man alive, I’m everywhere. I’m here and there, and where not, like -the conjurer’s half-crown in the lady’s handkercher. Talking of -handkerchers—and talking of ladies—what a comfort you are to your -blessed mother, ain’t you, my dear boy, over one of my shoulders, and I -don’t say which!’ -</p> - -<p> -Miss Mowcher untied her bonnet, at this passage of her discourse, threw back -the strings, and sat down, panting, on a footstool in front of the -fire—making a kind of arbour of the dining table, which spread its -mahogany shelter above her head. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh my stars and what’s-their-names!’ she went on, clapping a -hand on each of her little knees, and glancing shrewdly at me, ‘I’m -of too full a habit, that’s the fact, Steerforth. After a flight of -stairs, it gives me as much trouble to draw every breath I want, as if it was a -bucket of water. If you saw me looking out of an upper window, you’d -think I was a fine woman, wouldn’t you?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I should think that, wherever I saw you,’ replied Steerforth. -</p> - -<p> -‘Go along, you dog, do!’ cried the little creature, making a whisk -at him with the handkerchief with which she was wiping her face, ‘and -don’t be impudent! But I give you my word and honour I was at Lady -Mithers’s last week—THERE’S a woman! How SHE wears!—and -Mithers himself came into the room where I was waiting for -her—THERE’S a man! How HE wears! and his wig too, for he’s -had it these ten years—and he went on at that rate in the complimentary -line, that I began to think I should be obliged to ring the bell. Ha! ha! ha! -He’s a pleasant wretch, but he wants principle.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘What were you doing for Lady Mithers?’ asked Steerforth. -</p> - -<p> -‘That’s tellings, my blessed infant,’ she retorted, tapping -her nose again, screwing up her face, and twinkling her eyes like an imp of -supernatural intelligence. ‘Never YOU mind! You’d like to know -whether I stop her hair from falling off, or dye it, or touch up her -complexion, or improve her eyebrows, wouldn’t you? And so you shall, my -darling—when I tell you! Do you know what my great grandfather’s -name was?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No,’ said Steerforth. -</p> - -<p> -‘It was Walker, my sweet pet,’ replied Miss Mowcher, ‘and he -came of a long line of Walkers, that I inherit all the Hookey estates -from.’ -</p> - -<p> -I never beheld anything approaching to Miss Mowcher’s wink except Miss -Mowcher’s self-possession. She had a wonderful way too, when listening to -what was said to her, or when waiting for an answer to what she had said -herself, of pausing with her head cunningly on one side, and one eye turned up -like a magpie’s. Altogether I was lost in amazement, and sat staring at -her, quite oblivious, I am afraid, of the laws of politeness. -</p> - -<p> -She had by this time drawn the chair to her side, and was busily engaged in -producing from the bag (plunging in her short arm to the shoulder, at every -dive) a number of small bottles, sponges, combs, brushes, bits of flannel, -little pairs of curling-irons, and other instruments, which she tumbled in a -heap upon the chair. From this employment she suddenly desisted, and said to -Steerforth, much to my confusion: -</p> - -<p> -‘Who’s your friend?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Mr. Copperfield,’ said Steerforth; ‘he wants to know -you.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, then, he shall! I thought he looked as if he did!’ returned -Miss Mowcher, waddling up to me, bag in hand, and laughing on me as she came. -‘Face like a peach!’ standing on tiptoe to pinch my cheek as I sat. -‘Quite tempting! I’m very fond of peaches. Happy to make your -acquaintance, Mr. Copperfield, I’m sure.’ -</p> - -<p> -I said that I congratulated myself on having the honour to make hers, and that -the happiness was mutual. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, my goodness, how polite we are!’ exclaimed Miss Mowcher, -making a preposterous attempt to cover her large face with her morsel of a -hand. ‘What a world of gammon and spinnage it is, though, ain’t -it!’ -</p> - -<p> -This was addressed confidentially to both of us, as the morsel of a hand came -away from the face, and buried itself, arm and all, in the bag again. -</p> - -<p> -‘What do you mean, Miss Mowcher?’ said Steerforth. -</p> - -<p> -‘Ha! ha! ha! What a refreshing set of humbugs we are, to be sure, -ain’t we, my sweet child?’ replied that morsel of a woman, feeling -in the bag with her head on one side and her eye in the air. ‘Look -here!’ taking something out. ‘Scraps of the Russian Prince’s -nails. Prince Alphabet turned topsy-turvy, I call him, for his name’s got -all the letters in it, higgledy-piggledy.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘The Russian Prince is a client of yours, is he?’ said Steerforth. -</p> - -<p> -‘I believe you, my pet,’ replied Miss Mowcher. ‘I keep his -nails in order for him. Twice a week! Fingers and toes.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘He pays well, I hope?’ said Steerforth. -</p> - -<p> -‘Pays, as he speaks, my dear child—through the nose,’ replied -Miss Mowcher. ‘None of your close shavers the Prince ain’t. -You’d say so, if you saw his moustachios. Red by nature, black by -art.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘By your art, of course,’ said Steerforth. -</p> - -<p> -Miss Mowcher winked assent. ‘Forced to send for me. Couldn’t help -it. The climate affected his dye; it did very well in Russia, but it was no go -here. You never saw such a rusty Prince in all your born days as he was. Like -old iron!’ ‘Is that why you called him a humbug, just now?’ -inquired Steerforth. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, you’re a broth of a boy, ain’t you?’ returned Miss -Mowcher, shaking her head violently. ‘I said, what a set of humbugs we -were in general, and I showed you the scraps of the Prince’s nails to -prove it. The Prince’s nails do more for me in private families of the -genteel sort, than all my talents put together. I always carry ‘em about. -They’re the best introduction. If Miss Mowcher cuts the Prince’s -nails, she must be all right. I give ‘em away to the young ladies. They -put ‘em in albums, I believe. Ha! ha! ha! Upon my life, “the whole -social system” (as the men call it when they make speeches in Parliament) -is a system of Prince’s nails!’ said this least of women, trying to -fold her short arms, and nodding her large head. -</p> - -<p> -Steerforth laughed heartily, and I laughed too. Miss Mowcher continuing all the -time to shake her head (which was very much on one side), and to look into the -air with one eye, and to wink with the other. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, well!’ she said, smiting her small knees, and rising, -‘this is not business. Come, Steerforth, let’s explore the polar -regions, and have it over.’ -</p> - -<p> -She then selected two or three of the little instruments, and a little bottle, -and asked (to my surprise) if the table would bear. On Steerforth’s -replying in the affirmative, she pushed a chair against it, and begging the -assistance of my hand, mounted up, pretty nimbly, to the top, as if it were a -stage. -</p> - -<p> -‘If either of you saw my ankles,’ she said, when she was safely -elevated, ‘say so, and I’ll go home and destroy myself!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I did not,’ said Steerforth. -</p> - -<p> -‘I did not,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well then,’ cried Miss Mowcher, ‘I’ll consent to live. -Now, ducky, ducky, ducky, come to Mrs. Bond and be killed.’ -</p> - -<p> -This was an invitation to Steerforth to place himself under her hands; who, -accordingly, sat himself down, with his back to the table, and his laughing -face towards me, and submitted his head to her inspection, evidently for no -other purpose than our entertainment. To see Miss Mowcher standing over him, -looking at his rich profusion of brown hair through a large round magnifying -glass, which she took out of her pocket, was a most amazing spectacle. -</p> - -<p> -‘You’re a pretty fellow!’ said Miss Mowcher, after a brief -inspection. ‘You’d be as bald as a friar on the top of your head in -twelve months, but for me. Just half a minute, my young friend, and we’ll -give you a polishing that shall keep your curls on for the next ten -years!’ -</p> - -<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> -<img src="images/0401.jpg" alt="0401 " width="100%" /> -</div> - -<h5> -<a href="images/0401.jpg"> -<img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /></a> -</h5> - -<p> -With this, she tilted some of the contents of the little bottle on to one of -the little bits of flannel, and, again imparting some of the virtues of that -preparation to one of the little brushes, began rubbing and scraping away with -both on the crown of Steerforth’s head in the busiest manner I ever -witnessed, talking all the time. -</p> - -<p> -‘There’s Charley Pyegrave, the duke’s son,’ she said. -‘You know Charley?’ peeping round into his face. -</p> - -<p> -‘A little,’ said Steerforth. -</p> - -<p> -‘What a man HE is! THERE’S a whisker! As to Charley’s legs, -if they were only a pair (which they ain’t), they’d defy -competition. Would you believe he tried to do without me—in the -Life-Guards, too?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Mad!’ said Steerforth. -</p> - -<p> -‘It looks like it. However, mad or sane, he tried,’ returned Miss -Mowcher. ‘What does he do, but, lo and behold you, he goes into a -perfumer’s shop, and wants to buy a bottle of the Madagascar -Liquid.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Charley does?’ said Steerforth. -</p> - -<p> -‘Charley does. But they haven’t got any of the Madagascar -Liquid.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘What is it? Something to drink?’ asked Steerforth. -</p> - -<p> -‘To drink?’ returned Miss Mowcher, stopping to slap his cheek. -‘To doctor his own moustachios with, you know. There was a woman in the -shop—elderly female—quite a Griffin—who had never even heard -of it by name. “Begging pardon, sir,” said the Griffin to Charley, -“it’s not—not—not ROUGE, is it?” -“Rouge,” said Charley to the Griffin. “What the unmentionable -to ears polite, do you think I want with rouge?” “No offence, -sir,” said the Griffin; “we have it asked for by so many names, I -thought it might be.” Now that, my child,’ continued Miss Mowcher, -rubbing all the time as busily as ever, ‘is another instance of the -refreshing humbug I was speaking of. I do something in that way -myself—perhaps a good deal—perhaps a little—sharp’s the -word, my dear boy—never mind!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘In what way do you mean? In the rouge way?’ said Steerforth. -</p> - -<p> -‘Put this and that together, my tender pupil,’ returned the wary -Mowcher, touching her nose, ‘work it by the rule of Secrets in all -trades, and the product will give you the desired result. I say I do a little -in that way myself. One Dowager, SHE calls it lip-salve. Another, SHE calls it -gloves. Another, SHE calls it tucker-edging. Another, SHE calls it a fan. I -call it whatever THEY call it. I supply it for ‘em, but we keep up the -trick so, to one another, and make believe with such a face, that they’d -as soon think of laying it on, before a whole drawing-room, as before me. And -when I wait upon ‘em, they’ll say to me sometimes—WITH IT -ON—thick, and no mistake—“How am I looking, Mowcher? Am I -pale?” Ha! ha! ha! ha! Isn’t THAT refreshing, my young -friend!’ -</p> - -<p> -I never did in my days behold anything like Mowcher as she stood upon the -dining table, intensely enjoying this refreshment, rubbing busily at -Steerforth’s head, and winking at me over it. -</p> - -<p> -‘Ah!’ she said. ‘Such things are not much in demand -hereabouts. That sets me off again! I haven’t seen a pretty woman since -I’ve been here, jemmy.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No?’ said Steerforth. -</p> - -<p> -‘Not the ghost of one,’ replied Miss Mowcher. -</p> - -<p> -‘We could show her the substance of one, I think?’ said Steerforth, -addressing his eyes to mine. ‘Eh, Daisy?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes, indeed,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Aha?’ cried the little creature, glancing sharply at my face, and -then peeping round at Steerforth’s. ‘Umph?’ -</p> - -<p> -The first exclamation sounded like a question put to both of us, and the second -like a question put to Steerforth only. She seemed to have found no answer to -either, but continued to rub, with her head on one side and her eye turned up, -as if she were looking for an answer in the air and were confident of its -appearing presently. -</p> - -<p> -‘A sister of yours, Mr. Copperfield?’ she cried, after a pause, and -still keeping the same look-out. ‘Aye, aye?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No,’ said Steerforth, before I could reply. ‘Nothing of the -sort. On the contrary, Mr. Copperfield used—or I am much -mistaken—to have a great admiration for her.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, hasn’t he now?’ returned Miss Mowcher. ‘Is he -fickle? Oh, for shame! Did he sip every flower, and change every hour, until -Polly his passion requited?—Is her name Polly?’ -</p> - -<p> -The Elfin suddenness with which she pounced upon me with this question, and a -searching look, quite disconcerted me for a moment. -</p> - -<p> -‘No, Miss Mowcher,’ I replied. ‘Her name is Emily.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Aha?’ she cried exactly as before. ‘Umph? What a rattle I -am! Mr. Copperfield, ain’t I volatile?’ -</p> - -<p> -Her tone and look implied something that was not agreeable to me in connexion -with the subject. So I said, in a graver manner than any of us had yet assumed: -‘She is as virtuous as she is pretty. She is engaged to be married to a -most worthy and deserving man in her own station of life. I esteem her for her -good sense, as much as I admire her for her good looks.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Well said!’ cried Steerforth. ‘Hear, hear, hear! Now -I’ll quench the curiosity of this little Fatima, my dear Daisy, by -leaving her nothing to guess at. She is at present apprenticed, Miss Mowcher, -or articled, or whatever it may be, to Omer and Joram, Haberdashers, Milliners, -and so forth, in this town. Do you observe? Omer and Joram. The promise of -which my friend has spoken, is made and entered into with her cousin; Christian -name, Ham; surname, Peggotty; occupation, boat-builder; also of this town. She -lives with a relative; Christian name, unknown; surname, Peggotty; occupation, -seafaring; also of this town. She is the prettiest and most engaging little -fairy in the world. I admire her—as my friend does—exceedingly. If -it were not that I might appear to disparage her Intended, which I know my -friend would not like, I would add, that to me she seems to be throwing herself -away; that I am sure she might do better; and that I swear she was born to be a -lady.’ -</p> - -<p> -Miss Mowcher listened to these words, which were very slowly and distinctly -spoken, with her head on one side, and her eye in the air as if she were still -looking for that answer. When he ceased she became brisk again in an instant, -and rattled away with surprising volubility. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh! And that’s all about it, is it?’ she exclaimed, trimming -his whiskers with a little restless pair of scissors, that went glancing round -his head in all directions. ‘Very well: very well! Quite a long story. -Ought to end “and they lived happy ever afterwards”; oughtn’t -it? Ah! What’s that game at forfeits? I love my love with an E, because -she’s enticing; I hate her with an E, because she’s engaged. I took -her to the sign of the exquisite, and treated her with an elopement, her -name’s Emily, and she lives in the east? Ha! ha! ha! Mr. Copperfield, -ain’t I volatile?’ -</p> - -<p> -Merely looking at me with extravagant slyness, and not waiting for any reply, -she continued, without drawing breath: -</p> - -<p> -‘There! If ever any scapegrace was trimmed and touched up to perfection, -you are, Steerforth. If I understand any noddle in the world, I understand -yours. Do you hear me when I tell you that, my darling? I understand -yours,’ peeping down into his face. ‘Now you may mizzle, jemmy (as -we say at Court), and if Mr. Copperfield will take the chair I’ll operate -on him.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘What do you say, Daisy?’ inquired Steerforth, laughing, and -resigning his seat. ‘Will you be improved?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Thank you, Miss Mowcher, not this evening.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Don’t say no,’ returned the little woman, looking at me with -the aspect of a connoisseur; ‘a little bit more eyebrow?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Thank you,’ I returned, ‘some other time.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Have it carried half a quarter of an inch towards the temple,’ -said Miss Mowcher. ‘We can do it in a fortnight.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No, I thank you. Not at present.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Go in for a tip,’ she urged. ‘No? Let’s get the -scaffolding up, then, for a pair of whiskers. Come!’ -</p> - -<p> -I could not help blushing as I declined, for I felt we were on my weak point, -now. But Miss Mowcher, finding that I was not at present disposed for any -decoration within the range of her art, and that I was, for the time being, -proof against the blandishments of the small bottle which she held up before -one eye to enforce her persuasions, said we would make a beginning on an early -day, and requested the aid of my hand to descend from her elevated station. -Thus assisted, she skipped down with much agility, and began to tie her double -chin into her bonnet. -</p> - -<p> -‘The fee,’ said Steerforth, ‘is—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Five bob,’ replied Miss Mowcher, ‘and dirt cheap, my -chicken. Ain’t I volatile, Mr. Copperfield?’ -</p> - -<p> -I replied politely: ‘Not at all.’ But I thought she was rather so, -when she tossed up his two half-crowns like a goblin pieman, caught them, -dropped them in her pocket, and gave it a loud slap. -</p> - -<p> -‘That’s the Till!’ observed Miss Mowcher, standing at the -chair again, and replacing in the bag a miscellaneous collection of little -objects she had emptied out of it. ‘Have I got all my traps? It seems so. -It won’t do to be like long Ned Beadwood, when they took him to church -“to marry him to somebody”, as he says, and left the bride behind. -Ha! ha! ha! A wicked rascal, Ned, but droll! Now, I know I’m going to -break your hearts, but I am forced to leave you. You must call up all your -fortitude, and try to bear it. Good-bye, Mr. Copperfield! Take care of -yourself, jockey of Norfolk! How I have been rattling on! It’s all the -fault of you two wretches. I forgive you! “Bob swore!”—as the -Englishman said for “Good night”, when he first learnt French, and -thought it so like English. “Bob swore,” my ducks!’ -</p> - -<p> -With the bag slung over her arm, and rattling as she waddled away, she waddled -to the door, where she stopped to inquire if she should leave us a lock of her -hair. ‘Ain’t I volatile?’ she added, as a commentary on this -offer, and, with her finger on her nose, departed. -</p> - -<p> -Steerforth laughed to that degree, that it was impossible for me to help -laughing too; though I am not sure I should have done so, but for this -inducement. When we had had our laugh quite out, which was after some time, he -told me that Miss Mowcher had quite an extensive connexion, and made herself -useful to a variety of people in a variety of ways. Some people trifled with -her as a mere oddity, he said; but she was as shrewdly and sharply observant as -anyone he knew, and as long-headed as she was short-armed. He told me that what -she had said of being here, and there, and everywhere, was true enough; for she -made little darts into the provinces, and seemed to pick up customers -everywhere, and to know everybody. I asked him what her disposition was: -whether it was at all mischievous, and if her sympathies were generally on the -right side of things: but, not succeeding in attracting his attention to these -questions after two or three attempts, I forbore or forgot to repeat them. He -told me instead, with much rapidity, a good deal about her skill, and her -profits; and about her being a scientific cupper, if I should ever have -occasion for her service in that capacity. -</p> - -<p> -She was the principal theme of our conversation during the evening: and when we -parted for the night Steerforth called after me over the banisters, ‘Bob -swore!’ as I went downstairs. -</p> - -<p> -I was surprised, when I came to Mr. Barkis’s house, to find Ham walking -up and down in front of it, and still more surprised to learn from him that -little Em’ly was inside. I naturally inquired why he was not there too, -instead of pacing the streets by himself? -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, you see, Mas’r Davy,’ he rejoined, in a hesitating -manner, ‘Em’ly, she’s talking to some ‘un in -here.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I should have thought,’ said I, smiling, ‘that that was a -reason for your being in here too, Ham.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, Mas’r Davy, in a general way, so ‘t would be,’ -he returned; ‘but look’ee here, Mas’r Davy,’ lowering -his voice, and speaking very gravely. ‘It’s a young woman, -sir—a young woman, that Em’ly knowed once, and doen’t ought -to know no more.’ -</p> - -<p> -When I heard these words, a light began to fall upon the figure I had seen -following them, some hours ago. -</p> - -<p> -‘It’s a poor wurem, Mas’r Davy,’ said Ham, ‘as is -trod under foot by all the town. Up street and down street. The mowld o’ -the churchyard don’t hold any that the folk shrink away from, -more.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Did I see her tonight, Ham, on the sand, after we met you?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Keeping us in sight?’ said Ham. ‘It’s like you did, -Mas’r Davy. Not that I know’d then, she was theer, sir, but along -of her creeping soon arterwards under Em’ly’s little winder, when -she see the light come, and whispering “Em’ly, Em’ly, for -Christ’s sake, have a woman’s heart towards me. I was once like -you!” Those was solemn words, Mas’r Davy, fur to hear!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘They were indeed, Ham. What did Em’ly do?’ ‘Says -Em’ly, “Martha, is it you? Oh, Martha, can it be -you?”—for they had sat at work together, many a day, at Mr. -Omer’s.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I recollect her now!’ cried I, recalling one of the two girls I -had seen when I first went there. ‘I recollect her quite well!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Martha Endell,’ said Ham. ‘Two or three year older than -Em’ly, but was at the school with her.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I never heard her name,’ said I. ‘I didn’t mean to -interrupt you.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘For the matter o’ that, Mas’r Davy,’ replied Ham, -‘all’s told a’most in them words, “Em’ly, -Em’ly, for Christ’s sake, have a woman’s heart towards me. I -was once like you!” She wanted to speak to Em’ly. Em’ly -couldn’t speak to her theer, for her loving uncle was come home, and he -wouldn’t—no, Mas’r Davy,’ said Ham, with great -earnestness, ‘he couldn’t, kind-natur’d, tender-hearted as he -is, see them two together, side by side, for all the treasures that’s -wrecked in the sea.’ -</p> - -<p> -I felt how true this was. I knew it, on the instant, quite as well as Ham. -</p> - -<p> -‘So Em’ly writes in pencil on a bit of paper,’ he pursued, -‘and gives it to her out o’ winder to bring here. “Show -that,” she says, “to my aunt, Mrs. Barkis, and she’ll set you -down by her fire, for the love of me, till uncle is gone out, and I can -come.” By and by she tells me what I tell you, Mas’r Davy, and asks -me to bring her. What can I do? She doen’t ought to know any such, but I -can’t deny her, when the tears is on her face.’ -</p> - -<p> -He put his hand into the breast of his shaggy jacket, and took out with great -care a pretty little purse. -</p> - -<p> -‘And if I could deny her when the tears was on her face, Mas’r -Davy,’ said Ham, tenderly adjusting it on the rough palm of his hand, -‘how could I deny her when she give me this to carry for -her—knowing what she brought it for? Such a toy as it is!’ said -Ham, thoughtfully looking on it. ‘With such a little money in it, -Em’ly my dear.’ -</p> - -<p> -I shook him warmly by the hand when he had put it away again—for that was -more satisfactory to me than saying anything—and we walked up and down, -for a minute or two, in silence. The door opened then, and Peggotty appeared, -beckoning to Ham to come in. I would have kept away, but she came after me, -entreating me to come in too. Even then, I would have avoided the room where -they all were, but for its being the neat-tiled kitchen I have mentioned more -than once. The door opening immediately into it, I found myself among them -before I considered whither I was going. -</p> - -<p> -The girl—the same I had seen upon the sands—was near the fire. She -was sitting on the ground, with her head and one arm lying on a chair. I -fancied, from the disposition of her figure, that Em’ly had but newly -risen from the chair, and that the forlorn head might perhaps have been lying -on her lap. I saw but little of the girl’s face, over which her hair fell -loose and scattered, as if she had been disordering it with her own hands; but -I saw that she was young, and of a fair complexion. Peggotty had been crying. -So had little Em’ly. Not a word was spoken when we first went in; and the -Dutch clock by the dresser seemed, in the silence, to tick twice as loud as -usual. Em’ly spoke first. -</p> - -<p> -‘Martha wants,’ she said to Ham, ‘to go to London.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Why to London?’ returned Ham. -</p> - -<p> -He stood between them, looking on the prostrate girl with a mixture of -compassion for her, and of jealousy of her holding any companionship with her -whom he loved so well, which I have always remembered distinctly. They both -spoke as if she were ill; in a soft, suppressed tone that was plainly heard, -although it hardly rose above a whisper. -</p> - -<p> -‘Better there than here,’ said a third voice -aloud—Martha’s, though she did not move. ‘No one knows me -there. Everybody knows me here.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘What will she do there?’ inquired Ham. -</p> - -<p> -She lifted up her head, and looked darkly round at him for a moment; then laid -it down again, and curved her right arm about her neck, as a woman in a fever, -or in an agony of pain from a shot, might twist herself. -</p> - -<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> -<img src="images/0411.jpg" alt="0411 " width="100%" /> -</div> - -<h5> -<a href="images/0411.jpg"> -<img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /></a> -</h5> - -<p> -‘She will try to do well,’ said little Em’ly. ‘You -don’t know what she has said to us. Does he—do -they—aunt?’ -</p> - -<p> -Peggotty shook her head compassionately. -</p> - -<p> -‘I’ll try,’ said Martha, ‘if you’ll help me away. -I never can do worse than I have done here. I may do better. Oh!’ with a -dreadful shiver, ‘take me out of these streets, where the whole town -knows me from a child!’ -</p> - -<p> -As Em’ly held out her hand to Ham, I saw him put in it a little canvas -bag. She took it, as if she thought it were her purse, and made a step or two -forward; but finding her mistake, came back to where he had retired near me, -and showed it to him. -</p> - -<p> -‘It’s all yourn, Em’ly,’ I could hear him say. ‘I -haven’t nowt in all the wureld that ain’t yourn, my dear. It -ain’t of no delight to me, except for you!’ -</p> - -<p> -The tears rose freshly in her eyes, but she turned away and went to Martha. -What she gave her, I don’t know. I saw her stooping over her, and putting -money in her bosom. She whispered something, as she asked was that enough? -‘More than enough,’ the other said, and took her hand and kissed -it. -</p> - -<p> -Then Martha arose, and gathering her shawl about her, covering her face with -it, and weeping aloud, went slowly to the door. She stopped a moment before -going out, as if she would have uttered something or turned back; but no word -passed her lips. Making the same low, dreary, wretched moaning in her shawl, -she went away. -</p> - -<p> -As the door closed, little Em’ly looked at us three in a hurried manner -and then hid her face in her hands, and fell to sobbing. -</p> - -<p> -‘Doen’t, Em’ly!’ said Ham, tapping her gently on the -shoulder. ‘Doen’t, my dear! You doen’t ought to cry so, -pretty!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, Ham!’ she exclaimed, still weeping pitifully, ‘I am not -so good a girl as I ought to be! I know I have not the thankful heart, -sometimes, I ought to have!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes, yes, you have, I’m sure,’ said Ham. -</p> - -<p> -‘No! no! no!’ cried little Em’ly, sobbing, and shaking her -head. ‘I am not as good a girl as I ought to be. Not near! not -near!’ And still she cried, as if her heart would break. -</p> - -<p> -‘I try your love too much. I know I do!’ she sobbed. -‘I’m often cross to you, and changeable with you, when I ought to -be far different. You are never so to me. Why am I ever so to you, when I -should think of nothing but how to be grateful, and to make you happy!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You always make me so,’ said Ham, ‘my dear! I am happy in -the sight of you. I am happy, all day long, in the thoughts of you.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Ah! that’s not enough!’ she cried. ‘That is because -you are good; not because I am! Oh, my dear, it might have been a better -fortune for you, if you had been fond of someone else—of someone steadier -and much worthier than me, who was all bound up in you, and never vain and -changeable like me!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Poor little tender-heart,’ said Ham, in a low voice. ‘Martha -has overset her, altogether.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Please, aunt,’ sobbed Em’ly, ‘come here, and let me -lay my head upon you. Oh, I am very miserable tonight, aunt! Oh, I am not as -good a girl as I ought to be. I am not, I know!’ -</p> - -<p> -Peggotty had hastened to the chair before the fire. Em’ly, with her arms -around her neck, kneeled by her, looking up most earnestly into her face. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, pray, aunt, try to help me! Ham, dear, try to help me! Mr. David, -for the sake of old times, do, please, try to help me! I want to be a better -girl than I am. I want to feel a hundred times more thankful than I do. I want -to feel more, what a blessed thing it is to be the wife of a good man, and to -lead a peaceful life. Oh me, oh me! Oh my heart, my heart!’ -</p> - -<p> -She dropped her face on my old nurse’s breast, and, ceasing this -supplication, which in its agony and grief was half a woman’s, half a -child’s, as all her manner was (being, in that, more natural, and better -suited to her beauty, as I thought, than any other manner could have been), -wept silently, while my old nurse hushed her like an infant. -</p> - -<p> -She got calmer by degrees, and then we soothed her; now talking encouragingly, -and now jesting a little with her, until she began to raise her head and speak -to us. So we got on, until she was able to smile, and then to laugh, and then -to sit up, half ashamed; while Peggotty recalled her stray ringlets, dried her -eyes, and made her neat again, lest her uncle should wonder, when she got home, -why his darling had been crying. -</p> - -<p> -I saw her do, that night, what I had never seen her do before. I saw her -innocently kiss her chosen husband on the cheek, and creep close to his bluff -form as if it were her best support. When they went away together, in the -waning moonlight, and I looked after them, comparing their departure in my mind -with Martha’s, I saw that she held his arm with both her hands, and still -kept close to him. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0023"></a>CHAPTER 23. I CORROBORATE Mr. DICK, AND CHOOSE -A PROFESSION</h2> - -<p> -When I awoke in the morning I thought very much of little Em’ly, and her -emotion last night, after Martha had left. I felt as if I had come into the -knowledge of those domestic weaknesses and tendernesses in a sacred confidence, -and that to disclose them, even to Steerforth, would be wrong. I had no gentler -feeling towards anyone than towards the pretty creature who had been my -playmate, and whom I have always been persuaded, and shall always be persuaded, -to my dying day, I then devotedly loved. The repetition to any ears—even -to Steerforth’s—of what she had been unable to repress when her -heart lay open to me by an accident, I felt would be a rough deed, unworthy of -myself, unworthy of the light of our pure childhood, which I always saw -encircling her head. I made a resolution, therefore, to keep it in my own -breast; and there it gave her image a new grace. -</p> - -<p> -While we were at breakfast, a letter was delivered to me from my aunt. As it -contained matter on which I thought Steerforth could advise me as well as -anyone, and on which I knew I should be delighted to consult him, I resolved to -make it a subject of discussion on our journey home. For the present we had -enough to do, in taking leave of all our friends. Mr. Barkis was far from being -the last among them, in his regret at our departure; and I believe would even -have opened the box again, and sacrificed another guinea, if it would have kept -us eight-and-forty hours in Yarmouth. Peggotty and all her family were full of -grief at our going. The whole house of Omer and Joram turned out to bid us -good-bye; and there were so many seafaring volunteers in attendance on -Steerforth, when our portmanteaux went to the coach, that if we had had the -baggage of a regiment with us, we should hardly have wanted porters to carry -it. In a word, we departed to the regret and admiration of all concerned, and -left a great many people very sorry behind US. -</p> - -<p> -Do you stay long here, Littimer?’ said I, as he stood waiting to see the -coach start. -</p> - -<p> -‘No, sir,’ he replied; ‘probably not very long, sir.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘He can hardly say, just now,’ observed Steerforth, carelessly. -‘He knows what he has to do, and he’ll do it.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘That I am sure he will,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -Littimer touched his hat in acknowledgement of my good opinion, and I felt -about eight years old. He touched it once more, wishing us a good journey; and -we left him standing on the pavement, as respectable a mystery as any pyramid -in Egypt. -</p> - -<p> -For some little time we held no conversation, Steerforth being unusually -silent, and I being sufficiently engaged in wondering, within myself, when I -should see the old places again, and what new changes might happen to me or -them in the meanwhile. At length Steerforth, becoming gay and talkative in a -moment, as he could become anything he liked at any moment, pulled me by the -arm: -</p> - -<p> -‘Find a voice, David. What about that letter you were speaking of at -breakfast?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh!’ said I, taking it out of my pocket. ‘It’s from my -aunt.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And what does she say, requiring consideration?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, she reminds me, Steerforth,’ said I, ‘that I came out -on this expedition to look about me, and to think a little.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Which, of course, you have done?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Indeed I can’t say I have, particularly. To tell you the truth, I -am afraid I have forgotten it.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Well! look about you now, and make up for your negligence,’ said -Steerforth. ‘Look to the right, and you’ll see a flat country, with -a good deal of marsh in it; look to the left, and you’ll see the same. -Look to the front, and you’ll find no difference; look to the rear, and -there it is still.’ I laughed, and replied that I saw no suitable -profession in the whole prospect; which was perhaps to be attributed to its -flatness. -</p> - -<p> -‘What says our aunt on the subject?’ inquired Steerforth, glancing -at the letter in my hand. ‘Does she suggest anything?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, yes,’ said I. ‘She asks me, here, if I think I should -like to be a proctor? What do you think of it?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, I don’t know,’ replied Steerforth, coolly. ‘You -may as well do that as anything else, I suppose?’ -</p> - -<p> -I could not help laughing again, at his balancing all callings and professions -so equally; and I told him so. -</p> - -<p> -‘What is a proctor, Steerforth?’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, he is a sort of monkish attorney,’ replied Steerforth. -‘He is, to some faded courts held in Doctors’ Commons,—a lazy -old nook near St. Paul’s Churchyard—what solicitors are to the -courts of law and equity. He is a functionary whose existence, in the natural -course of things, would have terminated about two hundred years ago. I can tell -you best what he is, by telling you what Doctors’ Commons is. It’s -a little out-of-the-way place, where they administer what is called -ecclesiastical law, and play all kinds of tricks with obsolete old monsters of -acts of Parliament, which three-fourths of the world know nothing about, and -the other fourth supposes to have been dug up, in a fossil state, in the days -of the Edwards. It’s a place that has an ancient monopoly in suits about -people’s wills and people’s marriages, and disputes among ships and -boats.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Nonsense, Steerforth!’ I exclaimed. ‘You don’t mean to -say that there is any affinity between nautical matters and ecclesiastical -matters?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I don’t, indeed, my dear boy,’ he returned; ‘but I -mean to say that they are managed and decided by the same set of people, down -in that same Doctors’ Commons. You shall go there one day, and find them -blundering through half the nautical terms in Young’s Dictionary, apropos -of the “Nancy” having run down the “Sarah Jane”, or Mr. -Peggotty and the Yarmouth boatmen having put off in a gale of wind with an -anchor and cable to the “Nelson” Indiaman in distress; and you -shall go there another day, and find them deep in the evidence, pro and con, -respecting a clergyman who has misbehaved himself; and you shall find the judge -in the nautical case, the advocate in the clergyman’s case, or -contrariwise. They are like actors: now a man’s a judge, and now he is -not a judge; now he’s one thing, now he’s another; now he’s -something else, change and change about; but it’s always a very pleasant, -profitable little affair of private theatricals, presented to an uncommonly -select audience.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘But advocates and proctors are not one and the same?’ said I, a -little puzzled. ‘Are they?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No,’ returned Steerforth, ‘the advocates are -civilians—men who have taken a doctor’s degree at -college—which is the first reason of my knowing anything about it. The -proctors employ the advocates. Both get very comfortable fees, and altogether -they make a mighty snug little party. On the whole, I would recommend you to -take to Doctors’ Commons kindly, David. They plume themselves on their -gentility there, I can tell you, if that’s any satisfaction.’ -</p> - -<p> -I made allowance for Steerforth’s light way of treating the subject, and, -considering it with reference to the staid air of gravity and antiquity which I -associated with that ‘lazy old nook near St. Paul’s -Churchyard’, did not feel indisposed towards my aunt’s suggestion; -which she left to my free decision, making no scruple of telling me that it had -occurred to her, on her lately visiting her own proctor in Doctors’ -Commons for the purpose of settling her will in my favour. -</p> - -<p> -‘That’s a laudable proceeding on the part of our aunt, at all -events,’ said Steerforth, when I mentioned it; ‘and one deserving -of all encouragement. Daisy, my advice is that you take kindly to -Doctors’ Commons.’ -</p> - -<p> -I quite made up my mind to do so. I then told Steerforth that my aunt was in -town awaiting me (as I found from her letter), and that she had taken lodgings -for a week at a kind of private hotel at Lincoln’s Inn Fields, where -there was a stone staircase, and a convenient door in the roof; my aunt being -firmly persuaded that every house in London was going to be burnt down every -night. -</p> - -<p> -We achieved the rest of our journey pleasantly, sometimes recurring to -Doctors’ Commons, and anticipating the distant days when I should be a -proctor there, which Steerforth pictured in a variety of humorous and whimsical -lights, that made us both merry. When we came to our journey’s end, he -went home, engaging to call upon me next day but one; and I drove to -Lincoln’s Inn Fields, where I found my aunt up, and waiting supper. -</p> - -<p> -If I had been round the world since we parted, we could hardly have been better -pleased to meet again. My aunt cried outright as she embraced me; and said, -pretending to laugh, that if my poor mother had been alive, that silly little -creature would have shed tears, she had no doubt. -</p> - -<p> -‘So you have left Mr. Dick behind, aunt?’ said I. ‘I am sorry -for that. Ah, Janet, how do you do?’ -</p> - -<p> -As Janet curtsied, hoping I was well, I observed my aunt’s visage -lengthen very much. -</p> - -<p> -‘I am sorry for it, too,’ said my aunt, rubbing her nose. ‘I -have had no peace of mind, Trot, since I have been here.’ Before I could -ask why, she told me. -</p> - -<p> -‘I am convinced,’ said my aunt, laying her hand with melancholy -firmness on the table, ‘that Dick’s character is not a character to -keep the donkeys off. I am confident he wants strength of purpose. I ought to -have left Janet at home, instead, and then my mind might perhaps have been at -ease. If ever there was a donkey trespassing on my green,’ said my aunt, -with emphasis, ‘there was one this afternoon at four o’clock. A -cold feeling came over me from head to foot, and I know it was a donkey!’ -</p> - -<p> -I tried to comfort her on this point, but she rejected consolation. -</p> - -<p> -‘It was a donkey,’ said my aunt; ‘and it was the one with the -stumpy tail which that Murdering sister of a woman rode, when she came to my -house.’ This had been, ever since, the only name my aunt knew for Miss -Murdstone. ‘If there is any Donkey in Dover, whose audacity it is harder -to me to bear than another’s, that,’ said my aunt, striking the -table, ‘is the animal!’ -</p> - -<p> -Janet ventured to suggest that my aunt might be disturbing herself -unnecessarily, and that she believed the donkey in question was then engaged in -the sand-and-gravel line of business, and was not available for purposes of -trespass. But my aunt wouldn’t hear of it. -</p> - -<p> -Supper was comfortably served and hot, though my aunt’s rooms were very -high up—whether that she might have more stone stairs for her money, or -might be nearer to the door in the roof, I don’t know—and consisted -of a roast fowl, a steak, and some vegetables, to all of which I did ample -justice, and which were all excellent. But my aunt had her own ideas concerning -London provision, and ate but little. -</p> - -<p> -‘I suppose this unfortunate fowl was born and brought up in a -cellar,’ said my aunt, ‘and never took the air except on a hackney -coach-stand. I hope the steak may be beef, but I don’t believe it. -Nothing’s genuine in the place, in my opinion, but the dirt.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Don’t you think the fowl may have come out of the country, -aunt?’ I hinted. -</p> - -<p> -‘Certainly not,’ returned my aunt. ‘It would be no pleasure -to a London tradesman to sell anything which was what he pretended it -was.’ -</p> - -<p> -I did not venture to controvert this opinion, but I made a good supper, which -it greatly satisfied her to see me do. When the table was cleared, Janet -assisted her to arrange her hair, to put on her nightcap, which was of a -smarter construction than usual (‘in case of fire’, my aunt said), -and to fold her gown back over her knees, these being her usual preparations -for warming herself before going to bed. I then made her, according to certain -established regulations from which no deviation, however slight, could ever be -permitted, a glass of hot wine and water, and a slice of toast cut into long -thin strips. With these accompaniments we were left alone to finish the -evening, my aunt sitting opposite to me drinking her wine and water; soaking -her strips of toast in it, one by one, before eating them; and looking -benignantly on me, from among the borders of her nightcap. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, Trot,’ she began, ‘what do you think of the proctor -plan? Or have you not begun to think about it yet?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I have thought a good deal about it, my dear aunt, and I have talked a -good deal about it with Steerforth. I like it very much indeed. I like it -exceedingly.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Come!’ said my aunt. ‘That’s cheering!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I have only one difficulty, aunt.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Say what it is, Trot,’ she returned. -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, I want to ask, aunt, as this seems, from what I understand, to be a -limited profession, whether my entrance into it would not be very -expensive?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘It will cost,’ returned my aunt, ‘to article you, just a -thousand pounds.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Now, my dear aunt,’ said I, drawing my chair nearer, ‘I am -uneasy in my mind about that. It’s a large sum of money. You have -expended a great deal on my education, and have always been as liberal to me in -all things as it was possible to be. You have been the soul of generosity. -Surely there are some ways in which I might begin life with hardly any outlay, -and yet begin with a good hope of getting on by resolution and exertion. Are -you sure that it would not be better to try that course? Are you certain that -you can afford to part with so much money, and that it is right that it should -be so expended? I only ask you, my second mother, to consider. Are you -certain?’ -</p> - -<p> -My aunt finished eating the piece of toast on which she was then engaged, -looking me full in the face all the while; and then setting her glass on the -chimney-piece, and folding her hands upon her folded skirts, replied as -follows: -</p> - -<p> -‘Trot, my child, if I have any object in life, it is to provide for your -being a good, a sensible, and a happy man. I am bent upon it—so is Dick. -I should like some people that I know to hear Dick’s conversation on the -subject. Its sagacity is wonderful. But no one knows the resources of that -man’s intellect, except myself!’ -</p> - -<p> -She stopped for a moment to take my hand between hers, and went on: -</p> - -<p> -‘It’s in vain, Trot, to recall the past, unless it works some -influence upon the present. Perhaps I might have been better friends with your -poor father. Perhaps I might have been better friends with that poor child your -mother, even after your sister Betsey Trotwood disappointed me. When you came -to me, a little runaway boy, all dusty and way-worn, perhaps I thought so. From -that time until now, Trot, you have ever been a credit to me and a pride and a -pleasure. I have no other claim upon my means; at least’—here to my -surprise she hesitated, and was confused—‘no, I have no other claim -upon my means—and you are my adopted child. Only be a loving child to me -in my age, and bear with my whims and fancies; and you will do more for an old -woman whose prime of life was not so happy or conciliating as it might have -been, than ever that old woman did for you.’ -</p> - -<p> -It was the first time I had heard my aunt refer to her past history. There was -a magnanimity in her quiet way of doing so, and of dismissing it, which would -have exalted her in my respect and affection, if anything could. -</p> - -<p> -‘All is agreed and understood between us, now, Trot,’ said my aunt, -‘and we need talk of this no more. Give me a kiss, and we’ll go to -the Commons after breakfast tomorrow.’ -</p> - -<p> -We had a long chat by the fire before we went to bed. I slept in a room on the -same floor with my aunt’s, and was a little disturbed in the course of -the night by her knocking at my door as often as she was agitated by a distant -sound of hackney-coaches or market-carts, and inquiring, ‘if I heard the -engines?’ But towards morning she slept better, and suffered me to do so -too. -</p> - -<p> -At about mid-day, we set out for the office of Messrs Spenlow and Jorkins, in -Doctors’ Commons. My aunt, who had this other general opinion in -reference to London, that every man she saw was a pickpocket, gave me her purse -to carry for her, which had ten guineas in it and some silver. -</p> - -<p> -We made a pause at the toy shop in Fleet Street, to see the giants of Saint -Dunstan’s strike upon the bells—we had timed our going, so as to -catch them at it, at twelve o’clock—and then went on towards -Ludgate Hill, and St. Paul’s Churchyard. We were crossing to the former -place, when I found that my aunt greatly accelerated her speed, and looked -frightened. I observed, at the same time, that a lowering ill-dressed man who -had stopped and stared at us in passing, a little before, was coming so close -after us as to brush against her. -</p> - -<p> -‘Trot! My dear Trot!’ cried my aunt, in a terrified whisper, and -pressing my arm. ‘I don’t know what I am to do.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Don’t be alarmed,’ said I. ‘There’s nothing to -be afraid of. Step into a shop, and I’ll soon get rid of this -fellow.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No, no, child!’ she returned. ‘Don’t speak to him for -the world. I entreat, I order you!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Good Heaven, aunt!’ said I. ‘He is nothing but a sturdy -beggar.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You don’t know what he is!’ replied my aunt. ‘You -don’t know who he is! You don’t know what you say!’ -</p> - -<p> -We had stopped in an empty door-way, while this was passing, and he had stopped -too. -</p> - -<p> -‘Don’t look at him!’ said my aunt, as I turned my head -indignantly, ‘but get me a coach, my dear, and wait for me in St. -Paul’s Churchyard.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Wait for you?’ I replied. -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes,’ rejoined my aunt. ‘I must go alone. I must go with -him.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘With him, aunt? This man?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I am in my senses,’ she replied, ‘and I tell you I must. Get -me a coach!’ -</p> - -<p> -However much astonished I might be, I was sensible that I had no right to -refuse compliance with such a peremptory command. I hurried away a few paces, -and called a hackney-chariot which was passing empty. Almost before I could let -down the steps, my aunt sprang in, I don’t know how, and the man -followed. She waved her hand to me to go away, so earnestly, that, all -confounded as I was, I turned from them at once. In doing so, I heard her say -to the coachman, ‘Drive anywhere! Drive straight on!’ and presently -the chariot passed me, going up the hill. -</p> - -<p> -What Mr. Dick had told me, and what I had supposed to be a delusion of his, now -came into my mind. I could not doubt that this person was the person of whom he -had made such mysterious mention, though what the nature of his hold upon my -aunt could possibly be, I was quite unable to imagine. After half an -hour’s cooling in the churchyard, I saw the chariot coming back. The -driver stopped beside me, and my aunt was sitting in it alone. -</p> - -<p> -She had not yet sufficiently recovered from her agitation to be quite prepared -for the visit we had to make. She desired me to get into the chariot, and to -tell the coachman to drive slowly up and down a little while. She said no more, -except, ‘My dear child, never ask me what it was, and don’t refer -to it,’ until she had perfectly regained her composure, when she told me -she was quite herself now, and we might get out. On her giving me her purse to -pay the driver, I found that all the guineas were gone, and only the loose -silver remained. -</p> - -<p> -Doctors’ Commons was approached by a little low archway. Before we had -taken many paces down the street beyond it, the noise of the city seemed to -melt, as if by magic, into a softened distance. A few dull courts and narrow -ways brought us to the sky-lighted offices of Spenlow and Jorkins; in the -vestibule of which temple, accessible to pilgrims without the ceremony of -knocking, three or four clerks were at work as copyists. One of these, a little -dry man, sitting by himself, who wore a stiff brown wig that looked as if it -were made of gingerbread, rose to receive my aunt, and show us into Mr. -Spenlow’s room. -</p> - -<p> -‘Mr. Spenlow’s in Court, ma’am,’ said the dry man; -‘it’s an Arches day; but it’s close by, and I’ll send -for him directly.’ -</p> - -<p> -As we were left to look about us while Mr. Spenlow was fetched, I availed -myself of the opportunity. The furniture of the room was old-fashioned and -dusty; and the green baize on the top of the writing-table had lost all its -colour, and was as withered and pale as an old pauper. There were a great many -bundles of papers on it, some endorsed as Allegations, and some (to my -surprise) as Libels, and some as being in the Consistory Court, and some in the -Arches Court, and some in the Prerogative Court, and some in the Admiralty -Court, and some in the Delegates’ Court; giving me occasion to wonder -much, how many Courts there might be in the gross, and how long it would take -to understand them all. Besides these, there were sundry immense manuscript -Books of Evidence taken on affidavit, strongly bound, and tied together in -massive sets, a set to each cause, as if every cause were a history in ten or -twenty volumes. All this looked tolerably expensive, I thought, and gave me an -agreeable notion of a proctor’s business. I was casting my eyes with -increasing complacency over these and many similar objects, when hasty -footsteps were heard in the room outside, and Mr. Spenlow, in a black gown -trimmed with white fur, came hurrying in, taking off his hat as he came. -</p> - -<p> -He was a little light-haired gentleman, with undeniable boots, and the stiffest -of white cravats and shirt-collars. He was buttoned up, mighty trim and tight, -and must have taken a great deal of pains with his whiskers, which were -accurately curled. His gold watch-chain was so massive, that a fancy came -across me, that he ought to have a sinewy golden arm, to draw it out with, like -those which are put up over the goldbeaters’ shops. He was got up with -such care, and was so stiff, that he could hardly bend himself; being obliged, -when he glanced at some papers on his desk, after sitting down in his chair, to -move his whole body, from the bottom of his spine, like Punch. -</p> - -<p> -I had previously been presented by my aunt, and had been courteously received. -He now said: -</p> - -<p> -‘And so, Mr. Copperfield, you think of entering into our profession? I -casually mentioned to Miss Trotwood, when I had the pleasure of an interview -with her the other day,’—with another inclination of his -body—Punch again—‘that there was a vacancy here. Miss -Trotwood was good enough to mention that she had a nephew who was her peculiar -care, and for whom she was seeking to provide genteelly in life. That nephew, I -believe, I have now the pleasure of’—Punch again. I bowed my -acknowledgements, and said, my aunt had mentioned to me that there was that -opening, and that I believed I should like it very much. That I was strongly -inclined to like it, and had taken immediately to the proposal. That I could -not absolutely pledge myself to like it, until I knew something more about it. -That although it was little else than a matter of form, I presumed I should -have an opportunity of trying how I liked it, before I bound myself to it -irrevocably. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh surely! surely!’ said Mr. Spenlow. ‘We always, in this -house, propose a month—an initiatory month. I should be happy, myself, to -propose two months—three—an indefinite period, in fact—but I -have a partner. Mr. Jorkins.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And the premium, sir,’ I returned, ‘is a thousand -pounds?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And the premium, Stamp included, is a thousand pounds,’ said Mr. -Spenlow. ‘As I have mentioned to Miss Trotwood, I am actuated by no -mercenary considerations; few men are less so, I believe; but Mr. Jorkins has -his opinions on these subjects, and I am bound to respect Mr. Jorkins’s -opinions. Mr. Jorkins thinks a thousand pounds too little, in short.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I suppose, sir,’ said I, still desiring to spare my aunt, -‘that it is not the custom here, if an articled clerk were particularly -useful, and made himself a perfect master of his profession’—I -could not help blushing, this looked so like praising myself—‘I -suppose it is not the custom, in the later years of his time, to allow him -any—’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Spenlow, by a great effort, just lifted his head far enough out of his -cravat to shake it, and answered, anticipating the word ‘salary’: -</p> - -<p> -‘No. I will not say what consideration I might give to that point myself, -Mr. Copperfield, if I were unfettered. Mr. Jorkins is immovable.’ -</p> - -<p> -I was quite dismayed by the idea of this terrible Jorkins. But I found out -afterwards that he was a mild man of a heavy temperament, whose place in the -business was to keep himself in the background, and be constantly exhibited by -name as the most obdurate and ruthless of men. If a clerk wanted his salary -raised, Mr. Jorkins wouldn’t listen to such a proposition. If a client -were slow to settle his bill of costs, Mr. Jorkins was resolved to have it -paid; and however painful these things might be (and always were) to the -feelings of Mr. Spenlow, Mr. Jorkins would have his bond. The heart and hand of -the good angel Spenlow would have been always open, but for the restraining -demon Jorkins. As I have grown older, I think I have had experience of some -other houses doing business on the principle of Spenlow and Jorkins! -</p> - -<p> -It was settled that I should begin my month’s probation as soon as I -pleased, and that my aunt need neither remain in town nor return at its -expiration, as the articles of agreement, of which I was to be the subject, -could easily be sent to her at home for her signature. When we had got so far, -Mr. Spenlow offered to take me into Court then and there, and show me what sort -of place it was. As I was willing enough to know, we went out with this object, -leaving my aunt behind; who would trust herself, she said, in no such place, -and who, I think, regarded all Courts of Law as a sort of powder-mills that -might blow up at any time. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Spenlow conducted me through a paved courtyard formed of grave brick -houses, which I inferred, from the Doctors’ names upon the doors, to be -the official abiding-places of the learned advocates of whom Steerforth had -told me; and into a large dull room, not unlike a chapel to my thinking, on the -left hand. The upper part of this room was fenced off from the rest; and there, -on the two sides of a raised platform of the horse-shoe form, sitting on easy -old-fashioned dining-room chairs, were sundry gentlemen in red gowns and grey -wigs, whom I found to be the Doctors aforesaid. Blinking over a little desk -like a pulpit-desk, in the curve of the horse-shoe, was an old gentleman, whom, -if I had seen him in an aviary, I should certainly have taken for an owl, but -who, I learned, was the presiding judge. In the space within the horse-shoe, -lower than these, that is to say, on about the level of the floor, were sundry -other gentlemen, of Mr. Spenlow’s rank, and dressed like him in black -gowns with white fur upon them, sitting at a long green table. Their cravats -were in general stiff, I thought, and their looks haughty; but in this last -respect I presently conceived I had done them an injustice, for when two or -three of them had to rise and answer a question of the presiding dignitary, I -never saw anything more sheepish. The public, represented by a boy with a -comforter, and a shabby-genteel man secretly eating crumbs out of his coat -pockets, was warming itself at a stove in the centre of the Court. The languid -stillness of the place was only broken by the chirping of this fire and by the -voice of one of the Doctors, who was wandering slowly through a perfect library -of evidence, and stopping to put up, from time to time, at little roadside inns -of argument on the journey. Altogether, I have never, on any occasion, made one -at such a cosey, dosey, old-fashioned, time-forgotten, sleepy-headed little -family-party in all my life; and I felt it would be quite a soothing opiate to -belong to it in any character—except perhaps as a suitor. -</p> - -<p> -Very well satisfied with the dreamy nature of this retreat, I informed Mr. -Spenlow that I had seen enough for that time, and we rejoined my aunt; in -company with whom I presently departed from the Commons, feeling very young -when I went out of Spenlow and Jorkins’s, on account of the clerks poking -one another with their pens to point me out. -</p> - -<p> -We arrived at Lincoln’s Inn Fields without any new adventures, except -encountering an unlucky donkey in a costermonger’s cart, who suggested -painful associations to my aunt. We had another long talk about my plans, when -we were safely housed; and as I knew she was anxious to get home, and, between -fire, food, and pickpockets, could never be considered at her ease for -half-an-hour in London, I urged her not to be uncomfortable on my account, but -to leave me to take care of myself. -</p> - -<p> -‘I have not been here a week tomorrow, without considering that too, my -dear,’ she returned. ‘There is a furnished little set of chambers -to be let in the Adelphi, Trot, which ought to suit you to a marvel.’ -</p> - -<p> -With this brief introduction, she produced from her pocket an advertisement, -carefully cut out of a newspaper, setting forth that in Buckingham Street in -the Adelphi there was to be let furnished, with a view of the river, a -singularly desirable, and compact set of chambers, forming a genteel residence -for a young gentleman, a member of one of the Inns of Court, or otherwise, with -immediate possession. Terms moderate, and could be taken for a month only, if -required. -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, this is the very thing, aunt!’ said I, flushed with the -possible dignity of living in chambers. -</p> - -<p> -‘Then come,’ replied my aunt, immediately resuming the bonnet she -had a minute before laid aside. ‘We’ll go and look at -‘em.’ -</p> - -<p> -Away we went. The advertisement directed us to apply to Mrs. Crupp on the -premises, and we rung the area bell, which we supposed to communicate with Mrs. -Crupp. It was not until we had rung three or four times that we could prevail -on Mrs. Crupp to communicate with us, but at last she appeared, being a stout -lady with a flounce of flannel petticoat below a nankeen gown. -</p> - -<p> -‘Let us see these chambers of yours, if you please, ma’am,’ -said my aunt. -</p> - -<p> -‘For this gentleman?’ said Mrs. Crupp, feeling in her pocket for -her keys. -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes, for my nephew,’ said my aunt. -</p> - -<p> -‘And a sweet set they is for sich!’ said Mrs. Crupp. -</p> - -<p> -So we went upstairs. -</p> - -<p> -They were on the top of the house—a great point with my aunt, being near -the fire-escape—and consisted of a little half-blind entry where you -could see hardly anything, a little stone-blind pantry where you could see -nothing at all, a sitting-room, and a bedroom. The furniture was rather faded, -but quite good enough for me; and, sure enough, the river was outside the -windows. -</p> - -<p> -As I was delighted with the place, my aunt and Mrs. Crupp withdrew into the -pantry to discuss the terms, while I remained on the sitting-room sofa, hardly -daring to think it possible that I could be destined to live in such a noble -residence. After a single combat of some duration they returned, and I saw, to -my joy, both in Mrs. Crupp’s countenance and in my aunt’s, that the -deed was done. -</p> - -<p> -‘Is it the last occupant’s furniture?’ inquired my aunt. -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes, it is, ma’am,’ said Mrs. Crupp. -</p> - -<p> -‘What’s become of him?’ asked my aunt. -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Crupp was taken with a troublesome cough, in the midst of which she -articulated with much difficulty. ‘He was took ill here, ma’am, -and—ugh! ugh! ugh! dear me!—and he died!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Hey! What did he die of?’ asked my aunt. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, ma’am, he died of drink,’ said Mrs. Crupp, in -confidence. ‘And smoke.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Smoke? You don’t mean chimneys?’ said my aunt. -</p> - -<p> -‘No, ma’am,’ returned Mrs. Crupp. ‘Cigars and -pipes.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘That’s not catching, Trot, at any rate,’ remarked my aunt, -turning to me. -</p> - -<p> -‘No, indeed,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -In short, my aunt, seeing how enraptured I was with the premises, took them for -a month, with leave to remain for twelve months when that time was out. Mrs. -Crupp was to find linen, and to cook; every other necessary was already -provided; and Mrs. Crupp expressly intimated that she should always yearn -towards me as a son. I was to take possession the day after tomorrow, and Mrs. -Crupp said, thank Heaven she had now found summun she could care for! -</p> - -<p> -On our way back, my aunt informed me how she confidently trusted that the life -I was now to lead would make me firm and self-reliant, which was all I wanted. -She repeated this several times next day, in the intervals of our arranging for -the transmission of my clothes and books from Mr. Wickfield’s; relative -to which, and to all my late holiday, I wrote a long letter to Agnes, of which -my aunt took charge, as she was to leave on the succeeding day. Not to lengthen -these particulars, I need only add, that she made a handsome provision for all -my possible wants during my month of trial; that Steerforth, to my great -disappointment and hers too, did not make his appearance before she went away; -that I saw her safely seated in the Dover coach, exulting in the coming -discomfiture of the vagrant donkeys, with Janet at her side; and that when the -coach was gone, I turned my face to the Adelphi, pondering on the old days when -I used to roam about its subterranean arches, and on the happy changes which -had brought me to the surface. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0024"></a>CHAPTER 24. MY FIRST DISSIPATION</h2> - -<p> -It was a wonderfully fine thing to have that lofty castle to myself, and to -feel, when I shut my outer door, like Robinson Crusoe, when he had got into his -fortification, and pulled his ladder up after him. It was a wonderfully fine -thing to walk about town with the key of my house in my pocket, and to know -that I could ask any fellow to come home, and make quite sure of its being -inconvenient to nobody, if it were not so to me. It was a wonderfully fine -thing to let myself in and out, and to come and go without a word to anyone, -and to ring Mrs. Crupp up, gasping, from the depths of the earth, when I wanted -her—and when she was disposed to come. All this, I say, was wonderfully -fine; but I must say, too, that there were times when it was very dreary. -</p> - -<p> -It was fine in the morning, particularly in the fine mornings. It looked a very -fresh, free life, by daylight: still fresher, and more free, by sunlight. But -as the day declined, the life seemed to go down too. I don’t know how it -was; it seldom looked well by candle-light. I wanted somebody to talk to, then. -I missed Agnes. I found a tremendous blank, in the place of that smiling -repository of my confidence. Mrs. Crupp appeared to be a long way off. I -thought about my predecessor, who had died of drink and smoke; and I could have -wished he had been so good as to live, and not bother me with his decease. -</p> - -<p> -After two days and nights, I felt as if I had lived there for a year, and yet I -was not an hour older, but was quite as much tormented by my own youthfulness -as ever. -</p> - -<p> -Steerforth not yet appearing, which induced me to apprehend that he must be -ill, I left the Commons early on the third day, and walked out to Highgate. -Mrs. Steerforth was very glad to see me, and said that he had gone away with -one of his Oxford friends to see another who lived near St. Albans, but that -she expected him to return tomorrow. I was so fond of him, that I felt quite -jealous of his Oxford friends. -</p> - -<p> -As she pressed me to stay to dinner, I remained, and I believe we talked about -nothing but him all day. I told her how much the people liked him at Yarmouth, -and what a delightful companion he had been. Miss Dartle was full of hints and -mysterious questions, but took a great interest in all our proceedings there, -and said, ‘Was it really though?’ and so forth, so often, that she -got everything out of me she wanted to know. Her appearance was exactly what I -have described it, when I first saw her; but the society of the two ladies was -so agreeable, and came so natural to me, that I felt myself falling a little in -love with her. I could not help thinking, several times in the course of the -evening, and particularly when I walked home at night, what delightful company -she would be in Buckingham Street. -</p> - -<p> -I was taking my coffee and roll in the morning, before going to the -Commons—and I may observe in this place that it is surprising how much -coffee Mrs. Crupp used, and how weak it was, considering—when Steerforth -himself walked in, to my unbounded joy. -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear Steerforth,’ cried I, ‘I began to think I should -never see you again!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I was carried off, by force of arms,’ said Steerforth, ‘the -very next morning after I got home. Why, Daisy, what a rare old bachelor you -are here!’ -</p> - -<p> -I showed him over the establishment, not omitting the pantry, with no little -pride, and he commended it highly. ‘I tell you what, old boy,’ he -added, ‘I shall make quite a town-house of this place, unless you give me -notice to quit.’ -</p> - -<p> -This was a delightful hearing. I told him if he waited for that, he would have -to wait till doomsday. -</p> - -<p> -‘But you shall have some breakfast!’ said I, with my hand on the -bell-rope, ‘and Mrs. Crupp shall make you some fresh coffee, and -I’ll toast you some bacon in a bachelor’s Dutch-oven, that I have -got here.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No, no!’ said Steerforth. ‘Don’t ring! I can’t! -I am going to breakfast with one of these fellows who is at the Piazza Hotel, -in Covent Garden.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘But you’ll come back to dinner?’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘I can’t, upon my life. There’s nothing I should like better, -but I must remain with these two fellows. We are all three off together -tomorrow morning.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Then bring them here to dinner,’ I returned. ‘Do you think -they would come?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh! they would come fast enough,’ said Steerforth; ‘but we -should inconvenience you. You had better come and dine with us -somewhere.’ -</p> - -<p> -I would not by any means consent to this, for it occurred to me that I really -ought to have a little house-warming, and that there never could be a better -opportunity. I had a new pride in my rooms after his approval of them, and -burned with a desire to develop their utmost resources. I therefore made him -promise positively in the names of his two friends, and we appointed six -o’clock as the dinner-hour. -</p> - -<p> -When he was gone, I rang for Mrs. Crupp, and acquainted her with my desperate -design. Mrs. Crupp said, in the first place, of course it was well known she -couldn’t be expected to wait, but she knew a handy young man, who she -thought could be prevailed upon to do it, and whose terms would be five -shillings, and what I pleased. I said, certainly we would have him. Next Mrs. -Crupp said it was clear she couldn’t be in two places at once (which I -felt to be reasonable), and that ‘a young gal’ stationed in the -pantry with a bedroom candle, there never to desist from washing plates, would -be indispensable. I said, what would be the expense of this young female? and -Mrs. Crupp said she supposed eighteenpence would neither make me nor break me. -I said I supposed not; and THAT was settled. Then Mrs. Crupp said, Now about -the dinner. -</p> - -<p> -It was a remarkable instance of want of forethought on the part of the -ironmonger who had made Mrs. Crupp’s kitchen fireplace, that it was -capable of cooking nothing but chops and mashed potatoes. As to a fish-kittle, -Mrs. Crupp said, well! would I only come and look at the range? She -couldn’t say fairer than that. Would I come and look at it? As I should -not have been much the wiser if I HAD looked at it, I declined, and said, -‘Never mind fish.’ But Mrs. Crupp said, Don’t say that; -oysters was in, why not them? So THAT was settled. Mrs. Crupp then said what -she would recommend would be this. A pair of hot roast fowls—from the -pastry-cook’s; a dish of stewed beef, with vegetables—from the -pastry-cook’s; two little corner things, as a raised pie and a dish of -kidneys—from the pastrycook’s; a tart, and (if I liked) a shape of -jelly—from the pastrycook’s. This, Mrs. Crupp said, would leave her -at full liberty to concentrate her mind on the potatoes, and to serve up the -cheese and celery as she could wish to see it done. -</p> - -<p> -I acted on Mrs. Crupp’s opinion, and gave the order at the -pastry-cook’s myself. Walking along the Strand, afterwards, and observing -a hard mottled substance in the window of a ham and beef shop, which resembled -marble, but was labelled ‘Mock Turtle’, I went in and bought a slab -of it, which I have since seen reason to believe would have sufficed for -fifteen people. This preparation, Mrs. Crupp, after some difficulty, consented -to warm up; and it shrunk so much in a liquid state, that we found it what -Steerforth called ‘rather a tight fit’ for four. -</p> - -<p> -These preparations happily completed, I bought a little dessert in Covent -Garden Market, and gave a rather extensive order at a retail -wine-merchant’s in that vicinity. When I came home in the afternoon, and -saw the bottles drawn up in a square on the pantry floor, they looked so -numerous (though there were two missing, which made Mrs. Crupp very -uncomfortable), that I was absolutely frightened at them. -</p> - -<p> -One of Steerforth’s friends was named Grainger, and the other Markham. -They were both very gay and lively fellows; Grainger, something older than -Steerforth; Markham, youthful-looking, and I should say not more than twenty. I -observed that the latter always spoke of himself indefinitely, as ‘a -man’, and seldom or never in the first person singular. -</p> - -<p> -‘A man might get on very well here, Mr. Copperfield,’ said -Markham—meaning himself. -</p> - -<p> -‘It’s not a bad situation,’ said I, ‘and the rooms are -really commodious.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I hope you have both brought appetites with you?’ said Steerforth. -</p> - -<p> -‘Upon my honour,’ returned Markham, ‘town seems to sharpen a -man’s appetite. A man is hungry all day long. A man is perpetually -eating.’ -</p> - -<p> -Being a little embarrassed at first, and feeling much too young to preside, I -made Steerforth take the head of the table when dinner was announced, and -seated myself opposite to him. Everything was very good; we did not spare the -wine; and he exerted himself so brilliantly to make the thing pass off well, -that there was no pause in our festivity. I was not quite such good company -during dinner as I could have wished to be, for my chair was opposite the door, -and my attention was distracted by observing that the handy young man went out -of the room very often, and that his shadow always presented itself, -immediately afterwards, on the wall of the entry, with a bottle at its mouth. -The ‘young gal’ likewise occasioned me some uneasiness: not so much -by neglecting to wash the plates, as by breaking them. For being of an -inquisitive disposition, and unable to confine herself (as her positive -instructions were) to the pantry, she was constantly peering in at us, and -constantly imagining herself detected; in which belief, she several times -retired upon the plates (with which she had carefully paved the floor), and did -a great deal of destruction. -</p> - -<p> -These, however, were small drawbacks, and easily forgotten when the cloth was -cleared, and the dessert put on the table; at which period of the entertainment -the handy young man was discovered to be speechless. Giving him private -directions to seek the society of Mrs. Crupp, and to remove the ‘young -gal’ to the basement also, I abandoned myself to enjoyment. -</p> - -<p> -I began, by being singularly cheerful and light-hearted; all sorts of -half-forgotten things to talk about, came rushing into my mind, and made me -hold forth in a most unwonted manner. I laughed heartily at my own jokes, and -everybody else’s; called Steerforth to order for not passing the wine; -made several engagements to go to Oxford; announced that I meant to have a -dinner-party exactly like that, once a week, until further notice; and madly -took so much snuff out of Grainger’s box, that I was obliged to go into -the pantry, and have a private fit of sneezing ten minutes long. -</p> - -<p> -I went on, by passing the wine faster and faster yet, and continually starting -up with a corkscrew to open more wine, long before any was needed. I proposed -Steerforth’s health. I said he was my dearest friend, the protector of my -boyhood, and the companion of my prime. I said I was delighted to propose his -health. I said I owed him more obligations than I could ever repay, and held -him in a higher admiration than I could ever express. I finished by saying, -‘I’ll give you Steerforth! God bless him! Hurrah!’ We gave -him three times three, and another, and a good one to finish with. I broke my -glass in going round the table to shake hands with him, and I said (in two -words) -</p> - -<p> -‘Steerforth—you’retheguidingstarofmyexistence.’ -</p> - -<p> -I went on, by finding suddenly that somebody was in the middle of a song. -Markham was the singer, and he sang ‘When the heart of a man is depressed -with care’. He said, when he had sung it, he would give us -‘Woman!’ I took objection to that, and I couldn’t allow it. I -said it was not a respectful way of proposing the toast, and I would never -permit that toast to be drunk in my house otherwise than as ‘The -Ladies!’ I was very high with him, mainly I think because I saw -Steerforth and Grainger laughing at me—or at him—or at both of us. -He said a man was not to be dictated to. I said a man was. He said a man was -not to be insulted, then. I said he was right there—never under my roof, -where the Lares were sacred, and the laws of hospitality paramount. He said it -was no derogation from a man’s dignity to confess that I was a devilish -good fellow. I instantly proposed his health. -</p> - -<p> -Somebody was smoking. We were all smoking. I was smoking, and trying to -suppress a rising tendency to shudder. Steerforth had made a speech about me, -in the course of which I had been affected almost to tears. I returned thanks, -and hoped the present company would dine with me tomorrow, and the day -after—each day at five o’clock, that we might enjoy the pleasures -of conversation and society through a long evening. I felt called upon to -propose an individual. I would give them my aunt. Miss Betsey Trotwood, the -best of her sex! -</p> - -<p> -Somebody was leaning out of my bedroom window, refreshing his forehead against -the cool stone of the parapet, and feeling the air upon his face. It was -myself. I was addressing myself as ‘Copperfield’, and saying, -‘Why did you try to smoke? You might have known you couldn’t do -it.’ Now, somebody was unsteadily contemplating his features in the -looking-glass. That was I too. I was very pale in the looking-glass; my eyes -had a vacant appearance; and my hair—only my hair, nothing -else—looked drunk. -</p> - -<p> -Somebody said to me, ‘Let us go to the theatre, Copperfield!’ There -was no bedroom before me, but again the jingling table covered with glasses; -the lamp; Grainger on my right hand, Markham on my left, and Steerforth -opposite—all sitting in a mist, and a long way off. The theatre? To be -sure. The very thing. Come along! But they must excuse me if I saw everybody -out first, and turned the lamp off—in case of fire. -</p> - -<p> -Owing to some confusion in the dark, the door was gone. I was feeling for it in -the window-curtains, when Steerforth, laughing, took me by the arm and led me -out. We went downstairs, one behind another. Near the bottom, somebody fell, -and rolled down. Somebody else said it was Copperfield. I was angry at that -false report, until, finding myself on my back in the passage, I began to think -there might be some foundation for it. -</p> - -<p> -A very foggy night, with great rings round the lamps in the streets! There was -an indistinct talk of its being wet. I considered it frosty. Steerforth dusted -me under a lamp-post, and put my hat into shape, which somebody produced from -somewhere in a most extraordinary manner, for I hadn’t had it on before. -Steerforth then said, ‘You are all right, Copperfield, are you -not?’ and I told him, ‘Neverberrer.’ -</p> - -<p> -A man, sitting in a pigeon-hole-place, looked out of the fog, and took money -from somebody, inquiring if I was one of the gentlemen paid for, and appearing -rather doubtful (as I remember in the glimpse I had of him) whether to take the -money for me or not. Shortly afterwards, we were very high up in a very hot -theatre, looking down into a large pit, that seemed to me to smoke; the people -with whom it was crammed were so indistinct. There was a great stage, too, -looking very clean and smooth after the streets; and there were people upon it, -talking about something or other, but not at all intelligibly. There was an -abundance of bright lights, and there was music, and there were ladies down in -the boxes, and I don’t know what more. The whole building looked to me as -if it were learning to swim; it conducted itself in such an unaccountable -manner, when I tried to steady it. -</p> - -<p> -On somebody’s motion, we resolved to go downstairs to the dress-boxes, -where the ladies were. A gentleman lounging, full dressed, on a sofa, with an -opera-glass in his hand, passed before my view, and also my own figure at full -length in a glass. Then I was being ushered into one of these boxes, and found -myself saying something as I sat down, and people about me crying -‘Silence!’ to somebody, and ladies casting indignant glances at me, -and—what! yes!—Agnes, sitting on the seat before me, in the same -box, with a lady and gentleman beside her, whom I didn’t know. I see her -face now, better than I did then, I dare say, with its indelible look of regret -and wonder turned upon me. -</p> - -<p> -‘Agnes!’ I said, thickly, ‘Lorblessmer! Agnes!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Hush! Pray!’ she answered, I could not conceive why. ‘You -disturb the company. Look at the stage!’ -</p> - -<p> -I tried, on her injunction, to fix it, and to hear something of what was going -on there, but quite in vain. I looked at her again by and by, and saw her -shrink into her corner, and put her gloved hand to her forehead. -</p> - -<p> -‘Agnes!’ I said. ‘I’mafraidyou’renorwell.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes, yes. Do not mind me, Trotwood,’ she returned. ‘Listen! -Are you going away soon?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Amigoarawaysoo?’ I repeated. -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes.’ -</p> - -<p> -I had a stupid intention of replying that I was going to wait, to hand her -downstairs. I suppose I expressed it, somehow; for after she had looked at me -attentively for a little while, she appeared to understand, and replied in a -low tone: -</p> - -<p> -‘I know you will do as I ask you, if I tell you I am very earnest in it. -Go away now, Trotwood, for my sake, and ask your friends to take you -home.’ -</p> - -<p> -She had so far improved me, for the time, that though I was angry with her, I -felt ashamed, and with a short ‘Goori!’ (which I intended for -‘Good night!’) got up and went away. They followed, and I stepped -at once out of the box-door into my bedroom, where only Steerforth was with me, -helping me to undress, and where I was by turns telling him that Agnes was my -sister, and adjuring him to bring the corkscrew, that I might open another -bottle of wine. -</p> - -<p> -How somebody, lying in my bed, lay saying and doing all this over again, at -cross purposes, in a feverish dream all night—the bed a rocking sea that -was never still! How, as that somebody slowly settled down into myself, did I -begin to parch, and feel as if my outer covering of skin were a hard board; my -tongue the bottom of an empty kettle, furred with long service, and burning up -over a slow fire; the palms of my hands, hot plates of metal which no ice could -cool! -</p> - -<p> -But the agony of mind, the remorse, and shame I felt when I became conscious -next day! My horror of having committed a thousand offences I had forgotten, -and which nothing could ever expiate—my recollection of that indelible -look which Agnes had given me—the torturing impossibility of -communicating with her, not knowing, Beast that I was, how she came to be in -London, or where she stayed—my disgust of the very sight of the room -where the revel had been held—my racking head—the smell of smoke, -the sight of glasses, the impossibility of going out, or even getting up! Oh, -what a day it was! -</p> - -<p> -Oh, what an evening, when I sat down by my fire to a basin of mutton broth, -dimpled all over with fat, and thought I was going the way of my predecessor, -and should succeed to his dismal story as well as to his chambers, and had half -a mind to rush express to Dover and reveal all! What an evening, when Mrs. -Crupp, coming in to take away the broth-basin, produced one kidney on a -cheese-plate as the entire remains of yesterday’s feast, and I was really -inclined to fall upon her nankeen breast and say, in heartfelt penitence, -‘Oh, Mrs. Crupp, Mrs. Crupp, never mind the broken meats! I am very -miserable!’—only that I doubted, even at that pass, if Mrs. Crupp -were quite the sort of woman to confide in! -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0025"></a>CHAPTER 25. GOOD AND BAD ANGELS</h2> - -<p> -I was going out at my door on the morning after that deplorable day of -headache, sickness, and repentance, with an odd confusion in my mind relative -to the date of my dinner-party, as if a body of Titans had taken an enormous -lever and pushed the day before yesterday some months back, when I saw a -ticket-porter coming upstairs, with a letter in his hand. He was taking his -time about his errand, then; but when he saw me on the top of the staircase, -looking at him over the banisters, he swung into a trot, and came up panting as -if he had run himself into a state of exhaustion. -</p> - -<p> -‘T. Copperfield, Esquire,’ said the ticket-porter, touching his hat -with his little cane. -</p> - -<p> -I could scarcely lay claim to the name: I was so disturbed by the conviction -that the letter came from Agnes. However, I told him I was T. Copperfield, -Esquire, and he believed it, and gave me the letter, which he said required an -answer. I shut him out on the landing to wait for the answer, and went into my -chambers again, in such a nervous state that I was fain to lay the letter down -on my breakfast table, and familiarize myself with the outside of it a little, -before I could resolve to break the seal. -</p> - -<p> -I found, when I did open it, that it was a very kind note, containing no -reference to my condition at the theatre. All it said was, ‘My dear -Trotwood. I am staying at the house of papa’s agent, Mr. Waterbrook, in -Ely Place, Holborn. Will you come and see me today, at any time you like to -appoint? Ever yours affectionately, AGNES.’ -</p> - -<p> -It took me such a long time to write an answer at all to my satisfaction, that -I don’t know what the ticket-porter can have thought, unless he thought I -was learning to write. I must have written half-a-dozen answers at least. I -began one, ‘How can I ever hope, my dear Agnes, to efface from your -remembrance the disgusting impression’—there I didn’t like -it, and then I tore it up. I began another, ‘Shakespeare has observed, my -dear Agnes, how strange it is that a man should put an enemy into his -mouth’—that reminded me of Markham, and it got no farther. I even -tried poetry. I began one note, in a six-syllable line, ‘Oh, do not -remember’—but that associated itself with the fifth of November, -and became an absurdity. After many attempts, I wrote, ‘My dear Agnes. -Your letter is like you, and what could I say of it that would be higher praise -than that? I will come at four o’clock. Affectionately and sorrowfully, -T.C.’ With this missive (which I was in twenty minds at once about -recalling, as soon as it was out of my hands), the ticket-porter at last -departed. -</p> - -<p> -If the day were half as tremendous to any other professional gentleman in -Doctors’ Commons as it was to me, I sincerely believe he made some -expiation for his share in that rotten old ecclesiastical cheese. Although I -left the office at half past three, and was prowling about the place of -appointment within a few minutes afterwards, the appointed time was exceeded by -a full quarter of an hour, according to the clock of St. Andrew’s, -Holborn, before I could muster up sufficient desperation to pull the private -bell-handle let into the left-hand door-post of Mr. Waterbrook’s house. -</p> - -<p> -The professional business of Mr. Waterbrook’s establishment was done on -the ground-floor, and the genteel business (of which there was a good deal) in -the upper part of the building. I was shown into a pretty but rather close -drawing-room, and there sat Agnes, netting a purse. -</p> - -<p> -She looked so quiet and good, and reminded me so strongly of my airy fresh -school days at Canterbury, and the sodden, smoky, stupid wretch I had been the -other night, that, nobody being by, I yielded to my self-reproach and shame, -and—in short, made a fool of myself. I cannot deny that I shed tears. To -this hour I am undecided whether it was upon the whole the wisest thing I could -have done, or the most ridiculous. -</p> - -<p> -‘If it had been anyone but you, Agnes,’ said I, turning away my -head, ‘I should not have minded it half so much. But that it should have -been you who saw me! I almost wish I had been dead, first.’ -</p> - -<p> -She put her hand—its touch was like no other hand—upon my arm for a -moment; and I felt so befriended and comforted, that I could not help moving it -to my lips, and gratefully kissing it. -</p> - -<p> -‘Sit down,’ said Agnes, cheerfully. ‘Don’t be unhappy, -Trotwood. If you cannot confidently trust me, whom will you trust?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Ah, Agnes!’ I returned. ‘You are my good Angel!’ -</p> - -<p> -She smiled rather sadly, I thought, and shook her head. -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes, Agnes, my good Angel! Always my good Angel!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘If I were, indeed, Trotwood,’ she returned, ‘there is one -thing that I should set my heart on very much.’ -</p> - -<p> -I looked at her inquiringly; but already with a foreknowledge of her meaning. -</p> - -<p> -‘On warning you,’ said Agnes, with a steady glance, ‘against -your bad Angel.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear Agnes,’ I began, ‘if you mean -Steerforth—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I do, Trotwood,’ she returned. ‘Then, Agnes, you wrong him -very much. He my bad Angel, or anyone’s! He, anything but a guide, a -support, and a friend to me! My dear Agnes! Now, is it not unjust, and unlike -you, to judge him from what you saw of me the other night?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I do not judge him from what I saw of you the other night,’ she -quietly replied. -</p> - -<p> -‘From what, then?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘From many things—trifles in themselves, but they do not seem to me -to be so, when they are put together. I judge him, partly from your account of -him, Trotwood, and your character, and the influence he has over you.’ -</p> - -<p> -There was always something in her modest voice that seemed to touch a chord -within me, answering to that sound alone. It was always earnest; but when it -was very earnest, as it was now, there was a thrill in it that quite subdued -me. I sat looking at her as she cast her eyes down on her work; I sat seeming -still to listen to her; and Steerforth, in spite of all my attachment to him, -darkened in that tone. -</p> - -<p> -‘It is very bold in me,’ said Agnes, looking up again, ‘who -have lived in such seclusion, and can know so little of the world, to give you -my advice so confidently, or even to have this strong opinion. But I know in -what it is engendered, Trotwood,—in how true a remembrance of our having -grown up together, and in how true an interest in all relating to you. It is -that which makes me bold. I am certain that what I say is right. I am quite -sure it is. I feel as if it were someone else speaking to you, and not I, when -I caution you that you have made a dangerous friend.’ -</p> - -<p> -Again I looked at her, again I listened to her after she was silent, and again -his image, though it was still fixed in my heart, darkened. -</p> - -<p> -‘I am not so unreasonable as to expect,’ said Agnes, resuming her -usual tone, after a little while, ‘that you will, or that you can, at -once, change any sentiment that has become a conviction to you; least of all a -sentiment that is rooted in your trusting disposition. You ought not hastily to -do that. I only ask you, Trotwood, if you ever think of me—I mean,’ -with a quiet smile, for I was going to interrupt her, and she knew why, -‘as often as you think of me—to think of what I have said. Do you -forgive me for all this?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I will forgive you, Agnes,’ I replied, ‘when you come to do -Steerforth justice, and to like him as well as I do.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Not until then?’ said Agnes. -</p> - -<p> -I saw a passing shadow on her face when I made this mention of him, but she -returned my smile, and we were again as unreserved in our mutual confidence as -of old. -</p> - -<p> -‘And when, Agnes,’ said I, ‘will you forgive me the other -night?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘When I recall it,’ said Agnes. -</p> - -<p> -She would have dismissed the subject so, but I was too full of it to allow -that, and insisted on telling her how it happened that I had disgraced myself, -and what chain of accidental circumstances had had the theatre for its final -link. It was a great relief to me to do this, and to enlarge on the obligation -that I owed to Steerforth for his care of me when I was unable to take care of -myself. -</p> - -<p> -‘You must not forget,’ said Agnes, calmly changing the conversation -as soon as I had concluded, ‘that you are always to tell me, not only -when you fall into trouble, but when you fall in love. Who has succeeded to -Miss Larkins, Trotwood?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No one, Agnes.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Someone, Trotwood,’ said Agnes, laughing, and holding up her -finger. -</p> - -<p> -‘No, Agnes, upon my word! There is a lady, certainly, at Mrs. -Steerforth’s house, who is very clever, and whom I like to talk -to—Miss Dartle—but I don’t adore her.’ -</p> - -<p> -Agnes laughed again at her own penetration, and told me that if I were faithful -to her in my confidence she thought she should keep a little register of my -violent attachments, with the date, duration, and termination of each, like the -table of the reigns of the kings and queens, in the History of England. Then -she asked me if I had seen Uriah. -</p> - -<p> -‘Uriah Heep?’ said I. ‘No. Is he in London?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘He comes to the office downstairs, every day,’ returned Agnes. -‘He was in London a week before me. I am afraid on disagreeable business, -Trotwood.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘On some business that makes you uneasy, Agnes, I see,’ said I. -‘What can that be?’ -</p> - -<p> -Agnes laid aside her work, and replied, folding her hands upon one another, and -looking pensively at me out of those beautiful soft eyes of hers: -</p> - -<p> -‘I believe he is going to enter into partnership with papa.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘What? Uriah? That mean, fawning fellow, worm himself into such -promotion!’ I cried, indignantly. ‘Have you made no remonstrance -about it, Agnes? Consider what a connexion it is likely to be. You must speak -out. You must not allow your father to take such a mad step. You must prevent -it, Agnes, while there’s time.’ -</p> - -<p> -Still looking at me, Agnes shook her head while I was speaking, with a faint -smile at my warmth: and then replied: -</p> - -<p> -‘You remember our last conversation about papa? It was not long after -that—not more than two or three days—when he gave me the first -intimation of what I tell you. It was sad to see him struggling between his -desire to represent it to me as a matter of choice on his part, and his -inability to conceal that it was forced upon him. I felt very sorry.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Forced upon him, Agnes! Who forces it upon him?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Uriah,’ she replied, after a moment’s hesitation, ‘has -made himself indispensable to papa. He is subtle and watchful. He has mastered -papa’s weaknesses, fostered them, and taken advantage of them, -until—to say all that I mean in a word, Trotwood,—until papa is -afraid of him.’ -</p> - -<p> -There was more that she might have said; more that she knew, or that she -suspected; I clearly saw. I could not give her pain by asking what it was, for -I knew that she withheld it from me, to spare her father. It had long been -going on to this, I was sensible: yes, I could not but feel, on the least -reflection, that it had been going on to this for a long time. I remained -silent. -</p> - -<p> -‘His ascendancy over papa,’ said Agnes, ‘is very great. He -professes humility and gratitude—with truth, perhaps: I hope so—but -his position is really one of power, and I fear he makes a hard use of his -power.’ -</p> - -<p> -I said he was a hound, which, at the moment, was a great satisfaction to me. -</p> - -<p> -‘At the time I speak of, as the time when papa spoke to me,’ -pursued Agnes, ‘he had told papa that he was going away; that he was very -sorry, and unwilling to leave, but that he had better prospects. Papa was very -much depressed then, and more bowed down by care than ever you or I have seen -him; but he seemed relieved by this expedient of the partnership, though at the -same time he seemed hurt by it and ashamed of it.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And how did you receive it, Agnes?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I did, Trotwood,’ she replied, ‘what I hope was right. -Feeling sure that it was necessary for papa’s peace that the sacrifice -should be made, I entreated him to make it. I said it would lighten the load of -his life—I hope it will!—and that it would give me increased -opportunities of being his companion. Oh, Trotwood!’ cried Agnes, putting -her hands before her face, as her tears started on it, ‘I almost feel as -if I had been papa’s enemy, instead of his loving child. For I know how -he has altered, in his devotion to me. I know how he has narrowed the circle of -his sympathies and duties, in the concentration of his whole mind upon me. I -know what a multitude of things he has shut out for my sake, and how his -anxious thoughts of me have shadowed his life, and weakened his strength and -energy, by turning them always upon one idea. If I could ever set this right! -If I could ever work out his restoration, as I have so innocently been the -cause of his decline!’ -</p> - -<p> -I had never before seen Agnes cry. I had seen tears in her eyes when I had -brought new honours home from school, and I had seen them there when we last -spoke about her father, and I had seen her turn her gentle head aside when we -took leave of one another; but I had never seen her grieve like this. It made -me so sorry that I could only say, in a foolish, helpless manner, ‘Pray, -Agnes, don’t! Don’t, my dear sister!’ -</p> - -<p> -But Agnes was too superior to me in character and purpose, as I know well now, -whatever I might know or not know then, to be long in need of my entreaties. -The beautiful, calm manner, which makes her so different in my remembrance from -everybody else, came back again, as if a cloud had passed from a serene sky. -</p> - -<p> -‘We are not likely to remain alone much longer,’ said Agnes, -‘and while I have an opportunity, let me earnestly entreat you, Trotwood, -to be friendly to Uriah. Don’t repel him. Don’t resent (as I think -you have a general disposition to do) what may be uncongenial to you in him. He -may not deserve it, for we know no certain ill of him. In any case, think first -of papa and me!’ -</p> - -<p> -Agnes had no time to say more, for the room door opened, and Mrs. Waterbrook, -who was a large lady—or who wore a large dress: I don’t exactly -know which, for I don’t know which was dress and which was -lady—came sailing in. I had a dim recollection of having seen her at the -theatre, as if I had seen her in a pale magic lantern; but she appeared to -remember me perfectly, and still to suspect me of being in a state of -intoxication. -</p> - -<p> -Finding by degrees, however, that I was sober, and (I hope) that I was a modest -young gentleman, Mrs. Waterbrook softened towards me considerably, and -inquired, firstly, if I went much into the parks, and secondly, if I went much -into society. On my replying to both these questions in the negative, it -occurred to me that I fell again in her good opinion; but she concealed the -fact gracefully, and invited me to dinner next day. I accepted the invitation, -and took my leave, making a call on Uriah in the office as I went out, and -leaving a card for him in his absence. -</p> - -<p> -When I went to dinner next day, and on the street door being opened, plunged -into a vapour-bath of haunch of mutton, I divined that I was not the only -guest, for I immediately identified the ticket-porter in disguise, assisting -the family servant, and waiting at the foot of the stairs to carry up my name. -He looked, to the best of his ability, when he asked me for it confidentially, -as if he had never seen me before; but well did I know him, and well did he -know me. Conscience made cowards of us both. -</p> - -<p> -I found Mr. Waterbrook to be a middle-aged gentleman, with a short throat, and -a good deal of shirt-collar, who only wanted a black nose to be the portrait of -a pug-dog. He told me he was happy to have the honour of making my -acquaintance; and when I had paid my homage to Mrs. Waterbrook, presented me, -with much ceremony, to a very awful lady in a black velvet dress, and a great -black velvet hat, whom I remember as looking like a near relation of -Hamlet’s—say his aunt. -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Henry Spiker was this lady’s name; and her husband was there too: so -cold a man, that his head, instead of being grey, seemed to be sprinkled with -hoar-frost. Immense deference was shown to the Henry Spikers, male and female; -which Agnes told me was on account of Mr. Henry Spiker being solicitor to -something or to somebody, I forget what or which, remotely connected with the -Treasury. -</p> - -<p> -I found Uriah Heep among the company, in a suit of black, and in deep humility. -He told me, when I shook hands with him, that he was proud to be noticed by me, -and that he really felt obliged to me for my condescension. I could have wished -he had been less obliged to me, for he hovered about me in his gratitude all -the rest of the evening; and whenever I said a word to Agnes, was sure, with -his shadowless eyes and cadaverous face, to be looking gauntly down upon us -from behind. -</p> - -<p> -There were other guests—all iced for the occasion, as it struck me, like -the wine. But there was one who attracted my attention before he came in, on -account of my hearing him announced as Mr. Traddles! My mind flew back to Salem -House; and could it be Tommy, I thought, who used to draw the skeletons! -</p> - -<p> -I looked for Mr. Traddles with unusual interest. He was a sober, steady-looking -young man of retiring manners, with a comic head of hair, and eyes that were -rather wide open; and he got into an obscure corner so soon, that I had some -difficulty in making him out. At length I had a good view of him, and either my -vision deceived me, or it was the old unfortunate Tommy. -</p> - -<p> -I made my way to Mr. Waterbrook, and said, that I believed I had the pleasure -of seeing an old schoolfellow there. -</p> - -<p> -‘Indeed!’ said Mr. Waterbrook, surprised. ‘You are too young -to have been at school with Mr. Henry Spiker?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, I don’t mean him!’ I returned. ‘I mean the -gentleman named Traddles.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh! Aye, aye! Indeed!’ said my host, with much diminished -interest. ‘Possibly.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘If it’s really the same person,’ said I, glancing towards -him, ‘it was at a place called Salem House where we were together, and he -was an excellent fellow.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh yes. Traddles is a good fellow,’ returned my host nodding his -head with an air of toleration. ‘Traddles is quite a good fellow.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘It’s a curious coincidence,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘It is really,’ returned my host, ‘quite a coincidence, that -Traddles should be here at all: as Traddles was only invited this morning, when -the place at table, intended to be occupied by Mrs. Henry Spiker’s -brother, became vacant, in consequence of his indisposition. A very gentlemanly -man, Mrs. Henry Spiker’s brother, Mr. Copperfield.’ -</p> - -<p> -I murmured an assent, which was full of feeling, considering that I knew -nothing at all about him; and I inquired what Mr. Traddles was by profession. -</p> - -<p> -‘Traddles,’ returned Mr. Waterbrook, ‘is a young man reading -for the bar. Yes. He is quite a good fellow—nobody’s enemy but his -own.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Is he his own enemy?’ said I, sorry to hear this. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well,’ returned Mr. Waterbrook, pursing up his mouth, and playing -with his watch-chain, in a comfortable, prosperous sort of way. ‘I should -say he was one of those men who stand in their own light. Yes, I should say he -would never, for example, be worth five hundred pound. Traddles was recommended -to me by a professional friend. Oh yes. Yes. He has a kind of talent for -drawing briefs, and stating a case in writing, plainly. I am able to throw -something in Traddles’s way, in the course of the year; -something—for him—considerable. Oh yes. Yes.’ -</p> - -<p> -I was much impressed by the extremely comfortable and satisfied manner in which -Mr. Waterbrook delivered himself of this little word ‘Yes’, every -now and then. There was wonderful expression in it. It completely conveyed the -idea of a man who had been born, not to say with a silver spoon, but with a -scaling-ladder, and had gone on mounting all the heights of life one after -another, until now he looked, from the top of the fortifications, with the eye -of a philosopher and a patron, on the people down in the trenches. -</p> - -<p> -My reflections on this theme were still in progress when dinner was announced. -Mr. Waterbrook went down with Hamlet’s aunt. Mr. Henry Spiker took Mrs. -Waterbrook. Agnes, whom I should have liked to take myself, was given to a -simpering fellow with weak legs. Uriah, Traddles, and I, as the junior part of -the company, went down last, how we could. I was not so vexed at losing Agnes -as I might have been, since it gave me an opportunity of making myself known to -Traddles on the stairs, who greeted me with great fervour; while Uriah writhed -with such obtrusive satisfaction and self-abasement, that I could gladly have -pitched him over the banisters. Traddles and I were separated at table, being -billeted in two remote corners: he in the glare of a red velvet lady; I, in the -gloom of Hamlet’s aunt. The dinner was very long, and the conversation -was about the Aristocracy—and Blood. Mrs. Waterbrook repeatedly told us, -that if she had a weakness, it was Blood. -</p> - -<p> -It occurred to me several times that we should have got on better, if we had -not been quite so genteel. We were so exceedingly genteel, that our scope was -very limited. A Mr. and Mrs. Gulpidge were of the party, who had something to -do at second-hand (at least, Mr. Gulpidge had) with the law business of the -Bank; and what with the Bank, and what with the Treasury, we were as exclusive -as the Court Circular. To mend the matter, Hamlet’s aunt had the family -failing of indulging in soliloquy, and held forth in a desultory manner, by -herself, on every topic that was introduced. These were few enough, to be sure; -but as we always fell back upon Blood, she had as wide a field for abstract -speculation as her nephew himself. -</p> - -<p> -We might have been a party of Ogres, the conversation assumed such a sanguine -complexion. -</p> - -<p> -‘I confess I am of Mrs. Waterbrook’s opinion,’ said Mr. -Waterbrook, with his wine-glass at his eye. ‘Other things are all very -well in their way, but give me Blood!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh! There is nothing,’ observed Hamlet’s aunt, ‘so -satisfactory to one! There is nothing that is so much one’s beau-ideal -of—of all that sort of thing, speaking generally. There are some low -minds (not many, I am happy to believe, but there are some) that would prefer -to do what I should call bow down before idols. Positively Idols! Before -service, intellect, and so on. But these are intangible points. Blood is not -so. We see Blood in a nose, and we know it. We meet with it in a chin, and we -say, “There it is! That’s Blood!” It is an actual matter of -fact. We point it out. It admits of no doubt.’ -</p> - -<p> -The simpering fellow with the weak legs, who had taken Agnes down, stated the -question more decisively yet, I thought. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, you know, deuce take it,’ said this gentleman, looking round -the board with an imbecile smile, ‘we can’t forego Blood, you know. -We must have Blood, you know. Some young fellows, you know, may be a little -behind their station, perhaps, in point of education and behaviour, and may go -a little wrong, you know, and get themselves and other people into a variety of -fixes—and all that—but deuce take it, it’s delightful to -reflect that they’ve got Blood in ‘em! Myself, I’d rather at -any time be knocked down by a man who had got Blood in him, than I’d be -picked up by a man who hadn’t!’ -</p> - -<p> -This sentiment, as compressing the general question into a nutshell, gave the -utmost satisfaction, and brought the gentleman into great notice until the -ladies retired. After that, I observed that Mr. Gulpidge and Mr. Henry Spiker, -who had hitherto been very distant, entered into a defensive alliance against -us, the common enemy, and exchanged a mysterious dialogue across the table for -our defeat and overthrow. -</p> - -<p> -‘That affair of the first bond for four thousand five hundred pounds has -not taken the course that was expected, Spiker,’ said Mr. Gulpidge. -</p> - -<p> -‘Do you mean the D. of A.‘s?’ said Mr. Spiker. -</p> - -<p> -‘The C. of B.‘s!’ said Mr. Gulpidge. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Spiker raised his eyebrows, and looked much concerned. -</p> - -<p> -‘When the question was referred to Lord—I needn’t name -him,’ said Mr. Gulpidge, checking himself— -</p> - -<p> -‘I understand,’ said Mr. Spiker, ‘N.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Gulpidge darkly nodded—‘was referred to him, his answer was, -“Money, or no release.”’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Lord bless my soul!’ cried Mr. Spiker. -</p> - -<p> -“‘Money, or no release,”’ repeated Mr. Gulpidge, -firmly. ‘The next in reversion—you understand me?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘K.,’ said Mr. Spiker, with an ominous look. -</p> - -<p> -‘—K. then positively refused to sign. He was attended at Newmarket -for that purpose, and he point-blank refused to do it.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Spiker was so interested, that he became quite stony. -</p> - -<p> -‘So the matter rests at this hour,’ said Mr. Gulpidge, throwing -himself back in his chair. ‘Our friend Waterbrook will excuse me if I -forbear to explain myself generally, on account of the magnitude of the -interests involved.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Waterbrook was only too happy, as it appeared to me, to have such -interests, and such names, even hinted at, across his table. He assumed an -expression of gloomy intelligence (though I am persuaded he knew no more about -the discussion than I did), and highly approved of the discretion that had been -observed. Mr. Spiker, after the receipt of such a confidence, naturally desired -to favour his friend with a confidence of his own; therefore the foregoing -dialogue was succeeded by another, in which it was Mr. Gulpidge’s turn to -be surprised, and that by another in which the surprise came round to Mr. -Spiker’s turn again, and so on, turn and turn about. All this time we, -the outsiders, remained oppressed by the tremendous interests involved in the -conversation; and our host regarded us with pride, as the victims of a salutary -awe and astonishment. I was very glad indeed to get upstairs to Agnes, and to -talk with her in a corner, and to introduce Traddles to her, who was shy, but -agreeable, and the same good-natured creature still. As he was obliged to leave -early, on account of going away next morning for a month, I had not nearly so -much conversation with him as I could have wished; but we exchanged addresses, -and promised ourselves the pleasure of another meeting when he should come back -to town. He was greatly interested to hear that I knew Steerforth, and spoke of -him with such warmth that I made him tell Agnes what he thought of him. But -Agnes only looked at me the while, and very slightly shook her head when only I -observed her. -</p> - -<p> -As she was not among people with whom I believed she could be very much at -home, I was almost glad to hear that she was going away within a few days, -though I was sorry at the prospect of parting from her again so soon. This -caused me to remain until all the company were gone. Conversing with her, and -hearing her sing, was such a delightful reminder to me of my happy life in the -grave old house she had made so beautiful, that I could have remained there -half the night; but, having no excuse for staying any longer, when the lights -of Mr. Waterbrook’s society were all snuffed out, I took my leave very -much against my inclination. I felt then, more than ever, that she was my -better Angel; and if I thought of her sweet face and placid smile, as though -they had shone on me from some removed being, like an Angel, I hope I thought -no harm. -</p> - -<p> -I have said that the company were all gone; but I ought to have excepted Uriah, -whom I don’t include in that denomination, and who had never ceased to -hover near us. He was close behind me when I went downstairs. He was close -beside me, when I walked away from the house, slowly fitting his long skeleton -fingers into the still longer fingers of a great Guy Fawkes pair of gloves. -</p> - -<p> -It was in no disposition for Uriah’s company, but in remembrance of the -entreaty Agnes had made to me, that I asked him if he would come home to my -rooms, and have some coffee. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, really, Master Copperfield,’ he rejoined—‘I beg -your pardon, Mister Copperfield, but the other comes so natural, I don’t -like that you should put a constraint upon yourself to ask a numble person like -me to your ouse.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘There is no constraint in the case,’ said I. ‘Will you -come?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I should like to, very much,’ replied Uriah, with a writhe. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, then, come along!’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -I could not help being rather short with him, but he appeared not to mind it. -We went the nearest way, without conversing much upon the road; and he was so -humble in respect of those scarecrow gloves, that he was still putting them on, -and seemed to have made no advance in that labour, when we got to my place. -</p> - -<p> -I led him up the dark stairs, to prevent his knocking his head against -anything, and really his damp cold hand felt so like a frog in mine, that I was -tempted to drop it and run away. Agnes and hospitality prevailed, however, and -I conducted him to my fireside. When I lighted my candles, he fell into meek -transports with the room that was revealed to him; and when I heated the coffee -in an unassuming block-tin vessel in which Mrs. Crupp delighted to prepare it -(chiefly, I believe, because it was not intended for the purpose, being a -shaving-pot, and because there was a patent invention of great price mouldering -away in the pantry), he professed so much emotion, that I could joyfully have -scalded him. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, really, Master Copperfield,—I mean Mister Copperfield,’ -said Uriah, ‘to see you waiting upon me is what I never could have -expected! But, one way and another, so many things happen to me which I never -could have expected, I am sure, in my umble station, that it seems to rain -blessings on my ed. You have heard something, I des-say, of a change in my -expectations, Master Copperfield,—I should say, Mister -Copperfield?’ -</p> - -<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> -<img src="images/0453.jpg" alt="0453 " width="100%" /> -</div> - -<h5> -<a href="images/0453.jpg"> -<img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /></a> -</h5> - -<p> -As he sat on my sofa, with his long knees drawn up under his coffee-cup, his -hat and gloves upon the ground close to him, his spoon going softly round and -round, his shadowless red eyes, which looked as if they had scorched their -lashes off, turned towards me without looking at me, the disagreeable dints I -have formerly described in his nostrils coming and going with his breath, and a -snaky undulation pervading his frame from his chin to his boots, I decided in -my own mind that I disliked him intensely. It made me very uncomfortable to -have him for a guest, for I was young then, and unused to disguise what I so -strongly felt. -</p> - -<p> -‘You have heard something, I des-say, of a change in my expectations, -Master Copperfield,—I should say, Mister Copperfield?’ observed -Uriah. -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes,’ said I, ‘something.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Ah! I thought Miss Agnes would know of it!’ he quietly returned. -‘I’m glad to find Miss Agnes knows of it. Oh, thank you, -Master—Mister Copperfield!’ -</p> - -<p> -I could have thrown my bootjack at him (it lay ready on the rug), for having -entrapped me into the disclosure of anything concerning Agnes, however -immaterial. But I only drank my coffee. -</p> - -<p> -‘What a prophet you have shown yourself, Mister Copperfield!’ -pursued Uriah. ‘Dear me, what a prophet you have proved yourself to be! -Don’t you remember saying to me once, that perhaps I should be a partner -in Mr. Wickfield’s business, and perhaps it might be Wickfield and Heep? -You may not recollect it; but when a person is umble, Master Copperfield, a -person treasures such things up!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I recollect talking about it,’ said I, ‘though I certainly -did not think it very likely then.’ ‘Oh! who would have thought it -likely, Mister Copperfield!’ returned Uriah, enthusiastically. ‘I -am sure I didn’t myself. I recollect saying with my own lips that I was -much too umble. So I considered myself really and truly.’ -</p> - -<p> -He sat, with that carved grin on his face, looking at the fire, as I looked at -him. -</p> - -<p> -‘But the umblest persons, Master Copperfield,’ he presently -resumed, ‘may be the instruments of good. I am glad to think I have been -the instrument of good to Mr. Wickfield, and that I may be more so. Oh what a -worthy man he is, Mister Copperfield, but how imprudent he has been!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I am sorry to hear it,’ said I. I could not help adding, rather -pointedly, ‘on all accounts.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Decidedly so, Mister Copperfield,’ replied Uriah. ‘On all -accounts. Miss Agnes’s above all! You don’t remember your own -eloquent expressions, Master Copperfield; but I remember how you said one day -that everybody must admire her, and how I thanked you for it! You have forgot -that, I have no doubt, Master Copperfield?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No,’ said I, drily. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh how glad I am you have not!’ exclaimed Uriah. ‘To think -that you should be the first to kindle the sparks of ambition in my umble -breast, and that you’ve not forgot it! Oh!—Would you excuse me -asking for a cup more coffee?’ -</p> - -<p> -Something in the emphasis he laid upon the kindling of those sparks, and -something in the glance he directed at me as he said it, had made me start as -if I had seen him illuminated by a blaze of light. Recalled by his request, -preferred in quite another tone of voice, I did the honours of the shaving-pot; -but I did them with an unsteadiness of hand, a sudden sense of being no match -for him, and a perplexed suspicious anxiety as to what he might be going to say -next, which I felt could not escape his observation. -</p> - -<p> -He said nothing at all. He stirred his coffee round and round, he sipped it, he -felt his chin softly with his grisly hand, he looked at the fire, he looked -about the room, he gasped rather than smiled at me, he writhed and undulated -about, in his deferential servility, he stirred and sipped again, but he left -the renewal of the conversation to me. -</p> - -<p> -‘So, Mr. Wickfield,’ said I, at last, ‘who is worth five -hundred of you—or me’; for my life, I think, I could not have -helped dividing that part of the sentence with an awkward jerk; ‘has been -imprudent, has he, Mr. Heep?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, very imprudent indeed, Master Copperfield,’ returned Uriah, -sighing modestly. ‘Oh, very much so! But I wish you’d call me -Uriah, if you please. It’s like old times.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Well! Uriah,’ said I, bolting it out with some difficulty. -</p> - -<p> -‘Thank you,’ he returned, with fervour. ‘Thank you, Master -Copperfield! It’s like the blowing of old breezes or the ringing of old -bellses to hear YOU say Uriah. I beg your pardon. Was I making any -observation?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘About Mr. Wickfield,’ I suggested. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh! Yes, truly,’ said Uriah. ‘Ah! Great imprudence, Master -Copperfield. It’s a topic that I wouldn’t touch upon, to any soul -but you. Even to you I can only touch upon it, and no more. If anyone else had -been in my place during the last few years, by this time he would have had Mr. -Wickfield (oh, what a worthy man he is, Master Copperfield, too!) under his -thumb. Un—der—his thumb,’ said Uriah, very slowly, as he -stretched out his cruel-looking hand above my table, and pressed his own thumb -upon it, until it shook, and shook the room. -</p> - -<p> -If I had been obliged to look at him with him splay foot on Mr. -Wickfield’s head, I think I could scarcely have hated him more. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, dear, yes, Master Copperfield,’ he proceeded, in a soft voice, -most remarkably contrasting with the action of his thumb, which did not -diminish its hard pressure in the least degree, ‘there’s no doubt -of it. There would have been loss, disgrace, I don’t know what at all. -Mr. Wickfield knows it. I am the umble instrument of umbly serving him, and he -puts me on an eminence I hardly could have hoped to reach. How thankful should -I be!’ With his face turned towards me, as he finished, but without -looking at me, he took his crooked thumb off the spot where he had planted it, -and slowly and thoughtfully scraped his lank jaw with it, as if he were shaving -himself. -</p> - -<p> -I recollect well how indignantly my heart beat, as I saw his crafty face, with -the appropriately red light of the fire upon it, preparing for something else. -</p> - -<p> -‘Master Copperfield,’ he began—‘but am I keeping you -up?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You are not keeping me up. I generally go to bed late.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Thank you, Master Copperfield! I have risen from my umble station since -first you used to address me, it is true; but I am umble still. I hope I never -shall be otherwise than umble. You will not think the worse of my umbleness, if -I make a little confidence to you, Master Copperfield? Will you?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh no,’ said I, with an effort. -</p> - -<p> -‘Thank you!’ He took out his pocket-handkerchief, and began wiping -the palms of his hands. ‘Miss Agnes, Master Copperfield—’ -‘Well, Uriah?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, how pleasant to be called Uriah, spontaneously!’ he cried; and -gave himself a jerk, like a convulsive fish. ‘You thought her looking -very beautiful tonight, Master Copperfield?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I thought her looking as she always does: superior, in all respects, to -everyone around her,’ I returned. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, thank you! It’s so true!’ he cried. ‘Oh, thank you -very much for that!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Not at all,’ I said, loftily. ‘There is no reason why you -should thank me.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Why that, Master Copperfield,’ said Uriah, ‘is, in fact, the -confidence that I am going to take the liberty of reposing. Umble as I -am,’ he wiped his hands harder, and looked at them and at the fire by -turns, ‘umble as my mother is, and lowly as our poor but honest roof has -ever been, the image of Miss Agnes (I don’t mind trusting you with my -secret, Master Copperfield, for I have always overflowed towards you since the -first moment I had the pleasure of beholding you in a pony-shay) has been in my -breast for years. Oh, Master Copperfield, with what a pure affection do I love -the ground my Agnes walks on!’ -</p> - -<p> -I believe I had a delirious idea of seizing the red-hot poker out of the fire, -and running him through with it. It went from me with a shock, like a ball -fired from a rifle: but the image of Agnes, outraged by so much as a thought of -this red-headed animal’s, remained in my mind when I looked at him, -sitting all awry as if his mean soul griped his body, and made me giddy. He -seemed to swell and grow before my eyes; the room seemed full of the echoes of -his voice; and the strange feeling (to which, perhaps, no one is quite a -stranger) that all this had occurred before, at some indefinite time, and that -I knew what he was going to say next, took possession of me. -</p> - -<p> -A timely observation of the sense of power that there was in his face, did more -to bring back to my remembrance the entreaty of Agnes, in its full force, than -any effort I could have made. I asked him, with a better appearance of -composure than I could have thought possible a minute before, whether he had -made his feelings known to Agnes. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh no, Master Copperfield!’ he returned; ‘oh dear, no! Not -to anyone but you. You see I am only just emerging from my lowly station. I -rest a good deal of hope on her observing how useful I am to her father (for I -trust to be very useful to him indeed, Master Copperfield), and how I smooth -the way for him, and keep him straight. She’s so much attached to her -father, Master Copperfield (oh, what a lovely thing it is in a daughter!), that -I think she may come, on his account, to be kind to me.’ -</p> - -<p> -I fathomed the depth of the rascal’s whole scheme, and understood why he -laid it bare. -</p> - -<p> -‘If you’ll have the goodness to keep my secret, Master -Copperfield,’ he pursued, ‘and not, in general, to go against me, I -shall take it as a particular favour. You wouldn’t wish to make -unpleasantness. I know what a friendly heart you’ve got; but having only -known me on my umble footing (on my umblest I should say, for I am very umble -still), you might, unbeknown, go against me rather, with my Agnes. I call her -mine, you see, Master Copperfield. There’s a song that says, -“I’d crowns resign, to call her mine!” I hope to do it, one -of these days.’ -</p> - -<p> -Dear Agnes! So much too loving and too good for anyone that I could think of, -was it possible that she was reserved to be the wife of such a wretch as this! -</p> - -<p> -‘There’s no hurry at present, you know, Master Copperfield,’ -Uriah proceeded, in his slimy way, as I sat gazing at him, with this thought in -my mind. ‘My Agnes is very young still; and mother and me will have to -work our way upwards, and make a good many new arrangements, before it would be -quite convenient. So I shall have time gradually to make her familiar with my -hopes, as opportunities offer. Oh, I’m so much obliged to you for this -confidence! Oh, it’s such a relief, you can’t think, to know that -you understand our situation, and are certain (as you wouldn’t wish to -make unpleasantness in the family) not to go against me!’ -</p> - -<p> -He took the hand which I dared not withhold, and having given it a damp -squeeze, referred to his pale-faced watch. -</p> - -<p> -‘Dear me!’ he said, ‘it’s past one. The moments slip -away so, in the confidence of old times, Master Copperfield, that it’s -almost half past one!’ -</p> - -<p> -I answered that I had thought it was later. Not that I had really thought so, -but because my conversational powers were effectually scattered. -</p> - -<p> -‘Dear me!’ he said, considering. ‘The ouse that I am stopping -at—a sort of a private hotel and boarding ouse, Master Copperfield, near -the New River ed—will have gone to bed these two hours.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I am sorry,’ I returned, ‘that there is only one bed here, -and that I—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, don’t think of mentioning beds, Master Copperfield!’ he -rejoined ecstatically, drawing up one leg. ‘But would you have any -objections to my laying down before the fire?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘If it comes to that,’ I said, ‘pray take my bed, and -I’ll lie down before the fire.’ -</p> - -<p> -His repudiation of this offer was almost shrill enough, in the excess of its -surprise and humility, to have penetrated to the ears of Mrs. Crupp, then -sleeping, I suppose, in a distant chamber, situated at about the level of -low-water mark, soothed in her slumbers by the ticking of an incorrigible -clock, to which she always referred me when we had any little difference on the -score of punctuality, and which was never less than three-quarters of an hour -too slow, and had always been put right in the morning by the best authorities. -As no arguments I could urge, in my bewildered condition, had the least effect -upon his modesty in inducing him to accept my bedroom, I was obliged to make -the best arrangements I could, for his repose before the fire. The mattress of -the sofa (which was a great deal too short for his lank figure), the sofa -pillows, a blanket, the table-cover, a clean breakfast-cloth, and a great-coat, -made him a bed and covering, for which he was more than thankful. Having lent -him a night-cap, which he put on at once, and in which he made such an awful -figure, that I have never worn one since, I left him to his rest. -</p> - -<p> -I never shall forget that night. I never shall forget how I turned and tumbled; -how I wearied myself with thinking about Agnes and this creature; how I -considered what could I do, and what ought I to do; how I could come to no -other conclusion than that the best course for her peace was to do nothing, and -to keep to myself what I had heard. If I went to sleep for a few moments, the -image of Agnes with her tender eyes, and of her father looking fondly on her, -as I had so often seen him look, arose before me with appealing faces, and -filled me with vague terrors. When I awoke, the recollection that Uriah was -lying in the next room, sat heavy on me like a waking nightmare; and oppressed -me with a leaden dread, as if I had had some meaner quality of devil for a -lodger. -</p> - -<p> -The poker got into my dozing thoughts besides, and wouldn’t come out. I -thought, between sleeping and waking, that it was still red hot, and I had -snatched it out of the fire, and run him through the body. I was so haunted at -last by the idea, though I knew there was nothing in it, that I stole into the -next room to look at him. There I saw him, lying on his back, with his legs -extending to I don’t know where, gurglings taking place in his throat, -stoppages in his nose, and his mouth open like a post-office. He was so much -worse in reality than in my distempered fancy, that afterwards I was attracted -to him in very repulsion, and could not help wandering in and out every -half-hour or so, and taking another look at him. Still, the long, long night -seemed heavy and hopeless as ever, and no promise of day was in the murky sky. -</p> - -<p> -When I saw him going downstairs early in the morning (for, thank Heaven! he -would not stay to breakfast), it appeared to me as if the night was going away -in his person. When I went out to the Commons, I charged Mrs. Crupp with -particular directions to leave the windows open, that my sitting-room might be -aired, and purged of his presence. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0026"></a>CHAPTER 26. I FALL INTO CAPTIVITY</h2> - -<p> -I saw no more of Uriah Heep, until the day when Agnes left town. I was at the -coach office to take leave of her and see her go; and there was he, returning -to Canterbury by the same conveyance. It was some small satisfaction to me to -observe his spare, short-waisted, high-shouldered, mulberry-coloured great-coat -perched up, in company with an umbrella like a small tent, on the edge of the -back seat on the roof, while Agnes was, of course, inside; but what I underwent -in my efforts to be friendly with him, while Agnes looked on, perhaps deserved -that little recompense. At the coach window, as at the dinner-party, he hovered -about us without a moment’s intermission, like a great vulture: gorging -himself on every syllable that I said to Agnes, or Agnes said to me. -</p> - -<p> -In the state of trouble into which his disclosure by my fire had thrown me, I -had thought very much of the words Agnes had used in reference to the -partnership. ‘I did what I hope was right. Feeling sure that it was -necessary for papa’s peace that the sacrifice should be made, I entreated -him to make it.’ A miserable foreboding that she would yield to, and -sustain herself by, the same feeling in reference to any sacrifice for his -sake, had oppressed me ever since. I knew how she loved him. I knew what the -devotion of her nature was. I knew from her own lips that she regarded herself -as the innocent cause of his errors, and as owing him a great debt she ardently -desired to pay. I had no consolation in seeing how different she was from this -detestable Rufus with the mulberry-coloured great-coat, for I felt that in the -very difference between them, in the self-denial of her pure soul and the -sordid baseness of his, the greatest danger lay. All this, doubtless, he knew -thoroughly, and had, in his cunning, considered well. -</p> - -<p> -Yet I was so certain that the prospect of such a sacrifice afar off, must -destroy the happiness of Agnes; and I was so sure, from her manner, of its -being unseen by her then, and having cast no shadow on her yet; that I could as -soon have injured her, as given her any warning of what impended. Thus it was -that we parted without explanation: she waving her hand and smiling farewell -from the coach window; her evil genius writhing on the roof, as if he had her -in his clutches and triumphed. -</p> - -<p> -I could not get over this farewell glimpse of them for a long time. When Agnes -wrote to tell me of her safe arrival, I was as miserable as when I saw her -going away. Whenever I fell into a thoughtful state, this subject was sure to -present itself, and all my uneasiness was sure to be redoubled. Hardly a night -passed without my dreaming of it. It became a part of my life, and as -inseparable from my life as my own head. -</p> - -<p> -I had ample leisure to refine upon my uneasiness: for Steerforth was at Oxford, -as he wrote to me, and when I was not at the Commons, I was very much alone. I -believe I had at this time some lurking distrust of Steerforth. I wrote to him -most affectionately in reply to his, but I think I was glad, upon the whole, -that he could not come to London just then. I suspect the truth to be, that the -influence of Agnes was upon me, undisturbed by the sight of him; and that it -was the more powerful with me, because she had so large a share in my thoughts -and interest. -</p> - -<p> -In the meantime, days and weeks slipped away. I was articled to Spenlow and -Jorkins. I had ninety pounds a year (exclusive of my house-rent and sundry -collateral matters) from my aunt. My rooms were engaged for twelve months -certain: and though I still found them dreary of an evening, and the evenings -long, I could settle down into a state of equable low spirits, and resign -myself to coffee; which I seem, on looking back, to have taken by the gallon at -about this period of my existence. At about this time, too, I made three -discoveries: first, that Mrs. Crupp was a martyr to a curious disorder called -‘the spazzums’, which was generally accompanied with inflammation -of the nose, and required to be constantly treated with peppermint; secondly, -that something peculiar in the temperature of my pantry, made the -brandy-bottles burst; thirdly, that I was alone in the world, and much given to -record that circumstance in fragments of English versification. -</p> - -<p> -On the day when I was articled, no festivity took place, beyond my having -sandwiches and sherry into the office for the clerks, and going alone to the -theatre at night. I went to see The Stranger, as a Doctors’ Commons sort -of play, and was so dreadfully cut up, that I hardly knew myself in my own -glass when I got home. Mr. Spenlow remarked, on this occasion, when we -concluded our business, that he should have been happy to have seen me at his -house at Norwood to celebrate our becoming connected, but for his domestic -arrangements being in some disorder, on account of the expected return of his -daughter from finishing her education at Paris. But, he intimated that when she -came home he should hope to have the pleasure of entertaining me. I knew that -he was a widower with one daughter, and expressed my acknowledgements. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Spenlow was as good as his word. In a week or two, he referred to this -engagement, and said, that if I would do him the favour to come down next -Saturday, and stay till Monday, he would be extremely happy. Of course I said I -would do him the favour; and he was to drive me down in his phaeton, and to -bring me back. -</p> - -<p> -When the day arrived, my very carpet-bag was an object of veneration to the -stipendiary clerks, to whom the house at Norwood was a sacred mystery. One of -them informed me that he had heard that Mr. Spenlow ate entirely off plate and -china; and another hinted at champagne being constantly on draught, after the -usual custom of table-beer. The old clerk with the wig, whose name was Mr. -Tiffey, had been down on business several times in the course of his career, -and had on each occasion penetrated to the breakfast-parlour. He described it -as an apartment of the most sumptuous nature, and said that he had drunk brown -East India sherry there, of a quality so precious as to make a man wink. We had -an adjourned cause in the Consistory that day—about excommunicating a -baker who had been objecting in a vestry to a paving-rate—and as the -evidence was just twice the length of Robinson Crusoe, according to a -calculation I made, it was rather late in the day before we finished. However, -we got him excommunicated for six weeks, and sentenced in no end of costs; and -then the baker’s proctor, and the judge, and the advocates on both sides -(who were all nearly related), went out of town together, and Mr. Spenlow and I -drove away in the phaeton. -</p> - -<p> -The phaeton was a very handsome affair; the horses arched their necks and -lifted up their legs as if they knew they belonged to Doctors’ Commons. -There was a good deal of competition in the Commons on all points of display, -and it turned out some very choice equipages then; though I always have -considered, and always shall consider, that in my time the great article of -competition there was starch: which I think was worn among the proctors to as -great an extent as it is in the nature of man to bear. -</p> - -<p> -We were very pleasant, going down, and Mr. Spenlow gave me some hints in -reference to my profession. He said it was the genteelest profession in the -world, and must on no account be confounded with the profession of a solicitor: -being quite another sort of thing, infinitely more exclusive, less mechanical, -and more profitable. We took things much more easily in the Commons than they -could be taken anywhere else, he observed, and that set us, as a privileged -class, apart. He said it was impossible to conceal the disagreeable fact, that -we were chiefly employed by solicitors; but he gave me to understand that they -were an inferior race of men, universally looked down upon by all proctors of -any pretensions. -</p> - -<p> -I asked Mr. Spenlow what he considered the best sort of professional business? -He replied, that a good case of a disputed will, where there was a neat little -estate of thirty or forty thousand pounds, was, perhaps, the best of all. In -such a case, he said, not only were there very pretty pickings, in the way of -arguments at every stage of the proceedings, and mountains upon mountains of -evidence on interrogatory and counter-interrogatory (to say nothing of an -appeal lying, first to the Delegates, and then to the Lords), but, the costs -being pretty sure to come out of the estate at last, both sides went at it in a -lively and spirited manner, and expense was no consideration. Then, he launched -into a general eulogium on the Commons. What was to be particularly admired (he -said) in the Commons, was its compactness. It was the most conveniently -organized place in the world. It was the complete idea of snugness. It lay in a -nutshell. For example: You brought a divorce case, or a restitution case, into -the Consistory. Very good. You tried it in the Consistory. You made a quiet -little round game of it, among a family group, and you played it out at -leisure. Suppose you were not satisfied with the Consistory, what did you do -then? Why, you went into the Arches. What was the Arches? The same court, in -the same room, with the same bar, and the same practitioners, but another -judge, for there the Consistory judge could plead any court-day as an advocate. -Well, you played your round game out again. Still you were not satisfied. Very -good. What did you do then? Why, you went to the Delegates. Who were the -Delegates? Why, the Ecclesiastical Delegates were the advocates without any -business, who had looked on at the round game when it was playing in both -courts, and had seen the cards shuffled, and cut, and played, and had talked to -all the players about it, and now came fresh, as judges, to settle the matter -to the satisfaction of everybody! Discontented people might talk of corruption -in the Commons, closeness in the Commons, and the necessity of reforming the -Commons, said Mr. Spenlow solemnly, in conclusion; but when the price of wheat -per bushel had been highest, the Commons had been busiest; and a man might lay -his hand upon his heart, and say this to the whole world,—‘Touch -the Commons, and down comes the country!’ -</p> - -<p> -I listened to all this with attention; and though, I must say, I had my doubts -whether the country was quite as much obliged to the Commons as Mr. Spenlow -made out, I respectfully deferred to his opinion. That about the price of wheat -per bushel, I modestly felt was too much for my strength, and quite settled the -question. I have never, to this hour, got the better of that bushel of wheat. -It has reappeared to annihilate me, all through my life, in connexion with all -kinds of subjects. I don’t know now, exactly, what it has to do with me, -or what right it has to crush me, on an infinite variety of occasions; but -whenever I see my old friend the bushel brought in by the head and shoulders -(as he always is, I observe), I give up a subject for lost. -</p> - -<p> -This is a digression. I was not the man to touch the Commons, and bring down -the country. I submissively expressed, by my silence, my acquiescence in all I -had heard from my superior in years and knowledge; and we talked about The -Stranger and the Drama, and the pairs of horses, until we came to Mr. -Spenlow’s gate. -</p> - -<p> -There was a lovely garden to Mr. Spenlow’s house; and though that was not -the best time of the year for seeing a garden, it was so beautifully kept, that -I was quite enchanted. There was a charming lawn, there were clusters of trees, -and there were perspective walks that I could just distinguish in the dark, -arched over with trellis-work, on which shrubs and flowers grew in the growing -season. ‘Here Miss Spenlow walks by herself,’ I thought. -‘Dear me!’ -</p> - -<p> -We went into the house, which was cheerfully lighted up, and into a hall where -there were all sorts of hats, caps, great-coats, plaids, gloves, whips, and -walking-sticks. ‘Where is Miss Dora?’ said Mr. Spenlow to the -servant. ‘Dora!’ I thought. ‘What a beautiful name!’ -</p> - -<p> -We turned into a room near at hand (I think it was the identical -breakfast-room, made memorable by the brown East Indian sherry), and I heard a -voice say, ‘Mr. Copperfield, my daughter Dora, and my daughter -Dora’s confidential friend!’ It was, no doubt, Mr. Spenlow’s -voice, but I didn’t know it, and I didn’t care whose it was. All -was over in a moment. I had fulfilled my destiny. I was a captive and a slave. -I loved Dora Spenlow to distraction! -</p> - -<p> -She was more than human to me. She was a Fairy, a Sylph, I don’t know -what she was—anything that no one ever saw, and everything that everybody -ever wanted. I was swallowed up in an abyss of love in an instant. There was no -pausing on the brink; no looking down, or looking back; I was gone, headlong, -before I had sense to say a word to her. -</p> - -<p> -‘I,’ observed a well-remembered voice, when I had bowed and -murmured something, ‘have seen Mr. Copperfield before.’ -</p> - -<p> -The speaker was not Dora. No; the confidential friend, Miss Murdstone! -</p> - -<p> -I don’t think I was much astonished. To the best of my judgement, no -capacity of astonishment was left in me. There was nothing worth mentioning in -the material world, but Dora Spenlow, to be astonished about. I said, -‘How do you do, Miss Murdstone? I hope you are well.’ She answered, -‘Very well.’ I said, ‘How is Mr. Murdstone?’ She -replied, ‘My brother is robust, I am obliged to you.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Spenlow, who, I suppose, had been surprised to see us recognize each other, -then put in his word. -</p> - -<p> -‘I am glad to find,’ he said, ‘Copperfield, that you and Miss -Murdstone are already acquainted.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Mr. Copperfield and myself,’ said Miss Murdstone, with severe -composure, ‘are connexions. We were once slightly acquainted. It was in -his childish days. Circumstances have separated us since. I should not have -known him.’ -</p> - -<p> -I replied that I should have known her, anywhere. Which was true enough. -</p> - -<p> -‘Miss Murdstone has had the goodness,’ said Mr. Spenlow to me, -‘to accept the office—if I may so describe it—of my daughter -Dora’s confidential friend. My daughter Dora having, unhappily, no -mother, Miss Murdstone is obliging enough to become her companion and -protector.’ -</p> - -<p> -A passing thought occurred to me that Miss Murdstone, like the pocket -instrument called a life-preserver, was not so much designed for purposes of -protection as of assault. But as I had none but passing thoughts for any -subject save Dora, I glanced at her, directly afterwards, and was thinking that -I saw, in her prettily pettish manner, that she was not very much inclined to -be particularly confidential to her companion and protector, when a bell rang, -which Mr. Spenlow said was the first dinner-bell, and so carried me off to -dress. -</p> - -<p> -The idea of dressing one’s self, or doing anything in the way of action, -in that state of love, was a little too ridiculous. I could only sit down -before my fire, biting the key of my carpet-bag, and think of the captivating, -girlish, bright-eyed lovely Dora. What a form she had, what a face she had, -what a graceful, variable, enchanting manner! -</p> - -<p> -The bell rang again so soon that I made a mere scramble of my dressing, instead -of the careful operation I could have wished under the circumstances, and went -downstairs. There was some company. Dora was talking to an old gentleman with a -grey head. Grey as he was—and a great-grandfather into the bargain, for -he said so—I was madly jealous of him. -</p> - -<p> -What a state of mind I was in! I was jealous of everybody. I couldn’t -bear the idea of anybody knowing Mr. Spenlow better than I did. It was -torturing to me to hear them talk of occurrences in which I had had no share. -When a most amiable person, with a highly polished bald head, asked me across -the dinner table, if that were the first occasion of my seeing the grounds, I -could have done anything to him that was savage and revengeful. -</p> - -<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> -<img src="images/0469.jpg" alt="0469 " width="100%" /> -</div> - -<h5> -<a href="images/0469.jpg"> -<img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /></a> -</h5> - -<p> -I don’t remember who was there, except Dora. I have not the least idea -what we had for dinner, besides Dora. My impression is, that I dined off Dora, -entirely, and sent away half-a-dozen plates untouched. I sat next to her. I -talked to her. She had the most delightful little voice, the gayest little -laugh, the pleasantest and most fascinating little ways, that ever led a lost -youth into hopeless slavery. She was rather diminutive altogether. So much the -more precious, I thought. -</p> - -<p> -When she went out of the room with Miss Murdstone (no other ladies were of the -party), I fell into a reverie, only disturbed by the cruel apprehension that -Miss Murdstone would disparage me to her. The amiable creature with the -polished head told me a long story, which I think was about gardening. I think -I heard him say, ‘my gardener’, several times. I seemed to pay the -deepest attention to him, but I was wandering in a garden of Eden all the -while, with Dora. -</p> - -<p> -My apprehensions of being disparaged to the object of my engrossing affection -were revived when we went into the drawing-room, by the grim and distant aspect -of Miss Murdstone. But I was relieved of them in an unexpected manner. -</p> - -<p> -‘David Copperfield,’ said Miss Murdstone, beckoning me aside into a -window. ‘A word.’ -</p> - -<p> -I confronted Miss Murdstone alone. -</p> - -<p> -‘David Copperfield,’ said Miss Murdstone, ‘I need not enlarge -upon family circumstances. They are not a tempting subject.’ ‘Far -from it, ma’am,’ I returned. -</p> - -<p> -‘Far from it,’ assented Miss Murdstone. ‘I do not wish to -revive the memory of past differences, or of past outrages. I have received -outrages from a person—a female I am sorry to say, for the credit of my -sex—who is not to be mentioned without scorn and disgust; and therefore I -would rather not mention her.’ -</p> - -<p> -I felt very fiery on my aunt’s account; but I said it would certainly be -better, if Miss Murdstone pleased, not to mention her. I could not hear her -disrespectfully mentioned, I added, without expressing my opinion in a decided -tone. -</p> - -<p> -Miss Murdstone shut her eyes, and disdainfully inclined her head; then, slowly -opening her eyes, resumed: -</p> - -<p> -‘David Copperfield, I shall not attempt to disguise the fact, that I -formed an unfavourable opinion of you in your childhood. It may have been a -mistaken one, or you may have ceased to justify it. That is not in question -between us now. I belong to a family remarkable, I believe, for some firmness; -and I am not the creature of circumstance or change. I may have my opinion of -you. You may have your opinion of me.’ -</p> - -<p> -I inclined my head, in my turn. -</p> - -<p> -‘But it is not necessary,’ said Miss Murdstone, ‘that these -opinions should come into collision here. Under existing circumstances, it is -as well on all accounts that they should not. As the chances of life have -brought us together again, and may bring us together on other occasions, I -would say, let us meet here as distant acquaintances. Family circumstances are -a sufficient reason for our only meeting on that footing, and it is quite -unnecessary that either of us should make the other the subject of remark. Do -you approve of this?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Miss Murdstone,’ I returned, ‘I think you and Mr. Murdstone -used me very cruelly, and treated my mother with great unkindness. I shall -always think so, as long as I live. But I quite agree in what you -propose.’ -</p> - -<p> -Miss Murdstone shut her eyes again, and bent her head. Then, just touching the -back of my hand with the tips of her cold, stiff fingers, she walked away, -arranging the little fetters on her wrists and round her neck; which seemed to -be the same set, in exactly the same state, as when I had seen her last. These -reminded me, in reference to Miss Murdstone’s nature, of the fetters over -a jail door; suggesting on the outside, to all beholders, what was to be -expected within. -</p> - -<p> -All I know of the rest of the evening is, that I heard the empress of my heart -sing enchanted ballads in the French language, generally to the effect that, -whatever was the matter, we ought always to dance, Ta ra la, Ta ra la! -accompanying herself on a glorified instrument, resembling a guitar. That I was -lost in blissful delirium. That I refused refreshment. That my soul recoiled -from punch particularly. That when Miss Murdstone took her into custody and led -her away, she smiled and gave me her delicious hand. That I caught a view of -myself in a mirror, looking perfectly imbecile and idiotic. That I retired to -bed in a most maudlin state of mind, and got up in a crisis of feeble -infatuation. -</p> - -<p> -It was a fine morning, and early, and I thought I would go and take a stroll -down one of those wire-arched walks, and indulge my passion by dwelling on her -image. On my way through the hall, I encountered her little dog, who was called -Jip—short for Gipsy. I approached him tenderly, for I loved even him; but -he showed his whole set of teeth, got under a chair expressly to snarl, and -wouldn’t hear of the least familiarity. -</p> - -<p> -The garden was cool and solitary. I walked about, wondering what my feelings of -happiness would be, if I could ever become engaged to this dear wonder. As to -marriage, and fortune, and all that, I believe I was almost as innocently -undesigning then, as when I loved little Em’ly. To be allowed to call her -‘Dora’, to write to her, to dote upon and worship her, to have -reason to think that when she was with other people she was yet mindful of me, -seemed to me the summit of human ambition—I am sure it was the summit of -mine. There is no doubt whatever that I was a lackadaisical young spooney; but -there was a purity of heart in all this, that prevents my having quite a -contemptuous recollection of it, let me laugh as I may. -</p> - -<p> -I had not been walking long, when I turned a corner, and met her. I tingle -again from head to foot as my recollection turns that corner, and my pen shakes -in my hand. -</p> - -<p> -‘You—are—out early, Miss Spenlow,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘It’s so stupid at home,’ she replied, ‘and Miss -Murdstone is so absurd! She talks such nonsense about its being necessary for -the day to be aired, before I come out. Aired!’ (She laughed, here, in -the most melodious manner.) ‘On a Sunday morning, when I don’t -practise, I must do something. So I told papa last night I must come out. -Besides, it’s the brightest time of the whole day. Don’t you think -so?’ -</p> - -<p> -I hazarded a bold flight, and said (not without stammering) that it was very -bright to me then, though it had been very dark to me a minute before. -</p> - -<p> -‘Do you mean a compliment?’ said Dora, ‘or that the weather -has really changed?’ -</p> - -<p> -I stammered worse than before, in replying that I meant no compliment, but the -plain truth; though I was not aware of any change having taken place in the -weather. It was in the state of my own feelings, I added bashfully: to clench -the explanation. -</p> - -<p> -I never saw such curls—how could I, for there never were such -curls!—as those she shook out to hide her blushes. As to the straw hat -and blue ribbons which was on the top of the curls, if I could only have hung -it up in my room in Buckingham Street, what a priceless possession it would -have been! -</p> - -<p> -‘You have just come home from Paris,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes,’ said she. ‘Have you ever been there?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh! I hope you’ll go soon! You would like it so much!’ -</p> - -<p> -Traces of deep-seated anguish appeared in my countenance. That she should hope -I would go, that she should think it possible I could go, was insupportable. I -depreciated Paris; I depreciated France. I said I wouldn’t leave England, -under existing circumstances, for any earthly consideration. Nothing should -induce me. In short, she was shaking the curls again, when the little dog came -running along the walk to our relief. -</p> - -<p> -He was mortally jealous of me, and persisted in barking at me. She took him up -in her arms—oh my goodness!—and caressed him, but he persisted upon -barking still. He wouldn’t let me touch him, when I tried; and then she -beat him. It increased my sufferings greatly to see the pats she gave him for -punishment on the bridge of his blunt nose, while he winked his eyes, and -licked her hand, and still growled within himself like a little double-bass. At -length he was quiet—well he might be with her dimpled chin upon his -head!—and we walked away to look at a greenhouse. -</p> - -<p> -‘You are not very intimate with Miss Murdstone, are you?’ said -Dora. —‘My pet.’ -</p> - -<p> -(The two last words were to the dog. Oh, if they had only been to me!) -</p> - -<p> -‘No,’ I replied. ‘Not at all so.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘She is a tiresome creature,’ said Dora, pouting. ‘I -can’t think what papa can have been about, when he chose such a vexatious -thing to be my companion. Who wants a protector? I am sure I don’t want a -protector. Jip can protect me a great deal better than Miss -Murdstone,—can’t you, Jip, dear?’ -</p> - -<p> -He only winked lazily, when she kissed his ball of a head. -</p> - -<p> -‘Papa calls her my confidential friend, but I am sure she is no such -thing—is she, Jip? We are not going to confide in any such cross people, -Jip and I. We mean to bestow our confidence where we like, and to find out our -own friends, instead of having them found out for us—don’t we, -Jip?’ -</p> - -<p> -Jip made a comfortable noise, in answer, a little like a tea-kettle when it -sings. As for me, every word was a new heap of fetters, riveted above the last. -</p> - -<p> -‘It is very hard, because we have not a kind Mama, that we are to have, -instead, a sulky, gloomy old thing like Miss Murdstone, always following us -about—isn’t it, Jip? Never mind, Jip. We won’t be -confidential, and we’ll make ourselves as happy as we can in spite of -her, and we’ll tease her, and not please her—won’t we, -Jip?’ -</p> - -<p> -If it had lasted any longer, I think I must have gone down on my knees on the -gravel, with the probability before me of grazing them, and of being presently -ejected from the premises besides. But, by good fortune the greenhouse was not -far off, and these words brought us to it. -</p> - -<p> -It contained quite a show of beautiful geraniums. We loitered along in front of -them, and Dora often stopped to admire this one or that one, and I stopped to -admire the same one, and Dora, laughing, held the dog up childishly, to smell -the flowers; and if we were not all three in Fairyland, certainly I was. The -scent of a geranium leaf, at this day, strikes me with a half comical half -serious wonder as to what change has come over me in a moment; and then I see a -straw hat and blue ribbons, and a quantity of curls, and a little black dog -being held up, in two slender arms, against a bank of blossoms and bright -leaves. -</p> - -<p> -Miss Murdstone had been looking for us. She found us here; and presented her -uncongenial cheek, the little wrinkles in it filled with hair powder, to Dora -to be kissed. Then she took Dora’s arm in hers, and marched us into -breakfast as if it were a soldier’s funeral. -</p> - -<p> -How many cups of tea I drank, because Dora made it, I don’t know. But, I -perfectly remember that I sat swilling tea until my whole nervous system, if I -had had any in those days, must have gone by the board. By and by we went to -church. Miss Murdstone was between Dora and me in the pew; but I heard her -sing, and the congregation vanished. A sermon was delivered—about Dora, -of course—and I am afraid that is all I know of the service. -</p> - -<p> -We had a quiet day. No company, a walk, a family dinner of four, and an evening -of looking over books and pictures; Miss Murdstone with a homily before her, -and her eye upon us, keeping guard vigilantly. Ah! little did Mr. Spenlow -imagine, when he sat opposite to me after dinner that day, with his -pocket-handkerchief over his head, how fervently I was embracing him, in my -fancy, as his son-in-law! Little did he think, when I took leave of him at -night, that he had just given his full consent to my being engaged to Dora, and -that I was invoking blessings on his head! -</p> - -<p> -We departed early in the morning, for we had a Salvage case coming on in the -Admiralty Court, requiring a rather accurate knowledge of the whole science of -navigation, in which (as we couldn’t be expected to know much about those -matters in the Commons) the judge had entreated two old Trinity Masters, for -charity’s sake, to come and help him out. Dora was at the breakfast-table -to make the tea again, however; and I had the melancholy pleasure of taking off -my hat to her in the phaeton, as she stood on the door-step with Jip in her -arms. -</p> - -<p> -What the Admiralty was to me that day; what nonsense I made of our case in my -mind, as I listened to it; how I saw ‘DORA’ engraved upon the blade -of the silver oar which they lay upon the table, as the emblem of that high -jurisdiction; and how I felt when Mr. Spenlow went home without me (I had had -an insane hope that he might take me back again), as if I were a mariner -myself, and the ship to which I belonged had sailed away and left me on a -desert island; I shall make no fruitless effort to describe. If that sleepy old -court could rouse itself, and present in any visible form the daydreams I have -had in it about Dora, it would reveal my truth. -</p> - -<p> -I don’t mean the dreams that I dreamed on that day alone, but day after -day, from week to week, and term to term. I went there, not to attend to what -was going on, but to think about Dora. If ever I bestowed a thought upon the -cases, as they dragged their slow length before me, it was only to wonder, in -the matrimonial cases (remembering Dora), how it was that married people could -ever be otherwise than happy; and, in the Prerogative cases, to consider, if -the money in question had been left to me, what were the foremost steps I -should immediately have taken in regard to Dora. Within the first week of my -passion, I bought four sumptuous waistcoats—not for myself; I had no -pride in them; for Dora—and took to wearing straw-coloured kid gloves in -the streets, and laid the foundations of all the corns I have ever had. If the -boots I wore at that period could only be produced and compared with the -natural size of my feet, they would show what the state of my heart was, in a -most affecting manner. -</p> - -<p> -And yet, wretched cripple as I made myself by this act of homage to Dora, I -walked miles upon miles daily in the hope of seeing her. Not only was I soon as -well known on the Norwood Road as the postmen on that beat, but I pervaded -London likewise. I walked about the streets where the best shops for ladies -were, I haunted the Bazaar like an unquiet spirit, I fagged through the Park -again and again, long after I was quite knocked up. Sometimes, at long -intervals and on rare occasions, I saw her. Perhaps I saw her glove waved in a -carriage window; perhaps I met her, walked with her and Miss Murdstone a little -way, and spoke to her. In the latter case I was always very miserable -afterwards, to think that I had said nothing to the purpose; or that she had no -idea of the extent of my devotion, or that she cared nothing about me. I was -always looking out, as may be supposed, for another invitation to Mr. -Spenlow’s house. I was always being disappointed, for I got none. -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Crupp must have been a woman of penetration; for when this attachment was -but a few weeks old, and I had not had the courage to write more explicitly -even to Agnes, than that I had been to Mr. Spenlow’s house, ‘whose -family,’ I added, ‘consists of one daughter’;—I say -Mrs. Crupp must have been a woman of penetration, for, even in that early -stage, she found it out. She came up to me one evening, when I was very low, to -ask (she being then afflicted with the disorder I have mentioned) if I could -oblige her with a little tincture of cardamums mixed with rhubarb, and -flavoured with seven drops of the essence of cloves, which was the best remedy -for her complaint;—or, if I had not such a thing by me, with a little -brandy, which was the next best. It was not, she remarked, so palatable to her, -but it was the next best. As I had never even heard of the first remedy, and -always had the second in the closet, I gave Mrs. Crupp a glass of the second, -which (that I might have no suspicion of its being devoted to any improper use) -she began to take in my presence. -</p> - -<p> -‘Cheer up, sir,’ said Mrs. Crupp. ‘I can’t abear to see -you so, sir: I’m a mother myself.’ -</p> - -<p> -I did not quite perceive the application of this fact to myself, but I smiled -on Mrs. Crupp, as benignly as was in my power. -</p> - -<p> -‘Come, sir,’ said Mrs. Crupp. ‘Excuse me. I know what it is, -sir. There’s a lady in the case.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Mrs. Crupp?’ I returned, reddening. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, bless you! Keep a good heart, sir!’ said Mrs. Crupp, nodding -encouragement. ‘Never say die, sir! If She don’t smile upon you, -there’s a many as will. You are a young gentleman to be smiled on, Mr. -Copperfull, and you must learn your walue, sir.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Crupp always called me Mr. Copperfull: firstly, no doubt, because it was -not my name; and secondly, I am inclined to think, in some indistinct -association with a washing-day. -</p> - -<p> -‘What makes you suppose there is any young lady in the case, Mrs. -Crupp?’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Mr. Copperfull,’ said Mrs. Crupp, with a great deal of feeling, -‘I’m a mother myself.’ -</p> - -<p> -For some time Mrs. Crupp could only lay her hand upon her nankeen bosom, and -fortify herself against returning pain with sips of her medicine. At length she -spoke again. -</p> - -<p> -‘When the present set were took for you by your dear aunt, Mr. -Copperfull,’ said Mrs. Crupp, ‘my remark were, I had now found -summun I could care for. “Thank Ev’in!” were the expression, -“I have now found summun I can care for!”—You don’t eat -enough, sir, nor yet drink.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Is that what you found your supposition on, Mrs. Crupp?’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Sir,’ said Mrs. Crupp, in a tone approaching to severity, -‘I’ve laundressed other young gentlemen besides yourself. A young -gentleman may be over-careful of himself, or he may be under-careful of -himself. He may brush his hair too regular, or too un-regular. He may wear his -boots much too large for him, or much too small. That is according as the young -gentleman has his original character formed. But let him go to which extreme he -may, sir, there’s a young lady in both of ‘em.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Crupp shook her head in such a determined manner, that I had not an inch -of vantage-ground left. -</p> - -<p> -‘It was but the gentleman which died here before yourself,’ said -Mrs. Crupp, ‘that fell in love—with a barmaid—and had his -waistcoats took in directly, though much swelled by drinking.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Mrs. Crupp,’ said I, ‘I must beg you not to connect the -young lady in my case with a barmaid, or anything of that sort, if you -please.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Mr. Copperfull,’ returned Mrs. Crupp, ‘I’m a mother -myself, and not likely. I ask your pardon, sir, if I intrude. I should never -wish to intrude where I were not welcome. But you are a young gentleman, Mr. -Copperfull, and my adwice to you is, to cheer up, sir, to keep a good heart, -and to know your own walue. If you was to take to something, sir,’ said -Mrs. Crupp, ‘if you was to take to skittles, now, which is healthy, you -might find it divert your mind, and do you good.’ -</p> - -<p> -With these words, Mrs. Crupp, affecting to be very careful of the -brandy—which was all gone—thanked me with a majestic curtsey, and -retired. As her figure disappeared into the gloom of the entry, this counsel -certainly presented itself to my mind in the light of a slight liberty on Mrs. -Crupp’s part; but, at the same time, I was content to receive it, in -another point of view, as a word to the wise, and a warning in future to keep -my secret better. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0027"></a>CHAPTER 27. TOMMY TRADDLES</h2> - -<p> -It may have been in consequence of Mrs. Crupp’s advice, and, perhaps, for -no better reason than because there was a certain similarity in the sound of -the word skittles and Traddles, that it came into my head, next day, to go and -look after Traddles. The time he had mentioned was more than out, and he lived -in a little street near the Veterinary College at Camden Town, which was -principally tenanted, as one of our clerks who lived in that direction informed -me, by gentlemen students, who bought live donkeys, and made experiments on -those quadrupeds in their private apartments. Having obtained from this clerk a -direction to the academic grove in question, I set out, the same afternoon, to -visit my old schoolfellow. -</p> - -<p> -I found that the street was not as desirable a one as I could have wished it to -be, for the sake of Traddles. The inhabitants appeared to have a propensity to -throw any little trifles they were not in want of, into the road: which not -only made it rank and sloppy, but untidy too, on account of the cabbage-leaves. -The refuse was not wholly vegetable either, for I myself saw a shoe, a -doubled-up saucepan, a black bonnet, and an umbrella, in various stages of -decomposition, as I was looking out for the number I wanted. -</p> - -<p> -The general air of the place reminded me forcibly of the days when I lived with -Mr. and Mrs. Micawber. An indescribable character of faded gentility that -attached to the house I sought, and made it unlike all the other houses in the -street—though they were all built on one monotonous pattern, and looked -like the early copies of a blundering boy who was learning to make houses, and -had not yet got out of his cramped brick-and-mortar pothooks—reminded me -still more of Mr. and Mrs. Micawber. Happening to arrive at the door as it was -opened to the afternoon milkman, I was reminded of Mr. and Mrs. Micawber more -forcibly yet. -</p> - -<p> -‘Now,’ said the milkman to a very youthful servant girl. ‘Has -that there little bill of mine been heerd on?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, master says he’ll attend to it immediate,’ was the -reply. -</p> - -<p> -‘Because,’ said the milkman, going on as if he had received no -answer, and speaking, as I judged from his tone, rather for the edification of -somebody within the house, than of the youthful servant—an impression -which was strengthened by his manner of glaring down the -passage—‘because that there little bill has been running so long, -that I begin to believe it’s run away altogether, and never won’t -be heerd of. Now, I’m not a going to stand it, you know!’ said the -milkman, still throwing his voice into the house, and glaring down the passage. -</p> - -<p> -As to his dealing in the mild article of milk, by the by, there never was a -greater anomaly. His deportment would have been fierce in a butcher or a -brandy-merchant. -</p> - -<p> -The voice of the youthful servant became faint, but she seemed to me, from the -action of her lips, again to murmur that it would be attended to immediate. -</p> - -<p> -‘I tell you what,’ said the milkman, looking hard at her for the -first time, and taking her by the chin, ‘are you fond of milk?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes, I likes it,’ she replied. ‘Good,’ said the -milkman. ‘Then you won’t have none tomorrow. D’ye hear? Not a -fragment of milk you won’t have tomorrow.’ -</p> - -<p> -I thought she seemed, upon the whole, relieved by the prospect of having any -today. The milkman, after shaking his head at her darkly, released her chin, -and with anything rather than good-will opened his can, and deposited the usual -quantity in the family jug. This done, he went away, muttering, and uttered the -cry of his trade next door, in a vindictive shriek. -</p> - -<p> -‘Does Mr. Traddles live here?’ I then inquired. -</p> - -<p> -A mysterious voice from the end of the passage replied ‘Yes.’ Upon -which the youthful servant replied ‘Yes.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Is he at home?’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -Again the mysterious voice replied in the affirmative, and again the servant -echoed it. Upon this, I walked in, and in pursuance of the servant’s -directions walked upstairs; conscious, as I passed the back parlour-door, that -I was surveyed by a mysterious eye, probably belonging to the mysterious voice. -</p> - -<p> -When I got to the top of the stairs—the house was only a story high above -the ground floor—Traddles was on the landing to meet me. He was delighted -to see me, and gave me welcome, with great heartiness, to his little room. It -was in the front of the house, and extremely neat, though sparely furnished. It -was his only room, I saw; for there was a sofa-bedstead in it, and his -blacking-brushes and blacking were among his books—on the top shelf, -behind a dictionary. His table was covered with papers, and he was hard at work -in an old coat. I looked at nothing, that I know of, but I saw everything, even -to the prospect of a church upon his china inkstand, as I sat down—and -this, too, was a faculty confirmed in me in the old Micawber times. Various -ingenious arrangements he had made, for the disguise of his chest of drawers, -and the accommodation of his boots, his shaving-glass, and so forth, -particularly impressed themselves upon me, as evidences of the same Traddles -who used to make models of elephants’ dens in writing-paper to put flies -in; and to comfort himself under ill usage, with the memorable works of art I -have so often mentioned. -</p> - -<p> -In a corner of the room was something neatly covered up with a large white -cloth. I could not make out what that was. -</p> - -<p> -‘Traddles,’ said I, shaking hands with him again, after I had sat -down, ‘I am delighted to see you.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I am delighted to see YOU, Copperfield,’ he returned. ‘I am -very glad indeed to see you. It was because I was thoroughly glad to see you -when we met in Ely Place, and was sure you were thoroughly glad to see me, that -I gave you this address instead of my address at chambers.’ ‘Oh! -You have chambers?’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, I have the fourth of a room and a passage, and the fourth of a -clerk,’ returned Traddles. ‘Three others and myself unite to have a -set of chambers—to look business-like—and we quarter the clerk too. -Half-a-crown a week he costs me.’ -</p> - -<p> -His old simple character and good temper, and something of his old unlucky -fortune also, I thought, smiled at me in the smile with which he made this -explanation. -</p> - -<p> -‘It’s not because I have the least pride, Copperfield, you -understand,’ said Traddles, ‘that I don’t usually give my -address here. It’s only on account of those who come to me, who might not -like to come here. For myself, I am fighting my way on in the world against -difficulties, and it would be ridiculous if I made a pretence of doing anything -else.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You are reading for the bar, Mr. Waterbrook informed me?’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, yes,’ said Traddles, rubbing his hands slowly over one -another. ‘I am reading for the bar. The fact is, I have just begun to -keep my terms, after rather a long delay. It’s some time since I was -articled, but the payment of that hundred pounds was a great pull. A great -pull!’ said Traddles, with a wince, as if he had had a tooth out. -</p> - -<p> -‘Do you know what I can’t help thinking of, Traddles, as I sit here -looking at you?’ I asked him. -</p> - -<p> -‘No,’ said he. -</p> - -<p> -‘That sky-blue suit you used to wear.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Lord, to be sure!’ cried Traddles, laughing. ‘Tight in the -arms and legs, you know? Dear me! Well! Those were happy times, weren’t -they?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I think our schoolmaster might have made them happier, without doing any -harm to any of us, I acknowledge,’ I returned. -</p> - -<p> -‘Perhaps he might,’ said Traddles. ‘But dear me, there was a -good deal of fun going on. Do you remember the nights in the bedroom? When we -used to have the suppers? And when you used to tell the stories? Ha, ha, ha! -And do you remember when I got caned for crying about Mr. Mell? Old Creakle! I -should like to see him again, too!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘He was a brute to you, Traddles,’ said I, indignantly; for his -good humour made me feel as if I had seen him beaten but yesterday. -</p> - -<p> -‘Do you think so?’ returned Traddles. ‘Really? Perhaps he was -rather. But it’s all over, a long while. Old Creakle!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You were brought up by an uncle, then?’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Of course I was!’ said Traddles. ‘The one I was always going -to write to. And always didn’t, eh! Ha, ha, ha! Yes, I had an uncle then. -He died soon after I left school.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Indeed!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes. He was a retired—what do you call -it!—draper—cloth-merchant—and had made me his heir. But he -didn’t like me when I grew up.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Do you really mean that?’ said I. He was so composed, that I -fancied he must have some other meaning. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh dear, yes, Copperfield! I mean it,’ replied Traddles. ‘It -was an unfortunate thing, but he didn’t like me at all. He said I -wasn’t at all what he expected, and so he married his housekeeper.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And what did you do?’ I asked. -</p> - -<p> -‘I didn’t do anything in particular,’ said Traddles. ‘I -lived with them, waiting to be put out in the world, until his gout -unfortunately flew to his stomach—and so he died, and so she married a -young man, and so I wasn’t provided for.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Did you get nothing, Traddles, after all?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh dear, yes!’ said Traddles. ‘I got fifty pounds. I had -never been brought up to any profession, and at first I was at a loss what to -do for myself. However, I began, with the assistance of the son of a -professional man, who had been to Salem House—Yawler, with his nose on -one side. Do you recollect him?’ -</p> - -<p> -No. He had not been there with me; all the noses were straight in my day. -</p> - -<p> -‘It don’t matter,’ said Traddles. ‘I began, by means of -his assistance, to copy law writings. That didn’t answer very well; and -then I began to state cases for them, and make abstracts, and that sort of -work. For I am a plodding kind of fellow, Copperfield, and had learnt the way -of doing such things pithily. Well! That put it in my head to enter myself as a -law student; and that ran away with all that was left of the fifty pounds. -Yawler recommended me to one or two other offices, however—Mr. -Waterbrook’s for one—and I got a good many jobs. I was fortunate -enough, too, to become acquainted with a person in the publishing way, who was -getting up an Encyclopaedia, and he set me to work; and, indeed’ -(glancing at his table), ‘I am at work for him at this minute. I am not a -bad compiler, Copperfield,’ said Traddles, preserving the same air of -cheerful confidence in all he said, ‘but I have no invention at all; not -a particle. I suppose there never was a young man with less originality than I -have.’ -</p> - -<p> -As Traddles seemed to expect that I should assent to this as a matter of -course, I nodded; and he went on, with the same sprightly patience—I can -find no better expression—as before. -</p> - -<p> -‘So, by little and little, and not living high, I managed to scrape up -the hundred pounds at last,’ said Traddles; ‘and thank Heaven -that’s paid—though it was—though it certainly was,’ -said Traddles, wincing again as if he had had another tooth out, ‘a pull. -I am living by the sort of work I have mentioned, still, and I hope, one of -these days, to get connected with some newspaper: which would almost be the -making of my fortune. Now, Copperfield, you are so exactly what you used to be, -with that agreeable face, and it’s so pleasant to see you, that I -sha’n’t conceal anything. Therefore you must know that I am -engaged.’ -</p> - -<p> -Engaged! Oh, Dora! -</p> - -<p> -‘She is a curate’s daughter,’ said Traddles; ‘one of -ten, down in Devonshire. Yes!’ For he saw me glance, involuntarily, at -the prospect on the inkstand. ‘That’s the church! You come round -here to the left, out of this gate,’ tracing his finger along the -inkstand, ‘and exactly where I hold this pen, there stands the -house—facing, you understand, towards the church.’ -</p> - -<p> -The delight with which he entered into these particulars, did not fully present -itself to me until afterwards; for my selfish thoughts were making a -ground-plan of Mr. Spenlow’s house and garden at the same moment. -</p> - -<p> -‘She is such a dear girl!’ said Traddles; ‘a little older -than me, but the dearest girl! I told you I was going out of town? I have been -down there. I walked there, and I walked back, and I had the most delightful -time! I dare say ours is likely to be a rather long engagement, but our motto -is “Wait and hope!” We always say that. “Wait and -hope,” we always say. And she would wait, Copperfield, till she was -sixty—any age you can mention—for me!’ -</p> - -<p> -Traddles rose from his chair, and, with a triumphant smile, put his hand upon -the white cloth I had observed. -</p> - -<p> -‘However,’ he said, ‘it’s not that we haven’t -made a beginning towards housekeeping. No, no; we have begun. We must get on by -degrees, but we have begun. Here,’ drawing the cloth off with great pride -and care, ‘are two pieces of furniture to commence with. This flower-pot -and stand, she bought herself. You put that in a parlour window,’ said -Traddles, falling a little back from it to survey it with the greater -admiration, ‘with a plant in it, and—and there you are! This little -round table with the marble top (it’s two feet ten in circumference), I -bought. You want to lay a book down, you know, or somebody comes to see you or -your wife, and wants a place to stand a cup of tea upon, and—and there -you are again!’ said Traddles. ‘It’s an admirable piece of -workmanship—firm as a rock!’ I praised them both, highly, and -Traddles replaced the covering as carefully as he had removed it. -</p> - -<p> -‘It’s not a great deal towards the furnishing,’ said -Traddles, ‘but it’s something. The table-cloths, and pillow-cases, -and articles of that kind, are what discourage me most, Copperfield. So does -the ironmongery—candle-boxes, and gridirons, and that sort of -necessaries—because those things tell, and mount up. However, “wait -and hope!” And I assure you she’s the dearest girl!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I am quite certain of it,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘In the meantime,’ said Traddles, coming back to his chair; -‘and this is the end of my prosing about myself, I get on as well as I -can. I don’t make much, but I don’t spend much. In general, I board -with the people downstairs, who are very agreeable people indeed. Both Mr. and -Mrs. Micawber have seen a good deal of life, and are excellent company.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear Traddles!’ I quickly exclaimed. ‘What are you -talking about?’ -</p> - -<p> -Traddles looked at me, as if he wondered what I was talking about. -</p> - -<p> -‘Mr. and Mrs. Micawber!’ I repeated. ‘Why, I am intimately -acquainted with them!’ -</p> - -<p> -An opportune double knock at the door, which I knew well from old experience in -Windsor Terrace, and which nobody but Mr. Micawber could ever have knocked at -that door, resolved any doubt in my mind as to their being my old friends. I -begged Traddles to ask his landlord to walk up. Traddles accordingly did so, -over the banister; and Mr. Micawber, not a bit changed—his tights, his -stick, his shirt-collar, and his eye-glass, all the same as ever—came -into the room with a genteel and youthful air. -</p> - -<p> -‘I beg your pardon, Mr. Traddles,’ said Mr. Micawber, with the old -roll in his voice, as he checked himself in humming a soft tune. ‘I was -not aware that there was any individual, alien to this tenement, in your -sanctum.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Micawber slightly bowed to me, and pulled up his shirt-collar. -</p> - -<p> -‘How do you do, Mr. Micawber?’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Sir,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘you are exceedingly obliging. I am -in statu quo.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And Mrs. Micawber?’ I pursued. -</p> - -<p> -‘Sir,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘she is also, thank God, in statu -quo.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And the children, Mr. Micawber?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Sir,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘I rejoice to reply that they are, -likewise, in the enjoyment of salubrity.’ -</p> - -<p> -All this time, Mr. Micawber had not known me in the least, though he had stood -face to face with me. But now, seeing me smile, he examined my features with -more attention, fell back, cried, ‘Is it possible! Have I the pleasure of -again beholding Copperfield!’ and shook me by both hands with the utmost -fervour. -</p> - -<p> -‘Good Heaven, Mr. Traddles!’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘to think -that I should find you acquainted with the friend of my youth, the companion of -earlier days! My dear!’ calling over the banisters to Mrs. Micawber, -while Traddles looked (with reason) not a little amazed at this description of -me. ‘Here is a gentleman in Mr. Traddles’s apartment, whom he -wishes to have the pleasure of presenting to you, my love!’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Micawber immediately reappeared, and shook hands with me again. -</p> - -<p> -‘And how is our good friend the Doctor, Copperfield?’ said Mr. -Micawber, ‘and all the circle at Canterbury?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I have none but good accounts of them,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘I am most delighted to hear it,’ said Mr. Micawber. ‘It was -at Canterbury where we last met. Within the shadow, I may figuratively say, of -that religious edifice immortalized by Chaucer, which was anciently the resort -of Pilgrims from the remotest corners of—in short,’ said Mr. -Micawber, ‘in the immediate neighbourhood of the Cathedral.’ -</p> - -<p> -I replied that it was. Mr. Micawber continued talking as volubly as he could; -but not, I thought, without showing, by some marks of concern in his -countenance, that he was sensible of sounds in the next room, as of Mrs. -Micawber washing her hands, and hurriedly opening and shutting drawers that -were uneasy in their action. -</p> - -<p> -‘You find us, Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber, with one eye on -Traddles, ‘at present established, on what may be designated as a small -and unassuming scale; but, you are aware that I have, in the course of my -career, surmounted difficulties, and conquered obstacles. You are no stranger -to the fact, that there have been periods of my life, when it has been -requisite that I should pause, until certain expected events should turn up; -when it has been necessary that I should fall back, before making what I trust -I shall not be accused of presumption in terming—a spring. The present is -one of those momentous stages in the life of man. You find me, fallen back, FOR -a spring; and I have every reason to believe that a vigorous leap will shortly -be the result.’ -</p> - -<p> -I was expressing my satisfaction, when Mrs. Micawber came in; a little more -slatternly than she used to be, or so she seemed now, to my unaccustomed eyes, -but still with some preparation of herself for company, and with a pair of -brown gloves on. -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear,’ said Mr. Micawber, leading her towards me, ‘here -is a gentleman of the name of Copperfield, who wishes to renew his acquaintance -with you.’ -</p> - -<p> -It would have been better, as it turned out, to have led gently up to this -announcement, for Mrs. Micawber, being in a delicate state of health, was -overcome by it, and was taken so unwell, that Mr. Micawber was obliged, in -great trepidation, to run down to the water-butt in the backyard, and draw a -basinful to lave her brow with. She presently revived, however, and was really -pleased to see me. We had half-an-hour’s talk, all together; and I asked -her about the twins, who, she said, were ‘grown great creatures’; -and after Master and Miss Micawber, whom she described as ‘absolute -giants’, but they were not produced on that occasion. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Micawber was very anxious that I should stay to dinner. I should not have -been averse to do so, but that I imagined I detected trouble, and calculation -relative to the extent of the cold meat, in Mrs. Micawber’s eye. I -therefore pleaded another engagement; and observing that Mrs. Micawber’s -spirits were immediately lightened, I resisted all persuasion to forego it. -</p> - -<p> -But I told Traddles, and Mr. and Mrs. Micawber, that before I could think of -leaving, they must appoint a day when they would come and dine with me. The -occupations to which Traddles stood pledged, rendered it necessary to fix a -somewhat distant one; but an appointment was made for the purpose, that suited -us all, and then I took my leave. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Micawber, under pretence of showing me a nearer way than that by which I -had come, accompanied me to the corner of the street; being anxious (he -explained to me) to say a few words to an old friend, in confidence. -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘I need hardly tell -you that to have beneath our roof, under existing circumstances, a mind like -that which gleams—if I may be allowed the expression—which -gleams—in your friend Traddles, is an unspeakable comfort. With a -washerwoman, who exposes hard-bake for sale in her parlour-window, dwelling -next door, and a Bow-street officer residing over the way, you may imagine that -his society is a source of consolation to myself and to Mrs. Micawber. I am at -present, my dear Copperfield, engaged in the sale of corn upon commission. It -is not an avocation of a remunerative description—in other words, it does -not pay—and some temporary embarrassments of a pecuniary nature have been -the consequence. I am, however, delighted to add that I have now an immediate -prospect of something turning up (I am not at liberty to say in what -direction), which I trust will enable me to provide, permanently, both for -myself and for your friend Traddles, in whom I have an unaffected interest. You -may, perhaps, be prepared to hear that Mrs. Micawber is in a state of health -which renders it not wholly improbable that an addition may be ultimately made -to those pledges of affection which—in short, to the infantine group. -Mrs. Micawber’s family have been so good as to express their -dissatisfaction at this state of things. I have merely to observe, that I am -not aware that it is any business of theirs, and that I repel that exhibition -of feeling with scorn, and with defiance!’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Micawber then shook hands with me again, and left me. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0028"></a>CHAPTER 28. Mr. MICAWBER’S GAUNTLET</h2> - -<p> -Until the day arrived on which I was to entertain my newly-found old friends, I -lived principally on Dora and coffee. In my love-lorn condition, my appetite -languished; and I was glad of it, for I felt as though it would have been an -act of perfidy towards Dora to have a natural relish for my dinner. The -quantity of walking exercise I took, was not in this respect attended with its -usual consequence, as the disappointment counteracted the fresh air. I have my -doubts, too, founded on the acute experience acquired at this period of my -life, whether a sound enjoyment of animal food can develop itself freely in any -human subject who is always in torment from tight boots. I think the -extremities require to be at peace before the stomach will conduct itself with -vigour. -</p> - -<p> -On the occasion of this domestic little party, I did not repeat my former -extensive preparations. I merely provided a pair of soles, a small leg of -mutton, and a pigeon-pie. Mrs. Crupp broke out into rebellion on my first -bashful hint in reference to the cooking of the fish and joint, and said, with -a dignified sense of injury, ‘No! No, sir! You will not ask me sich a -thing, for you are better acquainted with me than to suppose me capable of -doing what I cannot do with ampial satisfaction to my own feelings!’ But, -in the end, a compromise was effected; and Mrs. Crupp consented to achieve this -feat, on condition that I dined from home for a fortnight afterwards. -</p> - -<p> -And here I may remark, that what I underwent from Mrs. Crupp, in consequence of -the tyranny she established over me, was dreadful. I never was so much afraid -of anyone. We made a compromise of everything. If I hesitated, she was taken -with that wonderful disorder which was always lying in ambush in her system, -ready, at the shortest notice, to prey upon her vitals. If I rang the bell -impatiently, after half-a-dozen unavailing modest pulls, and she appeared at -last—which was not by any means to be relied upon—she would appear -with a reproachful aspect, sink breathless on a chair near the door, lay her -hand upon her nankeen bosom, and become so ill, that I was glad, at any -sacrifice of brandy or anything else, to get rid of her. If I objected to -having my bed made at five o’clock in the afternoon—which I do -still think an uncomfortable arrangement—one motion of her hand towards -the same nankeen region of wounded sensibility was enough to make me falter an -apology. In short, I would have done anything in an honourable way rather than -give Mrs. Crupp offence; and she was the terror of my life. -</p> - -<p> -I bought a second-hand dumb-waiter for this dinner-party, in preference to -re-engaging the handy young man; against whom I had conceived a prejudice, in -consequence of meeting him in the Strand, one Sunday morning, in a waistcoat -remarkably like one of mine, which had been missing since the former occasion. -The ‘young gal’ was re-engaged; but on the stipulation that she -should only bring in the dishes, and then withdraw to the landing-place, beyond -the outer door; where a habit of sniffing she had contracted would be lost upon -the guests, and where her retiring on the plates would be a physical -impossibility. -</p> - -<p> -Having laid in the materials for a bowl of punch, to be compounded by Mr. -Micawber; having provided a bottle of lavender-water, two wax-candles, a paper -of mixed pins, and a pincushion, to assist Mrs. Micawber in her toilette at my -dressing-table; having also caused the fire in my bedroom to be lighted for -Mrs. Micawber’s convenience; and having laid the cloth with my own hands, -I awaited the result with composure. -</p> - -<p> -At the appointed time, my three visitors arrived together. Mr. Micawber with -more shirt-collar than usual, and a new ribbon to his eye-glass; Mrs. Micawber -with her cap in a whitey-brown paper parcel; Traddles carrying the parcel, and -supporting Mrs. Micawber on his arm. They were all delighted with my residence. -When I conducted Mrs. Micawber to my dressing-table, and she saw the scale on -which it was prepared for her, she was in such raptures, that she called Mr. -Micawber to come in and look. -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘this is luxurious. -This is a way of life which reminds me of the period when I was myself in a -state of celibacy, and Mrs. Micawber had not yet been solicited to plight her -faith at the Hymeneal altar.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘He means, solicited by him, Mr. Copperfield,’ said Mrs. Micawber, -archly. ‘He cannot answer for others.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear,’ returned Mr. Micawber with sudden seriousness, ‘I -have no desire to answer for others. I am too well aware that when, in the -inscrutable decrees of Fate, you were reserved for me, it is possible you may -have been reserved for one, destined, after a protracted struggle, at length to -fall a victim to pecuniary involvements of a complicated nature. I understand -your allusion, my love. I regret it, but I can bear it.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Micawber!’ exclaimed Mrs. Micawber, in tears. ‘Have I -deserved this! I, who never have deserted you; who never WILL desert you, -Micawber!’ ‘My love,’ said Mr. Micawber, much affected, -‘you will forgive, and our old and tried friend Copperfield will, I am -sure, forgive, the momentary laceration of a wounded spirit, made sensitive by -a recent collision with the Minion of Power—in other words, with a ribald -Turncock attached to the water-works—and will pity, not condemn, its -excesses.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Micawber then embraced Mrs. Micawber, and pressed my hand; leaving me to -infer from this broken allusion that his domestic supply of water had been cut -off that afternoon, in consequence of default in the payment of the -company’s rates. -</p> - -<p> -To divert his thoughts from this melancholy subject, I informed Mr. Micawber -that I relied upon him for a bowl of punch, and led him to the lemons. His -recent despondency, not to say despair, was gone in a moment. I never saw a man -so thoroughly enjoy himself amid the fragrance of lemon-peel and sugar, the -odour of burning rum, and the steam of boiling water, as Mr. Micawber did that -afternoon. It was wonderful to see his face shining at us out of a thin cloud -of these delicate fumes, as he stirred, and mixed, and tasted, and looked as if -he were making, instead of punch, a fortune for his family down to the latest -posterity. As to Mrs. Micawber, I don’t know whether it was the effect of -the cap, or the lavender-water, or the pins, or the fire, or the wax-candles, -but she came out of my room, comparatively speaking, lovely. And the lark was -never gayer than that excellent woman. -</p> - -<p> -I suppose—I never ventured to inquire, but I suppose—that Mrs. -Crupp, after frying the soles, was taken ill. Because we broke down at that -point. The leg of mutton came up very red within, and very pale without: -besides having a foreign substance of a gritty nature sprinkled over it, as if -if had had a fall into the ashes of that remarkable kitchen fireplace. But we -were not in condition to judge of this fact from the appearance of the gravy, -forasmuch as the ‘young gal’ had dropped it all upon the -stairs—where it remained, by the by, in a long train, until it was worn -out. The pigeon-pie was not bad, but it was a delusive pie: the crust being -like a disappointing head, phrenologically speaking: full of lumps and bumps, -with nothing particular underneath. In short, the banquet was such a failure -that I should have been quite unhappy—about the failure, I mean, for I -was always unhappy about Dora—if I had not been relieved by the great -good humour of my company, and by a bright suggestion from Mr. Micawber. -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear friend Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘accidents -will occur in the best-regulated families; and in families not regulated by -that pervading influence which sanctifies while it enhances the—a—I -would say, in short, by the influence of Woman, in the lofty character of Wife, -they may be expected with confidence, and must be borne with philosophy. If you -will allow me to take the liberty of remarking that there are few comestibles -better, in their way, than a Devil, and that I believe, with a little division -of labour, we could accomplish a good one if the young person in attendance -could produce a gridiron, I would put it to you, that this little misfortune -may be easily repaired.’ -</p> - -<p> -There was a gridiron in the pantry, on which my morning rasher of bacon was -cooked. We had it in, in a twinkling, and immediately applied ourselves to -carrying Mr. Micawber’s idea into effect. The division of labour to which -he had referred was this:—Traddles cut the mutton into slices; Mr. -Micawber (who could do anything of this sort to perfection) covered them with -pepper, mustard, salt, and cayenne; I put them on the gridiron, turned them -with a fork, and took them off, under Mr. Micawber’s direction; and Mrs. -Micawber heated, and continually stirred, some mushroom ketchup in a little -saucepan. When we had slices enough done to begin upon, we fell-to, with our -sleeves still tucked up at the wrist, more slices sputtering and blazing on the -fire, and our attention divided between the mutton on our plates, and the -mutton then preparing. -</p> - -<p> -What with the novelty of this cookery, the excellence of it, the bustle of it, -the frequent starting up to look after it, the frequent sitting down to dispose -of it as the crisp slices came off the gridiron hot and hot, the being so busy, -so flushed with the fire, so amused, and in the midst of such a tempting noise -and savour, we reduced the leg of mutton to the bone. My own appetite came back -miraculously. I am ashamed to record it, but I really believe I forgot Dora for -a little while. I am satisfied that Mr. and Mrs. Micawber could not have -enjoyed the feast more, if they had sold a bed to provide it. Traddles laughed -as heartily, almost the whole time, as he ate and worked. Indeed we all did, -all at once; and I dare say there was never a greater success. -</p> - -<p> -We were at the height of our enjoyment, and were all busily engaged, in our -several departments, endeavouring to bring the last batch of slices to a state -of perfection that should crown the feast, when I was aware of a strange -presence in the room, and my eyes encountered those of the staid Littimer, -standing hat in hand before me. -</p> - -<p> -‘What’s the matter?’ I involuntarily asked. -</p> - -<p> -‘I beg your pardon, sir, I was directed to come in. Is my master not -here, sir?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Have you not seen him, sir?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No; don’t you come from him?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Not immediately so, sir.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Did he tell you you would find him here?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Not exactly so, sir. But I should think he might be here tomorrow, as he -has not been here today.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Is he coming up from Oxford?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I beg, sir,’ he returned respectfully, ‘that you will be -seated, and allow me to do this.’ With which he took the fork from my -unresisting hand, and bent over the gridiron, as if his whole attention were -concentrated on it. -</p> - -<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> -<img src="images/0497.jpg" alt="0497 " width="100%" /> -</div> - -<h5> -<a href="images/0497.jpg"> -<img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /></a> -</h5> - -<p> -We should not have been much discomposed, I dare say, by the appearance of -Steerforth himself, but we became in a moment the meekest of the meek before -his respectable serving-man. Mr. Micawber, humming a tune, to show that he was -quite at ease, subsided into his chair, with the handle of a hastily concealed -fork sticking out of the bosom of his coat, as if he had stabbed himself. Mrs. -Micawber put on her brown gloves, and assumed a genteel languor. Traddles ran -his greasy hands through his hair, and stood it bolt upright, and stared in -confusion on the table-cloth. As for me, I was a mere infant at the head of my -own table; and hardly ventured to glance at the respectable phenomenon, who had -come from Heaven knows where, to put my establishment to rights. -</p> - -<p> -Meanwhile he took the mutton off the gridiron, and gravely handed it round. We -all took some, but our appreciation of it was gone, and we merely made a show -of eating it. As we severally pushed away our plates, he noiselessly removed -them, and set on the cheese. He took that off, too, when it was done with; -cleared the table; piled everything on the dumb-waiter; gave us our -wine-glasses; and, of his own accord, wheeled the dumb-waiter into the pantry. -All this was done in a perfect manner, and he never raised his eyes from what -he was about. Yet his very elbows, when he had his back towards me, seemed to -teem with the expression of his fixed opinion that I was extremely young. -</p> - -<p> -‘Can I do anything more, sir?’ -</p> - -<p> -I thanked him and said, No; but would he take no dinner himself? -</p> - -<p> -‘None, I am obliged to you, sir.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Is Mr. Steerforth coming from Oxford?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I beg your pardon, sir?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Is Mr. Steerforth coming from Oxford?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I should imagine that he might be here tomorrow, sir. I rather thought -he might have been here today, sir. The mistake is mine, no doubt, sir.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘If you should see him first—’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘If you’ll excuse me, sir, I don’t think I shall see him -first.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘In case you do,’ said I, ‘pray say that I am sorry he was -not here today, as an old schoolfellow of his was here.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Indeed, sir!’ and he divided a bow between me and Traddles, with a -glance at the latter. -</p> - -<p> -He was moving softly to the door, when, in a forlorn hope of saying something -naturally—which I never could, to this man—I said: -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh! Littimer!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Sir!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Did you remain long at Yarmouth, that time?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Not particularly so, sir.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You saw the boat completed?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes, sir. I remained behind on purpose to see the boat completed.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I know!’ He raised his eyes to mine respectfully. -</p> - -<p> -‘Mr. Steerforth has not seen it yet, I suppose?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I really can’t say, sir. I think—but I really can’t -say, sir. I wish you good night, sir.’ -</p> - -<p> -He comprehended everybody present, in the respectful bow with which he followed -these words, and disappeared. My visitors seemed to breathe more freely when he -was gone; but my own relief was very great, for besides the constraint, arising -from that extraordinary sense of being at a disadvantage which I always had in -this man’s presence, my conscience had embarrassed me with whispers that -I had mistrusted his master, and I could not repress a vague uneasy dread that -he might find it out. How was it, having so little in reality to conceal, that -I always DID feel as if this man were finding me out? -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Micawber roused me from this reflection, which was blended with a certain -remorseful apprehension of seeing Steerforth himself, by bestowing many -encomiums on the absent Littimer as a most respectable fellow, and a thoroughly -admirable servant. Mr. Micawber, I may remark, had taken his full share of the -general bow, and had received it with infinite condescension. -</p> - -<p> -‘But punch, my dear Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber, tasting it, -‘like time and tide, waits for no man. Ah! it is at the present moment in -high flavour. My love, will you give me your opinion?’ -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Micawber pronounced it excellent. -</p> - -<p> -‘Then I will drink,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘if my friend -Copperfield will permit me to take that social liberty, to the days when my -friend Copperfield and myself were younger, and fought our way in the world -side by side. I may say, of myself and Copperfield, in words we have sung -together before now, that -</p> - -<p class="poem"> -We twa hae run about the braes<br/> -And pu’d the gowans’ fine -</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -—in a figurative point of view—on several occasions. I am not -exactly aware,’ said Mr. Micawber, with the old roll in his voice, and -the old indescribable air of saying something genteel, ‘what gowans may -be, but I have no doubt that Copperfield and myself would frequently have taken -a pull at them, if it had been feasible.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Micawber, at the then present moment, took a pull at his punch. So we all -did: Traddles evidently lost in wondering at what distant time Mr. Micawber and -I could have been comrades in the battle of the world. -</p> - -<p> -‘Ahem!’ said Mr. Micawber, clearing his throat, and warming with -the punch and with the fire. ‘My dear, another glass?’ -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Micawber said it must be very little; but we couldn’t allow that, so -it was a glassful. -</p> - -<p> -‘As we are quite confidential here, Mr. Copperfield,’ said Mrs. -Micawber, sipping her punch, ‘Mr. Traddles being a part of our -domesticity, I should much like to have your opinion on Mr. Micawber’s -prospects. For corn,’ said Mrs. Micawber argumentatively, ‘as I -have repeatedly said to Mr. Micawber, may be gentlemanly, but it is not -remunerative. Commission to the extent of two and ninepence in a fortnight -cannot, however limited our ideas, be considered remunerative.’ -</p> - -<p> -We were all agreed upon that. -</p> - -<p> -‘Then,’ said Mrs. Micawber, who prided herself on taking a clear -view of things, and keeping Mr. Micawber straight by her woman’s wisdom, -when he might otherwise go a little crooked, ‘then I ask myself this -question. If corn is not to be relied upon, what is? Are coals to be relied -upon? Not at all. We have turned our attention to that experiment, on the -suggestion of my family, and we find it fallacious.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Micawber, leaning back in his chair with his hands in his pockets, eyed us -aside, and nodded his head, as much as to say that the case was very clearly -put. -</p> - -<p> -‘The articles of corn and coals,’ said Mrs. Micawber, still more -argumentatively, ‘being equally out of the question, Mr. Copperfield, I -naturally look round the world, and say, “What is there in which a person -of Mr. Micawber’s talent is likely to succeed?” And I exclude the -doing anything on commission, because commission is not a certainty. What is -best suited to a person of Mr. Micawber’s peculiar temperament is, I am -convinced, a certainty.’ -</p> - -<p> -Traddles and I both expressed, by a feeling murmur, that this great discovery -was no doubt true of Mr. Micawber, and that it did him much credit. -</p> - -<p> -‘I will not conceal from you, my dear Mr. Copperfield,’ said Mrs. -Micawber, ‘that I have long felt the Brewing business to be particularly -adapted to Mr. Micawber. Look at Barclay and Perkins! Look at Truman, Hanbury, -and Buxton! It is on that extensive footing that Mr. Micawber, I know from my -own knowledge of him, is calculated to shine; and the profits, I am told, are -e-NOR-MOUS! But if Mr. Micawber cannot get into those firms—which decline -to answer his letters, when he offers his services even in an inferior -capacity—what is the use of dwelling upon that idea? None. I may have a -conviction that Mr. Micawber’s manners—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Hem! Really, my dear,’ interposed Mr. Micawber. -</p> - -<p> -‘My love, be silent,’ said Mrs. Micawber, laying her brown glove on -his hand. ‘I may have a conviction, Mr. Copperfield, that Mr. -Micawber’s manners peculiarly qualify him for the Banking business. I may -argue within myself, that if I had a deposit at a banking-house, the manners of -Mr. Micawber, as representing that banking-house, would inspire confidence, and -must extend the connexion. But if the various banking-houses refuse to avail -themselves of Mr. Micawber’s abilities, or receive the offer of them with -contumely, what is the use of dwelling upon THAT idea? None. As to originating -a banking-business, I may know that there are members of my family who, if they -chose to place their money in Mr. Micawber’s hands, might found an -establishment of that description. But if they do NOT choose to place their -money in Mr. Micawber’s hands—which they don’t—what is -the use of that? Again I contend that we are no farther advanced than we were -before.’ -</p> - -<p> -I shook my head, and said, ‘Not a bit.’ Traddles also shook his -head, and said, ‘Not a bit.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘What do I deduce from this?’ Mrs. Micawber went on to say, still -with the same air of putting a case lucidly. ‘What is the conclusion, my -dear Mr. Copperfield, to which I am irresistibly brought? Am I wrong in saying, -it is clear that we must live?’ -</p> - -<p> -I answered ‘Not at all!’ and Traddles answered ‘Not at -all!’ and I found myself afterwards sagely adding, alone, that a person -must either live or die. -</p> - -<p> -‘Just so,’ returned Mrs. Micawber, ‘It is precisely that. And -the fact is, my dear Mr. Copperfield, that we can not live without something -widely different from existing circumstances shortly turning up. Now I am -convinced, myself, and this I have pointed out to Mr. Micawber several times of -late, that things cannot be expected to turn up of themselves. We must, in a -measure, assist to turn them up. I may be wrong, but I have formed that -opinion.’ -</p> - -<p> -Both Traddles and I applauded it highly. -</p> - -<p> -‘Very well,’ said Mrs. Micawber. ‘Then what do I recommend? -Here is Mr. Micawber with a variety of qualifications—with great -talent—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Really, my love,’ said Mr. Micawber. -</p> - -<p> -‘Pray, my dear, allow me to conclude. Here is Mr. Micawber, with a -variety of qualifications, with great talent—I should say, with genius, -but that may be the partiality of a wife—’ -</p> - -<p> -Traddles and I both murmured ‘No.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And here is Mr. Micawber without any suitable position or employment. -Where does that responsibility rest? Clearly on society. Then I would make a -fact so disgraceful known, and boldly challenge society to set it right. It -appears to me, my dear Mr. Copperfield,’ said Mrs. Micawber, forcibly, -‘that what Mr. Micawber has to do, is to throw down the gauntlet to -society, and say, in effect, “Show me who will take that up. Let the -party immediately step forward.”’ -</p> - -<p> -I ventured to ask Mrs. Micawber how this was to be done. -</p> - -<p> -‘By advertising,’ said Mrs. Micawber—‘in all the -papers. It appears to me, that what Mr. Micawber has to do, in justice to -himself, in justice to his family, and I will even go so far as to say in -justice to society, by which he has been hitherto overlooked, is to advertise -in all the papers; to describe himself plainly as so-and-so, with such and such -qualifications and to put it thus: “Now employ me, on remunerative terms, -and address, post-paid, to W. M., Post Office, Camden Town.”’ -</p> - -<p> -‘This idea of Mrs. Micawber’s, my dear Copperfield,’ said Mr. -Micawber, making his shirt-collar meet in front of his chin, and glancing at me -sideways, ‘is, in fact, the Leap to which I alluded, when I last had the -pleasure of seeing you.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Advertising is rather expensive,’ I remarked, dubiously. -</p> - -<p> -‘Exactly so!’ said Mrs. Micawber, preserving the same logical air. -‘Quite true, my dear Mr. Copperfield! I have made the identical -observation to Mr. Micawber. It is for that reason especially, that I think Mr. -Micawber ought (as I have already said, in justice to himself, in justice to -his family, and in justice to society) to raise a certain sum of money—on -a bill.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Micawber, leaning back in his chair, trifled with his eye-glass and cast -his eyes up at the ceiling; but I thought him observant of Traddles, too, who -was looking at the fire. -</p> - -<p> -‘If no member of my family,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘is -possessed of sufficient natural feeling to negotiate that bill—I believe -there is a better business-term to express what I mean—’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Micawber, with his eyes still cast up at the ceiling, suggested -‘Discount.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘To discount that bill,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘then my opinion -is, that Mr. Micawber should go into the City, should take that bill into the -Money Market, and should dispose of it for what he can get. If the individuals -in the Money Market oblige Mr. Micawber to sustain a great sacrifice, that is -between themselves and their consciences. I view it, steadily, as an -investment. I recommend Mr. Micawber, my dear Mr. Copperfield, to do the same; -to regard it as an investment which is sure of return, and to make up his mind -to any sacrifice.’ -</p> - -<p> -I felt, but I am sure I don’t know why, that this was self-denying and -devoted in Mrs. Micawber, and I uttered a murmur to that effect. Traddles, who -took his tone from me, did likewise, still looking at the fire. -</p> - -<p> -‘I will not,’ said Mrs. Micawber, finishing her punch, and -gathering her scarf about her shoulders, preparatory to her withdrawal to my -bedroom: ‘I will not protract these remarks on the subject of Mr. -Micawber’s pecuniary affairs. At your fireside, my dear Mr. Copperfield, -and in the presence of Mr. Traddles, who, though not so old a friend, is quite -one of ourselves, I could not refrain from making you acquainted with the -course I advise Mr. Micawber to take. I feel that the time is arrived when Mr. -Micawber should exert himself and—I will add—assert himself, and it -appears to me that these are the means. I am aware that I am merely a female, -and that a masculine judgement is usually considered more competent to the -discussion of such questions; still I must not forget that, when I lived at -home with my papa and mama, my papa was in the habit of saying, -“Emma’s form is fragile, but her grasp of a subject is inferior to -none.” That my papa was too partial, I well know; but that he was an -observer of character in some degree, my duty and my reason equally forbid me -to doubt.’ -</p> - -<p> -With these words, and resisting our entreaties that she would grace the -remaining circulation of the punch with her presence, Mrs. Micawber retired to -my bedroom. And really I felt that she was a noble woman—the sort of -woman who might have been a Roman matron, and done all manner of heroic things, -in times of public trouble. -</p> - -<p> -In the fervour of this impression, I congratulated Mr. Micawber on the treasure -he possessed. So did Traddles. Mr. Micawber extended his hand to each of us in -succession, and then covered his face with his pocket-handkerchief, which I -think had more snuff upon it than he was aware of. He then returned to the -punch, in the highest state of exhilaration. -</p> - -<p> -He was full of eloquence. He gave us to understand that in our children we -lived again, and that, under the pressure of pecuniary difficulties, any -accession to their number was doubly welcome. He said that Mrs. Micawber had -latterly had her doubts on this point, but that he had dispelled them, and -reassured her. As to her family, they were totally unworthy of her, and their -sentiments were utterly indifferent to him, and they might—I quote his -own expression—go to the Devil. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Micawber then delivered a warm eulogy on Traddles. He said Traddles’s -was a character, to the steady virtues of which he (Mr. Micawber) could lay no -claim, but which, he thanked Heaven, he could admire. He feelingly alluded to -the young lady, unknown, whom Traddles had honoured with his affection, and who -had reciprocated that affection by honouring and blessing Traddles with her -affection. Mr. Micawber pledged her. So did I. Traddles thanked us both, by -saying, with a simplicity and honesty I had sense enough to be quite charmed -with, ‘I am very much obliged to you indeed. And I do assure you, -she’s the dearest girl!—’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Micawber took an early opportunity, after that, of hinting, with the utmost -delicacy and ceremony, at the state of my affections. Nothing but the serious -assurance of his friend Copperfield to the contrary, he observed, could deprive -him of the impression that his friend Copperfield loved and was beloved. After -feeling very hot and uncomfortable for some time, and after a good deal of -blushing, stammering, and denying, I said, having my glass in my hand, -‘Well! I would give them D.!’ which so excited and gratified Mr. -Micawber, that he ran with a glass of punch into my bedroom, in order that Mrs. -Micawber might drink D., who drank it with enthusiasm, crying from within, in a -shrill voice, ‘Hear, hear! My dear Mr. Copperfield, I am delighted. -Hear!’ and tapping at the wall, by way of applause. -</p> - -<p> -Our conversation, afterwards, took a more worldly turn; Mr. Micawber telling us -that he found Camden Town inconvenient, and that the first thing he -contemplated doing, when the advertisement should have been the cause of -something satisfactory turning up, was to move. He mentioned a terrace at the -western end of Oxford Street, fronting Hyde Park, on which he had always had -his eye, but which he did not expect to attain immediately, as it would require -a large establishment. There would probably be an interval, he explained, in -which he should content himself with the upper part of a house, over some -respectable place of business—say in Piccadilly,—which would be a -cheerful situation for Mrs. Micawber; and where, by throwing out a bow-window, -or carrying up the roof another story, or making some little alteration of that -sort, they might live, comfortably and reputably, for a few years. Whatever was -reserved for him, he expressly said, or wherever his abode might be, we might -rely on this—there would always be a room for Traddles, and a knife and -fork for me. We acknowledged his kindness; and he begged us to forgive his -having launched into these practical and business-like details, and to excuse -it as natural in one who was making entirely new arrangements in life. -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Micawber, tapping at the wall again to know if tea were ready, broke up -this particular phase of our friendly conversation. She made tea for us in a -most agreeable manner; and, whenever I went near her, in handing about the -tea-cups and bread-and-butter, asked me, in a whisper, whether D. was fair, or -dark, or whether she was short, or tall: or something of that kind; which I -think I liked. After tea, we discussed a variety of topics before the fire; and -Mrs. Micawber was good enough to sing us (in a small, thin, flat voice, which I -remembered to have considered, when I first knew her, the very table-beer of -acoustics) the favourite ballads of ‘The Dashing White Sergeant’, -and ‘Little Tafflin’. For both of these songs Mrs. Micawber had -been famous when she lived at home with her papa and mama. Mr. Micawber told -us, that when he heard her sing the first one, on the first occasion of his -seeing her beneath the parental roof, she had attracted his attention in an -extraordinary degree; but that when it came to Little Tafflin, he had resolved -to win that woman or perish in the attempt. -</p> - -<p> -It was between ten and eleven o’clock when Mrs. Micawber rose to replace -her cap in the whitey-brown paper parcel, and to put on her bonnet. Mr. -Micawber took the opportunity of Traddles putting on his great-coat, to slip a -letter into my hand, with a whispered request that I would read it at my -leisure. I also took the opportunity of my holding a candle over the banisters -to light them down, when Mr. Micawber was going first, leading Mrs. Micawber, -and Traddles was following with the cap, to detain Traddles for a moment on the -top of the stairs. -</p> - -<p> -‘Traddles,’ said I, ‘Mr. Micawber don’t mean any harm, -poor fellow: but, if I were you, I wouldn’t lend him anything.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear Copperfield,’ returned Traddles, smiling, ‘I -haven’t got anything to lend.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You have got a name, you know,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh! You call THAT something to lend?’ returned Traddles, with a -thoughtful look. -</p> - -<p> -‘Certainly.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh!’ said Traddles. ‘Yes, to be sure! I am very much obliged -to you, Copperfield; but—I am afraid I have lent him that already.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘For the bill that is to be a certain investment?’ I inquired. -</p> - -<p> -‘No,’ said Traddles. ‘Not for that one. This is the first I -have heard of that one. I have been thinking that he will most likely propose -that one, on the way home. Mine’s another.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I hope there will be nothing wrong about it,’ said I. ‘I -hope not,’ said Traddles. ‘I should think not, though, because he -told me, only the other day, that it was provided for. That was Mr. -Micawber’s expression, “Provided for.”’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Micawber looking up at this juncture to where we were standing, I had only -time to repeat my caution. Traddles thanked me, and descended. But I was much -afraid, when I observed the good-natured manner in which he went down with the -cap in his hand, and gave Mrs. Micawber his arm, that he would be carried into -the Money Market neck and heels. -</p> - -<p> -I returned to my fireside, and was musing, half gravely and half laughing, on -the character of Mr. Micawber and the old relations between us, when I heard a -quick step ascending the stairs. At first, I thought it was Traddles coming -back for something Mrs. Micawber had left behind; but as the step approached, I -knew it, and felt my heart beat high, and the blood rush to my face, for it was -Steerforth’s. -</p> - -<p> -I was never unmindful of Agnes, and she never left that sanctuary in my -thoughts—if I may call it so—where I had placed her from the first. -But when he entered, and stood before me with his hand out, the darkness that -had fallen on him changed to light, and I felt confounded and ashamed of having -doubted one I loved so heartily. I loved her none the less; I thought of her as -the same benignant, gentle angel in my life; I reproached myself, not her, with -having done him an injury; and I would have made him any atonement if I had -known what to make, and how to make it. -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, Daisy, old boy, dumb-foundered!’ laughed Steerforth, shaking -my hand heartily, and throwing it gaily away. ‘Have I detected you in -another feast, you Sybarite! These Doctors’ Commons fellows are the -gayest men in town, I believe, and beat us sober Oxford people all to -nothing!’ His bright glance went merrily round the room, as he took the -seat on the sofa opposite to me, which Mrs. Micawber had recently vacated, and -stirred the fire into a blaze. -</p> - -<p> -‘I was so surprised at first,’ said I, giving him welcome with all -the cordiality I felt, ‘that I had hardly breath to greet you with, -Steerforth.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, the sight of me is good for sore eyes, as the Scotch say,’ -replied Steerforth, ‘and so is the sight of you, Daisy, in full bloom. -How are you, my Bacchanal?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I am very well,’ said I; ‘and not at all Bacchanalian -tonight, though I confess to another party of three.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘All of whom I met in the street, talking loud in your praise,’ -returned Steerforth. ‘Who’s our friend in the tights?’ -</p> - -<p> -I gave him the best idea I could, in a few words, of Mr. Micawber. He laughed -heartily at my feeble portrait of that gentleman, and said he was a man to -know, and he must know him. ‘But who do you suppose our other friend -is?’ said I, in my turn. -</p> - -<p> -‘Heaven knows,’ said Steerforth. ‘Not a bore, I hope? I -thought he looked a little like one.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Traddles!’ I replied, triumphantly. -</p> - -<p> -‘Who’s he?’ asked Steerforth, in his careless way. -</p> - -<p> -‘Don’t you remember Traddles? Traddles in our room at Salem -House?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh! That fellow!’ said Steerforth, beating a lump of coal on the -top of the fire, with the poker. ‘Is he as soft as ever? And where the -deuce did you pick him up?’ -</p> - -<p> -I extolled Traddles in reply, as highly as I could; for I felt that Steerforth -rather slighted him. Steerforth, dismissing the subject with a light nod, and a -smile, and the remark that he would be glad to see the old fellow too, for he -had always been an odd fish, inquired if I could give him anything to eat? -During most of this short dialogue, when he had not been speaking in a wild -vivacious manner, he had sat idly beating on the lump of coal with the poker. I -observed that he did the same thing while I was getting out the remains of the -pigeon-pie, and so forth. -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, Daisy, here’s a supper for a king!’ he exclaimed, -starting out of his silence with a burst, and taking his seat at the table. -‘I shall do it justice, for I have come from Yarmouth.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I thought you came from Oxford?’ I returned. -</p> - -<p> -‘Not I,’ said Steerforth. ‘I have been seafaring—better -employed.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Littimer was here today, to inquire for you,’ I remarked, -‘and I understood him that you were at Oxford; though, now I think of it, -he certainly did not say so.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Littimer is a greater fool than I thought him, to have been inquiring -for me at all,’ said Steerforth, jovially pouring out a glass of wine, -and drinking to me. ‘As to understanding him, you are a cleverer fellow -than most of us, Daisy, if you can do that.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘That’s true, indeed,’ said I, moving my chair to the table. -‘So you have been at Yarmouth, Steerforth!’ interested to know all -about it. ‘Have you been there long?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No,’ he returned. ‘An escapade of a week or so.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And how are they all? Of course, little Emily is not married yet?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Not yet. Going to be, I believe—in so many weeks, or months, or -something or other. I have not seen much of ‘em. By the by’; he -laid down his knife and fork, which he had been using with great diligence, and -began feeling in his pockets; ‘I have a letter for you.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘From whom?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, from your old nurse,’ he returned, taking some papers out of -his breast pocket. “‘J. Steerforth, Esquire, debtor, to The Willing -Mind”; that’s not it. Patience, and we’ll find it presently. -Old what’s-his-name’s in a bad way, and it’s about that, I -believe.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Barkis, do you mean?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes!’ still feeling in his pockets, and looking over their -contents: ‘it’s all over with poor Barkis, I am afraid. I saw a -little apothecary there—surgeon, or whatever he is—who brought your -worship into the world. He was mighty learned about the case, to me; but the -upshot of his opinion was, that the carrier was making his last journey rather -fast.—-Put your hand into the breast pocket of my great-coat on the chair -yonder, and I think you’ll find the letter. Is it there?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Here it is!’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘That’s right!’ -</p> - -<p> -It was from Peggotty; something less legible than usual, and brief. It informed -me of her husband’s hopeless state, and hinted at his being ‘a -little nearer’ than heretofore, and consequently more difficult to manage -for his own comfort. It said nothing of her weariness and watching, and praised -him highly. It was written with a plain, unaffected, homely piety that I knew -to be genuine, and ended with ‘my duty to my ever -darling’—meaning myself. -</p> - -<p> -While I deciphered it, Steerforth continued to eat and drink. -</p> - -<p> -‘It’s a bad job,’ he said, when I had done; ‘but the -sun sets every day, and people die every minute, and we mustn’t be scared -by the common lot. If we failed to hold our own, because that equal foot at all -men’s doors was heard knocking somewhere, every object in this world -would slip from us. No! Ride on! Rough-shod if need be, smooth-shod if that -will do, but ride on! Ride on over all obstacles, and win the race!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And win what race?’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘The race that one has started in,’ said he. ‘Ride on!’ -</p> - -<p> -I noticed, I remember, as he paused, looking at me with his handsome head a -little thrown back, and his glass raised in his hand, that, though the -freshness of the sea-wind was on his face, and it was ruddy, there were traces -in it, made since I last saw it, as if he had applied himself to some habitual -strain of the fervent energy which, when roused, was so passionately roused -within him. I had it in my thoughts to remonstrate with him upon his desperate -way of pursuing any fancy that he took—such as this buffeting of rough -seas, and braving of hard weather, for example—when my mind glanced off -to the immediate subject of our conversation again, and pursued that instead. -</p> - -<p> -‘I tell you what, Steerforth,’ said I, ‘if your high spirits -will listen to me—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘They are potent spirits, and will do whatever you like,’ he -answered, moving from the table to the fireside again. -</p> - -<p> -‘Then I tell you what, Steerforth. I think I will go down and see my old -nurse. It is not that I can do her any good, or render her any real service; -but she is so attached to me that my visit will have as much effect on her, as -if I could do both. She will take it so kindly that it will be a comfort and -support to her. It is no great effort to make, I am sure, for such a friend as -she has been to me. Wouldn’t you go a day’s journey, if you were in -my place?’ -</p> - -<p> -His face was thoughtful, and he sat considering a little before he answered, in -a low voice, ‘Well! Go. You can do no harm.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You have just come back,’ said I, ‘and it would be in vain -to ask you to go with me?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Quite,’ he returned. ‘I am for Highgate tonight. I have not -seen my mother this long time, and it lies upon my conscience, for it’s -something to be loved as she loves her prodigal son.—-Bah! -Nonsense!—You mean to go tomorrow, I suppose?’ he said, holding me -out at arm’s length, with a hand on each of my shoulders. -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes, I think so.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, then, don’t go till next day. I wanted you to come and stay -a few days with us. Here I am, on purpose to bid you, and you fly off to -Yarmouth!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You are a nice fellow to talk of flying off, Steerforth, who are always -running wild on some unknown expedition or other!’ -</p> - -<p> -He looked at me for a moment without speaking, and then rejoined, still holding -me as before, and giving me a shake: -</p> - -<p> -‘Come! Say the next day, and pass as much of tomorrow as you can with us! -Who knows when we may meet again, else? Come! Say the next day! I want you to -stand between Rosa Dartle and me, and keep us asunder.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Would you love each other too much, without me?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes; or hate,’ laughed Steerforth; ‘no matter which. Come! -Say the next day!’ -</p> - -<p> -I said the next day; and he put on his great-coat and lighted his cigar, and -set off to walk home. Finding him in this intention, I put on my own great-coat -(but did not light my own cigar, having had enough of that for one while) and -walked with him as far as the open road: a dull road, then, at night. He was in -great spirits all the way; and when we parted, and I looked after him going so -gallantly and airily homeward, I thought of his saying, ‘Ride on over all -obstacles, and win the race!’ and wished, for the first time, that he had -some worthy race to run. -</p> - -<p> -I was undressing in my own room, when Mr. Micawber’s letter tumbled on -the floor. Thus reminded of it, I broke the seal and read as follows. It was -dated an hour and a half before dinner. I am not sure whether I have mentioned -that, when Mr. Micawber was at any particularly desperate crisis, he used a -sort of legal phraseology, which he seemed to think equivalent to winding up -his affairs. -</p> - -<p> -‘SIR—for I dare not say my dear Copperfield, -</p> - -<p> -‘It is expedient that I should inform you that the undersigned is -Crushed. Some flickering efforts to spare you the premature knowledge of his -calamitous position, you may observe in him this day; but hope has sunk beneath -the horizon, and the undersigned is Crushed. -</p> - -<p> -‘The present communication is penned within the personal range (I cannot -call it the society) of an individual, in a state closely bordering on -intoxication, employed by a broker. That individual is in legal possession of -the premises, under a distress for rent. His inventory includes, not only the -chattels and effects of every description belonging to the undersigned, as -yearly tenant of this habitation, but also those appertaining to Mr. Thomas -Traddles, lodger, a member of the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple. -</p> - -<p> -‘If any drop of gloom were wanting in the overflowing cup, which is now -“commended” (in the language of an immortal Writer) to the lips of -the undersigned, it would be found in the fact, that a friendly acceptance -granted to the undersigned, by the before-mentioned Mr. Thomas Traddles, for -the sum Of 23l 4s 9 1/2d is over due, and is NOT provided for. Also, in the -fact that the living responsibilities clinging to the undersigned will, in the -course of nature, be increased by the sum of one more helpless victim; whose -miserable appearance may be looked for—in round numbers—at the -expiration of a period not exceeding six lunar months from the present date. -</p> - -<p> -‘After premising thus much, it would be a work of supererogation to add, -that dust and ashes are for ever scattered -</p> - -<p class="right"> -‘On <br/> -‘The <br/> -‘Head <br/> -‘Of <br/> -‘WILKINS MICAWBER.’ -</p> - -<p> -Poor Traddles! I knew enough of Mr. Micawber by this time, to foresee that he -might be expected to recover the blow; but my night’s rest was sorely -distressed by thoughts of Traddles, and of the curate’s daughter, who was -one of ten, down in Devonshire, and who was such a dear girl, and who would -wait for Traddles (ominous praise!) until she was sixty, or any age that could -be mentioned. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0029"></a>CHAPTER 29. I VISIT STEERFORTH AT HIS HOME, -AGAIN</h2> - -<p> -I mentioned to Mr. Spenlow in the morning, that I wanted leave of absence for a -short time; and as I was not in the receipt of any salary, and consequently was -not obnoxious to the implacable Jorkins, there was no difficulty about it. I -took that opportunity, with my voice sticking in my throat, and my sight -failing as I uttered the words, to express my hope that Miss Spenlow was quite -well; to which Mr. Spenlow replied, with no more emotion than if he had been -speaking of an ordinary human being, that he was much obliged to me, and she -was very well. -</p> - -<p> -We articled clerks, as germs of the patrician order of proctors, were treated -with so much consideration, that I was almost my own master at all times. As I -did not care, however, to get to Highgate before one or two o’clock in -the day, and as we had another little excommunication case in court that -morning, which was called The office of the judge promoted by Tipkins against -Bullock for his soul’s correction, I passed an hour or two in attendance -on it with Mr. Spenlow very agreeably. It arose out of a scuffle between two -churchwardens, one of whom was alleged to have pushed the other against a pump; -the handle of which pump projecting into a school-house, which school-house was -under a gable of the church-roof, made the push an ecclesiastical offence. It -was an amusing case; and sent me up to Highgate, on the box of the stage-coach, -thinking about the Commons, and what Mr. Spenlow had said about touching the -Commons and bringing down the country. -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Steerforth was pleased to see me, and so was Rosa Dartle. I was agreeably -surprised to find that Littimer was not there, and that we were attended by a -modest little parlour-maid, with blue ribbons in her cap, whose eye it was much -more pleasant, and much less disconcerting, to catch by accident, than the eye -of that respectable man. But what I particularly observed, before I had been -half-an-hour in the house, was the close and attentive watch Miss Dartle kept -upon me; and the lurking manner in which she seemed to compare my face with -Steerforth’s, and Steerforth’s with mine, and to lie in wait for -something to come out between the two. So surely as I looked towards her, did I -see that eager visage, with its gaunt black eyes and searching brow, intent on -mine; or passing suddenly from mine to Steerforth’s; or comprehending -both of us at once. In this lynx-like scrutiny she was so far from faltering -when she saw I observed it, that at such a time she only fixed her piercing -look upon me with a more intent expression still. Blameless as I was, and knew -that I was, in reference to any wrong she could possibly suspect me of, I -shrunk before her strange eyes, quite unable to endure their hungry lustre. -</p> - -<p> -All day, she seemed to pervade the whole house. If I talked to Steerforth in -his room, I heard her dress rustle in the little gallery outside. When he and I -engaged in some of our old exercises on the lawn behind the house, I saw her -face pass from window to window, like a wandering light, until it fixed itself -in one, and watched us. When we all four went out walking in the afternoon, she -closed her thin hand on my arm like a spring, to keep me back, while Steerforth -and his mother went on out of hearing: and then spoke to me. -</p> - -<p> -‘You have been a long time,’ she said, ‘without coming here. -Is your profession really so engaging and interesting as to absorb your whole -attention? I ask because I always want to be informed, when I am ignorant. Is -it really, though?’ -</p> - -<p> -I replied that I liked it well enough, but that I certainly could not claim so -much for it. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh! I am glad to know that, because I always like to be put right when I -am wrong,’ said Rosa Dartle. ‘You mean it is a little dry, -perhaps?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Well,’ I replied; ‘perhaps it was a little dry.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh! and that’s a reason why you want relief and -change—excitement and all that?’ said she. ‘Ah! very true! -But isn’t it a little—Eh?—for him; I don’t mean -you?’ -</p> - -<p> -A quick glance of her eye towards the spot where Steerforth was walking, with -his mother leaning on his arm, showed me whom she meant; but beyond that, I was -quite lost. And I looked so, I have no doubt. -</p> - -<p> -‘Don’t it—I don’t say that it does, mind I want to -know—don’t it rather engross him? Don’t it make him, perhaps, -a little more remiss than usual in his visits to his -blindly-doting—eh?’ With another quick glance at them, and such a -glance at me as seemed to look into my innermost thoughts. -</p> - -<p> -‘Miss Dartle,’ I returned, ‘pray do not think—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I don’t!’ she said. ‘Oh dear me, don’t suppose -that I think anything! I am not suspicious. I only ask a question. I -don’t state any opinion. I want to found an opinion on what you tell me. -Then, it’s not so? Well! I am very glad to know it.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘It certainly is not the fact,’ said I, perplexed, ‘that I am -accountable for Steerforth’s having been away from home longer than -usual—if he has been: which I really don’t know at this moment, -unless I understand it from you. I have not seen him this long while, until -last night.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Indeed, Miss Dartle, no!’ -</p> - -<p> -As she looked full at me, I saw her face grow sharper and paler, and the marks -of the old wound lengthen out until it cut through the disfigured lip, and deep -into the nether lip, and slanted down the face. There was something positively -awful to me in this, and in the brightness of her eyes, as she said, looking -fixedly at me: -</p> - -<p> -‘What is he doing?’ -</p> - -<p> -I repeated the words, more to myself than her, being so amazed. -</p> - -<p> -‘What is he doing?’ she said, with an eagerness that seemed enough -to consume her like a fire. ‘In what is that man assisting him, who never -looks at me without an inscrutable falsehood in his eyes? If you are honourable -and faithful, I don’t ask you to betray your friend. I ask you only to -tell me, is it anger, is it hatred, is it pride, is it restlessness, is it some -wild fancy, is it love, what is it, that is leading him?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Miss Dartle,’ I returned, ‘how shall I tell you, so that you -will believe me, that I know of nothing in Steerforth different from what there -was when I first came here? I can think of nothing. I firmly believe there is -nothing. I hardly understand even what you mean.’ -</p> - -<p> -As she still stood looking fixedly at me, a twitching or throbbing, from which -I could not dissociate the idea of pain, came into that cruel mark; and lifted -up the corner of her lip as if with scorn, or with a pity that despised its -object. She put her hand upon it hurriedly—a hand so thin and delicate, -that when I had seen her hold it up before the fire to shade her face, I had -compared it in my thoughts to fine porcelain—and saying, in a quick, -fierce, passionate way, ‘I swear you to secrecy about this!’ said -not a word more. -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Steerforth was particularly happy in her son’s society, and -Steerforth was, on this occasion, particularly attentive and respectful to her. -It was very interesting to me to see them together, not only on account of -their mutual affection, but because of the strong personal resemblance between -them, and the manner in which what was haughty or impetuous in him was softened -by age and sex, in her, to a gracious dignity. I thought, more than once, that -it was well no serious cause of division had ever come between them; or two -such natures—I ought rather to express it, two such shades of the same -nature—might have been harder to reconcile than the two extremest -opposites in creation. The idea did not originate in my own discernment, I am -bound to confess, but in a speech of Rosa Dartle’s. -</p> - -<p> -She said at dinner: -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, but do tell me, though, somebody, because I have been thinking about -it all day, and I want to know.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You want to know what, Rosa?’ returned Mrs. Steerforth. -‘Pray, pray, Rosa, do not be mysterious.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Mysterious!’ she cried. ‘Oh! really? Do you consider me -so?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Do I constantly entreat you,’ said Mrs. Steerforth, ‘to -speak plainly, in your own natural manner?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh! then this is not my natural manner?’ she rejoined. ‘Now -you must really bear with me, because I ask for information. We never know -ourselves.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘It has become a second nature,’ said Mrs. Steerforth, without any -displeasure; ‘but I remember,—and so must you, I think,—when -your manner was different, Rosa; when it was not so guarded, and was more -trustful.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I am sure you are right,’ she returned; ‘and so it is that -bad habits grow upon one! Really? Less guarded and more trustful? How can I, -imperceptibly, have changed, I wonder! Well, that’s very odd! I must -study to regain my former self.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I wish you would,’ said Mrs. Steerforth, with a smile. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh! I really will, you know!’ she answered. ‘I will learn -frankness from—let me see—from James.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You cannot learn frankness, Rosa,’ said Mrs. Steerforth -quickly—for there was always some effect of sarcasm in what Rosa Dartle -said, though it was said, as this was, in the most unconscious manner in the -world—‘in a better school.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘That I am sure of,’ she answered, with uncommon fervour. ‘If -I am sure of anything, of course, you know, I am sure of that.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Steerforth appeared to me to regret having been a little nettled; for she -presently said, in a kind tone: -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, my dear Rosa, we have not heard what it is that you want to be -satisfied about?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘That I want to be satisfied about?’ she replied, with provoking -coldness. ‘Oh! It was only whether people, who are like each other in -their moral constitution—is that the phrase?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘It’s as good a phrase as another,’ said Steerforth. -</p> - -<p> -‘Thank you:—whether people, who are like each other in their moral -constitution, are in greater danger than people not so circumstanced, supposing -any serious cause of variance to arise between them, of being divided angrily -and deeply?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I should say yes,’ said Steerforth. -</p> - -<p> -‘Should you?’ she retorted. ‘Dear me! Supposing then, for -instance—any unlikely thing will do for a supposition—that you and -your mother were to have a serious quarrel.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear Rosa,’ interposed Mrs. Steerforth, laughing -good-naturedly, ‘suggest some other supposition! James and I know our -duty to each other better, I pray Heaven!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh!’ said Miss Dartle, nodding her head thoughtfully. ‘To be -sure. That would prevent it? Why, of course it would. Exactly. Now, I am glad I -have been so foolish as to put the case, for it is so very good to know that -your duty to each other would prevent it! Thank you very much.’ -</p> - -<p> -One other little circumstance connected with Miss Dartle I must not omit; for I -had reason to remember it thereafter, when all the irremediable past was -rendered plain. During the whole of this day, but especially from this period -of it, Steerforth exerted himself with his utmost skill, and that was with his -utmost ease, to charm this singular creature into a pleasant and pleased -companion. That he should succeed, was no matter of surprise to me. That she -should struggle against the fascinating influence of his delightful -art—delightful nature I thought it then—did not surprise me either; -for I knew that she was sometimes jaundiced and perverse. I saw her features -and her manner slowly change; I saw her look at him with growing admiration; I -saw her try, more and more faintly, but always angrily, as if she condemned a -weakness in herself, to resist the captivating power that he possessed; and -finally, I saw her sharp glance soften, and her smile become quite gentle, and -I ceased to be afraid of her as I had really been all day, and we all sat about -the fire, talking and laughing together, with as little reserve as if we had -been children. -</p> - -<p> -Whether it was because we had sat there so long, or because Steerforth was -resolved not to lose the advantage he had gained, I do not know; but we did not -remain in the dining-room more than five minutes after her departure. -‘She is playing her harp,’ said Steerforth, softly, at the -drawing-room door, ‘and nobody but my mother has heard her do that, I -believe, these three years.’ He said it with a curious smile, which was -gone directly; and we went into the room and found her alone. -</p> - -<p> -‘Don’t get up,’ said Steerforth (which she had already -done)’ my dear Rosa, don’t! Be kind for once, and sing us an Irish -song.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘What do you care for an Irish song?’ she returned. -</p> - -<p> -‘Much!’ said Steerforth. ‘Much more than for any other. Here -is Daisy, too, loves music from his soul. Sing us an Irish song, Rosa! and let -me sit and listen as I used to do.’ -</p> - -<p> -He did not touch her, or the chair from which she had risen, but sat himself -near the harp. She stood beside it for some little while, in a curious way, -going through the motion of playing it with her right hand, but not sounding -it. At length she sat down, and drew it to her with one sudden action, and -played and sang. -</p> - -<p> -I don’t know what it was, in her touch or voice, that made that song the -most unearthly I have ever heard in my life, or can imagine. There was -something fearful in the reality of it. It was as if it had never been written, -or set to music, but sprung out of passion within her; which found imperfect -utterance in the low sounds of her voice, and crouched again when all was -still. I was dumb when she leaned beside the harp again, playing it, but not -sounding it, with her right hand. -</p> - -<p> -A minute more, and this had roused me from my trance:—Steerforth had left -his seat, and gone to her, and had put his arm laughingly about her, and had -said, ‘Come, Rosa, for the future we will love each other very -much!’ And she had struck him, and had thrown him off with the fury of a -wild cat, and had burst out of the room. -</p> - -<p> -‘What is the matter with Rosa?’ said Mrs. Steerforth, coming in. -</p> - -<p> -‘She has been an angel, mother,’ returned Steerforth, ‘for a -little while; and has run into the opposite extreme, since, by way of -compensation.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You should be careful not to irritate her, James. Her temper has been -soured, remember, and ought not to be tried.’ -</p> - -<p> -Rosa did not come back; and no other mention was made of her, until I went with -Steerforth into his room to say Good night. Then he laughed about her, and -asked me if I had ever seen such a fierce little piece of incomprehensibility. -</p> - -<p> -I expressed as much of my astonishment as was then capable of expression, and -asked if he could guess what it was that she had taken so much amiss, so -suddenly. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, Heaven knows,’ said Steerforth. ‘Anything you -like—or nothing! I told you she took everything, herself included, to a -grindstone, and sharpened it. She is an edge-tool, and requires great care in -dealing with. She is always dangerous. Good night!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Good night!’ said I, ‘my dear Steerforth! I shall be gone -before you wake in the morning. Good night!’ -</p> - -<p> -He was unwilling to let me go; and stood, holding me out, with a hand on each -of my shoulders, as he had done in my own room. -</p> - -<p> -‘Daisy,’ he said, with a smile—‘for though that’s -not the name your godfathers and godmothers gave you, it’s the name I -like best to call you by—and I wish, I wish, I wish, you could give it to -me!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Why so I can, if I choose,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Daisy, if anything should ever separate us, you must think of me at my -best, old boy. Come! Let us make that bargain. Think of me at my best, if -circumstances should ever part us!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You have no best to me, Steerforth,’ said I, ‘and no worst. -You are always equally loved, and cherished in my heart.’ -</p> - -<p> -So much compunction for having ever wronged him, even by a shapeless thought, -did I feel within me, that the confession of having done so was rising to my -lips. But for the reluctance I had to betray the confidence of Agnes, but for -my uncertainty how to approach the subject with no risk of doing so, it would -have reached them before he said, ‘God bless you, Daisy, and good -night!’ In my doubt, it did NOT reach them; and we shook hands, and we -parted. -</p> - -<p> -I was up with the dull dawn, and, having dressed as quietly as I could, looked -into his room. He was fast asleep; lying, easily, with his head upon his arm, -as I had often seen him lie at school. -</p> - -<p> -The time came in its season, and that was very soon, when I almost wondered -that nothing troubled his repose, as I looked at him. But he slept—let me -think of him so again—as I had often seen him sleep at school; and thus, -in this silent hour, I left him. —Never more, oh God forgive you, -Steerforth! to touch that passive hand in love and friendship. Never, never -more! -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0030"></a>CHAPTER 30. A LOSS</h2> - -<p> -I got down to Yarmouth in the evening, and went to the inn. I knew that -Peggotty’s spare room—my room—was likely to have occupation -enough in a little while, if that great Visitor, before whose presence all the -living must give place, were not already in the house; so I betook myself to -the inn, and dined there, and engaged my bed. -</p> - -<p> -It was ten o’clock when I went out. Many of the shops were shut, and the -town was dull. When I came to Omer and Joram’s, I found the shutters up, -but the shop door standing open. As I could obtain a perspective view of Mr. -Omer inside, smoking his pipe by the parlour door, I entered, and asked him how -he was. -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, bless my life and soul!’ said Mr. Omer, ‘how do you -find yourself? Take a seat.—-Smoke not disagreeable, I hope?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘By no means,’ said I. ‘I like it—in somebody -else’s pipe.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘What, not in your own, eh?’ Mr. Omer returned, laughing. -‘All the better, sir. Bad habit for a young man. Take a seat. I smoke, -myself, for the asthma.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Omer had made room for me, and placed a chair. He now sat down again very -much out of breath, gasping at his pipe as if it contained a supply of that -necessary, without which he must perish. -</p> - -<p> -‘I am sorry to have heard bad news of Mr. Barkis,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Omer looked at me, with a steady countenance, and shook his head. -</p> - -<p> -‘Do you know how he is tonight?’ I asked. -</p> - -<p> -‘The very question I should have put to you, sir,’ returned Mr. -Omer, ‘but on account of delicacy. It’s one of the drawbacks of our -line of business. When a party’s ill, we can’t ask how the party -is.’ -</p> - -<p> -The difficulty had not occurred to me; though I had had my apprehensions too, -when I went in, of hearing the old tune. On its being mentioned, I recognized -it, however, and said as much. -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes, yes, you understand,’ said Mr. Omer, nodding his head. -‘We dursn’t do it. Bless you, it would be a shock that the -generality of parties mightn’t recover, to say “Omer and -Joram’s compliments, and how do you find yourself this -morning?”—or this afternoon—as it may be.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Omer and I nodded at each other, and Mr. Omer recruited his wind by the aid -of his pipe. -</p> - -<p> -‘It’s one of the things that cut the trade off from attentions they -could often wish to show,’ said Mr. Omer. ‘Take myself. If I have -known Barkis a year, to move to as he went by, I have known him forty years. -But I can’t go and say, “how is he?”’ -</p> - -<p> -I felt it was rather hard on Mr. Omer, and I told him so. -</p> - -<p> -‘I’m not more self-interested, I hope, than another man,’ -said Mr. Omer. ‘Look at me! My wind may fail me at any moment, and it -ain’t likely that, to my own knowledge, I’d be self-interested -under such circumstances. I say it ain’t likely, in a man who knows his -wind will go, when it DOES go, as if a pair of bellows was cut open; and that -man a grandfather,’ said Mr. Omer. -</p> - -<p> -I said, ‘Not at all.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘It ain’t that I complain of my line of business,’ said Mr. -Omer. ‘It ain’t that. Some good and some bad goes, no doubt, to all -callings. What I wish is, that parties was brought up stronger-minded.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Omer, with a very complacent and amiable face, took several puffs in -silence; and then said, resuming his first point: -</p> - -<p> -‘Accordingly we’re obleeged, in ascertaining how Barkis goes on, to -limit ourselves to Em’ly. She knows what our real objects are, and she -don’t have any more alarms or suspicions about us, than if we was so many -lambs. Minnie and Joram have just stepped down to the house, in fact -(she’s there, after hours, helping her aunt a bit), to ask her how he is -tonight; and if you was to please to wait till they come back, they’d -give you full partic’lers. Will you take something? A glass of srub and -water, now? I smoke on srub and water, myself,’ said Mr. Omer, taking up -his glass, ‘because it’s considered softening to the passages, by -which this troublesome breath of mine gets into action. But, Lord bless -you,’ said Mr. Omer, huskily, ‘it ain’t the passages -that’s out of order! “Give me breath enough,” said I to my -daughter Minnie, “and I’ll find passages, my dear.”’ -</p> - -<p> -He really had no breath to spare, and it was very alarming to see him laugh. -When he was again in a condition to be talked to, I thanked him for the -proffered refreshment, which I declined, as I had just had dinner; and, -observing that I would wait, since he was so good as to invite me, until his -daughter and his son-in-law came back, I inquired how little Emily was? -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, sir,’ said Mr. Omer, removing his pipe, that he might rub -his chin: ‘I tell you truly, I shall be glad when her marriage has taken -place.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Why so?’ I inquired. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, she’s unsettled at present,’ said Mr. Omer. ‘It -ain’t that she’s not as pretty as ever, for she’s -prettier—I do assure you, she is prettier. It ain’t that she -don’t work as well as ever, for she does. She WAS worth any six, and she -IS worth any six. But somehow she wants heart. If you understand,’ said -Mr. Omer, after rubbing his chin again, and smoking a little, ‘what I -mean in a general way by the expression, “A long pull, and a strong pull, -and a pull altogether, my hearties, hurrah!” I should say to you, that -that was—in a general way—what I miss in Em’ly.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Omer’s face and manner went for so much, that I could conscientiously -nod my head, as divining his meaning. My quickness of apprehension seemed to -please him, and he went on: ‘Now I consider this is principally on -account of her being in an unsettled state, you see. We have talked it over a -good deal, her uncle and myself, and her sweetheart and myself, after business; -and I consider it is principally on account of her being unsettled. You must -always recollect of Em’ly,’ said Mr. Omer, shaking his head gently, -‘that she’s a most extraordinary affectionate little thing. The -proverb says, “You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s -ear.” Well, I don’t know about that. I rather think you may, if you -begin early in life. She has made a home out of that old boat, sir, that stone -and marble couldn’t beat.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I am sure she has!’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘To see the clinging of that pretty little thing to her uncle,’ -said Mr. Omer; ‘to see the way she holds on to him, tighter and tighter, -and closer and closer, every day, is to see a sight. Now, you know, -there’s a struggle going on when that’s the case. Why should it be -made a longer one than is needful?’ -</p> - -<p> -I listened attentively to the good old fellow, and acquiesced, with all my -heart, in what he said. -</p> - -<p> -‘Therefore, I mentioned to them,’ said Mr. Omer, in a comfortable, -easy-going tone, ‘this. I said, “Now, don’t consider -Em’ly nailed down in point of time, at all. Make it your own time. Her -services have been more valuable than was supposed; her learning has been -quicker than was supposed; Omer and Joram can run their pen through what -remains; and she’s free when you wish. If she likes to make any little -arrangement, afterwards, in the way of doing any little thing for us at home, -very well. If she don’t, very well still. We’re no losers, -anyhow.” For—don’t you see,’ said Mr. Omer, touching me -with his pipe, ‘it ain’t likely that a man so short of breath as -myself, and a grandfather too, would go and strain points with a little bit of -a blue-eyed blossom, like her?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Not at all, I am certain,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Not at all! You’re right!’ said Mr. Omer. ‘Well, sir, -her cousin—you know it’s a cousin she’s going to be married -to?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh yes,’ I replied. ‘I know him well.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Of course you do,’ said Mr. Omer. ‘Well, sir! Her cousin -being, as it appears, in good work, and well to do, thanked me in a very manly -sort of manner for this (conducting himself altogether, I must say, in a way -that gives me a high opinion of him), and went and took as comfortable a little -house as you or I could wish to clap eyes on. That little house is now -furnished right through, as neat and complete as a doll’s parlour; and -but for Barkis’s illness having taken this bad turn, poor fellow, they -would have been man and wife—I dare say, by this time. As it is, -there’s a postponement.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And Emily, Mr. Omer?’ I inquired. ‘Has she become more -settled?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Why that, you know,’ he returned, rubbing his double chin again, -‘can’t naturally be expected. The prospect of the change and -separation, and all that, is, as one may say, close to her and far away from -her, both at once. Barkis’s death needn’t put it off much, but his -lingering might. Anyway, it’s an uncertain state of matters, you -see.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I see,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Consequently,’ pursued Mr. Omer, ‘Em’ly’s still -a little down, and a little fluttered; perhaps, upon the whole, she’s -more so than she was. Every day she seems to get fonder and fonder of her -uncle, and more loth to part from all of us. A kind word from me brings the -tears into her eyes; and if you was to see her with my daughter Minnie’s -little girl, you’d never forget it. Bless my heart alive!’ said Mr. -Omer, pondering, ‘how she loves that child!’ -</p> - -<p> -Having so favourable an opportunity, it occurred to me to ask Mr. Omer, before -our conversation should be interrupted by the return of his daughter and her -husband, whether he knew anything of Martha. -</p> - -<p> -‘Ah!’ he rejoined, shaking his head, and looking very much -dejected. ‘No good. A sad story, sir, however you come to know it. I -never thought there was harm in the girl. I wouldn’t wish to mention it -before my daughter Minnie—for she’d take me up directly—but I -never did. None of us ever did.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Omer, hearing his daughter’s footstep before I heard it, touched me -with his pipe, and shut up one eye, as a caution. She and her husband came in -immediately afterwards. -</p> - -<p> -Their report was, that Mr. Barkis was ‘as bad as bad could be’; -that he was quite unconscious; and that Mr. Chillip had mournfully said in the -kitchen, on going away just now, that the College of Physicians, the College of -Surgeons, and Apothecaries’ Hall, if they were all called in together, -couldn’t help him. He was past both Colleges, Mr. Chillip said, and the -Hall could only poison him. -</p> - -<p> -Hearing this, and learning that Mr. Peggotty was there, I determined to go to -the house at once. I bade good night to Mr. Omer, and to Mr. and Mrs. Joram; -and directed my steps thither, with a solemn feeling, which made Mr. Barkis -quite a new and different creature. -</p> - -<p> -My low tap at the door was answered by Mr. Peggotty. He was not so much -surprised to see me as I had expected. I remarked this in Peggotty, too, when -she came down; and I have seen it since; and I think, in the expectation of -that dread surprise, all other changes and surprises dwindle into nothing. -</p> - -<p> -I shook hands with Mr. Peggotty, and passed into the kitchen, while he softly -closed the door. Little Emily was sitting by the fire, with her hands before -her face. Ham was standing near her. -</p> - -<p> -We spoke in whispers; listening, between whiles, for any sound in the room -above. I had not thought of it on the occasion of my last visit, but how -strange it was to me, now, to miss Mr. Barkis out of the kitchen! -</p> - -<p> -‘This is very kind of you, Mas’r Davy,’ said Mr. Peggotty. -</p> - -<p> -‘It’s oncommon kind,’ said Ham. -</p> - -<p> -‘Em’ly, my dear,’ cried Mr. Peggotty. ‘See here! -Here’s Mas’r Davy come! What, cheer up, pretty! Not a wured to -Mas’r Davy?’ -</p> - -<p> -There was a trembling upon her, that I can see now. The coldness of her hand -when I touched it, I can feel yet. Its only sign of animation was to shrink -from mine; and then she glided from the chair, and creeping to the other side -of her uncle, bowed herself, silently and trembling still, upon his breast. -</p> - -<p> -‘It’s such a loving art,’ said Mr. Peggotty, smoothing her -rich hair with his great hard hand, ‘that it can’t abear the sorrer -of this. It’s nat’ral in young folk, Mas’r Davy, when -they’re new to these here trials, and timid, like my little -bird,—it’s nat’ral.’ -</p> - -<p> -She clung the closer to him, but neither lifted up her face, nor spoke a word. -</p> - -<p> -‘It’s getting late, my dear,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘and -here’s Ham come fur to take you home. Theer! Go along with t’other -loving art! What’ Em’ly? Eh, my pretty?’ -</p> - -<p> -The sound of her voice had not reached me, but he bent his head as if he -listened to her, and then said: -</p> - -<p> -‘Let you stay with your uncle? Why, you doen’t mean to ask me that! -Stay with your uncle, Moppet? When your husband that’ll be so soon, is -here fur to take you home? Now a person wouldn’t think it, fur to see -this little thing alongside a rough-weather chap like me,’ said Mr. -Peggotty, looking round at both of us, with infinite pride; ‘but the sea -ain’t more salt in it than she has fondness in her for her uncle—a -foolish little Em’ly!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Em’ly’s in the right in that, Mas’r Davy!’ said -Ham. ‘Lookee here! As Em’ly wishes of it, and as she’s -hurried and frightened, like, besides, I’ll leave her till morning. Let -me stay too!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No, no,’ said Mr. Peggotty. ‘You doen’t ought—a -married man like you—or what’s as good—to take and hull away -a day’s work. And you doen’t ought to watch and work both. That -won’t do. You go home and turn in. You ain’t afeerd of Em’ly -not being took good care on, I know.’ -</p> - -<p> -Ham yielded to this persuasion, and took his hat to go. Even when he kissed -her—and I never saw him approach her, but I felt that nature had given -him the soul of a gentleman—she seemed to cling closer to her uncle, even -to the avoidance of her chosen husband. I shut the door after him, that it -might cause no disturbance of the quiet that prevailed; and when I turned back, -I found Mr. Peggotty still talking to her. -</p> - -<p> -‘Now, I’m a going upstairs to tell your aunt as Mas’r -Davy’s here, and that’ll cheer her up a bit,’ he said. -‘Sit ye down by the fire, the while, my dear, and warm those mortal cold -hands. You doen’t need to be so fearsome, and take on so much. What? -You’ll go along with me?—Well! come along with me—come! If -her uncle was turned out of house and home, and forced to lay down in a dyke, -Mas’r Davy,’ said Mr. Peggotty, with no less pride than before, -‘it’s my belief she’d go along with him, now! But -there’ll be someone else, soon,—someone else, soon, -Em’ly!’ -</p> - -<p> -Afterwards, when I went upstairs, as I passed the door of my little chamber, -which was dark, I had an indistinct impression of her being within it, cast -down upon the floor. But, whether it was really she, or whether it was a -confusion of the shadows in the room, I don’t know now. -</p> - -<p> -I had leisure to think, before the kitchen fire, of pretty little Emily’s -dread of death—which, added to what Mr. Omer had told me, I took to be -the cause of her being so unlike herself—and I had leisure, before -Peggotty came down, even to think more leniently of the weakness of it: as I -sat counting the ticking of the clock, and deepening my sense of the solemn -hush around me. Peggotty took me in her arms, and blessed and thanked me over -and over again for being such a comfort to her (that was what she said) in her -distress. She then entreated me to come upstairs, sobbing that Mr. Barkis had -always liked me and admired me; that he had often talked of me, before he fell -into a stupor; and that she believed, in case of his coming to himself again, -he would brighten up at sight of me, if he could brighten up at any earthly -thing. -</p> - -<p> -The probability of his ever doing so, appeared to me, when I saw him, to be -very small. He was lying with his head and shoulders out of bed, in an -uncomfortable attitude, half resting on the box which had cost him so much pain -and trouble. I learned, that, when he was past creeping out of bed to open it, -and past assuring himself of its safety by means of the divining rod I had seen -him use, he had required to have it placed on the chair at the bed-side, where -he had ever since embraced it, night and day. His arm lay on it now. Time and -the world were slipping from beneath him, but the box was there; and the last -words he had uttered were (in an explanatory tone) ‘Old clothes!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Barkis, my dear!’ said Peggotty, almost cheerfully: bending over -him, while her brother and I stood at the bed’s foot. ‘Here’s -my dear boy—my dear boy, Master Davy, who brought us together, Barkis! -That you sent messages by, you know! Won’t you speak to Master -Davy?’ -</p> - -<p> -He was as mute and senseless as the box, from which his form derived the only -expression it had. -</p> - -<p> -‘He’s a going out with the tide,’ said Mr. Peggotty to me, -behind his hand. -</p> - -<p> -My eyes were dim and so were Mr. Peggotty’s; but I repeated in a whisper, -‘With the tide?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘People can’t die, along the coast,’ said Mr. Peggotty, -‘except when the tide’s pretty nigh out. They can’t be born, -unless it’s pretty nigh in—not properly born, till flood. -He’s a going out with the tide. It’s ebb at half-arter three, slack -water half an hour. If he lives till it turns, he’ll hold his own till -past the flood, and go out with the next tide.’ -</p> - -<p> -We remained there, watching him, a long time—hours. What mysterious -influence my presence had upon him in that state of his senses, I shall not -pretend to say; but when he at last began to wander feebly, it is certain he -was muttering about driving me to school. -</p> - -<p> -‘He’s coming to himself,’ said Peggotty. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Peggotty touched me, and whispered with much awe and reverence. ‘They -are both a-going out fast.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Barkis, my dear!’ said Peggotty. -</p> - -<p> -‘C. P. Barkis,’ he cried faintly. ‘No better woman -anywhere!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Look! Here’s Master Davy!’ said Peggotty. For he now opened -his eyes. -</p> - -<p> -I was on the point of asking him if he knew me, when he tried to stretch out -his arm, and said to me, distinctly, with a pleasant smile: -</p> - -<p> -‘Barkis is willin’!’ -</p> - -<p> -And, it being low water, he went out with the tide. -</p> - -<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> -<img src="images/0531.jpg" alt="0531 " width="100%" /> -</div> - -<h5> -<a href="images/0531.jpg"> -<img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /></a> -</h5> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0031"></a>CHAPTER 31. A GREATER LOSS</h2> <div -class="fig" style="width:50%;"> -<img src="images/20008.jpg" alt="20008" width="100%" /> -</div> - -<h5> -<a href="images/20008.jpg"> -<img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /></a> -</h5> - -<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> -<img src="images/20009.jpg" alt="20009" width="100%" /> -</div> - -<h5> -<a href="images/20009.jpg"> -<img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /></a> -</h5> - -<p> -It was not difficult for me, on Peggotty’s solicitation, to resolve to -stay where I was, until after the remains of the poor carrier should have made -their last journey to Blunderstone. She had long ago bought, out of her own -savings, a little piece of ground in our old churchyard near the grave of -‘her sweet girl’, as she always called my mother; and there they -were to rest. -</p> - -<p> -In keeping Peggotty company, and doing all I could for her (little enough at -the utmost), I was as grateful, I rejoice to think, as even now I could wish -myself to have been. But I am afraid I had a supreme satisfaction, of a -personal and professional nature, in taking charge of Mr. Barkis’s will, -and expounding its contents. -</p> - -<p> -I may claim the merit of having originated the suggestion that the will should -be looked for in the box. After some search, it was found in the box, at the -bottom of a horse’s nose-bag; wherein (besides hay) there was discovered -an old gold watch, with chain and seals, which Mr. Barkis had worn on his -wedding-day, and which had never been seen before or since; a silver -tobacco-stopper, in the form of a leg; an imitation lemon, full of minute cups -and saucers, which I have some idea Mr. Barkis must have purchased to present -to me when I was a child, and afterwards found himself unable to part with; -eighty-seven guineas and a half, in guineas and half-guineas; two hundred and -ten pounds, in perfectly clean Bank notes; certain receipts for Bank of England -stock; an old horseshoe, a bad shilling, a piece of camphor, and an -oyster-shell. From the circumstance of the latter article having been much -polished, and displaying prismatic colours on the inside, I conclude that Mr. -Barkis had some general ideas about pearls, which never resolved themselves -into anything definite. -</p> - -<p> -For years and years, Mr. Barkis had carried this box, on all his journeys, -every day. That it might the better escape notice, he had invented a fiction -that it belonged to ‘Mr. Blackboy’, and was ‘to be left with -Barkis till called for’; a fable he had elaborately written on the lid, -in characters now scarcely legible. -</p> - -<p> -He had hoarded, all these years, I found, to good purpose. His property in -money amounted to nearly three thousand pounds. Of this he bequeathed the -interest of one thousand to Mr. Peggotty for his life; on his decease, the -principal to be equally divided between Peggotty, little Emily, and me, or the -survivor or survivors of us, share and share alike. All the rest he died -possessed of, he bequeathed to Peggotty; whom he left residuary legatee, and -sole executrix of that his last will and testament. -</p> - -<p> -I felt myself quite a proctor when I read this document aloud with all possible -ceremony, and set forth its provisions, any number of times, to those whom they -concerned. I began to think there was more in the Commons than I had supposed. -I examined the will with the deepest attention, pronounced it perfectly formal -in all respects, made a pencil-mark or so in the margin, and thought it rather -extraordinary that I knew so much. -</p> - -<p> -In this abstruse pursuit; in making an account for Peggotty, of all the -property into which she had come; in arranging all the affairs in an orderly -manner; and in being her referee and adviser on every point, to our joint -delight; I passed the week before the funeral. I did not see little Emily in -that interval, but they told me she was to be quietly married in a fortnight. -</p> - -<p> -I did not attend the funeral in character, if I may venture to say so. I mean I -was not dressed up in a black coat and a streamer, to frighten the birds; but I -walked over to Blunderstone early in the morning, and was in the churchyard -when it came, attended only by Peggotty and her brother. The mad gentleman -looked on, out of my little window; Mr. Chillip’s baby wagged its heavy -head, and rolled its goggle eyes, at the clergyman, over its nurse’s -shoulder; Mr. Omer breathed short in the background; no one else was there; and -it was very quiet. We walked about the churchyard for an hour, after all was -over; and pulled some young leaves from the tree above my mother’s grave. -</p> - -<p> -A dread falls on me here. A cloud is lowering on the distant town, towards -which I retraced my solitary steps. I fear to approach it. I cannot bear to -think of what did come, upon that memorable night; of what must come again, if -I go on. -</p> - -<p> -It is no worse, because I write of it. It would be no better, if I stopped my -most unwilling hand. It is done. Nothing can undo it; nothing can make it -otherwise than as it was. -</p> - -<p> -My old nurse was to go to London with me next day, on the business of the will. -Little Emily was passing that day at Mr. Omer’s. We were all to meet in -the old boathouse that night. Ham would bring Emily at the usual hour. I would -walk back at my leisure. The brother and sister would return as they had come, -and be expecting us, when the day closed in, at the fireside. -</p> - -<p> -I parted from them at the wicket-gate, where visionary Strap had rested with -Roderick Random’s knapsack in the days of yore; and, instead of going -straight back, walked a little distance on the road to Lowestoft. Then I -turned, and walked back towards Yarmouth. I stayed to dine at a decent -alehouse, some mile or two from the Ferry I have mentioned before; and thus the -day wore away, and it was evening when I reached it. Rain was falling heavily -by that time, and it was a wild night; but there was a moon behind the clouds, -and it was not dark. -</p> - -<p> -I was soon within sight of Mr. Peggotty’s house, and of the light within -it shining through the window. A little floundering across the sand, which was -heavy, brought me to the door, and I went in. -</p> - -<p> -It looked very comfortable indeed. Mr. Peggotty had smoked his evening pipe and -there were preparations for some supper by and by. The fire was bright, the -ashes were thrown up, the locker was ready for little Emily in her old place. -In her own old place sat Peggotty, once more, looking (but for her dress) as if -she had never left it. She had fallen back, already, on the society of the -work-box with St. Paul’s upon the lid, the yard-measure in the cottage, -and the bit of wax-candle; and there they all were, just as if they had never -been disturbed. Mrs. Gummidge appeared to be fretting a little, in her old -corner; and consequently looked quite natural, too. -</p> - -<p> -‘You’re first of the lot, Mas’r Davy!’ said Mr. -Peggotty with a happy face. ‘Doen’t keep in that coat, sir, if -it’s wet.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Thank you, Mr. Peggotty,’ said I, giving him my outer coat to hang -up. ‘It’s quite dry.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘So ‘tis!’ said Mr. Peggotty, feeling my shoulders. ‘As -a chip! Sit ye down, sir. It ain’t o’ no use saying welcome to you, -but you’re welcome, kind and hearty.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Thank you, Mr. Peggotty, I am sure of that. Well, Peggotty!’ said -I, giving her a kiss. ‘And how are you, old woman?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Ha, ha!’ laughed Mr. Peggotty, sitting down beside us, and rubbing -his hands in his sense of relief from recent trouble, and in the genuine -heartiness of his nature; ‘there’s not a woman in the wureld, -sir—as I tell her—that need to feel more easy in her mind than her! -She done her dooty by the departed, and the departed know’d it; and the -departed done what was right by her, as she done what was right by the -departed;—and—and—and it’s all right!’ -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Gummidge groaned. -</p> - -<p> -‘Cheer up, my pritty mawther!’ said Mr. Peggotty. (But he shook his -head aside at us, evidently sensible of the tendency of the late occurrences to -recall the memory of the old one.) ‘Doen’t be down! Cheer up, for -your own self, on’y a little bit, and see if a good deal more -doen’t come nat’ral!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Not to me, Dan’l,’ returned Mrs. Gummidge. -‘Nothink’s nat’ral to me but to be lone and lorn.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No, no,’ said Mr. Peggotty, soothing her sorrows. -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes, yes, Dan’l!’ said Mrs. Gummidge. ‘I ain’t a -person to live with them as has had money left. Things go too contrary with me. -I had better be a riddance.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, how should I ever spend it without you?’ said Mr. Peggotty, -with an air of serious remonstrance. ‘What are you a talking on? -Doen’t I want you more now, than ever I did?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I know’d I was never wanted before!’ cried Mrs. Gummidge, -with a pitiable whimper, ‘and now I’m told so! How could I expect -to be wanted, being so lone and lorn, and so contrary!’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Peggotty seemed very much shocked at himself for having made a speech -capable of this unfeeling construction, but was prevented from replying, by -Peggotty’s pulling his sleeve, and shaking her head. After looking at -Mrs. Gummidge for some moments, in sore distress of mind, he glanced at the -Dutch clock, rose, snuffed the candle, and put it in the window. -</p> - -<p> -‘Theer!’ said Mr. Peggotty, cheerily. ‘Theer we are, Missis -Gummidge!’ Mrs. Gummidge slightly groaned. ‘Lighted up, -accordin’ to custom! You’re a wonderin’ what that’s -fur, sir! Well, it’s fur our little Em’ly. You see, the path -ain’t over light or cheerful arter dark; and when I’m here at the -hour as she’s a comin’ home, I puts the light in the winder. That, -you see,’ said Mr. Peggotty, bending over me with great glee, -‘meets two objects. She says, says Em’ly, “Theer’s -home!” she says. And likewise, says Em’ly, “My uncle’s -theer!” Fur if I ain’t theer, I never have no light showed.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You’re a baby!’ said Peggotty; very fond of him for it, if -she thought so. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well,’ returned Mr. Peggotty, standing with his legs pretty wide -apart, and rubbing his hands up and down them in his comfortable satisfaction, -as he looked alternately at us and at the fire. ‘I doen’t know but -I am. Not, you see, to look at.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Not azackly,’ observed Peggotty. -</p> - -<p> -‘No,’ laughed Mr. Peggotty, ‘not to look at, but to—to -consider on, you know. I doen’t care, bless you! Now I tell you. When I -go a looking and looking about that theer pritty house of our -Em’ly’s, I’m—I’m Gormed,’ said Mr. -Peggotty, with sudden emphasis—‘theer! I can’t say -more—if I doen’t feel as if the littlest things was her, -a’most. I takes ‘em up and I put ‘em down, and I touches of -‘em as delicate as if they was our Em’ly. So ‘tis with her -little bonnets and that. I couldn’t see one on ‘em rough used a -purpose—not fur the whole wureld. There’s a babby fur you, in the -form of a great Sea Porkypine!’ said Mr. Peggotty, relieving his -earnestness with a roar of laughter. -</p> - -<p> -Peggotty and I both laughed, but not so loud. -</p> - -<p> -‘It’s my opinion, you see,’ said Mr. Peggotty, with a -delighted face, after some further rubbing of his legs, ‘as this is along -of my havin’ played with her so much, and made believe as we was Turks, -and French, and sharks, and every wariety of forinners—bless you, yes; -and lions and whales, and I doen’t know what all!—when she -warn’t no higher than my knee. I’ve got into the way on it, you -know. Why, this here candle, now!’ said Mr. Peggotty, gleefully holding -out his hand towards it, ‘I know wery well that arter she’s married -and gone, I shall put that candle theer, just the same as now. I know wery well -that when I’m here o’ nights (and where else should I live, bless -your arts, whatever fortun’ I come into!) and she ain’t here or I -ain’t theer, I shall put the candle in the winder, and sit afore the -fire, pretending I’m expecting of her, like I’m a doing now. -THERE’S a babby for you,’ said Mr. Peggotty, with another roar, -‘in the form of a Sea Porkypine! Why, at the present minute, when I see -the candle sparkle up, I says to myself, “She’s a looking at it! -Em’ly’s a coming!” THERE’S a babby for you, in the form -of a Sea Porkypine! Right for all that,’ said Mr. Peggotty, stopping in -his roar, and smiting his hands together; ‘fur here she is!’ -</p> - -<p> -It was only Ham. The night should have turned more wet since I came in, for he -had a large sou’wester hat on, slouched over his face. -</p> - -<p> -‘Wheer’s Em’ly?’ said Mr. Peggotty. -</p> - -<p> -Ham made a motion with his head, as if she were outside. Mr. Peggotty took the -light from the window, trimmed it, put it on the table, and was busily stirring -the fire, when Ham, who had not moved, said: -</p> - -<p> -‘Mas’r Davy, will you come out a minute, and see what Em’ly -and me has got to show you?’ -</p> - -<p> -We went out. As I passed him at the door, I saw, to my astonishment and fright, -that he was deadly pale. He pushed me hastily into the open air, and closed the -door upon us. Only upon us two. -</p> - -<p> -‘Ham! what’s the matter?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Mas’r Davy!—’ Oh, for his broken heart, how dreadfully -he wept! -</p> - -<p> -I was paralysed by the sight of such grief. I don’t know what I thought, -or what I dreaded. I could only look at him. -</p> - -<p> -‘Ham! Poor good fellow! For Heaven’s sake, tell me what’s the -matter!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘My love, Mas’r Davy—the pride and hope of my art—her -that I’d have died for, and would die for now—she’s -gone!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Gone!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Em’ly’s run away! Oh, Mas’r Davy, think HOW -she’s run away, when I pray my good and gracious God to kill her (her -that is so dear above all things) sooner than let her come to ruin and -disgrace!’ -</p> - -<p> -The face he turned up to the troubled sky, the quivering of his clasped hands, -the agony of his figure, remain associated with the lonely waste, in my -remembrance, to this hour. It is always night there, and he is the only object -in the scene. -</p> - -<p> -‘You’re a scholar,’ he said, hurriedly, ‘and know -what’s right and best. What am I to say, indoors? How am I ever to break -it to him, Mas’r Davy?’ -</p> - -<p> -I saw the door move, and instinctively tried to hold the latch on the outside, -to gain a moment’s time. It was too late. Mr. Peggotty thrust forth his -face; and never could I forget the change that came upon it when he saw us, if -I were to live five hundred years. -</p> - -<p> -I remember a great wail and cry, and the women hanging about him, and we all -standing in the room; I with a paper in my hand, which Ham had given me; Mr. -Peggotty, with his vest torn open, his hair wild, his face and lips quite -white, and blood trickling down his bosom (it had sprung from his mouth, I -think), looking fixedly at me. -</p> - -<p> -‘Read it, sir,’ he said, in a low shivering voice. ‘Slow, -please. I doen’t know as I can understand.’ -</p> - -<p> -In the midst of the silence of death, I read thus, from a blotted letter: -</p> - -<p> -‘“When you, who love me so much better than I ever have deserved, -even when my mind was innocent, see this, I shall be far away.”’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I shall be fur away,’ he repeated slowly. ‘Stop! Em’ly -fur away. Well!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘“When I leave my dear home—my dear home—oh, my dear -home!—in the morning,”’ -</p> - -<p> -the letter bore date on the previous night: -</p> - -<p> -‘“—it will be never to come back, unless he brings me back a -lady. This will be found at night, many hours after, instead of me. Oh, if you -knew how my heart is torn. If even you, that I have wronged so much, that never -can forgive me, could only know what I suffer! I am too wicked to write about -myself! Oh, take comfort in thinking that I am so bad. Oh, for mercy’s -sake, tell uncle that I never loved him half so dear as now. Oh, don’t -remember how affectionate and kind you have all been to me—don’t -remember we were ever to be married—but try to think as if I died when I -was little, and was buried somewhere. Pray Heaven that I am going away from, -have compassion on my uncle! Tell him that I never loved him half so dear. Be -his comfort. Love some good girl that will be what I was once to uncle, and be -true to you, and worthy of you, and know no shame but me. God bless all! -I’ll pray for all, often, on my knees. If he don’t bring me back a -lady, and I don’t pray for my own self, I’ll pray for all. My -parting love to uncle. My last tears, and my last thanks, for -uncle!”’ -</p> - -<p> -That was all. -</p> - -<p> -He stood, long after I had ceased to read, still looking at me. At length I -ventured to take his hand, and to entreat him, as well as I could, to endeavour -to get some command of himself. He replied, ‘I thankee, sir, I -thankee!’ without moving. -</p> - -<p> -Ham spoke to him. Mr. Peggotty was so far sensible of HIS affliction, that he -wrung his hand; but, otherwise, he remained in the same state, and no one dared -to disturb him. -</p> - -<p> -Slowly, at last, he moved his eyes from my face, as if he were waking from a -vision, and cast them round the room. Then he said, in a low voice: -</p> - -<p> -‘Who’s the man? I want to know his name.’ -</p> - -<p> -Ham glanced at me, and suddenly I felt a shock that struck me back. -</p> - -<p> -‘There’s a man suspected,’ said Mr. Peggotty. ‘Who is -it?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Mas’r Davy!’ implored Ham. ‘Go out a bit, and let me -tell him what I must. You doen’t ought to hear it, sir.’ -</p> - -<p> -I felt the shock again. I sank down in a chair, and tried to utter some reply; -but my tongue was fettered, and my sight was weak. -</p> - -<p> -‘I want to know his name!’ I heard said once more. -</p> - -<p> -‘For some time past,’ Ham faltered, ‘there’s been a -servant about here, at odd times. There’s been a gen’lm’n -too. Both of ‘em belonged to one another.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Peggotty stood fixed as before, but now looking at him. -</p> - -<p> -‘The servant,’ pursued Ham, ‘was seen along with—our -poor girl—last night. He’s been in hiding about here, this week or -over. He was thought to have gone, but he was hiding. Doen’t stay, -Mas’r Davy, doen’t!’ -</p> - -<p> -I felt Peggotty’s arm round my neck, but I could not have moved if the -house had been about to fall upon me. -</p> - -<p> -‘A strange chay and hosses was outside town, this morning, on the Norwich -road, a’most afore the day broke,’ Ham went on. ‘The servant -went to it, and come from it, and went to it again. When he went to it again, -Em’ly was nigh him. The t’other was inside. He’s the -man.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘For the Lord’s love,’ said Mr. Peggotty, falling back, and -putting out his hand, as if to keep off what he dreaded. ‘Doen’t -tell me his name’s Steerforth!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Mas’r Davy,’ exclaimed Ham, in a broken voice, ‘it -ain’t no fault of yourn—and I am far from laying of it to -you—but his name is Steerforth, and he’s a damned villain!’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Peggotty uttered no cry, and shed no tear, and moved no more, until he -seemed to wake again, all at once, and pulled down his rough coat from its peg -in a corner. -</p> - -<p> -‘Bear a hand with this! I’m struck of a heap, and can’t do -it,’ he said, impatiently. ‘Bear a hand and help me. Well!’ -when somebody had done so. ‘Now give me that theer hat!’ -</p> - -<p> -Ham asked him whither he was going. -</p> - -<p> -‘I’m a going to seek my niece. I’m a going to seek my -Em’ly. I’m a going, first, to stave in that theer boat, and sink it -where I would have drownded him, as I’m a living soul, if I had had one -thought of what was in him! As he sat afore me,’ he said, wildly, holding -out his clenched right hand, ‘as he sat afore me, face to face, strike me -down dead, but I’d have drownded him, and thought it -right!—I’m a going to seek my niece.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Where?’ cried Ham, interposing himself before the door. -</p> - -<p> -‘Anywhere! I’m a going to seek my niece through the wureld. -I’m a going to find my poor niece in her shame, and bring her back. No -one stop me! I tell you I’m a going to seek my niece!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No, no!’ cried Mrs. Gummidge, coming between them, in a fit of -crying. ‘No, no, Dan’l, not as you are now. Seek her in a little -while, my lone lorn Dan’l, and that’ll be but right! but not as you -are now. Sit ye down, and give me your forgiveness for having ever been a -worrit to you, Dan’l—what have my contraries ever been to -this!—and let us speak a word about them times when she was first an -orphan, and when Ham was too, and when I was a poor widder woman, and you took -me in. It’ll soften your poor heart, Dan’l,’ laying her head -upon his shoulder, ‘and you’ll bear your sorrow better; for you -know the promise, Dan’l, “As you have done it unto one of the least -of these, you have done it unto me”,—and that can never fail under -this roof, that’s been our shelter for so many, many year!’ -</p> - -<p> -He was quite passive now; and when I heard him crying, the impulse that had -been upon me to go down upon my knees, and ask their pardon for the desolation -I had caused, and curse Steerforth, yielded to a better feeling. My overcharged -heart found the same relief, and I cried too. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0032"></a>CHAPTER 32. THE BEGINNING OF A LONG JOURNEY -</h2> - -<p> -What is natural in me, is natural in many other men, I infer, and so I am not -afraid to write that I never had loved Steerforth better than when the ties -that bound me to him were broken. In the keen distress of the discovery of his -unworthiness, I thought more of all that was brilliant in him, I softened more -towards all that was good in him, I did more justice to the qualities that -might have made him a man of a noble nature and a great name, than ever I had -done in the height of my devotion to him. Deeply as I felt my own unconscious -part in his pollution of an honest home, I believed that if I had been brought -face to face with him, I could not have uttered one reproach. I should have -loved him so well still—though he fascinated me no longer—I should -have held in so much tenderness the memory of my affection for him, that I -think I should have been as weak as a spirit-wounded child, in all but the -entertainment of a thought that we could ever be re-united. That thought I -never had. I felt, as he had felt, that all was at an end between us. What his -remembrances of me were, I have never known—they were light enough, -perhaps, and easily dismissed—but mine of him were as the remembrances of -a cherished friend, who was dead. -</p> - -<p> -Yes, Steerforth, long removed from the scenes of this poor history! My sorrow -may bear involuntary witness against you at the judgement Throne; but my angry -thoughts or my reproaches never will, I know! -</p> - -<p> -The news of what had happened soon spread through the town; insomuch that as I -passed along the streets next morning, I overheard the people speaking of it at -their doors. Many were hard upon her, some few were hard upon him, but towards -her second father and her lover there was but one sentiment. Among all kinds of -people a respect for them in their distress prevailed, which was full of -gentleness and delicacy. The seafaring men kept apart, when those two were seen -early, walking with slow steps on the beach; and stood in knots, talking -compassionately among themselves. -</p> - -<p> -It was on the beach, close down by the sea, that I found them. It would have -been easy to perceive that they had not slept all last night, even if Peggotty -had failed to tell me of their still sitting just as I left them, when it was -broad day. They looked worn; and I thought Mr. Peggotty’s head was bowed -in one night more than in all the years I had known him. But they were both as -grave and steady as the sea itself, then lying beneath a dark sky, -waveless—yet with a heavy roll upon it, as if it breathed in its -rest—and touched, on the horizon, with a strip of silvery light from the -unseen sun. -</p> - -<p> -‘We have had a mort of talk, sir,’ said Mr. Peggotty to me, when we -had all three walked a little while in silence, ‘of what we ought and -doen’t ought to do. But we see our course now.’ -</p> - -<p> -I happened to glance at Ham, then looking out to sea upon the distant light, -and a frightful thought came into my mind—not that his face was angry, -for it was not; I recall nothing but an expression of stern determination in -it—that if ever he encountered Steerforth, he would kill him. -</p> - -<p> -‘My dooty here, sir,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘is done. I’m -a going to seek my—’ he stopped, and went on in a firmer voice: -‘I’m a going to seek her. That’s my dooty evermore.’ -</p> - -<p> -He shook his head when I asked him where he would seek her, and inquired if I -were going to London tomorrow? I told him I had not gone today, fearing to lose -the chance of being of any service to him; but that I was ready to go when he -would. -</p> - -<p> -‘I’ll go along with you, sir,’ he rejoined, ‘if -you’re agreeable, tomorrow.’ -</p> - -<p> -We walked again, for a while, in silence. -</p> - -<p> -‘Ham,’ he presently resumed, ‘he’ll hold to his present -work, and go and live along with my sister. The old boat yonder—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Will you desert the old boat, Mr. Peggotty?’ I gently interposed. -</p> - -<p> -‘My station, Mas’r Davy,’ he returned, ‘ain’t -there no longer; and if ever a boat foundered, since there was darkness on the -face of the deep, that one’s gone down. But no, sir, no; I doen’t -mean as it should be deserted. Fur from that.’ -</p> - -<p> -We walked again for a while, as before, until he explained: -</p> - -<p> -‘My wishes is, sir, as it shall look, day and night, winter and summer, -as it has always looked, since she fust know’d it. If ever she should -come a wandering back, I wouldn’t have the old place seem to cast her -off, you understand, but seem to tempt her to draw nigher to ‘t, and to -peep in, maybe, like a ghost, out of the wind and rain, through the old winder, -at the old seat by the fire. Then, maybe, Mas’r Davy, seein’ none -but Missis Gummidge there, she might take heart to creep in, trembling; and -might come to be laid down in her old bed, and rest her weary head where it was -once so gay.’ -</p> - -<p> -I could not speak to him in reply, though I tried. -</p> - -<p> -‘Every night,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘as reg’lar as the -night comes, the candle must be stood in its old pane of glass, that if ever -she should see it, it may seem to say “Come back, my child, come -back!” If ever there’s a knock, Ham (partic’ler a soft -knock), arter dark, at your aunt’s door, doen’t you go nigh it. Let -it be her—not you—that sees my fallen child!’ -</p> - -<p> -He walked a little in front of us, and kept before us for some minutes. During -this interval, I glanced at Ham again, and observing the same expression on his -face, and his eyes still directed to the distant light, I touched his arm. -</p> - -<p> -Twice I called him by his name, in the tone in which I might have tried to -rouse a sleeper, before he heeded me. When I at last inquired on what his -thoughts were so bent, he replied: -</p> - -<p> -‘On what’s afore me, Mas’r Davy; and over yon.’ -‘On the life before you, do you mean?’ He had pointed confusedly -out to sea. -</p> - -<p> -‘Ay, Mas’r Davy. I doen’t rightly know how ‘tis, but -from over yon there seemed to me to come—the end of it like,’ -looking at me as if he were waking, but with the same determined face. -</p> - -<p> -‘What end?’ I asked, possessed by my former fear. -</p> - -<p> -‘I doen’t know, ’he said, thoughtfully; ‘I was calling -to mind that the beginning of it all did take place here—and then the end -come. But it’s gone! Mas’r Davy,’ he added; answering, as I -think, my look; ‘you han’t no call to be afeerd of me: but -I’m kiender muddled; I don’t fare to feel no -matters,’—which was as much as to say that he was not himself, and -quite confounded. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Peggotty stopping for us to join him: we did so, and said no more. The -remembrance of this, in connexion with my former thought, however, haunted me -at intervals, even until the inexorable end came at its appointed time. -</p> - -<p> -We insensibly approached the old boat, and entered. Mrs. Gummidge, no longer -moping in her especial corner, was busy preparing breakfast. She took Mr. -Peggotty’s hat, and placed his seat for him, and spoke so comfortably and -softly, that I hardly knew her. -</p> - -<p> -‘Dan’l, my good man,’ said she, ‘you must eat and -drink, and keep up your strength, for without it you’ll do nowt. Try, -that’s a dear soul! An if I disturb you with my clicketten,’ she -meant her chattering, ‘tell me so, Dan’l, and I won’t.’ -</p> - -<p> -When she had served us all, she withdrew to the window, where she sedulously -employed herself in repairing some shirts and other clothes belonging to Mr. -Peggotty, and neatly folding and packing them in an old oilskin bag, such as -sailors carry. Meanwhile, she continued talking, in the same quiet manner: -</p> - -<p> -‘All times and seasons, you know, Dan’l,’ said Mrs. Gummidge, -‘I shall be allus here, and everythink will look accordin’ to your -wishes. I’m a poor scholar, but I shall write to you, odd times, when -you’re away, and send my letters to Mas’r Davy. Maybe you’ll -write to me too, Dan’l, odd times, and tell me how you fare to feel upon -your lone lorn journies.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You’ll be a solitary woman heer, I’m afeerd!’ said Mr. -Peggotty. -</p> - -<p> -‘No, no, Dan’l,’ she returned, ‘I shan’t be that. -Doen’t you mind me. I shall have enough to do to keep a Beein for -you’ (Mrs. Gummidge meant a home), ‘again you come back—to -keep a Beein here for any that may hap to come back, Dan’l. In the fine -time, I shall set outside the door as I used to do. If any should come nigh, -they shall see the old widder woman true to ‘em, a long way off.’ -</p> - -<p> -What a change in Mrs. Gummidge in a little time! She was another woman. She was -so devoted, she had such a quick perception of what it would be well to say, -and what it would be well to leave unsaid; she was so forgetful of herself, and -so regardful of the sorrow about her, that I held her in a sort of veneration. -The work she did that day! There were many things to be brought up from the -beach and stored in the outhouse—as oars, nets, sails, cordage, spars, -lobster-pots, bags of ballast, and the like; and though there was abundance of -assistance rendered, there being not a pair of working hands on all that shore -but would have laboured hard for Mr. Peggotty, and been well paid in being -asked to do it, yet she persisted, all day long, in toiling under weights that -she was quite unequal to, and fagging to and fro on all sorts of unnecessary -errands. As to deploring her misfortunes, she appeared to have entirely lost -the recollection of ever having had any. She preserved an equable cheerfulness -in the midst of her sympathy, which was not the least astonishing part of the -change that had come over her. Querulousness was out of the question. I did not -even observe her voice to falter, or a tear to escape from her eyes, the whole -day through, until twilight; when she and I and Mr. Peggotty being alone -together, and he having fallen asleep in perfect exhaustion, she broke into a -half-suppressed fit of sobbing and crying, and taking me to the door, said, -‘Ever bless you, Mas’r Davy, be a friend to him, poor dear!’ -Then, she immediately ran out of the house to wash her face, in order that she -might sit quietly beside him, and be found at work there, when he should awake. -In short I left her, when I went away at night, the prop and staff of Mr. -Peggotty’s affliction; and I could not meditate enough upon the lesson -that I read in Mrs. Gummidge, and the new experience she unfolded to me. -</p> - -<p> -It was between nine and ten o’clock when, strolling in a melancholy -manner through the town, I stopped at Mr. Omer’s door. Mr. Omer had taken -it so much to heart, his daughter told me, that he had been very low and poorly -all day, and had gone to bed without his pipe. -</p> - -<p> -‘A deceitful, bad-hearted girl,’ said Mrs. Joram. ‘There was -no good in her, ever!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Don’t say so,’ I returned. ‘You don’t think -so.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes, I do!’ cried Mrs. Joram, angrily. -</p> - -<p> -‘No, no,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Joram tossed her head, endeavouring to be very stern and cross; but she -could not command her softer self, and began to cry. I was young, to be sure; -but I thought much the better of her for this sympathy, and fancied it became -her, as a virtuous wife and mother, very well indeed. -</p> - -<p> -‘What will she ever do!’ sobbed Minnie. ‘Where will she go! -What will become of her! Oh, how could she be so cruel, to herself and -him!’ -</p> - -<p> -I remembered the time when Minnie was a young and pretty girl; and I was glad -she remembered it too, so feelingly. -</p> - -<p> -‘My little Minnie,’ said Mrs. Joram, ‘has only just now been -got to sleep. Even in her sleep she is sobbing for Em’ly. All day long, -little Minnie has cried for her, and asked me, over and over again, whether -Em’ly was wicked? What can I say to her, when Em’ly tied a ribbon -off her own neck round little Minnie’s the last night she was here, and -laid her head down on the pillow beside her till she was fast asleep! The -ribbon’s round my little Minnie’s neck now. It ought not to be, -perhaps, but what can I do? Em’ly is very bad, but they were fond of one -another. And the child knows nothing!’ -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Joram was so unhappy that her husband came out to take care of her. -Leaving them together, I went home to Peggotty’s; more melancholy myself, -if possible, than I had been yet. -</p> - -<p> -That good creature—I mean Peggotty—all untired by her late -anxieties and sleepless nights, was at her brother’s, where she meant to -stay till morning. An old woman, who had been employed about the house for some -weeks past, while Peggotty had been unable to attend to it, was the -house’s only other occupant besides myself. As I had no occasion for her -services, I sent her to bed, by no means against her will, and sat down before -the kitchen fire a little while, to think about all this. -</p> - -<p> -I was blending it with the deathbed of the late Mr. Barkis, and was driving out -with the tide towards the distance at which Ham had looked so singularly in the -morning, when I was recalled from my wanderings by a knock at the door. There -was a knocker upon the door, but it was not that which made the sound. The tap -was from a hand, and low down upon the door, as if it were given by a child. -</p> - -<p> -It made me start as much as if it had been the knock of a footman to a person -of distinction. I opened the door; and at first looked down, to my amazement, -on nothing but a great umbrella that appeared to be walking about of itself. -But presently I discovered underneath it, Miss Mowcher. -</p> - -<p> -I might not have been prepared to give the little creature a very kind -reception, if, on her removing the umbrella, which her utmost efforts were -unable to shut up, she had shown me the ‘volatile’ expression of -face which had made so great an impression on me at our first and last meeting. -But her face, as she turned it up to mine, was so earnest; and when I relieved -her of the umbrella (which would have been an inconvenient one for the Irish -Giant), she wrung her little hands in such an afflicted manner; that I rather -inclined towards her. -</p> - -<p> -‘Miss Mowcher!’ said I, after glancing up and down the empty -street, without distinctly knowing what I expected to see besides; ‘how -do you come here? What is the matter?’ She motioned to me with her short -right arm, to shut the umbrella for her; and passing me hurriedly, went into -the kitchen. When I had closed the door, and followed, with the umbrella in my -hand, I found her sitting on the corner of the fender—it was a low iron -one, with two flat bars at top to stand plates upon—in the shadow of the -boiler, swaying herself backwards and forwards, and chafing her hands upon her -knees like a person in pain. -</p> - -<p> -Quite alarmed at being the only recipient of this untimely visit, and the only -spectator of this portentous behaviour, I exclaimed again, ‘Pray tell me, -Miss Mowcher, what is the matter! are you ill?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear young soul,’ returned Miss Mowcher, squeezing her hands -upon her heart one over the other. ‘I am ill here, I am very ill. To -think that it should come to this, when I might have known it and perhaps -prevented it, if I hadn’t been a thoughtless fool!’ -</p> - -<p> -Again her large bonnet (very disproportionate to the figure) went backwards and -forwards, in her swaying of her little body to and fro; while a most gigantic -bonnet rocked, in unison with it, upon the wall. -</p> - -<p> -‘I am surprised,’ I began, ‘to see you so distressed and -serious’—when she interrupted me. -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes, it’s always so!’ she said. ‘They are all -surprised, these inconsiderate young people, fairly and full grown, to see any -natural feeling in a little thing like me! They make a plaything of me, use me -for their amusement, throw me away when they are tired, and wonder that I feel -more than a toy horse or a wooden soldier! Yes, yes, that’s the way. The -old way!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘It may be, with others,’ I returned, ‘but I do assure you it -is not with me. Perhaps I ought not to be at all surprised to see you as you -are now: I know so little of you. I said, without consideration, what I -thought.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘What can I do?’ returned the little woman, standing up, and -holding out her arms to show herself. ‘See! What I am, my father was; and -my sister is; and my brother is. I have worked for sister and brother these -many years—hard, Mr. Copperfield—all day. I must live. I do no -harm. If there are people so unreflecting or so cruel, as to make a jest of me, -what is left for me to do but to make a jest of myself, them, and everything? -If I do so, for the time, whose fault is that? Mine?’ -</p> - -<p> -No. Not Miss Mowcher’s, I perceived. -</p> - -<p> -‘If I had shown myself a sensitive dwarf to your false friend,’ -pursued the little woman, shaking her head at me, with reproachful earnestness, -‘how much of his help or good will do you think I should ever have had? -If little Mowcher (who had no hand, young gentleman, in the making of herself) -addressed herself to him, or the like of him, because of her misfortunes, when -do you suppose her small voice would have been heard? Little Mowcher would have -as much need to live, if she was the bitterest and dullest of pigmies; but she -couldn’t do it. No. She might whistle for her bread and butter till she -died of Air.’ -</p> - -<p> -Miss Mowcher sat down on the fender again, and took out her handkerchief, and -wiped her eyes. -</p> - -<p> -‘Be thankful for me, if you have a kind heart, as I think you -have,’ she said, ‘that while I know well what I am, I can be -cheerful and endure it all. I am thankful for myself, at any rate, that I can -find my tiny way through the world, without being beholden to anyone; and that -in return for all that is thrown at me, in folly or vanity, as I go along, I -can throw bubbles back. If I don’t brood over all I want, it is the -better for me, and not the worse for anyone. If I am a plaything for you -giants, be gentle with me.’ -</p> - -<p> -Miss Mowcher replaced her handkerchief in her pocket, looking at me with very -intent expression all the while, and pursued: -</p> - -<p> -‘I saw you in the street just now. You may suppose I am not able to walk -as fast as you, with my short legs and short breath, and I couldn’t -overtake you; but I guessed where you came, and came after you. I have been -here before, today, but the good woman wasn’t at home.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Do you know her?’ I demanded. -</p> - -<p> -‘I know of her, and about her,’ she replied, ‘from Omer and -Joram. I was there at seven o’clock this morning. Do you remember what -Steerforth said to me about this unfortunate girl, that time when I saw you -both at the inn?’ -</p> - -<p> -The great bonnet on Miss Mowcher’s head, and the greater bonnet on the -wall, began to go backwards and forwards again when she asked this question. -</p> - -<p> -I remembered very well what she referred to, having had it in my thoughts many -times that day. I told her so. -</p> - -<p> -‘May the Father of all Evil confound him,’ said the little woman, -holding up her forefinger between me and her sparkling eyes, ‘and ten -times more confound that wicked servant; but I believed it was YOU who had a -boyish passion for her!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I?’ I repeated. -</p> - -<p> -‘Child, child! In the name of blind ill-fortune,’ cried Miss -Mowcher, wringing her hands impatiently, as she went to and fro again upon the -fender, ‘why did you praise her so, and blush, and look disturbed?’ -</p> - -<p> -I could not conceal from myself that I had done this, though for a reason very -different from her supposition. -</p> - -<p> -‘What did I know?’ said Miss Mowcher, taking out her handkerchief -again, and giving one little stamp on the ground whenever, at short intervals, -she applied it to her eyes with both hands at once. ‘He was crossing you -and wheedling you, I saw; and you were soft wax in his hands, I saw. Had I left -the room a minute, when his man told me that “Young Innocence” (so -he called you, and you may call him “Old Guilt” all the days of -your life) had set his heart upon her, and she was giddy and liked him, but his -master was resolved that no harm should come of it—more for your sake -than for hers—and that that was their business here? How could I BUT -believe him? I saw Steerforth soothe and please you by his praise of her! You -were the first to mention her name. You owned to an old admiration of her. You -were hot and cold, and red and white, all at once when I spoke to you of her. -What could I think—what DID I think—but that you were a young -libertine in everything but experience, and had fallen into hands that had -experience enough, and could manage you (having the fancy) for your own good? -Oh! oh! oh! They were afraid of my finding out the truth,’ exclaimed Miss -Mowcher, getting off the fender, and trotting up and down the kitchen with her -two short arms distressfully lifted up, ‘because I am a sharp little -thing—I need be, to get through the world at all!—and they deceived -me altogether, and I gave the poor unfortunate girl a letter, which I fully -believe was the beginning of her ever speaking to Littimer, who was left behind -on purpose!’ -</p> - -<p> -I stood amazed at the revelation of all this perfidy, looking at Miss Mowcher -as she walked up and down the kitchen until she was out of breath: when she sat -upon the fender again, and, drying her face with her handkerchief, shook her -head for a long time, without otherwise moving, and without breaking silence. -</p> - -<p> -‘My country rounds,’ she added at length, ‘brought me to -Norwich, Mr. Copperfield, the night before last. What I happened to find there, -about their secret way of coming and going, without you—which was -strange—led to my suspecting something wrong. I got into the coach from -London last night, as it came through Norwich, and was here this morning. Oh, -oh, oh! too late!’ -</p> - -<p> -Poor little Mowcher turned so chilly after all her crying and fretting, that -she turned round on the fender, putting her poor little wet feet in among the -ashes to warm them, and sat looking at the fire, like a large doll. I sat in a -chair on the other side of the hearth, lost in unhappy reflections, and looking -at the fire too, and sometimes at her. -</p> - -<p> -‘I must go,’ she said at last, rising as she spoke. -‘It’s late. You don’t mistrust me?’ -</p> - -<p> -Meeting her sharp glance, which was as sharp as ever when she asked me, I could -not on that short challenge answer no, quite frankly. -</p> - -<p> -‘Come!’ said she, accepting the offer of my hand to help her over -the fender, and looking wistfully up into my face, ‘you know you -wouldn’t mistrust me, if I was a full-sized woman!’ -</p> - -<p> -I felt that there was much truth in this; and I felt rather ashamed of myself. -</p> - -<p> -‘You are a young man,’ she said, nodding. ‘Take a word of -advice, even from three foot nothing. Try not to associate bodily defects with -mental, my good friend, except for a solid reason.’ -</p> - -<p> -She had got over the fender now, and I had got over my suspicion. I told her -that I believed she had given me a faithful account of herself, and that we had -both been hapless instruments in designing hands. She thanked me, and said I -was a good fellow. -</p> - -<p> -‘Now, mind!’ she exclaimed, turning back on her way to the door, -and looking shrewdly at me, with her forefinger up again.—‘I have -some reason to suspect, from what I have heard—my ears are always open; I -can’t afford to spare what powers I have—that they are gone abroad. -But if ever they return, if ever any one of them returns, while I am alive, I -am more likely than another, going about as I do, to find it out soon. Whatever -I know, you shall know. If ever I can do anything to serve the poor betrayed -girl, I will do it faithfully, please Heaven! And Littimer had better have a -bloodhound at his back, than little Mowcher!’ -</p> - -<p> -I placed implicit faith in this last statement, when I marked the look with -which it was accompanied. -</p> - -<p> -‘Trust me no more, but trust me no less, than you would trust a -full-sized woman,’ said the little creature, touching me appealingly on -the wrist. ‘If ever you see me again, unlike what I am now, and like what -I was when you first saw me, observe what company I am in. Call to mind that I -am a very helpless and defenceless little thing. Think of me at home with my -brother like myself and sister like myself, when my day’s work is done. -Perhaps you won’t, then, be very hard upon me, or surprised if I can be -distressed and serious. Good night!’ -</p> - -<p> -I gave Miss Mowcher my hand, with a very different opinion of her from that -which I had hitherto entertained, and opened the door to let her out. It was -not a trifling business to get the great umbrella up, and properly balanced in -her grasp; but at last I successfully accomplished this, and saw it go bobbing -down the street through the rain, without the least appearance of having -anybody underneath it, except when a heavier fall than usual from some -over-charged water-spout sent it toppling over, on one side, and discovered -Miss Mowcher struggling violently to get it right. After making one or two -sallies to her relief, which were rendered futile by the umbrella’s -hopping on again, like an immense bird, before I could reach it, I came in, -went to bed, and slept till morning. -</p> - -<p> -In the morning I was joined by Mr. Peggotty and by my old nurse, and we went at -an early hour to the coach office, where Mrs. Gummidge and Ham were waiting to -take leave of us. -</p> - -<p> -‘Mas’r Davy,’ Ham whispered, drawing me aside, while Mr. -Peggotty was stowing his bag among the luggage, ‘his life is quite broke -up. He doen’t know wheer he’s going; he doen’t -know—what’s afore him; he’s bound upon a voyage that’ll -last, on and off, all the rest of his days, take my wured for ‘t, unless -he finds what he’s a seeking of. I am sure you’ll be a friend to -him, Mas’r Davy?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Trust me, I will indeed,’ said I, shaking hands with Ham -earnestly. -</p> - -<p> -‘Thankee. Thankee, very kind, sir. One thing furder. I’m in good -employ, you know, Mas’r Davy, and I han’t no way now of spending -what I gets. Money’s of no use to me no more, except to live. If you can -lay it out for him, I shall do my work with a better art. Though as to that, -sir,’ and he spoke very steadily and mildly, ‘you’re not to -think but I shall work at all times, like a man, and act the best that lays in -my power!’ -</p> - -<p> -I told him I was well convinced of it; and I hinted that I hoped the time might -even come, when he would cease to lead the lonely life he naturally -contemplated now. -</p> - -<p> -‘No, sir,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘all that’s past -and over with me, sir. No one can never fill the place that’s empty. But -you’ll bear in mind about the money, as theer’s at all times some -laying by for him?’ -</p> - -<p> -Reminding him of the fact, that Mr. Peggotty derived a steady, though certainly -a very moderate income from the bequest of his late brother-in-law, I promised -to do so. We then took leave of each other. I cannot leave him even now, -without remembering with a pang, at once his modest fortitude and his great -sorrow. -</p> - -<p> -As to Mrs. Gummidge, if I were to endeavour to describe how she ran down the -street by the side of the coach, seeing nothing but Mr. Peggotty on the roof, -through the tears she tried to repress, and dashing herself against the people -who were coming in the opposite direction, I should enter on a task of some -difficulty. Therefore I had better leave her sitting on a baker’s -door-step, out of breath, with no shape at all remaining in her bonnet, and one -of her shoes off, lying on the pavement at a considerable distance. -</p> - -<p> -When we got to our journey’s end, our first pursuit was to look about for -a little lodging for Peggotty, where her brother could have a bed. We were so -fortunate as to find one, of a very clean and cheap description, over a -chandler’s shop, only two streets removed from me. When we had engaged -this domicile, I bought some cold meat at an eating-house, and took my -fellow-travellers home to tea; a proceeding, I regret to state, which did not -meet with Mrs. Crupp’s approval, but quite the contrary. I ought to -observe, however, in explanation of that lady’s state of mind, that she -was much offended by Peggotty’s tucking up her widow’s gown before -she had been ten minutes in the place, and setting to work to dust my bedroom. -This Mrs. Crupp regarded in the light of a liberty, and a liberty, she said, -was a thing she never allowed. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Peggotty had made a communication to me on the way to London for which I -was not unprepared. It was, that he purposed first seeing Mrs. Steerforth. As I -felt bound to assist him in this, and also to mediate between them; with the -view of sparing the mother’s feelings as much as possible, I wrote to her -that night. I told her as mildly as I could what his wrong was, and what my own -share in his injury. I said he was a man in very common life, but of a most -gentle and upright character; and that I ventured to express a hope that she -would not refuse to see him in his heavy trouble. I mentioned two o’clock -in the afternoon as the hour of our coming, and I sent the letter myself by the -first coach in the morning. -</p> - -<p> -At the appointed time, we stood at the door—the door of that house where -I had been, a few days since, so happy: where my youthful confidence and warmth -of heart had been yielded up so freely: which was closed against me henceforth: -which was now a waste, a ruin. -</p> - -<p> -No Littimer appeared. The pleasanter face which had replaced his, on the -occasion of my last visit, answered to our summons, and went before us to the -drawing-room. Mrs. Steerforth was sitting there. Rosa Dartle glided, as we went -in, from another part of the room and stood behind her chair. -</p> - -<p> -I saw, directly, in his mother’s face, that she knew from himself what he -had done. It was very pale; and bore the traces of deeper emotion than my -letter alone, weakened by the doubts her fondness would have raised upon it, -would have been likely to create. I thought her more like him than ever I had -thought her; and I felt, rather than saw, that the resemblance was not lost on -my companion. -</p> - -<p> -She sat upright in her arm-chair, with a stately, immovable, passionless air, -that it seemed as if nothing could disturb. She looked very steadfastly at Mr. -Peggotty when he stood before her; and he looked quite as steadfastly at her. -Rosa Dartle’s keen glance comprehended all of us. For some moments not a -word was spoken. -</p> - -<p> -She motioned to Mr. Peggotty to be seated. He said, in a low voice, ‘I -shouldn’t feel it nat’ral, ma’am, to sit down in this house. -I’d sooner stand.’ And this was succeeded by another silence, which -she broke thus: -</p> - -<p> -‘I know, with deep regret, what has brought you here. What do you want of -me? What do you ask me to do?’ -</p> - -<p> -He put his hat under his arm, and feeling in his breast for Emily’s -letter, took it out, unfolded it, and gave it to her. ‘Please to read -that, ma’am. That’s my niece’s hand!’ -</p> - -<p> -She read it, in the same stately and impassive way,—untouched by its -contents, as far as I could see,—and returned it to him. -</p> - -<p> -‘“Unless he brings me back a lady,”’ said Mr. Peggotty, -tracing out that part with his finger. ‘I come to know, ma’am, -whether he will keep his wured?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No,’ she returned. -</p> - -<p> -‘Why not?’ said Mr. Peggotty. -</p> - -<p> -‘It is impossible. He would disgrace himself. You cannot fail to know -that she is far below him.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Raise her up!’ said Mr. Peggotty. -</p> - -<p> -‘She is uneducated and ignorant.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Maybe she’s not; maybe she is,’ said Mr. Peggotty. ‘I -think not, ma’am; but I’m no judge of them things. Teach her -better!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Since you oblige me to speak more plainly, which I am very unwilling to -do, her humble connexions would render such a thing impossible, if nothing else -did.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Hark to this, ma’am,’ he returned, slowly and quietly. -‘You know what it is to love your child. So do I. If she was a hundred -times my child, I couldn’t love her more. You doen’t know what it -is to lose your child. I do. All the heaps of riches in the wureld would be -nowt to me (if they was mine) to buy her back! But, save her from this -disgrace, and she shall never be disgraced by us. Not one of us that -she’s growed up among, not one of us that’s lived along with her -and had her for their all in all, these many year, will ever look upon her -pritty face again. We’ll be content to let her be; we’ll be content -to think of her, far off, as if she was underneath another sun and sky; -we’ll be content to trust her to her husband,—to her little -children, p’raps,—and bide the time when all of us shall be alike -in quality afore our God!’ -</p> - -<p> -The rugged eloquence with which he spoke, was not devoid of all effect. She -still preserved her proud manner, but there was a touch of softness in her -voice, as she answered: -</p> - -<p> -‘I justify nothing. I make no counter-accusations. But I am sorry to -repeat, it is impossible. Such a marriage would irretrievably blight my -son’s career, and ruin his prospects. Nothing is more certain than that -it never can take place, and never will. If there is any other -compensation—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I am looking at the likeness of the face,’ interrupted Mr. -Peggotty, with a steady but a kindling eye, ‘that has looked at me, in my -home, at my fireside, in my boat—wheer not?—-smiling and friendly, -when it was so treacherous, that I go half wild when I think of it. If the -likeness of that face don’t turn to burning fire, at the thought of -offering money to me for my child’s blight and ruin, it’s as bad. I -doen’t know, being a lady’s, but what it’s worse.’ -</p> - -<p> -She changed now, in a moment. An angry flush overspread her features; and she -said, in an intolerant manner, grasping the arm-chair tightly with her hands: -</p> - -<p> -‘What compensation can you make to ME for opening such a pit between me -and my son? What is your love to mine? What is your separation to ours?’ -</p> - -<p> -Miss Dartle softly touched her, and bent down her head to whisper, but she -would not hear a word. -</p> - -<p> -‘No, Rosa, not a word! Let the man listen to what I say! My son, who has -been the object of my life, to whom its every thought has been devoted, whom I -have gratified from a child in every wish, from whom I have had no separate -existence since his birth,—to take up in a moment with a miserable girl, -and avoid me! To repay my confidence with systematic deception, for her sake, -and quit me for her! To set this wretched fancy, against his mother’s -claims upon his duty, love, respect, gratitude—claims that every day and -hour of his life should have strengthened into ties that nothing could be proof -against! Is this no injury?’ -</p> - -<p> -Again Rosa Dartle tried to soothe her; again ineffectually. -</p> - -<p> -‘I say, Rosa, not a word! If he can stake his all upon the lightest -object, I can stake my all upon a greater purpose. Let him go where he will, -with the means that my love has secured to him! Does he think to reduce me by -long absence? He knows his mother very little if he does. Let him put away his -whim now, and he is welcome back. Let him not put her away now, and he never -shall come near me, living or dying, while I can raise my hand to make a sign -against it, unless, being rid of her for ever, he comes humbly to me and begs -for my forgiveness. This is my right. This is the acknowledgement I WILL HAVE. -This is the separation that there is between us! And is this,’ she added, -looking at her visitor with the proud intolerant air with which she had begun, -‘no injury?’ -</p> - -<p> -While I heard and saw the mother as she said these words, I seemed to hear and -see the son, defying them. All that I had ever seen in him of an unyielding, -wilful spirit, I saw in her. All the understanding that I had now of his -misdirected energy, became an understanding of her character too, and a -perception that it was, in its strongest springs, the same. -</p> - -<p> -She now observed to me, aloud, resuming her former restraint, that it was -useless to hear more, or to say more, and that she begged to put an end to the -interview. She rose with an air of dignity to leave the room, when Mr. Peggotty -signified that it was needless. -</p> - -<p> -‘Doen’t fear me being any hindrance to you, I have no more to say, -ma’am,’ he remarked, as he moved towards the door. ‘I come -heer with no hope, and I take away no hope. I have done what I thowt should be -done, but I never looked fur any good to come of my stan’ning where I do. -This has been too evil a house fur me and mine, fur me to be in my right senses -and expect it.’ -</p> - -<p> -With this, we departed; leaving her standing by her elbow-chair, a picture of a -noble presence and a handsome face. -</p> - -<p> -We had, on our way out, to cross a paved hall, with glass sides and roof, over -which a vine was trained. Its leaves and shoots were green then, and the day -being sunny, a pair of glass doors leading to the garden were thrown open. Rosa -Dartle, entering this way with a noiseless step, when we were close to them, -addressed herself to me: -</p> - -<p> -‘You do well,’ she said, ‘indeed, to bring this fellow -here!’ -</p> - -<p> -Such a concentration of rage and scorn as darkened her face, and flashed in her -jet-black eyes, I could not have thought compressible even into that face. The -scar made by the hammer was, as usual in this excited state of her features, -strongly marked. When the throbbing I had seen before, came into it as I looked -at her, she absolutely lifted up her hand, and struck it. -</p> - -<p> -‘This is a fellow,’ she said, ‘to champion and bring here, is -he not? You are a true man!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Miss Dartle,’ I returned, ‘you are surely not so unjust as -to condemn ME!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Why do you bring division between these two mad creatures?’ she -returned. ‘Don’t you know that they are both mad with their own -self-will and pride?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Is it my doing?’ I returned. -</p> - -<p> -‘Is it your doing!’ she retorted. ‘Why do you bring this man -here?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘He is a deeply-injured man, Miss Dartle,’ I replied. ‘You -may not know it.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I know that James Steerforth,’ she said, with her hand on her -bosom, as if to prevent the storm that was raging there, from being loud, -‘has a false, corrupt heart, and is a traitor. But what need I know or -care about this fellow, and his common niece?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Miss Dartle,’ I returned, ‘you deepen the injury. It is -sufficient already. I will only say, at parting, that you do him a great -wrong.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I do him no wrong,’ she returned. ‘They are a depraved, -worthless set. I would have her whipped!’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Peggotty passed on, without a word, and went out at the door. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, shame, Miss Dartle! shame!’ I said indignantly. ‘How can -you bear to trample on his undeserved affliction!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I would trample on them all,’ she answered. ‘I would have -his house pulled down. I would have her branded on the face, dressed in rags, -and cast out in the streets to starve. If I had the power to sit in judgement -on her, I would see it done. See it done? I would do it! I detest her. If I -ever could reproach her with her infamous condition, I would go anywhere to do -so. If I could hunt her to her grave, I would. If there was any word of comfort -that would be a solace to her in her dying hour, and only I possessed it, I -wouldn’t part with it for Life itself.’ -</p> - -<p> -The mere vehemence of her words can convey, I am sensible, but a weak -impression of the passion by which she was possessed, and which made itself -articulate in her whole figure, though her voice, instead of being raised, was -lower than usual. No description I could give of her would do justice to my -recollection of her, or to her entire deliverance of herself to her anger. I -have seen passion in many forms, but I have never seen it in such a form as -that. -</p> - -<p> -When I joined Mr. Peggotty, he was walking slowly and thoughtfully down the -hill. He told me, as soon as I came up with him, that having now discharged his -mind of what he had purposed doing in London, he meant ‘to set out on his -travels’, that night. I asked him where he meant to go? He only answered, -‘I’m a going, sir, to seek my niece.’ -</p> - -<p> -We went back to the little lodging over the chandler’s shop, and there I -found an opportunity of repeating to Peggotty what he had said to me. She -informed me, in return, that he had said the same to her that morning. She knew -no more than I did, where he was going, but she thought he had some project -shaped out in his mind. -</p> - -<p> -I did not like to leave him, under such circumstances, and we all three dined -together off a beefsteak pie—which was one of the many good things for -which Peggotty was famous—and which was curiously flavoured on this -occasion, I recollect well, by a miscellaneous taste of tea, coffee, butter, -bacon, cheese, new loaves, firewood, candles, and walnut ketchup, continually -ascending from the shop. After dinner we sat for an hour or so near the window, -without talking much; and then Mr. Peggotty got up, and brought his oilskin bag -and his stout stick, and laid them on the table. -</p> - -<p> -He accepted, from his sister’s stock of ready money, a small sum on -account of his legacy; barely enough, I should have thought, to keep him for a -month. He promised to communicate with me, when anything befell him; and he -slung his bag about him, took his hat and stick, and bade us both -‘Good-bye!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘All good attend you, dear old woman,’ he said, embracing Peggotty, -‘and you too, Mas’r Davy!’ shaking hands with me. -‘I’m a-going to seek her, fur and wide. If she should come home -while I’m away—but ah, that ain’t like to be!—or if I -should bring her back, my meaning is, that she and me shall live and die where -no one can’t reproach her. If any hurt should come to me, remember that -the last words I left for her was, “My unchanged love is with my darling -child, and I forgive her!”’ -</p> - -<p> -He said this solemnly, bare-headed; then, putting on his hat, he went down the -stairs, and away. We followed to the door. It was a warm, dusty evening, just -the time when, in the great main thoroughfare out of which that by-way turned, -there was a temporary lull in the eternal tread of feet upon the pavement, and -a strong red sunshine. He turned, alone, at the corner of our shady street, -into a glow of light, in which we lost him. -</p> - -<p> -Rarely did that hour of the evening come, rarely did I wake at night, rarely -did I look up at the moon, or stars, or watch the falling rain, or hear the -wind, but I thought of his solitary figure toiling on, poor pilgrim, and -recalled the words: -</p> - -<p> -‘I’m a going to seek her, fur and wide. If any hurt should come to -me, remember that the last words I left for her was, “My unchanged love -is with my darling child, and I forgive her!”’ -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0033"></a>CHAPTER 33. BLISSFUL</h2> - -<p> -All this time, I had gone on loving Dora, harder than ever. Her idea was my -refuge in disappointment and distress, and made some amends to me, even for the -loss of my friend. The more I pitied myself, or pitied others, the more I -sought for consolation in the image of Dora. The greater the accumulation of -deceit and trouble in the world, the brighter and the purer shone the star of -Dora high above the world. I don’t think I had any definite idea where -Dora came from, or in what degree she was related to a higher order of beings; -but I am quite sure I should have scouted the notion of her being simply human, -like any other young lady, with indignation and contempt. -</p> - -<p> -If I may so express it, I was steeped in Dora. I was not merely over head and -ears in love with her, but I was saturated through and through. Enough love -might have been wrung out of me, metaphorically speaking, to drown anybody in; -and yet there would have remained enough within me, and all over me, to pervade -my entire existence. -</p> - -<p> -The first thing I did, on my own account, when I came back, was to take a -night-walk to Norwood, and, like the subject of a venerable riddle of my -childhood, to go ‘round and round the house, without ever touching the -house’, thinking about Dora. I believe the theme of this incomprehensible -conundrum was the moon. No matter what it was, I, the moon-struck slave of -Dora, perambulated round and round the house and garden for two hours, looking -through crevices in the palings, getting my chin by dint of violent exertion -above the rusty nails on the top, blowing kisses at the lights in the windows, -and romantically calling on the night, at intervals, to shield my Dora—I -don’t exactly know what from, I suppose from fire. Perhaps from mice, to -which she had a great objection. -</p> - -<p> -My love was so much in my mind and it was so natural to me to confide in -Peggotty, when I found her again by my side of an evening with the old set of -industrial implements, busily making the tour of my wardrobe, that I imparted -to her, in a sufficiently roundabout way, my great secret. Peggotty was -strongly interested, but I could not get her into my view of the case at all. -She was audaciously prejudiced in my favour, and quite unable to understand why -I should have any misgivings, or be low-spirited about it. ‘The young -lady might think herself well off,’ she observed, ‘to have such a -beau. And as to her Pa,’ she said, ‘what did the gentleman expect, -for gracious sake!’ -</p> - -<p> -I observed, however, that Mr. Spenlow’s proctorial gown and stiff cravat -took Peggotty down a little, and inspired her with a greater reverence for the -man who was gradually becoming more and more etherealized in my eyes every day, -and about whom a reflected radiance seemed to me to beam when he sat erect in -Court among his papers, like a little lighthouse in a sea of stationery. And by -the by, it used to be uncommonly strange to me to consider, I remember, as I -sat in Court too, how those dim old judges and doctors wouldn’t have -cared for Dora, if they had known her; how they wouldn’t have gone out of -their senses with rapture, if marriage with Dora had been proposed to them; how -Dora might have sung, and played upon that glorified guitar, until she led me -to the verge of madness, yet not have tempted one of those slow-goers an inch -out of his road! -</p> - -<p> -I despised them, to a man. Frozen-out old gardeners in the flower-beds of the -heart, I took a personal offence against them all. The Bench was nothing to me -but an insensible blunderer. The Bar had no more tenderness or poetry in it, -than the bar of a public-house. -</p> - -<p> -Taking the management of Peggotty’s affairs into my own hands, with no -little pride, I proved the will, and came to a settlement with the Legacy -Duty-office, and took her to the Bank, and soon got everything into an orderly -train. We varied the legal character of these proceedings by going to see some -perspiring Wax-work, in Fleet Street (melted, I should hope, these twenty -years); and by visiting Miss Linwood’s Exhibition, which I remember as a -Mausoleum of needlework, favourable to self-examination and repentance; and by -inspecting the Tower of London; and going to the top of St. Paul’s. All -these wonders afforded Peggotty as much pleasure as she was able to enjoy, -under existing circumstances: except, I think, St. Paul’s, which, from -her long attachment to her work-box, became a rival of the picture on the lid, -and was, in some particulars, vanquished, she considered, by that work of art. -</p> - -<p> -Peggotty’s business, which was what we used to call ‘common-form -business’ in the Commons (and very light and lucrative the common-form -business was), being settled, I took her down to the office one morning to pay -her bill. Mr. Spenlow had stepped out, old Tiffey said, to get a gentleman -sworn for a marriage licence; but as I knew he would be back directly, our -place lying close to the Surrogate’s, and to the Vicar-General’s -office too, I told Peggotty to wait. -</p> - -<p> -We were a little like undertakers, in the Commons, as regarded Probate -transactions; generally making it a rule to look more or less cut up, when we -had to deal with clients in mourning. In a similar feeling of delicacy, we were -always blithe and light-hearted with the licence clients. Therefore I hinted to -Peggotty that she would find Mr. Spenlow much recovered from the shock of Mr. -Barkis’s decease; and indeed he came in like a bridegroom. -</p> - -<p> -But neither Peggotty nor I had eyes for him, when we saw, in company with him, -Mr. Murdstone. He was very little changed. His hair looked as thick, and was -certainly as black, as ever; and his glance was as little to be trusted as of -old. -</p> - -<p> -‘Ah, Copperfield?’ said Mr. Spenlow. ‘You know this -gentleman, I believe?’ -</p> - -<p> -I made my gentleman a distant bow, and Peggotty barely recognized him. He was, -at first, somewhat disconcerted to meet us two together; but quickly decided -what to do, and came up to me. -</p> - -<p> -‘I hope,’ he said, ‘that you are doing well?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘It can hardly be interesting to you,’ said I. ‘Yes, if you -wish to know.’ -</p> - -<p> -We looked at each other, and he addressed himself to Peggotty. -</p> - -<p> -‘And you,’ said he. ‘I am sorry to observe that you have lost -your husband.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘It’s not the first loss I have had in my life, Mr. -Murdstone,’ replied Peggotty, trembling from head to foot. ‘I am -glad to hope that there is nobody to blame for this one,—nobody to answer -for it.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Ha!’ said he; ‘that’s a comfortable reflection. You -have done your duty?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I have not worn anybody’s life away,’ said Peggotty, -‘I am thankful to think! No, Mr. Murdstone, I have not worrited and -frightened any sweet creetur to an early grave!’ -</p> - -<p> -He eyed her gloomily—remorsefully I thought—for an instant; and -said, turning his head towards me, but looking at my feet instead of my face: -</p> - -<p> -‘We are not likely to encounter soon again;—a source of -satisfaction to us both, no doubt, for such meetings as this can never be -agreeable. I do not expect that you, who always rebelled against my just -authority, exerted for your benefit and reformation, should owe me any -good-will now. There is an antipathy between us—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘An old one, I believe?’ said I, interrupting him. -</p> - -<p> -He smiled, and shot as evil a glance at me as could come from his dark eyes. -</p> - -<p> -‘It rankled in your baby breast,’ he said. ‘It embittered the -life of your poor mother. You are right. I hope you may do better, yet; I hope -you may correct yourself.’ -</p> - -<p> -Here he ended the dialogue, which had been carried on in a low voice, in a -corner of the outer office, by passing into Mr. Spenlow’s room, and -saying aloud, in his smoothest manner: -</p> - -<p> -‘Gentlemen of Mr. Spenlow’s profession are accustomed to family -differences, and know how complicated and difficult they always are!’ -With that, he paid the money for his licence; and, receiving it neatly folded -from Mr. Spenlow, together with a shake of the hand, and a polite wish for his -happiness and the lady’s, went out of the office. -</p> - -<p> -I might have had more difficulty in constraining myself to be silent under his -words, if I had had less difficulty in impressing upon Peggotty (who was only -angry on my account, good creature!) that we were not in a place for -recrimination, and that I besought her to hold her peace. She was so unusually -roused, that I was glad to compound for an affectionate hug, elicited by this -revival in her mind of our old injuries, and to make the best I could of it, -before Mr. Spenlow and the clerks. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Spenlow did not appear to know what the connexion between Mr. Murdstone and -myself was; which I was glad of, for I could not bear to acknowledge him, even -in my own breast, remembering what I did of the history of my poor mother. Mr. -Spenlow seemed to think, if he thought anything about the matter, that my aunt -was the leader of the state party in our family, and that there was a rebel -party commanded by somebody else—so I gathered at least from what he -said, while we were waiting for Mr. Tiffey to make out Peggotty’s bill of -costs. -</p> - -<p> -‘Miss Trotwood,’ he remarked, ‘is very firm, no doubt, and -not likely to give way to opposition. I have an admiration for her character, -and I may congratulate you, Copperfield, on being on the right side. -Differences between relations are much to be deplored—but they are -extremely general—and the great thing is, to be on the right side’: -meaning, I take it, on the side of the moneyed interest. -</p> - -<p> -‘Rather a good marriage this, I believe?’ said Mr. Spenlow. -</p> - -<p> -I explained that I knew nothing about it. -</p> - -<p> -‘Indeed!’ he said. ‘Speaking from the few words Mr. Murdstone -dropped—as a man frequently does on these occasions—and from what -Miss Murdstone let fall, I should say it was rather a good marriage.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Do you mean that there is money, sir?’ I asked. -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes,’ said Mr. Spenlow, ‘I understand there’s money. -Beauty too, I am told.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Indeed! Is his new wife young?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Just of age,’ said Mr. Spenlow. ‘So lately, that I should -think they had been waiting for that.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Lord deliver her!’ said Peggotty. So very emphatically and -unexpectedly, that we were all three discomposed; until Tiffey came in with the -bill. -</p> - -<p> -Old Tiffey soon appeared, however, and handed it to Mr. Spenlow, to look over. -Mr. Spenlow, settling his chin in his cravat and rubbing it softly, went over -the items with a deprecatory air—as if it were all Jorkins’s -doing—and handed it back to Tiffey with a bland sigh. -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That’s right. Quite right. I should -have been extremely happy, Copperfield, to have limited these charges to the -actual expenditure out of pocket, but it is an irksome incident in my -professional life, that I am not at liberty to consult my own wishes. I have a -partner—Mr. Jorkins.’ -</p> - -<p> -As he said this with a gentle melancholy, which was the next thing to making no -charge at all, I expressed my acknowledgements on Peggotty’s behalf, and -paid Tiffey in banknotes. Peggotty then retired to her lodging, and Mr. Spenlow -and I went into Court, where we had a divorce-suit coming on, under an -ingenious little statute (repealed now, I believe, but in virtue of which I -have seen several marriages annulled), of which the merits were these. The -husband, whose name was Thomas Benjamin, had taken out his marriage licence as -Thomas only; suppressing the Benjamin, in case he should not find himself as -comfortable as he expected. NOT finding himself as comfortable as he expected, -or being a little fatigued with his wife, poor fellow, he now came forward, by -a friend, after being married a year or two, and declared that his name was -Thomas Benjamin, and therefore he was not married at all. Which the Court -confirmed, to his great satisfaction. -</p> - -<p> -I must say that I had my doubts about the strict justice of this, and was not -even frightened out of them by the bushel of wheat which reconciles all -anomalies. But Mr. Spenlow argued the matter with me. He said, Look at the -world, there was good and evil in that; look at the ecclesiastical law, there -was good and evil in THAT. It was all part of a system. Very good. There you -were! -</p> - -<p> -I had not the hardihood to suggest to Dora’s father that possibly we -might even improve the world a little, if we got up early in the morning, and -took off our coats to the work; but I confessed that I thought we might improve -the Commons. Mr. Spenlow replied that he would particularly advise me to -dismiss that idea from my mind, as not being worthy of my gentlemanly -character; but that he would be glad to hear from me of what improvement I -thought the Commons susceptible? -</p> - -<p> -Taking that part of the Commons which happened to be nearest to us—for -our man was unmarried by this time, and we were out of Court, and strolling -past the Prerogative Office—I submitted that I thought the Prerogative -Office rather a queerly managed institution. Mr. Spenlow inquired in what -respect? I replied, with all due deference to his experience (but with more -deference, I am afraid, to his being Dora’s father), that perhaps it was -a little nonsensical that the Registry of that Court, containing the original -wills of all persons leaving effects within the immense province of Canterbury, -for three whole centuries, should be an accidental building, never designed for -the purpose, leased by the registrars for their Own private emolument, unsafe, -not even ascertained to be fire-proof, choked with the important documents it -held, and positively, from the roof to the basement, a mercenary speculation of -the registrars, who took great fees from the public, and crammed the -public’s wills away anyhow and anywhere, having no other object than to -get rid of them cheaply. That, perhaps, it was a little unreasonable that these -registrars in the receipt of profits amounting to eight or nine thousand pounds -a year (to say nothing of the profits of the deputy registrars, and clerks of -seats), should not be obliged to spend a little of that money, in finding a -reasonably safe place for the important documents which all classes of people -were compelled to hand over to them, whether they would or no. That, perhaps, -it was a little unjust, that all the great offices in this great office should -be magnificent sinecures, while the unfortunate working-clerks in the cold dark -room upstairs were the worst rewarded, and the least considered men, doing -important services, in London. That perhaps it was a little indecent that the -principal registrar of all, whose duty it was to find the public, constantly -resorting to this place, all needful accommodation, should be an enormous -sinecurist in virtue of that post (and might be, besides, a clergyman, a -pluralist, the holder of a staff in a cathedral, and what not),—while the -public was put to the inconvenience of which we had a specimen every afternoon -when the office was busy, and which we knew to be quite monstrous. That, -perhaps, in short, this Prerogative Office of the diocese of Canterbury was -altogether such a pestilent job, and such a pernicious absurdity, that but for -its being squeezed away in a corner of St. Paul’s Churchyard, which few -people knew, it must have been turned completely inside out, and upside down, -long ago. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Spenlow smiled as I became modestly warm on the subject, and then argued -this question with me as he had argued the other. He said, what was it after -all? It was a question of feeling. If the public felt that their wills were in -safe keeping, and took it for granted that the office was not to be made -better, who was the worse for it? Nobody. Who was the better for it? All the -Sinecurists. Very well. Then the good predominated. It might not be a perfect -system; nothing was perfect; but what he objected to, was, the insertion of the -wedge. Under the Prerogative Office, the country had been glorious. Insert the -wedge into the Prerogative Office, and the country would cease to be glorious. -He considered it the principle of a gentleman to take things as he found them; -and he had no doubt the Prerogative Office would last our time. I deferred to -his opinion, though I had great doubts of it myself. I find he was right, -however; for it has not only lasted to the present moment, but has done so in -the teeth of a great parliamentary report made (not too willingly) eighteen -years ago, when all these objections of mine were set forth in detail, and when -the existing stowage for wills was described as equal to the accumulation of -only two years and a half more. What they have done with them since; whether -they have lost many, or whether they sell any, now and then, to the butter -shops; I don’t know. I am glad mine is not there, and I hope it may not -go there, yet awhile. -</p> - -<p> -I have set all this down, in my present blissful chapter, because here it comes -into its natural place. Mr. Spenlow and I falling into this conversation, -prolonged it and our saunter to and fro, until we diverged into general topics. -And so it came about, in the end, that Mr. Spenlow told me this day week was -Dora’s birthday, and he would be glad if I would come down and join a -little picnic on the occasion. I went out of my senses immediately; became a -mere driveller next day, on receipt of a little lace-edged sheet of note-paper, -‘Favoured by papa. To remind’; and passed the intervening period in -a state of dotage. -</p> - -<p> -I think I committed every possible absurdity in the way of preparation for this -blessed event. I turn hot when I remember the cravat I bought. My boots might -be placed in any collection of instruments of torture. I provided, and sent -down by the Norwood coach the night before, a delicate little hamper, amounting -in itself, I thought, almost to a declaration. There were crackers in it with -the tenderest mottoes that could be got for money. At six in the morning, I was -in Covent Garden Market, buying a bouquet for Dora. At ten I was on horseback -(I hired a gallant grey, for the occasion), with the bouquet in my hat, to keep -it fresh, trotting down to Norwood. -</p> - -<p> -I suppose that when I saw Dora in the garden and pretended not to see her, and -rode past the house pretending to be anxiously looking for it, I committed two -small fooleries which other young gentlemen in my circumstances might have -committed—because they came so very natural to me. But oh! when I DID -find the house, and DID dismount at the garden-gate, and drag those -stony-hearted boots across the lawn to Dora sitting on a garden-seat under a -lilac tree, what a spectacle she was, upon that beautiful morning, among the -butterflies, in a white chip bonnet and a dress of celestial blue! There was a -young lady with her—comparatively stricken in years—almost twenty, -I should say. Her name was Miss Mills. And Dora called her Julia. She was the -bosom friend of Dora. Happy Miss Mills! -</p> - -<p> -Jip was there, and Jip WOULD bark at me again. When I presented my bouquet, he -gnashed his teeth with jealousy. Well he might. If he had the least idea how I -adored his mistress, well he might! -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, thank you, Mr. Copperfield! What dear flowers!’ said Dora. -</p> - -<p> -I had had an intention of saying (and had been studying the best form of words -for three miles) that I thought them beautiful before I saw them so near HER. -But I couldn’t manage it. She was too bewildering. To see her lay the -flowers against her little dimpled chin, was to lose all presence of mind and -power of language in a feeble ecstasy. I wonder I didn’t say, ‘Kill -me, if you have a heart, Miss Mills. Let me die here!’ -</p> - -<p> -Then Dora held my flowers to Jip to smell. Then Jip growled, and wouldn’t -smell them. Then Dora laughed, and held them a little closer to Jip, to make -him. Then Jip laid hold of a bit of geranium with his teeth, and worried -imaginary cats in it. Then Dora beat him, and pouted, and said, ‘My poor -beautiful flowers!’ as compassionately, I thought, as if Jip had laid -hold of me. I wished he had! -</p> - -<p> -‘You’ll be so glad to hear, Mr. Copperfield,’ said Dora, -‘that that cross Miss Murdstone is not here. She has gone to her -brother’s marriage, and will be away at least three weeks. Isn’t -that delightful?’ -</p> - -<p> -I said I was sure it must be delightful to her, and all that was delightful to -her was delightful to me. Miss Mills, with an air of superior wisdom and -benevolence, smiled upon us. -</p> - -<p> -‘She is the most disagreeable thing I ever saw,’ said Dora. -‘You can’t believe how ill-tempered and shocking she is, -Julia.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes, I can, my dear!’ said Julia. -</p> - -<p> -‘YOU can, perhaps, love,’ returned Dora, with her hand on -Julia’s. ‘Forgive my not excepting you, my dear, at first.’ -</p> - -<p> -I learnt, from this, that Miss Mills had had her trials in the course of a -chequered existence; and that to these, perhaps, I might refer that wise -benignity of manner which I had already noticed. I found, in the course of the -day, that this was the case: Miss Mills having been unhappy in a misplaced -affection, and being understood to have retired from the world on her awful -stock of experience, but still to take a calm interest in the unblighted hopes -and loves of youth. -</p> - -<p> -But now Mr. Spenlow came out of the house, and Dora went to him, saying, -‘Look, papa, what beautiful flowers!’ And Miss Mills smiled -thoughtfully, as who should say, ‘Ye Mayflies, enjoy your brief existence -in the bright morning of life!’ And we all walked from the lawn towards -the carriage, which was getting ready. -</p> - -<p> -I shall never have such a ride again. I have never had such another. There were -only those three, their hamper, my hamper, and the guitar-case, in the phaeton; -and, of course, the phaeton was open; and I rode behind it, and Dora sat with -her back to the horses, looking towards me. She kept the bouquet close to her -on the cushion, and wouldn’t allow Jip to sit on that side of her at all, -for fear he should crush it. She often carried it in her hand, often refreshed -herself with its fragrance. Our eyes at those times often met; and my great -astonishment is that I didn’t go over the head of my gallant grey into -the carriage. -</p> - -<p> -There was dust, I believe. There was a good deal of dust, I believe. I have a -faint impression that Mr. Spenlow remonstrated with me for riding in it; but I -knew of none. I was sensible of a mist of love and beauty about Dora, but of -nothing else. He stood up sometimes, and asked me what I thought of the -prospect. I said it was delightful, and I dare say it was; but it was all Dora -to me. The sun shone Dora, and the birds sang Dora. The south wind blew Dora, -and the wild flowers in the hedges were all Doras, to a bud. My comfort is, -Miss Mills understood me. Miss Mills alone could enter into my feelings -thoroughly. -</p> - -<p> -I don’t know how long we were going, and to this hour I know as little -where we went. Perhaps it was near Guildford. Perhaps some Arabian-night -magician, opened up the place for the day, and shut it up for ever when we came -away. It was a green spot, on a hill, carpeted with soft turf. There were shady -trees, and heather, and, as far as the eye could see, a rich landscape. -</p> - -<p> -It was a trying thing to find people here, waiting for us; and my jealousy, -even of the ladies, knew no bounds. But all of my own sex—especially one -impostor, three or four years my elder, with a red whisker, on which he -established an amount of presumption not to be endured—were my mortal -foes. -</p> - -<p> -We all unpacked our baskets, and employed ourselves in getting dinner ready. -Red Whisker pretended he could make a salad (which I don’t believe), and -obtruded himself on public notice. Some of the young ladies washed the lettuces -for him, and sliced them under his directions. Dora was among these. I felt -that fate had pitted me against this man, and one of us must fall. -</p> - -<p> -Red Whisker made his salad (I wondered how they could eat it. Nothing should -have induced ME to touch it!) and voted himself into the charge of the -wine-cellar, which he constructed, being an ingenious beast, in the hollow -trunk of a tree. By and by, I saw him, with the majority of a lobster on his -plate, eating his dinner at the feet of Dora! -</p> - -<p> -I have but an indistinct idea of what happened for some time after this baleful -object presented itself to my view. I was very merry, I know; but it was hollow -merriment. I attached myself to a young creature in pink, with little eyes, and -flirted with her desperately. She received my attentions with favour; but -whether on my account solely, or because she had any designs on Red Whisker, I -can’t say. Dora’s health was drunk. When I drank it, I affected to -interrupt my conversation for that purpose, and to resume it immediately -afterwards. I caught Dora’s eye as I bowed to her, and I thought it -looked appealing. But it looked at me over the head of Red Whisker, and I was -adamant. -</p> - -<p> -The young creature in pink had a mother in green; and I rather think the latter -separated us from motives of policy. Howbeit, there was a general breaking up -of the party, while the remnants of the dinner were being put away; and I -strolled off by myself among the trees, in a raging and remorseful state. I was -debating whether I should pretend that I was not well, and fly—I -don’t know where—upon my gallant grey, when Dora and Miss Mills met -me. -</p> - -<p> -‘Mr. Copperfield,’ said Miss Mills, ‘you are dull.’ -</p> - -<p> -I begged her pardon. Not at all. -</p> - -<p> -‘And Dora,’ said Miss Mills, ‘YOU are dull.’ -</p> - -<p> -Oh dear no! Not in the least. -</p> - -<p> -‘Mr. Copperfield and Dora,’ said Miss Mills, with an almost -venerable air. ‘Enough of this. Do not allow a trivial misunderstanding -to wither the blossoms of spring, which, once put forth and blighted, cannot be -renewed. I speak,’ said Miss Mills, ‘from experience of the -past—the remote, irrevocable past. The gushing fountains which sparkle in -the sun, must not be stopped in mere caprice; the oasis in the desert of Sahara -must not be plucked up idly.’ -</p> - -<p> -I hardly knew what I did, I was burning all over to that extraordinary extent; -but I took Dora’s little hand and kissed it—and she let me! I -kissed Miss Mills’s hand; and we all seemed, to my thinking, to go -straight up to the seventh heaven. We did not come down again. We stayed up -there all the evening. At first we strayed to and fro among the trees: I with -Dora’s shy arm drawn through mine: and Heaven knows, folly as it all was, -it would have been a happy fate to have been struck immortal with those foolish -feelings, and have stayed among the trees for ever! -</p> - -<p> -But, much too soon, we heard the others laughing and talking, and calling -‘where’s Dora?’ So we went back, and they wanted Dora to -sing. Red Whisker would have got the guitar-case out of the carriage, but Dora -told him nobody knew where it was, but I. So Red Whisker was done for in a -moment; and I got it, and I unlocked it, and I took the guitar out, and I sat -by her, and I held her handkerchief and gloves, and I drank in every note of -her dear voice, and she sang to ME who loved her, and all the others might -applaud as much as they liked, but they had nothing to do with it! -</p> - -<p> -I was intoxicated with joy. I was afraid it was too happy to be real, and that -I should wake in Buckingham Street presently, and hear Mrs. Crupp clinking the -teacups in getting breakfast ready. But Dora sang, and others sang, and Miss -Mills sang—about the slumbering echoes in the caverns of Memory; as if -she were a hundred years old—and the evening came on; and we had tea, -with the kettle boiling gipsy-fashion; and I was still as happy as ever. -</p> - -<p> -I was happier than ever when the party broke up, and the other people, defeated -Red Whisker and all, went their several ways, and we went ours through the -still evening and the dying light, with sweet scents rising up around us. Mr. -Spenlow being a little drowsy after the champagne—honour to the soil that -grew the grape, to the grape that made the wine, to the sun that ripened it, -and to the merchant who adulterated it!—and being fast asleep in a corner -of the carriage, I rode by the side and talked to Dora. She admired my horse -and patted him—oh, what a dear little hand it looked upon a -horse!—and her shawl would not keep right, and now and then I drew it -round her with my arm; and I even fancied that Jip began to see how it was, and -to understand that he must make up his mind to be friends with me. -</p> - -<p> -That sagacious Miss Mills, too; that amiable, though quite used up, recluse; -that little patriarch of something less than twenty, who had done with the -world, and mustn’t on any account have the slumbering echoes in the -caverns of Memory awakened; what a kind thing she did! -</p> - -<p> -‘Mr. Copperfield,’ said Miss Mills, ‘come to this side of the -carriage a moment—if you can spare a moment. I want to speak to -you.’ -</p> - -<p> -Behold me, on my gallant grey, bending at the side of Miss Mills, with my hand -upon the carriage door! -</p> - -<p> -‘Dora is coming to stay with me. She is coming home with me the day after -tomorrow. If you would like to call, I am sure papa would be happy to see -you.’ What could I do but invoke a silent blessing on Miss Mills’s -head, and store Miss Mills’s address in the securest corner of my memory! -What could I do but tell Miss Mills, with grateful looks and fervent words, how -much I appreciated her good offices, and what an inestimable value I set upon -her friendship! -</p> - -<p> -Then Miss Mills benignantly dismissed me, saying, ‘Go back to -Dora!’ and I went; and Dora leaned out of the carriage to talk to me, and -we talked all the rest of the way; and I rode my gallant grey so close to the -wheel that I grazed his near fore leg against it, and ‘took the bark -off’, as his owner told me, ‘to the tune of three pun’ -sivin’—which I paid, and thought extremely cheap for so much joy. -What time Miss Mills sat looking at the moon, murmuring verses—and -recalling, I suppose, the ancient days when she and earth had anything in -common. -</p> - -<p> -Norwood was many miles too near, and we reached it many hours too soon; but Mr. -Spenlow came to himself a little short of it, and said, ‘You must come -in, Copperfield, and rest!’ and I consenting, we had sandwiches and -wine-and-water. In the light room, Dora blushing looked so lovely, that I could -not tear myself away, but sat there staring, in a dream, until the snoring of -Mr. Spenlow inspired me with sufficient consciousness to take my leave. So we -parted; I riding all the way to London with the farewell touch of Dora’s -hand still light on mine, recalling every incident and word ten thousand times; -lying down in my own bed at last, as enraptured a young noodle as ever was -carried out of his five wits by love. -</p> - -<p> -When I awoke next morning, I was resolute to declare my passion to Dora, and -know my fate. Happiness or misery was now the question. There was no other -question that I knew of in the world, and only Dora could give the answer to -it. I passed three days in a luxury of wretchedness, torturing myself by -putting every conceivable variety of discouraging construction on all that ever -had taken place between Dora and me. At last, arrayed for the purpose at a vast -expense, I went to Miss Mills’s, fraught with a declaration. -</p> - -<p> -How many times I went up and down the street, and round the -square—painfully aware of being a much better answer to the old riddle -than the original one—before I could persuade myself to go up the steps -and knock, is no matter now. Even when, at last, I had knocked, and was waiting -at the door, I had some flurried thought of asking if that were Mr. -Blackboy’s (in imitation of poor Barkis), begging pardon, and retreating. -But I kept my ground. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Mills was not at home. I did not expect he would be. Nobody wanted HIM. -Miss Mills was at home. Miss Mills would do. -</p> - -<p> -I was shown into a room upstairs, where Miss Mills and Dora were. Jip was -there. Miss Mills was copying music (I recollect, it was a new song, called -‘Affection’s Dirge’), and Dora was painting flowers. What -were my feelings, when I recognized my own flowers; the identical Covent Garden -Market purchase! I cannot say that they were very like, or that they -particularly resembled any flowers that have ever come under my observation; -but I knew from the paper round them which was accurately copied, what the -composition was. -</p> - -<p> -Miss Mills was very glad to see me, and very sorry her papa was not at home: -though I thought we all bore that with fortitude. Miss Mills was conversational -for a few minutes, and then, laying down her pen upon ‘Affection’s -Dirge’, got up, and left the room. -</p> - -<p> -I began to think I would put it off till tomorrow. -</p> - -<p> -‘I hope your poor horse was not tired, when he got home at night,’ -said Dora, lifting up her beautiful eyes. ‘It was a long way for -him.’ -</p> - -<p> -I began to think I would do it today. -</p> - -<p> -‘It was a long way for him,’ said I, ‘for he had nothing to -uphold him on the journey.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Wasn’t he fed, poor thing?’ asked Dora. -</p> - -<p> -I began to think I would put it off till tomorrow. -</p> - -<p> -‘Ye-yes,’ I said, ‘he was well taken care of. I mean he had -not the unutterable happiness that I had in being so near you.’ -</p> - -<p> -Dora bent her head over her drawing and said, after a little while—I had -sat, in the interval, in a burning fever, and with my legs in a very rigid -state— -</p> - -<p> -‘You didn’t seem to be sensible of that happiness yourself, at one -time of the day.’ -</p> - -<p> -I saw now that I was in for it, and it must be done on the spot. -</p> - -<p> -‘You didn’t care for that happiness in the least,’ said Dora, -slightly raising her eyebrows, and shaking her head, ‘when you were -sitting by Miss Kitt.’ -</p> - -<p> -Kitt, I should observe, was the name of the creature in pink, with the little -eyes. -</p> - -<p> -‘Though certainly I don’t know why you should,’ said Dora, -‘or why you should call it a happiness at all. But of course you -don’t mean what you say. And I am sure no one doubts your being at -liberty to do whatever you like. Jip, you naughty boy, come here!’ -</p> - -<p> -I don’t know how I did it. I did it in a moment. I intercepted Jip. I had -Dora in my arms. I was full of eloquence. I never stopped for a word. I told -her how I loved her. I told her I should die without her. I told her that I -idolized and worshipped her. Jip barked madly all the time. -</p> - -<p> -When Dora hung her head and cried, and trembled, my eloquence increased so much -the more. If she would like me to die for her, she had but to say the word, and -I was ready. Life without Dora’s love was not a thing to have on any -terms. I couldn’t bear it, and I wouldn’t. I had loved her every -minute, day and night, since I first saw her. I loved her at that minute to -distraction. I should always love her, every minute, to distraction. Lovers had -loved before, and lovers would love again; but no lover had loved, might, -could, would, or should ever love, as I loved Dora. The more I raved, the more -Jip barked. Each of us, in his own way, got more mad every moment. -</p> - -<p> -Well, well! Dora and I were sitting on the sofa by and by, quiet enough, and -Jip was lying in her lap, winking peacefully at me. It was off my mind. I was -in a state of perfect rapture. Dora and I were engaged. -</p> - -<p> -I suppose we had some notion that this was to end in marriage. We must have had -some, because Dora stipulated that we were never to be married without her -papa’s consent. But, in our youthful ecstasy, I don’t think that we -really looked before us or behind us; or had any aspiration beyond the ignorant -present. We were to keep our secret from Mr. Spenlow; but I am sure the idea -never entered my head, then, that there was anything dishonourable in that. -</p> - -<p> -Miss Mills was more than usually pensive when Dora, going to find her, brought -her back;—I apprehend, because there was a tendency in what had passed to -awaken the slumbering echoes in the caverns of Memory. But she gave us her -blessing, and the assurance of her lasting friendship, and spoke to us, -generally, as became a Voice from the Cloister. -</p> - -<p> -What an idle time it was! What an insubstantial, happy, foolish time it was! -</p> - -<p> -When I measured Dora’s finger for a ring that was to be made of -Forget-me-nots, and when the jeweller, to whom I took the measure, found me -out, and laughed over his order-book, and charged me anything he liked for the -pretty little toy, with its blue stones—so associated in my remembrance -with Dora’s hand, that yesterday, when I saw such another, by chance, on -the finger of my own daughter, there was a momentary stirring in my heart, like -pain! -</p> - -<p> -When I walked about, exalted with my secret, and full of my own interest, and -felt the dignity of loving Dora, and of being beloved, so much, that if I had -walked the air, I could not have been more above the people not so situated, -who were creeping on the earth! -</p> - -<p> -When we had those meetings in the garden of the square, and sat within the -dingy summer-house, so happy, that I love the London sparrows to this hour, for -nothing else, and see the plumage of the tropics in their smoky feathers! When -we had our first great quarrel (within a week of our betrothal), and when Dora -sent me back the ring, enclosed in a despairing cocked-hat note, wherein she -used the terrible expression that ‘our love had begun in folly, and ended -in madness!’ which dreadful words occasioned me to tear my hair, and cry -that all was over! -</p> - -<p> -When, under cover of the night, I flew to Miss Mills, whom I saw by stealth in -a back kitchen where there was a mangle, and implored Miss Mills to interpose -between us and avert insanity. When Miss Mills undertook the office and -returned with Dora, exhorting us, from the pulpit of her own bitter youth, to -mutual concession, and the avoidance of the Desert of Sahara! -</p> - -<p> -When we cried, and made it up, and were so blest again, that the back kitchen, -mangle and all, changed to Love’s own temple, where we arranged a plan of -correspondence through Miss Mills, always to comprehend at least one letter on -each side every day! -</p> - -<p> -What an idle time! What an insubstantial, happy, foolish time! Of all the times -of mine that Time has in his grip, there is none that in one retrospect I can -smile at half so much, and think of half so tenderly. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0034"></a>CHAPTER 34. MY AUNT ASTONISHES ME</h2> - -<p> -I wrote to Agnes as soon as Dora and I were engaged. I wrote her a long letter, -in which I tried to make her comprehend how blest I was, and what a darling -Dora was. I entreated Agnes not to regard this as a thoughtless passion which -could ever yield to any other, or had the least resemblance to the boyish -fancies that we used to joke about. I assured her that its profundity was quite -unfathomable, and expressed my belief that nothing like it had ever been known. -</p> - -<p> -Somehow, as I wrote to Agnes on a fine evening by my open window, and the -remembrance of her clear calm eyes and gentle face came stealing over me, it -shed such a peaceful influence upon the hurry and agitation in which I had been -living lately, and of which my very happiness partook in some degree, that it -soothed me into tears. I remember that I sat resting my head upon my hand, when -the letter was half done, cherishing a general fancy as if Agnes were one of -the elements of my natural home. As if, in the retirement of the house made -almost sacred to me by her presence, Dora and I must be happier than anywhere. -As if, in love, joy, sorrow, hope, or disappointment; in all emotions; my heart -turned naturally there, and found its refuge and best friend. -</p> - -<p> -Of Steerforth I said nothing. I only told her there had been sad grief at -Yarmouth, on account of Emily’s flight; and that on me it made a double -wound, by reason of the circumstances attending it. I knew how quick she always -was to divine the truth, and that she would never be the first to breathe his -name. -</p> - -<p> -To this letter, I received an answer by return of post. As I read it, I seemed -to hear Agnes speaking to me. It was like her cordial voice in my ears. What -can I say more! -</p> - -<p> -While I had been away from home lately, Traddles had called twice or thrice. -Finding Peggotty within, and being informed by Peggotty (who always volunteered -that information to whomsoever would receive it), that she was my old nurse, he -had established a good-humoured acquaintance with her, and had stayed to have a -little chat with her about me. So Peggotty said; but I am afraid the chat was -all on her own side, and of immoderate length, as she was very difficult indeed -to stop, God bless her! when she had me for her theme. -</p> - -<p> -This reminds me, not only that I expected Traddles on a certain afternoon of -his own appointing, which was now come, but that Mrs. Crupp had resigned -everything appertaining to her office (the salary excepted) until Peggotty -should cease to present herself. Mrs. Crupp, after holding divers conversations -respecting Peggotty, in a very high-pitched voice, on the staircase—with -some invisible Familiar it would appear, for corporeally speaking she was quite -alone at those times—addressed a letter to me, developing her views. -Beginning it with that statement of universal application, which fitted every -occurrence of her life, namely, that she was a mother herself, she went on to -inform me that she had once seen very different days, but that at all periods -of her existence she had had a constitutional objection to spies, intruders, -and informers. She named no names, she said; let them the cap fitted, wear it; -but spies, intruders, and informers, especially in widders’ weeds (this -clause was underlined), she had ever accustomed herself to look down upon. If a -gentleman was the victim of spies, intruders, and informers (but still naming -no names), that was his own pleasure. He had a right to please himself; so let -him do. All that she, Mrs. Crupp, stipulated for, was, that she should not be -‘brought in contract’ with such persons. Therefore she begged to be -excused from any further attendance on the top set, until things were as they -formerly was, and as they could be wished to be; and further mentioned that her -little book would be found upon the breakfast-table every Saturday morning, -when she requested an immediate settlement of the same, with the benevolent -view of saving trouble ‘and an ill-conwenience’ to all parties. -</p> - -<p> -After this, Mrs. Crupp confined herself to making pitfalls on the stairs, -principally with pitchers, and endeavouring to delude Peggotty into breaking -her legs. I found it rather harassing to live in this state of siege, but was -too much afraid of Mrs. Crupp to see any way out of it. -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear Copperfield,’ cried Traddles, punctually appearing at my -door, in spite of all these obstacles, ‘how do you do?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear Traddles,’ said I, ‘I am delighted to see you at -last, and very sorry I have not been at home before. But I have been so much -engaged—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes, yes, I know,’ said Traddles, ‘of course. Yours lives in -London, I think.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘What did you say?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘She—excuse me—Miss D., you know,’ said Traddles, -colouring in his great delicacy, ‘lives in London, I believe?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh yes. Near London.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Mine, perhaps you recollect,’ said Traddles, with a serious look, -‘lives down in Devonshire—one of ten. Consequently, I am not so -much engaged as you—in that sense.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I wonder you can bear,’ I returned, ‘to see her so -seldom.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Hah!’ said Traddles, thoughtfully. ‘It does seem a wonder. I -suppose it is, Copperfield, because there is no help for it?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I suppose so,’ I replied with a smile, and not without a blush. -‘And because you have so much constancy and patience, Traddles.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Dear me!’ said Traddles, considering about it, ‘do I strike -you in that way, Copperfield? Really I didn’t know that I had. But she is -such an extraordinarily dear girl herself, that it’s possible she may -have imparted something of those virtues to me. Now you mention it, -Copperfield, I shouldn’t wonder at all. I assure you she is always -forgetting herself, and taking care of the other nine.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Is she the eldest?’ I inquired. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh dear, no,’ said Traddles. ‘The eldest is a Beauty.’ -</p> - -<p> -He saw, I suppose, that I could not help smiling at the simplicity of this -reply; and added, with a smile upon his own ingenuous face: -</p> - -<p> -‘Not, of course, but that my Sophy—pretty name, Copperfield, I -always think?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Very pretty!’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Not, of course, but that Sophy is beautiful too in my eyes, and would be -one of the dearest girls that ever was, in anybody’s eyes (I should -think). But when I say the eldest is a Beauty, I mean she really is -a—’ he seemed to be describing clouds about himself, with both -hands: ‘Splendid, you know,’ said Traddles, energetically. -‘Indeed!’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, I assure you,’ said Traddles, ‘something very uncommon, -indeed! Then, you know, being formed for society and admiration, and not being -able to enjoy much of it in consequence of their limited means, she naturally -gets a little irritable and exacting, sometimes. Sophy puts her in good -humour!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Is Sophy the youngest?’ I hazarded. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh dear, no!’ said Traddles, stroking his chin. ‘The two -youngest are only nine and ten. Sophy educates ‘em.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘The second daughter, perhaps?’ I hazarded. -</p> - -<p> -‘No,’ said Traddles. ‘Sarah’s the second. Sarah has -something the matter with her spine, poor girl. The malady will wear out by and -by, the doctors say, but in the meantime she has to lie down for a twelvemonth. -Sophy nurses her. Sophy’s the fourth.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Is the mother living?’ I inquired. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh yes,’ said Traddles, ‘she is alive. She is a very -superior woman indeed, but the damp country is not adapted to her constitution, -and—in fact, she has lost the use of her limbs.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Dear me!’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Very sad, is it not?’ returned Traddles. ‘But in a merely -domestic view it is not so bad as it might be, because Sophy takes her place. -She is quite as much a mother to her mother, as she is to the other -nine.’ -</p> - -<p> -I felt the greatest admiration for the virtues of this young lady; and, -honestly with the view of doing my best to prevent the good-nature of Traddles -from being imposed upon, to the detriment of their joint prospects in life, -inquired how Mr. Micawber was? -</p> - -<p> -‘He is quite well, Copperfield, thank you,’ said Traddles. ‘I -am not living with him at present.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No. You see the truth is,’ said Traddles, in a whisper, ‘he -had changed his name to Mortimer, in consequence of his temporary -embarrassments; and he don’t come out till after dark—and then in -spectacles. There was an execution put into our house, for rent. Mrs. Micawber -was in such a dreadful state that I really couldn’t resist giving my name -to that second bill we spoke of here. You may imagine how delightful it was to -my feelings, Copperfield, to see the matter settled with it, and Mrs. Micawber -recover her spirits.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Hum!’ said I. ‘Not that her happiness was of long -duration,’ pursued Traddles, ‘for, unfortunately, within a week -another execution came in. It broke up the establishment. I have been living in -a furnished apartment since then, and the Mortimers have been very private -indeed. I hope you won’t think it selfish, Copperfield, if I mention that -the broker carried off my little round table with the marble top, and -Sophy’s flower-pot and stand?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘What a hard thing!’ I exclaimed indignantly. -</p> - -<p> -‘It was a—it was a pull,’ said Traddles, with his usual wince -at that expression. ‘I don’t mention it reproachfully, however, but -with a motive. The fact is, Copperfield, I was unable to repurchase them at the -time of their seizure; in the first place, because the broker, having an idea -that I wanted them, ran the price up to an extravagant extent; and, in the -second place, because I—hadn’t any money. Now, I have kept my eye -since, upon the broker’s shop,’ said Traddles, with a great -enjoyment of his mystery, ‘which is up at the top of Tottenham Court -Road, and, at last, today I find them put out for sale. I have only noticed -them from over the way, because if the broker saw me, bless you, he’d ask -any price for them! What has occurred to me, having now the money, is, that -perhaps you wouldn’t object to ask that good nurse of yours to come with -me to the shop—I can show it her from round the corner of the next -street—and make the best bargain for them, as if they were for herself, -that she can!’ -</p> - -<p> -The delight with which Traddles propounded this plan to me, and the sense he -had of its uncommon artfulness, are among the freshest things in my -remembrance. -</p> - -<p> -I told him that my old nurse would be delighted to assist him, and that we -would all three take the field together, but on one condition. That condition -was, that he should make a solemn resolution to grant no more loans of his -name, or anything else, to Mr. Micawber. -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear Copperfield,’ said Traddles, ‘I have already done -so, because I begin to feel that I have not only been inconsiderate, but that I -have been positively unjust to Sophy. My word being passed to myself, there is -no longer any apprehension; but I pledge it to you, too, with the greatest -readiness. That first unlucky obligation, I have paid. I have no doubt Mr. -Micawber would have paid it if he could, but he could not. One thing I ought to -mention, which I like very much in Mr. Micawber, Copperfield. It refers to the -second obligation, which is not yet due. He don’t tell me that it is -provided for, but he says it WILL BE. Now, I think there is something very fair -and honest about that!’ -</p> - -<p> -I was unwilling to damp my good friend’s confidence, and therefore -assented. After a little further conversation, we went round to the -chandler’s shop, to enlist Peggotty; Traddles declining to pass the -evening with me, both because he endured the liveliest apprehensions that his -property would be bought by somebody else before he could re-purchase it, and -because it was the evening he always devoted to writing to the dearest girl in -the world. -</p> - -<p> -I never shall forget him peeping round the corner of the street in Tottenham -Court Road, while Peggotty was bargaining for the precious articles; or his -agitation when she came slowly towards us after vainly offering a price, and -was hailed by the relenting broker, and went back again. The end of the -negotiation was, that she bought the property on tolerably easy terms, and -Traddles was transported with pleasure. -</p> - -<p> -‘I am very much obliged to you, indeed,’ said Traddles, on hearing -it was to be sent to where he lived, that night. ‘If I might ask one -other favour, I hope you would not think it absurd, Copperfield?’ -</p> - -<p> -I said beforehand, certainly not. -</p> - -<p> -‘Then if you WOULD be good enough,’ said Traddles to Peggotty, -‘to get the flower-pot now, I think I should like (it being -Sophy’s, Copperfield) to carry it home myself!’ -</p> - -<p> -Peggotty was glad to get it for him, and he overwhelmed her with thanks, and -went his way up Tottenham Court Road, carrying the flower-pot affectionately in -his arms, with one of the most delighted expressions of countenance I ever saw. -</p> - -<p> -We then turned back towards my chambers. As the shops had charms for Peggotty -which I never knew them possess in the same degree for anybody else, I -sauntered easily along, amused by her staring in at the windows, and waiting -for her as often as she chose. We were thus a good while in getting to the -Adelphi. -</p> - -<p> -On our way upstairs, I called her attention to the sudden disappearance of Mrs. -Crupp’s pitfalls, and also to the prints of recent footsteps. We were -both very much surprised, coming higher up, to find my outer door standing open -(which I had shut) and to hear voices inside. -</p> - -<p> -We looked at one another, without knowing what to make of this, and went into -the sitting-room. What was my amazement to find, of all people upon earth, my -aunt there, and Mr. Dick! My aunt sitting on a quantity of luggage, with her -two birds before her, and her cat on her knee, like a female Robinson Crusoe, -drinking tea. Mr. Dick leaning thoughtfully on a great kite, such as we had -often been out together to fly, with more luggage piled about him! -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear aunt!’ cried I. ‘Why, what an unexpected -pleasure!’ -</p> - -<p> -We cordially embraced; and Mr. Dick and I cordially shook hands; and Mrs. -Crupp, who was busy making tea, and could not be too attentive, cordially said -she had knowed well as Mr. Copperfull would have his heart in his mouth, when -he see his dear relations. -</p> - -<p> -‘Holloa!’ said my aunt to Peggotty, who quailed before her awful -presence. ‘How are YOU?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You remember my aunt, Peggotty?’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘For the love of goodness, child,’ exclaimed my aunt, -‘don’t call the woman by that South Sea Island name! If she married -and got rid of it, which was the best thing she could do, why don’t you -give her the benefit of the change? What’s your name now,—P?’ -said my aunt, as a compromise for the obnoxious appellation. -</p> - -<p> -‘Barkis, ma’am,’ said Peggotty, with a curtsey. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well! That’s human,’ said my aunt. ‘It sounds less as -if you wanted a missionary. How d’ye do, Barkis? I hope you’re -well?’ -</p> - -<p> -Encouraged by these gracious words, and by my aunt’s extending her hand, -Barkis came forward, and took the hand, and curtseyed her acknowledgements. -</p> - -<p> -‘We are older than we were, I see,’ said my aunt. ‘We have -only met each other once before, you know. A nice business we made of it then! -Trot, my dear, another cup.’ -</p> - -<p> -I handed it dutifully to my aunt, who was in her usual inflexible state of -figure; and ventured a remonstrance with her on the subject of her sitting on a -box. -</p> - -<p> -‘Let me draw the sofa here, or the easy-chair, aunt,’ said I. -‘Why should you be so uncomfortable?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Thank you, Trot,’ replied my aunt, ‘I prefer to sit upon my -property.’ Here my aunt looked hard at Mrs. Crupp, and observed, -‘We needn’t trouble you to wait, ma’am.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Shall I put a little more tea in the pot afore I go, ma’am?’ -said Mrs. Crupp. -</p> - -<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> -<img src="images/20069.jpg" alt="20069" width="100%" /> -</div> - -<h5> -<a href="images/20069.jpg"> -<img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /></a> -</h5> - -<p> -‘No, I thank you, ma’am,’ replied my aunt. -</p> - -<p> -‘Would you let me fetch another pat of butter, ma’am?’ said -Mrs. Crupp. ‘Or would you be persuaded to try a new-laid hegg? or should -I brile a rasher? Ain’t there nothing I could do for your dear aunt, Mr. -Copperfull?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Nothing, ma’am,’ returned my aunt. ‘I shall do very -well, I thank you.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Crupp, who had been incessantly smiling to express sweet temper, and -incessantly holding her head on one side, to express a general feebleness of -constitution, and incessantly rubbing her hands, to express a desire to be of -service to all deserving objects, gradually smiled herself, one-sided herself, -and rubbed herself, out of the room. ‘Dick!’ said my aunt. -‘You know what I told you about time-servers and -wealth-worshippers?’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Dick—with rather a scared look, as if he had forgotten -it—returned a hasty answer in the affirmative. -</p> - -<p> -‘Mrs. Crupp is one of them,’ said my aunt. ‘Barkis, -I’ll trouble you to look after the tea, and let me have another cup, for -I don’t fancy that woman’s pouring-out!’ -</p> - -<p> -I knew my aunt sufficiently well to know that she had something of importance -on her mind, and that there was far more matter in this arrival than a stranger -might have supposed. I noticed how her eye lighted on me, when she thought my -attention otherwise occupied; and what a curious process of hesitation appeared -to be going on within her, while she preserved her outward stiffness and -composure. I began to reflect whether I had done anything to offend her; and my -conscience whispered me that I had not yet told her about Dora. Could it by any -means be that, I wondered! -</p> - -<p> -As I knew she would only speak in her own good time, I sat down near her, and -spoke to the birds, and played with the cat, and was as easy as I could be. But -I was very far from being really easy; and I should still have been so, even if -Mr. Dick, leaning over the great kite behind my aunt, had not taken every -secret opportunity of shaking his head darkly at me, and pointing at her. -</p> - -<p> -‘Trot,’ said my aunt at last, when she had finished her tea, and -carefully smoothed down her dress, and wiped her lips—‘you -needn’t go, Barkis!—Trot, have you got to be firm and -self-reliant?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I hope so, aunt.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘What do you think?’ inquired Miss Betsey. -</p> - -<p> -‘I think so, aunt.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Then why, my love,’ said my aunt, looking earnestly at me, -‘why do you think I prefer to sit upon this property of mine -tonight?’ -</p> - -<p> -I shook my head, unable to guess. -</p> - -<p> -‘Because,’ said my aunt, ‘it’s all I have. Because -I’m ruined, my dear!’ -</p> - -<p> -If the house, and every one of us, had tumbled out into the river together, I -could hardly have received a greater shock. -</p> - -<p> -‘Dick knows it,’ said my aunt, laying her hand calmly on my -shoulder. ‘I am ruined, my dear Trot! All I have in the world is in this -room, except the cottage; and that I have left Janet to let. Barkis, I want to -get a bed for this gentleman tonight. To save expense, perhaps you can make up -something here for myself. Anything will do. It’s only for tonight. -We’ll talk about this, more, tomorrow.’ -</p> - -<p> -I was roused from my amazement, and concern for her—I am sure, for -her—by her falling on my neck, for a moment, and crying that she only -grieved for me. In another moment she suppressed this emotion; and said with an -aspect more triumphant than dejected: -</p> - -<p> -‘We must meet reverses boldly, and not suffer them to frighten us, my -dear. We must learn to act the play out. We must live misfortune down, -Trot!’ -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0035"></a>CHAPTER 35. DEPRESSION</h2> - -<p> -As soon as I could recover my presence of mind, which quite deserted me in the -first overpowering shock of my aunt’s intelligence, I proposed to Mr. -Dick to come round to the chandler’s shop, and take possession of the bed -which Mr. Peggotty had lately vacated. The chandler’s shop being in -Hungerford Market, and Hungerford Market being a very different place in those -days, there was a low wooden colonnade before the door (not very unlike that -before the house where the little man and woman used to live, in the old -weather-glass), which pleased Mr. Dick mightily. The glory of lodging over this -structure would have compensated him, I dare say, for many inconveniences; but, -as there were really few to bear, beyond the compound of flavours I have -already mentioned, and perhaps the want of a little more elbow-room, he was -perfectly charmed with his accommodation. Mrs. Crupp had indignantly assured -him that there wasn’t room to swing a cat there; but, as Mr. Dick justly -observed to me, sitting down on the foot of the bed, nursing his leg, -‘You know, Trotwood, I don’t want to swing a cat. I never do swing -a cat. Therefore, what does that signify to ME!’ -</p> - -<p> -I tried to ascertain whether Mr. Dick had any understanding of the causes of -this sudden and great change in my aunt’s affairs. As I might have -expected, he had none at all. The only account he could give of it was, that my -aunt had said to him, the day before yesterday, ‘Now, Dick, are you -really and truly the philosopher I take you for?’ That then he had said, -Yes, he hoped so. That then my aunt had said, ‘Dick, I am ruined.’ -That then he had said, ‘Oh, indeed!’ That then my aunt had praised -him highly, which he was glad of. And that then they had come to me, and had -had bottled porter and sandwiches on the road. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Dick was so very complacent, sitting on the foot of the bed, nursing his -leg, and telling me this, with his eyes wide open and a surprised smile, that I -am sorry to say I was provoked into explaining to him that ruin meant distress, -want, and starvation; but I was soon bitterly reproved for this harshness, by -seeing his face turn pale, and tears course down his lengthened cheeks, while -he fixed upon me a look of such unutterable woe, that it might have softened a -far harder heart than mine. I took infinitely greater pains to cheer him up -again than I had taken to depress him; and I soon understood (as I ought to -have known at first) that he had been so confident, merely because of his faith -in the wisest and most wonderful of women, and his unbounded reliance on my -intellectual resources. The latter, I believe, he considered a match for any -kind of disaster not absolutely mortal. -</p> - -<p> -‘What can we do, Trotwood?’ said Mr. Dick. ‘There’s the -Memorial-’ -</p> - -<p> -‘To be sure there is,’ said I. ‘But all we can do just now, -Mr. Dick, is to keep a cheerful countenance, and not let my aunt see that we -are thinking about it.’ -</p> - -<p> -He assented to this in the most earnest manner; and implored me, if I should -see him wandering an inch out of the right course, to recall him by some of -those superior methods which were always at my command. But I regret to state -that the fright I had given him proved too much for his best attempts at -concealment. All the evening his eyes wandered to my aunt’s face, with an -expression of the most dismal apprehension, as if he saw her growing thin on -the spot. He was conscious of this, and put a constraint upon his head; but his -keeping that immovable, and sitting rolling his eyes like a piece of machinery, -did not mend the matter at all. I saw him look at the loaf at supper (which -happened to be a small one), as if nothing else stood between us and famine; -and when my aunt insisted on his making his customary repast, I detected him in -the act of pocketing fragments of his bread and cheese; I have no doubt for the -purpose of reviving us with those savings, when we should have reached an -advanced stage of attenuation. -</p> - -<p> -My aunt, on the other hand, was in a composed frame of mind, which was a lesson -to all of us—to me, I am sure. She was extremely gracious to Peggotty, -except when I inadvertently called her by that name; and, strange as I knew she -felt in London, appeared quite at home. She was to have my bed, and I was to -lie in the sitting-room, to keep guard over her. She made a great point of -being so near the river, in case of a conflagration; and I suppose really did -find some satisfaction in that circumstance. -</p> - -<p> -‘Trot, my dear,’ said my aunt, when she saw me making preparations -for compounding her usual night-draught, ‘No!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Nothing, aunt?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Not wine, my dear. Ale.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘But there is wine here, aunt. And you always have it made of -wine.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Keep that, in case of sickness,’ said my aunt. ‘We -mustn’t use it carelessly, Trot. Ale for me. Half a pint.’ -</p> - -<p> -I thought Mr. Dick would have fallen, insensible. My aunt being resolute, I -went out and got the ale myself. As it was growing late, Peggotty and Mr. Dick -took that opportunity of repairing to the chandler’s shop together. I -parted from him, poor fellow, at the corner of the street, with his great kite -at his back, a very monument of human misery. -</p> - -<p> -My aunt was walking up and down the room when I returned, crimping the borders -of her nightcap with her fingers. I warmed the ale and made the toast on the -usual infallible principles. When it was ready for her, she was ready for it, -with her nightcap on, and the skirt of her gown turned back on her knees. -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear,’ said my aunt, after taking a spoonful of it; -‘it’s a great deal better than wine. Not half so bilious.’ -</p> - -<p> -I suppose I looked doubtful, for she added: -</p> - -<p> -‘Tut, tut, child. If nothing worse than Ale happens to us, we are well -off.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I should think so myself, aunt, I am sure,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, then, why DON’T you think so?’ said my aunt. -</p> - -<p> -‘Because you and I are very different people,’ I returned. -</p> - -<p> -‘Stuff and nonsense, Trot!’ replied my aunt. -</p> - -<p> -My aunt went on with a quiet enjoyment, in which there was very little -affectation, if any; drinking the warm ale with a tea-spoon, and soaking her -strips of toast in it. -</p> - -<p> -‘Trot,’ said she, ‘I don’t care for strange faces in -general, but I rather like that Barkis of yours, do you know!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘It’s better than a hundred pounds to hear you say so!’ said -I. -</p> - -<p> -‘It’s a most extraordinary world,’ observed my aunt, rubbing -her nose; ‘how that woman ever got into it with that name, is -unaccountable to me. It would be much more easy to be born a Jackson, or -something of that sort, one would think.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Perhaps she thinks so, too; it’s not her fault,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘I suppose not,’ returned my aunt, rather grudging the admission; -‘but it’s very aggravating. However, she’s Barkis now. -That’s some comfort. Barkis is uncommonly fond of you, Trot.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘There is nothing she would leave undone to prove it,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Nothing, I believe,’ returned my aunt. ‘Here, the poor fool -has been begging and praying about handing over some of her money—because -she has got too much of it. A simpleton!’ -</p> - -<p> -My aunt’s tears of pleasure were positively trickling down into the warm -ale. -</p> - -<p> -‘She’s the most ridiculous creature that ever was born,’ said -my aunt. ‘I knew, from the first moment when I saw her with that poor -dear blessed baby of a mother of yours, that she was the most ridiculous of -mortals. But there are good points in Barkis!’ -</p> - -<p> -Affecting to laugh, she got an opportunity of putting her hand to her eyes. -Having availed herself of it, she resumed her toast and her discourse together. -</p> - -<p> -‘Ah! Mercy upon us!’ sighed my aunt. ‘I know all about it, -Trot! Barkis and myself had quite a gossip while you were out with Dick. I know -all about it. I don’t know where these wretched girls expect to go to, -for my part. I wonder they don’t knock out their brains -against—against mantelpieces,’ said my aunt; an idea which was -probably suggested to her by her contemplation of mine. -</p> - -<p> -‘Poor Emily!’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, don’t talk to me about poor,’ returned my aunt. -‘She should have thought of that, before she caused so much misery! Give -me a kiss, Trot. I am sorry for your early experience.’ -</p> - -<p> -As I bent forward, she put her tumbler on my knee to detain me, and said: -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, Trot, Trot! And so you fancy yourself in love! Do you?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Fancy, aunt!’ I exclaimed, as red as I could be. ‘I adore -her with my whole soul!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Dora, indeed!’ returned my aunt. ‘And you mean to say the -little thing is very fascinating, I suppose?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear aunt,’ I replied, ‘no one can form the least idea -what she is!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Ah! And not silly?’ said my aunt. -</p> - -<p> -‘Silly, aunt!’ -</p> - -<p> -I seriously believe it had never once entered my head for a single moment, to -consider whether she was or not. I resented the idea, of course; but I was in a -manner struck by it, as a new one altogether. -</p> - -<p> -‘Not light-headed?’ said my aunt. -</p> - -<p> -‘Light-headed, aunt!’ I could only repeat this daring speculation -with the same kind of feeling with which I had repeated the preceding question. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, well!’ said my aunt. ‘I only ask. I don’t -depreciate her. Poor little couple! And so you think you were formed for one -another, and are to go through a party-supper-table kind of life, like two -pretty pieces of confectionery, do you, Trot?’ -</p> - -<p> -She asked me this so kindly, and with such a gentle air, half playful and half -sorrowful, that I was quite touched. -</p> - -<p> -‘We are young and inexperienced, aunt, I know,’ I replied; -‘and I dare say we say and think a good deal that is rather foolish. But -we love one another truly, I am sure. If I thought Dora could ever love anybody -else, or cease to love me; or that I could ever love anybody else, or cease to -love her; I don’t know what I should do—go out of my mind, I -think!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Ah, Trot!’ said my aunt, shaking her head, and smiling gravely; -‘blind, blind, blind!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Someone that I know, Trot,’ my aunt pursued, after a pause, -‘though of a very pliant disposition, has an earnestness of affection in -him that reminds me of poor Baby. Earnestness is what that Somebody must look -for, to sustain him and improve him, Trot. Deep, downright, faithful -earnestness.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘If you only knew the earnestness of Dora, aunt!’ I cried. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, Trot!’ she said again; ‘blind, blind!’ and without -knowing why, I felt a vague unhappy loss or want of something overshadow me -like a cloud. -</p> - -<p> -‘However,’ said my aunt, ‘I don’t want to put two young -creatures out of conceit with themselves, or to make them unhappy; so, though -it is a girl and boy attachment, and girl and boy attachments very -often—mind! I don’t say always!—come to nothing, still -we’ll be serious about it, and hope for a prosperous issue one of these -days. There’s time enough for it to come to anything!’ -</p> - -<p> -This was not upon the whole very comforting to a rapturous lover; but I was -glad to have my aunt in my confidence, and I was mindful of her being fatigued. -So I thanked her ardently for this mark of her affection, and for all her other -kindnesses towards me; and after a tender good night, she took her nightcap -into my bedroom. -</p> - -<p> -How miserable I was, when I lay down! How I thought and thought about my being -poor, in Mr. Spenlow’s eyes; about my not being what I thought I was, -when I proposed to Dora; about the chivalrous necessity of telling Dora what my -worldly condition was, and releasing her from her engagement if she thought -fit; about how I should contrive to live, during the long term of my articles, -when I was earning nothing; about doing something to assist my aunt, and seeing -no way of doing anything; about coming down to have no money in my pocket, and -to wear a shabby coat, and to be able to carry Dora no little presents, and to -ride no gallant greys, and to show myself in no agreeable light! Sordid and -selfish as I knew it was, and as I tortured myself by knowing that it was, to -let my mind run on my own distress so much, I was so devoted to Dora that I -could not help it. I knew that it was base in me not to think more of my aunt, -and less of myself; but, so far, selfishness was inseparable from Dora, and I -could not put Dora on one side for any mortal creature. How exceedingly -miserable I was, that night! -</p> - -<p> -As to sleep, I had dreams of poverty in all sorts of shapes, but I seemed to -dream without the previous ceremony of going to sleep. Now I was ragged, -wanting to sell Dora matches, six bundles for a halfpenny; now I was at the -office in a nightgown and boots, remonstrated with by Mr. Spenlow on appearing -before the clients in that airy attire; now I was hungrily picking up the -crumbs that fell from old Tiffey’s daily biscuit, regularly eaten when -St. Paul’s struck one; now I was hopelessly endeavouring to get a licence -to marry Dora, having nothing but one of Uriah Heep’s gloves to offer in -exchange, which the whole Commons rejected; and still, more or less conscious -of my own room, I was always tossing about like a distressed ship in a sea of -bed-clothes. -</p> - -<p> -My aunt was restless, too, for I frequently heard her walking to and fro. Two -or three times in the course of the night, attired in a long flannel wrapper in -which she looked seven feet high, she appeared, like a disturbed ghost, in my -room, and came to the side of the sofa on which I lay. On the first occasion I -started up in alarm, to learn that she inferred from a particular light in the -sky, that Westminster Abbey was on fire; and to be consulted in reference to -the probability of its igniting Buckingham Street, in case the wind changed. -Lying still, after that, I found that she sat down near me, whispering to -herself ‘Poor boy!’ And then it made me twenty times more wretched, -to know how unselfishly mindful she was of me, and how selfishly mindful I was -of myself. -</p> - -<p> -It was difficult to believe that a night so long to me, could be short to -anybody else. This consideration set me thinking and thinking of an imaginary -party where people were dancing the hours away, until that became a dream too, -and I heard the music incessantly playing one tune, and saw Dora incessantly -dancing one dance, without taking the least notice of me. The man who had been -playing the harp all night, was trying in vain to cover it with an -ordinary-sized nightcap, when I awoke; or I should rather say, when I left off -trying to go to sleep, and saw the sun shining in through the window at last. -</p> - -<p> -There was an old Roman bath in those days at the bottom of one of the streets -out of the Strand—it may be there still—in which I have had many a -cold plunge. Dressing myself as quietly as I could, and leaving Peggotty to -look after my aunt, I tumbled head foremost into it, and then went for a walk -to Hampstead. I had a hope that this brisk treatment might freshen my wits a -little; and I think it did them good, for I soon came to the conclusion that -the first step I ought to take was, to try if my articles could be cancelled -and the premium recovered. I got some breakfast on the Heath, and walked back -to Doctors’ Commons, along the watered roads and through a pleasant smell -of summer flowers, growing in gardens and carried into town on hucksters’ -heads, intent on this first effort to meet our altered circumstances. -</p> - -<p> -I arrived at the office so soon, after all, that I had half an hour’s -loitering about the Commons, before old Tiffey, who was always first, appeared -with his key. Then I sat down in my shady corner, looking up at the sunlight on -the opposite chimney-pots, and thinking about Dora; until Mr. Spenlow came in, -crisp and curly. -</p> - -<p> -‘How are you, Copperfield?’ said he. ‘Fine morning!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Beautiful morning, sir,’ said I. ‘Could I say a word to you -before you go into Court?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘By all means,’ said he. ‘Come into my room.’ -</p> - -<p> -I followed him into his room, and he began putting on his gown, and touching -himself up before a little glass he had, hanging inside a closet door. -</p> - -<p> -‘I am sorry to say,’ said I, ‘that I have some rather -disheartening intelligence from my aunt.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No!’ said he. ‘Dear me! Not paralysis, I hope?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘It has no reference to her health, sir,’ I replied. ‘She has -met with some large losses. In fact, she has very little left, indeed.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You as-tound me, Copperfield!’ cried Mr. Spenlow. -</p> - -<p> -I shook my head. ‘Indeed, sir,’ said I, ‘her affairs are so -changed, that I wished to ask you whether it would be possible—at a -sacrifice on our part of some portion of the premium, of course,’ I put -in this, on the spur of the moment, warned by the blank expression of his -face—‘to cancel my articles?’ -</p> - -<p> -What it cost me to make this proposal, nobody knows. It was like asking, as a -favour, to be sentenced to transportation from Dora. -</p> - -<p> -‘To cancel your articles, Copperfield? Cancel?’ -</p> - -<p> -I explained with tolerable firmness, that I really did not know where my means -of subsistence were to come from, unless I could earn them for myself. I had no -fear for the future, I said—and I laid great emphasis on that, as if to -imply that I should still be decidedly eligible for a son-in-law one of these -days—but, for the present, I was thrown upon my own resources. ‘I -am extremely sorry to hear this, Copperfield,’ said Mr. Spenlow. -‘Extremely sorry. It is not usual to cancel articles for any such reason. -It is not a professional course of proceeding. It is not a convenient precedent -at all. Far from it. At the same time—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You are very good, sir,’ I murmured, anticipating a concession. -</p> - -<p> -‘Not at all. Don’t mention it,’ said Mr. Spenlow. ‘At -the same time, I was going to say, if it had been my lot to have my hands -unfettered—if I had not a partner—Mr. Jorkins—’ -</p> - -<p> -My hopes were dashed in a moment, but I made another effort. -</p> - -<p> -‘Do you think, sir,’ said I, ‘if I were to mention it to Mr. -Jorkins—’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Spenlow shook his head discouragingly. ‘Heaven forbid, -Copperfield,’ he replied, ‘that I should do any man an injustice: -still less, Mr. Jorkins. But I know my partner, Copperfield. Mr. Jorkins is not -a man to respond to a proposition of this peculiar nature. Mr. Jorkins is very -difficult to move from the beaten track. You know what he is!’ -</p> - -<p> -I am sure I knew nothing about him, except that he had originally been alone in -the business, and now lived by himself in a house near Montagu Square, which -was fearfully in want of painting; that he came very late of a day, and went -away very early; that he never appeared to be consulted about anything; and -that he had a dingy little black-hole of his own upstairs, where no business -was ever done, and where there was a yellow old cartridge-paper pad upon his -desk, unsoiled by ink, and reported to be twenty years of age. -</p> - -<p> -‘Would you object to my mentioning it to him, sir?’ I asked. -</p> - -<p> -‘By no means,’ said Mr. Spenlow. ‘But I have some experience -of Mr. Jorkins, Copperfield. I wish it were otherwise, for I should be happy to -meet your views in any respect. I cannot have the objection to your mentioning -it to Mr. Jorkins, Copperfield, if you think it worth while.’ -</p> - -<p> -Availing myself of this permission, which was given with a warm shake of the -hand, I sat thinking about Dora, and looking at the sunlight stealing from the -chimney-pots down the wall of the opposite house, until Mr. Jorkins came. I -then went up to Mr. Jorkins’s room, and evidently astonished Mr. Jorkins -very much by making my appearance there. -</p> - -<p> -‘Come in, Mr. Copperfield,’ said Mr. Jorkins. ‘Come -in!’ -</p> - -<p> -I went in, and sat down; and stated my case to Mr. Jorkins pretty much as I had -stated it to Mr. Spenlow. Mr. Jorkins was not by any means the awful creature -one might have expected, but a large, mild, smooth-faced man of sixty, who took -so much snuff that there was a tradition in the Commons that he lived -principally on that stimulant, having little room in his system for any other -article of diet. -</p> - -<p> -‘You have mentioned this to Mr. Spenlow, I suppose?’ said Mr. -Jorkins; when he had heard me, very restlessly, to an end. -</p> - -<p> -I answered Yes, and told him that Mr. Spenlow had introduced his name. -</p> - -<p> -‘He said I should object?’ asked Mr. Jorkins. -</p> - -<p> -I was obliged to admit that Mr. Spenlow had considered it probable. -</p> - -<p> -‘I am sorry to say, Mr. Copperfield, I can’t advance your -object,’ said Mr. Jorkins, nervously. ‘The fact is—but I have -an appointment at the Bank, if you’ll have the goodness to excuse -me.’ -</p> - -<p> -With that he rose in a great hurry, and was going out of the room, when I made -bold to say that I feared, then, there was no way of arranging the matter? -</p> - -<p> -‘No!’ said Mr. Jorkins, stopping at the door to shake his head. -‘Oh, no! I object, you know,’ which he said very rapidly, and went -out. ‘You must be aware, Mr. Copperfield,’ he added, looking -restlessly in at the door again, ‘if Mr. Spenlow objects—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Personally, he does not object, sir,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh! Personally!’ repeated Mr. Jorkins, in an impatient manner. -‘I assure you there’s an objection, Mr. Copperfield. Hopeless! What -you wish to be done, can’t be done. I—I really have got an -appointment at the Bank.’ With that he fairly ran away; and to the best -of my knowledge, it was three days before he showed himself in the Commons -again. -</p> - -<p> -Being very anxious to leave no stone unturned, I waited until Mr. Spenlow came -in, and then described what had passed; giving him to understand that I was not -hopeless of his being able to soften the adamantine Jorkins, if he would -undertake the task. -</p> - -<p> -‘Copperfield,’ returned Mr. Spenlow, with a gracious smile, -‘you have not known my partner, Mr. Jorkins, as long as I have. Nothing -is farther from my thoughts than to attribute any degree of artifice to Mr. -Jorkins. But Mr. Jorkins has a way of stating his objections which often -deceives people. No, Copperfield!’ shaking his head. ‘Mr. Jorkins -is not to be moved, believe me!’ -</p> - -<p> -I was completely bewildered between Mr. Spenlow and Mr. Jorkins, as to which of -them really was the objecting partner; but I saw with sufficient clearness that -there was obduracy somewhere in the firm, and that the recovery of my -aunt’s thousand pounds was out of the question. In a state of -despondency, which I remember with anything but satisfaction, for I know it -still had too much reference to myself (though always in connexion with Dora), -I left the office, and went homeward. -</p> - -<p> -I was trying to familiarize my mind with the worst, and to present to myself -the arrangements we should have to make for the future in their sternest -aspect, when a hackney-chariot coming after me, and stopping at my very feet, -occasioned me to look up. A fair hand was stretched forth to me from the -window; and the face I had never seen without a feeling of serenity and -happiness, from the moment when it first turned back on the old oak staircase -with the great broad balustrade, and when I associated its softened beauty with -the stained-glass window in the church, was smiling on me. -</p> - -<p> -‘Agnes!’ I joyfully exclaimed. ‘Oh, my dear Agnes, of all -people in the world, what a pleasure to see you!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Is it, indeed?’ she said, in her cordial voice. -</p> - -<p> -‘I want to talk to you so much!’ said I. ‘It’s such a -lightening of my heart, only to look at you! If I had had a conjuror’s -cap, there is no one I should have wished for but you!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘What?’ returned Agnes. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well! perhaps Dora first,’ I admitted, with a blush. -</p> - -<p> -‘Certainly, Dora first, I hope,’ said Agnes, laughing. -</p> - -<p> -‘But you next!’ said I. ‘Where are you going?’ -</p> - -<p> -She was going to my rooms to see my aunt. The day being very fine, she was glad -to come out of the chariot, which smelt (I had my head in it all this time) -like a stable put under a cucumber-frame. I dismissed the coachman, and she -took my arm, and we walked on together. She was like Hope embodied, to me. How -different I felt in one short minute, having Agnes at my side! -</p> - -<p> -My aunt had written her one of the odd, abrupt notes—very little longer -than a Bank note—to which her epistolary efforts were usually limited. -She had stated therein that she had fallen into adversity, and was leaving -Dover for good, but had quite made up her mind to it, and was so well that -nobody need be uncomfortable about her. Agnes had come to London to see my -aunt, between whom and herself there had been a mutual liking these many years: -indeed, it dated from the time of my taking up my residence in Mr. -Wickfield’s house. She was not alone, she said. Her papa was with -her—and Uriah Heep. -</p> - -<p> -‘And now they are partners,’ said I. ‘Confound him!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes,’ said Agnes. ‘They have some business here; and I took -advantage of their coming, to come too. You must not think my visit all -friendly and disinterested, Trotwood, for—I am afraid I may be cruelly -prejudiced—I do not like to let papa go away alone, with him.’ -‘Does he exercise the same influence over Mr. Wickfield still, -Agnes?’ -</p> - -<p> -Agnes shook her head. ‘There is such a change at home,’ said she, -‘that you would scarcely know the dear old house. They live with us -now.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘They?’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Mr. Heep and his mother. He sleeps in your old room,’ said Agnes, -looking up into my face. -</p> - -<p> -‘I wish I had the ordering of his dreams,’ said I. ‘He -wouldn’t sleep there long.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I keep my own little room,’ said Agnes, ‘where I used to -learn my lessons. How the time goes! You remember? The little panelled room -that opens from the drawing-room?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Remember, Agnes? When I saw you, for the first time, coming out at the -door, with your quaint little basket of keys hanging at your side?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘It is just the same,’ said Agnes, smiling. ‘I am glad you -think of it so pleasantly. We were very happy.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘We were, indeed,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘I keep that room to myself still; but I cannot always desert Mrs. Heep, -you know. And so,’ said Agnes, quietly, ‘I feel obliged to bear her -company, when I might prefer to be alone. But I have no other reason to -complain of her. If she tires me, sometimes, by her praises of her son, it is -only natural in a mother. He is a very good son to her.’ -</p> - -<p> -I looked at Agnes when she said these words, without detecting in her any -consciousness of Uriah’s design. Her mild but earnest eyes met mine with -their own beautiful frankness, and there was no change in her gentle face. -</p> - -<p> -‘The chief evil of their presence in the house,’ said Agnes, -‘is that I cannot be as near papa as I could wish—Uriah Heep being -so much between us—and cannot watch over him, if that is not too bold a -thing to say, as closely as I would. But if any fraud or treachery is -practising against him, I hope that simple love and truth will be strong in the -end. I hope that real love and truth are stronger in the end than any evil or -misfortune in the world.’ -</p> - -<p> -A certain bright smile, which I never saw on any other face, died away, even -while I thought how good it was, and how familiar it had once been to me; and -she asked me, with a quick change of expression (we were drawing very near my -street), if I knew how the reverse in my aunt’s circumstances had been -brought about. On my replying no, she had not told me yet, Agnes became -thoughtful, and I fancied I felt her arm tremble in mine. -</p> - -<p> -We found my aunt alone, in a state of some excitement. A difference of opinion -had arisen between herself and Mrs. Crupp, on an abstract question (the -propriety of chambers being inhabited by the gentler sex); and my aunt, utterly -indifferent to spasms on the part of Mrs. Crupp, had cut the dispute short, by -informing that lady that she smelt of my brandy, and that she would trouble her -to walk out. Both of these expressions Mrs. Crupp considered actionable, and -had expressed her intention of bringing before a ‘British -Judy’—meaning, it was supposed, the bulwark of our national -liberties. -</p> - -<p> -My aunt, however, having had time to cool, while Peggotty was out showing Mr. -Dick the soldiers at the Horse Guards—and being, besides, greatly pleased -to see Agnes—rather plumed herself on the affair than otherwise, and -received us with unimpaired good humour. When Agnes laid her bonnet on the -table, and sat down beside her, I could not but think, looking on her mild eyes -and her radiant forehead, how natural it seemed to have her there; how -trustfully, although she was so young and inexperienced, my aunt confided in -her; how strong she was, indeed, in simple love and truth. -</p> - -<p> -We began to talk about my aunt’s losses, and I told them what I had tried -to do that morning. -</p> - -<p> -‘Which was injudicious, Trot,’ said my aunt, ‘but well meant. -You are a generous boy—I suppose I must say, young man, now—and I -am proud of you, my dear. So far, so good. Now, Trot and Agnes, let us look the -case of Betsey Trotwood in the face, and see how it stands.’ -</p> - -<p> -I observed Agnes turn pale, as she looked very attentively at my aunt. My aunt, -patting her cat, looked very attentively at Agnes. -</p> - -<p> -‘Betsey Trotwood,’ said my aunt, who had always kept her money -matters to herself. ‘—I don’t mean your sister, Trot, my -dear, but myself—had a certain property. It don’t matter how much; -enough to live on. More; for she had saved a little, and added to it. Betsey -funded her property for some time, and then, by the advice of her man of -business, laid it out on landed security. That did very well, and returned very -good interest, till Betsey was paid off. I am talking of Betsey as if she was a -man-of-war. Well! Then, Betsey had to look about her, for a new investment. She -thought she was wiser, now, than her man of business, who was not such a good -man of business by this time, as he used to be—I am alluding to your -father, Agnes—and she took it into her head to lay it out for herself. So -she took her pigs,’ said my aunt, ‘to a foreign market; and a very -bad market it turned out to be. First, she lost in the mining way, and then she -lost in the diving way—fishing up treasure, or some such Tom Tiddler -nonsense,’ explained my aunt, rubbing her nose; ‘and then she lost -in the mining way again, and, last of all, to set the thing entirely to rights, -she lost in the banking way. I don’t know what the Bank shares were worth -for a little while,’ said my aunt; ‘cent per cent was the lowest of -it, I believe; but the Bank was at the other end of the world, and tumbled into -space, for what I know; anyhow, it fell to pieces, and never will and never can -pay sixpence; and Betsey’s sixpences were all there, and there’s an -end of them. Least said, soonest mended!’ -</p> - -<p> -My aunt concluded this philosophical summary, by fixing her eyes with a kind of -triumph on Agnes, whose colour was gradually returning. -</p> - -<p> -‘Dear Miss Trotwood, is that all the history?’ said Agnes. -</p> - -<p> -‘I hope it’s enough, child,’ said my aunt. ‘If there -had been more money to lose, it wouldn’t have been all, I dare say. -Betsey would have contrived to throw that after the rest, and make another -chapter, I have little doubt. But there was no more money, and there’s no -more story.’ -</p> - -<p> -Agnes had listened at first with suspended breath. Her colour still came and -went, but she breathed more freely. I thought I knew why. I thought she had had -some fear that her unhappy father might be in some way to blame for what had -happened. My aunt took her hand in hers, and laughed. -</p> - -<p> -‘Is that all?’ repeated my aunt. ‘Why, yes, that’s all, -except, “And she lived happy ever afterwards.” Perhaps I may add -that of Betsey yet, one of these days. Now, Agnes, you have a wise head. So -have you, Trot, in some things, though I can’t compliment you -always’; and here my aunt shook her own at me, with an energy peculiar to -herself. ‘What’s to be done? Here’s the cottage, taking one -time with another, will produce say seventy pounds a year. I think we may -safely put it down at that. Well!—That’s all we’ve -got,’ said my aunt; with whom it was an idiosyncrasy, as it is with some -horses, to stop very short when she appeared to be in a fair way of going on -for a long while. -</p> - -<p> -‘Then,’ said my aunt, after a rest, ‘there’s Dick. -He’s good for a hundred a-year, but of course that must be expended on -himself. I would sooner send him away, though I know I am the only person who -appreciates him, than have him, and not spend his money on himself. How can -Trot and I do best, upon our means? What do you say, Agnes?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I say, aunt,’ I interposed, ‘that I must do -something!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Go for a soldier, do you mean?’ returned my aunt, alarmed; -‘or go to sea? I won’t hear of it. You are to be a proctor. -We’re not going to have any knockings on the head in THIS family, if you -please, sir.’ -</p> - -<p> -I was about to explain that I was not desirous of introducing that mode of -provision into the family, when Agnes inquired if my rooms were held for any -long term? -</p> - -<p> -‘You come to the point, my dear,’ said my aunt. ‘They are not -to be got rid of, for six months at least, unless they could be underlet, and -that I don’t believe. The last man died here. Five people out of six -would die—of course—of that woman in nankeen with the flannel -petticoat. I have a little ready money; and I agree with you, the best thing we -can do, is, to live the term out here, and get a bedroom hard by.’ -</p> - -<p> -I thought it my duty to hint at the discomfort my aunt would sustain, from -living in a continual state of guerilla warfare with Mrs. Crupp; but she -disposed of that objection summarily by declaring that, on the first -demonstration of hostilities, she was prepared to astonish Mrs. Crupp for the -whole remainder of her natural life. -</p> - -<p> -‘I have been thinking, Trotwood,’ said Agnes, diffidently, -‘that if you had time—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I have a good deal of time, Agnes. I am always disengaged after four or -five o’clock, and I have time early in the morning. In one way and -another,’ said I, conscious of reddening a little as I thought of the -hours and hours I had devoted to fagging about town, and to and fro upon the -Norwood Road, ‘I have abundance of time.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I know you would not mind,’ said Agnes, coming to me, and speaking -in a low voice, so full of sweet and hopeful consideration that I hear it now, -‘the duties of a secretary.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Mind, my dear Agnes?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Because,’ continued Agnes, ‘Doctor Strong has acted on his -intention of retiring, and has come to live in London; and he asked papa, I -know, if he could recommend him one. Don’t you think he would rather have -his favourite old pupil near him, than anybody else?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Dear Agnes!’ said I. ‘What should I do without you! You are -always my good angel. I told you so. I never think of you in any other -light.’ -</p> - -<p> -Agnes answered with her pleasant laugh, that one good Angel (meaning Dora) was -enough; and went on to remind me that the Doctor had been used to occupy -himself in his study, early in the morning, and in the evening—and that -probably my leisure would suit his requirements very well. I was scarcely more -delighted with the prospect of earning my own bread, than with the hope of -earning it under my old master; in short, acting on the advice of Agnes, I sat -down and wrote a letter to the Doctor, stating my object, and appointing to -call on him next day at ten in the forenoon. This I addressed to -Highgate—for in that place, so memorable to me, he lived—and went -and posted, myself, without losing a minute. -</p> - -<p> -Wherever Agnes was, some agreeable token of her noiseless presence seemed -inseparable from the place. When I came back, I found my aunt’s birds -hanging, just as they had hung so long in the parlour window of the cottage; -and my easy-chair imitating my aunt’s much easier chair in its position -at the open window; and even the round green fan, which my aunt had brought -away with her, screwed on to the window-sill. I knew who had done all this, by -its seeming to have quietly done itself; and I should have known in a moment -who had arranged my neglected books in the old order of my school days, even if -I had supposed Agnes to be miles away, instead of seeing her busy with them, -and smiling at the disorder into which they had fallen. -</p> - -<p> -My aunt was quite gracious on the subject of the Thames (it really did look -very well with the sun upon it, though not like the sea before the cottage), -but she could not relent towards the London smoke, which, she said, -‘peppered everything’. A complete revolution, in which Peggotty -bore a prominent part, was being effected in every corner of my rooms, in -regard of this pepper; and I was looking on, thinking how little even Peggotty -seemed to do with a good deal of bustle, and how much Agnes did without any -bustle at all, when a knock came at the door. -</p> - -<p> -‘I think,’ said Agnes, turning pale, ‘it’s papa. He -promised me that he would come.’ -</p> - -<p> -I opened the door, and admitted, not only Mr. Wickfield, but Uriah Heep. I had -not seen Mr. Wickfield for some time. I was prepared for a great change in him, -after what I had heard from Agnes, but his appearance shocked me. -</p> - -<p> -It was not that he looked many years older, though still dressed with the old -scrupulous cleanliness; or that there was an unwholesome ruddiness upon his -face; or that his eyes were full and bloodshot; or that there was a nervous -trembling in his hand, the cause of which I knew, and had for some years seen -at work. It was not that he had lost his good looks, or his old bearing of a -gentleman—for that he had not—but the thing that struck me most, -was, that with the evidences of his native superiority still upon him, he -should submit himself to that crawling impersonation of meanness, Uriah Heep. -The reversal of the two natures, in their relative positions, Uriah’s of -power and Mr. Wickfield’s of dependence, was a sight more painful to me -than I can express. If I had seen an Ape taking command of a Man, I should -hardly have thought it a more degrading spectacle. -</p> - -<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> -<img src="images/20091.jpg" alt="20091" width="100%" /> -</div> - -<h5> -<a href="images/20091.jpg"> -<img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /></a> -</h5> - -<p> -He appeared to be only too conscious of it himself. When he came in, he stood -still; and with his head bowed, as if he felt it. This was only for a moment; -for Agnes softly said to him, ‘Papa! Here is Miss Trotwood—and -Trotwood, whom you have not seen for a long while!’ and then he -approached, and constrainedly gave my aunt his hand, and shook hands more -cordially with me. In the moment’s pause I speak of, I saw Uriah’s -countenance form itself into a most ill-favoured smile. Agnes saw it too, I -think, for she shrank from him. -</p> - -<p> -What my aunt saw, or did not see, I defy the science of physiognomy to have -made out, without her own consent. I believe there never was anybody with such -an imperturbable countenance when she chose. Her face might have been a -dead-wall on the occasion in question, for any light it threw upon her -thoughts; until she broke silence with her usual abruptness. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, Wickfield!’ said my aunt; and he looked up at her for the -first time. ‘I have been telling your daughter how well I have been -disposing of my money for myself, because I couldn’t trust it to you, as -you were growing rusty in business matters. We have been taking counsel -together, and getting on very well, all things considered. Agnes is worth the -whole firm, in my opinion.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘If I may umbly make the remark,’ said Uriah Heep, with a writhe, -‘I fully agree with Miss Betsey Trotwood, and should be only too appy if -Miss Agnes was a partner.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You’re a partner yourself, you know,’ returned my aunt, -‘and that’s about enough for you, I expect. How do you find -yourself, sir?’ -</p> - -<p> -In acknowledgement of this question, addressed to him with extraordinary -curtness, Mr. Heep, uncomfortably clutching the blue bag he carried, replied -that he was pretty well, he thanked my aunt, and hoped she was the same. -</p> - -<p> -‘And you, Master—I should say, Mister Copperfield,’ pursued -Uriah. ‘I hope I see you well! I am rejoiced to see you, Mister -Copperfield, even under present circumstances.’ I believed that; for he -seemed to relish them very much. ‘Present circumstances is not what your -friends would wish for you, Mister Copperfield, but it isn’t money makes -the man: it’s—I am really unequal with my umble powers to express -what it is,’ said Uriah, with a fawning jerk, ‘but it isn’t -money!’ -</p> - -<p> -Here he shook hands with me: not in the common way, but standing at a good -distance from me, and lifting my hand up and down like a pump handle, that he -was a little afraid of. -</p> - -<p> -‘And how do you think we are looking, Master Copperfield,—I should -say, Mister?’ fawned Uriah. ‘Don’t you find Mr. Wickfield -blooming, sir? Years don’t tell much in our firm, Master Copperfield, -except in raising up the umble, namely, mother and self—and in -developing,’ he added, as an afterthought, ‘the beautiful, namely, -Miss Agnes.’ -</p> - -<p> -He jerked himself about, after this compliment, in such an intolerable manner, -that my aunt, who had sat looking straight at him, lost all patience. -</p> - -<p> -‘Deuce take the man!’ said my aunt, sternly, ‘what’s he -about? Don’t be galvanic, sir!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I ask your pardon, Miss Trotwood,’ returned Uriah; -‘I’m aware you’re nervous.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Go along with you, sir!’ said my aunt, anything but appeased. -‘Don’t presume to say so! I am nothing of the sort. If you’re -an eel, sir, conduct yourself like one. If you’re a man, control your -limbs, sir! Good God!’ said my aunt, with great indignation, ‘I am -not going to be serpentined and corkscrewed out of my senses!’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Heep was rather abashed, as most people might have been, by this explosion; -which derived great additional force from the indignant manner in which my aunt -afterwards moved in her chair, and shook her head as if she were making snaps -or bounces at him. But he said to me aside in a meek voice: -</p> - -<p> -‘I am well aware, Master Copperfield, that Miss Trotwood, though an -excellent lady, has a quick temper (indeed I think I had the pleasure of -knowing her, when I was a numble clerk, before you did, Master Copperfield), -and it’s only natural, I am sure, that it should be made quicker by -present circumstances. The wonder is, that it isn’t much worse! I only -called to say that if there was anything we could do, in present circumstances, -mother or self, or Wickfield and Heep,—we should be really glad. I may go -so far?’ said Uriah, with a sickly smile at his partner. -</p> - -<p> -‘Uriah Heep,’ said Mr. Wickfield, in a monotonous forced way, -‘is active in the business, Trotwood. What he says, I quite concur in. -You know I had an old interest in you. Apart from that, what Uriah says I quite -concur in!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, what a reward it is,’ said Uriah, drawing up one leg, at the -risk of bringing down upon himself another visitation from my aunt, ‘to -be so trusted in! But I hope I am able to do something to relieve him from the -fatigues of business, Master Copperfield!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Uriah Heep is a great relief to me,’ said Mr. Wickfield, in the -same dull voice. ‘It’s a load off my mind, Trotwood, to have such a -partner.’ -</p> - -<p> -The red fox made him say all this, I knew, to exhibit him to me in the light he -had indicated on the night when he poisoned my rest. I saw the same -ill-favoured smile upon his face again, and saw how he watched me. -</p> - -<p> -‘You are not going, papa?’ said Agnes, anxiously. ‘Will you -not walk back with Trotwood and me?’ -</p> - -<p> -He would have looked to Uriah, I believe, before replying, if that worthy had -not anticipated him. -</p> - -<p> -‘I am bespoke myself,’ said Uriah, ‘on business; otherwise I -should have been appy to have kept with my friends. But I leave my partner to -represent the firm. Miss Agnes, ever yours! I wish you good-day, Master -Copperfield, and leave my umble respects for Miss Betsey Trotwood.’ -</p> - -<p> -With those words, he retired, kissing his great hand, and leering at us like a -mask. -</p> - -<p> -We sat there, talking about our pleasant old Canterbury days, an hour or two. -Mr. Wickfield, left to Agnes, soon became more like his former self; though -there was a settled depression upon him, which he never shook off. For all -that, he brightened; and had an evident pleasure in hearing us recall the -little incidents of our old life, many of which he remembered very well. He -said it was like those times, to be alone with Agnes and me again; and he -wished to Heaven they had never changed. I am sure there was an influence in -the placid face of Agnes, and in the very touch of her hand upon his arm, that -did wonders for him. -</p> - -<p> -My aunt (who was busy nearly all this while with Peggotty, in the inner room) -would not accompany us to the place where they were staying, but insisted on my -going; and I went. We dined together. After dinner, Agnes sat beside him, as of -old, and poured out his wine. He took what she gave him, and no more—like -a child—and we all three sat together at a window as the evening gathered -in. When it was almost dark, he lay down on a sofa, Agnes pillowing his head -and bending over him a little while; and when she came back to the window, it -was not so dark but I could see tears glittering in her eyes. -</p> - -<p> -I pray Heaven that I never may forget the dear girl in her love and truth, at -that time of my life; for if I should, I must be drawing near the end, and then -I would desire to remember her best! She filled my heart with such good -resolutions, strengthened my weakness so, by her example, so directed—I -know not how, she was too modest and gentle to advise me in many -words—the wandering ardour and unsettled purpose within me, that all the -little good I have done, and all the harm I have forborne, I solemnly believe I -may refer to her. -</p> - -<p> -And how she spoke to me of Dora, sitting at the window in the dark; listened to -my praises of her; praised again; and round the little fairy-figure shed some -glimpses of her own pure light, that made it yet more precious and more -innocent to me! Oh, Agnes, sister of my boyhood, if I had known then, what I -knew long afterwards—! -</p> - -<p> -There was a beggar in the street, when I went down; and as I turned my head -towards the window, thinking of her calm seraphic eyes, he made me start by -muttering, as if he were an echo of the morning: ‘Blind! Blind! -Blind!’ -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0036"></a>CHAPTER 36. ENTHUSIASM</h2> - -<p> -I began the next day with another dive into the Roman bath, and then started -for Highgate. I was not dispirited now. I was not afraid of the shabby coat, -and had no yearnings after gallant greys. My whole manner of thinking of our -late misfortune was changed. What I had to do, was, to show my aunt that her -past goodness to me had not been thrown away on an insensible, ungrateful -object. What I had to do, was, to turn the painful discipline of my younger -days to account, by going to work with a resolute and steady heart. What I had -to do, was, to take my woodman’s axe in my hand, and clear my own way -through the forest of difficulty, by cutting down the trees until I came to -Dora. And I went on at a mighty rate, as if it could be done by walking. -</p> - -<p> -When I found myself on the familiar Highgate road, pursuing such a different -errand from that old one of pleasure, with which it was associated, it seemed -as if a complete change had come on my whole life. But that did not discourage -me. With the new life, came new purpose, new intention. Great was the labour; -priceless the reward. Dora was the reward, and Dora must be won. -</p> - -<p> -I got into such a transport, that I felt quite sorry my coat was not a little -shabby already. I wanted to be cutting at those trees in the forest of -difficulty, under circumstances that should prove my strength. I had a good -mind to ask an old man, in wire spectacles, who was breaking stones upon the -road, to lend me his hammer for a little while, and let me begin to beat a path -to Dora out of granite. I stimulated myself into such a heat, and got so out of -breath, that I felt as if I had been earning I don’t know how much. -</p> - -<p> -In this state, I went into a cottage that I saw was to let, and examined it -narrowly,—for I felt it necessary to be practical. It would do for me and -Dora admirably: with a little front garden for Jip to run about in, and bark at -the tradespeople through the railings, and a capital room upstairs for my aunt. -I came out again, hotter and faster than ever, and dashed up to Highgate, at -such a rate that I was there an hour too early; and, though I had not been, -should have been obliged to stroll about to cool myself, before I was at all -presentable. -</p> - -<p> -My first care, after putting myself under this necessary course of preparation, -was to find the Doctor’s house. It was not in that part of Highgate where -Mrs. Steerforth lived, but quite on the opposite side of the little town. When -I had made this discovery, I went back, in an attraction I could not resist, to -a lane by Mrs. Steerforth’s, and looked over the corner of the garden -wall. His room was shut up close. The conservatory doors were standing open, -and Rosa Dartle was walking, bareheaded, with a quick, impetuous step, up and -down a gravel walk on one side of the lawn. She gave me the idea of some fierce -thing, that was dragging the length of its chain to and fro upon a beaten -track, and wearing its heart out. -</p> - -<p> -I came softly away from my place of observation, and avoiding that part of the -neighbourhood, and wishing I had not gone near it, strolled about until it was -ten o’clock. The church with the slender spire, that stands on the top of -the hill now, was not there then to tell me the time. An old red-brick mansion, -used as a school, was in its place; and a fine old house it must have been to -go to school at, as I recollect it. -</p> - -<p> -When I approached the Doctor’s cottage—a pretty old place, on which -he seemed to have expended some money, if I might judge from the embellishments -and repairs that had the look of being just completed—I saw him walking -in the garden at the side, gaiters and all, as if he had never left off walking -since the days of my pupilage. He had his old companions about him, too; for -there were plenty of high trees in the neighbourhood, and two or three rooks -were on the grass, looking after him, as if they had been written to about him -by the Canterbury rooks, and were observing him closely in consequence. -</p> - -<p> -Knowing the utter hopelessness of attracting his attention from that distance, -I made bold to open the gate, and walk after him, so as to meet him when he -should turn round. When he did, and came towards me, he looked at me -thoughtfully for a few moments, evidently without thinking about me at all; and -then his benevolent face expressed extraordinary pleasure, and he took me by -both hands. -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, my dear Copperfield,’ said the Doctor, ‘you are a man! -How do you do? I am delighted to see you. My dear Copperfield, how very much -you have improved! You are quite—yes—dear me!’ -</p> - -<p> -I hoped he was well, and Mrs. Strong too. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh dear, yes!’ said the Doctor; ‘Annie’s quite well, -and she’ll be delighted to see you. You were always her favourite. She -said so, last night, when I showed her your letter. And—yes, to be -sure—you recollect Mr. Jack Maldon, Copperfield?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Perfectly, sir.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Of course,’ said the Doctor. ‘To be sure. He’s pretty -well, too.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Has he come home, sir?’ I inquired. -</p> - -<p> -‘From India?’ said the Doctor. ‘Yes. Mr. Jack Maldon -couldn’t bear the climate, my dear. Mrs. Markleham—you have not -forgotten Mrs. Markleham?’ -</p> - -<p> -Forgotten the Old Soldier! And in that short time! -</p> - -<p> -‘Mrs. Markleham,’ said the Doctor, ‘was quite vexed about -him, poor thing; so we have got him at home again; and we have bought him a -little Patent place, which agrees with him much better.’ I knew enough of -Mr. Jack Maldon to suspect from this account that it was a place where there -was not much to do, and which was pretty well paid. The Doctor, walking up and -down with his hand on my shoulder, and his kind face turned encouragingly to -mine, went on: -</p> - -<p> -‘Now, my dear Copperfield, in reference to this proposal of yours. -It’s very gratifying and agreeable to me, I am sure; but don’t you -think you could do better? You achieved distinction, you know, when you were -with us. You are qualified for many good things. You have laid a foundation -that any edifice may be raised upon; and is it not a pity that you should -devote the spring-time of your life to such a poor pursuit as I can -offer?’ -</p> - -<p> -I became very glowing again, and, expressing myself in a rhapsodical style, I -am afraid, urged my request strongly; reminding the Doctor that I had already a -profession. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, well,’ said the Doctor, ‘that’s true. Certainly, -your having a profession, and being actually engaged in studying it, makes a -difference. But, my good young friend, what’s seventy pounds a -year?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘It doubles our income, Doctor Strong,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Dear me!’ replied the Doctor. ‘To think of that! Not that I -mean to say it’s rigidly limited to seventy pounds a-year, because I have -always contemplated making any young friend I might thus employ, a present too. -Undoubtedly,’ said the Doctor, still walking me up and down with his hand -on my shoulder. ‘I have always taken an annual present into -account.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear tutor,’ said I (now, really, without any nonsense), -‘to whom I owe more obligations already than I ever can -acknowledge—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No, no,’ interposed the Doctor. ‘Pardon me!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘If you will take such time as I have, and that is my mornings and -evenings, and can think it worth seventy pounds a year, you will do me such a -service as I cannot express.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Dear me!’ said the Doctor, innocently. ‘To think that so -little should go for so much! Dear, dear! And when you can do better, you will? -On your word, now?’ said the Doctor,—which he had always made a -very grave appeal to the honour of us boys. -</p> - -<p> -‘On my word, sir!’ I returned, answering in our old school manner. -</p> - -<p> -‘Then be it so,’ said the Doctor, clapping me on the shoulder, and -still keeping his hand there, as we still walked up and down. -</p> - -<p> -‘And I shall be twenty times happier, sir,’ said I, with a -little—I hope innocent—flattery, ‘if my employment is to be -on the Dictionary.’ -</p> - -<p> -The Doctor stopped, smilingly clapped me on the shoulder again, and exclaimed, -with a triumph most delightful to behold, as if I had penetrated to the -profoundest depths of mortal sagacity, ‘My dear young friend, you have -hit it. It IS the Dictionary!’ -</p> - -<p> -How could it be anything else! His pockets were as full of it as his head. It -was sticking out of him in all directions. He told me that since his retirement -from scholastic life, he had been advancing with it wonderfully; and that -nothing could suit him better than the proposed arrangements for morning and -evening work, as it was his custom to walk about in the daytime with his -considering cap on. His papers were in a little confusion, in consequence of -Mr. Jack Maldon having lately proffered his occasional services as an -amanuensis, and not being accustomed to that occupation; but we should soon put -right what was amiss, and go on swimmingly. Afterwards, when we were fairly at -our work, I found Mr. Jack Maldon’s efforts more troublesome to me than I -had expected, as he had not confined himself to making numerous mistakes, but -had sketched so many soldiers, and ladies’ heads, over the Doctor’s -manuscript, that I often became involved in labyrinths of obscurity. -</p> - -<p> -The Doctor was quite happy in the prospect of our going to work together on -that wonderful performance, and we settled to begin next morning at seven -o’clock. We were to work two hours every morning, and two or three hours -every night, except on Saturdays, when I was to rest. On Sundays, of course, I -was to rest also, and I considered these very easy terms. -</p> - -<p> -Our plans being thus arranged to our mutual satisfaction, the Doctor took me -into the house to present me to Mrs. Strong, whom we found in the -Doctor’s new study, dusting his books,—a freedom which he never -permitted anybody else to take with those sacred favourites. -</p> - -<p> -They had postponed their breakfast on my account, and we sat down to table -together. We had not been seated long, when I saw an approaching arrival in -Mrs. Strong’s face, before I heard any sound of it. A gentleman on -horseback came to the gate, and leading his horse into the little court, with -the bridle over his arm, as if he were quite at home, tied him to a ring in the -empty coach-house wall, and came into the breakfast parlour, whip in hand. It -was Mr. Jack Maldon; and Mr. Jack Maldon was not at all improved by India, I -thought. I was in a state of ferocious virtue, however, as to young men who -were not cutting down trees in the forest of difficulty; and my impression must -be received with due allowance. -</p> - -<p> -‘Mr. Jack!’ said the Doctor. ‘Copperfield!’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Jack Maldon shook hands with me; but not very warmly, I believed; and with -an air of languid patronage, at which I secretly took great umbrage. But his -languor altogether was quite a wonderful sight; except when he addressed -himself to his cousin Annie. ‘Have you breakfasted this morning, Mr. -Jack?’ said the Doctor. -</p> - -<p> -‘I hardly ever take breakfast, sir,’ he replied, with his head -thrown back in an easy-chair. ‘I find it bores me.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Is there any news today?’ inquired the Doctor. -</p> - -<p> -‘Nothing at all, sir,’ replied Mr. Maldon. ‘There’s an -account about the people being hungry and discontented down in the North, but -they are always being hungry and discontented somewhere.’ -</p> - -<p> -The Doctor looked grave, and said, as though he wished to change the subject, -‘Then there’s no news at all; and no news, they say, is good -news.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘There’s a long statement in the papers, sir, about a -murder,’ observed Mr. Maldon. ‘But somebody is always being -murdered, and I didn’t read it.’ -</p> - -<p> -A display of indifference to all the actions and passions of mankind was not -supposed to be such a distinguished quality at that time, I think, as I have -observed it to be considered since. I have known it very fashionable indeed. I -have seen it displayed with such success, that I have encountered some fine -ladies and gentlemen who might as well have been born caterpillars. Perhaps it -impressed me the more then, because it was new to me, but it certainly did not -tend to exalt my opinion of, or to strengthen my confidence in, Mr. Jack -Maldon. -</p> - -<p> -‘I came out to inquire whether Annie would like to go to the opera -tonight,’ said Mr. Maldon, turning to her. ‘It’s the last -good night there will be, this season; and there’s a singer there, whom -she really ought to hear. She is perfectly exquisite. Besides which, she is so -charmingly ugly,’ relapsing into languor. -</p> - -<p> -The Doctor, ever pleased with what was likely to please his young wife, turned -to her and said: -</p> - -<p> -‘You must go, Annie. You must go.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I would rather not,’ she said to the Doctor. ‘I prefer to -remain at home. I would much rather remain at home.’ -</p> - -<p> -Without looking at her cousin, she then addressed me, and asked me about Agnes, -and whether she should see her, and whether she was not likely to come that -day; and was so much disturbed, that I wondered how even the Doctor, buttering -his toast, could be blind to what was so obvious. -</p> - -<p> -But he saw nothing. He told her, good-naturedly, that she was young and ought -to be amused and entertained, and must not allow herself to be made dull by a -dull old fellow. Moreover, he said, he wanted to hear her sing all the new -singer’s songs to him; and how could she do that well, unless she went? -So the Doctor persisted in making the engagement for her, and Mr. Jack Maldon -was to come back to dinner. This concluded, he went to his Patent place, I -suppose; but at all events went away on his horse, looking very idle. -</p> - -<p> -I was curious to find out next morning, whether she had been. She had not, but -had sent into London to put her cousin off; and had gone out in the afternoon -to see Agnes, and had prevailed upon the Doctor to go with her; and they had -walked home by the fields, the Doctor told me, the evening being delightful. I -wondered then, whether she would have gone if Agnes had not been in town, and -whether Agnes had some good influence over her too! -</p> - -<p> -She did not look very happy, I thought; but it was a good face, or a very false -one. I often glanced at it, for she sat in the window all the time we were at -work; and made our breakfast, which we took by snatches as we were employed. -When I left, at nine o’clock, she was kneeling on the ground at the -Doctor’s feet, putting on his shoes and gaiters for him. There was a -softened shade upon her face, thrown from some green leaves overhanging the -open window of the low room; and I thought all the way to Doctors’ -Commons, of the night when I had seen it looking at him as he read. -</p> - -<p> -I was pretty busy now; up at five in the morning, and home at nine or ten at -night. But I had infinite satisfaction in being so closely engaged, and never -walked slowly on any account, and felt enthusiastically that the more I tired -myself, the more I was doing to deserve Dora. I had not revealed myself in my -altered character to Dora yet, because she was coming to see Miss Mills in a -few days, and I deferred all I had to tell her until then; merely informing her -in my letters (all our communications were secretly forwarded through Miss -Mills), that I had much to tell her. In the meantime, I put myself on a short -allowance of bear’s grease, wholly abandoned scented soap and lavender -water, and sold off three waistcoats at a prodigious sacrifice, as being too -luxurious for my stern career. -</p> - -<p> -Not satisfied with all these proceedings, but burning with impatience to do -something more, I went to see Traddles, now lodging up behind the parapet of a -house in Castle Street, Holborn. Mr. Dick, who had been with me to Highgate -twice already, and had resumed his companionship with the Doctor, I took with -me. -</p> - -<p> -I took Mr. Dick with me, because, acutely sensitive to my aunt’s -reverses, and sincerely believing that no galley-slave or convict worked as I -did, he had begun to fret and worry himself out of spirits and appetite, as -having nothing useful to do. In this condition, he felt more incapable of -finishing the Memorial than ever; and the harder he worked at it, the oftener -that unlucky head of King Charles the First got into it. Seriously apprehending -that his malady would increase, unless we put some innocent deception upon him -and caused him to believe that he was useful, or unless we could put him in the -way of being really useful (which would be better), I made up my mind to try if -Traddles could help us. Before we went, I wrote Traddles a full statement of -all that had happened, and Traddles wrote me back a capital answer, expressive -of his sympathy and friendship. -</p> - -<p> -We found him hard at work with his inkstand and papers, refreshed by the sight -of the flower-pot stand and the little round table in a corner of the small -apartment. He received us cordially, and made friends with Mr. Dick in a -moment. Mr. Dick professed an absolute certainty of having seen him before, and -we both said, ‘Very likely.’ -</p> - -<p> -The first subject on which I had to consult Traddles was this,—I had -heard that many men distinguished in various pursuits had begun life by -reporting the debates in Parliament. Traddles having mentioned newspapers to -me, as one of his hopes, I had put the two things together, and told Traddles -in my letter that I wished to know how I could qualify myself for this pursuit. -Traddles now informed me, as the result of his inquiries, that the mere -mechanical acquisition necessary, except in rare cases, for thorough excellence -in it, that is to say, a perfect and entire command of the mystery of -short-hand writing and reading, was about equal in difficulty to the mastery of -six languages; and that it might perhaps be attained, by dint of perseverance, -in the course of a few years. Traddles reasonably supposed that this would -settle the business; but I, only feeling that here indeed were a few tall trees -to be hewn down, immediately resolved to work my way on to Dora through this -thicket, axe in hand. -</p> - -<p> -‘I am very much obliged to you, my dear Traddles!’ said I. -‘I’ll begin tomorrow.’ -</p> - -<p> -Traddles looked astonished, as he well might; but he had no notion as yet of my -rapturous condition. -</p> - -<p> -‘I’ll buy a book,’ said I, ‘with a good scheme of this -art in it; I’ll work at it at the Commons, where I haven’t half -enough to do; I’ll take down the speeches in our court for -practice—Traddles, my dear fellow, I’ll master it!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Dear me,’ said Traddles, opening his eyes, ‘I had no idea -you were such a determined character, Copperfield!’ -</p> - -<p> -I don’t know how he should have had, for it was new enough to me. I -passed that off, and brought Mr. Dick on the carpet. -</p> - -<p> -‘You see,’ said Mr. Dick, wistfully, ‘if I could exert -myself, Mr. Traddles—if I could beat a drum—or blow -anything!’ -</p> - -<p> -Poor fellow! I have little doubt he would have preferred such an employment in -his heart to all others. Traddles, who would not have smiled for the world, -replied composedly: -</p> - -<p> -‘But you are a very good penman, sir. You told me so, Copperfield?’ -‘Excellent!’ said I. And indeed he was. He wrote with extraordinary -neatness. -</p> - -<p> -‘Don’t you think,’ said Traddles, ‘you could copy -writings, sir, if I got them for you?’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Dick looked doubtfully at me. ‘Eh, Trotwood?’ -</p> - -<p> -I shook my head. Mr. Dick shook his, and sighed. ‘Tell him about the -Memorial,’ said Mr. Dick. -</p> - -<p> -I explained to Traddles that there was a difficulty in keeping King Charles the -First out of Mr. Dick’s manuscripts; Mr. Dick in the meanwhile looking -very deferentially and seriously at Traddles, and sucking his thumb. -</p> - -<p> -‘But these writings, you know, that I speak of, are already drawn up and -finished,’ said Traddles after a little consideration. ‘Mr. Dick -has nothing to do with them. Wouldn’t that make a difference, -Copperfield? At all events, wouldn’t it be well to try?’ -</p> - -<p> -This gave us new hope. Traddles and I laying our heads together apart, while -Mr. Dick anxiously watched us from his chair, we concocted a scheme in virtue -of which we got him to work next day, with triumphant success. -</p> - -<p> -On a table by the window in Buckingham Street, we set out the work Traddles -procured for him—which was to make, I forget how many copies of a legal -document about some right of way—and on another table we spread the last -unfinished original of the great Memorial. Our instructions to Mr. Dick were -that he should copy exactly what he had before him, without the least departure -from the original; and that when he felt it necessary to make the slightest -allusion to King Charles the First, he should fly to the Memorial. We exhorted -him to be resolute in this, and left my aunt to observe him. My aunt reported -to us, afterwards, that, at first, he was like a man playing the kettle-drums, -and constantly divided his attentions between the two; but that, finding this -confuse and fatigue him, and having his copy there, plainly before his eyes, he -soon sat at it in an orderly business-like manner, and postponed the Memorial -to a more convenient time. In a word, although we took great care that he -should have no more to do than was good for him, and although he did not begin -with the beginning of a week, he earned by the following Saturday night ten -shillings and nine-pence; and never, while I live, shall I forget his going -about to all the shops in the neighbourhood to change this treasure into -sixpences, or his bringing them to my aunt arranged in the form of a heart upon -a waiter, with tears of joy and pride in his eyes. He was like one under the -propitious influence of a charm, from the moment of his being usefully -employed; and if there were a happy man in the world, that Saturday night, it -was the grateful creature who thought my aunt the most wonderful woman in -existence, and me the most wonderful young man. -</p> - -<p> -‘No starving now, Trotwood,’ said Mr. Dick, shaking hands with me -in a corner. ‘I’ll provide for her, Sir!’ and he flourished -his ten fingers in the air, as if they were ten banks. -</p> - -<p> -I hardly know which was the better pleased, Traddles or I. ‘It -really,’ said Traddles, suddenly, taking a letter out of his pocket, and -giving it to me, ‘put Mr. Micawber quite out of my head!’ -</p> - -<p> -The letter (Mr. Micawber never missed any possible opportunity of writing a -letter) was addressed to me, ‘By the kindness of T. Traddles, Esquire, of -the Inner Temple.’ It ran thus:— -</p> - -<p> -‘MY DEAR COPPERFIELD, -</p> - -<p> -‘You may possibly not be unprepared to receive the intimation that -something has turned up. I may have mentioned to you on a former occasion that -I was in expectation of such an event. -</p> - -<p> -‘I am about to establish myself in one of the provincial towns of our -favoured island (where the society may be described as a happy admixture of the -agricultural and the clerical), in immediate connexion with one of the learned -professions. Mrs. Micawber and our offspring will accompany me. Our ashes, at a -future period, will probably be found commingled in the cemetery attached to a -venerable pile, for which the spot to which I refer has acquired a reputation, -shall I say from China to Peru? -</p> - -<p> -‘In bidding adieu to the modern Babylon, where we have undergone many -vicissitudes, I trust not ignobly, Mrs. Micawber and myself cannot disguise -from our minds that we part, it may be for years and it may be for ever, with -an individual linked by strong associations to the altar of our domestic life. -If, on the eve of such a departure, you will accompany our mutual friend, Mr. -Thomas Traddles, to our present abode, and there reciprocate the wishes natural -to the occasion, you will confer a Boon -</p> - -<p class="right"> -‘On <br/> -‘One <br/> -‘Who <br/> -‘Is <br/> -‘Ever yours, <br/> -‘WILKINS MICAWBER.’ -</p> - -<p> -I was glad to find that Mr. Micawber had got rid of his dust and ashes, and -that something really had turned up at last. Learning from Traddles that the -invitation referred to the evening then wearing away, I expressed my readiness -to do honour to it; and we went off together to the lodging which Mr. Micawber -occupied as Mr. Mortimer, and which was situated near the top of the -Gray’s Inn Road. -</p> - -<p> -The resources of this lodging were so limited, that we found the twins, now -some eight or nine years old, reposing in a turn-up bedstead in the family -sitting-room, where Mr. Micawber had prepared, in a wash-hand-stand jug, what -he called ‘a Brew’ of the agreeable beverage for which he was -famous. I had the pleasure, on this occasion, of renewing the acquaintance of -Master Micawber, whom I found a promising boy of about twelve or thirteen, very -subject to that restlessness of limb which is not an unfrequent phenomenon in -youths of his age. I also became once more known to his sister, Miss Micawber, -in whom, as Mr. Micawber told us, ‘her mother renewed her youth, like the -Phoenix’. -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘yourself and Mr. -Traddles find us on the brink of migration, and will excuse any little -discomforts incidental to that position.’ -</p> - -<p> -Glancing round as I made a suitable reply, I observed that the family effects -were already packed, and that the amount of luggage was by no means -overwhelming. I congratulated Mrs. Micawber on the approaching change. -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear Mr. Copperfield,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘of your -friendly interest in all our affairs, I am well assured. My family may consider -it banishment, if they please; but I am a wife and mother, and I never will -desert Mr. Micawber.’ -</p> - -<p> -Traddles, appealed to by Mrs. Micawber’s eye, feelingly acquiesced. -</p> - -<p> -‘That,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘that, at least, is my view, my -dear Mr. Copperfield and Mr. Traddles, of the obligation which I took upon -myself when I repeated the irrevocable words, “I, Emma, take thee, -Wilkins.” I read the service over with a flat-candle on the previous -night, and the conclusion I derived from it was, that I never could desert Mr. -Micawber. And,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘though it is possible I may be -mistaken in my view of the ceremony, I never will!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear,’ said Mr. Micawber, a little impatiently, ‘I am not -conscious that you are expected to do anything of the sort.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I am aware, my dear Mr. Copperfield,’ pursued Mrs. Micawber, -‘that I am now about to cast my lot among strangers; and I am also aware -that the various members of my family, to whom Mr. Micawber has written in the -most gentlemanly terms, announcing that fact, have not taken the least notice -of Mr. Micawber’s communication. Indeed I may be superstitious,’ -said Mrs. Micawber, ‘but it appears to me that Mr. Micawber is destined -never to receive any answers whatever to the great majority of the -communications he writes. I may augur, from the silence of my family, that they -object to the resolution I have taken; but I should not allow myself to be -swerved from the path of duty, Mr. Copperfield, even by my papa and mama, were -they still living.’ -</p> - -<p> -I expressed my opinion that this was going in the right direction. ‘It -may be a sacrifice,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘to immure -one’s-self in a Cathedral town; but surely, Mr. Copperfield, if it is a -sacrifice in me, it is much more a sacrifice in a man of Mr. Micawber’s -abilities.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh! You are going to a Cathedral town?’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Micawber, who had been helping us all, out of the wash-hand-stand jug, -replied: -</p> - -<p> -‘To Canterbury. In fact, my dear Copperfield, I have entered into -arrangements, by virtue of which I stand pledged and contracted to our friend -Heep, to assist and serve him in the capacity of—and to be—his -confidential clerk.’ -</p> - -<p> -I stared at Mr. Micawber, who greatly enjoyed my surprise. -</p> - -<p> -‘I am bound to state to you,’ he said, with an official air, -‘that the business habits, and the prudent suggestions, of Mrs. Micawber, -have in a great measure conduced to this result. The gauntlet, to which Mrs. -Micawber referred upon a former occasion, being thrown down in the form of an -advertisement, was taken up by my friend Heep, and led to a mutual recognition. -Of my friend Heep,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘who is a man of remarkable -shrewdness, I desire to speak with all possible respect. My friend Heep has not -fixed the positive remuneration at too high a figure, but he has made a great -deal, in the way of extrication from the pressure of pecuniary difficulties, -contingent on the value of my services; and on the value of those services I -pin my faith. Such address and intelligence as I chance to possess,’ said -Mr. Micawber, boastfully disparaging himself, with the old genteel air, -‘will be devoted to my friend Heep’s service. I have already some -acquaintance with the law—as a defendant on civil process—and I -shall immediately apply myself to the Commentaries of one of the most eminent -and remarkable of our English jurists. I believe it is unnecessary to add that -I allude to Mr. justice Blackstone.’ -</p> - -<p> -These observations, and indeed the greater part of the observations made that -evening, were interrupted by Mrs. Micawber’s discovering that Master -Micawber was sitting on his boots, or holding his head on with both arms as if -he felt it loose, or accidentally kicking Traddles under the table, or -shuffling his feet over one another, or producing them at distances from -himself apparently outrageous to nature, or lying sideways with his hair among -the wine-glasses, or developing his restlessness of limb in some other form -incompatible with the general interests of society; and by Master -Micawber’s receiving those discoveries in a resentful spirit. I sat all -the while, amazed by Mr. Micawber’s disclosure, and wondering what it -meant; until Mrs. Micawber resumed the thread of the discourse, and claimed my -attention. -</p> - -<p> -‘What I particularly request Mr. Micawber to be careful of, is,’ -said Mrs. Micawber, ‘that he does not, my dear Mr. Copperfield, in -applying himself to this subordinate branch of the law, place it out of his -power to rise, ultimately, to the top of the tree. I am convinced that Mr. -Micawber, giving his mind to a profession so adapted to his fertile resources, -and his flow of language, must distinguish himself. Now, for example, Mr. -Traddles,’ said Mrs. Micawber, assuming a profound air, ‘a judge, -or even say a Chancellor. Does an individual place himself beyond the pale of -those preferments by entering on such an office as Mr. Micawber has -accepted?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear,’ observed Mr. Micawber—but glancing inquisitively -at Traddles, too; ‘we have time enough before us, for the consideration -of those questions.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Micawber,’ she returned, ‘no! Your mistake in life is, that -you do not look forward far enough. You are bound, in justice to your family, -if not to yourself, to take in at a comprehensive glance the extremest point in -the horizon to which your abilities may lead you.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Micawber coughed, and drank his punch with an air of exceeding -satisfaction—still glancing at Traddles, as if he desired to have his -opinion. -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, the plain state of the case, Mrs. Micawber,’ said Traddles, -mildly breaking the truth to her. ‘I mean the real prosaic fact, you -know—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Just so,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘my dear Mr. Traddles, I wish -to be as prosaic and literal as possible on a subject of so much -importance.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘—Is,’ said Traddles, ‘that this branch of the law, -even if Mr. Micawber were a regular solicitor—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Exactly so,’ returned Mrs. Micawber. (‘Wilkins, you are -squinting, and will not be able to get your eyes back.’) -</p> - -<p> -‘—Has nothing,’ pursued Traddles, ‘to do with that. -Only a barrister is eligible for such preferments; and Mr. Micawber could not -be a barrister, without being entered at an inn of court as a student, for five -years.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Do I follow you?’ said Mrs. Micawber, with her most affable air of -business. ‘Do I understand, my dear Mr. Traddles, that, at the expiration -of that period, Mr. Micawber would be eligible as a Judge or Chancellor?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘He would be ELIGIBLE,’ returned Traddles, with a strong emphasis -on that word. -</p> - -<p> -‘Thank you,’ said Mrs. Micawber. ‘That is quite sufficient. -If such is the case, and Mr. Micawber forfeits no privilege by entering on -these duties, my anxiety is set at rest. I speak,’ said Mrs. Micawber, -‘as a female, necessarily; but I have always been of opinion that Mr. -Micawber possesses what I have heard my papa call, when I lived at home, the -judicial mind; and I hope Mr. Micawber is now entering on a field where that -mind will develop itself, and take a commanding station.’ -</p> - -<p> -I quite believe that Mr. Micawber saw himself, in his judicial mind’s -eye, on the woolsack. He passed his hand complacently over his bald head, and -said with ostentatious resignation: -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear, we will not anticipate the decrees of fortune. If I am reserved -to wear a wig, I am at least prepared, externally,’ in allusion to his -baldness, ‘for that distinction. I do not,’ said Mr. Micawber, -‘regret my hair, and I may have been deprived of it for a specific -purpose. I cannot say. It is my intention, my dear Copperfield, to educate my -son for the Church; I will not deny that I should be happy, on his account, to -attain to eminence.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘For the Church?’ said I, still pondering, between whiles, on Uriah -Heep. -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes,’ said Mr. Micawber. ‘He has a remarkable head-voice, -and will commence as a chorister. Our residence at Canterbury, and our local -connexion, will, no doubt, enable him to take advantage of any vacancy that may -arise in the Cathedral corps.’ -</p> - -<p> -On looking at Master Micawber again, I saw that he had a certain expression of -face, as if his voice were behind his eyebrows; where it presently appeared to -be, on his singing us (as an alternative between that and bed) ‘The -Wood-Pecker tapping’. After many compliments on this performance, we fell -into some general conversation; and as I was too full of my desperate -intentions to keep my altered circumstances to myself, I made them known to Mr. -and Mrs. Micawber. I cannot express how extremely delighted they both were, by -the idea of my aunt’s being in difficulties; and how comfortable and -friendly it made them. -</p> - -<p> -When we were nearly come to the last round of the punch, I addressed myself to -Traddles, and reminded him that we must not separate, without wishing our -friends health, happiness, and success in their new career. I begged Mr. -Micawber to fill us bumpers, and proposed the toast in due form: shaking hands -with him across the table, and kissing Mrs. Micawber, to commemorate that -eventful occasion. Traddles imitated me in the first particular, but did not -consider himself a sufficiently old friend to venture on the second. -</p> - -<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> -<img src="images/20114.jpg" alt="20114" width="100%" /> -</div> - -<h5> -<a href="images/20114.jpg"> -<img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /></a> -</h5> - -<p> -‘My dear Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber, rising with one of his -thumbs in each of his waistcoat pockets, ‘the companion of my youth: if I -may be allowed the expression—and my esteemed friend Traddles: if I may -be permitted to call him so—will allow me, on the part of Mrs. Micawber, -myself, and our offspring, to thank them in the warmest and most uncompromising -terms for their good wishes. It may be expected that on the eve of a migration -which will consign us to a perfectly new existence,’ Mr. Micawber spoke -as if they were going five hundred thousand miles, ‘I should offer a few -valedictory remarks to two such friends as I see before me. But all that I have -to say in this way, I have said. Whatever station in society I may attain, -through the medium of the learned profession of which I am about to become an -unworthy member, I shall endeavour not to disgrace, and Mrs. Micawber will be -safe to adorn. Under the temporary pressure of pecuniary liabilities, -contracted with a view to their immediate liquidation, but remaining -unliquidated through a combination of circumstances, I have been under the -necessity of assuming a garb from which my natural instincts recoil—I -allude to spectacles—and possessing myself of a cognomen, to which I can -establish no legitimate pretensions. All I have to say on that score is, that -the cloud has passed from the dreary scene, and the God of Day is once more -high upon the mountain tops. On Monday next, on the arrival of the four -o’clock afternoon coach at Canterbury, my foot will be on my native -heath—my name, Micawber!’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Micawber resumed his seat on the close of these remarks, and drank two -glasses of punch in grave succession. He then said with much solemnity: -</p> - -<p> -‘One thing more I have to do, before this separation is complete, and -that is to perform an act of justice. My friend Mr. Thomas Traddles has, on two -several occasions, “put his name”, if I may use a common -expression, to bills of exchange for my accommodation. On the first occasion -Mr. Thomas Traddles was left—let me say, in short, in the lurch. The -fulfilment of the second has not yet arrived. The amount of the first -obligation,’ here Mr. Micawber carefully referred to papers, ‘was, -I believe, twenty-three, four, nine and a half, of the second, according to my -entry of that transaction, eighteen, six, two. These sums, united, make a -total, if my calculation is correct, amounting to forty-one, ten, eleven and a -half. My friend Copperfield will perhaps do me the favour to check that -total?’ -</p> - -<p> -I did so and found it correct. -</p> - -<p> -‘To leave this metropolis,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘and my friend -Mr. Thomas Traddles, without acquitting myself of the pecuniary part of this -obligation, would weigh upon my mind to an insupportable extent. I have, -therefore, prepared for my friend Mr. Thomas Traddles, and I now hold in my -hand, a document, which accomplishes the desired object. I beg to hand to my -friend Mr. Thomas Traddles my I.O.U. for forty-one, ten, eleven and a half, and -I am happy to recover my moral dignity, and to know that I can once more walk -erect before my fellow man!’ -</p> - -<p> -With this introduction (which greatly affected him), Mr. Micawber placed his -I.O.U. in the hands of Traddles, and said he wished him well in every relation -of life. I am persuaded, not only that this was quite the same to Mr. Micawber -as paying the money, but that Traddles himself hardly knew the difference until -he had had time to think about it. Mr. Micawber walked so erect before his -fellow man, on the strength of this virtuous action, that his chest looked half -as broad again when he lighted us downstairs. We parted with great heartiness -on both sides; and when I had seen Traddles to his own door, and was going home -alone, I thought, among the other odd and contradictory things I mused upon, -that, slippery as Mr. Micawber was, I was probably indebted to some -compassionate recollection he retained of me as his boy-lodger, for never -having been asked by him for money. I certainly should not have had the moral -courage to refuse it; and I have no doubt he knew that (to his credit be it -written), quite as well as I did. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0037"></a>CHAPTER 37. A LITTLE COLD WATER</h2> - -<p> -My new life had lasted for more than a week, and I was stronger than ever in -those tremendous practical resolutions that I felt the crisis required. I -continued to walk extremely fast, and to have a general idea that I was getting -on. I made it a rule to take as much out of myself as I possibly could, in my -way of doing everything to which I applied my energies. I made a perfect victim -of myself. I even entertained some idea of putting myself on a vegetable diet, -vaguely conceiving that, in becoming a graminivorous animal, I should sacrifice -to Dora. -</p> - -<p> -As yet, little Dora was quite unconscious of my desperate firmness, otherwise -than as my letters darkly shadowed it forth. But another Saturday came, and on -that Saturday evening she was to be at Miss Mills’s; and when Mr. Mills -had gone to his whist-club (telegraphed to me in the street, by a bird-cage in -the drawing-room middle window), I was to go there to tea. -</p> - -<p> -By this time, we were quite settled down in Buckingham Street, where Mr. Dick -continued his copying in a state of absolute felicity. My aunt had obtained a -signal victory over Mrs. Crupp, by paying her off, throwing the first pitcher -she planted on the stairs out of window, and protecting in person, up and down -the staircase, a supernumerary whom she engaged from the outer world. These -vigorous measures struck such terror to the breast of Mrs. Crupp, that she -subsided into her own kitchen, under the impression that my aunt was mad. My -aunt being supremely indifferent to Mrs. Crupp’s opinion and everybody -else’s, and rather favouring than discouraging the idea, Mrs. Crupp, of -late the bold, became within a few days so faint-hearted, that rather than -encounter my aunt upon the staircase, she would endeavour to hide her portly -form behind doors—leaving visible, however, a wide margin of flannel -petticoat—or would shrink into dark corners. This gave my aunt such -unspeakable satisfaction, that I believe she took a delight in prowling up and -down, with her bonnet insanely perched on the top of her head, at times when -Mrs. Crupp was likely to be in the way. -</p> - -<p> -My aunt, being uncommonly neat and ingenious, made so many little improvements -in our domestic arrangements, that I seemed to be richer instead of poorer. -Among the rest, she converted the pantry into a dressing-room for me; and -purchased and embellished a bedstead for my occupation, which looked as like a -bookcase in the daytime as a bedstead could. I was the object of her constant -solicitude; and my poor mother herself could not have loved me better, or -studied more how to make me happy. -</p> - -<p> -Peggotty had considered herself highly privileged in being allowed to -participate in these labours; and, although she still retained something of her -old sentiment of awe in reference to my aunt, had received so many marks of -encouragement and confidence, that they were the best friends possible. But the -time had now come (I am speaking of the Saturday when I was to take tea at Miss -Mills’s) when it was necessary for her to return home, and enter on the -discharge of the duties she had undertaken in behalf of Ham. ‘So -good-bye, Barkis,’ said my aunt, ‘and take care of yourself! I am -sure I never thought I could be sorry to lose you!’ -</p> - -<p> -I took Peggotty to the coach office and saw her off. She cried at parting, and -confided her brother to my friendship as Ham had done. We had heard nothing of -him since he went away, that sunny afternoon. -</p> - -<p> -‘And now, my own dear Davy,’ said Peggotty, ‘if, while -you’re a prentice, you should want any money to spend; or if, when -you’re out of your time, my dear, you should want any to set you up (and -you must do one or other, or both, my darling); who has such a good right to -ask leave to lend it you, as my sweet girl’s own old stupid me!’ -</p> - -<p> -I was not so savagely independent as to say anything in reply, but that if ever -I borrowed money of anyone, I would borrow it of her. Next to accepting a large -sum on the spot, I believe this gave Peggotty more comfort than anything I -could have done. -</p> - -<p> -‘And, my dear!’ whispered Peggotty, ‘tell the pretty little -angel that I should so have liked to see her, only for a minute! And tell her -that before she marries my boy, I’ll come and make your house so -beautiful for you, if you’ll let me!’ -</p> - -<p> -I declared that nobody else should touch it; and this gave Peggotty such -delight that she went away in good spirits. -</p> - -<p> -I fatigued myself as much as I possibly could in the Commons all day, by a -variety of devices, and at the appointed time in the evening repaired to Mr. -Mills’s street. Mr. Mills, who was a terrible fellow to fall asleep after -dinner, had not yet gone out, and there was no bird-cage in the middle window. -</p> - -<p> -He kept me waiting so long, that I fervently hoped the Club would fine him for -being late. At last he came out; and then I saw my own Dora hang up the -bird-cage, and peep into the balcony to look for me, and run in again when she -saw I was there, while Jip remained behind, to bark injuriously at an immense -butcher’s dog in the street, who could have taken him like a pill. -</p> - -<p> -Dora came to the drawing-room door to meet me; and Jip came scrambling out, -tumbling over his own growls, under the impression that I was a Bandit; and we -all three went in, as happy and loving as could be. I soon carried desolation -into the bosom of our joys—not that I meant to do it, but that I was so -full of the subject—by asking Dora, without the smallest preparation, if -she could love a beggar? -</p> - -<p> -My pretty, little, startled Dora! Her only association with the word was a -yellow face and a nightcap, or a pair of crutches, or a wooden leg, or a dog -with a decanter-stand in his mouth, or something of that kind; and she stared -at me with the most delightful wonder. -</p> - -<p> -‘How can you ask me anything so foolish?’ pouted Dora. ‘Love -a beggar!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Dora, my own dearest!’ said I. ‘I am a beggar!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘How can you be such a silly thing,’ replied Dora, slapping my -hand, ‘as to sit there, telling such stories? I’ll make Jip bite -you!’ -</p> - -<p> -Her childish way was the most delicious way in the world to me, but it was -necessary to be explicit, and I solemnly repeated: -</p> - -<p> -‘Dora, my own life, I am your ruined David!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I declare I’ll make Jip bite you!’ said Dora, shaking her -curls, ‘if you are so ridiculous.’ -</p> - -<p> -But I looked so serious, that Dora left off shaking her curls, and laid her -trembling little hand upon my shoulder, and first looked scared and anxious, -then began to cry. That was dreadful. I fell upon my knees before the sofa, -caressing her, and imploring her not to rend my heart; but, for some time, poor -little Dora did nothing but exclaim Oh dear! Oh dear! And oh, she was so -frightened! And where was Julia Mills! And oh, take her to Julia Mills, and go -away, please! until I was almost beside myself. -</p> - -<p> -At last, after an agony of supplication and protestation, I got Dora to look at -me, with a horrified expression of face, which I gradually soothed until it was -only loving, and her soft, pretty cheek was lying against mine. Then I told -her, with my arms clasped round her, how I loved her, so dearly, and so dearly; -how I felt it right to offer to release her from her engagement, because now I -was poor; how I never could bear it, or recover it, if I lost her; how I had no -fears of poverty, if she had none, my arm being nerved and my heart inspired by -her; how I was already working with a courage such as none but lovers knew; how -I had begun to be practical, and look into the future; how a crust well earned -was sweeter far than a feast inherited; and much more to the same purpose, -which I delivered in a burst of passionate eloquence quite surprising to -myself, though I had been thinking about it, day and night, ever since my aunt -had astonished me. -</p> - -<p> -‘Is your heart mine still, dear Dora?’ said I, rapturously, for I -knew by her clinging to me that it was. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, yes!’ cried Dora. ‘Oh, yes, it’s all yours. Oh, -don’t be dreadful!’ -</p> - -<p> -I dreadful! To Dora! -</p> - -<p> -‘Don’t talk about being poor, and working hard!’ said Dora, -nestling closer to me. ‘Oh, don’t, don’t!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘My dearest love,’ said I, ‘the crust -well-earned—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, yes; but I don’t want to hear any more about crusts!’ -said Dora. ‘And Jip must have a mutton-chop every day at twelve, or -he’ll die.’ -</p> - -<p> -I was charmed with her childish, winning way. I fondly explained to Dora that -Jip should have his mutton-chop with his accustomed regularity. I drew a -picture of our frugal home, made independent by my labour—sketching in -the little house I had seen at Highgate, and my aunt in her room upstairs. -</p> - -<p> -‘I am not dreadful now, Dora?’ said I, tenderly. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, no, no!’ cried Dora. ‘But I hope your aunt will keep in -her own room a good deal. And I hope she’s not a scolding old -thing!’ -</p> - -<p> -If it were possible for me to love Dora more than ever, I am sure I did. But I -felt she was a little impracticable. It damped my new-born ardour, to find that -ardour so difficult of communication to her. I made another trial. When she was -quite herself again, and was curling Jip’s ears, as he lay upon her lap, -I became grave, and said: -</p> - -<p> -‘My own! May I mention something?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, please don’t be practical!’ said Dora, coaxingly. -‘Because it frightens me so!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Sweetheart!’ I returned; ‘there is nothing to alarm you in -all this. I want you to think of it quite differently. I want to make it nerve -you, and inspire you, Dora!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, but that’s so shocking!’ cried Dora. -</p> - -<p> -‘My love, no. Perseverance and strength of character will enable us to -bear much worse things.’ ‘But I haven’t got any strength at -all,’ said Dora, shaking her curls. ‘Have I, Jip? Oh, do kiss Jip, -and be agreeable!’ -</p> - -<p> -It was impossible to resist kissing Jip, when she held him up to me for that -purpose, putting her own bright, rosy little mouth into kissing form, as she -directed the operation, which she insisted should be performed symmetrically, -on the centre of his nose. I did as she bade me—rewarding myself -afterwards for my obedience—and she charmed me out of my graver character -for I don’t know how long. -</p> - -<p> -‘But, Dora, my beloved!’ said I, at last resuming it; ‘I was -going to mention something.’ -</p> - -<p> -The judge of the Prerogative Court might have fallen in love with her, to see -her fold her little hands and hold them up, begging and praying me not to be -dreadful any more. -</p> - -<p> -‘Indeed I am not going to be, my darling!’ I assured her. -‘But, Dora, my love, if you will sometimes think,—not despondingly, -you know; far from that!—but if you will sometimes think—just to -encourage yourself—that you are engaged to a poor man—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Don’t, don’t! Pray don’t!’ cried Dora. -‘It’s so very dreadful!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘My soul, not at all!’ said I, cheerfully. ‘If you will -sometimes think of that, and look about now and then at your papa’s -housekeeping, and endeavour to acquire a little habit—of accounts, for -instance—’ -</p> - -<p> -Poor little Dora received this suggestion with something that was half a sob -and half a scream. -</p> - -<p> -‘—It would be so useful to us afterwards,’ I went on. -‘And if you would promise me to read a little—a little Cookery Book -that I would send you, it would be so excellent for both of us. For our path in -life, my Dora,’ said I, warming with the subject, ‘is stony and -rugged now, and it rests with us to smooth it. We must fight our way onward. We -must be brave. There are obstacles to be met, and we must meet, and crush -them!’ -</p> - -<p> -I was going on at a great rate, with a clenched hand, and a most enthusiastic -countenance; but it was quite unnecessary to proceed. I had said enough. I had -done it again. Oh, she was so frightened! Oh, where was Julia Mills! Oh, take -her to Julia Mills, and go away, please! So that, in short, I was quite -distracted, and raved about the drawing-room. -</p> - -<p> -I thought I had killed her, this time. I sprinkled water on her face. I went -down on my knees. I plucked at my hair. I denounced myself as a remorseless -brute and a ruthless beast. I implored her forgiveness. I besought her to look -up. I ravaged Miss Mills’s work-box for a smelling-bottle, and in my -agony of mind applied an ivory needle-case instead, and dropped all the needles -over Dora. I shook my fists at Jip, who was as frantic as myself. I did every -wild extravagance that could be done, and was a long way beyond the end of my -wits when Miss Mills came into the room. -</p> - -<p> -‘Who has done this?’ exclaimed Miss Mills, succouring her friend. -</p> - -<p> -I replied, ‘I, Miss Mills! I have done it! Behold the -destroyer!’—or words to that effect—and hid my face from the -light, in the sofa cushion. -</p> - -<p> -At first Miss Mills thought it was a quarrel, and that we were verging on the -Desert of Sahara; but she soon found out how matters stood, for my dear -affectionate little Dora, embracing her, began exclaiming that I was ‘a -poor labourer’; and then cried for me, and embraced me, and asked me -would I let her give me all her money to keep, and then fell on Miss -Mills’s neck, sobbing as if her tender heart were broken. -</p> - -<p> -Miss Mills must have been born to be a blessing to us. She ascertained from me -in a few words what it was all about, comforted Dora, and gradually convinced -her that I was not a labourer—from my manner of stating the case I -believe Dora concluded that I was a navigator, and went balancing myself up and -down a plank all day with a wheelbarrow—and so brought us together in -peace. When we were quite composed, and Dora had gone up-stairs to put some -rose-water to her eyes, Miss Mills rang for tea. In the ensuing interval, I -told Miss Mills that she was evermore my friend, and that my heart must cease -to vibrate ere I could forget her sympathy. -</p> - -<p> -I then expounded to Miss Mills what I had endeavoured, so very unsuccessfully, -to expound to Dora. Miss Mills replied, on general principles, that the Cottage -of content was better than the Palace of cold splendour, and that where love -was, all was. -</p> - -<p> -I said to Miss Mills that this was very true, and who should know it better -than I, who loved Dora with a love that never mortal had experienced yet? But -on Miss Mills observing, with despondency, that it were well indeed for some -hearts if this were so, I explained that I begged leave to restrict the -observation to mortals of the masculine gender. -</p> - -<p> -I then put it to Miss Mills, to say whether she considered that there was or -was not any practical merit in the suggestion I had been anxious to make, -concerning the accounts, the housekeeping, and the Cookery Book? -</p> - -<p> -Miss Mills, after some consideration, thus replied: -</p> - -<p> -‘Mr. Copperfield, I will be plain with you. Mental suffering and trial -supply, in some natures, the place of years, and I will be as plain with you as -if I were a Lady Abbess. No. The suggestion is not appropriate to our Dora. Our -dearest Dora is a favourite child of nature. She is a thing of light, and -airiness, and joy. I am free to confess that if it could be done, it might be -well, but—’ And Miss Mills shook her head. -</p> - -<p> -I was encouraged by this closing admission on the part of Miss Mills to ask -her, whether, for Dora’s sake, if she had any opportunity of luring her -attention to such preparations for an earnest life, she would avail herself of -it? Miss Mills replied in the affirmative so readily, that I further asked her -if she would take charge of the Cookery Book; and, if she ever could insinuate -it upon Dora’s acceptance, without frightening her, undertake to do me -that crowning service. Miss Mills accepted this trust, too; but was not -sanguine. -</p> - -<p> -And Dora returned, looking such a lovely little creature, that I really doubted -whether she ought to be troubled with anything so ordinary. And she loved me so -much, and was so captivating (particularly when she made Jip stand on his hind -legs for toast, and when she pretended to hold that nose of his against the hot -teapot for punishment because he wouldn’t), that I felt like a sort of -Monster who had got into a Fairy’s bower, when I thought of having -frightened her, and made her cry. -</p> - -<p> -After tea we had the guitar; and Dora sang those same dear old French songs -about the impossibility of ever on any account leaving off dancing, La ra la, -La ra la, until I felt a much greater Monster than before. -</p> - -<p> -We had only one check to our pleasure, and that happened a little while before -I took my leave, when, Miss Mills chancing to make some allusion to tomorrow -morning, I unluckily let out that, being obliged to exert myself now, I got up -at five o’clock. Whether Dora had any idea that I was a Private Watchman, -I am unable to say; but it made a great impression on her, and she neither -played nor sang any more. -</p> - -<p> -It was still on her mind when I bade her adieu; and she said to me, in her -pretty coaxing way—as if I were a doll, I used to think: -</p> - -<p> -‘Now don’t get up at five o’clock, you naughty boy. -It’s so nonsensical!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘My love,’ said I, ‘I have work to do.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘But don’t do it!’ returned Dora. ‘Why should -you?’ -</p> - -<p> -It was impossible to say to that sweet little surprised face, otherwise than -lightly and playfully, that we must work to live. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh! How ridiculous!’ cried Dora. -</p> - -<p> -‘How shall we live without, Dora?’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘How? Any how!’ said Dora. -</p> - -<p> -She seemed to think she had quite settled the question, and gave me such a -triumphant little kiss, direct from her innocent heart, that I would hardly -have put her out of conceit with her answer, for a fortune. -</p> - -<p> -Well! I loved her, and I went on loving her, most absorbingly, entirely, and -completely. But going on, too, working pretty hard, and busily keeping red-hot -all the irons I now had in the fire, I would sit sometimes of a night, opposite -my aunt, thinking how I had frightened Dora that time, and how I could best -make my way with a guitar-case through the forest of difficulty, until I used -to fancy that my head was turning quite grey. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0038"></a>CHAPTER 38. A DISSOLUTION OF PARTNERSHIP</h2> - -<p> -I did not allow my resolution, with respect to the Parliamentary Debates, to -cool. It was one of the irons I began to heat immediately, and one of the irons -I kept hot, and hammered at, with a perseverance I may honestly admire. I -bought an approved scheme of the noble art and mystery of stenography (which -cost me ten and sixpence); and plunged into a sea of perplexity that brought -me, in a few weeks, to the confines of distraction. The changes that were rung -upon dots, which in such a position meant such a thing, and in such another -position something else, entirely different; the wonderful vagaries that were -played by circles; the unaccountable consequences that resulted from marks like -flies’ legs; the tremendous effects of a curve in a wrong place; not only -troubled my waking hours, but reappeared before me in my sleep. When I had -groped my way, blindly, through these difficulties, and had mastered the -alphabet, which was an Egyptian Temple in itself, there then appeared a -procession of new horrors, called arbitrary characters; the most despotic -characters I have ever known; who insisted, for instance, that a thing like the -beginning of a cobweb, meant expectation, and that a pen-and-ink sky-rocket, -stood for disadvantageous. When I had fixed these wretches in my mind, I found -that they had driven everything else out of it; then, beginning again, I forgot -them; while I was picking them up, I dropped the other fragments of the system; -in short, it was almost heart-breaking. -</p> - -<p> -It might have been quite heart-breaking, but for Dora, who was the stay and -anchor of my tempest-driven bark. Every scratch in the scheme was a gnarled oak -in the forest of difficulty, and I went on cutting them down, one after -another, with such vigour, that in three or four months I was in a condition to -make an experiment on one of our crack speakers in the Commons. Shall I ever -forget how the crack speaker walked off from me before I began, and left my -imbecile pencil staggering about the paper as if it were in a fit! -</p> - -<p> -This would not do, it was quite clear. I was flying too high, and should never -get on, so. I resorted to Traddles for advice; who suggested that he should -dictate speeches to me, at a pace, and with occasional stoppages, adapted to my -weakness. Very grateful for this friendly aid, I accepted the proposal; and -night after night, almost every night, for a long time, we had a sort of -Private Parliament in Buckingham Street, after I came home from the -Doctor’s. -</p> - -<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> -<img src="images/20128.jpg" alt="20128" width="100%" /> -</div> - -<h5> -<a href="images/20128.jpg"> -<img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /></a> -</h5> - -<p> -I should like to see such a Parliament anywhere else! My aunt and Mr. Dick -represented the Government or the Opposition (as the case might be), and -Traddles, with the assistance of Enfield’s Speakers, or a volume of -parliamentary orations, thundered astonishing invectives against them. Standing -by the table, with his finger in the page to keep the place, and his right arm -flourishing above his head, Traddles, as Mr. Pitt, Mr. Fox, Mr. Sheridan, Mr. -Burke, Lord Castlereagh, Viscount Sidmouth, or Mr. Canning, would work himself -into the most violent heats, and deliver the most withering denunciations of -the profligacy and corruption of my aunt and Mr. Dick; while I used to sit, at -a little distance, with my notebook on my knee, fagging after him with all my -might and main. The inconsistency and recklessness of Traddles were not to be -exceeded by any real politician. He was for any description of policy, in the -compass of a week; and nailed all sorts of colours to every denomination of -mast. My aunt, looking very like an immovable Chancellor of the Exchequer, -would occasionally throw in an interruption or two, as ‘Hear!’ or -‘No!’ or ‘Oh!’ when the text seemed to require it: -which was always a signal to Mr. Dick (a perfect country gentleman) to follow -lustily with the same cry. But Mr. Dick got taxed with such things in the -course of his Parliamentary career, and was made responsible for such awful -consequences, that he became uncomfortable in his mind sometimes. I believe he -actually began to be afraid he really had been doing something, tending to the -annihilation of the British constitution, and the ruin of the country. -</p> - -<p> -Often and often we pursued these debates until the clock pointed to midnight, -and the candles were burning down. The result of so much good practice was, -that by and by I began to keep pace with Traddles pretty well, and should have -been quite triumphant if I had had the least idea what my notes were about. -But, as to reading them after I had got them, I might as well have copied the -Chinese inscriptions of an immense collection of tea-chests, or the golden -characters on all the great red and green bottles in the chemists’ shops! -</p> - -<p> -There was nothing for it, but to turn back and begin all over again. It was -very hard, but I turned back, though with a heavy heart, and began laboriously -and methodically to plod over the same tedious ground at a snail’s pace; -stopping to examine minutely every speck in the way, on all sides, and making -the most desperate efforts to know these elusive characters by sight wherever I -met them. I was always punctual at the office; at the Doctor’s too: and I -really did work, as the common expression is, like a cart-horse. One day, when -I went to the Commons as usual, I found Mr. Spenlow in the doorway looking -extremely grave, and talking to himself. As he was in the habit of complaining -of pains in his head—he had naturally a short throat, and I do seriously -believe he over-starched himself—I was at first alarmed by the idea that -he was not quite right in that direction; but he soon relieved my uneasiness. -</p> - -<p> -Instead of returning my ‘Good morning’ with his usual affability, -he looked at me in a distant, ceremonious manner, and coldly requested me to -accompany him to a certain coffee-house, which, in those days, had a door -opening into the Commons, just within the little archway in St. Paul’s -Churchyard. I complied, in a very uncomfortable state, and with a warm shooting -all over me, as if my apprehensions were breaking out into buds. When I allowed -him to go on a little before, on account of the narrowness of the way, I -observed that he carried his head with a lofty air that was particularly -unpromising; and my mind misgave me that he had found out about my darling -Dora. -</p> - -<p> -If I had not guessed this, on the way to the coffee-house, I could hardly have -failed to know what was the matter when I followed him into an upstairs room, -and found Miss Murdstone there, supported by a background of sideboard, on -which were several inverted tumblers sustaining lemons, and two of those -extraordinary boxes, all corners and flutings, for sticking knives and forks -in, which, happily for mankind, are now obsolete. -</p> - -<p> -Miss Murdstone gave me her chilly finger-nails, and sat severely rigid. Mr. -Spenlow shut the door, motioned me to a chair, and stood on the hearth-rug in -front of the fireplace. -</p> - -<p> -‘Have the goodness to show Mr. Copperfield,’ said Mr. Spenlow, what -you have in your reticule, Miss Murdstone.’ -</p> - -<p> -I believe it was the old identical steel-clasped reticule of my childhood, that -shut up like a bite. Compressing her lips, in sympathy with the snap, Miss -Murdstone opened it—opening her mouth a little at the same time—and -produced my last letter to Dora, teeming with expressions of devoted affection. -</p> - -<p> -‘I believe that is your writing, Mr. Copperfield?’ said Mr. -Spenlow. -</p> - -<p> -I was very hot, and the voice I heard was very unlike mine, when I said, -‘It is, sir!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘If I am not mistaken,’ said Mr. Spenlow, as Miss Murdstone brought -a parcel of letters out of her reticule, tied round with the dearest bit of -blue ribbon, ‘those are also from your pen, Mr. Copperfield?’ -</p> - -<p> -I took them from her with a most desolate sensation; and, glancing at such -phrases at the top, as ‘My ever dearest and own Dora,’ ‘My -best beloved angel,’ ‘My blessed one for ever,’ and the like, -blushed deeply, and inclined my head. -</p> - -<p> -‘No, thank you!’ said Mr. Spenlow, coldly, as I mechanically -offered them back to him. ‘I will not deprive you of them. Miss -Murdstone, be so good as to proceed!’ -</p> - -<p> -That gentle creature, after a moment’s thoughtful survey of the carpet, -delivered herself with much dry unction as follows. -</p> - -<p> -‘I must confess to having entertained my suspicions of Miss Spenlow, in -reference to David Copperfield, for some time. I observed Miss Spenlow and -David Copperfield, when they first met; and the impression made upon me then -was not agreeable. The depravity of the human heart is such—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You will oblige me, ma’am,’ interrupted Mr. Spenlow, -‘by confining yourself to facts.’ -</p> - -<p> -Miss Murdstone cast down her eyes, shook her head as if protesting against this -unseemly interruption, and with frowning dignity resumed: -</p> - -<p> -‘Since I am to confine myself to facts, I will state them as dryly as I -can. Perhaps that will be considered an acceptable course of proceeding. I have -already said, sir, that I have had my suspicions of Miss Spenlow, in reference -to David Copperfield, for some time. I have frequently endeavoured to find -decisive corroboration of those suspicions, but without effect. I have -therefore forborne to mention them to Miss Spenlow’s father’; -looking severely at him—‘knowing how little disposition there -usually is in such cases, to acknowledge the conscientious discharge of -duty.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Spenlow seemed quite cowed by the gentlemanly sternness of Miss -Murdstone’s manner, and deprecated her severity with a conciliatory -little wave of his hand. -</p> - -<p> -‘On my return to Norwood, after the period of absence occasioned by my -brother’s marriage,’ pursued Miss Murdstone in a disdainful voice, -‘and on the return of Miss Spenlow from her visit to her friend Miss -Mills, I imagined that the manner of Miss Spenlow gave me greater occasion for -suspicion than before. Therefore I watched Miss Spenlow closely.’ -</p> - -<p> -Dear, tender little Dora, so unconscious of this Dragon’s eye! -</p> - -<p> -‘Still,’ resumed Miss Murdstone, ‘I found no proof until last -night. It appeared to me that Miss Spenlow received too many letters from her -friend Miss Mills; but Miss Mills being her friend with her father’s full -concurrence,’ another telling blow at Mr. Spenlow, ‘it was not for -me to interfere. If I may not be permitted to allude to the natural depravity -of the human heart, at least I may—I must—be permitted, so far to -refer to misplaced confidence.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Spenlow apologetically murmured his assent. -</p> - -<p> -‘Last evening after tea,’ pursued Miss Murdstone, ‘I observed -the little dog starting, rolling, and growling about the drawing-room, worrying -something. I said to Miss Spenlow, “Dora, what is that the dog has in his -mouth? It’s paper.” Miss Spenlow immediately put her hand to her -frock, gave a sudden cry, and ran to the dog. I interposed, and said, -“Dora, my love, you must permit me.”’ -</p> - -<p> -Oh Jip, miserable Spaniel, this wretchedness, then, was your work! -</p> - -<p> -‘Miss Spenlow endeavoured,’ said Miss Murdstone, ‘to bribe me -with kisses, work-boxes, and small articles of jewellery—that, of course, -I pass over. The little dog retreated under the sofa on my approaching him, and -was with great difficulty dislodged by the fire-irons. Even when dislodged, he -still kept the letter in his mouth; and on my endeavouring to take it from him, -at the imminent risk of being bitten, he kept it between his teeth so -pertinaciously as to suffer himself to be held suspended in the air by means of -the document. At length I obtained possession of it. After perusing it, I taxed -Miss Spenlow with having many such letters in her possession; and ultimately -obtained from her the packet which is now in David Copperfield’s -hand.’ -</p> - -<p> -Here she ceased; and snapping her reticule again, and shutting her mouth, -looked as if she might be broken, but could never be bent. -</p> - -<p> -‘You have heard Miss Murdstone,’ said Mr. Spenlow, turning to me. -‘I beg to ask, Mr. Copperfield, if you have anything to say in -reply?’ -</p> - -<p> -The picture I had before me, of the beautiful little treasure of my heart, -sobbing and crying all night—of her being alone, frightened, and -wretched, then—of her having so piteously begged and prayed that -stony-hearted woman to forgive her—of her having vainly offered her those -kisses, work-boxes, and trinkets—of her being in such grievous distress, -and all for me—very much impaired the little dignity I had been able to -muster. I am afraid I was in a tremulous state for a minute or so, though I did -my best to disguise it. -</p> - -<p> -‘There is nothing I can say, sir,’ I returned, ‘except that -all the blame is mine. Dora—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Miss Spenlow, if you please,’ said her father, majestically. -</p> - -<p> -‘—was induced and persuaded by me,’ I went on, swallowing -that colder designation, ‘to consent to this concealment, and I bitterly -regret it.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You are very much to blame, sir,’ said Mr. Spenlow, walking to and -fro upon the hearth-rug, and emphasizing what he said with his whole body -instead of his head, on account of the stiffness of his cravat and spine. -‘You have done a stealthy and unbecoming action, Mr. Copperfield. When I -take a gentleman to my house, no matter whether he is nineteen, twenty-nine, or -ninety, I take him there in a spirit of confidence. If he abuses my confidence, -he commits a dishonourable action, Mr. Copperfield.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I feel it, sir, I assure you,’ I returned. ‘But I never -thought so, before. Sincerely, honestly, indeed, Mr. Spenlow, I never thought -so, before. I love Miss Spenlow to that extent—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Pooh! nonsense!’ said Mr. Spenlow, reddening. ‘Pray -don’t tell me to my face that you love my daughter, Mr. -Copperfield!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Could I defend my conduct if I did not, sir?’ I returned, with all -humility. -</p> - -<p> -‘Can you defend your conduct if you do, sir?’ said Mr. Spenlow, -stopping short upon the hearth-rug. ‘Have you considered your years, and -my daughter’s years, Mr. Copperfield? Have you considered what it is to -undermine the confidence that should subsist between my daughter and myself? -Have you considered my daughter’s station in life, the projects I may -contemplate for her advancement, the testamentary intentions I may have with -reference to her? Have you considered anything, Mr. Copperfield?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Very little, sir, I am afraid;’ I answered, speaking to him as -respectfully and sorrowfully as I felt; ‘but pray believe me, I have -considered my own worldly position. When I explained it to you, we were already -engaged—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I BEG,’ said Mr. Spenlow, more like Punch than I had ever seen -him, as he energetically struck one hand upon the other—I could not help -noticing that even in my despair; ‘that YOU Will NOT talk to me of -engagements, Mr. Copperfield!’ -</p> - -<p> -The otherwise immovable Miss Murdstone laughed contemptuously in one short -syllable. -</p> - -<p> -‘When I explained my altered position to you, sir,’ I began again, -substituting a new form of expression for what was so unpalatable to him, -‘this concealment, into which I am so unhappy as to have led Miss -Spenlow, had begun. Since I have been in that altered position, I have strained -every nerve, I have exerted every energy, to improve it. I am sure I shall -improve it in time. Will you grant me time—any length of time? We are -both so young, sir,—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You are right,’ interrupted Mr. Spenlow, nodding his head a great -many times, and frowning very much, ‘you are both very young. It’s -all nonsense. Let there be an end of the nonsense. Take away those letters, and -throw them in the fire. Give me Miss Spenlow’s letters to throw in the -fire; and although our future intercourse must, you are aware, be restricted to -the Commons here, we will agree to make no further mention of the past. Come, -Mr. Copperfield, you don’t want sense; and this is the sensible -course.’ -</p> - -<p> -No. I couldn’t think of agreeing to it. I was very sorry, but there was a -higher consideration than sense. Love was above all earthly considerations, and -I loved Dora to idolatry, and Dora loved me. I didn’t exactly say so; I -softened it down as much as I could; but I implied it, and I was resolute upon -it. I don’t think I made myself very ridiculous, but I know I was -resolute. -</p> - -<p> -‘Very well, Mr. Copperfield,’ said Mr. Spenlow, ‘I must try -my influence with my daughter.’ -</p> - -<p> -Miss Murdstone, by an expressive sound, a long drawn respiration, which was -neither a sigh nor a moan, but was like both, gave it as her opinion that he -should have done this at first. -</p> - -<p> -‘I must try,’ said Mr. Spenlow, confirmed by this support, -‘my influence with my daughter. Do you decline to take those letters, Mr. -Copperfield?’ For I had laid them on the table. -</p> - -<p> -Yes. I told him I hoped he would not think it wrong, but I couldn’t -possibly take them from Miss Murdstone. -</p> - -<p> -‘Nor from me?’ said Mr. Spenlow. -</p> - -<p> -No, I replied with the profoundest respect; nor from him. -</p> - -<p> -‘Very well!’ said Mr. Spenlow. -</p> - -<p> -A silence succeeding, I was undecided whether to go or stay. At length I was -moving quietly towards the door, with the intention of saying that perhaps I -should consult his feelings best by withdrawing: when he said, with his hands -in his coat pockets, into which it was as much as he could do to get them; and -with what I should call, upon the whole, a decidedly pious air: -</p> - -<p> -‘You are probably aware, Mr. Copperfield, that I am not altogether -destitute of worldly possessions, and that my daughter is my nearest and -dearest relative?’ -</p> - -<p> -I hurriedly made him a reply to the effect, that I hoped the error into which I -had been betrayed by the desperate nature of my love, did not induce him to -think me mercenary too? -</p> - -<p> -‘I don’t allude to the matter in that light,’ said Mr. -Spenlow. ‘It would be better for yourself, and all of us, if you WERE -mercenary, Mr. Copperfield—I mean, if you were more discreet and less -influenced by all this youthful nonsense. No. I merely say, with quite another -view, you are probably aware I have some property to bequeath to my -child?’ -</p> - -<p> -I certainly supposed so. -</p> - -<p> -‘And you can hardly think,’ said Mr. Spenlow, ‘having -experience of what we see, in the Commons here, every day, of the various -unaccountable and negligent proceedings of men, in respect of their -testamentary arrangements—of all subjects, the one on which perhaps the -strangest revelations of human inconsistency are to be met with—but that -mine are made?’ -</p> - -<p> -I inclined my head in acquiescence. -</p> - -<p> -‘I should not allow,’ said Mr. Spenlow, with an evident increase of -pious sentiment, and slowly shaking his head as he poised himself upon his toes -and heels alternately, ‘my suitable provision for my child to be -influenced by a piece of youthful folly like the present. It is mere folly. -Mere nonsense. In a little while, it will weigh lighter than any feather. But I -might—I might—if this silly business were not completely -relinquished altogether, be induced in some anxious moment to guard her from, -and surround her with protections against, the consequences of any foolish step -in the way of marriage. Now, Mr. Copperfield, I hope that you will not render -it necessary for me to open, even for a quarter of an hour, that closed page in -the book of life, and unsettle, even for a quarter of an hour, grave affairs -long since composed.’ -</p> - -<p> -There was a serenity, a tranquillity, a calm sunset air about him, which quite -affected me. He was so peaceful and resigned—clearly had his affairs in -such perfect train, and so systematically wound up—that he was a man to -feel touched in the contemplation of. I really think I saw tears rise to his -eyes, from the depth of his own feeling of all this. -</p> - -<p> -But what could I do? I could not deny Dora and my own heart. When he told me I -had better take a week to consider of what he had said, how could I say I -wouldn’t take a week, yet how could I fail to know that no amount of -weeks could influence such love as mine? -</p> - -<p> -‘In the meantime, confer with Miss Trotwood, or with any person with any -knowledge of life,’ said Mr. Spenlow, adjusting his cravat with both -hands. ‘Take a week, Mr. Copperfield.’ -</p> - -<p> -I submitted; and, with a countenance as expressive as I was able to make it of -dejected and despairing constancy, came out of the room. Miss Murdstone’s -heavy eyebrows followed me to the door—I say her eyebrows rather than her -eyes, because they were much more important in her face—and she looked so -exactly as she used to look, at about that hour of the morning, in our parlour -at Blunderstone, that I could have fancied I had been breaking down in my -lessons again, and that the dead weight on my mind was that horrible old -spelling-book, with oval woodcuts, shaped, to my youthful fancy, like the -glasses out of spectacles. -</p> - -<p> -When I got to the office, and, shutting out old Tiffey and the rest of them -with my hands, sat at my desk, in my own particular nook, thinking of this -earthquake that had taken place so unexpectedly, and in the bitterness of my -spirit cursing Jip, I fell into such a state of torment about Dora, that I -wonder I did not take up my hat and rush insanely to Norwood. The idea of their -frightening her, and making her cry, and of my not being there to comfort her, -was so excruciating, that it impelled me to write a wild letter to Mr. Spenlow, -beseeching him not to visit upon her the consequences of my awful destiny. I -implored him to spare her gentle nature—not to crush a fragile -flower—and addressed him generally, to the best of my remembrance, as if, -instead of being her father, he had been an Ogre, or the Dragon of Wantley. -This letter I sealed and laid upon his desk before he returned; and when he -came in, I saw him, through the half-opened door of his room, take it up and -read it. -</p> - -<p> -He said nothing about it all the morning; but before he went away in the -afternoon he called me in, and told me that I need not make myself at all -uneasy about his daughter’s happiness. He had assured her, he said, that -it was all nonsense; and he had nothing more to say to her. He believed he was -an indulgent father (as indeed he was), and I might spare myself any solicitude -on her account. -</p> - -<p> -‘You may make it necessary, if you are foolish or obstinate, Mr. -Copperfield,’ he observed, ‘for me to send my daughter abroad -again, for a term; but I have a better opinion of you. I hope you will be wiser -than that, in a few days. As to Miss Murdstone,’ for I had alluded to her -in the letter, ‘I respect that lady’s vigilance, and feel obliged -to her; but she has strict charge to avoid the subject. All I desire, Mr. -Copperfield, is, that it should be forgotten. All you have got to do, Mr. -Copperfield, is to forget it.’ -</p> - -<p> -All! In the note I wrote to Miss Mills, I bitterly quoted this sentiment. All I -had to do, I said, with gloomy sarcasm, was to forget Dora. That was all, and -what was that! I entreated Miss Mills to see me, that evening. If it could not -be done with Mr. Mills’s sanction and concurrence, I besought a -clandestine interview in the back kitchen where the Mangle was. I informed her -that my reason was tottering on its throne, and only she, Miss Mills, could -prevent its being deposed. I signed myself, hers distractedly; and I -couldn’t help feeling, while I read this composition over, before sending -it by a porter, that it was something in the style of Mr. Micawber. -</p> - -<p> -However, I sent it. At night I repaired to Miss Mills’s street, and -walked up and down, until I was stealthily fetched in by Miss Mills’s -maid, and taken the area way to the back kitchen. I have since seen reason to -believe that there was nothing on earth to prevent my going in at the front -door, and being shown up into the drawing-room, except Miss Mills’s love -of the romantic and mysterious. -</p> - -<p> -In the back kitchen, I raved as became me. I went there, I suppose, to make a -fool of myself, and I am quite sure I did it. Miss Mills had received a hasty -note from Dora, telling her that all was discovered, and saying. ‘Oh pray -come to me, Julia, do, do!’ But Miss Mills, mistrusting the acceptability -of her presence to the higher powers, had not yet gone; and we were all -benighted in the Desert of Sahara. -</p> - -<p> -Miss Mills had a wonderful flow of words, and liked to pour them out. I could -not help feeling, though she mingled her tears with mine, that she had a -dreadful luxury in our afflictions. She petted them, as I may say, and made the -most of them. A deep gulf, she observed, had opened between Dora and me, and -Love could only span it with its rainbow. Love must suffer in this stern world; -it ever had been so, it ever would be so. No matter, Miss Mills remarked. -Hearts confined by cobwebs would burst at last, and then Love was avenged. -</p> - -<p> -This was small consolation, but Miss Mills wouldn’t encourage fallacious -hopes. She made me much more wretched than I was before, and I felt (and told -her with the deepest gratitude) that she was indeed a friend. We resolved that -she should go to Dora the first thing in the morning, and find some means of -assuring her, either by looks or words, of my devotion and misery. We parted, -overwhelmed with grief; and I think Miss Mills enjoyed herself completely. -</p> - -<p> -I confided all to my aunt when I got home; and in spite of all she could say to -me, went to bed despairing. I got up despairing, and went out despairing. It -was Saturday morning, and I went straight to the Commons. -</p> - -<p> -I was surprised, when I came within sight of our office-door, to see the -ticket-porters standing outside talking together, and some half-dozen -stragglers gazing at the windows which were shut up. I quickened my pace, and, -passing among them, wondering at their looks, went hurriedly in. -</p> - -<p> -The clerks were there, but nobody was doing anything. Old Tiffey, for the first -time in his life I should think, was sitting on somebody else’s stool, -and had not hung up his hat. -</p> - -<p> -‘This is a dreadful calamity, Mr. Copperfield,’ said he, as I -entered. -</p> - -<p> -‘What is?’ I exclaimed. ‘What’s the matter?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Don’t you know?’ cried Tiffey, and all the rest of them, -coming round me. -</p> - -<p> -‘No!’ said I, looking from face to face. -</p> - -<p> -‘Mr. Spenlow,’ said Tiffey. -</p> - -<p> -‘What about him!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Dead!’ I thought it was the office reeling, and not I, as one of -the clerks caught hold of me. They sat me down in a chair, untied my -neck-cloth, and brought me some water. I have no idea whether this took any -time. -</p> - -<p> -‘Dead?’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘He dined in town yesterday, and drove down in the phaeton by -himself,’ said Tiffey, ‘having sent his own groom home by the -coach, as he sometimes did, you know—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Well?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘The phaeton went home without him. The horses stopped at the -stable-gate. The man went out with a lantern. Nobody in the carriage.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Had they run away?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘They were not hot,’ said Tiffey, putting on his glasses; ‘no -hotter, I understand, than they would have been, going down at the usual pace. -The reins were broken, but they had been dragging on the ground. The house was -roused up directly, and three of them went out along the road. They found him a -mile off.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘More than a mile off, Mr. Tiffey,’ interposed a junior. -</p> - -<p> -‘Was it? I believe you are right,’ said Tiffey,—‘more -than a mile off—not far from the church—lying partly on the -roadside, and partly on the path, upon his face. Whether he fell out in a fit, -or got out, feeling ill before the fit came on—or even whether he was -quite dead then, though there is no doubt he was quite insensible—no one -appears to know. If he breathed, certainly he never spoke. Medical assistance -was got as soon as possible, but it was quite useless.’ -</p> - -<p> -I cannot describe the state of mind into which I was thrown by this -intelligence. The shock of such an event happening so suddenly, and happening -to one with whom I had been in any respect at variance—the appalling -vacancy in the room he had occupied so lately, where his chair and table seemed -to wait for him, and his handwriting of yesterday was like a ghost—the -indefinable impossibility of separating him from the place, and feeling, when -the door opened, as if he might come in—the lazy hush and rest there was -in the office, and the insatiable relish with which our people talked about it, -and other people came in and out all day, and gorged themselves with the -subject—this is easily intelligible to anyone. What I cannot describe is, -how, in the innermost recesses of my own heart, I had a lurking jealousy even -of Death. How I felt as if its might would push me from my ground in -Dora’s thoughts. How I was, in a grudging way I have no words for, -envious of her grief. How it made me restless to think of her weeping to -others, or being consoled by others. How I had a grasping, avaricious wish to -shut out everybody from her but myself, and to be all in all to her, at that -unseasonable time of all times. -</p> - -<p> -In the trouble of this state of mind—not exclusively my own, I hope, but -known to others—I went down to Norwood that night; and finding from one -of the servants, when I made my inquiries at the door, that Miss Mills was -there, got my aunt to direct a letter to her, which I wrote. I deplored the -untimely death of Mr. Spenlow, most sincerely, and shed tears in doing so. I -entreated her to tell Dora, if Dora were in a state to hear it, that he had -spoken to me with the utmost kindness and consideration; and had coupled -nothing but tenderness, not a single or reproachful word, with her name. I know -I did this selfishly, to have my name brought before her; but I tried to -believe it was an act of justice to his memory. Perhaps I did believe it. -</p> - -<p> -My aunt received a few lines next day in reply; addressed, outside, to her; -within, to me. Dora was overcome by grief; and when her friend had asked her -should she send her love to me, had only cried, as she was always crying, -‘Oh, dear papa! oh, poor papa!’ But she had not said No, and that I -made the most of. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Jorkins, who had been at Norwood since the occurrence, came to the office a -few days afterwards. He and Tiffey were closeted together for some few moments, -and then Tiffey looked out at the door and beckoned me in. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh!’ said Mr. Jorkins. ‘Mr. Tiffey and myself, Mr. -Copperfield, are about to examine the desks, the drawers, and other such -repositories of the deceased, with the view of sealing up his private papers, -and searching for a Will. There is no trace of any, elsewhere. It may be as -well for you to assist us, if you please.’ -</p> - -<p> -I had been in agony to obtain some knowledge of the circumstances in which my -Dora would be placed—as, in whose guardianship, and so forth—and -this was something towards it. We began the search at once; Mr. Jorkins -unlocking the drawers and desks, and we all taking out the papers. The -office-papers we placed on one side, and the private papers (which were not -numerous) on the other. We were very grave; and when we came to a stray seal, -or pencil-case, or ring, or any little article of that kind which we associated -personally with him, we spoke very low. -</p> - -<p> -We had sealed up several packets; and were still going on dustily and quietly, -when Mr. Jorkins said to us, applying exactly the same words to his late -partner as his late partner had applied to him: -</p> - -<p> -‘Mr. Spenlow was very difficult to move from the beaten track. You know -what he was! I am disposed to think he had made no will.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, I know he had!’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -They both stopped and looked at me. ‘On the very day when I last saw -him,’ said I, ‘he told me that he had, and that his affairs were -long since settled.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Jorkins and old Tiffey shook their heads with one accord. -</p> - -<p> -‘That looks unpromising,’ said Tiffey. -</p> - -<p> -‘Very unpromising,’ said Mr. Jorkins. -</p> - -<p> -‘Surely you don’t doubt—’ I began. -</p> - -<p> -‘My good Mr. Copperfield!’ said Tiffey, laying his hand upon my -arm, and shutting up both his eyes as he shook his head: ‘if you had been -in the Commons as long as I have, you would know that there is no subject on -which men are so inconsistent, and so little to be trusted.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, bless my soul, he made that very remark!’ I replied -persistently. -</p> - -<p> -‘I should call that almost final,’ observed Tiffey. ‘My -opinion is—no will.’ -</p> - -<p> -It appeared a wonderful thing to me, but it turned out that there was no will. -He had never so much as thought of making one, so far as his papers afforded -any evidence; for there was no kind of hint, sketch, or memorandum, of any -testamentary intention whatever. What was scarcely less astonishing to me, was, -that his affairs were in a most disordered state. It was extremely difficult, I -heard, to make out what he owed, or what he had paid, or of what he died -possessed. It was considered likely that for years he could have had no clear -opinion on these subjects himself. By little and little it came out, that, in -the competition on all points of appearance and gentility then running high in -the Commons, he had spent more than his professional income, which was not a -very large one, and had reduced his private means, if they ever had been great -(which was exceedingly doubtful), to a very low ebb indeed. There was a sale of -the furniture and lease, at Norwood; and Tiffey told me, little thinking how -interested I was in the story, that, paying all the just debts of the deceased, -and deducting his share of outstanding bad and doubtful debts due to the firm, -he wouldn’t give a thousand pounds for all the assets remaining. -</p> - -<p> -This was at the expiration of about six weeks. I had suffered tortures all the -time; and thought I really must have laid violent hands upon myself, when Miss -Mills still reported to me, that my broken-hearted little Dora would say -nothing, when I was mentioned, but ‘Oh, poor papa! Oh, dear papa!’ -Also, that she had no other relations than two aunts, maiden sisters of Mr. -Spenlow, who lived at Putney, and who had not held any other than chance -communication with their brother for many years. Not that they had ever -quarrelled (Miss Mills informed me); but that having been, on the occasion of -Dora’s christening, invited to tea, when they considered themselves -privileged to be invited to dinner, they had expressed their opinion in -writing, that it was ‘better for the happiness of all parties’ that -they should stay away. Since which they had gone their road, and their brother -had gone his. -</p> - -<p> -These two ladies now emerged from their retirement, and proposed to take Dora -to live at Putney. Dora, clinging to them both, and weeping, exclaimed, -‘O yes, aunts! Please take Julia Mills and me and Jip to Putney!’ -So they went, very soon after the funeral. -</p> - -<p> -How I found time to haunt Putney, I am sure I don’t know; but I -contrived, by some means or other, to prowl about the neighbourhood pretty -often. Miss Mills, for the more exact discharge of the duties of friendship, -kept a journal; and she used to meet me sometimes, on the Common, and read it, -or (if she had not time to do that) lend it to me. How I treasured up the -entries, of which I subjoin a sample—! -</p> - -<p> -‘Monday. My sweet D. still much depressed. Headache. Called attention to -J. as being beautifully sleek. D. fondled J. Associations thus awakened, opened -floodgates of sorrow. Rush of grief admitted. (Are tears the dewdrops of the -heart? J. M.) -</p> - -<p> -‘Tuesday. D. weak and nervous. Beautiful in pallor. (Do we not remark -this in moon likewise? J. M.) D., J. M. and J. took airing in carriage. J. -looking out of window, and barking violently at dustman, occasioned smile to -overspread features of D. (Of such slight links is chain of life composed! J. -M.) -</p> - -<p> -‘Wednesday. D. comparatively cheerful. Sang to her, as congenial melody, -“Evening Bells”. Effect not soothing, but reverse. D. inexpressibly -affected. Found sobbing afterwards, in own room. Quoted verses respecting self -and young Gazelle. Ineffectually. Also referred to Patience on Monument. (Qy. -Why on monument? J. M.) -</p> - -<p> -‘Thursday. D. certainly improved. Better night. Slight tinge of damask -revisiting cheek. Resolved to mention name of D. C. Introduced same, -cautiously, in course of airing. D. immediately overcome. “Oh, dear, dear -Julia! Oh, I have been a naughty and undutiful child!” Soothed and -caressed. Drew ideal picture of D. C. on verge of tomb. D. again overcome. -“Oh, what shall I do, what shall I do? Oh, take me somewhere!” Much -alarmed. Fainting of D. and glass of water from public-house. (Poetical -affinity. Chequered sign on door-post; chequered human life. Alas! J. M.) -</p> - -<p> -‘Friday. Day of incident. Man appears in kitchen, with blue bag, -“for lady’s boots left out to heel”. Cook replies, “No -such orders.” Man argues point. Cook withdraws to inquire, leaving man -alone with J. On Cook’s return, man still argues point, but ultimately -goes. J. missing. D. distracted. Information sent to police. Man to be -identified by broad nose, and legs like balustrades of bridge. Search made in -every direction. No J. D. weeping bitterly, and inconsolable. Renewed reference -to young Gazelle. Appropriate, but unavailing. Towards evening, strange boy -calls. Brought into parlour. Broad nose, but no balustrades. Says he wants a -pound, and knows a dog. Declines to explain further, though much pressed. Pound -being produced by D. takes Cook to little house, where J. alone tied up to leg -of table. Joy of D. who dances round J. while he eats his supper. Emboldened by -this happy change, mention D. C. upstairs. D. weeps afresh, cries piteously, -“Oh, don’t, don’t, don’t! It is so wicked to think of -anything but poor papa!”—embraces J. and sobs herself to sleep. -(Must not D. C. confine himself to the broad pinions of Time? J. M.)’ -</p> - -<p> -Miss Mills and her journal were my sole consolation at this period. To see her, -who had seen Dora but a little while before—to trace the initial letter -of Dora’s name through her sympathetic pages—to be made more and -more miserable by her—were my only comforts. I felt as if I had been -living in a palace of cards, which had tumbled down, leaving only Miss Mills -and me among the ruins; I felt as if some grim enchanter had drawn a magic -circle round the innocent goddess of my heart, which nothing indeed but those -same strong pinions, capable of carrying so many people over so much, would -enable me to enter! -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0039"></a>CHAPTER 39. WICKFIELD AND HEEP</h2> - -<p> -My aunt, beginning, I imagine, to be made seriously uncomfortable by my -prolonged dejection, made a pretence of being anxious that I should go to -Dover, to see that all was working well at the cottage, which was let; and to -conclude an agreement, with the same tenant, for a longer term of occupation. -Janet was drafted into the service of Mrs. Strong, where I saw her every day. -She had been undecided, on leaving Dover, whether or not to give the finishing -touch to that renunciation of mankind in which she had been educated, by -marrying a pilot; but she decided against that venture. Not so much for the -sake of principle, I believe, as because she happened not to like him. -</p> - -<p> -Although it required an effort to leave Miss Mills, I fell rather willingly -into my aunt’s pretence, as a means of enabling me to pass a few tranquil -hours with Agnes. I consulted the good Doctor relative to an absence of three -days; and the Doctor wishing me to take that relaxation,—he wished me to -take more; but my energy could not bear that,—I made up my mind to go. -</p> - -<p> -As to the Commons, I had no great occasion to be particular about my duties in -that quarter. To say the truth, we were getting in no very good odour among the -tip-top proctors, and were rapidly sliding down to but a doubtful position. The -business had been indifferent under Mr. Jorkins, before Mr. Spenlow’s -time; and although it had been quickened by the infusion of new blood, and by -the display which Mr. Spenlow made, still it was not established on a -sufficiently strong basis to bear, without being shaken, such a blow as the -sudden loss of its active manager. It fell off very much. Mr. Jorkins, -notwithstanding his reputation in the firm, was an easy-going, incapable sort -of man, whose reputation out of doors was not calculated to back it up. I was -turned over to him now, and when I saw him take his snuff and let the business -go, I regretted my aunt’s thousand pounds more than ever. -</p> - -<p> -But this was not the worst of it. There were a number of hangers-on and -outsiders about the Commons, who, without being proctors themselves, dabbled in -common-form business, and got it done by real proctors, who lent their names in -consideration of a share in the spoil;—and there were a good many of -these too. As our house now wanted business on any terms, we joined this noble -band; and threw out lures to the hangers-on and outsiders, to bring their -business to us. Marriage licences and small probates were what we all looked -for, and what paid us best; and the competition for these ran very high indeed. -Kidnappers and inveiglers were planted in all the avenues of entrance to the -Commons, with instructions to do their utmost to cut off all persons in -mourning, and all gentlemen with anything bashful in their appearance, and -entice them to the offices in which their respective employers were interested; -which instructions were so well observed, that I myself, before I was known by -sight, was twice hustled into the premises of our principal opponent. The -conflicting interests of these touting gentlemen being of a nature to irritate -their feelings, personal collisions took place; and the Commons was even -scandalized by our principal inveigler (who had formerly been in the wine -trade, and afterwards in the sworn brokery line) walking about for some days -with a black eye. Any one of these scouts used to think nothing of politely -assisting an old lady in black out of a vehicle, killing any proctor whom she -inquired for, representing his employer as the lawful successor and -representative of that proctor, and bearing the old lady off (sometimes greatly -affected) to his employer’s office. Many captives were brought to me in -this way. As to marriage licences, the competition rose to such a pitch, that a -shy gentleman in want of one, had nothing to do but submit himself to the first -inveigler, or be fought for, and become the prey of the strongest. One of our -clerks, who was an outsider, used, in the height of this contest, to sit with -his hat on, that he might be ready to rush out and swear before a surrogate any -victim who was brought in. The system of inveigling continues, I believe, to -this day. The last time I was in the Commons, a civil able-bodied person in a -white apron pounced out upon me from a doorway, and whispering the word -‘Marriage-licence’ in my ear, was with great difficulty prevented -from taking me up in his arms and lifting me into a proctor’s. From this -digression, let me proceed to Dover. -</p> - -<p> -I found everything in a satisfactory state at the cottage; and was enabled to -gratify my aunt exceedingly by reporting that the tenant inherited her feud, -and waged incessant war against donkeys. Having settled the little business I -had to transact there, and slept there one night, I walked on to Canterbury -early in the morning. It was now winter again; and the fresh, cold windy day, -and the sweeping downland, brightened up my hopes a little. -</p> - -<p> -Coming into Canterbury, I loitered through the old streets with a sober -pleasure that calmed my spirits, and eased my heart. There were the old signs, -the old names over the shops, the old people serving in them. It appeared so -long, since I had been a schoolboy there, that I wondered the place was so -little changed, until I reflected how little I was changed myself. Strange to -say, that quiet influence which was inseparable in my mind from Agnes, seemed -to pervade even the city where she dwelt. The venerable cathedral towers, and -the old jackdaws and rooks whose airy voices made them more retired than -perfect silence would have done; the battered gateways, one stuck full with -statues, long thrown down, and crumbled away, like the reverential pilgrims who -had gazed upon them; the still nooks, where the ivied growth of centuries crept -over gabled ends and ruined walls; the ancient houses, the pastoral landscape -of field, orchard, and garden; everywhere—on everything—I felt the -same serener air, the same calm, thoughtful, softening spirit. -</p> - -<p> -Arrived at Mr. Wickfield’s house, I found, in the little lower room on -the ground floor, where Uriah Heep had been of old accustomed to sit, Mr. -Micawber plying his pen with great assiduity. He was dressed in a legal-looking -suit of black, and loomed, burly and large, in that small office. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Micawber was extremely glad to see me, but a little confused too. He would -have conducted me immediately into the presence of Uriah, but I declined. -</p> - -<p> -‘I know the house of old, you recollect,’ said I, ‘and will -find my way upstairs. How do you like the law, Mr. Micawber?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear Copperfield,’ he replied. ‘To a man possessed of the -higher imaginative powers, the objection to legal studies is the amount of -detail which they involve. Even in our professional correspondence,’ said -Mr. Micawber, glancing at some letters he was writing, ‘the mind is not -at liberty to soar to any exalted form of expression. Still, it is a great -pursuit. A great pursuit!’ -</p> - -<p> -He then told me that he had become the tenant of Uriah Heep’s old house; -and that Mrs. Micawber would be delighted to receive me, once more, under her -own roof. -</p> - -<p> -‘It is humble,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘—to quote a -favourite expression of my friend Heep; but it may prove the stepping-stone to -more ambitious domiciliary accommodation.’ -</p> - -<p> -I asked him whether he had reason, so far, to be satisfied with his friend -Heep’s treatment of him? He got up to ascertain if the door were close -shut, before he replied, in a lower voice: -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear Copperfield, a man who labours under the pressure of pecuniary -embarrassments, is, with the generality of people, at a disadvantage. That -disadvantage is not diminished, when that pressure necessitates the drawing of -stipendiary emoluments, before those emoluments are strictly due and payable. -All I can say is, that my friend Heep has responded to appeals to which I need -not more particularly refer, in a manner calculated to redound equally to the -honour of his head, and of his heart.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I should not have supposed him to be very free with his money -either,’ I observed. -</p> - -<p> -‘Pardon me!’ said Mr. Micawber, with an air of constraint, ‘I -speak of my friend Heep as I have experience.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I am glad your experience is so favourable,’ I returned. -</p> - -<p> -‘You are very obliging, my dear Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber; -and hummed a tune. -</p> - -<p> -‘Do you see much of Mr. Wickfield?’ I asked, to change the subject. -</p> - -<p> -‘Not much,’ said Mr. Micawber, slightingly. ‘Mr. Wickfield -is, I dare say, a man of very excellent intentions; but he is—in short, -he is obsolete.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I am afraid his partner seeks to make him so,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear Copperfield!’ returned Mr. Micawber, after some uneasy -evolutions on his stool, ‘allow me to offer a remark! I am here, in a -capacity of confidence. I am here, in a position of trust. The discussion of -some topics, even with Mrs. Micawber herself (so long the partner of my various -vicissitudes, and a woman of a remarkable lucidity of intellect), is, I am led -to consider, incompatible with the functions now devolving on me. I would -therefore take the liberty of suggesting that in our friendly -intercourse—which I trust will never be disturbed!—we draw a line. -On one side of this line,’ said Mr. Micawber, representing it on the desk -with the office ruler, ‘is the whole range of the human intellect, with a -trifling exception; on the other, IS that exception; that is to say, the -affairs of Messrs Wickfield and Heep, with all belonging and appertaining -thereunto. I trust I give no offence to the companion of my youth, in -submitting this proposition to his cooler judgement?’ -</p> - -<p> -Though I saw an uneasy change in Mr. Micawber, which sat tightly on him, as if -his new duties were a misfit, I felt I had no right to be offended. My telling -him so, appeared to relieve him; and he shook hands with me. -</p> - -<p> -‘I am charmed, Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘let me -assure you, with Miss Wickfield. She is a very superior young lady, of very -remarkable attractions, graces, and virtues. Upon my honour,’ said Mr. -Micawber, indefinitely kissing his hand and bowing with his genteelest air, -‘I do Homage to Miss Wickfield! Hem!’ ‘I am glad of that, at -least,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘If you had not assured us, my dear Copperfield, on the occasion of that -agreeable afternoon we had the happiness of passing with you, that D. was your -favourite letter,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘I should unquestionably have -supposed that A. had been so.’ -</p> - -<p> -We have all some experience of a feeling, that comes over us occasionally, of -what we are saying and doing having been said and done before, in a remote -time—of our having been surrounded, dim ages ago, by the same faces, -objects, and circumstances—of our knowing perfectly what will be said -next, as if we suddenly remembered it! I never had this mysterious impression -more strongly in my life, than before he uttered those words. -</p> - -<p> -I took my leave of Mr. Micawber, for the time, charging him with my best -remembrances to all at home. As I left him, resuming his stool and his pen, and -rolling his head in his stock, to get it into easier writing order, I clearly -perceived that there was something interposed between him and me, since he had -come into his new functions, which prevented our getting at each other as we -used to do, and quite altered the character of our intercourse. -</p> - -<p> -There was no one in the quaint old drawing-room, though it presented tokens of -Mrs. Heep’s whereabouts. I looked into the room still belonging to Agnes, -and saw her sitting by the fire, at a pretty old-fashioned desk she had, -writing. -</p> - -<p> -My darkening the light made her look up. What a pleasure to be the cause of -that bright change in her attentive face, and the object of that sweet regard -and welcome! -</p> - -<p> -‘Ah, Agnes!’ said I, when we were sitting together, side by side; -‘I have missed you so much, lately!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Indeed?’ she replied. ‘Again! And so soon?’ -</p> - -<p> -I shook my head. -</p> - -<p> -‘I don’t know how it is, Agnes; I seem to want some faculty of mind -that I ought to have. You were so much in the habit of thinking for me, in the -happy old days here, and I came so naturally to you for counsel and support, -that I really think I have missed acquiring it.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And what is it?’ said Agnes, cheerfully. -</p> - -<p> -‘I don’t know what to call it,’ I replied. ‘I think I -am earnest and persevering?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I am sure of it,’ said Agnes. -</p> - -<p> -‘And patient, Agnes?’ I inquired, with a little hesitation. -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes,’ returned Agnes, laughing. ‘Pretty well.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And yet,’ said I, ‘I get so miserable and worried, and am so -unsteady and irresolute in my power of assuring myself, that I know I must -want—shall I call it—reliance, of some kind?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Call it so, if you will,’ said Agnes. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well!’ I returned. ‘See here! You come to London, I rely on -you, and I have an object and a course at once. I am driven out of it, I come -here, and in a moment I feel an altered person. The circumstances that -distressed me are not changed, since I came into this room; but an influence -comes over me in that short interval that alters me, oh, how much for the -better! What is it? What is your secret, Agnes?’ -</p> - -<p> -Her head was bent down, looking at the fire. -</p> - -<p> -‘It’s the old story,’ said I. ‘Don’t laugh, when -I say it was always the same in little things as it is in greater ones. My old -troubles were nonsense, and now they are serious; but whenever I have gone away -from my adopted sister—’ -</p> - -<p> -Agnes looked up—with such a Heavenly face!—and gave me her hand, -which I kissed. -</p> - -<p> -‘Whenever I have not had you, Agnes, to advise and approve in the -beginning, I have seemed to go wild, and to get into all sorts of difficulty. -When I have come to you, at last (as I have always done), I have come to peace -and happiness. I come home, now, like a tired traveller, and find such a -blessed sense of rest!’ -</p> - -<p> -I felt so deeply what I said, it affected me so sincerely, that my voice -failed, and I covered my face with my hand, and broke into tears. I write the -truth. Whatever contradictions and inconsistencies there were within me, as -there are within so many of us; whatever might have been so different, and so -much better; whatever I had done, in which I had perversely wandered away from -the voice of my own heart; I knew nothing of. I only knew that I was fervently -in earnest, when I felt the rest and peace of having Agnes near me. -</p> - -<p> -In her placid sisterly manner; with her beaming eyes; with her tender voice; -and with that sweet composure, which had long ago made the house that held her -quite a sacred place to me; she soon won me from this weakness, and led me on -to tell all that had happened since our last meeting. -</p> - -<p> -‘And there is not another word to tell, Agnes,’ said I, when I had -made an end of my confidence. ‘Now, my reliance is on you.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘But it must not be on me, Trotwood,’ returned Agnes, with a -pleasant smile. ‘It must be on someone else.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘On Dora?’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Assuredly.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, I have not mentioned, Agnes,’ said I, a little embarrassed, -‘that Dora is rather difficult to—I would not, for the world, say, -to rely upon, because she is the soul of purity and truth—but rather -difficult to—I hardly know how to express it, really, Agnes. She is a -timid little thing, and easily disturbed and frightened. Some time ago, before -her father’s death, when I thought it right to mention to her—but -I’ll tell you, if you will bear with me, how it was.’ -</p> - -<p> -Accordingly, I told Agnes about my declaration of poverty, about the -cookery-book, the housekeeping accounts, and all the rest of it. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, Trotwood!’ she remonstrated, with a smile. ‘Just your -old headlong way! You might have been in earnest in striving to get on in the -world, without being so very sudden with a timid, loving, inexperienced girl. -Poor Dora!’ -</p> - -<p> -I never heard such sweet forbearing kindness expressed in a voice, as she -expressed in making this reply. It was as if I had seen her admiringly and -tenderly embracing Dora, and tacitly reproving me, by her considerate -protection, for my hot haste in fluttering that little heart. It was as if I -had seen Dora, in all her fascinating artlessness, caressing Agnes, and -thanking her, and coaxingly appealing against me, and loving me with all her -childish innocence. -</p> - -<p> -I felt so grateful to Agnes, and admired her so! I saw those two together, in a -bright perspective, such well-associated friends, each adorning the other so -much! -</p> - -<p> -‘What ought I to do then, Agnes?’ I inquired, after looking at the -fire a little while. ‘What would it be right to do?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I think,’ said Agnes, ‘that the honourable course to take, -would be to write to those two ladies. Don’t you think that any secret -course is an unworthy one?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes. If YOU think so,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘I am poorly qualified to judge of such matters,’ replied Agnes, -with a modest hesitation, ‘but I certainly feel—in short, I feel -that your being secret and clandestine, is not being like yourself.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Like myself, in the too high opinion you have of me, Agnes, I am -afraid,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Like yourself, in the candour of your nature,’ she returned; -‘and therefore I would write to those two ladies. I would relate, as -plainly and as openly as possible, all that has taken place; and I would ask -their permission to visit sometimes, at their house. Considering that you are -young, and striving for a place in life, I think it would be well to say that -you would readily abide by any conditions they might impose upon you. I would -entreat them not to dismiss your request, without a reference to Dora; and to -discuss it with her when they should think the time suitable. I would not be -too vehement,’ said Agnes, gently, ‘or propose too much. I would -trust to my fidelity and perseverance—and to Dora.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘But if they were to frighten Dora again, Agnes, by speaking to -her,’ said I. ‘And if Dora were to cry, and say nothing about -me!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Is that likely?’ inquired Agnes, with the same sweet consideration -in her face. -</p> - -<p> -‘God bless her, she is as easily scared as a bird,’ said I. -‘It might be! Or if the two Miss Spenlows (elderly ladies of that sort -are odd characters sometimes) should not be likely persons to address in that -way!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I don’t think, Trotwood,’ returned Agnes, raising her soft -eyes to mine, ‘I would consider that. Perhaps it would be better only to -consider whether it is right to do this; and, if it is, to do it.’ -</p> - -<p> -I had no longer any doubt on the subject. With a lightened heart, though with a -profound sense of the weighty importance of my task, I devoted the whole -afternoon to the composition of the draft of this letter; for which great -purpose, Agnes relinquished her desk to me. But first I went downstairs to see -Mr. Wickfield and Uriah Heep. -</p> - -<p> -I found Uriah in possession of a new, plaster-smelling office, built out in the -garden; looking extraordinarily mean, in the midst of a quantity of books and -papers. He received me in his usual fawning way, and pretended not to have -heard of my arrival from Mr. Micawber; a pretence I took the liberty of -disbelieving. He accompanied me into Mr. Wickfield’s room, which was the -shadow of its former self—having been divested of a variety of -conveniences, for the accommodation of the new partner—and stood before -the fire, warming his back, and shaving his chin with his bony hand, while Mr. -Wickfield and I exchanged greetings. -</p> - -<p> -‘You stay with us, Trotwood, while you remain in Canterbury?’ said -Mr. Wickfield, not without a glance at Uriah for his approval. -</p> - -<p> -‘Is there room for me?’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘I am sure, Master Copperfield—I should say Mister, but the other -comes so natural,’ said Uriah,—‘I would turn out of your old -room with pleasure, if it would be agreeable.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No, no,’ said Mr. Wickfield. ‘Why should you be -inconvenienced? There’s another room. There’s another room.’ -‘Oh, but you know,’ returned Uriah, with a grin, ‘I should -really be delighted!’ -</p> - -<p> -To cut the matter short, I said I would have the other room or none at all; so -it was settled that I should have the other room; and, taking my leave of the -firm until dinner, I went upstairs again. -</p> - -<p> -I had hoped to have no other companion than Agnes. But Mrs. Heep had asked -permission to bring herself and her knitting near the fire, in that room; on -pretence of its having an aspect more favourable for her rheumatics, as the -wind then was, than the drawing-room or dining-parlour. Though I could almost -have consigned her to the mercies of the wind on the topmost pinnacle of the -Cathedral, without remorse, I made a virtue of necessity, and gave her a -friendly salutation. -</p> - -<p> -‘I’m umbly thankful to you, sir,’ said Mrs. Heep, in -acknowledgement of my inquiries concerning her health, ‘but I’m -only pretty well. I haven’t much to boast of. If I could see my Uriah -well settled in life, I couldn’t expect much more I think. How do you -think my Ury looking, sir?’ -</p> - -<p> -I thought him looking as villainous as ever, and I replied that I saw no change -in him. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, don’t you think he’s changed?’ said Mrs. Heep. -‘There I must umbly beg leave to differ from you. Don’t you see a -thinness in him?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Not more than usual,’ I replied. -</p> - -<p> -‘Don’t you though!’ said Mrs. Heep. ‘But you -don’t take notice of him with a mother’s eye!’ -</p> - -<p> -His mother’s eye was an evil eye to the rest of the world, I thought as -it met mine, howsoever affectionate to him; and I believe she and her son were -devoted to one another. It passed me, and went on to Agnes. -</p> - -<p> -‘Don’t YOU see a wasting and a wearing in him, Miss -Wickfield?’ inquired Mrs. Heep. -</p> - -<p> -‘No,’ said Agnes, quietly pursuing the work on which she was -engaged. ‘You are too solicitous about him. He is very well.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Heep, with a prodigious sniff, resumed her knitting. -</p> - -<p> -She never left off, or left us for a moment. I had arrived early in the day, -and we had still three or four hours before dinner; but she sat there, plying -her knitting-needles as monotonously as an hour-glass might have poured out its -sands. She sat on one side of the fire; I sat at the desk in front of it; a -little beyond me, on the other side, sat Agnes. Whensoever, slowly pondering -over my letter, I lifted up my eyes, and meeting the thoughtful face of Agnes, -saw it clear, and beam encouragement upon me, with its own angelic expression, -I was conscious presently of the evil eye passing me, and going on to her, and -coming back to me again, and dropping furtively upon the knitting. What the -knitting was, I don’t know, not being learned in that art; but it looked -like a net; and as she worked away with those Chinese chopsticks of -knitting-needles, she showed in the firelight like an ill-looking enchantress, -baulked as yet by the radiant goodness opposite, but getting ready for a cast -of her net by and by. -</p> - -<p> -At dinner she maintained her watch, with the same unwinking eyes. After dinner, -her son took his turn; and when Mr. Wickfield, himself, and I were left alone -together, leered at me, and writhed until I could hardly bear it. In the -drawing-room, there was the mother knitting and watching again. All the time -that Agnes sang and played, the mother sat at the piano. Once she asked for a -particular ballad, which she said her Ury (who was yawning in a great chair) -doted on; and at intervals she looked round at him, and reported to Agnes that -he was in raptures with the music. But she hardly ever spoke—I question -if she ever did—without making some mention of him. It was evident to me -that this was the duty assigned to her. -</p> - -<p> -This lasted until bedtime. To have seen the mother and son, like two great bats -hanging over the whole house, and darkening it with their ugly forms, made me -so uncomfortable, that I would rather have remained downstairs, knitting and -all, than gone to bed. I hardly got any sleep. Next day the knitting and -watching began again, and lasted all day. -</p> - -<p> -I had not an opportunity of speaking to Agnes, for ten minutes. I could barely -show her my letter. I proposed to her to walk out with me; but Mrs. Heep -repeatedly complaining that she was worse, Agnes charitably remained within, to -bear her company. Towards the twilight I went out by myself, musing on what I -ought to do, and whether I was justified in withholding from Agnes, any longer, -what Uriah Heep had told me in London; for that began to trouble me again, very -much. -</p> - -<p> -I had not walked out far enough to be quite clear of the town, upon the -Ramsgate road, where there was a good path, when I was hailed, through the -dust, by somebody behind me. The shambling figure, and the scanty great-coat, -were not to be mistaken. I stopped, and Uriah Heep came up. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well?’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘How fast you walk!’ said he. ‘My legs are pretty long, but -you’ve given ‘em quite a job.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Where are you going?’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘I am going with you, Master Copperfield, if you’ll allow me the -pleasure of a walk with an old acquaintance.’ Saying this, with a jerk of -his body, which might have been either propitiatory or derisive, he fell into -step beside me. -</p> - -<p> -‘Uriah!’ said I, as civilly as I could, after a silence. -</p> - -<p> -‘Master Copperfield!’ said Uriah. -</p> - -<p> -‘To tell you the truth (at which you will not be offended), I came Out to -walk alone, because I have had so much company.’ -</p> - -<p> -He looked at me sideways, and said with his hardest grin, ‘You mean -mother.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Why yes, I do,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Ah! But you know we’re so very umble,’ he returned. -‘And having such a knowledge of our own umbleness, we must really take -care that we’re not pushed to the wall by them as isn’t umble. All -stratagems are fair in love, sir.’ -</p> - -<p> -Raising his great hands until they touched his chin, he rubbed them softly, and -softly chuckled; looking as like a malevolent baboon, I thought, as anything -human could look. -</p> - -<p> -‘You see,’ he said, still hugging himself in that unpleasant way, -and shaking his head at me, ‘you’re quite a dangerous rival, Master -Copperfield. You always was, you know.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Do you set a watch upon Miss Wickfield, and make her home no home, -because of me?’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh! Master Copperfield! Those are very arsh words,’ he replied. -</p> - -<p> -‘Put my meaning into any words you like,’ said I. ‘You know -what it is, Uriah, as well as I do.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh no! You must put it into words,’ he said. ‘Oh, really! I -couldn’t myself.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Do you suppose,’ said I, constraining myself to be very temperate -and quiet with him, on account of Agnes, ‘that I regard Miss Wickfield -otherwise than as a very dear sister?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, Master Copperfield,’ he replied, ‘you perceive I am -not bound to answer that question. You may not, you know. But then, you see, -you may!’ -</p> - -<p> -Anything to equal the low cunning of his visage, and of his shadowless eyes -without the ghost of an eyelash, I never saw. -</p> - -<p> -‘Come then!’ said I. ‘For the sake of Miss -Wickfield—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘My Agnes!’ he exclaimed, with a sickly, angular contortion of -himself. ‘Would you be so good as call her Agnes, Master -Copperfield!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘For the sake of Agnes Wickfield—Heaven bless her!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Thank you for that blessing, Master Copperfield!’ he interposed. -</p> - -<p> -‘I will tell you what I should, under any other circumstances, as soon -have thought of telling to—Jack Ketch.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘To who, sir?’ said Uriah, stretching out his neck, and shading his -ear with his hand. -</p> - -<p> -‘To the hangman,’ I returned. ‘The most unlikely person I -could think of,’—though his own face had suggested the allusion -quite as a natural sequence. ‘I am engaged to another young lady. I hope -that contents you.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Upon your soul?’ said Uriah. -</p> - -<p> -I was about indignantly to give my assertion the confirmation he required, when -he caught hold of my hand, and gave it a squeeze. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, Master Copperfield!’ he said. ‘If you had only had the -condescension to return my confidence when I poured out the fulness of my art, -the night I put you so much out of the way by sleeping before your sitting-room -fire, I never should have doubted you. As it is, I’m sure I’ll take -off mother directly, and only too appy. I know you’ll excuse the -precautions of affection, won’t you? What a pity, Master Copperfield, -that you didn’t condescend to return my confidence! I’m sure I gave -you every opportunity. But you never have condescended to me, as much as I -could have wished. I know you have never liked me, as I have liked you!’ -</p> - -<p> -All this time he was squeezing my hand with his damp fishy fingers, while I -made every effort I decently could to get it away. But I was quite -unsuccessful. He drew it under the sleeve of his mulberry-coloured great-coat, -and I walked on, almost upon compulsion, arm-in-arm with him. -</p> - -<p> -‘Shall we turn?’ said Uriah, by and by wheeling me face about -towards the town, on which the early moon was now shining, silvering the -distant windows. -</p> - -<p> -‘Before we leave the subject, you ought to understand,’ said I, -breaking a pretty long silence, ‘that I believe Agnes Wickfield to be as -far above you, and as far removed from all your aspirations, as that moon -herself!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Peaceful! Ain’t she!’ said Uriah. ‘Very! Now confess, -Master Copperfield, that you haven’t liked me quite as I have liked you. -All along you’ve thought me too umble now, I shouldn’t -wonder?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I am not fond of professions of humility,’ I returned, ‘or -professions of anything else.’ ‘There now!’ said Uriah, -looking flabby and lead-coloured in the moonlight. ‘Didn’t I know -it! But how little you think of the rightful umbleness of a person in my -station, Master Copperfield! Father and me was both brought up at a foundation -school for boys; and mother, she was likewise brought up at a public, sort of -charitable, establishment. They taught us all a deal of umbleness—not -much else that I know of, from morning to night. We was to be umble to this -person, and umble to that; and to pull off our caps here, and to make bows -there; and always to know our place, and abase ourselves before our betters. -And we had such a lot of betters! Father got the monitor-medal by being umble. -So did I. Father got made a sexton by being umble. He had the character, among -the gentlefolks, of being such a well-behaved man, that they were determined to -bring him in. “Be umble, Uriah,” says father to me, “and -you’ll get on. It was what was always being dinned into you and me at -school; it’s what goes down best. Be umble,” says father, -“and you’ll do!” And really it ain’t done bad!’ -</p> - -<p> -It was the first time it had ever occurred to me, that this detestable cant of -false humility might have originated out of the Heep family. I had seen the -harvest, but had never thought of the seed. -</p> - -<p> -‘When I was quite a young boy,’ said Uriah, ‘I got to know -what umbleness did, and I took to it. I ate umble pie with an appetite. I -stopped at the umble point of my learning, and says I, “Hold hard!” -When you offered to teach me Latin, I knew better. “People like to be -above you,” says father, “keep yourself down.” I am very -umble to the present moment, Master Copperfield, but I’ve got a little -power!’ -</p> - -<p> -And he said all this—I knew, as I saw his face in the -moonlight—that I might understand he was resolved to recompense himself -by using his power. I had never doubted his meanness, his craft and malice; but -I fully comprehended now, for the first time, what a base, unrelenting, and -revengeful spirit, must have been engendered by this early, and this long, -suppression. -</p> - -<p> -His account of himself was so far attended with an agreeable result, that it -led to his withdrawing his hand in order that he might have another hug of -himself under the chin. Once apart from him, I was determined to keep apart; -and we walked back, side by side, saying very little more by the way. Whether -his spirits were elevated by the communication I had made to him, or by his -having indulged in this retrospect, I don’t know; but they were raised by -some influence. He talked more at dinner than was usual with him; asked his -mother (off duty, from the moment of our re-entering the house) whether he was -not growing too old for a bachelor; and once looked at Agnes so, that I would -have given all I had, for leave to knock him down. -</p> - -<p> -When we three males were left alone after dinner, he got into a more -adventurous state. He had taken little or no wine; and I presume it was the -mere insolence of triumph that was upon him, flushed perhaps by the temptation -my presence furnished to its exhibition. -</p> - -<p> -I had observed yesterday, that he tried to entice Mr. Wickfield to drink; and, -interpreting the look which Agnes had given me as she went out, had limited -myself to one glass, and then proposed that we should follow her. I would have -done so again today; but Uriah was too quick for me. -</p> - -<p> -‘We seldom see our present visitor, sir,’ he said, addressing Mr. -Wickfield, sitting, such a contrast to him, at the end of the table, ‘and -I should propose to give him welcome in another glass or two of wine, if you -have no objections. Mr. Copperfield, your elth and appiness!’ -</p> - -<p> -I was obliged to make a show of taking the hand he stretched across to me; and -then, with very different emotions, I took the hand of the broken gentleman, -his partner. -</p> - -<p> -‘Come, fellow-partner,’ said Uriah, ‘if I may take the -liberty,—now, suppose you give us something or another appropriate to -Copperfield!’ -</p> - -<p> -I pass over Mr. Wickfield’s proposing my aunt, his proposing Mr. Dick, -his proposing Doctors’ Commons, his proposing Uriah, his drinking -everything twice; his consciousness of his own weakness, the ineffectual effort -that he made against it; the struggle between his shame in Uriah’s -deportment, and his desire to conciliate him; the manifest exultation with -which Uriah twisted and turned, and held him up before me. It made me sick at -heart to see, and my hand recoils from writing it. -</p> - -<p> -‘Come, fellow-partner!’ said Uriah, at last, ‘I’ll give -you another one, and I umbly ask for bumpers, seeing I intend to make it the -divinest of her sex.’ -</p> - -<p> -Her father had his empty glass in his hand. I saw him set it down, look at the -picture she was so like, put his hand to his forehead, and shrink back in his -elbow-chair. -</p> - -<p> -‘I’m an umble individual to give you her elth,’ proceeded -Uriah, ‘but I admire—adore her.’ -</p> - -<p> -No physical pain that her father’s grey head could have borne, I think, -could have been more terrible to me, than the mental endurance I saw compressed -now within both his hands. -</p> - -<p> -‘Agnes,’ said Uriah, either not regarding him, or not knowing what -the nature of his action was, ‘Agnes Wickfield is, I am safe to say, the -divinest of her sex. May I speak out, among friends? To be her father is a -proud distinction, but to be her usband—’ -</p> - -<p> -Spare me from ever again hearing such a cry, as that with which her father rose -up from the table! ‘What’s the matter?’ said Uriah, turning -of a deadly colour. ‘You are not gone mad, after all, Mr. Wickfield, I -hope? If I say I’ve an ambition to make your Agnes my Agnes, I have as -good a right to it as another man. I have a better right to it than any other -man!’ -</p> - -<p> -I had my arms round Mr. Wickfield, imploring him by everything that I could -think of, oftenest of all by his love for Agnes, to calm himself a little. He -was mad for the moment; tearing out his hair, beating his head, trying to force -me from him, and to force himself from me, not answering a word, not looking at -or seeing anyone; blindly striving for he knew not what, his face all staring -and distorted—a frightful spectacle. -</p> - -<p> -I conjured him, incoherently, but in the most impassioned manner, not to -abandon himself to this wildness, but to hear me. I besought him to think of -Agnes, to connect me with Agnes, to recollect how Agnes and I had grown up -together, how I honoured her and loved her, how she was his pride and joy. I -tried to bring her idea before him in any form; I even reproached him with not -having firmness to spare her the knowledge of such a scene as this. I may have -effected something, or his wildness may have spent itself; but by degrees he -struggled less, and began to look at me—strangely at first, then with -recognition in his eyes. At length he said, ‘I know, Trotwood! My darling -child and you—I know! But look at him!’ -</p> - -<p> -He pointed to Uriah, pale and glowering in a corner, evidently very much out in -his calculations, and taken by surprise. -</p> - -<p> -‘Look at my torturer,’ he replied. ‘Before him I have step by -step abandoned name and reputation, peace and quiet, house and home.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I have kept your name and reputation for you, and your peace and quiet, -and your house and home too,’ said Uriah, with a sulky, hurried, defeated -air of compromise. ‘Don’t be foolish, Mr. Wickfield. If I have gone -a little beyond what you were prepared for, I can go back, I suppose? -There’s no harm done.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I looked for single motives in everyone,’ said Mr. Wickfield, -‘and I was satisfied I had bound him to me by motives of interest. But -see what he is—oh, see what he is!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You had better stop him, Copperfield, if you can,’ cried Uriah, -with his long forefinger pointing towards me. ‘He’ll say something -presently—mind you!—he’ll be sorry to have said afterwards, -and you’ll be sorry to have heard!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I’ll say anything!’ cried Mr. Wickfield, with a desperate -air. ‘Why should I not be in all the world’s power if I am in -yours?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Mind! I tell you!’ said Uriah, continuing to warn me. ‘If -you don’t stop his mouth, you’re not his friend! Why -shouldn’t you be in all the world’s power, Mr. Wickfield? Because -you have got a daughter. You and me know what we know, don’t we? Let -sleeping dogs lie—who wants to rouse ‘em? I don’t. -Can’t you see I am as umble as I can be? I tell you, if I’ve gone -too far, I’m sorry. What would you have, sir?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, Trotwood, Trotwood!’ exclaimed Mr. Wickfield, wringing his -hands. ‘What I have come down to be, since I first saw you in this house! -I was on my downward way then, but the dreary, dreary road I have traversed -since! Weak indulgence has ruined me. Indulgence in remembrance, and indulgence -in forgetfulness. My natural grief for my child’s mother turned to -disease; my natural love for my child turned to disease. I have infected -everything I touched. I have brought misery on what I dearly love, I -know—you know! I thought it possible that I could truly love one creature -in the world, and not love the rest; I thought it possible that I could truly -mourn for one creature gone out of the world, and not have some part in the -grief of all who mourned. Thus the lessons of my life have been perverted! I -have preyed on my own morbid coward heart, and it has preyed on me. Sordid in -my grief, sordid in my love, sordid in my miserable escape from the darker side -of both, oh see the ruin I am, and hate me, shun me!’ -</p> - -<p> -He dropped into a chair, and weakly sobbed. The excitement into which he had -been roused was leaving him. Uriah came out of his corner. -</p> - -<p> -‘I don’t know all I have done, in my fatuity,’ said Mr. -Wickfield, putting out his hands, as if to deprecate my condemnation. ‘He -knows best,’ meaning Uriah Heep, ‘for he has always been at my -elbow, whispering me. You see the millstone that he is about my neck. You find -him in my house, you find him in my business. You heard him, but a little time -ago. What need have I to say more!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You haven’t need to say so much, nor half so much, nor anything at -all,’ observed Uriah, half defiant, and half fawning. ‘You -wouldn’t have took it up so, if it hadn’t been for the wine. -You’ll think better of it tomorrow, sir. If I have said too much, or more -than I meant, what of it? I haven’t stood by it!’ -</p> - -<p> -The door opened, and Agnes, gliding in, without a vestige of colour in her -face, put her arm round his neck, and steadily said, ‘Papa, you are not -well. Come with me!’ -</p> - -<p> -He laid his head upon her shoulder, as if he were oppressed with heavy shame, -and went out with her. Her eyes met mine for but an instant, yet I saw how much -she knew of what had passed. -</p> - -<p> -‘I didn’t expect he’d cut up so rough, Master -Copperfield,’ said Uriah. ‘But it’s nothing. I’ll be -friends with him tomorrow. It’s for his good. I’m umbly anxious for -his good.’ -</p> - -<p> -I gave him no answer, and went upstairs into the quiet room where Agnes had so -often sat beside me at my books. Nobody came near me until late at night. I -took up a book, and tried to read. I heard the clocks strike twelve, and was -still reading, without knowing what I read, when Agnes touched me. -</p> - -<p> -‘You will be going early in the morning, Trotwood! Let us say good-bye, -now!’ -</p> - -<p> -She had been weeping, but her face then was so calm and beautiful! -</p> - -<p> -‘Heaven bless you!’ she said, giving me her hand. -</p> - -<p> -‘Dearest Agnes!’ I returned, ‘I see you ask me not to speak -of tonight—but is there nothing to be done?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘There is God to trust in!’ she replied. -</p> - -<p> -‘Can I do nothing—I, who come to you with my poor sorrows?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And make mine so much lighter,’ she replied. ‘Dear Trotwood, -no!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Dear Agnes,’ I said, ‘it is presumptuous for me, who am so -poor in all in which you are so rich—goodness, resolution, all noble -qualities—to doubt or direct you; but you know how much I love you, and -how much I owe you. You will never sacrifice yourself to a mistaken sense of -duty, Agnes?’ -</p> - -<p> -More agitated for a moment than I had ever seen her, she took her hands from -me, and moved a step back. -</p> - -<p> -‘Say you have no such thought, dear Agnes! Much more than sister! Think -of the priceless gift of such a heart as yours, of such a love as yours!’ -</p> - -<p> -Oh! long, long afterwards, I saw that face rise up before me, with its -momentary look, not wondering, not accusing, not regretting. Oh, long, long -afterwards, I saw that look subside, as it did now, into the lovely smile, with -which she told me she had no fear for herself—I need have none for -her—and parted from me by the name of Brother, and was gone! -</p> - -<p> -It was dark in the morning, when I got upon the coach at the inn door. The day -was just breaking when we were about to start, and then, as I sat thinking of -her, came struggling up the coach side, through the mingled day and night, -Uriah’s head. -</p> - -<p> -‘Copperfield!’ said he, in a croaking whisper, as he hung by the -iron on the roof, ‘I thought you’d be glad to hear before you went -off, that there are no squares broke between us. I’ve been into his room -already, and we’ve made it all smooth. Why, though I’m umble, -I’m useful to him, you know; and he understands his interest when he -isn’t in liquor! What an agreeable man he is, after all, Master -Copperfield!’ -</p> - -<p> -I obliged myself to say that I was glad he had made his apology. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, to be sure!’ said Uriah. ‘When a person’s umble, -you know, what’s an apology? So easy! I say! I suppose,’ with a -jerk, ‘you have sometimes plucked a pear before it was ripe, Master -Copperfield?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I suppose I have,’ I replied. -</p> - -<p> -‘I did that last night,’ said Uriah; ‘but it’ll ripen -yet! It only wants attending to. I can wait!’ -</p> - -<p> -Profuse in his farewells, he got down again as the coachman got up. For -anything I know, he was eating something to keep the raw morning air out; but -he made motions with his mouth as if the pear were ripe already, and he were -smacking his lips over it. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0040"></a>CHAPTER 40. THE WANDERER</h2> - -<p> -We had a very serious conversation in Buckingham Street that night, about the -domestic occurrences I have detailed in the last chapter. My aunt was deeply -interested in them, and walked up and down the room with her arms folded, for -more than two hours afterwards. Whenever she was particularly discomposed, she -always performed one of these pedestrian feats; and the amount of her -discomposure might always be estimated by the duration of her walk. On this -occasion she was so much disturbed in mind as to find it necessary to open the -bedroom door, and make a course for herself, comprising the full extent of the -bedrooms from wall to wall; and while Mr. Dick and I sat quietly by the fire, -she kept passing in and out, along this measured track, at an unchanging pace, -with the regularity of a clock-pendulum. -</p> - -<p> -When my aunt and I were left to ourselves by Mr. Dick’s going out to bed, -I sat down to write my letter to the two old ladies. By that time she was tired -of walking, and sat by the fire with her dress tucked up as usual. But instead -of sitting in her usual manner, holding her glass upon her knee, she suffered -it to stand neglected on the chimney-piece; and, resting her left elbow on her -right arm, and her chin on her left hand, looked thoughtfully at me. As often -as I raised my eyes from what I was about, I met hers. ‘I am in the -lovingest of tempers, my dear,’ she would assure me with a nod, -‘but I am fidgeted and sorry!’ -</p> - -<p> -I had been too busy to observe, until after she was gone to bed, that she had -left her night-mixture, as she always called it, untasted on the chimney-piece. -She came to her door, with even more than her usual affection of manner, when I -knocked to acquaint her with this discovery; but only said, ‘I have not -the heart to take it, Trot, tonight,’ and shook her head, and went in -again. -</p> - -<p> -She read my letter to the two old ladies, in the morning, and approved of it. I -posted it, and had nothing to do then, but wait, as patiently as I could, for -the reply. I was still in this state of expectation, and had been, for nearly a -week; when I left the Doctor’s one snowy night, to walk home. -</p> - -<p> -It had been a bitter day, and a cutting north-east wind had blown for some -time. The wind had gone down with the light, and so the snow had come on. It -was a heavy, settled fall, I recollect, in great flakes; and it lay thick. The -noise of wheels and tread of people were as hushed, as if the streets had been -strewn that depth with feathers. -</p> - -<p> -My shortest way home,—and I naturally took the shortest way on such a -night—was through St. Martin’s Lane. Now, the church which gives -its name to the lane, stood in a less free situation at that time; there being -no open space before it, and the lane winding down to the Strand. As I passed -the steps of the portico, I encountered, at the corner, a woman’s face. -It looked in mine, passed across the narrow lane, and disappeared. I knew it. I -had seen it somewhere. But I could not remember where. I had some association -with it, that struck upon my heart directly; but I was thinking of anything -else when it came upon me, and was confused. -</p> - -<p> -On the steps of the church, there was the stooping figure of a man, who had put -down some burden on the smooth snow, to adjust it; my seeing the face, and my -seeing him, were simultaneous. I don’t think I had stopped in my -surprise; but, in any case, as I went on, he rose, turned, and came down -towards me. I stood face to face with Mr. Peggotty! -</p> - -<p> -Then I remembered the woman. It was Martha, to whom Emily had given the money -that night in the kitchen. Martha Endell—side by side with whom, he would -not have seen his dear niece, Ham had told me, for all the treasures wrecked in -the sea. -</p> - -<p> -We shook hands heartily. At first, neither of us could speak a word. -</p> - -<p> -‘Mas’r Davy!’ he said, gripping me tight, ‘it do my art -good to see you, sir. Well met, well met!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Well met, my dear old friend!’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘I had my thowts o’ coming to make inquiration for you, sir, -tonight,’ he said, ‘but knowing as your aunt was living along -wi’ you—fur I’ve been down yonder—Yarmouth way—I -was afeerd it was too late. I should have come early in the morning, sir, afore -going away.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Again?’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes, sir,’ he replied, patiently shaking his head, -‘I’m away tomorrow.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Where were you going now?’ I asked. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well!’ he replied, shaking the snow out of his long hair, ‘I -was a-going to turn in somewheers.’ -</p> - -<p> -In those days there was a side-entrance to the stable-yard of the Golden Cross, -the inn so memorable to me in connexion with his misfortune, nearly opposite to -where we stood. I pointed out the gateway, put my arm through his, and we went -across. Two or three public-rooms opened out of the stable-yard; and looking -into one of them, and finding it empty, and a good fire burning, I took him in -there. -</p> - -<p> -When I saw him in the light, I observed, not only that his hair was long and -ragged, but that his face was burnt dark by the sun. He was greyer, the lines -in his face and forehead were deeper, and he had every appearance of having -toiled and wandered through all varieties of weather; but he looked very -strong, and like a man upheld by steadfastness of purpose, whom nothing could -tire out. He shook the snow from his hat and clothes, and brushed it away from -his face, while I was inwardly making these remarks. As he sat down opposite to -me at a table, with his back to the door by which we had entered, he put out -his rough hand again, and grasped mine warmly. -</p> - -<p> -‘I’ll tell you, Mas’r Davy,’ he -said,—‘wheer all I’ve been, and what-all we’ve heerd. -I’ve been fur, and we’ve heerd little; but I’ll tell -you!’ -</p> - -<p> -I rang the bell for something hot to drink. He would have nothing stronger than -ale; and while it was being brought, and being warmed at the fire, he sat -thinking. There was a fine, massive gravity in his face, I did not venture to -disturb. -</p> - -<p> -‘When she was a child,’ he said, lifting up his head soon after we -were left alone, ‘she used to talk to me a deal about the sea, and about -them coasts where the sea got to be dark blue, and to lay a-shining and -a-shining in the sun. I thowt, odd times, as her father being drownded made her -think on it so much. I doen’t know, you see, but maybe she -believed—or hoped—he had drifted out to them parts, where the -flowers is always a-blowing, and the country bright.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘It is likely to have been a childish fancy,’ I replied. -</p> - -<p> -‘When she was—lost,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘I know’d -in my mind, as he would take her to them countries. I know’d in my mind, -as he’d have told her wonders of ‘em, and how she was to be a lady -theer, and how he got her to listen to him fust, along o’ sech like. When -we see his mother, I know’d quite well as I was right. I went -across-channel to France, and landed theer, as if I’d fell down from the -sky.’ -</p> - -<p> -I saw the door move, and the snow drift in. I saw it move a little more, and a -hand softly interpose to keep it open. -</p> - -<p> -‘I found out an English gen’leman as was in authority,’ said -Mr. Peggotty, ‘and told him I was a-going to seek my niece. He got me -them papers as I wanted fur to carry me through—I doen’t rightly -know how they’re called—and he would have give me money, but that I -was thankful to have no need on. I thank him kind, for all he done, I’m -sure! “I’ve wrote afore you,” he says to me, “and I -shall speak to many as will come that way, and many will know you, fur distant -from here, when you’re a-travelling alone.” I told him, best as I -was able, what my gratitoode was, and went away through France.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Alone, and on foot?’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Mostly a-foot,’ he rejoined; ‘sometimes in carts along with -people going to market; sometimes in empty coaches. Many mile a day a-foot, and -often with some poor soldier or another, travelling to see his friends. I -couldn’t talk to him,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘nor he to me; but -we was company for one another, too, along the dusty roads.’ -</p> - -<p> -I should have known that by his friendly tone. -</p> - -<p> -‘When I come to any town,’ he pursued, ‘I found the inn, and -waited about the yard till someone turned up (someone mostly did) as -know’d English. Then I told how that I was on my way to seek my niece, -and they told me what manner of gentlefolks was in the house, and I waited to -see any as seemed like her, going in or out. When it warn’t Em’ly, -I went on agen. By little and little, when I come to a new village or that, -among the poor people, I found they know’d about me. They would set me -down at their cottage doors, and give me what-not fur to eat and drink, and -show me where to sleep; and many a woman, Mas’r Davy, as has had a -daughter of about Em’ly’s age, I’ve found a-waiting fur me, -at Our Saviour’s Cross outside the village, fur to do me sim’lar -kindnesses. Some has had daughters as was dead. And God only knows how good -them mothers was to me!’ -</p> - -<p> -It was Martha at the door. I saw her haggard, listening face distinctly. My -dread was lest he should turn his head, and see her too. -</p> - -<p> -‘They would often put their children—particular their little -girls,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘upon my knee; and many a time you might -have seen me sitting at their doors, when night was coming in, a’most as -if they’d been my Darling’s children. Oh, my Darling!’ -</p> - -<p> -Overpowered by sudden grief, he sobbed aloud. I laid my trembling hand upon the -hand he put before his face. ‘Thankee, sir,’ he said, -‘doen’t take no notice.’ -</p> - -<p> -In a very little while he took his hand away and put it on his breast, and went -on with his story. ‘They often walked with me,’ he said, ‘in -the morning, maybe a mile or two upon my road; and when we parted, and I said, -“I’m very thankful to you! God bless you!” they always seemed -to understand, and answered pleasant. At last I come to the sea. It -warn’t hard, you may suppose, for a seafaring man like me to work his way -over to Italy. When I got theer, I wandered on as I had done afore. The people -was just as good to me, and I should have gone from town to town, maybe the -country through, but that I got news of her being seen among them Swiss -mountains yonder. One as know’d his servant see ‘em there, all -three, and told me how they travelled, and where they was. I made fur them -mountains, Mas’r Davy, day and night. Ever so fur as I went, ever so fur -the mountains seemed to shift away from me. But I come up with ‘em, and I -crossed ‘em. When I got nigh the place as I had been told of, I began to -think within my own self, “What shall I do when I see her?”’ -</p> - -<p> -The listening face, insensible to the inclement night, still drooped at the -door, and the hands begged me—prayed me—not to cast it forth. -</p> - -<p> -‘I never doubted her,’ said Mr. Peggotty. ‘No! Not a bit! -On’y let her see my face—on’y let her heer my -voice—on’y let my stanning still afore her bring to her thoughts -the home she had fled away from, and the child she had been—and if she -had growed to be a royal lady, she’d have fell down at my feet! I -know’d it well! Many a time in my sleep had I heerd her cry out, -“Uncle!” and seen her fall like death afore me. Many a time in my -sleep had I raised her up, and whispered to her, “Em’ly, my dear, I -am come fur to bring forgiveness, and to take you home!”’ -</p> - -<p> -He stopped and shook his head, and went on with a sigh. -</p> - -<p> -‘He was nowt to me now. Em’ly was all. I bought a country dress to -put upon her; and I know’d that, once found, she would walk beside me -over them stony roads, go where I would, and never, never, leave me more. To -put that dress upon her, and to cast off what she wore—to take her on my -arm again, and wander towards home—to stop sometimes upon the road, and -heal her bruised feet and her worse-bruised heart—was all that I thowt of -now. I doen’t believe I should have done so much as look at him. But, -Mas’r Davy, it warn’t to be—not yet! I was too late, and they -was gone. Wheer, I couldn’t learn. Some said heer, some said theer. I -travelled heer, and I travelled theer, but I found no Em’ly, and I -travelled home.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘How long ago?’ I asked. -</p> - -<p> -‘A matter o’ fower days,’ said Mr. Peggotty. ‘I sighted -the old boat arter dark, and the light a-shining in the winder. When I come -nigh and looked in through the glass, I see the faithful creetur Missis -Gummidge sittin’ by the fire, as we had fixed upon, alone. I called out, -“Doen’t be afeerd! It’s Dan’l!” and I went in. I -never could have thowt the old boat would have been so strange!’ From -some pocket in his breast, he took out, with a very careful hand a small paper -bundle containing two or three letters or little packets, which he laid upon -the table. -</p> - -<p> -‘This fust one come,’ he said, selecting it from the rest, -‘afore I had been gone a week. A fifty pound Bank note, in a sheet of -paper, directed to me, and put underneath the door in the night. She tried to -hide her writing, but she couldn’t hide it from Me!’ -</p> - -<p> -He folded up the note again, with great patience and care, in exactly the same -form, and laid it on one side. -</p> - -<p> -‘This come to Missis Gummidge,’ he said, opening another, -‘two or three months ago.’ After looking at it for some moments, he -gave it to me, and added in a low voice, ‘Be so good as read it, -sir.’ -</p> - -<p> -I read as follows: -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh what will you feel when you see this writing, and know it comes from -my wicked hand! But try, try—not for my sake, but for uncle’s -goodness, try to let your heart soften to me, only for a little little time! -Try, pray do, to relent towards a miserable girl, and write down on a bit of -paper whether he is well, and what he said about me before you left off ever -naming me among yourselves—and whether, of a night, when it is my old -time of coming home, you ever see him look as if he thought of one he used to -love so dear. Oh, my heart is breaking when I think about it! I am kneeling -down to you, begging and praying you not to be as hard with me as I -deserve—as I well, well, know I deserve—but to be so gentle and so -good, as to write down something of him, and to send it to me. You need not -call me Little, you need not call me by the name I have disgraced; but oh, -listen to my agony, and have mercy on me so far as to write me some word of -uncle, never, never to be seen in this world by my eyes again! -</p> - -<p> -‘Dear, if your heart is hard towards me—justly hard, I -know—but, listen, if it is hard, dear, ask him I have wronged the -most—him whose wife I was to have been—before you quite decide -against my poor poor prayer! If he should be so compassionate as to say that -you might write something for me to read—I think he would, oh, I think he -would, if you would only ask him, for he always was so brave and so -forgiving—tell him then (but not else), that when I hear the wind blowing -at night, I feel as if it was passing angrily from seeing him and uncle, and -was going up to God against me. Tell him that if I was to die tomorrow (and oh, -if I was fit, I would be so glad to die!) I would bless him and uncle with my -last words, and pray for his happy home with my last breath!’ -</p> - -<p> -Some money was enclosed in this letter also. Five pounds. It was untouched like -the previous sum, and he refolded it in the same way. Detailed instructions -were added relative to the address of a reply, which, although they betrayed -the intervention of several hands, and made it difficult to arrive at any very -probable conclusion in reference to her place of concealment, made it at least -not unlikely that she had written from that spot where she was stated to have -been seen. -</p> - -<p> -‘What answer was sent?’ I inquired of Mr. Peggotty. -</p> - -<p> -‘Missis Gummidge,’ he returned, ‘not being a good scholar, -sir, Ham kindly drawed it out, and she made a copy on it. They told her I was -gone to seek her, and what my parting words was.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Is that another letter in your hand?’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘It’s money, sir,’ said Mr. Peggotty, unfolding it a little -way. ‘Ten pound, you see. And wrote inside, “From a true -friend,” like the fust. But the fust was put underneath the door, and -this come by the post, day afore yesterday. I’m a-going to seek her at -the post-mark.’ -</p> - -<p> -He showed it to me. It was a town on the Upper Rhine. He had found out, at -Yarmouth, some foreign dealers who knew that country, and they had drawn him a -rude map on paper, which he could very well understand. He laid it between us -on the table; and, with his chin resting on one hand, tracked his course upon -it with the other. -</p> - -<p> -I asked him how Ham was? He shook his head. -</p> - -<p> -‘He works,’ he said, ‘as bold as a man can. His name’s -as good, in all that part, as any man’s is, anywheres in the wureld. -Anyone’s hand is ready to help him, you understand, and his is ready to -help them. He’s never been heerd fur to complain. But my sister’s -belief is (‘twixt ourselves) as it has cut him deep.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Poor fellow, I can believe it!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘He ain’t no care, Mas’r Davy,’ said Mr. Peggotty in a -solemn whisper—‘kinder no care no-how for his life. When a -man’s wanted for rough sarvice in rough weather, he’s theer. When -there’s hard duty to be done with danger in it, he steps for’ard -afore all his mates. And yet he’s as gentle as any child. There -ain’t a child in Yarmouth that doen’t know him.’ -</p> - -<p> -He gathered up the letters thoughtfully, smoothing them with his hand; put them -into their little bundle; and placed it tenderly in his breast again. The face -was gone from the door. I still saw the snow drifting in; but nothing else was -there. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well!’ he said, looking to his bag, ‘having seen you -tonight, Mas’r Davy (and that doos me good!), I shall away betimes -tomorrow morning. You have seen what I’ve got heer’; putting his -hand on where the little packet lay; ‘all that troubles me is, to think -that any harm might come to me, afore that money was give back. If I was to -die, and it was lost, or stole, or elseways made away with, and it was never -know’d by him but what I’d took it, I believe the t’other -wureld wouldn’t hold me! I believe I must come back!’ -</p> - -<p> -He rose, and I rose too; we grasped each other by the hand again, before going -out. -</p> - -<p> -‘I’d go ten thousand mile,’ he said, ‘I’d go till -I dropped dead, to lay that money down afore him. If I do that, and find my -Em’ly, I’m content. If I doen’t find her, maybe she’ll -come to hear, sometime, as her loving uncle only ended his search for her when -he ended his life; and if I know her, even that will turn her home at -last!’ -</p> - -<p> -As he went out into the rigorous night, I saw the lonely figure flit away -before us. I turned him hastily on some pretence, and held him in conversation -until it was gone. -</p> - -<p> -He spoke of a traveller’s house on the Dover Road, where he knew he could -find a clean, plain lodging for the night. I went with him over Westminster -Bridge, and parted from him on the Surrey shore. Everything seemed, to my -imagination, to be hushed in reverence for him, as he resumed his solitary -journey through the snow. -</p> - -<p> -I returned to the inn yard, and, impressed by my remembrance of the face, -looked awfully around for it. It was not there. The snow had covered our late -footprints; my new track was the only one to be seen; and even that began to -die away (it snowed so fast) as I looked back over my shoulder. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0041"></a>CHAPTER 41. DORA’S AUNTS</h2> - -<p> -At last, an answer came from the two old ladies. They presented their -compliments to Mr. Copperfield, and informed him that they had given his letter -their best consideration, ‘with a view to the happiness of both -parties’—which I thought rather an alarming expression, not only -because of the use they had made of it in relation to the family difference -before-mentioned, but because I had (and have all my life) observed that -conventional phrases are a sort of fireworks, easily let off, and liable to -take a great variety of shapes and colours not at all suggested by their -original form. The Misses Spenlow added that they begged to forbear expressing, -‘through the medium of correspondence’, an opinion on the subject -of Mr. Copperfield’s communication; but that if Mr. Copperfield would do -them the favour to call, upon a certain day (accompanied, if he thought proper, -by a confidential friend), they would be happy to hold some conversation on the -subject. -</p> - -<p> -To this favour, Mr. Copperfield immediately replied, with his respectful -compliments, that he would have the honour of waiting on the Misses Spenlow, at -the time appointed; accompanied, in accordance with their kind permission, by -his friend Mr. Thomas Traddles of the Inner Temple. Having dispatched which -missive, Mr. Copperfield fell into a condition of strong nervous agitation; and -so remained until the day arrived. -</p> - -<p> -It was a great augmentation of my uneasiness to be bereaved, at this eventful -crisis, of the inestimable services of Miss Mills. But Mr. Mills, who was -always doing something or other to annoy me—or I felt as if he were, -which was the same thing—had brought his conduct to a climax, by taking -it into his head that he would go to India. Why should he go to India, except -to harass me? To be sure he had nothing to do with any other part of the world, -and had a good deal to do with that part; being entirely in the India trade, -whatever that was (I had floating dreams myself concerning golden shawls and -elephants’ teeth); having been at Calcutta in his youth; and designing -now to go out there again, in the capacity of resident partner. But this was -nothing to me. However, it was so much to him that for India he was bound, and -Julia with him; and Julia went into the country to take leave of her relations; -and the house was put into a perfect suit of bills, announcing that it was to -be let or sold, and that the furniture (Mangle and all) was to be taken at a -valuation. So, here was another earthquake of which I became the sport, before -I had recovered from the shock of its predecessor! -</p> - -<p> -I was in several minds how to dress myself on the important day; being divided -between my desire to appear to advantage, and my apprehensions of putting on -anything that might impair my severely practical character in the eyes of the -Misses Spenlow. I endeavoured to hit a happy medium between these two extremes; -my aunt approved the result; and Mr. Dick threw one of his shoes after Traddles -and me, for luck, as we went downstairs. -</p> - -<p> -Excellent fellow as I knew Traddles to be, and warmly attached to him as I was, -I could not help wishing, on that delicate occasion, that he had never -contracted the habit of brushing his hair so very upright. It gave him a -surprised look—not to say a hearth-broomy kind of expression—which, -my apprehensions whispered, might be fatal to us. -</p> - -<p> -I took the liberty of mentioning it to Traddles, as we were walking to Putney; -and saying that if he WOULD smooth it down a little— -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear Copperfield,’ said Traddles, lifting off his hat, and -rubbing his hair all kinds of ways, ‘nothing would give me greater -pleasure. But it won’t.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Won’t be smoothed down?’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘No,’ said Traddles. ‘Nothing will induce it. If I was to -carry a half-hundred-weight upon it, all the way to Putney, it would be up -again the moment the weight was taken off. You have no idea what obstinate hair -mine is, Copperfield. I am quite a fretful porcupine.’ -</p> - -<p> -I was a little disappointed, I must confess, but thoroughly charmed by his -good-nature too. I told him how I esteemed his good-nature; and said that his -hair must have taken all the obstinacy out of his character, for he had none. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh!’ returned Traddles, laughing. ‘I assure you, it’s -quite an old story, my unfortunate hair. My uncle’s wife couldn’t -bear it. She said it exasperated her. It stood very much in my way, too, when I -first fell in love with Sophy. Very much!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Did she object to it?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘SHE didn’t,’ rejoined Traddles; ‘but her eldest -sister—the one that’s the Beauty—quite made game of it, I -understand. In fact, all the sisters laugh at it.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Agreeable!’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes,’ returned Traddles with perfect innocence, ‘it’s -a joke for us. They pretend that Sophy has a lock of it in her desk, and is -obliged to shut it in a clasped book, to keep it down. We laugh about -it.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘By the by, my dear Traddles,’ said I, ‘your experience may -suggest something to me. When you became engaged to the young lady whom you -have just mentioned, did you make a regular proposal to her family? Was there -anything like—what we are going through today, for instance?’ I -added, nervously. -</p> - -<p> -‘Why,’ replied Traddles, on whose attentive face a thoughtful shade -had stolen, ‘it was rather a painful transaction, Copperfield, in my -case. You see, Sophy being of so much use in the family, none of them could -endure the thought of her ever being married. Indeed, they had quite settled -among themselves that she never was to be married, and they called her the old -maid. Accordingly, when I mentioned it, with the greatest precaution, to Mrs. -Crewler—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘The mama?’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘The mama,’ said Traddles—‘Reverend Horace -Crewler—when I mentioned it with every possible precaution to Mrs. -Crewler, the effect upon her was such that she gave a scream and became -insensible. I couldn’t approach the subject again, for months.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You did at last?’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, the Reverend Horace did,’ said Traddles. ‘He is an -excellent man, most exemplary in every way; and he pointed out to her that she -ought, as a Christian, to reconcile herself to the sacrifice (especially as it -was so uncertain), and to bear no uncharitable feeling towards me. As to -myself, Copperfield, I give you my word, I felt a perfect bird of prey towards -the family.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘The sisters took your part, I hope, Traddles?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, I can’t say they did,’ he returned. ‘When we had -comparatively reconciled Mrs. Crewler to it, we had to break it to Sarah. You -recollect my mentioning Sarah, as the one that has something the matter with -her spine?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Perfectly!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘She clenched both her hands,’ said Traddles, looking at me in -dismay; ‘shut her eyes; turned lead-colour; became perfectly stiff; and -took nothing for two days but toast-and-water, administered with a -tea-spoon.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘What a very unpleasant girl, Traddles!’ I remarked. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, I beg your pardon, Copperfield!’ said Traddles. ‘She is -a very charming girl, but she has a great deal of feeling. In fact, they all -have. Sophy told me afterwards, that the self-reproach she underwent while she -was in attendance upon Sarah, no words could describe. I know it must have been -severe, by my own feelings, Copperfield; which were like a criminal’s. -After Sarah was restored, we still had to break it to the other eight; and it -produced various effects upon them of a most pathetic nature. The two little -ones, whom Sophy educates, have only just left off de-testing me.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘At any rate, they are all reconciled to it now, I hope?’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Ye-yes, I should say they were, on the whole, resigned to it,’ -said Traddles, doubtfully. ‘The fact is, we avoid mentioning the subject; -and my unsettled prospects and indifferent circumstances are a great -consolation to them. There will be a deplorable scene, whenever we are married. -It will be much more like a funeral, than a wedding. And they’ll all hate -me for taking her away!’ -</p> - -<p> -His honest face, as he looked at me with a serio-comic shake of his head, -impresses me more in the remembrance than it did in the reality, for I was by -this time in a state of such excessive trepidation and wandering of mind, as to -be quite unable to fix my attention on anything. On our approaching the house -where the Misses Spenlow lived, I was at such a discount in respect of my -personal looks and presence of mind, that Traddles proposed a gentle stimulant -in the form of a glass of ale. This having been administered at a neighbouring -public-house, he conducted me, with tottering steps, to the Misses -Spenlow’s door. -</p> - -<p> -I had a vague sensation of being, as it were, on view, when the maid opened it; -and of wavering, somehow, across a hall with a weather-glass in it, into a -quiet little drawing-room on the ground-floor, commanding a neat garden. Also -of sitting down here, on a sofa, and seeing Traddles’s hair start up, now -his hat was removed, like one of those obtrusive little figures made of -springs, that fly out of fictitious snuff-boxes when the lid is taken off. Also -of hearing an old-fashioned clock ticking away on the chimney-piece, and trying -to make it keep time to the jerking of my heart,—which it wouldn’t. -Also of looking round the room for any sign of Dora, and seeing none. Also of -thinking that Jip once barked in the distance, and was instantly choked by -somebody. Ultimately I found myself backing Traddles into the fireplace, and -bowing in great confusion to two dry little elderly ladies, dressed in black, -and each looking wonderfully like a preparation in chip or tan of the late Mr. -Spenlow. -</p> - -<p> -‘Pray,’ said one of the two little ladies, ‘be seated.’ -</p> - -<p> -When I had done tumbling over Traddles, and had sat upon something which was -not a cat—my first seat was—I so far recovered my sight, as to -perceive that Mr. Spenlow had evidently been the youngest of the family; that -there was a disparity of six or eight years between the two sisters; and that -the younger appeared to be the manager of the conference, inasmuch as she had -my letter in her hand—so familiar as it looked to me, and yet so -odd!—and was referring to it through an eye-glass. They were dressed -alike, but this sister wore her dress with a more youthful air than the other; -and perhaps had a trifle more frill, or tucker, or brooch, or bracelet, or some -little thing of that kind, which made her look more lively. They were both -upright in their carriage, formal, precise, composed, and quiet. The sister who -had not my letter, had her arms crossed on her breast, and resting on each -other, like an Idol. -</p> - -<p> -‘Mr. Copperfield, I believe,’ said the sister who had got my -letter, addressing herself to Traddles. -</p> - -<p> -This was a frightful beginning. Traddles had to indicate that I was Mr. -Copperfield, and I had to lay claim to myself, and they had to divest -themselves of a preconceived opinion that Traddles was Mr. Copperfield, and -altogether we were in a nice condition. To improve it, we all distinctly heard -Jip give two short barks, and receive another choke. -</p> - -<p> -‘Mr. Copperfield!’ said the sister with the letter. -</p> - -<p> -I did something—bowed, I suppose—and was all attention, when the -other sister struck in. -</p> - -<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> -<img src="images/20182.jpg" alt="20182" width="100%" /> -</div> - -<h5> -<a href="images/20182.jpg"> -<img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /></a> -</h5> - -<p> -‘My sister Lavinia,’ said she ‘being conversant with matters -of this nature, will state what we consider most calculated to promote the -happiness of both parties.’ -</p> - -<p> -I discovered afterwards that Miss Lavinia was an authority in affairs of the -heart, by reason of there having anciently existed a certain Mr. Pidger, who -played short whist, and was supposed to have been enamoured of her. My private -opinion is, that this was entirely a gratuitous assumption, and that Pidger was -altogether innocent of any such sentiments—to which he had never given -any sort of expression that I could ever hear of. Both Miss Lavinia and Miss -Clarissa had a superstition, however, that he would have declared his passion, -if he had not been cut short in his youth (at about sixty) by over-drinking his -constitution, and over-doing an attempt to set it right again by swilling Bath -water. They had a lurking suspicion even, that he died of secret love; though I -must say there was a picture of him in the house with a damask nose, which -concealment did not appear to have ever preyed upon. -</p> - -<p> -‘We will not,’ said Miss Lavinia, ‘enter on the past history -of this matter. Our poor brother Francis’s death has cancelled -that.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘We had not,’ said Miss Clarissa, ‘been in the habit of -frequent association with our brother Francis; but there was no decided -division or disunion between us. Francis took his road; we took ours. We -considered it conducive to the happiness of all parties that it should be so. -And it was so.’ -</p> - -<p> -Each of the sisters leaned a little forward to speak, shook her head after -speaking, and became upright again when silent. Miss Clarissa never moved her -arms. She sometimes played tunes upon them with her fingers—minuets and -marches I should think—but never moved them. -</p> - -<p> -‘Our niece’s position, or supposed position, is much changed by our -brother Francis’s death,’ said Miss Lavinia; ‘and therefore -we consider our brother’s opinions as regarded her position as being -changed too. We have no reason to doubt, Mr. Copperfield, that you are a young -gentleman possessed of good qualities and honourable character; or that you -have an affection—or are fully persuaded that you have an -affection—for our niece.’ -</p> - -<p> -I replied, as I usually did whenever I had a chance, that nobody had ever loved -anybody else as I loved Dora. Traddles came to my assistance with a -confirmatory murmur. -</p> - -<p> -Miss Lavinia was going on to make some rejoinder, when Miss Clarissa, who -appeared to be incessantly beset by a desire to refer to her brother Francis, -struck in again: -</p> - -<p> -‘If Dora’s mama,’ she said, ‘when she married our -brother Francis, had at once said that there was not room for the family at the -dinner-table, it would have been better for the happiness of all -parties.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Sister Clarissa,’ said Miss Lavinia. ‘Perhaps we -needn’t mind that now.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Sister Lavinia,’ said Miss Clarissa, ‘it belongs to the -subject. With your branch of the subject, on which alone you are competent to -speak, I should not think of interfering. On this branch of the subject I have -a voice and an opinion. It would have been better for the happiness of all -parties, if Dora’s mama, when she married our brother Francis, had -mentioned plainly what her intentions were. We should then have known what we -had to expect. We should have said “Pray do not invite us, at any -time”; and all possibility of misunderstanding would have been -avoided.’ -</p> - -<p> -When Miss Clarissa had shaken her head, Miss Lavinia resumed: again referring -to my letter through her eye-glass. They both had little bright round twinkling -eyes, by the way, which were like birds’ eyes. They were not unlike -birds, altogether; having a sharp, brisk, sudden manner, and a little short, -spruce way of adjusting themselves, like canaries. -</p> - -<p> -Miss Lavinia, as I have said, resumed: -</p> - -<p> -‘You ask permission of my sister Clarissa and myself, Mr. Copperfield, to -visit here, as the accepted suitor of our niece.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘If our brother Francis,’ said Miss Clarissa, breaking out again, -if I may call anything so calm a breaking out, ‘wished to surround -himself with an atmosphere of Doctors’ Commons, and of Doctors’ -Commons only, what right or desire had we to object? None, I am sure. We have -ever been far from wishing to obtrude ourselves on anyone. But why not say so? -Let our brother Francis and his wife have their society. Let my sister Lavinia -and myself have our society. We can find it for ourselves, I hope.’ -</p> - -<p> -As this appeared to be addressed to Traddles and me, both Traddles and I made -some sort of reply. Traddles was inaudible. I think I observed, myself, that it -was highly creditable to all concerned. I don’t in the least know what I -meant. -</p> - -<p> -‘Sister Lavinia,’ said Miss Clarissa, having now relieved her mind, -‘you can go on, my dear.’ -</p> - -<p> -Miss Lavinia proceeded: -</p> - -<p> -‘Mr. Copperfield, my sister Clarissa and I have been very careful indeed -in considering this letter; and we have not considered it without finally -showing it to our niece, and discussing it with our niece. We have no doubt -that you think you like her very much.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Think, ma’am,’ I rapturously began, ‘oh!—’ -</p> - -<p> -But Miss Clarissa giving me a look (just like a sharp canary), as requesting -that I would not interrupt the oracle, I begged pardon. -</p> - -<p> -‘Affection,’ said Miss Lavinia, glancing at her sister for -corroboration, which she gave in the form of a little nod to every clause, -‘mature affection, homage, devotion, does not easily express itself. Its -voice is low. It is modest and retiring, it lies in ambush, waits and waits. -Such is the mature fruit. Sometimes a life glides away, and finds it still -ripening in the shade.’ -</p> - -<p> -Of course I did not understand then that this was an allusion to her supposed -experience of the stricken Pidger; but I saw, from the gravity with which Miss -Clarissa nodded her head, that great weight was attached to these words. -</p> - -<p> -‘The light—for I call them, in comparison with such sentiments, the -light—inclinations of very young people,’ pursued Miss Lavinia, -‘are dust, compared to rocks. It is owing to the difficulty of knowing -whether they are likely to endure or have any real foundation, that my sister -Clarissa and myself have been very undecided how to act, Mr. Copperfield, and -Mr.—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Traddles,’ said my friend, finding himself looked at. -</p> - -<p> -‘I beg pardon. Of the Inner Temple, I believe?’ said Miss Clarissa, -again glancing at my letter. -</p> - -<p> -Traddles said ‘Exactly so,’ and became pretty red in the face. -</p> - -<p> -Now, although I had not received any express encouragement as yet, I fancied -that I saw in the two little sisters, and particularly in Miss Lavinia, an -intensified enjoyment of this new and fruitful subject of domestic interest, a -settling down to make the most of it, a disposition to pet it, in which there -was a good bright ray of hope. I thought I perceived that Miss Lavinia would -have uncommon satisfaction in superintending two young lovers, like Dora and -me; and that Miss Clarissa would have hardly less satisfaction in seeing her -superintend us, and in chiming in with her own particular department of the -subject whenever that impulse was strong upon her. This gave me courage to -protest most vehemently that I loved Dora better than I could tell, or anyone -believe; that all my friends knew how I loved her; that my aunt, Agnes, -Traddles, everyone who knew me, knew how I loved her, and how earnest my love -had made me. For the truth of this, I appealed to Traddles. And Traddles, -firing up as if he were plunging into a Parliamentary Debate, really did come -out nobly: confirming me in good round terms, and in a plain sensible practical -manner, that evidently made a favourable impression. -</p> - -<p> -‘I speak, if I may presume to say so, as one who has some little -experience of such things,’ said Traddles, ‘being myself engaged to -a young lady—one of ten, down in Devonshire—and seeing no -probability, at present, of our engagement coming to a termination.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You may be able to confirm what I have said, Mr. Traddles,’ -observed Miss Lavinia, evidently taking a new interest in him, ‘of the -affection that is modest and retiring; that waits and waits?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Entirely, ma’am,’ said Traddles. -</p> - -<p> -Miss Clarissa looked at Miss Lavinia, and shook her head gravely. Miss Lavinia -looked consciously at Miss Clarissa, and heaved a little sigh. ‘Sister -Lavinia,’ said Miss Clarissa, ‘take my smelling-bottle.’ -</p> - -<p> -Miss Lavinia revived herself with a few whiffs of aromatic -vinegar—Traddles and I looking on with great solicitude the while; and -then went on to say, rather faintly: -</p> - -<p> -‘My sister and myself have been in great doubt, Mr. Traddles, what course -we ought to take in reference to the likings, or imaginary likings, of such -very young people as your friend Mr. Copperfield and our niece.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Our brother Francis’s child,’ remarked Miss Clarissa. -‘If our brother Francis’s wife had found it convenient in her -lifetime (though she had an unquestionable right to act as she thought best) to -invite the family to her dinner-table, we might have known our brother -Francis’s child better at the present moment. Sister Lavinia, -proceed.’ -</p> - -<p> -Miss Lavinia turned my letter, so as to bring the superscription towards -herself, and referred through her eye-glass to some orderly-looking notes she -had made on that part of it. -</p> - -<p> -‘It seems to us,’ said she, ‘prudent, Mr. Traddles, to bring -these feelings to the test of our own observation. At present we know nothing -of them, and are not in a situation to judge how much reality there may be in -them. Therefore we are inclined so far to accede to Mr. Copperfield’s -proposal, as to admit his visits here.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I shall never, dear ladies,’ I exclaimed, relieved of an immense -load of apprehension, ‘forget your kindness!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘But,’ pursued Miss Lavinia,—‘but, we would prefer to -regard those visits, Mr. Traddles, as made, at present, to us. We must guard -ourselves from recognizing any positive engagement between Mr. Copperfield and -our niece, until we have had an opportunity—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Until YOU have had an opportunity, sister Lavinia,’ said Miss -Clarissa. -</p> - -<p> -‘Be it so,’ assented Miss Lavinia, with a sigh—‘until I -have had an opportunity of observing them.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Copperfield,’ said Traddles, turning to me, ‘you feel, I am -sure, that nothing could be more reasonable or considerate.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Nothing!’ cried I. ‘I am deeply sensible of it.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘In this position of affairs,’ said Miss Lavinia, again referring -to her notes, ‘and admitting his visits on this understanding only, we -must require from Mr. Copperfield a distinct assurance, on his word of honour, -that no communication of any kind shall take place between him and our niece -without our knowledge. That no project whatever shall be entertained with -regard to our niece, without being first submitted to us—’ -‘To you, sister Lavinia,’ Miss Clarissa interposed. -</p> - -<p> -‘Be it so, Clarissa!’ assented Miss Lavinia -resignedly—‘to me—and receiving our concurrence. We must make -this a most express and serious stipulation, not to be broken on any account. -We wished Mr. Copperfield to be accompanied by some confidential friend -today,’ with an inclination of her head towards Traddles, who bowed, -‘in order that there might be no doubt or misconception on this subject. -If Mr. Copperfield, or if you, Mr. Traddles, feel the least scruple, in giving -this promise, I beg you to take time to consider it.’ -</p> - -<p> -I exclaimed, in a state of high ecstatic fervour, that not a moment’s -consideration could be necessary. I bound myself by the required promise, in a -most impassioned manner; called upon Traddles to witness it; and denounced -myself as the most atrocious of characters if I ever swerved from it in the -least degree. -</p> - -<p> -‘Stay!’ said Miss Lavinia, holding up her hand; ‘we resolved, -before we had the pleasure of receiving you two gentlemen, to leave you alone -for a quarter of an hour, to consider this point. You will allow us to -retire.’ -</p> - -<p> -It was in vain for me to say that no consideration was necessary. They -persisted in withdrawing for the specified time. Accordingly, these little -birds hopped out with great dignity; leaving me to receive the congratulations -of Traddles, and to feel as if I were translated to regions of exquisite -happiness. Exactly at the expiration of the quarter of an hour, they reappeared -with no less dignity than they had disappeared. They had gone rustling away as -if their little dresses were made of autumn-leaves: and they came rustling -back, in like manner. -</p> - -<p> -I then bound myself once more to the prescribed conditions. -</p> - -<p> -‘Sister Clarissa,’ said Miss Lavinia, ‘the rest is with -you.’ -</p> - -<p> -Miss Clarissa, unfolding her arms for the first time, took the notes and -glanced at them. -</p> - -<p> -‘We shall be happy,’ said Miss Clarissa, ‘to see Mr. -Copperfield to dinner, every Sunday, if it should suit his convenience. Our -hour is three.’ -</p> - -<p> -I bowed. -</p> - -<p> -‘In the course of the week,’ said Miss Clarissa, ‘we shall be -happy to see Mr. Copperfield to tea. Our hour is half-past six.’ -</p> - -<p> -I bowed again. -</p> - -<p> -‘Twice in the week,’ said Miss Clarissa, ‘but, as a rule, not -oftener.’ -</p> - -<p> -I bowed again. -</p> - -<p> -‘Miss Trotwood,’ said Miss Clarissa, ‘mentioned in Mr. -Copperfield’s letter, will perhaps call upon us. When visiting is better -for the happiness of all parties, we are glad to receive visits, and return -them. When it is better for the happiness of all parties that no visiting -should take place, (as in the case of our brother Francis, and his -establishment) that is quite different.’ -</p> - -<p> -I intimated that my aunt would be proud and delighted to make their -acquaintance; though I must say I was not quite sure of their getting on very -satisfactorily together. The conditions being now closed, I expressed my -acknowledgements in the warmest manner; and, taking the hand, first of Miss -Clarissa, and then of Miss Lavinia, pressed it, in each case, to my lips. -</p> - -<p> -Miss Lavinia then arose, and begging Mr. Traddles to excuse us for a minute, -requested me to follow her. I obeyed, all in a tremble, and was conducted into -another room. There I found my blessed darling stopping her ears behind the -door, with her dear little face against the wall; and Jip in the plate-warmer -with his head tied up in a towel. -</p> - -<p> -Oh! How beautiful she was in her black frock, and how she sobbed and cried at -first, and wouldn’t come out from behind the door! How fond we were of -one another, when she did come out at last; and what a state of bliss I was in, -when we took Jip out of the plate-warmer, and restored him to the light, -sneezing very much, and were all three reunited! -</p> - -<p> -‘My dearest Dora! Now, indeed, my own for ever!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, DON’T!’ pleaded Dora. ‘Please!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Are you not my own for ever, Dora?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh yes, of course I am!’ cried Dora, ‘but I am so -frightened!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Frightened, my own?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh yes! I don’t like him,’ said Dora. ‘Why don’t -he go?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Who, my life?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Your friend,’ said Dora. ‘It isn’t any business of -his. What a stupid he must be!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘My love!’ (There never was anything so coaxing as her childish -ways.) ‘He is the best creature!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, but we don’t want any best creatures!’ pouted Dora. -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear,’ I argued, ‘you will soon know him well, and like -him of all things. And here is my aunt coming soon; and you’ll like her -of all things too, when you know her.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No, please don’t bring her!’ said Dora, giving me a -horrified little kiss, and folding her hands. ‘Don’t. I know -she’s a naughty, mischief-making old thing! Don’t let her come -here, Doady!’ which was a corruption of David. -</p> - -<p> -Remonstrance was of no use, then; so I laughed, and admired, and was very much -in love and very happy; and she showed me Jip’s new trick of standing on -his hind legs in a corner—which he did for about the space of a flash of -lightning, and then fell down—and I don’t know how long I should -have stayed there, oblivious of Traddles, if Miss Lavinia had not come in to -take me away. Miss Lavinia was very fond of Dora (she told me Dora was exactly -like what she had been herself at her age—she must have altered a good -deal), and she treated Dora just as if she had been a toy. I wanted to persuade -Dora to come and see Traddles, but on my proposing it she ran off to her own -room and locked herself in; so I went to Traddles without her, and walked away -with him on air. -</p> - -<p> -‘Nothing could be more satisfactory,’ said Traddles; ‘and -they are very agreeable old ladies, I am sure. I shouldn’t be at all -surprised if you were to be married years before me, Copperfield.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Does your Sophy play on any instrument, Traddles?’ I inquired, in -the pride of my heart. -</p> - -<p> -‘She knows enough of the piano to teach it to her little sisters,’ -said Traddles. -</p> - -<p> -‘Does she sing at all?’ I asked. -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, she sings ballads, sometimes, to freshen up the others a little -when they’re out of spirits,’ said Traddles. ‘Nothing -scientific.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘She doesn’t sing to the guitar?’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh dear no!’ said Traddles. -</p> - -<p> -‘Paint at all?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Not at all,’ said Traddles. -</p> - -<p> -I promised Traddles that he should hear Dora sing, and see some of her -flower-painting. He said he should like it very much, and we went home arm in -arm in great good humour and delight. I encouraged him to talk about Sophy, on -the way; which he did with a loving reliance on her that I very much admired. I -compared her in my mind with Dora, with considerable inward satisfaction; but I -candidly admitted to myself that she seemed to be an excellent kind of girl for -Traddles, too. -</p> - -<p> -Of course my aunt was immediately made acquainted with the successful issue of -the conference, and with all that had been said and done in the course of it. -She was happy to see me so happy, and promised to call on Dora’s aunts -without loss of time. But she took such a long walk up and down our rooms that -night, while I was writing to Agnes, that I began to think she meant to walk -till morning. -</p> - -<p> -My letter to Agnes was a fervent and grateful one, narrating all the good -effects that had resulted from my following her advice. She wrote, by return of -post, to me. Her letter was hopeful, earnest, and cheerful. She was always -cheerful from that time. -</p> - -<p> -I had my hands more full than ever, now. My daily journeys to Highgate -considered, Putney was a long way off; and I naturally wanted to go there as -often as I could. The proposed tea-drinkings being quite impracticable, I -compounded with Miss Lavinia for permission to visit every Saturday afternoon, -without detriment to my privileged Sundays. So, the close of every week was a -delicious time for me; and I got through the rest of the week by looking -forward to it. -</p> - -<p> -I was wonderfully relieved to find that my aunt and Dora’s aunts rubbed -on, all things considered, much more smoothly than I could have expected. My -aunt made her promised visit within a few days of the conference; and within a -few more days, Dora’s aunts called upon her, in due state and form. -Similar but more friendly exchanges took place afterwards, usually at intervals -of three or four weeks. I know that my aunt distressed Dora’s aunts very -much, by utterly setting at naught the dignity of fly-conveyance, and walking -out to Putney at extraordinary times, as shortly after breakfast or just before -tea; likewise by wearing her bonnet in any manner that happened to be -comfortable to her head, without at all deferring to the prejudices of -civilization on that subject. But Dora’s aunts soon agreed to regard my -aunt as an eccentric and somewhat masculine lady, with a strong understanding; -and although my aunt occasionally ruffled the feathers of Dora’s aunts, -by expressing heretical opinions on various points of ceremony, she loved me -too well not to sacrifice some of her little peculiarities to the general -harmony. -</p> - -<p> -The only member of our small society who positively refused to adapt himself to -circumstances, was Jip. He never saw my aunt without immediately displaying -every tooth in his head, retiring under a chair, and growling incessantly: with -now and then a doleful howl, as if she really were too much for his feelings. -All kinds of treatment were tried with him, coaxing, scolding, slapping, -bringing him to Buckingham Street (where he instantly dashed at the two cats, -to the terror of all beholders); but he never could prevail upon himself to -bear my aunt’s society. He would sometimes think he had got the better of -his objection, and be amiable for a few minutes; and then would put up his snub -nose, and howl to that extent, that there was nothing for it but to blind him -and put him in the plate-warmer. At length, Dora regularly muffled him in a -towel and shut him up there, whenever my aunt was reported at the door. -</p> - -<p> -One thing troubled me much, after we had fallen into this quiet train. It was, -that Dora seemed by one consent to be regarded like a pretty toy or plaything. -My aunt, with whom she gradually became familiar, always called her Little -Blossom; and the pleasure of Miss Lavinia’s life was to wait upon her, -curl her hair, make ornaments for her, and treat her like a pet child. What -Miss Lavinia did, her sister did as a matter of course. It was very odd to me; -but they all seemed to treat Dora, in her degree, much as Dora treated Jip in -his. -</p> - -<p> -I made up my mind to speak to Dora about this; and one day when we were out -walking (for we were licensed by Miss Lavinia, after a while, to go out walking -by ourselves), I said to her that I wished she could get them to behave towards -her differently. -</p> - -<p> -‘Because you know, my darling,’ I remonstrated, ‘you are not -a child.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘There!’ said Dora. ‘Now you’re going to be -cross!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Cross, my love?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I am sure they’re very kind to me,’ said Dora, ‘and I -am very happy—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Well! But my dearest life!’ said I, ‘you might be very -happy, and yet be treated rationally.’ -</p> - -<p> -Dora gave me a reproachful look—the prettiest look!—and then began -to sob, saying, if I didn’t like her, why had I ever wanted so much to be -engaged to her? And why didn’t I go away, now, if I couldn’t bear -her? -</p> - -<p> -What could I do, but kiss away her tears, and tell her how I doted on her, -after that! -</p> - -<p> -‘I am sure I am very affectionate,’ said Dora; ‘you -oughtn’t to be cruel to me, Doady!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Cruel, my precious love! As if I would—or could—be cruel to -you, for the world!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Then don’t find fault with me,’ said Dora, making a rosebud -of her mouth; ‘and I’ll be good.’ -</p> - -<p> -I was charmed by her presently asking me, of her own accord, to give her that -cookery-book I had once spoken of, and to show her how to keep accounts as I -had once promised I would. I brought the volume with me on my next visit (I got -it prettily bound, first, to make it look less dry and more inviting); and as -we strolled about the Common, I showed her an old housekeeping-book of my -aunt’s, and gave her a set of tablets, and a pretty little pencil-case -and box of leads, to practise housekeeping with. -</p> - -<p> -But the cookery-book made Dora’s head ache, and the figures made her cry. -They wouldn’t add up, she said. So she rubbed them out, and drew little -nosegays and likenesses of me and Jip, all over the tablets. -</p> - -<p> -Then I playfully tried verbal instruction in domestic matters, as we walked -about on a Saturday afternoon. Sometimes, for example, when we passed a -butcher’s shop, I would say: -</p> - -<p> -‘Now suppose, my pet, that we were married, and you were going to buy a -shoulder of mutton for dinner, would you know how to buy it?’ -</p> - -<p> -My pretty little Dora’s face would fall, and she would make her mouth -into a bud again, as if she would very much prefer to shut mine with a kiss. -</p> - -<p> -‘Would you know how to buy it, my darling?’ I would repeat, -perhaps, if I were very inflexible. -</p> - -<p> -Dora would think a little, and then reply, perhaps, with great triumph: -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, the butcher would know how to sell it, and what need I know? Oh, -you silly boy!’ -</p> - -<p> -So, when I once asked Dora, with an eye to the cookery-book, what she would do, -if we were married, and I were to say I should like a nice Irish stew, she -replied that she would tell the servant to make it; and then clapped her little -hands together across my arm, and laughed in such a charming manner that she -was more delightful than ever. -</p> - -<p> -Consequently, the principal use to which the cookery-book was devoted, was -being put down in the corner for Jip to stand upon. But Dora was so pleased, -when she had trained him to stand upon it without offering to come off, and at -the same time to hold the pencil-case in his mouth, that I was very glad I had -bought it. -</p> - -<p> -And we fell back on the guitar-case, and the flower-painting, and the songs -about never leaving off dancing, Ta ra la! and were as happy as the week was -long. I occasionally wished I could venture to hint to Miss Lavinia, that she -treated the darling of my heart a little too much like a plaything; and I -sometimes awoke, as it were, wondering to find that I had fallen into the -general fault, and treated her like a plaything too—but not often. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0042"></a>CHAPTER 42. MISCHIEF</h2> - -<p> -I feel as if it were not for me to record, even though this manuscript is -intended for no eyes but mine, how hard I worked at that tremendous short-hand, -and all improvement appertaining to it, in my sense of responsibility to Dora -and her aunts. I will only add, to what I have already written of my -perseverance at this time of my life, and of a patient and continuous energy -which then began to be matured within me, and which I know to be the strong -part of my character, if it have any strength at all, that there, on looking -back, I find the source of my success. I have been very fortunate in worldly -matters; many men have worked much harder, and not succeeded half so well; but -I never could have done what I have done, without the habits of punctuality, -order, and diligence, without the determination to concentrate myself on one -object at a time, no matter how quickly its successor should come upon its -heels, which I then formed. Heaven knows I write this, in no spirit of -self-laudation. The man who reviews his own life, as I do mine, in going on -here, from page to page, had need to have been a good man indeed, if he would -be spared the sharp consciousness of many talents neglected, many opportunities -wasted, many erratic and perverted feelings constantly at war within his -breast, and defeating him. I do not hold one natural gift, I dare say, that I -have not abused. My meaning simply is, that whatever I have tried to do in -life, I have tried with all my heart to do well; that whatever I have devoted -myself to, I have devoted myself to completely; that in great aims and in -small, I have always been thoroughly in earnest. I have never believed it -possible that any natural or improved ability can claim immunity from the -companionship of the steady, plain, hard-working qualities, and hope to gain -its end. There is no such thing as such fulfilment on this earth. Some happy -talent, and some fortunate opportunity, may form the two sides of the ladder on -which some men mount, but the rounds of that ladder must be made of stuff to -stand wear and tear; and there is no substitute for thorough-going, ardent, and -sincere earnestness. Never to put one hand to anything, on which I could throw -my whole self; and never to affect depreciation of my work, whatever it was; I -find, now, to have been my golden rules. -</p> - -<p> -How much of the practice I have just reduced to precept, I owe to Agnes, I will -not repeat here. My narrative proceeds to Agnes, with a thankful love. -</p> - -<p> -She came on a visit of a fortnight to the Doctor’s. Mr. Wickfield was the -Doctor’s old friend, and the Doctor wished to talk with him, and do him -good. It had been matter of conversation with Agnes when she was last in town, -and this visit was the result. She and her father came together. I was not much -surprised to hear from her that she had engaged to find a lodging in the -neighbourhood for Mrs. Heep, whose rheumatic complaint required change of air, -and who would be charmed to have it in such company. Neither was I surprised -when, on the very next day, Uriah, like a dutiful son, brought his worthy -mother to take possession. -</p> - -<p> -‘You see, Master Copperfield,’ said he, as he forced himself upon -my company for a turn in the Doctor’s garden, ‘where a person -loves, a person is a little jealous—leastways, anxious to keep an eye on -the beloved one.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Of whom are you jealous, now?’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Thanks to you, Master Copperfield,’ he returned, ‘of no one -in particular just at present—no male person, at least.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Do you mean that you are jealous of a female person?’ -</p> - -<p> -He gave me a sidelong glance out of his sinister red eyes, and laughed. -</p> - -<p> -‘Really, Master Copperfield,’ he said, ‘—I should say -Mister, but I know you’ll excuse the abit I’ve got -into—you’re so insinuating, that you draw me like a corkscrew! -Well, I don’t mind telling you,’ putting his fish-like hand on -mine, ‘I’m not a lady’s man in general, sir, and I never was, -with Mrs. Strong.’ -</p> - -<p> -His eyes looked green now, as they watched mine with a rascally cunning. -</p> - -<p> -‘What do you mean?’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, though I am a lawyer, Master Copperfield,’ he replied, with a -dry grin, ‘I mean, just at present, what I say.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And what do you mean by your look?’ I retorted, quietly. -</p> - -<p> -‘By my look? Dear me, Copperfield, that’s sharp practice! What do I -mean by my look?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes,’ said I. ‘By your look.’ -</p> - -<p> -He seemed very much amused, and laughed as heartily as it was in his nature to -laugh. After some scraping of his chin with his hand, he went on to say, with -his eyes cast downward—still scraping, very slowly: -</p> - -<p> -‘When I was but an umble clerk, she always looked down upon me. She was -for ever having my Agnes backwards and forwards at her ouse, and she was for -ever being a friend to you, Master Copperfield; but I was too far beneath her, -myself, to be noticed.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Well?’ said I; ‘suppose you were!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘—And beneath him too,’ pursued Uriah, very distinctly, and -in a meditative tone of voice, as he continued to scrape his chin. -</p> - -<p> -‘Don’t you know the Doctor better,’ said I, ‘than to -suppose him conscious of your existence, when you were not before him?’ -</p> - -<p> -He directed his eyes at me in that sidelong glance again, and he made his face -very lantern-jawed, for the greater convenience of scraping, as he answered: -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh dear, I am not referring to the Doctor! Oh no, poor man! I mean Mr. -Maldon!’ -</p> - -<p> -My heart quite died within me. All my old doubts and apprehensions on that -subject, all the Doctor’s happiness and peace, all the mingled -possibilities of innocence and compromise, that I could not unravel, I saw, in -a moment, at the mercy of this fellow’s twisting. -</p> - -<p> -‘He never could come into the office, without ordering and shoving me -about,’ said Uriah. ‘One of your fine gentlemen he was! I was very -meek and umble—and I am. But I didn’t like that sort of -thing—and I don’t!’ -</p> - -<p> -He left off scraping his chin, and sucked in his cheeks until they seemed to -meet inside; keeping his sidelong glance upon me all the while. -</p> - -<p> -‘She is one of your lovely women, she is,’ he pursued, when he had -slowly restored his face to its natural form; ‘and ready to be no friend -to such as me, I know. She’s just the person as would put my Agnes up to -higher sort of game. Now, I ain’t one of your lady’s men, Master -Copperfield; but I’ve had eyes in my ed, a pretty long time back. We -umble ones have got eyes, mostly speaking—and we look out of -‘em.’ -</p> - -<p> -I endeavoured to appear unconscious and not disquieted, but, I saw in his face, -with poor success. -</p> - -<p> -‘Now, I’m not a-going to let myself be run down, -Copperfield,’ he continued, raising that part of his countenance, where -his red eyebrows would have been if he had had any, with malignant triumph, -‘and I shall do what I can to put a stop to this friendship. I -don’t approve of it. I don’t mind acknowledging to you that -I’ve got rather a grudging disposition, and want to keep off all -intruders. I ain’t a-going, if I know it, to run the risk of being -plotted against.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You are always plotting, and delude yourself into the belief that -everybody else is doing the like, I think,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Perhaps so, Master Copperfield,’ he replied. ‘But I’ve -got a motive, as my fellow-partner used to say; and I go at it tooth and nail. -I mustn’t be put upon, as a numble person, too much. I can’t allow -people in my way. Really they must come out of the cart, Master -Copperfield!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I don’t understand you,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Don’t you, though?’ he returned, with one of his jerks. -‘I’m astonished at that, Master Copperfield, you being usually so -quick! I’ll try to be plainer, another time.—-Is that Mr. Maldon -a-norseback, ringing at the gate, sir?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘It looks like him,’ I replied, as carelessly as I could. -</p> - -<p> -Uriah stopped short, put his hands between his great knobs of knees, and -doubled himself up with laughter. With perfectly silent laughter. Not a sound -escaped from him. I was so repelled by his odious behaviour, particularly by -this concluding instance, that I turned away without any ceremony; and left him -doubled up in the middle of the garden, like a scarecrow in want of support. -</p> - -<p> -It was not on that evening; but, as I well remember, on the next evening but -one, which was a Sunday; that I took Agnes to see Dora. I had arranged the -visit, beforehand, with Miss Lavinia; and Agnes was expected to tea. -</p> - -<p> -I was in a flutter of pride and anxiety; pride in my dear little betrothed, and -anxiety that Agnes should like her. All the way to Putney, Agnes being inside -the stage-coach, and I outside, I pictured Dora to myself in every one of the -pretty looks I knew so well; now making up my mind that I should like her to -look exactly as she looked at such a time, and then doubting whether I should -not prefer her looking as she looked at such another time; and almost worrying -myself into a fever about it. -</p> - -<p> -I was troubled by no doubt of her being very pretty, in any case; but it fell -out that I had never seen her look so well. She was not in the drawing-room -when I presented Agnes to her little aunts, but was shyly keeping out of the -way. I knew where to look for her, now; and sure enough I found her stopping -her ears again, behind the same dull old door. -</p> - -<p> -At first she wouldn’t come at all; and then she pleaded for five minutes -by my watch. When at length she put her arm through mine, to be taken to the -drawing-room, her charming little face was flushed, and had never been so -pretty. But, when we went into the room, and it turned pale, she was ten -thousand times prettier yet. -</p> - -<p> -Dora was afraid of Agnes. She had told me that she knew Agnes was ‘too -clever’. But when she saw her looking at once so cheerful and so earnest, -and so thoughtful, and so good, she gave a faint little cry of pleased -surprise, and just put her affectionate arms round Agnes’s neck, and laid -her innocent cheek against her face. -</p> - -<p> -I never was so happy. I never was so pleased as when I saw those two sit down -together, side by side. As when I saw my little darling looking up so naturally -to those cordial eyes. As when I saw the tender, beautiful regard which Agnes -cast upon her. -</p> - -<p> -Miss Lavinia and Miss Clarissa partook, in their way, of my joy. It was the -pleasantest tea-table in the world. Miss Clarissa presided. I cut and handed -the sweet seed-cake—the little sisters had a bird-like fondness for -picking up seeds and pecking at sugar; Miss Lavinia looked on with benignant -patronage, as if our happy love were all her work; and we were perfectly -contented with ourselves and one another. -</p> - -<p> -The gentle cheerfulness of Agnes went to all their hearts. Her quiet interest -in everything that interested Dora; her manner of making acquaintance with Jip -(who responded instantly); her pleasant way, when Dora was ashamed to come over -to her usual seat by me; her modest grace and ease, eliciting a crowd of -blushing little marks of confidence from Dora; seemed to make our circle quite -complete. -</p> - -<p> -‘I am so glad,’ said Dora, after tea, ‘that you like me. I -didn’t think you would; and I want, more than ever, to be liked, now -Julia Mills is gone.’ -</p> - -<p> -I have omitted to mention it, by the by. Miss Mills had sailed, and Dora and I -had gone aboard a great East Indiaman at Gravesend to see her; and we had had -preserved ginger, and guava, and other delicacies of that sort for lunch; and -we had left Miss Mills weeping on a camp-stool on the quarter-deck, with a -large new diary under her arm, in which the original reflections awakened by -the contemplation of Ocean were to be recorded under lock and key. -</p> - -<p> -Agnes said she was afraid I must have given her an unpromising character; but -Dora corrected that directly. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh no!’ she said, shaking her curls at me; ‘it was all -praise. He thinks so much of your opinion, that I was quite afraid of -it.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘My good opinion cannot strengthen his attachment to some people whom he -knows,’ said Agnes, with a smile; ‘it is not worth their -having.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘But please let me have it,’ said Dora, in her coaxing way, -‘if you can!’ -</p> - -<p> -We made merry about Dora’s wanting to be liked, and Dora said I was a -goose, and she didn’t like me at any rate, and the short evening flew -away on gossamer-wings. The time was at hand when the coach was to call for us. -I was standing alone before the fire, when Dora came stealing softly in, to -give me that usual precious little kiss before I went. -</p> - -<p> -‘Don’t you think, if I had had her for a friend a long time ago, -Doady,’ said Dora, her bright eyes shining very brightly, and her little -right hand idly busying itself with one of the buttons of my coat, ‘I -might have been more clever perhaps?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘My love!’ said I, ‘what nonsense!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Do you think it is nonsense?’ returned Dora, without looking at -me. ‘Are you sure it is?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Of course I am!’ ‘I have forgotten,’ said Dora, still -turning the button round and round, ‘what relation Agnes is to you, you -dear bad boy.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No blood-relation,’ I replied; ‘but we were brought up -together, like brother and sister.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I wonder why you ever fell in love with me?’ said Dora, beginning -on another button of my coat. -</p> - -<p> -‘Perhaps because I couldn’t see you, and not love you, Dora!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Suppose you had never seen me at all,’ said Dora, going to another -button. -</p> - -<p> -‘Suppose we had never been born!’ said I, gaily. -</p> - -<p> -I wondered what she was thinking about, as I glanced in admiring silence at the -little soft hand travelling up the row of buttons on my coat, and at the -clustering hair that lay against my breast, and at the lashes of her downcast -eyes, slightly rising as they followed her idle fingers. At length her eyes -were lifted up to mine, and she stood on tiptoe to give me, more thoughtfully -than usual, that precious little kiss—once, twice, three times—and -went out of the room. -</p> - -<p> -They all came back together within five minutes afterwards, and Dora’s -unusual thoughtfulness was quite gone then. She was laughingly resolved to put -Jip through the whole of his performances, before the coach came. They took -some time (not so much on account of their variety, as Jip’s reluctance), -and were still unfinished when it was heard at the door. There was a hurried -but affectionate parting between Agnes and herself; and Dora was to write to -Agnes (who was not to mind her letters being foolish, she said), and Agnes was -to write to Dora; and they had a second parting at the coach door, and a third -when Dora, in spite of the remonstrances of Miss Lavinia, would come running -out once more to remind Agnes at the coach window about writing, and to shake -her curls at me on the box. -</p> - -<p> -The stage-coach was to put us down near Covent Garden, where we were to take -another stage-coach for Highgate. I was impatient for the short walk in the -interval, that Agnes might praise Dora to me. Ah! what praise it was! How -lovingly and fervently did it commend the pretty creature I had won, with all -her artless graces best displayed, to my most gentle care! How thoughtfully -remind me, yet with no pretence of doing so, of the trust in which I held the -orphan child! -</p> - -<p> -Never, never, had I loved Dora so deeply and truly, as I loved her that night. -When we had again alighted, and were walking in the starlight along the quiet -road that led to the Doctor’s house, I told Agnes it was her doing. -</p> - -<p> -‘When you were sitting by her,’ said I, ‘you seemed to be no -less her guardian angel than mine; and you seem so now, Agnes.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘A poor angel,’ she returned, ‘but faithful.’ -</p> - -<p> -The clear tone of her voice, going straight to my heart, made it natural to me -to say: -</p> - -<p> -‘The cheerfulness that belongs to you, Agnes (and to no one else that -ever I have seen), is so restored, I have observed today, that I have begun to -hope you are happier at home?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I am happier in myself,’ she said; ‘I am quite cheerful and -light-hearted.’ -</p> - -<p> -I glanced at the serene face looking upward, and thought it was the stars that -made it seem so noble. -</p> - -<p> -‘There has been no change at home,’ said Agnes, after a few -moments. -</p> - -<p> -‘No fresh reference,’ said I, ‘to—I wouldn’t -distress you, Agnes, but I cannot help asking—to what we spoke of, when -we parted last?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No, none,’ she answered. -</p> - -<p> -‘I have thought so much about it.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You must think less about it. Remember that I confide in simple love and -truth at last. Have no apprehensions for me, Trotwood,’ she added, after -a moment; ‘the step you dread my taking, I shall never take.’ -</p> - -<p> -Although I think I had never really feared it, in any season of cool -reflection, it was an unspeakable relief to me to have this assurance from her -own truthful lips. I told her so, earnestly. -</p> - -<p> -‘And when this visit is over,’ said I,—‘for we may not -be alone another time,—how long is it likely to be, my dear Agnes, before -you come to London again?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Probably a long time,’ she replied; ‘I think it will be -best—for papa’s sake—to remain at home. We are not likely to -meet often, for some time to come; but I shall be a good correspondent of -Dora’s, and we shall frequently hear of one another that way.’ -</p> - -<p> -We were now within the little courtyard of the Doctor’s cottage. It was -growing late. There was a light in the window of Mrs. Strong’s chamber, -and Agnes, pointing to it, bade me good night. -</p> - -<p> -‘Do not be troubled,’ she said, giving me her hand, ‘by our -misfortunes and anxieties. I can be happier in nothing than in your happiness. -If you can ever give me help, rely upon it I will ask you for it. God bless you -always!’ In her beaming smile, and in these last tones of her cheerful -voice, I seemed again to see and hear my little Dora in her company. I stood -awhile, looking through the porch at the stars, with a heart full of love and -gratitude, and then walked slowly forth. I had engaged a bed at a decent -alehouse close by, and was going out at the gate, when, happening to turn my -head, I saw a light in the Doctor’s study. A half-reproachful fancy came -into my mind, that he had been working at the Dictionary without my help. With -the view of seeing if this were so, and, in any case, of bidding him good -night, if he were yet sitting among his books, I turned back, and going softly -across the hall, and gently opening the door, looked in. -</p> - -<p> -The first person whom I saw, to my surprise, by the sober light of the shaded -lamp, was Uriah. He was standing close beside it, with one of his skeleton -hands over his mouth, and the other resting on the Doctor’s table. The -Doctor sat in his study chair, covering his face with his hands. Mr. Wickfield, -sorely troubled and distressed, was leaning forward, irresolutely touching the -Doctor’s arm. -</p> - -<p> -For an instant, I supposed that the Doctor was ill. I hastily advanced a step -under that impression, when I met Uriah’s eye, and saw what was the -matter. I would have withdrawn, but the Doctor made a gesture to detain me, and -I remained. -</p> - -<p> -‘At any rate,’ observed Uriah, with a writhe of his ungainly -person, ‘we may keep the door shut. We needn’t make it known to ALL -the town.’ -</p> - -<p> -Saying which, he went on his toes to the door, which I had left open, and -carefully closed it. He then came back, and took up his former position. There -was an obtrusive show of compassionate zeal in his voice and manner, more -intolerable—at least to me—than any demeanour he could have -assumed. -</p> - -<p> -‘I have felt it incumbent upon me, Master Copperfield,’ said Uriah, -‘to point out to Doctor Strong what you and me have already talked about. -You didn’t exactly understand me, though?’ -</p> - -<p> -I gave him a look, but no other answer; and, going to my good old master, said -a few words that I meant to be words of comfort and encouragement. He put his -hand upon my shoulder, as it had been his custom to do when I was quite a -little fellow, but did not lift his grey head. -</p> - -<p> -‘As you didn’t understand me, Master Copperfield,’ resumed -Uriah in the same officious manner, ‘I may take the liberty of umbly -mentioning, being among friends, that I have called Doctor Strong’s -attention to the goings-on of Mrs. Strong. It’s much against the grain -with me, I assure you, Copperfield, to be concerned in anything so unpleasant; -but really, as it is, we’re all mixing ourselves up with what -oughtn’t to be. That was what my meaning was, sir, when you didn’t -understand me.’ I wonder now, when I recall his leer, that I did not -collar him, and try to shake the breath out of his body. -</p> - -<p> -‘I dare say I didn’t make myself very clear,’ he went on, -‘nor you neither. Naturally, we was both of us inclined to give such a -subject a wide berth. Hows’ever, at last I have made up my mind to speak -plain; and I have mentioned to Doctor Strong that—did you speak, -sir?’ -</p> - -<p> -This was to the Doctor, who had moaned. The sound might have touched any heart, -I thought, but it had no effect upon Uriah’s. -</p> - -<p> -‘—mentioned to Doctor Strong,’ he proceeded, ‘that -anyone may see that Mr. Maldon, and the lovely and agreeable lady as is Doctor -Strong’s wife, are too sweet on one another. Really the time is come (we -being at present all mixing ourselves up with what oughtn’t to be), when -Doctor Strong must be told that this was full as plain to everybody as the sun, -before Mr. Maldon went to India; that Mr. Maldon made excuses to come back, for -nothing else; and that he’s always here, for nothing else. When you come -in, sir, I was just putting it to my fellow-partner,’ towards whom he -turned, ‘to say to Doctor Strong upon his word and honour, whether -he’d ever been of this opinion long ago, or not. Come, Mr. Wickfield, -sir! Would you be so good as tell us? Yes or no, sir? Come, partner!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘For God’s sake, my dear Doctor,’ said Mr. Wickfield again -laying his irresolute hand upon the Doctor’s arm, ‘don’t -attach too much weight to any suspicions I may have entertained.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘There!’ cried Uriah, shaking his head. ‘What a melancholy -confirmation: ain’t it? Him! Such an old friend! Bless your soul, when I -was nothing but a clerk in his office, Copperfield, I’ve seen him twenty -times, if I’ve seen him once, quite in a taking about it—quite put -out, you know (and very proper in him as a father; I’m sure I can’t -blame him), to think that Miss Agnes was mixing herself up with what -oughtn’t to be.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear Strong,’ said Mr. Wickfield in a tremulous voice, -‘my good friend, I needn’t tell you that it has been my vice to -look for some one master motive in everybody, and to try all actions by one -narrow test. I may have fallen into such doubts as I have had, through this -mistake.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You have had doubts, Wickfield,’ said the Doctor, without lifting -up his head. ‘You have had doubts.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Speak up, fellow-partner,’ urged Uriah. -</p> - -<p> -‘I had, at one time, certainly,’ said Mr. Wickfield. -‘I—God forgive me—I thought YOU had.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No, no, no!’ returned the Doctor, in a tone of most pathetic -grief. ‘I thought, at one time,’ said Mr. Wickfield, ‘that -you wished to send Maldon abroad to effect a desirable separation.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No, no, no!’ returned the Doctor. ‘To give Annie pleasure, -by making some provision for the companion of her childhood. Nothing -else.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘So I found,’ said Mr. Wickfield. ‘I couldn’t doubt it, -when you told me so. But I thought—I implore you to remember the narrow -construction which has been my besetting sin—that, in a case where there -was so much disparity in point of years—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘That’s the way to put it, you see, Master Copperfield!’ -observed Uriah, with fawning and offensive pity. -</p> - -<p> -‘—a lady of such youth, and such attractions, however real her -respect for you, might have been influenced in marrying, by worldly -considerations only. I make no allowance for innumerable feelings and -circumstances that may have all tended to good. For Heaven’s sake -remember that!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘How kind he puts it!’ said Uriah, shaking his head. -</p> - -<p> -‘Always observing her from one point of view,’ said Mr. Wickfield; -‘but by all that is dear to you, my old friend, I entreat you to consider -what it was; I am forced to confess now, having no escape-’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No! There’s no way out of it, Mr. Wickfield, sir,’ observed -Uriah, ‘when it’s got to this.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘—that I did,’ said Mr. Wickfield, glancing helplessly and -distractedly at his partner, ‘that I did doubt her, and think her wanting -in her duty to you; and that I did sometimes, if I must say all, feel averse to -Agnes being in such a familiar relation towards her, as to see what I saw, or -in my diseased theory fancied that I saw. I never mentioned this to anyone. I -never meant it to be known to anyone. And though it is terrible to you to -hear,’ said Mr. Wickfield, quite subdued, ‘if you knew how terrible -it is for me to tell, you would feel compassion for me!’ -</p> - -<p> -The Doctor, in the perfect goodness of his nature, put out his hand. Mr. -Wickfield held it for a little while in his, with his head bowed down. -</p> - -<p> -‘I am sure,’ said Uriah, writhing himself into the silence like a -Conger-eel, ‘that this is a subject full of unpleasantness to everybody. -But since we have got so far, I ought to take the liberty of mentioning that -Copperfield has noticed it too.’ -</p> - -<p> -I turned upon him, and asked him how he dared refer to me! -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh! it’s very kind of you, Copperfield,’ returned Uriah, -undulating all over, ‘and we all know what an amiable character yours is; -but you know that the moment I spoke to you the other night, you knew what I -meant. You know you knew what I meant, Copperfield. Don’t deny it! You -deny it with the best intentions; but don’t do it, Copperfield.’ -</p> - -<p> -I saw the mild eye of the good old Doctor turned upon me for a moment, and I -felt that the confession of my old misgivings and remembrances was too plainly -written in my face to be overlooked. It was of no use raging. I could not undo -that. Say what I would, I could not unsay it. -</p> - -<p> -We were silent again, and remained so, until the Doctor rose and walked twice -or thrice across the room. Presently he returned to where his chair stood; and, -leaning on the back of it, and occasionally putting his handkerchief to his -eyes, with a simple honesty that did him more honour, to my thinking, than any -disguise he could have effected, said: -</p> - -<p> -‘I have been much to blame. I believe I have been very much to blame. I -have exposed one whom I hold in my heart, to trials and aspersions—I call -them aspersions, even to have been conceived in anybody’s inmost -mind—of which she never, but for me, could have been the object.’ -</p> - -<p> -Uriah Heep gave a kind of snivel. I think to express sympathy. -</p> - -<p> -‘Of which my Annie,’ said the Doctor, ‘never, but for me, -could have been the object. Gentlemen, I am old now, as you know; I do not -feel, tonight, that I have much to live for. But my life—my -Life—upon the truth and honour of the dear lady who has been the subject -of this conversation!’ -</p> - -<p> -I do not think that the best embodiment of chivalry, the realization of the -handsomest and most romantic figure ever imagined by painter, could have said -this, with a more impressive and affecting dignity than the plain old Doctor -did. -</p> - -<p> -‘But I am not prepared,’ he went on, ‘to deny—perhaps I -may have been, without knowing it, in some degree prepared to admit—that -I may have unwittingly ensnared that lady into an unhappy marriage. I am a man -quite unaccustomed to observe; and I cannot but believe that the observation of -several people, of different ages and positions, all too plainly tending in one -direction (and that so natural), is better than mine.’ -</p> - -<p> -I had often admired, as I have elsewhere described, his benignant manner -towards his youthful wife; but the respectful tenderness he manifested in every -reference to her on this occasion, and the almost reverential manner in which -he put away from him the lightest doubt of her integrity, exalted him, in my -eyes, beyond description. -</p> - -<p> -‘I married that lady,’ said the Doctor, ‘when she was -extremely young. I took her to myself when her character was scarcely formed. -So far as it was developed, it had been my happiness to form it. I knew her -father well. I knew her well. I had taught her what I could, for the love of -all her beautiful and virtuous qualities. If I did her wrong; as I fear I did, -in taking advantage (but I never meant it) of her gratitude and her affection; -I ask pardon of that lady, in my heart!’ -</p> - -<p> -He walked across the room, and came back to the same place; holding the chair -with a grasp that trembled, like his subdued voice, in its earnestness. -</p> - -<p> -‘I regarded myself as a refuge, for her, from the dangers and -vicissitudes of life. I persuaded myself that, unequal though we were in years, -she would live tranquilly and contentedly with me. I did not shut out of my -consideration the time when I should leave her free, and still young and still -beautiful, but with her judgement more matured—no, gentlemen—upon -my truth!’ -</p> - -<p> -His homely figure seemed to be lightened up by his fidelity and generosity. -Every word he uttered had a force that no other grace could have imparted to -it. -</p> - -<p> -‘My life with this lady has been very happy. Until tonight, I have had -uninterrupted occasion to bless the day on which I did her great -injustice.’ -</p> - -<p> -His voice, more and more faltering in the utterance of these words, stopped for -a few moments; then he went on: -</p> - -<p> -‘Once awakened from my dream—I have been a poor dreamer, in one way -or other, all my life—I see how natural it is that she should have some -regretful feeling towards her old companion and her equal. That she does regard -him with some innocent regret, with some blameless thoughts of what might have -been, but for me, is, I fear, too true. Much that I have seen, but not noted, -has come back upon me with new meaning, during this last trying hour. But, -beyond this, gentlemen, the dear lady’s name never must be coupled with a -word, a breath, of doubt.’ -</p> - -<p> -For a little while, his eye kindled and his voice was firm; for a little while -he was again silent. Presently, he proceeded as before: -</p> - -<p> -‘It only remains for me, to bear the knowledge of the unhappiness I have -occasioned, as submissively as I can. It is she who should reproach; not I. To -save her from misconstruction, cruel misconstruction, that even my friends have -not been able to avoid, becomes my duty. The more retired we live, the better I -shall discharge it. And when the time comes—may it come soon, if it be -His merciful pleasure!—when my death shall release her from constraint, I -shall close my eyes upon her honoured face, with unbounded confidence and love; -and leave her, with no sorrow then, to happier and brighter days.’ -</p> - -<p> -I could not see him for the tears which his earnestness and goodness, so -adorned by, and so adorning, the perfect simplicity of his manner, brought into -my eyes. He had moved to the door, when he added: -</p> - -<p> -‘Gentlemen, I have shown you my heart. I am sure you will respect it. -What we have said tonight is never to be said more. Wickfield, give me an old -friend’s arm upstairs!’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Wickfield hastened to him. Without interchanging a word they went slowly -out of the room together, Uriah looking after them. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, Master Copperfield!’ said Uriah, meekly turning to me. -‘The thing hasn’t took quite the turn that might have been -expected, for the old Scholar—what an excellent man!—is as blind as -a brickbat; but this family’s out of the cart, I think!’ -</p> - -<p> -I needed but the sound of his voice to be so madly enraged as I never was -before, and never have been since. -</p> - -<p> -‘You villain,’ said I, ‘what do you mean by entrapping me -into your schemes? How dare you appeal to me just now, you false rascal, as if -we had been in discussion together?’ -</p> - -<p> -As we stood, front to front, I saw so plainly, in the stealthy exultation of -his face, what I already so plainly knew; I mean that he forced his confidence -upon me, expressly to make me miserable, and had set a deliberate trap for me -in this very matter; that I couldn’t bear it. The whole of his lank cheek -was invitingly before me, and I struck it with my open hand with that force -that my fingers tingled as if I had burnt them. -</p> - -<p> -He caught the hand in his, and we stood in that connexion, looking at each -other. We stood so, a long time; long enough for me to see the white marks of -my fingers die out of the deep red of his cheek, and leave it a deeper red. -</p> - -<p> -‘Copperfield,’ he said at length, in a breathless voice, -‘have you taken leave of your senses?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I have taken leave of you,’ said I, wresting my hand away. -‘You dog, I’ll know no more of you.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Won’t you?’ said he, constrained by the pain of his cheek to -put his hand there. ‘Perhaps you won’t be able to help it. -Isn’t this ungrateful of you, now?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I have shown you often enough,’ said I, ‘that I despise you. -I have shown you now, more plainly, that I do. Why should I dread your doing -your worst to all about you? What else do you ever do?’ -</p> - -<p> -He perfectly understood this allusion to the considerations that had hitherto -restrained me in my communications with him. I rather think that neither the -blow, nor the allusion, would have escaped me, but for the assurance I had had -from Agnes that night. It is no matter. -</p> - -<p> -There was another long pause. His eyes, as he looked at me, seemed to take -every shade of colour that could make eyes ugly. -</p> - -<p> -‘Copperfield,’ he said, removing his hand from his cheek, -‘you have always gone against me. I know you always used to be against me -at Mr. Wickfield’s.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You may think what you like,’ said I, still in a towering rage. -‘If it is not true, so much the worthier you.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And yet I always liked you, Copperfield!’ he rejoined. -</p> - -<p> -I deigned to make him no reply; and, taking up my hat, was going out to bed, -when he came between me and the door. -</p> - -<p> -‘Copperfield,’ he said, ‘there must be two parties to a -quarrel. I won’t be one.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You may go to the devil!’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Don’t say that!’ he replied. ‘I know you’ll be -sorry afterwards. How can you make yourself so inferior to me, as to show such -a bad spirit? But I forgive you.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You forgive me!’ I repeated disdainfully. -</p> - -<p> -‘I do, and you can’t help yourself,’ replied Uriah. ‘To -think of your going and attacking me, that have always been a friend to you! -But there can’t be a quarrel without two parties, and I won’t be -one. I will be a friend to you, in spite of you. So now you know what -you’ve got to expect.’ -</p> - -<p> -The necessity of carrying on this dialogue (his part in which was very slow; -mine very quick) in a low tone, that the house might not be disturbed at an -unseasonable hour, did not improve my temper; though my passion was cooling -down. Merely telling him that I should expect from him what I always had -expected, and had never yet been disappointed in, I opened the door upon him, -as if he had been a great walnut put there to be cracked, and went out of the -house. But he slept out of the house too, at his mother’s lodging; and -before I had gone many hundred yards, came up with me. -</p> - -<p> -‘You know, Copperfield,’ he said, in my ear (I did not turn my -head), ‘you’re in quite a wrong position’; which I felt to be -true, and that made me chafe the more; ‘you can’t make this a brave -thing, and you can’t help being forgiven. I don’t intend to mention -it to mother, nor to any living soul. I’m determined to forgive you. But -I do wonder that you should lift your hand against a person that you knew to be -so umble!’ -</p> - -<p> -I felt only less mean than he. He knew me better than I knew myself. If he had -retorted or openly exasperated me, it would have been a relief and a -justification; but he had put me on a slow fire, on which I lay tormented half -the night. -</p> - -<p> -In the morning, when I came out, the early church-bell was ringing, and he was -walking up and down with his mother. He addressed me as if nothing had -happened, and I could do no less than reply. I had struck him hard enough to -give him the toothache, I suppose. At all events his face was tied up in a -black silk handkerchief, which, with his hat perched on the top of it, was far -from improving his appearance. I heard that he went to a dentist’s in -London on the Monday morning, and had a tooth out. I hope it was a double one. -</p> - -<p> -The Doctor gave out that he was not quite well; and remained alone, for a -considerable part of every day, during the remainder of the visit. Agnes and -her father had been gone a week, before we resumed our usual work. On the day -preceding its resumption, the Doctor gave me with his own hands a folded note -not sealed. It was addressed to myself; and laid an injunction on me, in a few -affectionate words, never to refer to the subject of that evening. I had -confided it to my aunt, but to no one else. It was not a subject I could -discuss with Agnes, and Agnes certainly had not the least suspicion of what had -passed. -</p> - -<p> -Neither, I felt convinced, had Mrs. Strong then. Several weeks elapsed before I -saw the least change in her. It came on slowly, like a cloud when there is no -wind. At first, she seemed to wonder at the gentle compassion with which the -Doctor spoke to her, and at his wish that she should have her mother with her, -to relieve the dull monotony of her life. Often, when we were at work, and she -was sitting by, I would see her pausing and looking at him with that memorable -face. Afterwards, I sometimes observed her rise, with her eyes full of tears, -and go out of the room. Gradually, an unhappy shadow fell upon her beauty, and -deepened every day. Mrs. Markleham was a regular inmate of the cottage then; -but she talked and talked, and saw nothing. -</p> - -<p> -As this change stole on Annie, once like sunshine in the Doctor’s house, -the Doctor became older in appearance, and more grave; but the sweetness of his -temper, the placid kindness of his manner, and his benevolent solicitude for -her, if they were capable of any increase, were increased. I saw him once, -early on the morning of her birthday, when she came to sit in the window while -we were at work (which she had always done, but now began to do with a timid -and uncertain air that I thought very touching), take her forehead between his -hands, kiss it, and go hurriedly away, too much moved to remain. I saw her -stand where he had left her, like a statue; and then bend down her head, and -clasp her hands, and weep, I cannot say how sorrowfully. -</p> - -<p> -Sometimes, after that, I fancied that she tried to speak even to me, in -intervals when we were left alone. But she never uttered a word. The Doctor -always had some new project for her participating in amusements away from home, -with her mother; and Mrs. Markleham, who was very fond of amusements, and very -easily dissatisfied with anything else, entered into them with great good-will, -and was loud in her commendations. But Annie, in a spiritless unhappy way, only -went whither she was led, and seemed to have no care for anything. -</p> - -<p> -I did not know what to think. Neither did my aunt; who must have walked, at -various times, a hundred miles in her uncertainty. What was strangest of all -was, that the only real relief which seemed to make its way into the secret -region of this domestic unhappiness, made its way there in the person of Mr. -Dick. -</p> - -<p> -What his thoughts were on the subject, or what his observation was, I am as -unable to explain, as I dare say he would have been to assist me in the task. -But, as I have recorded in the narrative of my school days, his veneration for -the Doctor was unbounded; and there is a subtlety of perception in real -attachment, even when it is borne towards man by one of the lower animals, -which leaves the highest intellect behind. To this mind of the heart, if I may -call it so, in Mr. Dick, some bright ray of the truth shot straight. -</p> - -<p> -He had proudly resumed his privilege, in many of his spare hours, of walking up -and down the garden with the Doctor; as he had been accustomed to pace up and -down The Doctor’s Walk at Canterbury. But matters were no sooner in this -state, than he devoted all his spare time (and got up earlier to make it more) -to these perambulations. If he had never been so happy as when the Doctor read -that marvellous performance, the Dictionary, to him; he was now quite miserable -unless the Doctor pulled it out of his pocket, and began. When the Doctor and I -were engaged, he now fell into the custom of walking up and down with Mrs. -Strong, and helping her to trim her favourite flowers, or weed the beds. I dare -say he rarely spoke a dozen words in an hour: but his quiet interest, and his -wistful face, found immediate response in both their breasts; each knew that -the other liked him, and that he loved both; and he became what no one else -could be—a link between them. -</p> - -<p> -When I think of him, with his impenetrably wise face, walking up and down with -the Doctor, delighted to be battered by the hard words in the Dictionary; when -I think of him carrying huge watering-pots after Annie; kneeling down, in very -paws of gloves, at patient microscopic work among the little leaves; expressing -as no philosopher could have expressed, in everything he did, a delicate desire -to be her friend; showering sympathy, trustfulness, and affection, out of every -hole in the watering-pot; when I think of him never wandering in that better -mind of his to which unhappiness addressed itself, never bringing the -unfortunate King Charles into the garden, never wavering in his grateful -service, never diverted from his knowledge that there was something wrong, or -from his wish to set it right—I really feel almost ashamed of having -known that he was not quite in his wits, taking account of the utmost I have -done with mine. -</p> - -<p> -‘Nobody but myself, Trot, knows what that man is!’ my aunt would -proudly remark, when we conversed about it. ‘Dick will distinguish -himself yet!’ -</p> - -<p> -I must refer to one other topic before I close this chapter. While the visit at -the Doctor’s was still in progress, I observed that the postman brought -two or three letters every morning for Uriah Heep, who remained at Highgate -until the rest went back, it being a leisure time; and that these were always -directed in a business-like manner by Mr. Micawber, who now assumed a round -legal hand. I was glad to infer, from these slight premises, that Mr. Micawber -was doing well; and consequently was much surprised to receive, about this -time, the following letter from his amiable wife. -</p> - -<p class="right"> -‘CANTERBURY, Monday Evening. -</p> - -<p> -‘You will doubtless be surprised, my dear Mr. Copperfield, to receive -this communication. Still more so, by its contents. Still more so, by the -stipulation of implicit confidence which I beg to impose. But my feelings as a -wife and mother require relief; and as I do not wish to consult my family -(already obnoxious to the feelings of Mr. Micawber), I know no one of whom I -can better ask advice than my friend and former lodger. -</p> - -<p> -‘You may be aware, my dear Mr. Copperfield, that between myself and Mr. -Micawber (whom I will never desert), there has always been preserved a spirit -of mutual confidence. Mr. Micawber may have occasionally given a bill without -consulting me, or he may have misled me as to the period when that obligation -would become due. This has actually happened. But, in general, Mr. Micawber has -had no secrets from the bosom of affection—I allude to his wife—and -has invariably, on our retirement to rest, recalled the events of the day. -</p> - -<p> -‘You will picture to yourself, my dear Mr. Copperfield, what the -poignancy of my feelings must be, when I inform you that Mr. Micawber is -entirely changed. He is reserved. He is secret. His life is a mystery to the -partner of his joys and sorrows—I again allude to his wife—and if I -should assure you that beyond knowing that it is passed from morning to night -at the office, I now know less of it than I do of the man in the south, -connected with whose mouth the thoughtless children repeat an idle tale -respecting cold plum porridge, I should adopt a popular fallacy to express an -actual fact. -</p> - -<p> -‘But this is not all. Mr. Micawber is morose. He is severe. He is -estranged from our eldest son and daughter, he has no pride in his twins, he -looks with an eye of coldness even on the unoffending stranger who last became -a member of our circle. The pecuniary means of meeting our expenses, kept down -to the utmost farthing, are obtained from him with great difficulty, and even -under fearful threats that he will Settle himself (the exact expression); and -he inexorably refuses to give any explanation whatever of this distracting -policy. -</p> - -<p> -‘This is hard to bear. This is heart-breaking. If you will advise me, -knowing my feeble powers such as they are, how you think it will be best to -exert them in a dilemma so unwonted, you will add another friendly obligation -to the many you have already rendered me. With loves from the children, and a -smile from the happily-unconscious stranger, I remain, dear Mr. Copperfield, -</p> - -<p class="right"> -‘Your afflicted, <br/> -‘EMMA MICAWBER.’ -</p> - -<p> -I did not feel justified in giving a wife of Mrs. Micawber’s experience -any other recommendation, than that she should try to reclaim Mr. Micawber by -patience and kindness (as I knew she would in any case); but the letter set me -thinking about him very much. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0043"></a>CHAPTER 43. ANOTHER RETROSPECT</h2> - -<p> -Once again, let me pause upon a memorable period of my life. Let me stand -aside, to see the phantoms of those days go by me, accompanying the shadow of -myself, in dim procession. -</p> - -<p> -Weeks, months, seasons, pass along. They seem little more than a summer day and -a winter evening. Now, the Common where I walk with Dora is all in bloom, a -field of bright gold; and now the unseen heather lies in mounds and bunches -underneath a covering of snow. In a breath, the river that flows through our -Sunday walks is sparkling in the summer sun, is ruffled by the winter wind, or -thickened with drifting heaps of ice. Faster than ever river ran towards the -sea, it flashes, darkens, and rolls away. -</p> - -<p> -Not a thread changes, in the house of the two little bird-like ladies. The -clock ticks over the fireplace, the weather-glass hangs in the hall. Neither -clock nor weather-glass is ever right; but we believe in both, devoutly. -</p> - -<p> -I have come legally to man’s estate. I have attained the dignity of -twenty-one. But this is a sort of dignity that may be thrust upon one. Let me -think what I have achieved. -</p> - -<p> -I have tamed that savage stenographic mystery. I make a respectable income by -it. I am in high repute for my accomplishment in all pertaining to the art, and -am joined with eleven others in reporting the debates in Parliament for a -Morning Newspaper. Night after night, I record predictions that never come to -pass, professions that are never fulfilled, explanations that are only meant to -mystify. I wallow in words. Britannia, that unfortunate female, is always -before me, like a trussed fowl: skewered through and through with office-pens, -and bound hand and foot with red tape. I am sufficiently behind the scenes to -know the worth of political life. I am quite an Infidel about it, and shall -never be converted. -</p> - -<p> -My dear old Traddles has tried his hand at the same pursuit, but it is not in -Traddles’s way. He is perfectly good-humoured respecting his failure, and -reminds me that he always did consider himself slow. He has occasional -employment on the same newspaper, in getting up the facts of dry subjects, to -be written about and embellished by more fertile minds. He is called to the -bar; and with admirable industry and self-denial has scraped another hundred -pounds together, to fee a Conveyancer whose chambers he attends. A great deal -of very hot port wine was consumed at his call; and, considering the figure, I -should think the Inner Temple must have made a profit by it. -</p> - -<p> -I have come out in another way. I have taken with fear and trembling to -authorship. I wrote a little something, in secret, and sent it to a magazine, -and it was published in the magazine. Since then, I have taken heart to write a -good many trifling pieces. Now, I am regularly paid for them. Altogether, I am -well off, when I tell my income on the fingers of my left hand, I pass the -third finger and take in the fourth to the middle joint. -</p> - -<p> -We have removed, from Buckingham Street, to a pleasant little cottage very near -the one I looked at, when my enthusiasm first came on. My aunt, however (who -has sold the house at Dover, to good advantage), is not going to remain here, -but intends removing herself to a still more tiny cottage close at hand. What -does this portend? My marriage? Yes! -</p> - -<p> -Yes! I am going to be married to Dora! Miss Lavinia and Miss Clarissa have -given their consent; and if ever canary birds were in a flutter, they are. Miss -Lavinia, self-charged with the superintendence of my darling’s wardrobe, -is constantly cutting out brown-paper cuirasses, and differing in opinion from -a highly respectable young man, with a long bundle, and a yard measure under -his arm. A dressmaker, always stabbed in the breast with a needle and thread, -boards and lodges in the house; and seems to me, eating, drinking, or sleeping, -never to take her thimble off. They make a lay-figure of my dear. They are -always sending for her to come and try something on. We can’t be happy -together for five minutes in the evening, but some intrusive female knocks at -the door, and says, ‘Oh, if you please, Miss Dora, would you step -upstairs!’ -</p> - -<p> -Miss Clarissa and my aunt roam all over London, to find out articles of -furniture for Dora and me to look at. It would be better for them to buy the -goods at once, without this ceremony of inspection; for, when we go to see a -kitchen fender and meat-screen, Dora sees a Chinese house for Jip, with little -bells on the top, and prefers that. And it takes a long time to accustom Jip to -his new residence, after we have bought it; whenever he goes in or out, he -makes all the little bells ring, and is horribly frightened. -</p> - -<p> -Peggotty comes up to make herself useful, and falls to work immediately. Her -department appears to be, to clean everything over and over again. She rubs -everything that can be rubbed, until it shines, like her own honest forehead, -with perpetual friction. And now it is, that I begin to see her solitary -brother passing through the dark streets at night, and looking, as he goes, -among the wandering faces. I never speak to him at such an hour. I know too -well, as his grave figure passes onward, what he seeks, and what he dreads. -</p> - -<p> -Why does Traddles look so important when he calls upon me this afternoon in the -Commons—where I still occasionally attend, for form’s sake, when I -have time? The realization of my boyish day-dreams is at hand. I am going to -take out the licence. -</p> - -<p> -It is a little document to do so much; and Traddles contemplates it, as it lies -upon my desk, half in admiration, half in awe. There are the names, in the -sweet old visionary connexion, David Copperfield and Dora Spenlow; and there, -in the corner, is that Parental Institution, the Stamp Office, which is so -benignantly interested in the various transactions of human life, looking down -upon our Union; and there is the Archbishop of Canterbury invoking a blessing -on us in print, and doing it as cheap as could possibly be expected. -</p> - -<p> -Nevertheless, I am in a dream, a flustered, happy, hurried dream. I can’t -believe that it is going to be; and yet I can’t believe but that everyone -I pass in the street, must have some kind of perception, that I am to be -married the day after tomorrow. The Surrogate knows me, when I go down to be -sworn; and disposes of me easily, as if there were a Masonic understanding -between us. Traddles is not at all wanted, but is in attendance as my general -backer. -</p> - -<p> -‘I hope the next time you come here, my dear fellow,’ I say to -Traddles, ‘it will be on the same errand for yourself. And I hope it will -be soon.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Thank you for your good wishes, my dear Copperfield,’ he replies. -‘I hope so too. It’s a satisfaction to know that she’ll wait -for me any length of time, and that she really is the dearest -girl—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘When are you to meet her at the coach?’ I ask. -</p> - -<p> -‘At seven,’ says Traddles, looking at his plain old silver -watch—the very watch he once took a wheel out of, at school, to make a -water-mill. ‘That is about Miss Wickfield’s time, is it not?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘A little earlier. Her time is half past eight.’ ‘I assure -you, my dear boy,’ says Traddles, ‘I am almost as pleased as if I -were going to be married myself, to think that this event is coming to such a -happy termination. And really the great friendship and consideration of -personally associating Sophy with the joyful occasion, and inviting her to be a -bridesmaid in conjunction with Miss Wickfield, demands my warmest thanks. I am -extremely sensible of it.’ -</p> - -<p> -I hear him, and shake hands with him; and we talk, and walk, and dine, and so -on; but I don’t believe it. Nothing is real. -</p> - -<p> -Sophy arrives at the house of Dora’s aunts, in due course. She has the -most agreeable of faces,—not absolutely beautiful, but extraordinarily -pleasant,—and is one of the most genial, unaffected, frank, engaging -creatures I have ever seen. Traddles presents her to us with great pride; and -rubs his hands for ten minutes by the clock, with every individual hair upon -his head standing on tiptoe, when I congratulate him in a corner on his choice. -</p> - -<p> -I have brought Agnes from the Canterbury coach, and her cheerful and beautiful -face is among us for the second time. Agnes has a great liking for Traddles, -and it is capital to see them meet, and to observe the glory of Traddles as he -commends the dearest girl in the world to her acquaintance. -</p> - -<p> -Still I don’t believe it. We have a delightful evening, and are supremely -happy; but I don’t believe it yet. I can’t collect myself. I -can’t check off my happiness as it takes place. I feel in a misty and -unsettled kind of state; as if I had got up very early in the morning a week or -two ago, and had never been to bed since. I can’t make out when yesterday -was. I seem to have been carrying the licence about, in my pocket, many months. -</p> - -<p> -Next day, too, when we all go in a flock to see the house—our -house—Dora’s and mine—I am quite unable to regard myself as -its master. I seem to be there, by permission of somebody else. I half expect -the real master to come home presently, and say he is glad to see me. Such a -beautiful little house as it is, with everything so bright and new; with the -flowers on the carpets looking as if freshly gathered, and the green leaves on -the paper as if they had just come out; with the spotless muslin curtains, and -the blushing rose-coloured furniture, and Dora’s garden hat with the blue -ribbon—do I remember, now, how I loved her in such another hat when I -first knew her!—already hanging on its little peg; the guitar-case quite -at home on its heels in a corner; and everybody tumbling over Jip’s -pagoda, which is much too big for the establishment. Another happy evening, -quite as unreal as all the rest of it, and I steal into the usual room before -going away. Dora is not there. I suppose they have not done trying on yet. Miss -Lavinia peeps in, and tells me mysteriously that she will not be long. She is -rather long, notwithstanding; but by and by I hear a rustling at the door, and -someone taps. -</p> - -<p> -I say, ‘Come in!’ but someone taps again. -</p> - -<p> -I go to the door, wondering who it is; there, I meet a pair of bright eyes, and -a blushing face; they are Dora’s eyes and face, and Miss Lavinia has -dressed her in tomorrow’s dress, bonnet and all, for me to see. I take my -little wife to my heart; and Miss Lavinia gives a little scream because I -tumble the bonnet, and Dora laughs and cries at once, because I am so pleased; -and I believe it less than ever. -</p> - -<p> -‘Do you think it pretty, Doady?’ says Dora. -</p> - -<p> -Pretty! I should rather think I did. -</p> - -<p> -‘And are you sure you like me very much?’ says Dora. -</p> - -<p> -The topic is fraught with such danger to the bonnet, that Miss Lavinia gives -another little scream, and begs me to understand that Dora is only to be looked -at, and on no account to be touched. So Dora stands in a delightful state of -confusion for a minute or two, to be admired; and then takes off her -bonnet—looking so natural without it!—and runs away with it in her -hand; and comes dancing down again in her own familiar dress, and asks Jip if I -have got a beautiful little wife, and whether he’ll forgive her for being -married, and kneels down to make him stand upon the cookery-book, for the last -time in her single life. -</p> - -<p> -I go home, more incredulous than ever, to a lodging that I have hard by; and -get up very early in the morning, to ride to the Highgate road and fetch my -aunt. -</p> - -<p> -I have never seen my aunt in such state. She is dressed in lavender-coloured -silk, and has a white bonnet on, and is amazing. Janet has dressed her, and is -there to look at me. Peggotty is ready to go to church, intending to behold the -ceremony from the gallery. Mr. Dick, who is to give my darling to me at the -altar, has had his hair curled. Traddles, whom I have taken up by appointment -at the turnpike, presents a dazzling combination of cream colour and light -blue; and both he and Mr. Dick have a general effect about them of being all -gloves. -</p> - -<p> -No doubt I see this, because I know it is so; but I am astray, and seem to see -nothing. Nor do I believe anything whatever. Still, as we drive along in an -open carriage, this fairy marriage is real enough to fill me with a sort of -wondering pity for the unfortunate people who have no part in it, but are -sweeping out the shops, and going to their daily occupations. -</p> - -<p> -My aunt sits with my hand in hers all the way. When we stop a little way short -of the church, to put down Peggotty, whom we have brought on the box, she gives -it a squeeze, and me a kiss. -</p> - -<p> -‘God bless you, Trot! My own boy never could be dearer. I think of poor -dear Baby this morning.’ ‘So do I. And of all I owe to you, dear -aunt.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Tut, child!’ says my aunt; and gives her hand in overflowing -cordiality to Traddles, who then gives his to Mr. Dick, who then gives his to -me, who then gives mine to Traddles, and then we come to the church door. -</p> - -<p> -The church is calm enough, I am sure; but it might be a steam-power loom in -full action, for any sedative effect it has on me. I am too far gone for that. -</p> - -<p> -The rest is all a more or less incoherent dream. -</p> - -<p> -A dream of their coming in with Dora; of the pew-opener arranging us, like a -drill-sergeant, before the altar rails; of my wondering, even then, why -pew-openers must always be the most disagreeable females procurable, and -whether there is any religious dread of a disastrous infection of good-humour -which renders it indispensable to set those vessels of vinegar upon the road to -Heaven. -</p> - -<p> -Of the clergyman and clerk appearing; of a few boatmen and some other people -strolling in; of an ancient mariner behind me, strongly flavouring the church -with rum; of the service beginning in a deep voice, and our all being very -attentive. -</p> - -<p> -Of Miss Lavinia, who acts as a semi-auxiliary bridesmaid, being the first to -cry, and of her doing homage (as I take it) to the memory of Pidger, in sobs; -of Miss Clarissa applying a smelling-bottle; of Agnes taking care of Dora; of -my aunt endeavouring to represent herself as a model of sternness, with tears -rolling down her face; of little Dora trembling very much, and making her -responses in faint whispers. -</p> - -<p> -Of our kneeling down together, side by side; of Dora’s trembling less and -less, but always clasping Agnes by the hand; of the service being got through, -quietly and gravely; of our all looking at each other in an April state of -smiles and tears, when it is over; of my young wife being hysterical in the -vestry, and crying for her poor papa, her dear papa. -</p> - -<p> -Of her soon cheering up again, and our signing the register all round. Of my -going into the gallery for Peggotty to bring her to sign it; of -Peggotty’s hugging me in a corner, and telling me she saw my own dear -mother married; of its being over, and our going away. -</p> - -<p> -Of my walking so proudly and lovingly down the aisle with my sweet wife upon my -arm, through a mist of half-seen people, pulpits, monuments, pews, fonts, -organs, and church windows, in which there flutter faint airs of association -with my childish church at home, so long ago. -</p> - -<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> -<img src="images/20226.jpg" alt="20226" width="100%" /> -</div> - -<h5> -<a href="images/20226.jpg"> -<img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /></a> -</h5> - -<p> -Of their whispering, as we pass, what a youthful couple we are, and what a -pretty little wife she is. Of our all being so merry and talkative in the -carriage going back. Of Sophy telling us that when she saw Traddles (whom I had -entrusted with the licence) asked for it, she almost fainted, having been -convinced that he would contrive to lose it, or to have his pocket picked. Of -Agnes laughing gaily; and of Dora being so fond of Agnes that she will not be -separated from her, but still keeps her hand. -</p> - -<p> -Of there being a breakfast, with abundance of things, pretty and substantial, -to eat and drink, whereof I partake, as I should do in any other dream, without -the least perception of their flavour; eating and drinking, as I may say, -nothing but love and marriage, and no more believing in the viands than in -anything else. -</p> - -<p> -Of my making a speech in the same dreamy fashion, without having an idea of -what I want to say, beyond such as may be comprehended in the full conviction -that I haven’t said it. Of our being very sociably and simply happy -(always in a dream though); and of Jip’s having wedding cake, and its not -agreeing with him afterwards. -</p> - -<p> -Of the pair of hired post-horses being ready, and of Dora’s going away to -change her dress. Of my aunt and Miss Clarissa remaining with us; and our -walking in the garden; and my aunt, who has made quite a speech at breakfast -touching Dora’s aunts, being mightily amused with herself, but a little -proud of it too. -</p> - -<p> -Of Dora’s being ready, and of Miss Lavinia’s hovering about her, -loth to lose the pretty toy that has given her so much pleasant occupation. Of -Dora’s making a long series of surprised discoveries that she has -forgotten all sorts of little things; and of everybody’s running -everywhere to fetch them. -</p> - -<p> -Of their all closing about Dora, when at last she begins to say good-bye, -looking, with their bright colours and ribbons, like a bed of flowers. Of my -darling being almost smothered among the flowers, and coming out, laughing and -crying both together, to my jealous arms. -</p> - -<p> -Of my wanting to carry Jip (who is to go along with us), and Dora’s -saying no, that she must carry him, or else he’ll think she don’t -like him any more, now she is married, and will break his heart. Of our going, -arm in arm, and Dora stopping and looking back, and saying, ‘If I have -ever been cross or ungrateful to anybody, don’t remember it!’ and -bursting into tears. -</p> - -<p> -Of her waving her little hand, and our going away once more. Of her once more -stopping, and looking back, and hurrying to Agnes, and giving Agnes, above all -the others, her last kisses and farewells. -</p> - -<p> -We drive away together, and I awake from the dream. I believe it at last. It is -my dear, dear, little wife beside me, whom I love so well! -</p> - -<p> -‘Are you happy now, you foolish boy?’ says Dora, ‘and sure -you don’t repent?’ -</p> - -<p> -I have stood aside to see the phantoms of those days go by me. They are gone, -and I resume the journey of my story. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0044"></a>CHAPTER 44. OUR HOUSEKEEPING</h2> - -<p> -It was a strange condition of things, the honeymoon being over, and the -bridesmaids gone home, when I found myself sitting down in my own small house -with Dora; quite thrown out of employment, as I may say, in respect of the -delicious old occupation of making love. -</p> - -<p> -It seemed such an extraordinary thing to have Dora always there. It was so -unaccountable not to be obliged to go out to see her, not to have any occasion -to be tormenting myself about her, not to have to write to her, not to be -scheming and devising opportunities of being alone with her. Sometimes of an -evening, when I looked up from my writing, and saw her seated opposite, I would -lean back in my chair, and think how queer it was that there we were, alone -together as a matter of course—nobody’s business any more—all -the romance of our engagement put away upon a shelf, to rust—no one to -please but one another—one another to please, for life. -</p> - -<p> -When there was a debate, and I was kept out very late, it seemed so strange to -me, as I was walking home, to think that Dora was at home! It was such a -wonderful thing, at first, to have her coming softly down to talk to me as I -ate my supper. It was such a stupendous thing to know for certain that she put -her hair in papers. It was altogether such an astonishing event to see her do -it! -</p> - -<p> -I doubt whether two young birds could have known less about keeping house, than -I and my pretty Dora did. We had a servant, of course. She kept house for us. I -have still a latent belief that she must have been Mrs. Crupp’s daughter -in disguise, we had such an awful time of it with Mary Anne. -</p> - -<p> -Her name was Paragon. Her nature was represented to us, when we engaged her, as -being feebly expressed in her name. She had a written character, as large as a -proclamation; and, according to this document, could do everything of a -domestic nature that ever I heard of, and a great many things that I never did -hear of. She was a woman in the prime of life; of a severe countenance; and -subject (particularly in the arms) to a sort of perpetual measles or fiery -rash. She had a cousin in the Life-Guards, with such long legs that he looked -like the afternoon shadow of somebody else. His shell-jacket was as much too -little for him as he was too big for the premises. He made the cottage smaller -than it need have been, by being so very much out of proportion to it. Besides -which, the walls were not thick, and, whenever he passed the evening at our -house, we always knew of it by hearing one continual growl in the kitchen. -</p> - -<p> -Our treasure was warranted sober and honest. I am therefore willing to believe -that she was in a fit when we found her under the boiler; and that the -deficient tea-spoons were attributable to the dustman. -</p> - -<p> -But she preyed upon our minds dreadfully. We felt our inexperience, and were -unable to help ourselves. We should have been at her mercy, if she had had any; -but she was a remorseless woman, and had none. She was the cause of our first -little quarrel. -</p> - -<p> -‘My dearest life,’ I said one day to Dora, ‘do you think Mary -Anne has any idea of time?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, Doady?’ inquired Dora, looking up, innocently, from her -drawing. -</p> - -<p> -‘My love, because it’s five, and we were to have dined at -four.’ -</p> - -<p> -Dora glanced wistfully at the clock, and hinted that she thought it was too -fast. -</p> - -<p> -‘On the contrary, my love,’ said I, referring to my watch, -‘it’s a few minutes too slow.’ -</p> - -<p> -My little wife came and sat upon my knee, to coax me to be quiet, and drew a -line with her pencil down the middle of my nose; but I couldn’t dine off -that, though it was very agreeable. -</p> - -<p> -‘Don’t you think, my dear,’ said I, ‘it would be better -for you to remonstrate with Mary Anne?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh no, please! I couldn’t, Doady!’ said Dora. -</p> - -<p> -‘Why not, my love?’ I gently asked. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, because I am such a little goose,’ said Dora, ‘and she -knows I am!’ -</p> - -<p> -I thought this sentiment so incompatible with the establishment of any system -of check on Mary Anne, that I frowned a little. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, what ugly wrinkles in my bad boy’s forehead!’ said Dora, -and still being on my knee, she traced them with her pencil; putting it to her -rosy lips to make it mark blacker, and working at my forehead with a quaint -little mockery of being industrious, that quite delighted me in spite of -myself. -</p> - -<p> -‘There’s a good child,’ said Dora, ‘it makes its face -so much prettier to laugh.’ ‘But, my love,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘No, no! please!’ cried Dora, with a kiss, ‘don’t be a -naughty Blue Beard! Don’t be serious!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘My precious wife,’ said I, ‘we must be serious sometimes. -Come! Sit down on this chair, close beside me! Give me the pencil! There! Now -let us talk sensibly. You know, dear’; what a little hand it was to hold, -and what a tiny wedding-ring it was to see! ‘You know, my love, it is not -exactly comfortable to have to go out without one’s dinner. Now, is -it?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘N-n-no!’ replied Dora, faintly. -</p> - -<p> -‘My love, how you tremble!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Because I KNOW you’re going to scold me,’ exclaimed Dora, in -a piteous voice. -</p> - -<p> -‘My sweet, I am only going to reason.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, but reasoning is worse than scolding!’ exclaimed Dora, in -despair. ‘I didn’t marry to be reasoned with. If you meant to -reason with such a poor little thing as I am, you ought to have told me so, you -cruel boy!’ -</p> - -<p> -I tried to pacify Dora, but she turned away her face, and shook her curls from -side to side, and said, ‘You cruel, cruel boy!’ so many times, that -I really did not exactly know what to do: so I took a few turns up and down the -room in my uncertainty, and came back again. -</p> - -<p> -‘Dora, my darling!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No, I am not your darling. Because you must be sorry that you married -me, or else you wouldn’t reason with me!’ returned Dora. -</p> - -<p> -I felt so injured by the inconsequential nature of this charge, that it gave me -courage to be grave. -</p> - -<p> -‘Now, my own Dora,’ said I, ‘you are very childish, and are -talking nonsense. You must remember, I am sure, that I was obliged to go out -yesterday when dinner was half over; and that, the day before, I was made quite -unwell by being obliged to eat underdone veal in a hurry; today, I don’t -dine at all—and I am afraid to say how long we waited for -breakfast—and then the water didn’t boil. I don’t mean to -reproach you, my dear, but this is not comfortable.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, you cruel, cruel boy, to say I am a disagreeable wife!’ cried -Dora. -</p> - -<p> -‘Now, my dear Dora, you must know that I never said that!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You said, I wasn’t comfortable!’ cried Dora. ‘I said -the housekeeping was not comfortable!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘It’s exactly the same thing!’ cried Dora. And she evidently -thought so, for she wept most grievously. -</p> - -<p> -I took another turn across the room, full of love for my pretty wife, and -distracted by self-accusatory inclinations to knock my head against the door. I -sat down again, and said: -</p> - -<p> -‘I am not blaming you, Dora. We have both a great deal to learn. I am -only trying to show you, my dear, that you must—you really must’ (I -was resolved not to give this up)—‘accustom yourself to look after -Mary Anne. Likewise to act a little for yourself, and me.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I wonder, I do, at your making such ungrateful speeches,’ sobbed -Dora. ‘When you know that the other day, when you said you would like a -little bit of fish, I went out myself, miles and miles, and ordered it, to -surprise you.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And it was very kind of you, my own darling,’ said I. ‘I -felt it so much that I wouldn’t on any account have even mentioned that -you bought a Salmon—which was too much for two. Or that it cost one pound -six—which was more than we can afford.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You enjoyed it very much,’ sobbed Dora. ‘And you said I was -a Mouse.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And I’ll say so again, my love,’ I returned, ‘a -thousand times!’ -</p> - -<p> -But I had wounded Dora’s soft little heart, and she was not to be -comforted. She was so pathetic in her sobbing and bewailing, that I felt as if -I had said I don’t know what to hurt her. I was obliged to hurry away; I -was kept out late; and I felt all night such pangs of remorse as made me -miserable. I had the conscience of an assassin, and was haunted by a vague -sense of enormous wickedness. -</p> - -<p> -It was two or three hours past midnight when I got home. I found my aunt, in -our house, sitting up for me. -</p> - -<p> -‘Is anything the matter, aunt?’ said I, alarmed. -</p> - -<p> -‘Nothing, Trot,’ she replied. ‘Sit down, sit down. Little -Blossom has been rather out of spirits, and I have been keeping her company. -That’s all.’ -</p> - -<p> -I leaned my head upon my hand; and felt more sorry and downcast, as I sat -looking at the fire, than I could have supposed possible so soon after the -fulfilment of my brightest hopes. As I sat thinking, I happened to meet my -aunt’s eyes, which were resting on my face. There was an anxious -expression in them, but it cleared directly. -</p> - -<p> -‘I assure you, aunt,’ said I, ‘I have been quite unhappy -myself all night, to think of Dora’s being so. But I had no other -intention than to speak to her tenderly and lovingly about our -home-affairs.’ -</p> - -<p> -My aunt nodded encouragement. -</p> - -<p> -‘You must have patience, Trot,’ said she. -</p> - -<p> -‘Of course. Heaven knows I don’t mean to be unreasonable, -aunt!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No, no,’ said my aunt. ‘But Little Blossom is a very tender -little blossom, and the wind must be gentle with her.’ -</p> - -<p> -I thanked my good aunt, in my heart, for her tenderness towards my wife; and I -was sure that she knew I did. -</p> - -<p> -‘Don’t you think, aunt,’ said I, after some further -contemplation of the fire, ‘that you could advise and counsel Dora a -little, for our mutual advantage, now and then?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Trot,’ returned my aunt, with some emotion, ‘no! Don’t -ask me such a thing.’ -</p> - -<p> -Her tone was so very earnest that I raised my eyes in surprise. -</p> - -<p> -‘I look back on my life, child,’ said my aunt, ‘and I think -of some who are in their graves, with whom I might have been on kinder terms. -If I judged harshly of other people’s mistakes in marriage, it may have -been because I had bitter reason to judge harshly of my own. Let that pass. I -have been a grumpy, frumpy, wayward sort of a woman, a good many years. I am -still, and I always shall be. But you and I have done one another some good, -Trot,—at all events, you have done me good, my dear; and division must -not come between us, at this time of day.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Division between us!’ cried I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Child, child!’ said my aunt, smoothing her dress, ‘how soon -it might come between us, or how unhappy I might make our Little Blossom, if I -meddled in anything, a prophet couldn’t say. I want our pet to like me, -and be as gay as a butterfly. Remember your own home, in that second marriage; -and never do both me and her the injury you have hinted at!’ -</p> - -<p> -I comprehended, at once, that my aunt was right; and I comprehended the full -extent of her generous feeling towards my dear wife. -</p> - -<p> -‘These are early days, Trot,’ she pursued, ‘and Rome was not -built in a day, nor in a year. You have chosen freely for yourself’; a -cloud passed over her face for a moment, I thought; ‘and you have chosen -a very pretty and a very affectionate creature. It will be your duty, and it -will be your pleasure too—of course I know that; I am not delivering a -lecture—to estimate her (as you chose her) by the qualities she has, and -not by the qualities she may not have. The latter you must develop in her, if -you can. And if you cannot, child,’ here my aunt rubbed her nose, -‘you must just accustom yourself to do without ‘em. But remember, -my dear, your future is between you two. No one can assist you; you are to work -it out for yourselves. This is marriage, Trot; and Heaven bless you both, in -it, for a pair of babes in the wood as you are!’ -</p> - -<p> -My aunt said this in a sprightly way, and gave me a kiss to ratify the -blessing. -</p> - -<p> -‘Now,’ said she, ‘light my little lantern, and see me into my -bandbox by the garden path’; for there was a communication between our -cottages in that direction. ‘Give Betsey Trotwood’s love to -Blossom, when you come back; and whatever you do, Trot, never dream of setting -Betsey up as a scarecrow, for if I ever saw her in the glass, she’s quite -grim enough and gaunt enough in her private capacity!’ -</p> - -<p> -With this my aunt tied her head up in a handkerchief, with which she was -accustomed to make a bundle of it on such occasions; and I escorted her home. -As she stood in her garden, holding up her little lantern to light me back, I -thought her observation of me had an anxious air again; but I was too much -occupied in pondering on what she had said, and too much impressed—for -the first time, in reality—by the conviction that Dora and I had indeed -to work out our future for ourselves, and that no one could assist us, to take -much notice of it. -</p> - -<p> -Dora came stealing down in her little slippers, to meet me, now that I was -alone; and cried upon my shoulder, and said I had been hard-hearted and she had -been naughty; and I said much the same thing in effect, I believe; and we made -it up, and agreed that our first little difference was to be our last, and that -we were never to have another if we lived a hundred years. -</p> - -<p> -The next domestic trial we went through, was the Ordeal of Servants. Mary -Anne’s cousin deserted into our coal-hole, and was brought out, to our -great amazement, by a piquet of his companions in arms, who took him away -handcuffed in a procession that covered our front-garden with ignominy. This -nerved me to get rid of Mary Anne, who went so mildly, on receipt of wages, -that I was surprised, until I found out about the tea-spoons, and also about -the little sums she had borrowed in my name of the tradespeople without -authority. After an interval of Mrs. Kidgerbury—the oldest inhabitant of -Kentish Town, I believe, who went out charing, but was too feeble to execute -her conceptions of that art—we found another treasure, who was one of the -most amiable of women, but who generally made a point of falling either up or -down the kitchen stairs with the tray, and almost plunged into the parlour, as -into a bath, with the tea-things. The ravages committed by this unfortunate, -rendering her dismissal necessary, she was succeeded (with intervals of Mrs. -Kidgerbury) by a long line of Incapables; terminating in a young person of -genteel appearance, who went to Greenwich Fair in Dora’s bonnet. After -whom I remember nothing but an average equality of failure. -</p> - -<p> -Everybody we had anything to do with seemed to cheat us. Our appearance in a -shop was a signal for the damaged goods to be brought out immediately. If we -bought a lobster, it was full of water. All our meat turned out to be tough, -and there was hardly any crust to our loaves. In search of the principle on -which joints ought to be roasted, to be roasted enough, and not too much, I -myself referred to the Cookery Book, and found it there established as the -allowance of a quarter of an hour to every pound, and say a quarter over. But -the principle always failed us by some curious fatality, and we never could hit -any medium between redness and cinders. -</p> - -<p> -I had reason to believe that in accomplishing these failures we incurred a far -greater expense than if we had achieved a series of triumphs. It appeared to -me, on looking over the tradesmen’s books, as if we might have kept the -basement storey paved with butter, such was the extensive scale of our -consumption of that article. I don’t know whether the Excise returns of -the period may have exhibited any increase in the demand for pepper; but if our -performances did not affect the market, I should say several families must have -left off using it. And the most wonderful fact of all was, that we never had -anything in the house. -</p> - -<p> -As to the washerwoman pawning the clothes, and coming in a state of penitent -intoxication to apologize, I suppose that might have happened several times to -anybody. Also the chimney on fire, the parish engine, and perjury on the part -of the Beadle. But I apprehend that we were personally fortunate in engaging a -servant with a taste for cordials, who swelled our running account for porter -at the public-house by such inexplicable items as ‘quartern rum shrub -(Mrs. C.)’; ‘Half-quartern gin and cloves (Mrs. C.)’; -‘Glass rum and peppermint (Mrs. C.)’—the parentheses always -referring to Dora, who was supposed, it appeared on explanation, to have -imbibed the whole of these refreshments. -</p> - -<p> -One of our first feats in the housekeeping way was a little dinner to Traddles. -I met him in town, and asked him to walk out with me that afternoon. He readily -consenting, I wrote to Dora, saying I would bring him home. It was pleasant -weather, and on the road we made my domestic happiness the theme of -conversation. Traddles was very full of it; and said, that, picturing himself -with such a home, and Sophy waiting and preparing for him, he could think of -nothing wanting to complete his bliss. -</p> - -<p> -I could not have wished for a prettier little wife at the opposite end of the -table, but I certainly could have wished, when we sat down, for a little more -room. I did not know how it was, but though there were only two of us, we were -at once always cramped for room, and yet had always room enough to lose -everything in. I suspect it may have been because nothing had a place of its -own, except Jip’s pagoda, which invariably blocked up the main -thoroughfare. On the present occasion, Traddles was so hemmed in by the pagoda -and the guitar-case, and Dora’s flower-painting, and my writing-table, -that I had serious doubts of the possibility of his using his knife and fork; -but he protested, with his own good-humour, ‘Oceans of room, Copperfield! -I assure you, Oceans!’ -</p> - -<p> -There was another thing I could have wished, namely, that Jip had never been -encouraged to walk about the tablecloth during dinner. I began to think there -was something disorderly in his being there at all, even if he had not been in -the habit of putting his foot in the salt or the melted butter. On this -occasion he seemed to think he was introduced expressly to keep Traddles at -bay; and he barked at my old friend, and made short runs at his plate, with -such undaunted pertinacity, that he may be said to have engrossed the -conversation. -</p> - -<p> -However, as I knew how tender-hearted my dear Dora was, and how sensitive she -would be to any slight upon her favourite, I hinted no objection. For similar -reasons I made no allusion to the skirmishing plates upon the floor; or to the -disreputable appearance of the castors, which were all at sixes and sevens, and -looked drunk; or to the further blockade of Traddles by wandering vegetable -dishes and jugs. I could not help wondering in my own mind, as I contemplated -the boiled leg of mutton before me, previous to carving it, how it came to pass -that our joints of meat were of such extraordinary shapes—and whether our -butcher contracted for all the deformed sheep that came into the world; but I -kept my reflections to myself. -</p> - -<p> -‘My love,’ said I to Dora, ‘what have you got in that -dish?’ -</p> - -<p> -I could not imagine why Dora had been making tempting little faces at me, as if -she wanted to kiss me. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oysters, dear,’ said Dora, timidly. -</p> - -<p> -‘Was that YOUR thought?’ said I, delighted. -</p> - -<p> -‘Ye-yes, Doady,’ said Dora. -</p> - -<p> -‘There never was a happier one!’ I exclaimed, laying down the -carving-knife and fork. ‘There is nothing Traddles likes so much!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Ye-yes, Doady,’ said Dora, ‘and so I bought a beautiful -little barrel of them, and the man said they were very good. But I—I am -afraid there’s something the matter with them. They don’t seem -right.’ Here Dora shook her head, and diamonds twinkled in her eyes. -</p> - -<p> -‘They are only opened in both shells,’ said I. ‘Take the top -one off, my love.’ -</p> - -<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> -<img src="images/20238.jpg" alt="20238" width="100%" /> -</div> - -<h5> -<a href="images/20238.jpg"> -<img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /></a> -</h5> - -<p> -‘But it won’t come off!’ said Dora, trying very hard, and -looking very much distressed. -</p> - -<p> -‘Do you know, Copperfield,’ said Traddles, cheerfully examining the -dish, ‘I think it is in consequence—they are capital oysters, but I -think it is in consequence—of their never having been opened.’ -</p> - -<p> -They never had been opened; and we had no oyster-knives—and -couldn’t have used them if we had; so we looked at the oysters and ate -the mutton. At least we ate as much of it as was done, and made up with capers. -If I had permitted him, I am satisfied that Traddles would have made a perfect -savage of himself, and eaten a plateful of raw meat, to express enjoyment of -the repast; but I would hear of no such immolation on the altar of friendship, -and we had a course of bacon instead; there happening, by good fortune, to be -cold bacon in the larder. -</p> - -<p> -My poor little wife was in such affliction when she thought I should be -annoyed, and in such a state of joy when she found I was not, that the -discomfiture I had subdued, very soon vanished, and we passed a happy evening; -Dora sitting with her arm on my chair while Traddles and I discussed a glass of -wine, and taking every opportunity of whispering in my ear that it was so good -of me not to be a cruel, cross old boy. By and by she made tea for us; which it -was so pretty to see her do, as if she was busying herself with a set of -doll’s tea-things, that I was not particular about the quality of the -beverage. Then Traddles and I played a game or two at cribbage; and Dora -singing to the guitar the while, it seemed to me as if our courtship and -marriage were a tender dream of mine, and the night when I first listened to -her voice were not yet over. -</p> - -<p> -When Traddles went away, and I came back into the parlour from seeing him out, -my wife planted her chair close to mine, and sat down by my side. ‘I am -very sorry,’ she said. ‘Will you try to teach me, Doady?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I must teach myself first, Dora,’ said I. ‘I am as bad as -you, love.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Ah! But you can learn,’ she returned; ‘and you are a clever, -clever man!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Nonsense, mouse!’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘I wish,’ resumed my wife, after a long silence, ‘that I -could have gone down into the country for a whole year, and lived with -Agnes!’ -</p> - -<p> -Her hands were clasped upon my shoulder, and her chin rested on them, and her -blue eyes looked quietly into mine. -</p> - -<p> -‘Why so?’ I asked. -</p> - -<p> -‘I think she might have improved me, and I think I might have learned -from her,’ said Dora. -</p> - -<p> -‘All in good time, my love. Agnes has had her father to take care of for -these many years, you should remember. Even when she was quite a child, she was -the Agnes whom we know,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Will you call me a name I want you to call me?’ inquired Dora, -without moving. -</p> - -<p> -‘What is it?’ I asked with a smile. -</p> - -<p> -‘It’s a stupid name,’ she said, shaking her curls for a -moment. ‘Child-wife.’ -</p> - -<p> -I laughingly asked my child-wife what her fancy was in desiring to be so -called. She answered without moving, otherwise than as the arm I twined about -her may have brought her blue eyes nearer to me: -</p> - -<p> -‘I don’t mean, you silly fellow, that you should use the name -instead of Dora. I only mean that you should think of me that way. When you are -going to be angry with me, say to yourself, “it’s only my -child-wife!” When I am very disappointing, say, “I knew, a long -time ago, that she would make but a child-wife!” When you miss what I -should like to be, and I think can never be, say, “still my foolish -child-wife loves me!” For indeed I do.’ -</p> - -<p> -I had not been serious with her; having no idea until now, that she was serious -herself. But her affectionate nature was so happy in what I now said to her -with my whole heart, that her face became a laughing one before her glittering -eyes were dry. She was soon my child-wife indeed; sitting down on the floor -outside the Chinese House, ringing all the little bells one after another, to -punish Jip for his recent bad behaviour; while Jip lay blinking in the doorway -with his head out, even too lazy to be teased. -</p> - -<p> -This appeal of Dora’s made a strong impression on me. I look back on the -time I write of; I invoke the innocent figure that I dearly loved, to come out -from the mists and shadows of the past, and turn its gentle head towards me -once again; and I can still declare that this one little speech was constantly -in my memory. I may not have used it to the best account; I was young and -inexperienced; but I never turned a deaf ear to its artless pleading. -</p> - -<p> -Dora told me, shortly afterwards, that she was going to be a wonderful -housekeeper. Accordingly, she polished the tablets, pointed the pencil, bought -an immense account-book, carefully stitched up with a needle and thread all the -leaves of the Cookery Book which Jip had torn, and made quite a desperate -little attempt ‘to be good’, as she called it. But the figures had -the old obstinate propensity—they WOULD NOT add up. When she had entered -two or three laborious items in the account-book, Jip would walk over the page, -wagging his tail, and smear them all out. Her own little right-hand middle -finger got steeped to the very bone in ink; and I think that was the only -decided result obtained. -</p> - -<p> -Sometimes, of an evening, when I was at home and at work—for I wrote a -good deal now, and was beginning in a small way to be known as a writer—I -would lay down my pen, and watch my child-wife trying to be good. First of all, -she would bring out the immense account-book, and lay it down upon the table, -with a deep sigh. Then she would open it at the place where Jip had made it -illegible last night, and call Jip up, to look at his misdeeds. This would -occasion a diversion in Jip’s favour, and some inking of his nose, -perhaps, as a penalty. Then she would tell Jip to lie down on the table -instantly, ‘like a lion’—which was one of his tricks, though -I cannot say the likeness was striking—and, if he were in an obedient -humour, he would obey. Then she would take up a pen, and begin to write, and -find a hair in it. Then she would take up another pen, and begin to write, and -find that it spluttered. Then she would take up another pen, and begin to -write, and say in a low voice, ‘Oh, it’s a talking pen, and will -disturb Doady!’ And then she would give it up as a bad job, and put the -account-book away, after pretending to crush the lion with it. -</p> - -<p> -Or, if she were in a very sedate and serious state of mind, she would sit down -with the tablets, and a little basket of bills and other documents, which -looked more like curl-papers than anything else, and endeavour to get some -result out of them. After severely comparing one with another, and making -entries on the tablets, and blotting them out, and counting all the fingers of -her left hand over and over again, backwards and forwards, she would be so -vexed and discouraged, and would look so unhappy, that it gave me pain to see -her bright face clouded—and for me!—and I would go softly to her, -and say: -</p> - -<p> -‘What’s the matter, Dora?’ -</p> - -<p> -Dora would look up hopelessly, and reply, ‘They won’t come right. -They make my head ache so. And they won’t do anything I want!’ -</p> - -<p> -Then I would say, ‘Now let us try together. Let me show you, Dora.’ -</p> - -<p> -Then I would commence a practical demonstration, to which Dora would pay -profound attention, perhaps for five minutes; when she would begin to be -dreadfully tired, and would lighten the subject by curling my hair, or trying -the effect of my face with my shirt-collar turned down. If I tacitly checked -this playfulness, and persisted, she would look so scared and disconsolate, as -she became more and more bewildered, that the remembrance of her natural gaiety -when I first strayed into her path, and of her being my child-wife, would come -reproachfully upon me; and I would lay the pencil down, and call for the -guitar. -</p> - -<p> -I had a great deal of work to do, and had many anxieties, but the same -considerations made me keep them to myself. I am far from sure, now, that it -was right to do this, but I did it for my child-wife’s sake. I search my -breast, and I commit its secrets, if I know them, without any reservation to -this paper. The old unhappy loss or want of something had, I am conscious, some -place in my heart; but not to the embitterment of my life. When I walked alone -in the fine weather, and thought of the summer days when all the air had been -filled with my boyish enchantment, I did miss something of the realization of -my dreams; but I thought it was a softened glory of the Past, which nothing -could have thrown upon the present time. I did feel, sometimes, for a little -while, that I could have wished my wife had been my counsellor; had had more -character and purpose, to sustain me and improve me by; had been endowed with -power to fill up the void which somewhere seemed to be about me; but I felt as -if this were an unearthly consummation of my happiness, that never had been -meant to be, and never could have been. -</p> - -<p> -I was a boyish husband as to years. I had known the softening influence of no -other sorrows or experiences than those recorded in these leaves. If I did any -wrong, as I may have done much, I did it in mistaken love, and in my want of -wisdom. I write the exact truth. It would avail me nothing to extenuate it now. -</p> - -<p> -Thus it was that I took upon myself the toils and cares of our life, and had no -partner in them. We lived much as before, in reference to our scrambling -household arrangements; but I had got used to those, and Dora I was pleased to -see was seldom vexed now. She was bright and cheerful in the old childish way, -loved me dearly, and was happy with her old trifles. -</p> - -<p> -When the debates were heavy—I mean as to length, not quality, for in the -last respect they were not often otherwise—and I went home late, Dora -would never rest when she heard my footsteps, but would always come downstairs -to meet me. When my evenings were unoccupied by the pursuit for which I had -qualified myself with so much pains, and I was engaged in writing at home, she -would sit quietly near me, however late the hour, and be so mute, that I would -often think she had dropped asleep. But generally, when I raised my head, I saw -her blue eyes looking at me with the quiet attention of which I have already -spoken. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, what a weary boy!’ said Dora one night, when I met her eyes as -I was shutting up my desk. -</p> - -<p> -‘What a weary girl!’ said I. ‘That’s more to the -purpose. You must go to bed another time, my love. It’s far too late for -you.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No, don’t send me to bed!’ pleaded Dora, coming to my side. -‘Pray, don’t do that!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Dora!’ To my amazement she was sobbing on my neck. ‘Not -well, my dear! not happy!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes! quite well, and very happy!’ said Dora. ‘But say -you’ll let me stop, and see you write.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, what a sight for such bright eyes at midnight!’ I replied. -</p> - -<p> -‘Are they bright, though?’ returned Dora, laughing. -‘I’m so glad they’re bright.’ ‘Little -Vanity!’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -But it was not vanity; it was only harmless delight in my admiration. I knew -that very well, before she told me so. -</p> - -<p> -‘If you think them pretty, say I may always stop, and see you -write!’ said Dora. ‘Do you think them pretty?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Very pretty.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Then let me always stop and see you write.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I am afraid that won’t improve their brightness, Dora.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes, it will! Because, you clever boy, you’ll not forget me then, -while you are full of silent fancies. Will you mind it, if I say something -very, very silly?—-more than usual?’ inquired Dora, peeping over my -shoulder into my face. -</p> - -<p> -‘What wonderful thing is that?’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Please let me hold the pens,’ said Dora. ‘I want to have -something to do with all those many hours when you are so industrious. May I -hold the pens?’ -</p> - -<p> -The remembrance of her pretty joy when I said yes, brings tears into my eyes. -The next time I sat down to write, and regularly afterwards, she sat in her old -place, with a spare bundle of pens at her side. Her triumph in this connexion -with my work, and her delight when I wanted a new pen—which I very often -feigned to do—suggested to me a new way of pleasing my child-wife. I -occasionally made a pretence of wanting a page or two of manuscript copied. -Then Dora was in her glory. The preparations she made for this great work, the -aprons she put on, the bibs she borrowed from the kitchen to keep off the ink, -the time she took, the innumerable stoppages she made to have a laugh with Jip -as if he understood it all, her conviction that her work was incomplete unless -she signed her name at the end, and the way in which she would bring it to me, -like a school-copy, and then, when I praised it, clasp me round the neck, are -touching recollections to me, simple as they might appear to other men. -</p> - -<p> -She took possession of the keys soon after this, and went jingling about the -house with the whole bunch in a little basket, tied to her slender waist. I -seldom found that the places to which they belonged were locked, or that they -were of any use except as a plaything for Jip—but Dora was pleased, and -that pleased me. She was quite satisfied that a good deal was effected by this -make-belief of housekeeping; and was as merry as if we had been keeping a -baby-house, for a joke. -</p> - -<p> -So we went on. Dora was hardly less affectionate to my aunt than to me, and -often told her of the time when she was afraid she was ‘a cross old -thing’. I never saw my aunt unbend more systematically to anyone. She -courted Jip, though Jip never responded; listened, day after day, to the -guitar, though I am afraid she had no taste for music; never attacked the -Incapables, though the temptation must have been severe; went wonderful -distances on foot to purchase, as surprises, any trifles that she found out -Dora wanted; and never came in by the garden, and missed her from the room, but -she would call out, at the foot of the stairs, in a voice that sounded -cheerfully all over the house: -</p> - -<p> -‘Where’s Little Blossom?’ -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0045"></a>CHAPTER 45. MR. DICK FULFILS MY AUNT’S -PREDICTIONS</h2> - -<p> -It was some time now, since I had left the Doctor. Living in his neighbourhood, -I saw him frequently; and we all went to his house on two or three occasions to -dinner or tea. The Old Soldier was in permanent quarters under the -Doctor’s roof. She was exactly the same as ever, and the same immortal -butterflies hovered over her cap. -</p> - -<p> -Like some other mothers, whom I have known in the course of my life, Mrs. -Markleham was far more fond of pleasure than her daughter was. She required a -great deal of amusement, and, like a deep old soldier, pretended, in consulting -her own inclinations, to be devoting herself to her child. The Doctor’s -desire that Annie should be entertained, was therefore particularly acceptable -to this excellent parent; who expressed unqualified approval of his discretion. -</p> - -<p> -I have no doubt, indeed, that she probed the Doctor’s wound without -knowing it. Meaning nothing but a certain matured frivolity and selfishness, -not always inseparable from full-blown years, I think she confirmed him in his -fear that he was a constraint upon his young wife, and that there was no -congeniality of feeling between them, by so strongly commending his design of -lightening the load of her life. -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear soul,’ she said to him one day when I was present, -‘you know there is no doubt it would be a little pokey for Annie to be -always shut up here.’ -</p> - -<p> -The Doctor nodded his benevolent head. ‘When she comes to her -mother’s age,’ said Mrs. Markleham, with a flourish of her fan, -‘then it’ll be another thing. You might put ME into a Jail, with -genteel society and a rubber, and I should never care to come out. But I am not -Annie, you know; and Annie is not her mother.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Surely, surely,’ said the Doctor. -</p> - -<p> -‘You are the best of creatures—no, I beg your pardon!’ for -the Doctor made a gesture of deprecation, ‘I must say before your face, -as I always say behind your back, you are the best of creatures; but of course -you don’t—now do you?—-enter into the same pursuits and -fancies as Annie?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No,’ said the Doctor, in a sorrowful tone. -</p> - -<p> -‘No, of course not,’ retorted the Old Soldier. ‘Take your -Dictionary, for example. What a useful work a Dictionary is! What a necessary -work! The meanings of words! Without Doctor Johnson, or somebody of that sort, -we might have been at this present moment calling an Italian-iron, a bedstead. -But we can’t expect a Dictionary—especially when it’s -making—to interest Annie, can we?’ -</p> - -<p> -The Doctor shook his head. -</p> - -<p> -‘And that’s why I so much approve,’ said Mrs. Markleham, -tapping him on the shoulder with her shut-up fan, ‘of your -thoughtfulness. It shows that you don’t expect, as many elderly people do -expect, old heads on young shoulders. You have studied Annie’s character, -and you understand it. That’s what I find so charming!’ -</p> - -<p> -Even the calm and patient face of Doctor Strong expressed some little sense of -pain, I thought, under the infliction of these compliments. -</p> - -<p> -‘Therefore, my dear Doctor,’ said the Old Soldier, giving him -several affectionate taps, ‘you may command me, at all times and seasons. -Now, do understand that I am entirely at your service. I am ready to go with -Annie to operas, concerts, exhibitions, all kinds of places; and you shall -never find that I am tired. Duty, my dear Doctor, before every consideration in -the universe!’ -</p> - -<p> -She was as good as her word. She was one of those people who can bear a great -deal of pleasure, and she never flinched in her perseverance in the cause. She -seldom got hold of the newspaper (which she settled herself down in the softest -chair in the house to read through an eye-glass, every day, for two hours), but -she found out something that she was certain Annie would like to see. It was in -vain for Annie to protest that she was weary of such things. Her mother’s -remonstrance always was, ‘Now, my dear Annie, I am sure you know better; -and I must tell you, my love, that you are not making a proper return for the -kindness of Doctor Strong.’ -</p> - -<p> -This was usually said in the Doctor’s presence, and appeared to me to -constitute Annie’s principal inducement for withdrawing her objections -when she made any. But in general she resigned herself to her mother, and went -where the Old Soldier would. -</p> - -<p> -It rarely happened now that Mr. Maldon accompanied them. Sometimes my aunt and -Dora were invited to do so, and accepted the invitation. Sometimes Dora only -was asked. The time had been, when I should have been uneasy in her going; but -reflection on what had passed that former night in the Doctor’s study, -had made a change in my mistrust. I believed that the Doctor was right, and I -had no worse suspicions. -</p> - -<p> -My aunt rubbed her nose sometimes when she happened to be alone with me, and -said she couldn’t make it out; she wished they were happier; she -didn’t think our military friend (so she always called the Old Soldier) -mended the matter at all. My aunt further expressed her opinion, ‘that if -our military friend would cut off those butterflies, and give ‘em to the -chimney-sweepers for May-day, it would look like the beginning of something -sensible on her part.’ -</p> - -<p> -But her abiding reliance was on Mr. Dick. That man had evidently an idea in his -head, she said; and if he could only once pen it up into a corner, which was -his great difficulty, he would distinguish himself in some extraordinary -manner. -</p> - -<p> -Unconscious of this prediction, Mr. Dick continued to occupy precisely the same -ground in reference to the Doctor and to Mrs. Strong. He seemed neither to -advance nor to recede. He appeared to have settled into his original -foundation, like a building; and I must confess that my faith in his ever -Moving, was not much greater than if he had been a building. -</p> - -<p> -But one night, when I had been married some months, Mr. Dick put his head into -the parlour, where I was writing alone (Dora having gone out with my aunt to -take tea with the two little birds), and said, with a significant cough: -</p> - -<p> -‘You couldn’t speak to me without inconveniencing yourself, -Trotwood, I am afraid?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Certainly, Mr. Dick,’ said I; ‘come in!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Trotwood,’ said Mr. Dick, laying his finger on the side of his -nose, after he had shaken hands with me. ‘Before I sit down, I wish to -make an observation. You know your aunt?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘A little,’ I replied. -</p> - -<p> -‘She is the most wonderful woman in the world, sir!’ -</p> - -<p> -After the delivery of this communication, which he shot out of himself as if he -were loaded with it, Mr. Dick sat down with greater gravity than usual, and -looked at me. -</p> - -<p> -‘Now, boy,’ said Mr. Dick, ‘I am going to put a question to -you.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘As many as you please,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘What do you consider me, sir?’ asked Mr. Dick, folding his arms. -</p> - -<p> -‘A dear old friend,’ said I. ‘Thank you, Trotwood,’ -returned Mr. Dick, laughing, and reaching across in high glee to shake hands -with me. ‘But I mean, boy,’ resuming his gravity, ‘what do -you consider me in this respect?’ touching his forehead. -</p> - -<p> -I was puzzled how to answer, but he helped me with a word. -</p> - -<p> -‘Weak?’ said Mr. Dick. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well,’ I replied, dubiously. ‘Rather so.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Exactly!’ cried Mr. Dick, who seemed quite enchanted by my reply. -‘That is, Trotwood, when they took some of the trouble out of -you-know-who’s head, and put it you know where, there was a—’ -Mr. Dick made his two hands revolve very fast about each other a great number -of times, and then brought them into collision, and rolled them over and over -one another, to express confusion. ‘There was that sort of thing done to -me somehow. Eh?’ -</p> - -<p> -I nodded at him, and he nodded back again. -</p> - -<p> -‘In short, boy,’ said Mr. Dick, dropping his voice to a whisper, -‘I am simple.’ -</p> - -<p> -I would have qualified that conclusion, but he stopped me. -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes, I am! She pretends I am not. She won’t hear of it; but I am. -I know I am. If she hadn’t stood my friend, sir, I should have been shut -up, to lead a dismal life these many years. But I’ll provide for her! I -never spend the copying money. I put it in a box. I have made a will. -I’ll leave it all to her. She shall be rich—noble!’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Dick took out his pocket-handkerchief, and wiped his eyes. He then folded -it up with great care, pressed it smooth between his two hands, put it in his -pocket, and seemed to put my aunt away with it. -</p> - -<p> -‘Now you are a scholar, Trotwood,’ said Mr. Dick. ‘You are a -fine scholar. You know what a learned man, what a great man, the Doctor is. You -know what honour he has always done me. Not proud in his wisdom. Humble, -humble—condescending even to poor Dick, who is simple and knows nothing. -I have sent his name up, on a scrap of paper, to the kite, along the string, -when it has been in the sky, among the larks. The kite has been glad to receive -it, sir, and the sky has been brighter with it.’ -</p> - -<p> -I delighted him by saying, most heartily, that the Doctor was deserving of our -best respect and highest esteem. -</p> - -<p> -‘And his beautiful wife is a star,’ said Mr. Dick. ‘A shining -star. I have seen her shine, sir. But,’ bringing his chair nearer, and -laying one hand upon my knee—‘clouds, sir—clouds.’ -</p> - -<p> -I answered the solicitude which his face expressed, by conveying the same -expression into my own, and shaking my head. -</p> - -<p> -‘What clouds?’ said Mr. Dick. -</p> - -<p> -He looked so wistfully into my face, and was so anxious to understand, that I -took great pains to answer him slowly and distinctly, as I might have entered -on an explanation to a child. -</p> - -<p> -‘There is some unfortunate division between them,’ I replied. -‘Some unhappy cause of separation. A secret. It may be inseparable from -the discrepancy in their years. It may have grown up out of almost -nothing.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Dick, who had told off every sentence with a thoughtful nod, paused when I -had done, and sat considering, with his eyes upon my face, and his hand upon my -knee. -</p> - -<p> -‘Doctor not angry with her, Trotwood?’ he said, after some time. -</p> - -<p> -‘No. Devoted to her.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Then, I have got it, boy!’ said Mr. Dick. -</p> - -<p> -The sudden exultation with which he slapped me on the knee, and leaned back in -his chair, with his eyebrows lifted up as high as he could possibly lift them, -made me think him farther out of his wits than ever. He became as suddenly -grave again, and leaning forward as before, said—first respectfully -taking out his pocket-handkerchief, as if it really did represent my aunt: -</p> - -<p> -‘Most wonderful woman in the world, Trotwood. Why has she done nothing to -set things right?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Too delicate and difficult a subject for such interference,’ I -replied. -</p> - -<p> -‘Fine scholar,’ said Mr. Dick, touching me with his finger. -‘Why has HE done nothing?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘For the same reason,’ I returned. -</p> - -<p> -‘Then, I have got it, boy!’ said Mr. Dick. And he stood up before -me, more exultingly than before, nodding his head, and striking himself -repeatedly upon the breast, until one might have supposed that he had nearly -nodded and struck all the breath out of his body. -</p> - -<p> -‘A poor fellow with a craze, sir,’ said Mr. Dick, ‘a -simpleton, a weak-minded person—present company, you know!’ -striking himself again, ‘may do what wonderful people may not do. -I’ll bring them together, boy. I’ll try. They’ll not blame -me. They’ll not object to me. They’ll not mind what I do, if -it’s wrong. I’m only Mr. Dick. And who minds Dick? Dick’s -nobody! Whoo!’ He blew a slight, contemptuous breath, as if he blew -himself away. -</p> - -<p> -It was fortunate he had proceeded so far with his mystery, for we heard the -coach stop at the little garden gate, which brought my aunt and Dora home. -</p> - -<p> -‘Not a word, boy!’ he pursued in a whisper; ‘leave all the -blame with Dick—simple Dick—mad Dick. I have been thinking, sir, -for some time, that I was getting it, and now I have got it. After what you -have said to me, I am sure I have got it. All right!’ Not another word -did Mr. Dick utter on the subject; but he made a very telegraph of himself for -the next half-hour (to the great disturbance of my aunt’s mind), to -enjoin inviolable secrecy on me. -</p> - -<p> -To my surprise, I heard no more about it for some two or three weeks, though I -was sufficiently interested in the result of his endeavours; descrying a -strange gleam of good sense—I say nothing of good feeling, for that he -always exhibited—in the conclusion to which he had come. At last I began -to believe, that, in the flighty and unsettled state of his mind, he had either -forgotten his intention or abandoned it. -</p> - -<p> -One fair evening, when Dora was not inclined to go out, my aunt and I strolled -up to the Doctor’s cottage. It was autumn, when there were no debates to -vex the evening air; and I remember how the leaves smelt like our garden at -Blunderstone as we trod them under foot, and how the old, unhappy feeling, -seemed to go by, on the sighing wind. -</p> - -<p> -It was twilight when we reached the cottage. Mrs. Strong was just coming out of -the garden, where Mr. Dick yet lingered, busy with his knife, helping the -gardener to point some stakes. The Doctor was engaged with someone in his -study; but the visitor would be gone directly, Mrs. Strong said, and begged us -to remain and see him. We went into the drawing-room with her, and sat down by -the darkening window. There was never any ceremony about the visits of such old -friends and neighbours as we were. -</p> - -<p> -We had not sat here many minutes, when Mrs. Markleham, who usually contrived to -be in a fuss about something, came bustling in, with her newspaper in her hand, -and said, out of breath, ‘My goodness gracious, Annie, why didn’t -you tell me there was someone in the Study!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear mama,’ she quietly returned, ‘how could I know that -you desired the information?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Desired the information!’ said Mrs. Markleham, sinking on the -sofa. ‘I never had such a turn in all my life!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Have you been to the Study, then, mama?’ asked Annie. -</p> - -<p> -‘BEEN to the Study, my dear!’ she returned emphatically. -‘Indeed I have! I came upon the amiable creature—if you’ll -imagine my feelings, Miss Trotwood and David—in the act of making his -will.’ -</p> - -<p> -Her daughter looked round from the window quickly. -</p> - -<p> -‘In the act, my dear Annie,’ repeated Mrs. Markleham, spreading the -newspaper on her lap like a table-cloth, and patting her hands upon it, -‘of making his last Will and Testament. The foresight and affection of -the dear! I must tell you how it was. I really must, in justice to the -darling—for he is nothing less!—tell you how it was. Perhaps you -know, Miss Trotwood, that there is never a candle lighted in this house, until -one’s eyes are literally falling out of one’s head with being -stretched to read the paper. And that there is not a chair in this house, in -which a paper can be what I call, read, except one in the Study. This took me -to the Study, where I saw a light. I opened the door. In company with the dear -Doctor were two professional people, evidently connected with the law, and they -were all three standing at the table: the darling Doctor pen in hand. -“This simply expresses then,” said the Doctor—Annie, my love, -attend to the very words—“this simply expresses then, gentlemen, -the confidence I have in Mrs. Strong, and gives her all unconditionally?” -One of the professional people replied, “And gives her all -unconditionally.” Upon that, with the natural feelings of a mother, I -said, “Good God, I beg your pardon!” fell over the door-step, and -came away through the little back passage where the pantry is.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Strong opened the window, and went out into the verandah, where she stood -leaning against a pillar. -</p> - -<p> -‘But now isn’t it, Miss Trotwood, isn’t it, David, -invigorating,’ said Mrs. Markleham, mechanically following her with her -eyes, ‘to find a man at Doctor Strong’s time of life, with the -strength of mind to do this kind of thing? It only shows how right I was. I -said to Annie, when Doctor Strong paid a very flattering visit to myself, and -made her the subject of a declaration and an offer, I said, “My dear, -there is no doubt whatever, in my opinion, with reference to a suitable -provision for you, that Doctor Strong will do more than he binds himself to -do.”’ -</p> - -<p> -Here the bell rang, and we heard the sound of the visitors’ feet as they -went out. -</p> - -<p> -‘It’s all over, no doubt,’ said the Old Soldier, after -listening; ‘the dear creature has signed, sealed, and delivered, and his -mind’s at rest. Well it may be! What a mind! Annie, my love, I am going -to the Study with my paper, for I am a poor creature without news. Miss -Trotwood, David, pray come and see the Doctor.’ -</p> - -<p> -I was conscious of Mr. Dick’s standing in the shadow of the room, -shutting up his knife, when we accompanied her to the Study; and of my -aunt’s rubbing her nose violently, by the way, as a mild vent for her -intolerance of our military friend; but who got first into the Study, or how -Mrs. Markleham settled herself in a moment in her easy-chair, or how my aunt -and I came to be left together near the door (unless her eyes were quicker than -mine, and she held me back), I have forgotten, if I ever knew. But this I -know,—that we saw the Doctor before he saw us, sitting at his table, -among the folio volumes in which he delighted, resting his head calmly on his -hand. That, in the same moment, we saw Mrs. Strong glide in, pale and -trembling. That Mr. Dick supported her on his arm. That he laid his other hand -upon the Doctor’s arm, causing him to look up with an abstracted air. -That, as the Doctor moved his head, his wife dropped down on one knee at his -feet, and, with her hands imploringly lifted, fixed upon his face the memorable -look I had never forgotten. That at this sight Mrs. Markleham dropped the -newspaper, and stared more like a figure-head intended for a ship to be called -The Astonishment, than anything else I can think of. -</p> - -<p> -The gentleness of the Doctor’s manner and surprise, the dignity that -mingled with the supplicating attitude of his wife, the amiable concern of Mr. -Dick, and the earnestness with which my aunt said to herself, ‘That man -mad!’ (triumphantly expressive of the misery from which she had saved -him)—I see and hear, rather than remember, as I write about it. -</p> - -<p> -‘Doctor!’ said Mr. Dick. ‘What is it that’s amiss? Look -here!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Annie!’ cried the Doctor. ‘Not at my feet, my dear!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes!’ she said. ‘I beg and pray that no one will leave the -room! Oh, my husband and father, break this long silence. Let us both know what -it is that has come between us!’ -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Markleham, by this time recovering the power of speech, and seeming to -swell with family pride and motherly indignation, here exclaimed, ‘Annie, -get up immediately, and don’t disgrace everybody belonging to you by -humbling yourself like that, unless you wish to see me go out of my mind on the -spot!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Mama!’ returned Annie. ‘Waste no words on me, for my appeal -is to my husband, and even you are nothing here.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Nothing!’ exclaimed Mrs. Markleham. ‘Me, nothing! The child -has taken leave of her senses. Please to get me a glass of water!’ -</p> - -<p> -I was too attentive to the Doctor and his wife, to give any heed to this -request; and it made no impression on anybody else; so Mrs. Markleham panted, -stared, and fanned herself. -</p> - -<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> -<img src="images/20256.jpg" alt="20256" width="100%" /> -</div> - -<h5> -<a href="images/20256.jpg"> -<img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /></a> -</h5> - -<p> -‘Annie!’ said the Doctor, tenderly taking her in his hands. -‘My dear! If any unavoidable change has come, in the sequence of time, -upon our married life, you are not to blame. The fault is mine, and only mine. -There is no change in my affection, admiration, and respect. I wish to make you -happy. I truly love and honour you. Rise, Annie, pray!’ -</p> - -<p> -But she did not rise. After looking at him for a little while, she sank down -closer to him, laid her arm across his knee, and dropping her head upon it, -said: -</p> - -<p> -‘If I have any friend here, who can speak one word for me, or for my -husband in this matter; if I have any friend here, who can give a voice to any -suspicion that my heart has sometimes whispered to me; if I have any friend -here, who honours my husband, or has ever cared for me, and has anything within -his knowledge, no matter what it is, that may help to mediate between us, I -implore that friend to speak!’ -</p> - -<p> -There was a profound silence. After a few moments of painful hesitation, I -broke the silence. -</p> - -<p> -‘Mrs. Strong,’ I said, ‘there is something within my -knowledge, which I have been earnestly entreated by Doctor Strong to conceal, -and have concealed until tonight. But, I believe the time has come when it -would be mistaken faith and delicacy to conceal it any longer, and when your -appeal absolves me from his injunction.’ -</p> - -<p> -She turned her face towards me for a moment, and I knew that I was right. I -could not have resisted its entreaty, if the assurance that it gave me had been -less convincing. -</p> - -<p> -‘Our future peace,’ she said, ‘may be in your hands. I trust -it confidently to your not suppressing anything. I know beforehand that nothing -you, or anyone, can tell me, will show my husband’s noble heart in any -other light than one. Howsoever it may seem to you to touch me, disregard that. -I will speak for myself, before him, and before God afterwards.’ -</p> - -<p> -Thus earnestly besought, I made no reference to the Doctor for his permission, -but, without any other compromise of the truth than a little softening of the -coarseness of Uriah Heep, related plainly what had passed in that same room -that night. The staring of Mrs. Markleham during the whole narration, and the -shrill, sharp interjections with which she occasionally interrupted it, defy -description. -</p> - -<p> -When I had finished, Annie remained, for some few moments, silent, with her -head bent down, as I have described. Then, she took the Doctor’s hand (he -was sitting in the same attitude as when we had entered the room), and pressed -it to her breast, and kissed it. Mr. Dick softly raised her; and she stood, -when she began to speak, leaning on him, and looking down upon her -husband—from whom she never turned her eyes. -</p> - -<p> -‘All that has ever been in my mind, since I was married,’ she said -in a low, submissive, tender voice, ‘I will lay bare before you. I could -not live and have one reservation, knowing what I know now.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Nay, Annie,’ said the Doctor, mildly, ‘I have never doubted -you, my child. There is no need; indeed there is no need, my dear.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘There is great need,’ she answered, in the same way, ‘that I -should open my whole heart before the soul of generosity and truth, whom, year -by year, and day by day, I have loved and venerated more and more, as Heaven -knows!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Really,’ interrupted Mrs. Markleham, ‘if I have any -discretion at all—’ -</p> - -<p> -(‘Which you haven’t, you Marplot,’ observed my aunt, in an -indignant whisper.) —‘I must be permitted to observe that it cannot -be requisite to enter into these details.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No one but my husband can judge of that, mama,’ said Annie without -removing her eyes from his face, ‘and he will hear me. If I say anything -to give you pain, mama, forgive me. I have borne pain first, often and long, -myself.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Upon my word!’ gasped Mrs. Markleham. -</p> - -<p> -‘When I was very young,’ said Annie, ‘quite a little child, -my first associations with knowledge of any kind were inseparable from a -patient friend and teacher—the friend of my dead father—who was -always dear to me. I can remember nothing that I know, without remembering him. -He stored my mind with its first treasures, and stamped his character upon them -all. They never could have been, I think, as good as they have been to me, if I -had taken them from any other hands.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Makes her mother nothing!’ exclaimed Mrs. Markleham. -</p> - -<p> -‘Not so mama,’ said Annie; ‘but I make him what he was. I -must do that. As I grew up, he occupied the same place still. I was proud of -his interest: deeply, fondly, gratefully attached to him. I looked up to him, I -can hardly describe how—as a father, as a guide, as one whose praise was -different from all other praise, as one in whom I could have trusted and -confided, if I had doubted all the world. You know, mama, how young and -inexperienced I was, when you presented him before me, of a sudden, as a -lover.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I have mentioned the fact, fifty times at least, to everybody -here!’ said Mrs. Markleham. -</p> - -<p> -(‘Then hold your tongue, for the Lord’s sake, and don’t -mention it any more!’ muttered my aunt.) -</p> - -<p> -‘It was so great a change: so great a loss, I felt it, at first,’ -said Annie, still preserving the same look and tone, ‘that I was agitated -and distressed. I was but a girl; and when so great a change came in the -character in which I had so long looked up to him, I think I was sorry. But -nothing could have made him what he used to be again; and I was proud that he -should think me so worthy, and we were married.’ ‘—At Saint -Alphage, Canterbury,’ observed Mrs. Markleham. -</p> - -<p> -(‘Confound the woman!’ said my aunt, ‘she WON’T be -quiet!’) -</p> - -<p> -‘I never thought,’ proceeded Annie, with a heightened colour, -‘of any worldly gain that my husband would bring to me. My young heart -had no room in its homage for any such poor reference. Mama, forgive me when I -say that it was you who first presented to my mind the thought that anyone -could wrong me, and wrong him, by such a cruel suspicion.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Me!’ cried Mrs. Markleham. -</p> - -<p> -(‘Ah! You, to be sure!’ observed my aunt, ‘and you -can’t fan it away, my military friend!’) -</p> - -<p> -‘It was the first unhappiness of my new life,’ said Annie. -‘It was the first occasion of every unhappy moment I have known. These -moments have been more, of late, than I can count; but not—my generous -husband!—not for the reason you suppose; for in my heart there is not a -thought, a recollection, or a hope, that any power could separate from -you!’ -</p> - -<p> -She raised her eyes, and clasped her hands, and looked as beautiful and true, I -thought, as any Spirit. The Doctor looked on her, henceforth, as steadfastly as -she on him. -</p> - -<p> -‘Mama is blameless,’ she went on, ‘of having ever urged you -for herself, and she is blameless in intention every way, I am sure,—but -when I saw how many importunate claims were pressed upon you in my name; how -you were traded on in my name; how generous you were, and how Mr. Wickfield, -who had your welfare very much at heart, resented it; the first sense of my -exposure to the mean suspicion that my tenderness was bought—and sold to -you, of all men on earth—fell upon me like unmerited disgrace, in which I -forced you to participate. I cannot tell you what it was—mama cannot -imagine what it was—to have this dread and trouble always on my mind, yet -know in my own soul that on my marriage-day I crowned the love and honour of my -life!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘A specimen of the thanks one gets,’ cried Mrs. Markleham, in -tears, ‘for taking care of one’s family! I wish I was a -Turk!’ -</p> - -<p> -(‘I wish you were, with all my heart—and in your native -country!’ said my aunt.) -</p> - -<p> -‘It was at that time that mama was most solicitous about my Cousin -Maldon. I had liked him’: she spoke softly, but without any hesitation: -‘very much. We had been little lovers once. If circumstances had not -happened otherwise, I might have come to persuade myself that I really loved -him, and might have married him, and been most wretched. There can be no -disparity in marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose.’ -</p> - -<p> -I pondered on those words, even while I was studiously attending to what -followed, as if they had some particular interest, or some strange application -that I could not divine. ‘There can be no disparity in marriage like -unsuitability of mind and purpose’—‘no disparity in marriage -like unsuitability of mind and purpose.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘There is nothing,’ said Annie, ‘that we have in common. I -have long found that there is nothing. If I were thankful to my husband for no -more, instead of for so much, I should be thankful to him for having saved me -from the first mistaken impulse of my undisciplined heart.’ -</p> - -<p> -She stood quite still, before the Doctor, and spoke with an earnestness that -thrilled me. Yet her voice was just as quiet as before. -</p> - -<p> -‘When he was waiting to be the object of your munificence, so freely -bestowed for my sake, and when I was unhappy in the mercenary shape I was made -to wear, I thought it would have become him better to have worked his own way -on. I thought that if I had been he, I would have tried to do it, at the cost -of almost any hardship. But I thought no worse of him, until the night of his -departure for India. That night I knew he had a false and thankless heart. I -saw a double meaning, then, in Mr. Wickfield’s scrutiny of me. I -perceived, for the first time, the dark suspicion that shadowed my life.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Suspicion, Annie!’ said the Doctor. ‘No, no, no!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘In your mind there was none, I know, my husband!’ she returned. -‘And when I came to you, that night, to lay down all my load of shame and -grief, and knew that I had to tell that, underneath your roof, one of my own -kindred, to whom you had been a benefactor, for the love of me, had spoken to -me words that should have found no utterance, even if I had been the weak and -mercenary wretch he thought me—my mind revolted from the taint the very -tale conveyed. It died upon my lips, and from that hour till now has never -passed them.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Markleham, with a short groan, leaned back in her easy-chair; and retired -behind her fan, as if she were never coming out any more. -</p> - -<p> -‘I have never, but in your presence, interchanged a word with him from -that time; then, only when it has been necessary for the avoidance of this -explanation. Years have passed since he knew, from me, what his situation here -was. The kindnesses you have secretly done for his advancement, and then -disclosed to me, for my surprise and pleasure, have been, you will believe, but -aggravations of the unhappiness and burden of my secret.’ -</p> - -<p> -She sunk down gently at the Doctor’s feet, though he did his utmost to -prevent her; and said, looking up, tearfully, into his face: -</p> - -<p> -‘Do not speak to me yet! Let me say a little more! Right or wrong, if -this were to be done again, I think I should do just the same. You never can -know what it was to be devoted to you, with those old associations; to find -that anyone could be so hard as to suppose that the truth of my heart was -bartered away, and to be surrounded by appearances confirming that belief. I -was very young, and had no adviser. Between mama and me, in all relating to -you, there was a wide division. If I shrunk into myself, hiding the disrespect -I had undergone, it was because I honoured you so much, and so much wished that -you should honour me!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Annie, my pure heart!’ said the Doctor, ‘my dear -girl!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘A little more! a very few words more! I used to think there were so many -whom you might have married, who would not have brought such charge and trouble -on you, and who would have made your home a worthier home. I used to be afraid -that I had better have remained your pupil, and almost your child. I used to -fear that I was so unsuited to your learning and wisdom. If all this made me -shrink within myself (as indeed it did), when I had that to tell, it was still -because I honoured you so much, and hoped that you might one day honour -me.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘That day has shone this long time, Annie,’ said the Doctor, -‘and can have but one long night, my dear.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Another word! I afterwards meant—steadfastly meant, and purposed -to myself—to bear the whole weight of knowing the unworthiness of one to -whom you had been so good. And now a last word, dearest and best of friends! -The cause of the late change in you, which I have seen with so much pain and -sorrow, and have sometimes referred to my old apprehension—at other times -to lingering suppositions nearer to the truth—has been made clear -tonight; and by an accident I have also come to know, tonight, the full measure -of your noble trust in me, even under that mistake. I do not hope that any love -and duty I may render in return, will ever make me worthy of your priceless -confidence; but with all this knowledge fresh upon me, I can lift my eyes to -this dear face, revered as a father’s, loved as a husband’s, sacred -to me in my childhood as a friend’s, and solemnly declare that in my -lightest thought I have never wronged you; never wavered in the love and the -fidelity I owe you!’ -</p> - -<p> -She had her arms around the Doctor’s neck, and he leant his head down -over her, mingling his grey hair with her dark brown tresses. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, hold me to your heart, my husband! Never cast me out! Do not think -or speak of disparity between us, for there is none, except in all my many -imperfections. Every succeeding year I have known this better, as I have -esteemed you more and more. Oh, take me to your heart, my husband, for my love -was founded on a rock, and it endures!’ -</p> - -<p> -In the silence that ensued, my aunt walked gravely up to Mr. Dick, without at -all hurrying herself, and gave him a hug and a sounding kiss. And it was very -fortunate, with a view to his credit, that she did so; for I am confident that -I detected him at that moment in the act of making preparations to stand on one -leg, as an appropriate expression of delight. -</p> - -<p> -‘You are a very remarkable man, Dick!’ said my aunt, with an air of -unqualified approbation; ‘and never pretend to be anything else, for I -know better!’ -</p> - -<p> -With that, my aunt pulled him by the sleeve, and nodded to me; and we three -stole quietly out of the room, and came away. -</p> - -<p> -‘That’s a settler for our military friend, at any rate,’ said -my aunt, on the way home. ‘I should sleep the better for that, if there -was nothing else to be glad of!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘She was quite overcome, I am afraid,’ said Mr. Dick, with great -commiseration. -</p> - -<p> -‘What! Did you ever see a crocodile overcome?’ inquired my aunt. -</p> - -<p> -‘I don’t think I ever saw a crocodile,’ returned Mr. Dick, -mildly. -</p> - -<p> -‘There never would have been anything the matter, if it hadn’t been -for that old Animal,’ said my aunt, with strong emphasis. -‘It’s very much to be wished that some mothers would leave their -daughters alone after marriage, and not be so violently affectionate. They seem -to think the only return that can be made them for bringing an unfortunate -young woman into the world—God bless my soul, as if she asked to be -brought, or wanted to come!—is full liberty to worry her out of it again. -What are you thinking of, Trot?’ -</p> - -<p> -I was thinking of all that had been said. My mind was still running on some of -the expressions used. ‘There can be no disparity in marriage like -unsuitability of mind and purpose.’ ‘The first mistaken impulse of -an undisciplined heart.’ ‘My love was founded on a rock.’ But -we were at home; and the trodden leaves were lying under-foot, and the autumn -wind was blowing. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0046"></a>CHAPTER 46. INTELLIGENCE</h2> - -<p> -I must have been married, if I may trust to my imperfect memory for dates, -about a year or so, when one evening, as I was returning from a solitary walk, -thinking of the book I was then writing—for my success had steadily -increased with my steady application, and I was engaged at that time upon my -first work of fiction—I came past Mrs. Steerforth’s house. I had -often passed it before, during my residence in that neighbourhood, though never -when I could choose another road. Howbeit, it did sometimes happen that it was -not easy to find another, without making a long circuit; and so I had passed -that way, upon the whole, pretty often. -</p> - -<p> -I had never done more than glance at the house, as I went by with a quickened -step. It had been uniformly gloomy and dull. None of the best rooms abutted on -the road; and the narrow, heavily-framed old-fashioned windows, never cheerful -under any circumstances, looked very dismal, close shut, and with their blinds -always drawn down. There was a covered way across a little paved court, to an -entrance that was never used; and there was one round staircase window, at odds -with all the rest, and the only one unshaded by a blind, which had the same -unoccupied blank look. I do not remember that I ever saw a light in all the -house. If I had been a casual passer-by, I should have probably supposed that -some childless person lay dead in it. If I had happily possessed no knowledge -of the place, and had seen it often in that changeless state, I should have -pleased my fancy with many ingenious speculations, I dare say. -</p> - -<p> -As it was, I thought as little of it as I might. But my mind could not go by it -and leave it, as my body did; and it usually awakened a long train of -meditations. Coming before me, on this particular evening that I mention, -mingled with the childish recollections and later fancies, the ghosts of -half-formed hopes, the broken shadows of disappointments dimly seen and -understood, the blending of experience and imagination, incidental to the -occupation with which my thoughts had been busy, it was more than commonly -suggestive. I fell into a brown study as I walked on, and a voice at my side -made me start. -</p> - -<p> -It was a woman’s voice, too. I was not long in recollecting Mrs. -Steerforth’s little parlour-maid, who had formerly worn blue ribbons in -her cap. She had taken them out now, to adapt herself, I suppose, to the -altered character of the house; and wore but one or two disconsolate bows of -sober brown. -</p> - -<p> -‘If you please, sir, would you have the goodness to walk in, and speak to -Miss Dartle?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Has Miss Dartle sent you for me?’ I inquired. -</p> - -<p> -‘Not tonight, sir, but it’s just the same. Miss Dartle saw you pass -a night or two ago; and I was to sit at work on the staircase, and when I saw -you pass again, to ask you to step in and speak to her.’ -</p> - -<p> -I turned back, and inquired of my conductor, as we went along, how Mrs. -Steerforth was. She said her lady was but poorly, and kept her own room a good -deal. -</p> - -<p> -When we arrived at the house, I was directed to Miss Dartle in the garden, and -left to make my presence known to her myself. She was sitting on a seat at one -end of a kind of terrace, overlooking the great city. It was a sombre evening, -with a lurid light in the sky; and as I saw the prospect scowling in the -distance, with here and there some larger object starting up into the sullen -glare, I fancied it was no inapt companion to the memory of this fierce woman. -</p> - -<p> -She saw me as I advanced, and rose for a moment to receive me. I thought her, -then, still more colourless and thin than when I had seen her last; the -flashing eyes still brighter, and the scar still plainer. -</p> - -<p> -Our meeting was not cordial. We had parted angrily on the last occasion; and -there was an air of disdain about her, which she took no pains to conceal. -</p> - -<p> -‘I am told you wish to speak to me, Miss Dartle,’ said I, standing -near her, with my hand upon the back of the seat, and declining her gesture of -invitation to sit down. -</p> - -<p> -‘If you please,’ said she. ‘Pray has this girl been -found?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And yet she has run away!’ -</p> - -<p> -I saw her thin lips working while she looked at me, as if they were eager to -load her with reproaches. -</p> - -<p> -‘Run away?’ I repeated. -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes! From him,’ she said, with a laugh. ‘If she is not -found, perhaps she never will be found. She may be dead!’ -</p> - -<p> -The vaunting cruelty with which she met my glance, I never saw expressed in any -other face that ever I have seen. -</p> - -<p> -‘To wish her dead,’ said I, ‘may be the kindest wish that one -of her own sex could bestow upon her. I am glad that time has softened you so -much, Miss Dartle.’ -</p> - -<p> -She condescended to make no reply, but, turning on me with another scornful -laugh, said: -</p> - -<p> -‘The friends of this excellent and much-injured young lady are friends of -yours. You are their champion, and assert their rights. Do you wish to know -what is known of her?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -She rose with an ill-favoured smile, and taking a few steps towards a wall of -holly that was near at hand, dividing the lawn from a kitchen-garden, said, in -a louder voice, ‘Come here!’—as if she were calling to some -unclean beast. -</p> - -<p> -‘You will restrain any demonstrative championship or vengeance in this -place, of course, Mr. Copperfield?’ said she, looking over her shoulder -at me with the same expression. -</p> - -<p> -I inclined my head, without knowing what she meant; and she said, ‘Come -here!’ again; and returned, followed by the respectable Mr. Littimer, -who, with undiminished respectability, made me a bow, and took up his position -behind her. The air of wicked grace: of triumph, in which, strange to say, -there was yet something feminine and alluring: with which she reclined upon the -seat between us, and looked at me, was worthy of a cruel Princess in a Legend. -</p> - -<p> -‘Now,’ said she, imperiously, without glancing at him, and touching -the old wound as it throbbed: perhaps, in this instance, with pleasure rather -than pain. ‘Tell Mr. Copperfield about the flight.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Mr. James and myself, ma’am—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Don’t address yourself to me!’ she interrupted with a frown. -</p> - -<p> -‘Mr. James and myself, sir—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Nor to me, if you please,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Littimer, without being at all discomposed, signified by a slight -obeisance, that anything that was most agreeable to us was most agreeable to -him; and began again. -</p> - -<p> -‘Mr. James and myself have been abroad with the young woman, ever since -she left Yarmouth under Mr. James’s protection. We have been in a variety -of places, and seen a deal of foreign country. We have been in France, -Switzerland, Italy, in fact, almost all parts.’ -</p> - -<p> -He looked at the back of the seat, as if he were addressing himself to that; -and softly played upon it with his hands, as if he were striking chords upon a -dumb piano. -</p> - -<p> -‘Mr. James took quite uncommonly to the young woman; and was more -settled, for a length of time, than I have known him to be since I have been in -his service. The young woman was very improvable, and spoke the languages; and -wouldn’t have been known for the same country-person. I noticed that she -was much admired wherever we went.’ -</p> - -<p> -Miss Dartle put her hand upon her side. I saw him steal a glance at her, and -slightly smile to himself. -</p> - -<p> -‘Very much admired, indeed, the young woman was. What with her dress; -what with the air and sun; what with being made so much of; what with this, -that, and the other; her merits really attracted general notice.’ -</p> - -<p> -He made a short pause. Her eyes wandered restlessly over the distant prospect, -and she bit her nether lip to stop that busy mouth. -</p> - -<p> -Taking his hands from the seat, and placing one of them within the other, as he -settled himself on one leg, Mr. Littimer proceeded, with his eyes cast down, -and his respectable head a little advanced, and a little on one side: -</p> - -<p> -‘The young woman went on in this manner for some time, being occasionally -low in her spirits, until I think she began to weary Mr. James by giving way to -her low spirits and tempers of that kind; and things were not so comfortable. -Mr. James he began to be restless again. The more restless he got, the worse -she got; and I must say, for myself, that I had a very difficult time of it -indeed between the two. Still matters were patched up here, and made good -there, over and over again; and altogether lasted, I am sure, for a longer time -than anybody could have expected.’ -</p> - -<p> -Recalling her eyes from the distance, she looked at me again now, with her -former air. Mr. Littimer, clearing his throat behind his hand with a -respectable short cough, changed legs, and went on: -</p> - -<p> -‘At last, when there had been, upon the whole, a good many words and -reproaches, Mr. James he set off one morning, from the neighbourhood of Naples, -where we had a villa (the young woman being very partial to the sea), and, -under pretence of coming back in a day or so, left it in charge with me to -break it out, that, for the general happiness of all concerned, he -was’—here an interruption of the short cough—‘gone. But -Mr. James, I must say, certainly did behave extremely honourable; for he -proposed that the young woman should marry a very respectable person, who was -fully prepared to overlook the past, and who was, at least, as good as anybody -the young woman could have aspired to in a regular way: her connexions being -very common.’ -</p> - -<p> -He changed legs again, and wetted his lips. I was convinced that the scoundrel -spoke of himself, and I saw my conviction reflected in Miss Dartle’s -face. -</p> - -<p> -‘This I also had it in charge to communicate. I was willing to do -anything to relieve Mr. James from his difficulty, and to restore harmony -between himself and an affectionate parent, who has undergone so much on his -account. Therefore I undertook the commission. The young woman’s violence -when she came to, after I broke the fact of his departure, was beyond all -expectations. She was quite mad, and had to be held by force; or, if she -couldn’t have got to a knife, or got to the sea, she’d have beaten -her head against the marble floor.’ -</p> - -<p> -Miss Dartle, leaning back upon the seat, with a light of exultation in her -face, seemed almost to caress the sounds this fellow had uttered. -</p> - -<p> -‘But when I came to the second part of what had been entrusted to -me,’ said Mr. Littimer, rubbing his hands uneasily, ‘which anybody -might have supposed would have been, at all events, appreciated as a kind -intention, then the young woman came out in her true colours. A more outrageous -person I never did see. Her conduct was surprisingly bad. She had no more -gratitude, no more feeling, no more patience, no more reason in her, than a -stock or a stone. If I hadn’t been upon my guard, I am convinced she -would have had my blood.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I think the better of her for it,’ said I, indignantly. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Littimer bent his head, as much as to say, ‘Indeed, sir? But -you’re young!’ and resumed his narrative. -</p> - -<p> -‘It was necessary, in short, for a time, to take away everything nigh -her, that she could do herself, or anybody else, an injury with, and to shut -her up close. Notwithstanding which, she got out in the night; forced the -lattice of a window, that I had nailed up myself; dropped on a vine that was -trailed below; and never has been seen or heard of, to my knowledge, -since.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘She is dead, perhaps,’ said Miss Dartle, with a smile, as if she -could have spurned the body of the ruined girl. -</p> - -<p> -‘She may have drowned herself, miss,’ returned Mr. Littimer, -catching at an excuse for addressing himself to somebody. ‘It’s -very possible. Or, she may have had assistance from the boatmen, and the -boatmen’s wives and children. Being given to low company, she was very -much in the habit of talking to them on the beach, Miss Dartle, and sitting by -their boats. I have known her do it, when Mr. James has been away, whole days. -Mr. James was far from pleased to find out, once, that she had told the -children she was a boatman’s daughter, and that in her own country, long -ago, she had roamed about the beach, like them.’ -</p> - -<p> -Oh, Emily! Unhappy beauty! What a picture rose before me of her sitting on the -far-off shore, among the children like herself when she was innocent, listening -to little voices such as might have called her Mother had she been a poor -man’s wife; and to the great voice of the sea, with its eternal -‘Never more!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘When it was clear that nothing could be done, Miss Dartle—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Did I tell you not to speak to me?’ she said, with stern contempt. -</p> - -<p> -‘You spoke to me, miss,’ he replied. ‘I beg your pardon. But -it is my service to obey.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Do your service,’ she returned. ‘Finish your story, and -go!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘When it was clear,’ he said, with infinite respectability and an -obedient bow, ‘that she was not to be found, I went to Mr. James, at the -place where it had been agreed that I should write to him, and informed him of -what had occurred. Words passed between us in consequence, and I felt it due to -my character to leave him. I could bear, and I have borne, a great deal from -Mr. James; but he insulted me too far. He hurt me. Knowing the unfortunate -difference between himself and his mother, and what her anxiety of mind was -likely to be, I took the liberty of coming home to England, and -relating—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘For money which I paid him,’ said Miss Dartle to me. -</p> - -<p> -‘Just so, ma’am—and relating what I knew. I am not -aware,’ said Mr. Littimer, after a moment’s reflection, ‘that -there is anything else. I am at present out of employment, and should be happy -to meet with a respectable situation.’ -</p> - -<p> -Miss Dartle glanced at me, as though she would inquire if there were anything -that I desired to ask. As there was something which had occurred to my mind, I -said in reply: -</p> - -<p> -‘I could wish to know from this—creature,’ I could not bring -myself to utter any more conciliatory word, ‘whether they intercepted a -letter that was written to her from home, or whether he supposes that she -received it.’ -</p> - -<p> -He remained calm and silent, with his eyes fixed on the ground, and the tip of -every finger of his right hand delicately poised against the tip of every -finger of his left. -</p> - -<p> -Miss Dartle turned her head disdainfully towards him. -</p> - -<p> -‘I beg your pardon, miss,’ he said, awakening from his abstraction, -‘but, however submissive to you, I have my position, though a servant. -Mr. Copperfield and you, miss, are different people. If Mr. Copperfield wishes -to know anything from me, I take the liberty of reminding Mr. Copperfield that -he can put a question to me. I have a character to maintain.’ -</p> - -<p> -After a momentary struggle with myself, I turned my eyes upon him, and said, -‘You have heard my question. Consider it addressed to yourself, if you -choose. What answer do you make?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Sir,’ he rejoined, with an occasional separation and reunion of -those delicate tips, ‘my answer must be qualified; because, to betray Mr. -James’s confidence to his mother, and to betray it to you, are two -different actions. It is not probable, I consider, that Mr. James would -encourage the receipt of letters likely to increase low spirits and -unpleasantness; but further than that, sir, I should wish to avoid -going.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Is that all?’ inquired Miss Dartle of me. -</p> - -<p> -I indicated that I had nothing more to say. ‘Except,’ I added, as I -saw him moving off, ‘that I understand this fellow’s part in the -wicked story, and that, as I shall make it known to the honest man who has been -her father from her childhood, I would recommend him to avoid going too much -into public.’ -</p> - -<p> -He had stopped the moment I began, and had listened with his usual repose of -manner. -</p> - -<p> -‘Thank you, sir. But you’ll excuse me if I say, sir, that there are -neither slaves nor slave-drivers in this country, and that people are not -allowed to take the law into their own hands. If they do, it is more to their -own peril, I believe, than to other people’s. Consequently speaking, I am -not at all afraid of going wherever I may wish, sir.’ -</p> - -<p> -With that, he made a polite bow; and, with another to Miss Dartle, went away -through the arch in the wall of holly by which he had come. Miss Dartle and I -regarded each other for a little while in silence; her manner being exactly -what it was, when she had produced the man. -</p> - -<p> -‘He says besides,’ she observed, with a slow curling of her lip, -‘that his master, as he hears, is coasting Spain; and this done, is away -to gratify his seafaring tastes till he is weary. But this is of no interest to -you. Between these two proud persons, mother and son, there is a wider breach -than before, and little hope of its healing, for they are one at heart, and -time makes each more obstinate and imperious. Neither is this of any interest -to you; but it introduces what I wish to say. This devil whom you make an angel -of. I mean this low girl whom he picked out of the tide-mud,’ with her -black eyes full upon me, and her passionate finger up, ‘may be -alive,—for I believe some common things are hard to die. If she is, you -will desire to have a pearl of such price found and taken care of. We desire -that, too; that he may not by any chance be made her prey again. So far, we are -united in one interest; and that is why I, who would do her any mischief that -so coarse a wretch is capable of feeling, have sent for you to hear what you -have heard.’ -</p> - -<p> -I saw, by the change in her face, that someone was advancing behind me. It was -Mrs. Steerforth, who gave me her hand more coldly than of yore, and with an -augmentation of her former stateliness of manner, but still, I -perceived—and I was touched by it—with an ineffaceable remembrance -of my old love for her son. She was greatly altered. Her fine figure was far -less upright, her handsome face was deeply marked, and her hair was almost -white. But when she sat down on the seat, she was a handsome lady still; and -well I knew the bright eye with its lofty look, that had been a light in my -very dreams at school. -</p> - -<p> -‘Is Mr. Copperfield informed of everything, Rosa?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And has he heard Littimer himself?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes; I have told him why you wished it.’ ‘You are a good -girl. I have had some slight correspondence with your former friend, -sir,’ addressing me, ‘but it has not restored his sense of duty or -natural obligation. Therefore I have no other object in this, than what Rosa -has mentioned. If, by the course which may relieve the mind of the decent man -you brought here (for whom I am sorry—I can say no more), my son may be -saved from again falling into the snares of a designing enemy, well!’ -</p> - -<p> -She drew herself up, and sat looking straight before her, far away. -</p> - -<p> -‘Madam,’ I said respectfully, ‘I understand. I assure you I -am in no danger of putting any strained construction on your motives. But I -must say, even to you, having known this injured family from childhood, that if -you suppose the girl, so deeply wronged, has not been cruelly deluded, and -would not rather die a hundred deaths than take a cup of water from your -son’s hand now, you cherish a terrible mistake.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, Rosa, well!’ said Mrs. Steerforth, as the other was about to -interpose, ‘it is no matter. Let it be. You are married, sir, I am -told?’ -</p> - -<p> -I answered that I had been some time married. -</p> - -<p> -‘And are doing well? I hear little in the quiet life I lead, but I -understand you are beginning to be famous.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I have been very fortunate,’ I said, ‘and find my name -connected with some praise.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You have no mother?’—in a softened voice. -</p> - -<p> -‘No.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘It is a pity,’ she returned. ‘She would have been proud of -you. Good night!’ -</p> - -<p> -I took the hand she held out with a dignified, unbending air, and it was as -calm in mine as if her breast had been at peace. Her pride could still its very -pulses, it appeared, and draw the placid veil before her face, through which -she sat looking straight before her on the far distance. -</p> - -<p> -As I moved away from them along the terrace, I could not help observing how -steadily they both sat gazing on the prospect, and how it thickened and closed -around them. Here and there, some early lamps were seen to twinkle in the -distant city; and in the eastern quarter of the sky the lurid light still -hovered. But, from the greater part of the broad valley interposed, a mist was -rising like a sea, which, mingling with the darkness, made it seem as if the -gathering waters would encompass them. I have reason to remember this, and -think of it with awe; for before I looked upon those two again, a stormy sea -had risen to their feet. -</p> - -<p> -Reflecting on what had been thus told me, I felt it right that it should be -communicated to Mr. Peggotty. On the following evening I went into London in -quest of him. He was always wandering about from place to place, with his one -object of recovering his niece before him; but was more in London than -elsewhere. Often and often, now, had I seen him in the dead of night passing -along the streets, searching, among the few who loitered out of doors at those -untimely hours, for what he dreaded to find. -</p> - -<p> -He kept a lodging over the little chandler’s shop in Hungerford Market, -which I have had occasion to mention more than once, and from which he first -went forth upon his errand of mercy. Hither I directed my walk. On making -inquiry for him, I learned from the people of the house that he had not gone -out yet, and I should find him in his room upstairs. -</p> - -<p> -He was sitting reading by a window in which he kept a few plants. The room was -very neat and orderly. I saw in a moment that it was always kept prepared for -her reception, and that he never went out but he thought it possible he might -bring her home. He had not heard my tap at the door, and only raised his eyes -when I laid my hand upon his shoulder. -</p> - -<p> -‘Mas’r Davy! Thankee, sir! thankee hearty, for this visit! Sit ye -down. You’re kindly welcome, sir!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Mr. Peggotty,’ said I, taking the chair he handed me, -‘don’t expect much! I have heard some news.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Of Em’ly!’ -</p> - -<p> -He put his hand, in a nervous manner, on his mouth, and turned pale, as he -fixed his eyes on mine. -</p> - -<p> -‘It gives no clue to where she is; but she is not with him.’ -</p> - -<p> -He sat down, looking intently at me, and listened in profound silence to all I -had to tell. I well remember the sense of dignity, beauty even, with which the -patient gravity of his face impressed me, when, having gradually removed his -eyes from mine, he sat looking downward, leaning his forehead on his hand. He -offered no interruption, but remained throughout perfectly still. He seemed to -pursue her figure through the narrative, and to let every other shape go by -him, as if it were nothing. -</p> - -<p> -When I had done, he shaded his face, and continued silent. I looked out of the -window for a little while, and occupied myself with the plants. -</p> - -<p> -‘How do you fare to feel about it, Mas’r Davy?’ he inquired -at length. -</p> - -<p> -‘I think that she is living,’ I replied. -</p> - -<p> -‘I doen’t know. Maybe the first shock was too rough, and in the -wildness of her art—! That there blue water as she used to speak on. -Could she have thowt o’ that so many year, because it was to be her -grave!’ -</p> - -<p> -He said this, musing, in a low, frightened voice; and walked across the little -room. -</p> - -<p> -‘And yet,’ he added, ‘Mas’r Davy, I have felt so sure -as she was living—I have know’d, awake and sleeping, as it was so -trew that I should find her—I have been so led on by it, and held up by -it—that I doen’t believe I can have been deceived. No! -Em’ly’s alive!’ -</p> - -<p> -He put his hand down firmly on the table, and set his sunburnt face into a -resolute expression. -</p> - -<p> -‘My niece, Em’ly, is alive, sir!’ he said, steadfastly. -‘I doen’t know wheer it comes from, or how ‘tis, but I am -told as she’s alive!’ -</p> - -<p> -He looked almost like a man inspired, as he said it. I waited for a few -moments, until he could give me his undivided attention; and then proceeded to -explain the precaution, that, it had occurred to me last night, it would be -wise to take. -</p> - -<p> -‘Now, my dear friend—‘I began. -</p> - -<p> -‘Thankee, thankee, kind sir,’ he said, grasping my hand in both of -his. -</p> - -<p> -‘If she should make her way to London, which is likely—for where -could she lose herself so readily as in this vast city; and what would she wish -to do, but lose and hide herself, if she does not go home?—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And she won’t go home,’ he interposed, shaking his head -mournfully. ‘If she had left of her own accord, she might; not as It was, -sir.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘If she should come here,’ said I, ‘I believe there is one -person, here, more likely to discover her than any other in the world. Do you -remember—hear what I say, with fortitude—think of your great -object!—do you remember Martha?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Of our town?’ -</p> - -<p> -I needed no other answer than his face. -</p> - -<p> -‘Do you know that she is in London?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I have seen her in the streets,’ he answered, with a shiver. -</p> - -<p> -‘But you don’t know,’ said I, ‘that Emily was -charitable to her, with Ham’s help, long before she fled from home. Nor, -that, when we met one night, and spoke together in the room yonder, over the -way, she listened at the door.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Mas’r Davy!’ he replied in astonishment. ‘That night -when it snew so hard?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘That night. I have never seen her since. I went back, after parting from -you, to speak to her, but she was gone. I was unwilling to mention her to you -then, and I am now; but she is the person of whom I speak, and with whom I -think we should communicate. Do you understand?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Too well, sir,’ he replied. We had sunk our voices, almost to a -whisper, and continued to speak in that tone. -</p> - -<p> -‘You say you have seen her. Do you think that you could find her? I could -only hope to do so by chance.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I think, Mas’r Davy, I know wheer to look.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘It is dark. Being together, shall we go out now, and try to find her -tonight?’ -</p> - -<p> -He assented, and prepared to accompany me. Without appearing to observe what he -was doing, I saw how carefully he adjusted the little room, put a candle ready -and the means of lighting it, arranged the bed, and finally took out of a -drawer one of her dresses (I remember to have seen her wear it), neatly folded -with some other garments, and a bonnet, which he placed upon a chair. He made -no allusion to these clothes, neither did I. There they had been waiting for -her, many and many a night, no doubt. -</p> - -<p> -‘The time was, Mas’r Davy,’ he said, as we came downstairs, -‘when I thowt this girl, Martha, a’most like the dirt underneath my -Em’ly’s feet. God forgive me, theer’s a difference -now!’ -</p> - -<p> -As we went along, partly to hold him in conversation, and partly to satisfy -myself, I asked him about Ham. He said, almost in the same words as formerly, -that Ham was just the same, ‘wearing away his life with kiender no care -nohow for ‘t; but never murmuring, and liked by all’. -</p> - -<p> -I asked him what he thought Ham’s state of mind was, in reference to the -cause of their misfortunes? Whether he believed it was dangerous? What he -supposed, for example, Ham would do, if he and Steerforth ever should -encounter? -</p> - -<p> -‘I doen’t know, sir,’ he replied. ‘I have thowt of it -oftentimes, but I can’t awize myself of it, no matters.’ -</p> - -<p> -I recalled to his remembrance the morning after her departure, when we were all -three on the beach. ‘Do you recollect,’ said I, ‘a certain -wild way in which he looked out to sea, and spoke about “the end of -it”?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Sure I do!’ said he. -</p> - -<p> -‘What do you suppose he meant?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Mas’r Davy,’ he replied, ‘I’ve put the question -to myself a mort o’ times, and never found no answer. And theer’s -one curious thing—that, though he is so pleasant, I wouldn’t fare -to feel comfortable to try and get his mind upon ‘t. He never said a -wured to me as warn’t as dootiful as dootiful could be, and it -ain’t likely as he’d begin to speak any other ways now; but -it’s fur from being fleet water in his mind, where them thowts lays. -It’s deep, sir, and I can’t see down.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You are right,’ said I, ‘and that has sometimes made me -anxious.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And me too, Mas’r Davy,’ he rejoined. ‘Even more so, I -do assure you, than his ventersome ways, though both belongs to the alteration -in him. I doen’t know as he’d do violence under any circumstances, -but I hope as them two may be kep asunders.’ -</p> - -<p> -We had come, through Temple Bar, into the city. Conversing no more now, and -walking at my side, he yielded himself up to the one aim of his devoted life, -and went on, with that hushed concentration of his faculties which would have -made his figure solitary in a multitude. We were not far from Blackfriars -Bridge, when he turned his head and pointed to a solitary female figure -flitting along the opposite side of the street. I knew it, readily, to be the -figure that we sought. -</p> - -<p> -We crossed the road, and were pressing on towards her, when it occurred to me -that she might be more disposed to feel a woman’s interest in the lost -girl, if we spoke to her in a quieter place, aloof from the crowd, and where we -should be less observed. I advised my companion, therefore, that we should not -address her yet, but follow her; consulting in this, likewise, an indistinct -desire I had, to know where she went. -</p> - -<p> -He acquiescing, we followed at a distance: never losing sight of her, but never -caring to come very near, as she frequently looked about. Once, she stopped to -listen to a band of music; and then we stopped too. -</p> - -<p> -She went on a long way. Still we went on. It was evident, from the manner in -which she held her course, that she was going to some fixed destination; and -this, and her keeping in the busy streets, and I suppose the strange -fascination in the secrecy and mystery of so following anyone, made me adhere -to my first purpose. At length she turned into a dull, dark street, where the -noise and crowd were lost; and I said, ‘We may speak to her now’; -and, mending our pace, we went after her. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0047"></a>CHAPTER 47. MARTHA</h2> - -<p> -We were now down in Westminster. We had turned back to follow her, having -encountered her coming towards us; and Westminster Abbey was the point at which -she passed from the lights and noise of the leading streets. She proceeded so -quickly, when she got free of the two currents of passengers setting towards -and from the bridge, that, between this and the advance she had of us when she -struck off, we were in the narrow water-side street by Millbank before we came -up with her. At that moment she crossed the road, as if to avoid the footsteps -that she heard so close behind; and, without looking back, passed on even more -rapidly. -</p> - -<p> -A glimpse of the river through a dull gateway, where some waggons were housed -for the night, seemed to arrest my feet. I touched my companion without -speaking, and we both forbore to cross after her, and both followed on that -opposite side of the way; keeping as quietly as we could in the shadow of the -houses, but keeping very near her. -</p> - -<p> -There was, and is when I write, at the end of that low-lying street, a -dilapidated little wooden building, probably an obsolete old ferry-house. Its -position is just at that point where the street ceases, and the road begins to -lie between a row of houses and the river. As soon as she came here, and saw -the water, she stopped as if she had come to her destination; and presently -went slowly along by the brink of the river, looking intently at it. -</p> - -<p> -All the way here, I had supposed that she was going to some house; indeed, I -had vaguely entertained the hope that the house might be in some way associated -with the lost girl. But that one dark glimpse of the river, through the -gateway, had instinctively prepared me for her going no farther. -</p> - -<p> -The neighbourhood was a dreary one at that time; as oppressive, sad, and -solitary by night, as any about London. There were neither wharves nor houses -on the melancholy waste of road near the great blank Prison. A sluggish ditch -deposited its mud at the prison walls. Coarse grass and rank weeds straggled -over all the marshy land in the vicinity. In one part, carcases of houses, -inauspiciously begun and never finished, rotted away. In another, the ground -was cumbered with rusty iron monsters of steam-boilers, wheels, cranks, pipes, -furnaces, paddles, anchors, diving-bells, windmill-sails, and I know not what -strange objects, accumulated by some speculator, and grovelling in the dust, -underneath which—having sunk into the soil of their own weight in wet -weather—they had the appearance of vainly trying to hide themselves. The -clash and glare of sundry fiery Works upon the river-side, arose by night to -disturb everything except the heavy and unbroken smoke that poured out of their -chimneys. Slimy gaps and causeways, winding among old wooden piles, with a -sickly substance clinging to the latter, like green hair, and the rags of last -year’s handbills offering rewards for drowned men fluttering above -high-water mark, led down through the ooze and slush to the ebb-tide. There was -a story that one of the pits dug for the dead in the time of the Great Plague -was hereabout; and a blighting influence seemed to have proceeded from it over -the whole place. Or else it looked as if it had gradually decomposed into that -nightmare condition, out of the overflowings of the polluted stream. -</p> - -<p> -As if she were a part of the refuse it had cast out, and left to corruption and -decay, the girl we had followed strayed down to the river’s brink, and -stood in the midst of this night-picture, lonely and still, looking at the -water. -</p> - -<p> -There were some boats and barges astrand in the mud, and these enabled us to -come within a few yards of her without being seen. I then signed to Mr. -Peggotty to remain where he was, and emerged from their shade to speak to her. -I did not approach her solitary figure without trembling; for this gloomy end -to her determined walk, and the way in which she stood, almost within the -cavernous shadow of the iron bridge, looking at the lights crookedly reflected -in the strong tide, inspired a dread within me. -</p> - -<p> -I think she was talking to herself. I am sure, although absorbed in gazing at -the water, that her shawl was off her shoulders, and that she was muffling her -hands in it, in an unsettled and bewildered way, more like the action of a -sleep-walker than a waking person. I know, and never can forget, that there was -that in her wild manner which gave me no assurance but that she would sink -before my eyes, until I had her arm within my grasp. -</p> - -<p> -At the same moment I said ‘Martha!’ -</p> - -<p> -She uttered a terrified scream, and struggled with me with such strength that I -doubt if I could have held her alone. But a stronger hand than mine was laid -upon her; and when she raised her frightened eyes and saw whose it was, she -made but one more effort and dropped down between us. We carried her away from -the water to where there were some dry stones, and there laid her down, crying -and moaning. In a little while she sat among the stones, holding her wretched -head with both her hands. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, the river!’ she cried passionately. ‘Oh, the -river!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Hush, hush!’ said I. ‘Calm yourself.’ -</p> - -<p> -But she still repeated the same words, continually exclaiming, ‘Oh, the -river!’ over and over again. -</p> - -<p> -‘I know it’s like me!’ she exclaimed. ‘I know that I -belong to it. I know that it’s the natural company of such as I am! It -comes from country places, where there was once no harm in it—and it -creeps through the dismal streets, defiled and miserable—and it goes -away, like my life, to a great sea, that is always troubled—and I feel -that I must go with it!’ I have never known what despair was, except in -the tone of those words. -</p> - -<p> -‘I can’t keep away from it. I can’t forget it. It haunts me -day and night. It’s the only thing in all the world that I am fit for, or -that’s fit for me. Oh, the dreadful river!’ -</p> - -<p> -The thought passed through my mind that in the face of my companion, as he -looked upon her without speech or motion, I might have read his niece’s -history, if I had known nothing of it. I never saw, in any painting or reality, -horror and compassion so impressively blended. He shook as if he would have -fallen; and his hand—I touched it with my own, for his appearance alarmed -me—was deadly cold. -</p> - -<p> -‘She is in a state of frenzy,’ I whispered to him. ‘She will -speak differently in a little time.’ -</p> - -<p> -I don’t know what he would have said in answer. He made some motion with -his mouth, and seemed to think he had spoken; but he had only pointed to her -with his outstretched hand. -</p> - -<p> -A new burst of crying came upon her now, in which she once more hid her face -among the stones, and lay before us, a prostrate image of humiliation and ruin. -Knowing that this state must pass, before we could speak to her with any hope, -I ventured to restrain him when he would have raised her, and we stood by in -silence until she became more tranquil. -</p> - -<p> -‘Martha,’ said I then, leaning down, and helping her to -rise—she seemed to want to rise as if with the intention of going away, -but she was weak, and leaned against a boat. ‘Do you know who this is, -who is with me?’ -</p> - -<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> -<img src="images/20284.jpg" alt="20284" width="100%" /> -</div> - -<h5> -<a href="images/20284.jpg"> -<img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /></a> -</h5> - -<p> -She said faintly, ‘Yes.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Do you know that we have followed you a long way tonight?’ -</p> - -<p> -She shook her head. She looked neither at him nor at me, but stood in a humble -attitude, holding her bonnet and shawl in one hand, without appearing conscious -of them, and pressing the other, clenched, against her forehead. -</p> - -<p> -‘Are you composed enough,’ said I, ‘to speak on the subject -which so interested you—I hope Heaven may remember it!—that snowy -night?’ -</p> - -<p> -Her sobs broke out afresh, and she murmured some inarticulate thanks to me for -not having driven her away from the door. -</p> - -<p> -‘I want to say nothing for myself,’ she said, after a few moments. -‘I am bad, I am lost. I have no hope at all. But tell him, sir,’ -she had shrunk away from him, ‘if you don’t feel too hard to me to -do it, that I never was in any way the cause of his misfortune.’ -‘It has never been attributed to you,’ I returned, earnestly -responding to her earnestness. -</p> - -<p> -‘It was you, if I don’t deceive myself,’ she said, in a -broken voice, ‘that came into the kitchen, the night she took such pity -on me; was so gentle to me; didn’t shrink away from me like all the rest, -and gave me such kind help! Was it you, sir?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘It was,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘I should have been in the river long ago,’ she said, glancing at -it with a terrible expression, ‘if any wrong to her had been upon my -mind. I never could have kept out of it a single winter’s night, if I had -not been free of any share in that!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘The cause of her flight is too well understood,’ I said. -‘You are innocent of any part in it, we thoroughly believe,—we -know.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, I might have been much the better for her, if I had had a better -heart!’ exclaimed the girl, with most forlorn regret; ‘for she was -always good to me! She never spoke a word to me but what was pleasant and -right. Is it likely I would try to make her what I am myself, knowing what I am -myself, so well? When I lost everything that makes life dear, the worst of all -my thoughts was that I was parted for ever from her!’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Peggotty, standing with one hand on the gunwale of the boat, and his eyes -cast down, put his disengaged hand before his face. -</p> - -<p> -‘And when I heard what had happened before that snowy night, from some -belonging to our town,’ cried Martha, ‘the bitterest thought in all -my mind was, that the people would remember she once kept company with me, and -would say I had corrupted her! When, Heaven knows, I would have died to have -brought back her good name!’ -</p> - -<p> -Long unused to any self-control, the piercing agony of her remorse and grief -was terrible. -</p> - -<p> -‘To have died, would not have been much—what can I say?—-I -would have lived!’ she cried. ‘I would have lived to be old, in the -wretched streets—and to wander about, avoided, in the dark—and to -see the day break on the ghastly line of houses, and remember how the same sun -used to shine into my room, and wake me once—I would have done even that, -to save her!’ -</p> - -<p> -Sinking on the stones, she took some in each hand, and clenched them up, as if -she would have ground them. She writhed into some new posture constantly: -stiffening her arms, twisting them before her face, as though to shut out from -her eyes the little light there was, and drooping her head, as if it were heavy -with insupportable recollections. -</p> - -<p> -‘What shall I ever do!’ she said, fighting thus with her despair. -‘How can I go on as I am, a solitary curse to myself, a living disgrace -to everyone I come near!’ Suddenly she turned to my companion. -‘Stamp upon me, kill me! When she was your pride, you would have thought -I had done her harm if I had brushed against her in the street. You can’t -believe—why should you?—-a syllable that comes out of my lips. It -would be a burning shame upon you, even now, if she and I exchanged a word. I -don’t complain. I don’t say she and I are alike—I know there -is a long, long way between us. I only say, with all my guilt and wretchedness -upon my head, that I am grateful to her from my soul, and love her. Oh, -don’t think that all the power I had of loving anything is quite worn -out! Throw me away, as all the world does. Kill me for being what I am, and -having ever known her; but don’t think that of me!’ -</p> - -<p> -He looked upon her, while she made this supplication, in a wild distracted -manner; and, when she was silent, gently raised her. -</p> - -<p> -‘Martha,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘God forbid as I should judge -you. Forbid as I, of all men, should do that, my girl! You doen’t know -half the change that’s come, in course of time, upon me, when you think -it likely. Well!’ he paused a moment, then went on. ‘You -doen’t understand how ‘tis that this here gentleman and me has -wished to speak to you. You doen’t understand what ‘tis we has -afore us. Listen now!’ -</p> - -<p> -His influence upon her was complete. She stood, shrinkingly, before him, as if -she were afraid to meet his eyes; but her passionate sorrow was quite hushed -and mute. -</p> - -<p> -‘If you heerd,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘owt of what passed -between Mas’r Davy and me, th’ night when it snew so hard, you know -as I have been—wheer not—fur to seek my dear niece. My dear -niece,’ he repeated steadily. ‘Fur she’s more dear to me now, -Martha, than she was dear afore.’ -</p> - -<p> -She put her hands before her face; but otherwise remained quiet. -</p> - -<p> -‘I have heerd her tell,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘as you was early -left fatherless and motherless, with no friend fur to take, in a rough -seafaring-way, their place. Maybe you can guess that if you’d had such a -friend, you’d have got into a way of being fond of him in course of time, -and that my niece was kiender daughter-like to me.’ -</p> - -<p> -As she was silently trembling, he put her shawl carefully about her, taking it -up from the ground for that purpose. -</p> - -<p> -‘Whereby,’ said he, ‘I know, both as she would go to the -wureld’s furdest end with me, if she could once see me again; and that -she would fly to the wureld’s furdest end to keep off seeing me. For -though she ain’t no call to doubt my love, and doen’t—and -doen’t,’ he repeated, with a quiet assurance of the truth of what -he said, ‘there’s shame steps in, and keeps betwixt us.’ -</p> - -<p> -I read, in every word of his plain impressive way of delivering himself, new -evidence of his having thought of this one topic, in every feature it -presented. -</p> - -<p> -‘According to our reckoning,’ he proceeded, ‘Mas’r -Davy’s here, and mine, she is like, one day, to make her own poor -solitary course to London. We believe—Mas’r Davy, me, and all of -us—that you are as innocent of everything that has befell her, as the -unborn child. You’ve spoke of her being pleasant, kind, and gentle to -you. Bless her, I knew she was! I knew she always was, to all. You’re -thankful to her, and you love her. Help us all you can to find her, and may -Heaven reward you!’ -</p> - -<p> -She looked at him hastily, and for the first time, as if she were doubtful of -what he had said. -</p> - -<p> -‘Will you trust me?’ she asked, in a low voice of astonishment. -</p> - -<p> -‘Full and free!’ said Mr. Peggotty. -</p> - -<p> -‘To speak to her, if I should ever find her; shelter her, if I have any -shelter to divide with her; and then, without her knowledge, come to you, and -bring you to her?’ she asked hurriedly. -</p> - -<p> -We both replied together, ‘Yes!’ -</p> - -<p> -She lifted up her eyes, and solemnly declared that she would devote herself to -this task, fervently and faithfully. That she would never waver in it, never be -diverted from it, never relinquish it, while there was any chance of hope. If -she were not true to it, might the object she now had in life, which bound her -to something devoid of evil, in its passing away from her, leave her more -forlorn and more despairing, if that were possible, than she had been upon the -river’s brink that night; and then might all help, human and Divine, -renounce her evermore! -</p> - -<p> -She did not raise her voice above her breath, or address us, but said this to -the night sky; then stood profoundly quiet, looking at the gloomy water. -</p> - -<p> -We judged it expedient, now, to tell her all we knew; which I recounted at -length. She listened with great attention, and with a face that often changed, -but had the same purpose in all its varying expressions. Her eyes occasionally -filled with tears, but those she repressed. It seemed as if her spirit were -quite altered, and she could not be too quiet. -</p> - -<p> -She asked, when all was told, where we were to be communicated with, if -occasion should arise. Under a dull lamp in the road, I wrote our two addresses -on a leaf of my pocket-book, which I tore out and gave to her, and which she -put in her poor bosom. I asked her where she lived herself. She said, after a -pause, in no place long. It were better not to know. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Peggotty suggesting to me, in a whisper, what had already occurred to -myself, I took out my purse; but I could not prevail upon her to accept any -money, nor could I exact any promise from her that she would do so at another -time. I represented to her that Mr. Peggotty could not be called, for one in -his condition, poor; and that the idea of her engaging in this search, while -depending on her own resources, shocked us both. She continued steadfast. In -this particular, his influence upon her was equally powerless with mine. She -gratefully thanked him but remained inexorable. -</p> - -<p> -‘There may be work to be got,’ she said. ‘I’ll -try.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘At least take some assistance,’ I returned, ‘until you have -tried.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I could not do what I have promised, for money,’ she replied. -‘I could not take it, if I was starving. To give me money would be to -take away your trust, to take away the object that you have given me, to take -away the only certain thing that saves me from the river.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘In the name of the great judge,’ said I, ‘before whom you -and all of us must stand at His dread time, dismiss that terrible idea! We can -all do some good, if we will.’ -</p> - -<p> -She trembled, and her lip shook, and her face was paler, as she answered: -</p> - -<p> -‘It has been put into your hearts, perhaps, to save a wretched creature -for repentance. I am afraid to think so; it seems too bold. If any good should -come of me, I might begin to hope; for nothing but harm has ever come of my -deeds yet. I am to be trusted, for the first time in a long while, with my -miserable life, on account of what you have given me to try for. I know no -more, and I can say no more.’ -</p> - -<p> -Again she repressed the tears that had begun to flow; and, putting out her -trembling hand, and touching Mr. Peggotty, as if there was some healing virtue -in him, went away along the desolate road. She had been ill, probably for a -long time. I observed, upon that closer opportunity of observation, that she -was worn and haggard, and that her sunken eyes expressed privation and -endurance. -</p> - -<p> -We followed her at a short distance, our way lying in the same direction, until -we came back into the lighted and populous streets. I had such implicit -confidence in her declaration, that I then put it to Mr. Peggotty, whether it -would not seem, in the onset, like distrusting her, to follow her any farther. -He being of the same mind, and equally reliant on her, we suffered her to take -her own road, and took ours, which was towards Highgate. He accompanied me a -good part of the way; and when we parted, with a prayer for the success of this -fresh effort, there was a new and thoughtful compassion in him that I was at no -loss to interpret. -</p> - -<p> -It was midnight when I arrived at home. I had reached my own gate, and was -standing listening for the deep bell of St. Paul’s, the sound of which I -thought had been borne towards me among the multitude of striking clocks, when -I was rather surprised to see that the door of my aunt’s cottage was -open, and that a faint light in the entry was shining out across the road. -</p> - -<p> -Thinking that my aunt might have relapsed into one of her old alarms, and might -be watching the progress of some imaginary conflagration in the distance, I -went to speak to her. It was with very great surprise that I saw a man standing -in her little garden. -</p> - -<p> -He had a glass and bottle in his hand, and was in the act of drinking. I -stopped short, among the thick foliage outside, for the moon was up now, though -obscured; and I recognized the man whom I had once supposed to be a delusion of -Mr. Dick’s, and had once encountered with my aunt in the streets of the -city. -</p> - -<p> -He was eating as well as drinking, and seemed to eat with a hungry appetite. He -seemed curious regarding the cottage, too, as if it were the first time he had -seen it. After stooping to put the bottle on the ground, he looked up at the -windows, and looked about; though with a covert and impatient air, as if he was -anxious to be gone. -</p> - -<p> -The light in the passage was obscured for a moment, and my aunt came out. She -was agitated, and told some money into his hand. I heard it chink. -</p> - -<p> -‘What’s the use of this?’ he demanded. -</p> - -<p> -‘I can spare no more,’ returned my aunt. -</p> - -<p> -‘Then I can’t go,’ said he. ‘Here! You may take it -back!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You bad man,’ returned my aunt, with great emotion; ‘how can -you use me so? But why do I ask? It is because you know how weak I am! What -have I to do, to free myself for ever of your visits, but to abandon you to -your deserts?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And why don’t you abandon me to my deserts?’ said he. -</p> - -<p> -‘You ask me why!’ returned my aunt. ‘What a heart you must -have!’ -</p> - -<p> -He stood moodily rattling the money, and shaking his head, until at length he -said: -</p> - -<p> -‘Is this all you mean to give me, then?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘It is all I CAN give you,’ said my aunt. ‘You know I have -had losses, and am poorer than I used to be. I have told you so. Having got it, -why do you give me the pain of looking at you for another moment, and seeing -what you have become?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I have become shabby enough, if you mean that,’ he said. ‘I -lead the life of an owl.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You stripped me of the greater part of all I ever had,’ said my -aunt. ‘You closed my heart against the whole world, years and years. You -treated me falsely, ungratefully, and cruelly. Go, and repent of it. -Don’t add new injuries to the long, long list of injuries you have done -me!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Aye!’ he returned. ‘It’s all very fine—Well! I -must do the best I can, for the present, I suppose.’ -</p> - -<p> -In spite of himself, he appeared abashed by my aunt’s indignant tears, -and came slouching out of the garden. Taking two or three quick steps, as if I -had just come up, I met him at the gate, and went in as he came out. We eyed -one another narrowly in passing, and with no favour. -</p> - -<p> -‘Aunt,’ said I, hurriedly. ‘This man alarming you again! Let -me speak to him. Who is he?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Child,’ returned my aunt, taking my arm, ‘come in, and -don’t speak to me for ten minutes.’ -</p> - -<p> -We sat down in her little parlour. My aunt retired behind the round green fan -of former days, which was screwed on the back of a chair, and occasionally -wiped her eyes, for about a quarter of an hour. Then she came out, and took a -seat beside me. -</p> - -<p> -‘Trot,’ said my aunt, calmly, ‘it’s my husband.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Your husband, aunt? I thought he had been dead!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Dead to me,’ returned my aunt, ‘but living.’ -</p> - -<p> -I sat in silent amazement. -</p> - -<p> -‘Betsey Trotwood don’t look a likely subject for the tender -passion,’ said my aunt, composedly, ‘but the time was, Trot, when -she believed in that man most entirely. When she loved him, Trot, right well. -When there was no proof of attachment and affection that she would not have -given him. He repaid her by breaking her fortune, and nearly breaking her -heart. So she put all that sort of sentiment, once and for ever, in a grave, -and filled it up, and flattened it down.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear, good aunt!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I left him,’ my aunt proceeded, laying her hand as usual on the -back of mine, ‘generously. I may say at this distance of time, Trot, that -I left him generously. He had been so cruel to me, that I might have effected a -separation on easy terms for myself; but I did not. He soon made ducks and -drakes of what I gave him, sank lower and lower, married another woman, I -believe, became an adventurer, a gambler, and a cheat. What he is now, you see. -But he was a fine-looking man when I married him,’ said my aunt, with an -echo of her old pride and admiration in her tone; ‘and I believed -him—I was a fool!—to be the soul of honour!’ -</p> - -<p> -She gave my hand a squeeze, and shook her head. -</p> - -<p> -‘He is nothing to me now, Trot—less than nothing. But, sooner than -have him punished for his offences (as he would be if he prowled about in this -country), I give him more money than I can afford, at intervals when he -reappears, to go away. I was a fool when I married him; and I am so far an -incurable fool on that subject, that, for the sake of what I once believed him -to be, I wouldn’t have even this shadow of my idle fancy hardly dealt -with. For I was in earnest, Trot, if ever a woman was.’ -</p> - -<p> -My aunt dismissed the matter with a heavy sigh, and smoothed her dress. -</p> - -<p> -‘There, my dear!’ she said. ‘Now you know the beginning, -middle, and end, and all about it. We won’t mention the subject to one -another any more; neither, of course, will you mention it to anybody else. This -is my grumpy, frumpy story, and we’ll keep it to ourselves, Trot!’ -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0048"></a>CHAPTER 48. DOMESTIC</h2> - -<p> -I laboured hard at my book, without allowing it to interfere with the punctual -discharge of my newspaper duties; and it came out and was very successful. I -was not stunned by the praise which sounded in my ears, notwithstanding that I -was keenly alive to it, and thought better of my own performance, I have little -doubt, than anybody else did. It has always been in my observation of human -nature, that a man who has any good reason to believe in himself never -flourishes himself before the faces of other people in order that they may -believe in him. For this reason, I retained my modesty in very self-respect; -and the more praise I got, the more I tried to deserve. -</p> - -<p> -It is not my purpose, in this record, though in all other essentials it is my -written memory, to pursue the history of my own fictions. They express -themselves, and I leave them to themselves. When I refer to them, incidentally, -it is only as a part of my progress. -</p> - -<p> -Having some foundation for believing, by this time, that nature and accident -had made me an author, I pursued my vocation with confidence. Without such -assurance I should certainly have left it alone, and bestowed my energy on some -other endeavour. I should have tried to find out what nature and accident -really had made me, and to be that, and nothing else. I had been writing, in -the newspaper and elsewhere, so prosperously, that when my new success was -achieved, I considered myself reasonably entitled to escape from the dreary -debates. One joyful night, therefore, I noted down the music of the -parliamentary bagpipes for the last time, and I have never heard it since; -though I still recognize the old drone in the newspapers, without any -substantial variation (except, perhaps, that there is more of it), all the -livelong session. -</p> - -<p> -I now write of the time when I had been married, I suppose, about a year and a -half. After several varieties of experiment, we had given up the housekeeping -as a bad job. The house kept itself, and we kept a page. The principal function -of this retainer was to quarrel with the cook; in which respect he was a -perfect Whittington, without his cat, or the remotest chance of being made Lord -Mayor. -</p> - -<p> -He appears to me to have lived in a hail of saucepan-lids. His whole existence -was a scuffle. He would shriek for help on the most improper -occasions,—as when we had a little dinner-party, or a few friends in the -evening,—and would come tumbling out of the kitchen, with iron missiles -flying after him. We wanted to get rid of him, but he was very much attached to -us, and wouldn’t go. He was a tearful boy, and broke into such deplorable -lamentations, when a cessation of our connexion was hinted at, that we were -obliged to keep him. He had no mother—no anything in the way of a -relative, that I could discover, except a sister, who fled to America the -moment we had taken him off her hands; and he became quartered on us like a -horrible young changeling. He had a lively perception of his own unfortunate -state, and was always rubbing his eyes with the sleeve of his jacket, or -stooping to blow his nose on the extreme corner of a little -pocket-handkerchief, which he never would take completely out of his pocket, -but always economized and secreted. -</p> - -<p> -This unlucky page, engaged in an evil hour at six pounds ten per annum, was a -source of continual trouble to me. I watched him as he grew—and he grew -like scarlet beans—with painful apprehensions of the time when he would -begin to shave; even of the days when he would be bald or grey. I saw no -prospect of ever getting rid of him; and, projecting myself into the future, -used to think what an inconvenience he would be when he was an old man. -</p> - -<p> -I never expected anything less, than this unfortunate’s manner of getting -me out of my difficulty. He stole Dora’s watch, which, like everything -else belonging to us, had no particular place of its own; and, converting it -into money, spent the produce (he was always a weak-minded boy) in incessantly -riding up and down between London and Uxbridge outside the coach. He was taken -to Bow Street, as well as I remember, on the completion of his fifteenth -journey; when four-and-sixpence, and a second-hand fife which he couldn’t -play, were found upon his person. -</p> - -<p> -The surprise and its consequences would have been much less disagreeable to me -if he had not been penitent. But he was very penitent indeed, and in a peculiar -way—not in the lump, but by instalments. For example: the day after that -on which I was obliged to appear against him, he made certain revelations -touching a hamper in the cellar, which we believed to be full of wine, but -which had nothing in it except bottles and corks. We supposed he had now eased -his mind, and told the worst he knew of the cook; but, a day or two afterwards, -his conscience sustained a new twinge, and he disclosed how she had a little -girl, who, early every morning, took away our bread; and also how he himself -had been suborned to maintain the milkman in coals. In two or three days more, -I was informed by the authorities of his having led to the discovery of -sirloins of beef among the kitchen-stuff, and sheets in the rag-bag. A little -while afterwards, he broke out in an entirely new direction, and confessed to a -knowledge of burglarious intentions as to our premises, on the part of the -pot-boy, who was immediately taken up. I got to be so ashamed of being such a -victim, that I would have given him any money to hold his tongue, or would have -offered a round bribe for his being permitted to run away. It was an -aggravating circumstance in the case that he had no idea of this, but conceived -that he was making me amends in every new discovery: not to say, heaping -obligations on my head. -</p> - -<p> -At last I ran away myself, whenever I saw an emissary of the police approaching -with some new intelligence; and lived a stealthy life until he was tried and -ordered to be transported. Even then he couldn’t be quiet, but was always -writing us letters; and wanted so much to see Dora before he went away, that -Dora went to visit him, and fainted when she found herself inside the iron -bars. In short, I had no peace of my life until he was expatriated, and made -(as I afterwards heard) a shepherd of, ‘up the country’ somewhere; -I have no geographical idea where. -</p> - -<p> -All this led me into some serious reflections, and presented our mistakes in a -new aspect; as I could not help communicating to Dora one evening, in spite of -my tenderness for her. -</p> - -<p> -‘My love,’ said I, ‘it is very painful to me to think that -our want of system and management, involves not only ourselves (which we have -got used to), but other people.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You have been silent for a long time, and now you are going to be -cross!’ said Dora. -</p> - -<p> -‘No, my dear, indeed! Let me explain to you what I mean.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I think I don’t want to know,’ said Dora. -</p> - -<p> -‘But I want you to know, my love. Put Jip down.’ -</p> - -<p> -Dora put his nose to mine, and said ‘Boh!’ to drive my seriousness -away; but, not succeeding, ordered him into his Pagoda, and sat looking at me, -with her hands folded, and a most resigned little expression of countenance. -</p> - -<p> -‘The fact is, my dear,’ I began, ‘there is contagion in us. -We infect everyone about us.’ -</p> - -<p> -I might have gone on in this figurative manner, if Dora’s face had not -admonished me that she was wondering with all her might whether I was going to -propose any new kind of vaccination, or other medical remedy, for this -unwholesome state of ours. Therefore I checked myself, and made my meaning -plainer. -</p> - -<p> -‘It is not merely, my pet,’ said I, ‘that we lose money and -comfort, and even temper sometimes, by not learning to be more careful; but -that we incur the serious responsibility of spoiling everyone who comes into -our service, or has any dealings with us. I begin to be afraid that the fault -is not entirely on one side, but that these people all turn out ill because we -don’t turn out very well ourselves.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, what an accusation,’ exclaimed Dora, opening her eyes wide; -‘to say that you ever saw me take gold watches! Oh!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘My dearest,’ I remonstrated, ‘don’t talk preposterous -nonsense! Who has made the least allusion to gold watches?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You did,’ returned Dora. ‘You know you did. You said I -hadn’t turned out well, and compared me to him.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘To whom?’ I asked. -</p> - -<p> -‘To the page,’ sobbed Dora. ‘Oh, you cruel fellow, to compare -your affectionate wife to a transported page! Why didn’t you tell me your -opinion of me before we were married? Why didn’t you say, you -hard-hearted thing, that you were convinced I was worse than a transported -page? Oh, what a dreadful opinion to have of me! Oh, my goodness!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Now, Dora, my love,’ I returned, gently trying to remove the -handkerchief she pressed to her eyes, ‘this is not only very ridiculous -of you, but very wrong. In the first place, it’s not true.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You always said he was a story-teller,’ sobbed Dora. ‘And -now you say the same of me! Oh, what shall I do! What shall I do!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘My darling girl,’ I retorted, ‘I really must entreat you to -be reasonable, and listen to what I did say, and do say. My dear Dora, unless -we learn to do our duty to those whom we employ, they will never learn to do -their duty to us. I am afraid we present opportunities to people to do wrong, -that never ought to be presented. Even if we were as lax as we are, in all our -arrangements, by choice—which we are not—even if we liked it, and -found it agreeable to be so—which we don’t—I am persuaded we -should have no right to go on in this way. We are positively corrupting people. -We are bound to think of that. I can’t help thinking of it, Dora. It is a -reflection I am unable to dismiss, and it sometimes makes me very uneasy. -There, dear, that’s all. Come now. Don’t be foolish!’ -</p> - -<p> -Dora would not allow me, for a long time, to remove the handkerchief. She sat -sobbing and murmuring behind it, that, if I was uneasy, why had I ever been -married? Why hadn’t I said, even the day before we went to church, that I -knew I should be uneasy, and I would rather not? If I couldn’t bear her, -why didn’t I send her away to her aunts at Putney, or to Julia Mills in -India? Julia would be glad to see her, and would not call her a transported -page; Julia never had called her anything of the sort. In short, Dora was so -afflicted, and so afflicted me by being in that condition, that I felt it was -of no use repeating this kind of effort, though never so mildly, and I must -take some other course. -</p> - -<p> -What other course was left to take? To ‘form her mind’? This was a -common phrase of words which had a fair and promising sound, and I resolved to -form Dora’s mind. -</p> - -<p> -I began immediately. When Dora was very childish, and I would have infinitely -preferred to humour her, I tried to be grave—and disconcerted her, and -myself too. I talked to her on the subjects which occupied my thoughts; and I -read Shakespeare to her—and fatigued her to the last degree. I accustomed -myself to giving her, as it were quite casually, little scraps of useful -information, or sound opinion—and she started from them when I let them -off, as if they had been crackers. No matter how incidentally or naturally I -endeavoured to form my little wife’s mind, I could not help seeing that -she always had an instinctive perception of what I was about, and became a prey -to the keenest apprehensions. In particular, it was clear to me, that she -thought Shakespeare a terrible fellow. The formation went on very slowly. -</p> - -<p> -I pressed Traddles into the service without his knowledge; and whenever he came -to see us, exploded my mines upon him for the edification of Dora at second -hand. The amount of practical wisdom I bestowed upon Traddles in this manner -was immense, and of the best quality; but it had no other effect upon Dora than -to depress her spirits, and make her always nervous with the dread that it -would be her turn next. I found myself in the condition of a schoolmaster, a -trap, a pitfall; of always playing spider to Dora’s fly, and always -pouncing out of my hole to her infinite disturbance. -</p> - -<p> -Still, looking forward through this intermediate stage, to the time when there -should be a perfect sympathy between Dora and me, and when I should have -‘formed her mind’ to my entire satisfaction, I persevered, even for -months. Finding at last, however, that, although I had been all this time a -very porcupine or hedgehog, bristling all over with determination, I had -effected nothing, it began to occur to me that perhaps Dora’s mind was -already formed. -</p> - -<p> -On further consideration this appeared so likely, that I abandoned my scheme, -which had had a more promising appearance in words than in action; resolving -henceforth to be satisfied with my child-wife, and to try to change her into -nothing else by any process. I was heartily tired of being sagacious and -prudent by myself, and of seeing my darling under restraint; so I bought a -pretty pair of ear-rings for her, and a collar for Jip, and went home one day -to make myself agreeable. -</p> - -<p> -Dora was delighted with the little presents, and kissed me joyfully; but there -was a shadow between us, however slight, and I had made up my mind that it -should not be there. If there must be such a shadow anywhere, I would keep it -for the future in my own breast. -</p> - -<p> -I sat down by my wife on the sofa, and put the ear-rings in her ears; and then -I told her that I feared we had not been quite as good company lately, as we -used to be, and that the fault was mine. Which I sincerely felt, and which -indeed it was. -</p> - -<p> -‘The truth is, Dora, my life,’ I said; ‘I have been trying to -be wise.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And to make me wise too,’ said Dora, timidly. ‘Haven’t -you, Doady?’ -</p> - -<p> -I nodded assent to the pretty inquiry of the raised eyebrows, and kissed the -parted lips. -</p> - -<p> -‘It’s of not a bit of use,’ said Dora, shaking her head, -until the ear-rings rang again. ‘You know what a little thing I am, and -what I wanted you to call me from the first. If you can’t do so, I am -afraid you’ll never like me. Are you sure you don’t think, -sometimes, it would have been better to have—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Done what, my dear?’ For she made no effort to proceed. -</p> - -<p> -‘Nothing!’ said Dora. -</p> - -<p> -‘Nothing?’ I repeated. -</p> - -<p> -She put her arms round my neck, and laughed, and called herself by her -favourite name of a goose, and hid her face on my shoulder in such a profusion -of curls that it was quite a task to clear them away and see it. -</p> - -<p> -‘Don’t I think it would have been better to have done nothing, than -to have tried to form my little wife’s mind?’ said I, laughing at -myself. ‘Is that the question? Yes, indeed, I do.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Is that what you have been trying?’ cried Dora. ‘Oh what a -shocking boy!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘But I shall never try any more,’ said I. ‘For I love her -dearly as she is.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Without a story—really?’ inquired Dora, creeping closer to -me. -</p> - -<p> -‘Why should I seek to change,’ said I, ‘what has been so -precious to me for so long! You never can show better than as your own natural -self, my sweet Dora; and we’ll try no conceited experiments, but go back -to our old way, and be happy.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And be happy!’ returned Dora. ‘Yes! All day! And you -won’t mind things going a tiny morsel wrong, sometimes?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No, no,’ said I. ‘We must do the best we can.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And you won’t tell me, any more, that we make other people -bad,’ coaxed Dora; ‘will you? Because you know it’s so -dreadfully cross!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No, no,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘It’s better for me to be stupid than uncomfortable, isn’t -it?’ said Dora. -</p> - -<p> -‘Better to be naturally Dora than anything else in the world.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘In the world! Ah, Doady, it’s a large place!’ -</p> - -<p> -She shook her head, turned her delighted bright eyes up to mine, kissed me, -broke into a merry laugh, and sprang away to put on Jip’s new collar. -</p> - -<p> -So ended my last attempt to make any change in Dora. I had been unhappy in -trying it; I could not endure my own solitary wisdom; I could not reconcile it -with her former appeal to me as my child-wife. I resolved to do what I could, -in a quiet way, to improve our proceedings myself, but I foresaw that my utmost -would be very little, or I must degenerate into the spider again, and be for -ever lying in wait. -</p> - -<p> -And the shadow I have mentioned, that was not to be between us any more, but -was to rest wholly on my own heart? How did that fall? -</p> - -<p> -The old unhappy feeling pervaded my life. It was deepened, if it were changed -at all; but it was as undefined as ever, and addressed me like a strain of -sorrowful music faintly heard in the night. I loved my wife dearly, and I was -happy; but the happiness I had vaguely anticipated, once, was not the happiness -I enjoyed, and there was always something wanting. -</p> - -<p> -In fulfilment of the compact I have made with myself, to reflect my mind on -this paper, I again examine it, closely, and bring its secrets to the light. -What I missed, I still regarded—I always regarded—as something that -had been a dream of my youthful fancy; that was incapable of realization; that -I was now discovering to be so, with some natural pain, as all men did. But -that it would have been better for me if my wife could have helped me more, and -shared the many thoughts in which I had no partner; and that this might have -been; I knew. -</p> - -<p> -Between these two irreconcilable conclusions: the one, that what I felt was -general and unavoidable; the other, that it was particular to me, and might -have been different: I balanced curiously, with no distinct sense of their -opposition to each other. When I thought of the airy dreams of youth that are -incapable of realization, I thought of the better state preceding manhood that -I had outgrown; and then the contented days with Agnes, in the dear old house, -arose before me, like spectres of the dead, that might have some renewal in -another world, but never more could be reanimated here. -</p> - -<p> -Sometimes, the speculation came into my thoughts, What might have happened, or -what would have happened, if Dora and I had never known each other? But she was -so incorporated with my existence, that it was the idlest of all fancies, and -would soon rise out of my reach and sight, like gossamer floating in the air. -</p> - -<p> -I always loved her. What I am describing, slumbered, and half awoke, and slept -again, in the innermost recesses of my mind. There was no evidence of it in me; -I know of no influence it had in anything I said or did. I bore the weight of -all our little cares, and all my projects; Dora held the pens; and we both felt -that our shares were adjusted as the case required. She was truly fond of me, -and proud of me; and when Agnes wrote a few earnest words in her letters to -Dora, of the pride and interest with which my old friends heard of my growing -reputation, and read my book as if they heard me speaking its contents, Dora -read them out to me with tears of joy in her bright eyes, and said I was a dear -old clever, famous boy. -</p> - -<p> -‘The first mistaken impulse of an undisciplined heart.’ Those words -of Mrs. Strong’s were constantly recurring to me, at this time; were -almost always present to my mind. I awoke with them, often, in the night; I -remember to have even read them, in dreams, inscribed upon the walls of houses. -For I knew, now, that my own heart was undisciplined when it first loved Dora; -and that if it had been disciplined, it never could have felt, when we were -married, what it had felt in its secret experience. -</p> - -<p> -‘There can be no disparity in marriage, like unsuitability of mind and -purpose.’ Those words I remembered too. I had endeavoured to adapt Dora -to myself, and found it impracticable. It remained for me to adapt myself to -Dora; to share with her what I could, and be happy; to bear on my own shoulders -what I must, and be happy still. This was the discipline to which I tried to -bring my heart, when I began to think. It made my second year much happier than -my first; and, what was better still, made Dora’s life all sunshine. -</p> - -<p> -But, as that year wore on, Dora was not strong. I had hoped that lighter hands -than mine would help to mould her character, and that a baby-smile upon her -breast might change my child-wife to a woman. It was not to be. The spirit -fluttered for a moment on the threshold of its little prison, and, unconscious -of captivity, took wing. -</p> - -<p> -‘When I can run about again, as I used to do, aunt,’ said Dora, -‘I shall make Jip race. He is getting quite slow and lazy.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I suspect, my dear,’ said my aunt quietly working by her side, -‘he has a worse disorder than that. Age, Dora.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Do you think he is old?’ said Dora, astonished. ‘Oh, how -strange it seems that Jip should be old!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘It’s a complaint we are all liable to, Little One, as we get on in -life,’ said my aunt, cheerfully; ‘I don’t feel more free from -it than I used to be, I assure you.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘But Jip,’ said Dora, looking at him with compassion, ‘even -little Jip! Oh, poor fellow!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I dare say he’ll last a long time yet, Blossom,’ said my -aunt, patting Dora on the cheek, as she leaned out of her couch to look at Jip, -who responded by standing on his hind legs, and baulking himself in various -asthmatic attempts to scramble up by the head and shoulders. ‘He must -have a piece of flannel in his house this winter, and I shouldn’t wonder -if he came out quite fresh again, with the flowers in the spring. Bless the -little dog!’ exclaimed my aunt, ‘if he had as many lives as a cat, -and was on the point of losing ‘em all, he’d bark at me with his -last breath, I believe!’ -</p> - -<p> -Dora had helped him up on the sofa; where he really was defying my aunt to such -a furious extent, that he couldn’t keep straight, but barked himself -sideways. The more my aunt looked at him, the more he reproached her; for she -had lately taken to spectacles, and for some inscrutable reason he considered -the glasses personal. -</p> - -<p> -Dora made him lie down by her, with a good deal of persuasion; and when he was -quiet, drew one of his long ears through and through her hand, repeating -thoughtfully, ‘Even little Jip! Oh, poor fellow!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘His lungs are good enough,’ said my aunt, gaily, ‘and his -dislikes are not at all feeble. He has a good many years before him, no doubt. -But if you want a dog to race with, Little Blossom, he has lived too well for -that, and I’ll give you one.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Thank you, aunt,’ said Dora, faintly. ‘But don’t, -please!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No?’ said my aunt, taking off her spectacles. -</p> - -<p> -‘I couldn’t have any other dog but Jip,’ said Dora. ‘It -would be so unkind to Jip! Besides, I couldn’t be such friends with any -other dog but Jip; because he wouldn’t have known me before I was -married, and wouldn’t have barked at Doady when he first came to our -house. I couldn’t care for any other dog but Jip, I am afraid, -aunt.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘To be sure!’ said my aunt, patting her cheek again. ‘You are -right.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You are not offended,’ said Dora. ‘Are you?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, what a sensitive pet it is!’ cried my aunt, bending over her -affectionately. ‘To think that I could be offended!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No, no, I didn’t really think so,’ returned Dora; ‘but -I am a little tired, and it made me silly for a moment—I am always a -silly little thing, you know, but it made me more silly—to talk about -Jip. He has known me in all that has happened to me, haven’t you, Jip? -And I couldn’t bear to slight him, because he was a little -altered—could I, Jip?’ -</p> - -<p> -Jip nestled closer to his mistress, and lazily licked her hand. -</p> - -<p> -‘You are not so old, Jip, are you, that you’ll leave your mistress -yet?’ said Dora. ‘We may keep one another company a little -longer!’ -</p> - -<p> -My pretty Dora! When she came down to dinner on the ensuing Sunday, and was so -glad to see old Traddles (who always dined with us on Sunday), we thought she -would be ‘running about as she used to do’, in a few days. But they -said, wait a few days more; and then, wait a few days more; and still she -neither ran nor walked. She looked very pretty, and was very merry; but the -little feet that used to be so nimble when they danced round Jip, were dull and -motionless. -</p> - -<p> -I began to carry her downstairs every morning, and upstairs every night. She -would clasp me round the neck and laugh, the while, as if I did it for a wager. -Jip would bark and caper round us, and go on before, and look back on the -landing, breathing short, to see that we were coming. My aunt, the best and -most cheerful of nurses, would trudge after us, a moving mass of shawls and -pillows. Mr. Dick would not have relinquished his post of candle-bearer to -anyone alive. Traddles would be often at the bottom of the staircase, looking -on, and taking charge of sportive messages from Dora to the dearest girl in the -world. We made quite a gay procession of it, and my child-wife was the gayest -there. -</p> - -<p> -But, sometimes, when I took her up, and felt that she was lighter in my arms, a -dead blank feeling came upon me, as if I were approaching to some frozen region -yet unseen, that numbed my life. I avoided the recognition of this feeling by -any name, or by any communing with myself; until one night, when it was very -strong upon me, and my aunt had left her with a parting cry of ‘Good -night, Little Blossom,’ I sat down at my desk alone, and tried to think, -Oh what a fatal name it was, and how the blossom withered in its bloom upon the -tree! -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0049"></a>CHAPTER 49. I AM INVOLVED IN MYSTERY</h2> - -<p> -I received one morning by the post, the following letter, dated Canterbury, and -addressed to me at Doctor’s Commons; which I read with some surprise: -</p> - -<p> -‘MY DEAR SIR, -</p> - -<p> -‘Circumstances beyond my individual control have, for a considerable -lapse of time, effected a severance of that intimacy which, in the limited -opportunities conceded to me in the midst of my professional duties, of -contemplating the scenes and events of the past, tinged by the prismatic hues -of memory, has ever afforded me, as it ever must continue to afford, gratifying -emotions of no common description. This fact, my dear sir, combined with the -distinguished elevation to which your talents have raised you, deters me from -presuming to aspire to the liberty of addressing the companion of my youth, by -the familiar appellation of Copperfield! It is sufficient to know that the name -to which I do myself the honour to refer, will ever be treasured among the -muniments of our house (I allude to the archives connected with our former -lodgers, preserved by Mrs. Micawber), with sentiments of personal esteem -amounting to affection. -</p> - -<p> -‘It is not for one, situated, through his original errors and a -fortuitous combination of unpropitious events, as is the foundered Bark (if he -may be allowed to assume so maritime a denomination), who now takes up the pen -to address you—it is not, I repeat, for one so circumstanced, to adopt -the language of compliment, or of congratulation. That he leaves to abler and -to purer hands. -</p> - -<p> -‘If your more important avocations should admit of your ever tracing -these imperfect characters thus far—which may be, or may not be, as -circumstances arise—you will naturally inquire by what object am I -influenced, then, in inditing the present missive? Allow me to say that I fully -defer to the reasonable character of that inquiry, and proceed to develop it; -premising that it is not an object of a pecuniary nature. -</p> - -<p> -‘Without more directly referring to any latent ability that may possibly -exist on my part, of wielding the thunderbolt, or directing the devouring and -avenging flame in any quarter, I may be permitted to observe, in passing, that -my brightest visions are for ever dispelled—that my peace is shattered -and my power of enjoyment destroyed—that my heart is no longer in the -right place—and that I no more walk erect before my fellow man. The -canker is in the flower. The cup is bitter to the brim. The worm is at his -work, and will soon dispose of his victim. The sooner the better. But I will -not digress. ‘Placed in a mental position of peculiar painfulness, beyond -the assuaging reach even of Mrs. Micawber’s influence, though exercised -in the tripartite character of woman, wife, and mother, it is my intention to -fly from myself for a short period, and devote a respite of eight-and-forty -hours to revisiting some metropolitan scenes of past enjoyment. Among other -havens of domestic tranquillity and peace of mind, my feet will naturally tend -towards the King’s Bench Prison. In stating that I shall be (D. V.) on -the outside of the south wall of that place of incarceration on civil process, -the day after tomorrow, at seven in the evening, precisely, my object in this -epistolary communication is accomplished. -</p> - -<p> -‘I do not feel warranted in soliciting my former friend Mr. Copperfield, -or my former friend Mr. Thomas Traddles of the Inner Temple, if that gentleman -is still existent and forthcoming, to condescend to meet me, and renew (so far -as may be) our past relations of the olden time. I confine myself to throwing -out the observation, that, at the hour and place I have indicated, may be found -such ruined vestiges as yet -</p> - -<p class="right"> -‘Remain, <br/> -‘Of <br/> -‘A <br/> -‘Fallen Tower, <br/> -‘WILKINS MICAWBER. -</p> - -<p> -‘P.S. It may be advisable to superadd to the above, the statement that -Mrs. Micawber is not in confidential possession of my intentions.’ -</p> - -<p> -I read the letter over several times. Making due allowance for Mr. -Micawber’s lofty style of composition, and for the extraordinary relish -with which he sat down and wrote long letters on all possible and impossible -occasions, I still believed that something important lay hidden at the bottom -of this roundabout communication. I put it down, to think about it; and took it -up again, to read it once more; and was still pursuing it, when Traddles found -me in the height of my perplexity. -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear fellow,’ said I, ‘I never was better pleased to see -you. You come to give me the benefit of your sober judgement at a most -opportune time. I have received a very singular letter, Traddles, from Mr. -Micawber.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No?’ cried Traddles. ‘You don’t say so? And I have -received one from Mrs. Micawber!’ -</p> - -<p> -With that, Traddles, who was flushed with walking, and whose hair, under the -combined effects of exercise and excitement, stood on end as if he saw a -cheerful ghost, produced his letter and made an exchange with me. I watched him -into the heart of Mr. Micawber’s letter, and returned the elevation of -eyebrows with which he said “‘Wielding the thunderbolt, or -directing the devouring and avenging flame!” Bless me, -Copperfield!’—and then entered on the perusal of Mrs. -Micawber’s epistle. -</p> - -<p> -It ran thus: -</p> - -<p> -‘My best regards to Mr. Thomas Traddles, and if he should still remember -one who formerly had the happiness of being well acquainted with him, may I beg -a few moments of his leisure time? I assure Mr. T. T. that I would not intrude -upon his kindness, were I in any other position than on the confines of -distraction. -</p> - -<p> -‘Though harrowing to myself to mention, the alienation of Mr. Micawber -(formerly so domesticated) from his wife and family, is the cause of my -addressing my unhappy appeal to Mr. Traddles, and soliciting his best -indulgence. Mr. T. can form no adequate idea of the change in Mr. -Micawber’s conduct, of his wildness, of his violence. It has gradually -augmented, until it assumes the appearance of aberration of intellect. Scarcely -a day passes, I assure Mr. Traddles, on which some paroxysm does not take -place. Mr. T. will not require me to depict my feelings, when I inform him that -I have become accustomed to hear Mr. Micawber assert that he has sold himself -to the D. Mystery and secrecy have long been his principal characteristic, have -long replaced unlimited confidence. The slightest provocation, even being asked -if there is anything he would prefer for dinner, causes him to express a wish -for a separation. Last night, on being childishly solicited for twopence, to -buy ‘lemon-stunners’—a local sweetmeat—he presented an -oyster-knife at the twins! -</p> - -<p> -‘I entreat Mr. Traddles to bear with me in entering into these details. -Without them, Mr. T. would indeed find it difficult to form the faintest -conception of my heart-rending situation. -</p> - -<p> -‘May I now venture to confide to Mr. T. the purport of my letter? Will he -now allow me to throw myself on his friendly consideration? Oh yes, for I know -his heart! -</p> - -<p> -‘The quick eye of affection is not easily blinded, when of the female -sex. Mr. Micawber is going to London. Though he studiously concealed his hand, -this morning before breakfast, in writing the direction-card which he attached -to the little brown valise of happier days, the eagle-glance of matrimonial -anxiety detected, d, o, n, distinctly traced. The West-End destination of the -coach, is the Golden Cross. Dare I fervently implore Mr. T. to see my misguided -husband, and to reason with him? Dare I ask Mr. T. to endeavour to step in -between Mr. Micawber and his agonized family? Oh no, for that would be too -much! -</p> - -<p> -‘If Mr. Copperfield should yet remember one unknown to fame, will Mr. T. -take charge of my unalterable regards and similar entreaties? In any case, he -will have the benevolence to consider this communication strictly private, and -on no account whatever to be alluded to, however distantly, in the presence of -Mr. Micawber. If Mr. T. should ever reply to it (which I cannot but feel to be -most improbable), a letter addressed to M. E., Post Office, Canterbury, will be -fraught with less painful consequences than any addressed immediately to one, -who subscribes herself, in extreme distress, -</p> - -<p> -‘Mr. Thomas Traddles’s respectful friend and suppliant, -</p> - -<p class="right"> -‘EMMA MICAWBER.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘What do you think of that letter?’ said Traddles, casting his eyes -upon me, when I had read it twice. -</p> - -<p> -‘What do you think of the other?’ said I. For he was still reading -it with knitted brows. -</p> - -<p> -‘I think that the two together, Copperfield,’ replied Traddles, -‘mean more than Mr. and Mrs. Micawber usually mean in their -correspondence—but I don’t know what. They are both written in good -faith, I have no doubt, and without any collusion. Poor thing!’ he was -now alluding to Mrs. Micawber’s letter, and we were standing side by side -comparing the two; ‘it will be a charity to write to her, at all events, -and tell her that we will not fail to see Mr. Micawber.’ -</p> - -<p> -I acceded to this the more readily, because I now reproached myself with having -treated her former letter rather lightly. It had set me thinking a good deal at -the time, as I have mentioned in its place; but my absorption in my own -affairs, my experience of the family, and my hearing nothing more, had -gradually ended in my dismissing the subject. I had often thought of the -Micawbers, but chiefly to wonder what ‘pecuniary liabilities’ they -were establishing in Canterbury, and to recall how shy Mr. Micawber was of me -when he became clerk to Uriah Heep. -</p> - -<p> -However, I now wrote a comforting letter to Mrs. Micawber, in our joint names, -and we both signed it. As we walked into town to post it, Traddles and I held a -long conference, and launched into a number of speculations, which I need not -repeat. We took my aunt into our counsels in the afternoon; but our only -decided conclusion was, that we would be very punctual in keeping Mr. -Micawber’s appointment. -</p> - -<p> -Although we appeared at the stipulated place a quarter of an hour before the -time, we found Mr. Micawber already there. He was standing with his arms -folded, over against the wall, looking at the spikes on the top, with a -sentimental expression, as if they were the interlacing boughs of trees that -had shaded him in his youth. -</p> - -<p> -When we accosted him, his manner was something more confused, and something -less genteel, than of yore. He had relinquished his legal suit of black for the -purposes of this excursion, and wore the old surtout and tights, but not quite -with the old air. He gradually picked up more and more of it as we conversed -with him; but, his very eye-glass seemed to hang less easily, and his -shirt-collar, though still of the old formidable dimensions, rather drooped. -</p> - -<p> -‘Gentlemen!’ said Mr. Micawber, after the first salutations, -‘you are friends in need, and friends indeed. Allow me to offer my -inquiries with reference to the physical welfare of Mrs. Copperfield in esse, -and Mrs. Traddles in posse,—presuming, that is to say, that my friend Mr. -Traddles is not yet united to the object of his affections, for weal and for -woe.’ -</p> - -<p> -We acknowledged his politeness, and made suitable replies. He then directed our -attention to the wall, and was beginning, ‘I assure you, -gentlemen,’ when I ventured to object to that ceremonious form of -address, and to beg that he would speak to us in the old way. -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear Copperfield,’ he returned, pressing my hand, ‘your -cordiality overpowers me. This reception of a shattered fragment of the Temple -once called Man—if I may be permitted so to express myself—bespeaks -a heart that is an honour to our common nature. I was about to observe that I -again behold the serene spot where some of the happiest hours of my existence -fleeted by.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Made so, I am sure, by Mrs. Micawber,’ said I. ‘I hope she -is well?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Thank you,’ returned Mr. Micawber, whose face clouded at this -reference, ‘she is but so-so. And this,’ said Mr. Micawber, nodding -his head sorrowfully, ‘is the Bench! Where, for the first time in many -revolving years, the overwhelming pressure of pecuniary liabilities was not -proclaimed, from day to day, by importune voices declining to vacate the -passage; where there was no knocker on the door for any creditor to appeal to; -where personal service of process was not required, and detainees were merely -lodged at the gate! Gentlemen,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘when the shadow -of that iron-work on the summit of the brick structure has been reflected on -the gravel of the Parade, I have seen my children thread the mazes of the -intricate pattern, avoiding the dark marks. I have been familiar with every -stone in the place. If I betray weakness, you will know how to excuse -me.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘We have all got on in life since then, Mr. Micawber,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Mr. Copperfield,’ returned Mr. Micawber, bitterly, ‘when I -was an inmate of that retreat I could look my fellow-man in the face, and punch -his head if he offended me. My fellow-man and myself are no longer on those -glorious terms!’ -</p> - -<p> -Turning from the building in a downcast manner, Mr. Micawber accepted my -proffered arm on one side, and the proffered arm of Traddles on the other, and -walked away between us. -</p> - -<p> -‘There are some landmarks,’ observed Mr. Micawber, looking fondly -back over his shoulder, ‘on the road to the tomb, which, but for the -impiety of the aspiration, a man would wish never to have passed. Such is the -Bench in my chequered career.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, you are in low spirits, Mr. Micawber,’ said Traddles. -</p> - -<p> -‘I am, sir,’ interposed Mr. Micawber. -</p> - -<p> -‘I hope,’ said Traddles, ‘it is not because you have -conceived a dislike to the law—for I am a lawyer myself, you know.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Micawber answered not a word. -</p> - -<p> -‘How is our friend Heep, Mr. Micawber?’ said I, after a silence. -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear Copperfield,’ returned Mr. Micawber, bursting into a state -of much excitement, and turning pale, ‘if you ask after my employer as -YOUR friend, I am sorry for it; if you ask after him as MY friend, I -sardonically smile at it. In whatever capacity you ask after my employer, I -beg, without offence to you, to limit my reply to this—that whatever his -state of health may be, his appearance is foxy: not to say diabolical. You will -allow me, as a private individual, to decline pursuing a subject which has -lashed me to the utmost verge of desperation in my professional -capacity.’ -</p> - -<p> -I expressed my regret for having innocently touched upon a theme that roused -him so much. ‘May I ask,’ said I, ‘without any hazard of -repeating the mistake, how my old friends Mr. and Miss Wickfield are?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Miss Wickfield,’ said Mr. Micawber, now turning red, ‘is, as -she always is, a pattern, and a bright example. My dear Copperfield, she is the -only starry spot in a miserable existence. My respect for that young lady, my -admiration of her character, my devotion to her for her love and truth, and -goodness!—Take me,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘down a turning, for, -upon my soul, in my present state of mind I am not equal to this!’ -</p> - -<p> -We wheeled him off into a narrow street, where he took out his -pocket-handkerchief, and stood with his back to a wall. If I looked as gravely -at him as Traddles did, he must have found our company by no means inspiriting. -</p> - -<p> -‘It is my fate,’ said Mr. Micawber, unfeignedly sobbing, but doing -even that, with a shadow of the old expression of doing something genteel; -‘it is my fate, gentlemen, that the finer feelings of our nature have -become reproaches to me. My homage to Miss Wickfield, is a flight of arrows in -my bosom. You had better leave me, if you please, to walk the earth as a -vagabond. The worm will settle my business in double-quick time.’ -</p> - -<p> -Without attending to this invocation, we stood by, until he put up his -pocket-handkerchief, pulled up his shirt-collar, and, to delude any person in -the neighbourhood who might have been observing him, hummed a tune with his hat -very much on one side. I then mentioned—not knowing what might be lost if -we lost sight of him yet—that it would give me great pleasure to -introduce him to my aunt, if he would ride out to Highgate, where a bed was at -his service. -</p> - -<p> -‘You shall make us a glass of your own punch, Mr. Micawber,’ said -I, ‘and forget whatever you have on your mind, in pleasanter -reminiscences.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Or, if confiding anything to friends will be more likely to relieve you, -you shall impart it to us, Mr. Micawber,’ said Traddles, prudently. -</p> - -<p> -‘Gentlemen,’ returned Mr. Micawber, ‘do with me as you will! -I am a straw upon the surface of the deep, and am tossed in all directions by -the elephants—I beg your pardon; I should have said the elements.’ -</p> - -<p> -We walked on, arm-in-arm, again; found the coach in the act of starting; and -arrived at Highgate without encountering any difficulties by the way. I was -very uneasy and very uncertain in my mind what to say or do for the -best—so was Traddles, evidently. Mr. Micawber was for the most part -plunged into deep gloom. He occasionally made an attempt to smarten himself, -and hum the fag-end of a tune; but his relapses into profound melancholy were -only made the more impressive by the mockery of a hat exceedingly on one side, -and a shirt-collar pulled up to his eyes. -</p> - -<p> -We went to my aunt’s house rather than to mine, because of Dora’s -not being well. My aunt presented herself on being sent for, and welcomed Mr. -Micawber with gracious cordiality. Mr. Micawber kissed her hand, retired to the -window, and pulling out his pocket-handkerchief, had a mental wrestle with -himself. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Dick was at home. He was by nature so exceedingly compassionate of anyone -who seemed to be ill at ease, and was so quick to find any such person out, -that he shook hands with Mr. Micawber, at least half-a-dozen times in five -minutes. To Mr. Micawber, in his trouble, this warmth, on the part of a -stranger, was so extremely touching, that he could only say, on the occasion of -each successive shake, ‘My dear sir, you overpower me!’ Which -gratified Mr. Dick so much, that he went at it again with greater vigour than -before. -</p> - -<p> -‘The friendliness of this gentleman,’ said Mr. Micawber to my aunt, -‘if you will allow me, ma’am, to cull a figure of speech from the -vocabulary of our coarser national sports—floors me. To a man who is -struggling with a complicated burden of perplexity and disquiet, such a -reception is trying, I assure you.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘My friend Mr. Dick,’ replied my aunt proudly, ‘is not a -common man.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘That I am convinced of,’ said Mr. Micawber. ‘My dear -sir!’ for Mr. Dick was shaking hands with him again; ‘I am deeply -sensible of your cordiality!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘How do you find yourself?’ said Mr. Dick, with an anxious look. -</p> - -<p> -‘Indifferent, my dear sir,’ returned Mr. Micawber, sighing. -</p> - -<p> -‘You must keep up your spirits,’ said Mr. Dick, ‘and make -yourself as comfortable as possible.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Micawber was quite overcome by these friendly words, and by finding Mr. -Dick’s hand again within his own. ‘It has been my lot,’ he -observed, ‘to meet, in the diversified panorama of human existence, with -an occasional oasis, but never with one so green, so gushing, as the -present!’ -</p> - -<p> -At another time I should have been amused by this; but I felt that we were all -constrained and uneasy, and I watched Mr. Micawber so anxiously, in his -vacillations between an evident disposition to reveal something, and a -counter-disposition to reveal nothing, that I was in a perfect fever. Traddles, -sitting on the edge of his chair, with his eyes wide open, and his hair more -emphatically erect than ever, stared by turns at the ground and at Mr. -Micawber, without so much as attempting to put in a word. My aunt, though I saw -that her shrewdest observation was concentrated on her new guest, had more -useful possession of her wits than either of us; for she held him in -conversation, and made it necessary for him to talk, whether he liked it or -not. -</p> - -<p> -‘You are a very old friend of my nephew’s, Mr. Micawber,’ -said my aunt. ‘I wish I had had the pleasure of seeing you before.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Madam,’ returned Mr. Micawber, ‘I wish I had had the honour -of knowing you at an earlier period. I was not always the wreck you at present -behold.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I hope Mrs. Micawber and your family are well, sir,’ said my aunt. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Micawber inclined his head. ‘They are as well, ma’am,’ he -desperately observed after a pause, ‘as Aliens and Outcasts can ever hope -to be.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Lord bless you, sir!’ exclaimed my aunt, in her abrupt way. -‘What are you talking about?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘The subsistence of my family, ma’am,’ returned Mr. Micawber, -‘trembles in the balance. My employer—’ -</p> - -<p> -Here Mr. Micawber provokingly left off; and began to peel the lemons that had -been under my directions set before him, together with all the other appliances -he used in making punch. -</p> - -<p> -‘Your employer, you know,’ said Mr. Dick, jogging his arm as a -gentle reminder. -</p> - -<p> -‘My good sir,’ returned Mr. Micawber, ‘you recall me, I am -obliged to you.’ They shook hands again. ‘My employer, -ma’am—Mr. Heep—once did me the favour to observe to me, that -if I were not in the receipt of the stipendiary emoluments appertaining to my -engagement with him, I should probably be a mountebank about the country, -swallowing a sword-blade, and eating the devouring element. For anything that I -can perceive to the contrary, it is still probable that my children may be -reduced to seek a livelihood by personal contortion, while Mrs. Micawber abets -their unnatural feats by playing the barrel-organ.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Micawber, with a random but expressive flourish of his knife, signified -that these performances might be expected to take place after he was no more; -then resumed his peeling with a desperate air. -</p> - -<p> -My aunt leaned her elbow on the little round table that she usually kept beside -her, and eyed him attentively. Notwithstanding the aversion with which I -regarded the idea of entrapping him into any disclosure he was not prepared to -make voluntarily, I should have taken him up at this point, but for the strange -proceedings in which I saw him engaged; whereof his putting the lemon-peel into -the kettle, the sugar into the snuffer-tray, the spirit into the empty jug, and -confidently attempting to pour boiling water out of a candlestick, were among -the most remarkable. I saw that a crisis was at hand, and it came. He clattered -all his means and implements together, rose from his chair, pulled out his -pocket-handkerchief, and burst into tears. -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber, behind his handkerchief, -‘this is an occupation, of all others, requiring an untroubled mind, and -self-respect. I cannot perform it. It is out of the question.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Mr. Micawber,’ said I, ‘what is the matter? Pray speak out. -You are among friends.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Among friends, sir!’ repeated Mr. Micawber; and all he had -reserved came breaking out of him. ‘Good heavens, it is principally -because I AM among friends that my state of mind is what it is. What is the -matter, gentlemen? What is NOT the matter? Villainy is the matter; baseness is -the matter; deception, fraud, conspiracy, are the matter; and the name of the -whole atrocious mass is—HEEP!’ -</p> - -<p> -My aunt clapped her hands, and we all started up as if we were possessed. -</p> - -<p> -‘The struggle is over!’ said Mr. Micawber violently gesticulating -with his pocket-handkerchief, and fairly striking out from time to time with -both arms, as if he were swimming under superhuman difficulties. ‘I will -lead this life no longer. I am a wretched being, cut off from everything that -makes life tolerable. I have been under a Taboo in that infernal -scoundrel’s service. Give me back my wife, give me back my family, -substitute Micawber for the petty wretch who walks about in the boots at -present on my feet, and call upon me to swallow a sword tomorrow, and -I’ll do it. With an appetite!’ -</p> - -<p> -I never saw a man so hot in my life. I tried to calm him, that we might come to -something rational; but he got hotter and hotter, and wouldn’t hear a -word. -</p> - -<p> -‘I’ll put my hand in no man’s hand,’ said Mr. Micawber, -gasping, puffing, and sobbing, to that degree that he was like a man fighting -with cold water, ‘until I have—blown to -fragments—the—a—detestable—serpent—HEEP! -I’ll partake of no one’s hospitality, until I -have—a—moved Mount Vesuvius—to -eruption—on—a—the abandoned rascal—HEEP! -Refreshment—a—underneath this roof—particularly -punch—would—a—choke me—unless—I -had—previously—choked the eyes—out of the -head—a—of—interminable cheat, and liar—HEEP! -I—a—I’ll know nobody—and—a—say -nothing—and—a—live nowhere—until I have -crushed—to—a—undiscoverable -atoms—the—transcendent and immortal hypocrite and -perjurer—HEEP!’ -</p> - -<p> -I really had some fear of Mr. Micawber’s dying on the spot. The manner in -which he struggled through these inarticulate sentences, and, whenever he found -himself getting near the name of Heep, fought his way on to it, dashed at it in -a fainting state, and brought it out with a vehemence little less than -marvellous, was frightful; but now, when he sank into a chair, steaming, and -looked at us, with every possible colour in his face that had no business -there, and an endless procession of lumps following one another in hot haste up -his throat, whence they seemed to shoot into his forehead, he had the -appearance of being in the last extremity. I would have gone to his assistance, -but he waved me off, and wouldn’t hear a word. -</p> - -<p> -‘No, Copperfield!—No communication—a—until—Miss -Wickfield—a—redress from wrongs inflicted by consummate -scoundrel—HEEP!’ (I am quite convinced he could not have uttered -three words, but for the amazing energy with which this word inspired him when -he felt it coming.) ‘Inviolable secret—a—from the whole -world—a—no exceptions—this day week—a—at -breakfast-time—a—everybody present—including -aunt—a—and extremely friendly gentleman—to be at the hotel at -Canterbury—a—where—Mrs. Micawber and myself—Auld Lang -Syne in chorus—and—a—will expose intolerable -ruffian—HEEP! No more to say—a—or listen to -persuasion—go immediately—not capable—a—bear -society—upon the track of devoted and doomed traitor—HEEP!’ -</p> - -<p> -With this last repetition of the magic word that had kept him going at all, and -in which he surpassed all his previous efforts, Mr. Micawber rushed out of the -house; leaving us in a state of excitement, hope, and wonder, that reduced us -to a condition little better than his own. But even then his passion for -writing letters was too strong to be resisted; for while we were yet in the -height of our excitement, hope, and wonder, the following pastoral note was -brought to me from a neighbouring tavern, at which he had called to write -it:— -</p> - -<p class="center"> -‘Most secret and confidential. -</p> - -<p class="letter"> -‘MY DEAR SIR, -</p> - -<p> -‘I beg to be allowed to convey, through you, my apologies to your -excellent aunt for my late excitement. An explosion of a smouldering volcano -long suppressed, was the result of an internal contest more easily conceived -than described. -</p> - -<p> -‘I trust I rendered tolerably intelligible my appointment for the morning -of this day week, at the house of public entertainment at Canterbury, where -Mrs. Micawber and myself had once the honour of uniting our voices to yours, in -the well-known strain of the Immortal exciseman nurtured beyond the Tweed. -</p> - -<p> -‘The duty done, and act of reparation performed, which can alone enable -me to contemplate my fellow mortal, I shall be known no more. I shall simply -require to be deposited in that place of universal resort, where -</p> - -<p class="poem"> -Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,<br/> -The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep, -</p> - -<p class="right"> -‘—With the plain Inscription,<br/> -‘WILKINS MICAWBER.’ -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0050"></a>CHAPTER 50. Mr. PEGGOTTY’S DREAM COMES -TRUE</h2> - -<p> -By this time, some months had passed since our interview on the bank of the -river with Martha. I had never seen her since, but she had communicated with -Mr. Peggotty on several occasions. Nothing had come of her zealous -intervention; nor could I infer, from what he told me, that any clue had been -obtained, for a moment, to Emily’s fate. I confess that I began to -despair of her recovery, and gradually to sink deeper and deeper into the -belief that she was dead. -</p> - -<p> -His conviction remained unchanged. So far as I know—and I believe his -honest heart was transparent to me—he never wavered again, in his solemn -certainty of finding her. His patience never tired. And, although I trembled -for the agony it might one day be to him to have his strong assurance shivered -at a blow, there was something so religious in it, so affectingly expressive of -its anchor being in the purest depths of his fine nature, that the respect and -honour in which I held him were exalted every day. -</p> - -<p> -His was not a lazy trustfulness that hoped, and did no more. He had been a man -of sturdy action all his life, and he knew that in all things wherein he wanted -help he must do his own part faithfully, and help himself. I have known him set -out in the night, on a misgiving that the light might not be, by some accident, -in the window of the old boat, and walk to Yarmouth. I have known him, on -reading something in the newspaper that might apply to her, take up his stick, -and go forth on a journey of three—or four-score miles. He made his way -by sea to Naples, and back, after hearing the narrative to which Miss Dartle -had assisted me. All his journeys were ruggedly performed; for he was always -steadfast in a purpose of saving money for Emily’s sake, when she should -be found. In all this long pursuit, I never heard him repine; I never heard him -say he was fatigued, or out of heart. -</p> - -<p> -Dora had often seen him since our marriage, and was quite fond of him. I fancy -his figure before me now, standing near her sofa, with his rough cap in his -hand, and the blue eyes of my child-wife raised, with a timid wonder, to his -face. Sometimes of an evening, about twilight, when he came to talk with me, I -would induce him to smoke his pipe in the garden, as we slowly paced to and fro -together; and then, the picture of his deserted home, and the comfortable air -it used to have in my childish eyes of an evening when the fire was burning, -and the wind moaning round it, came most vividly into my mind. -</p> - -<p> -One evening, at this hour, he told me that he had found Martha waiting near his -lodging on the preceding night when he came out, and that she had asked him not -to leave London on any account, until he should have seen her again. -</p> - -<p> -‘Did she tell you why?’ I inquired. -</p> - -<p> -‘I asked her, Mas’r Davy,’ he replied, ‘but it is but -few words as she ever says, and she on’y got my promise and so went -away.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Did she say when you might expect to see her again?’ I demanded. -</p> - -<p> -‘No, Mas’r Davy,’ he returned, drawing his hand thoughtfully -down his face. ‘I asked that too; but it was more (she said) than she -could tell.’ -</p> - -<p> -As I had long forborne to encourage him with hopes that hung on threads, I made -no other comment on this information than that I supposed he would see her -soon. Such speculations as it engendered within me I kept to myself, and those -were faint enough. -</p> - -<p> -I was walking alone in the garden, one evening, about a fortnight afterwards. I -remember that evening well. It was the second in Mr. Micawber’s week of -suspense. There had been rain all day, and there was a damp feeling in the air. -The leaves were thick upon the trees, and heavy with wet; but the rain had -ceased, though the sky was still dark; and the hopeful birds were singing -cheerfully. As I walked to and fro in the garden, and the twilight began to -close around me, their little voices were hushed; and that peculiar silence -which belongs to such an evening in the country when the lightest trees are -quite still, save for the occasional droppings from their boughs, prevailed. -</p> - -<p> -There was a little green perspective of trellis-work and ivy at the side of our -cottage, through which I could see, from the garden where I was walking, into -the road before the house. I happened to turn my eyes towards this place, as I -was thinking of many things; and I saw a figure beyond, dressed in a plain -cloak. It was bending eagerly towards me, and beckoning. -</p> - -<p> -‘Martha!’ said I, going to it. -</p> - -<p> -‘Can you come with me?’ she inquired, in an agitated whisper. -‘I have been to him, and he is not at home. I wrote down where he was to -come, and left it on his table with my own hand. They said he would not be out -long. I have tidings for him. Can you come directly?’ -</p> - -<p> -My answer was, to pass out at the gate immediately. She made a hasty gesture -with her hand, as if to entreat my patience and my silence, and turned towards -London, whence, as her dress betokened, she had come expeditiously on foot. -</p> - -<p> -I asked her if that were not our destination? On her motioning Yes, with the -same hasty gesture as before, I stopped an empty coach that was coming by, and -we got into it. When I asked her where the coachman was to drive, she answered, -‘Anywhere near Golden Square! And quick!’—then shrunk into a -corner, with one trembling hand before her face, and the other making the -former gesture, as if she could not bear a voice. -</p> - -<p> -Now much disturbed, and dazzled with conflicting gleams of hope and dread, I -looked at her for some explanation. But seeing how strongly she desired to -remain quiet, and feeling that it was my own natural inclination too, at such a -time, I did not attempt to break the silence. We proceeded without a word being -spoken. Sometimes she glanced out of the window, as though she thought we were -going slowly, though indeed we were going fast; but otherwise remained exactly -as at first. -</p> - -<p> -We alighted at one of the entrances to the Square she had mentioned, where I -directed the coach to wait, not knowing but that we might have some occasion -for it. She laid her hand on my arm, and hurried me on to one of the sombre -streets, of which there are several in that part, where the houses were once -fair dwellings in the occupation of single families, but have, and had, long -degenerated into poor lodgings let off in rooms. Entering at the open door of -one of these, and releasing my arm, she beckoned me to follow her up the common -staircase, which was like a tributary channel to the street. -</p> - -<p> -The house swarmed with inmates. As we went up, doors of rooms were opened and -people’s heads put out; and we passed other people on the stairs, who -were coming down. In glancing up from the outside, before we entered, I had -seen women and children lolling at the windows over flower-pots; and we seemed -to have attracted their curiosity, for these were principally the observers who -looked out of their doors. It was a broad panelled staircase, with massive -balustrades of some dark wood; cornices above the doors, ornamented with carved -fruit and flowers; and broad seats in the windows. But all these tokens of past -grandeur were miserably decayed and dirty; rot, damp, and age, had weakened the -flooring, which in many places was unsound and even unsafe. Some attempts had -been made, I noticed, to infuse new blood into this dwindling frame, by -repairing the costly old wood-work here and there with common deal; but it was -like the marriage of a reduced old noble to a plebeian pauper, and each party -to the ill-assorted union shrunk away from the other. Several of the back -windows on the staircase had been darkened or wholly blocked up. In those that -remained, there was scarcely any glass; and, through the crumbling frames by -which the bad air seemed always to come in, and never to go out, I saw, through -other glassless windows, into other houses in a similar condition, and looked -giddily down into a wretched yard, which was the common dust-heap of the -mansion. -</p> - -<p> -We proceeded to the top-storey of the house. Two or three times, by the way, I -thought I observed in the indistinct light the skirts of a female figure going -up before us. As we turned to ascend the last flight of stairs between us and -the roof, we caught a full view of this figure pausing for a moment, at a door. -Then it turned the handle, and went in. -</p> - -<p> -‘What’s this!’ said Martha, in a whisper. ‘She has gone -into my room. I don’t know her!’ -</p> - -<p> -I knew her. I had recognized her with amazement, for Miss Dartle. -</p> - -<p> -I said something to the effect that it was a lady whom I had seen before, in a -few words, to my conductress; and had scarcely done so, when we heard her voice -in the room, though not, from where we stood, what she was saying. Martha, with -an astonished look, repeated her former action, and softly led me up the -stairs; and then, by a little back-door which seemed to have no lock, and which -she pushed open with a touch, into a small empty garret with a low sloping -roof, little better than a cupboard. Between this, and the room she had called -hers, there was a small door of communication, standing partly open. Here we -stopped, breathless with our ascent, and she placed her hand lightly on my -lips. I could only see, of the room beyond, that it was pretty large; that -there was a bed in it; and that there were some common pictures of ships upon -the walls. I could not see Miss Dartle, or the person whom we had heard her -address. Certainly, my companion could not, for my position was the best. A -dead silence prevailed for some moments. Martha kept one hand on my lips, and -raised the other in a listening attitude. -</p> - -<p> -‘It matters little to me her not being at home,’ said Rosa Dartle -haughtily, ‘I know nothing of her. It is you I come to see.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Me?’ replied a soft voice. -</p> - -<p> -At the sound of it, a thrill went through my frame. For it was Emily’s! -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes,’ returned Miss Dartle, ‘I have come to look at you. -What? You are not ashamed of the face that has done so much?’ -</p> - -<p> -The resolute and unrelenting hatred of her tone, its cold stern sharpness, and -its mastered rage, presented her before me, as if I had seen her standing in -the light. I saw the flashing black eyes, and the passion-wasted figure; and I -saw the scar, with its white track cutting through her lips, quivering and -throbbing as she spoke. -</p> - -<p> -‘I have come to see,’ she said, ‘James Steerforth’s -fancy; the girl who ran away with him, and is the town-talk of the commonest -people of her native place; the bold, flaunting, practised companion of persons -like James Steerforth. I want to know what such a thing is like.’ -</p> - -<p> -There was a rustle, as if the unhappy girl, on whom she heaped these taunts, -ran towards the door, and the speaker swiftly interposed herself before it. It -was succeeded by a moment’s pause. -</p> - -<p> -When Miss Dartle spoke again, it was through her set teeth, and with a stamp -upon the ground. -</p> - -<p> -‘Stay there!’ she said, ‘or I’ll proclaim you to the -house, and the whole street! If you try to evade me, I’ll stop you, if -it’s by the hair, and raise the very stones against you!’ -</p> - -<p> -A frightened murmur was the only reply that reached my ears. A silence -succeeded. I did not know what to do. Much as I desired to put an end to the -interview, I felt that I had no right to present myself; that it was for Mr. -Peggotty alone to see her and recover her. Would he never come? I thought -impatiently. -</p> - -<p> -‘So!’ said Rosa Dartle, with a contemptuous laugh, ‘I see her -at last! Why, he was a poor creature to be taken by that delicate mock-modesty, -and that hanging head!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, for Heaven’s sake, spare me!’ exclaimed Emily. -‘Whoever you are, you know my pitiable story, and for Heaven’s sake -spare me, if you would be spared yourself!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘If I would be spared!’ returned the other fiercely; ‘what is -there in common between US, do you think!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Nothing but our sex,’ said Emily, with a burst of tears. -</p> - -<p> -‘And that,’ said Rosa Dartle, ‘is so strong a claim, -preferred by one so infamous, that if I had any feeling in my breast but scorn -and abhorrence of you, it would freeze it up. Our sex! You are an honour to our -sex!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I have deserved this,’ said Emily, ‘but it’s dreadful! -Dear, dear lady, think what I have suffered, and how I am fallen! Oh, Martha, -come back! Oh, home, home!’ -</p> - -<p> -Miss Dartle placed herself in a chair, within view of the door, and looked -downward, as if Emily were crouching on the floor before her. Being now between -me and the light, I could see her curled lip, and her cruel eyes intently fixed -on one place, with a greedy triumph. -</p> - -<p> -‘Listen to what I say!’ she said; ‘and reserve your false -arts for your dupes. Do you hope to move me by your tears? No more than you -could charm me by your smiles, you purchased slave.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, have some mercy on me!’ cried Emily. ‘Show me some -compassion, or I shall die mad!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘It would be no great penance,’ said Rosa Dartle, ‘for your -crimes. Do you know what you have done? Do you ever think of the home you have -laid waste?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, is there ever night or day, when I don’t think of it!’ -cried Emily; and now I could just see her, on her knees, with her head thrown -back, her pale face looking upward, her hands wildly clasped and held out, and -her hair streaming about her. ‘Has there ever been a single minute, -waking or sleeping, when it hasn’t been before me, just as it used to be -in the lost days when I turned my back upon it for ever and for ever! Oh, home, -home! Oh dear, dear uncle, if you ever could have known the agony your love -would cause me when I fell away from good, you never would have shown it to me -so constant, much as you felt it; but would have been angry to me, at least -once in my life, that I might have had some comfort! I have none, none, no -comfort upon earth, for all of them were always fond of me!’ She dropped -on her face, before the imperious figure in the chair, with an imploring effort -to clasp the skirt of her dress. -</p> - -<p> -Rosa Dartle sat looking down upon her, as inflexible as a figure of brass. Her -lips were tightly compressed, as if she knew that she must keep a strong -constraint upon herself—I write what I sincerely believe—or she -would be tempted to strike the beautiful form with her foot. I saw her, -distinctly, and the whole power of her face and character seemed forced into -that expression.—-Would he never come? -</p> - -<p> -‘The miserable vanity of these earth-worms!’ she said, when she had -so far controlled the angry heavings of her breast, that she could trust -herself to speak. ‘YOUR home! Do you imagine that I bestow a thought on -it, or suppose you could do any harm to that low place, which money would not -pay for, and handsomely? YOUR home! You were a part of the trade of your home, -and were bought and sold like any other vendible thing your people dealt -in.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, not that!’ cried Emily. ‘Say anything of me; but -don’t visit my disgrace and shame, more than I have done, on folks who -are as honourable as you! Have some respect for them, as you are a lady, if you -have no mercy for me.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I speak,’ she said, not deigning to take any heed of this appeal, -and drawing away her dress from the contamination of Emily’s touch, -‘I speak of HIS home—where I live. Here,’ she said, -stretching out her hand with her contemptuous laugh, and looking down upon the -prostrate girl, ‘is a worthy cause of division between lady-mother and -gentleman-son; of grief in a house where she wouldn’t have been admitted -as a kitchen-girl; of anger, and repining, and reproach. This piece of -pollution, picked up from the water-side, to be made much of for an hour, and -then tossed back to her original place!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No! no!’ cried Emily, clasping her hands together. ‘When he -first came into my way—that the day had never dawned upon me, and he had -met me being carried to my grave!—I had been brought up as virtuous as -you or any lady, and was going to be the wife of as good a man as you or any -lady in the world can ever marry. If you live in his home and know him, you -know, perhaps, what his power with a weak, vain girl might be. I don’t -defend myself, but I know well, and he knows well, or he will know when he -comes to die, and his mind is troubled with it, that he used all his power to -deceive me, and that I believed him, trusted him, and loved him!’ -</p> - -<p> -Rosa Dartle sprang up from her seat; recoiled; and in recoiling struck at her, -with a face of such malignity, so darkened and disfigured by passion, that I -had almost thrown myself between them. The blow, which had no aim, fell upon -the air. As she now stood panting, looking at her with the utmost detestation -that she was capable of expressing, and trembling from head to foot with rage -and scorn, I thought I had never seen such a sight, and never could see such -another. -</p> - -<p> -‘YOU love him? You?’ she cried, with her clenched hand, quivering -as if it only wanted a weapon to stab the object of her wrath. -</p> - -<p> -Emily had shrunk out of my view. There was no reply. -</p> - -<p> -‘And tell that to ME,’ she added, ‘with your shameful lips? -Why don’t they whip these creatures? If I could order it to be done, I -would have this girl whipped to death.’ -</p> - -<p> -And so she would, I have no doubt. I would not have trusted her with the rack -itself, while that furious look lasted. She slowly, very slowly, broke into a -laugh, and pointed at Emily with her hand, as if she were a sight of shame for -gods and men. -</p> - -<p> -‘SHE love!’ she said. ‘THAT carrion! And he ever cared for -her, she’d tell me. Ha, ha! The liars that these traders are!’ -</p> - -<p> -Her mockery was worse than her undisguised rage. Of the two, I would have much -preferred to be the object of the latter. But, when she suffered it to break -loose, it was only for a moment. She had chained it up again, and however it -might tear her within, she subdued it to herself. -</p> - -<p> -‘I came here, you pure fountain of love,’ she said, ‘to -see—as I began by telling you—what such a thing as you was like. I -was curious. I am satisfied. Also to tell you, that you had best seek that home -of yours, with all speed, and hide your head among those excellent people who -are expecting you, and whom your money will console. When it’s all gone, -you can believe, and trust, and love again, you know! I thought you a broken -toy that had lasted its time; a worthless spangle that was tarnished, and -thrown away. But, finding you true gold, a very lady, and an ill-used innocent, -with a fresh heart full of love and trustfulness—which you look like, and -is quite consistent with your story!—I have something more to say. Attend -to it; for what I say I’ll do. Do you hear me, you fairy spirit? What I -say, I mean to do!’ -</p> - -<p> -Her rage got the better of her again, for a moment; but it passed over her face -like a spasm, and left her smiling. -</p> - -<p> -‘Hide yourself,’ she pursued, ‘if not at home, somewhere. Let -it be somewhere beyond reach; in some obscure life—or, better still, in -some obscure death. I wonder, if your loving heart will not break, you have -found no way of helping it to be still! I have heard of such means sometimes. I -believe they may be easily found.’ -</p> - -<p> -A low crying, on the part of Emily, interrupted her here. She stopped, and -listened to it as if it were music. -</p> - -<p> -‘I am of a strange nature, perhaps,’ Rosa Dartle went on; -‘but I can’t breathe freely in the air you breathe. I find it -sickly. Therefore, I will have it cleared; I will have it purified of you. If -you live here tomorrow, I’ll have your story and your character -proclaimed on the common stair. There are decent women in the house, I am told; -and it is a pity such a light as you should be among them, and concealed. If, -leaving here, you seek any refuge in this town in any character but your true -one (which you are welcome to bear, without molestation from me), the same -service shall be done you, if I hear of your retreat. Being assisted by a -gentleman who not long ago aspired to the favour of your hand, I am sanguine as -to that.’ -</p> - -<p> -Would he never, never come? How long was I to bear this? How long could I bear -it? ‘Oh me, oh me!’ exclaimed the wretched Emily, in a tone that -might have touched the hardest heart, I should have thought; but there was no -relenting in Rosa Dartle’s smile. ‘What, what, shall I do!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Do?’ returned the other. ‘Live happy in your own -reflections! Consecrate your existence to the recollection of James -Steerforth’s tenderness—he would have made you his -serving-man’s wife, would he not?—-or to feeling grateful to the -upright and deserving creature who would have taken you as his gift. Or, if -those proud remembrances, and the consciousness of your own virtues, and the -honourable position to which they have raised you in the eyes of everything -that wears the human shape, will not sustain you, marry that good man, and be -happy in his condescension. If this will not do either, die! There are doorways -and dust-heaps for such deaths, and such despair—find one, and take your -flight to Heaven!’ -</p> - -<p> -I heard a distant foot upon the stairs. I knew it, I was certain. It was his, -thank God! -</p> - -<p> -She moved slowly from before the door when she said this, and passed out of my -sight. -</p> - -<p> -‘But mark!’ she added, slowly and sternly, opening the other door -to go away, ‘I am resolved, for reasons that I have and hatreds that I -entertain, to cast you out, unless you withdraw from my reach altogether, or -drop your pretty mask. This is what I had to say; and what I say, I mean to -do!’ -</p> - -<p> -The foot upon the stairs came nearer—nearer—passed her as she went -down—rushed into the room! -</p> - -<p> -‘Uncle!’ -</p> - -<p> -A fearful cry followed the word. I paused a moment, and looking in, saw him -supporting her insensible figure in his arms. He gazed for a few seconds in the -face; then stooped to kiss it—oh, how tenderly!—and drew a -handkerchief before it. -</p> - -<p> -‘Mas’r Davy,’ he said, in a low tremulous voice, when it was -covered, ‘I thank my Heav’nly Father as my dream’s come true! -I thank Him hearty for having guided of me, in His own ways, to my -darling!’ -</p> - -<p> -With those words he took her up in his arms; and, with the veiled face lying on -his bosom, and addressed towards his own, carried her, motionless and -unconscious, down the stairs. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0051"></a>CHAPTER 51. THE BEGINNING OF A LONGER JOURNEY -</h2> - -<p> -It was yet early in the morning of the following day, when, as I was walking in -my garden with my aunt (who took little other exercise now, being so much in -attendance on my dear Dora), I was told that Mr. Peggotty desired to speak with -me. He came into the garden to meet me half-way, on my going towards the gate; -and bared his head, as it was always his custom to do when he saw my aunt, for -whom he had a high respect. I had been telling her all that had happened -overnight. Without saying a word, she walked up with a cordial face, shook -hands with him, and patted him on the arm. It was so expressively done, that -she had no need to say a word. Mr. Peggotty understood her quite as well as if -she had said a thousand. -</p> - -<p> -‘I’ll go in now, Trot,’ said my aunt, ‘and look after -Little Blossom, who will be getting up presently.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Not along of my being heer, ma’am, I hope?’ said Mr. -Peggotty. ‘Unless my wits is gone a bahd’s neezing’—by -which Mr. Peggotty meant to say, bird’s-nesting—‘this -morning, ‘tis along of me as you’re a-going to quit us?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You have something to say, my good friend,’ returned my aunt, -‘and will do better without me.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘By your leave, ma’am,’ returned Mr. Peggotty, ‘I -should take it kind, pervising you doen’t mind my clicketten, if -you’d bide heer.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Would you?’ said my aunt, with short good-nature. ‘Then I am -sure I will!’ -</p> - -<p> -So, she drew her arm through Mr. Peggotty’s, and walked with him to a -leafy little summer-house there was at the bottom of the garden, where she sat -down on a bench, and I beside her. There was a seat for Mr. Peggotty too, but -he preferred to stand, leaning his hand on the small rustic table. As he stood, -looking at his cap for a little while before beginning to speak, I could not -help observing what power and force of character his sinewy hand expressed, and -what a good and trusty companion it was to his honest brow and iron-grey hair. -</p> - -<p> -‘I took my dear child away last night,’ Mr. Peggotty began, as he -raised his eyes to ours, ‘to my lodging, wheer I have a long time been -expecting of her and preparing fur her. It was hours afore she knowed me right; -and when she did, she kneeled down at my feet, and kiender said to me, as if it -was her prayers, how it all come to be. You may believe me, when I heerd her -voice, as I had heerd at home so playful—and see her humbled, as it might -be in the dust our Saviour wrote in with his blessed hand—I felt a wownd -go to my ‘art, in the midst of all its thankfulness.’ -</p> - -<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> -<img src="images/20333.jpg" alt="20333" width="100%" /> -</div> - -<h5> -<a href="images/20333.jpg"> -<img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /></a> -</h5> - -<p> -He drew his sleeve across his face, without any pretence of concealing why; and -then cleared his voice. -</p> - -<p> -‘It warn’t for long as I felt that; for she was found. I had -on’y to think as she was found, and it was gone. I doen’t know why -I do so much as mention of it now, I’m sure. I didn’t have it in my -mind a minute ago, to say a word about myself; but it come up so nat’ral, -that I yielded to it afore I was aweer.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You are a self-denying soul,’ said my aunt, ‘and will have -your reward.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Peggotty, with the shadows of the leaves playing athwart his face, made a -surprised inclination of the head towards my aunt, as an acknowledgement of her -good opinion; then took up the thread he had relinquished. -</p> - -<p> -‘When my Em’ly took flight,’ he said, in stern wrath for the -moment, ‘from the house wheer she was made a prisoner by that theer -spotted snake as Mas’r Davy see,—and his story’s trew, and -may GOD confound him!—she took flight in the night. It was a dark night, -with a many stars a-shining. She was wild. She ran along the sea beach, -believing the old boat was theer; and calling out to us to turn away our faces, -for she was a-coming by. She heerd herself a-crying out, like as if it was -another person; and cut herself on them sharp-pinted stones and rocks, and felt -it no more than if she had been rock herself. Ever so fur she run, and there -was fire afore her eyes, and roarings in her ears. Of a sudden—or so she -thowt, you unnerstand—the day broke, wet and windy, and she was lying -b’low a heap of stone upon the shore, and a woman was a-speaking to her, -saying, in the language of that country, what was it as had gone so much -amiss?’ -</p> - -<p> -He saw everything he related. It passed before him, as he spoke, so vividly, -that, in the intensity of his earnestness, he presented what he described to -me, with greater distinctness than I can express. I can hardly believe, writing -now long afterwards, but that I was actually present in these scenes; they are -impressed upon me with such an astonishing air of fidelity. -</p> - -<p> -‘As Em’ly’s eyes—which was heavy—see this woman -better,’ Mr. Peggotty went on, ‘she know’d as she was one of -them as she had often talked to on the beach. Fur, though she had run (as I -have said) ever so fur in the night, she had oftentimes wandered long ways, -partly afoot, partly in boats and carriages, and know’d all that country, -‘long the coast, miles and miles. She hadn’t no children of her -own, this woman, being a young wife; but she was a-looking to have one afore -long. And may my prayers go up to Heaven that ‘twill be a happiness to -her, and a comfort, and a honour, all her life! May it love her and be dootiful -to her, in her old age; helpful of her at the last; a Angel to her heer, and -heerafter!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Amen!’ said my aunt. -</p> - -<p> -‘She had been summat timorous and down,’ said Mr. Peggotty, -‘and had sat, at first, a little way off, at her spinning, or such work -as it was, when Em’ly talked to the children. But Em’ly had took -notice of her, and had gone and spoke to her; and as the young woman was -partial to the children herself, they had soon made friends. Sermuchser, that -when Em’ly went that way, she always giv Em’ly flowers. This was -her as now asked what it was that had gone so much amiss. Em’ly told her, -and she—took her home. She did indeed. She took her home,’ said Mr. -Peggotty, covering his face. -</p> - -<p> -He was more affected by this act of kindness, than I had ever seen him affected -by anything since the night she went away. My aunt and I did not attempt to -disturb him. -</p> - -<p> -‘It was a little cottage, you may suppose,’ he said, presently, -‘but she found space for Em’ly in it,—her husband was away at -sea,—and she kep it secret, and prevailed upon such neighbours as she had -(they was not many near) to keep it secret too. Em’ly was took bad with -fever, and, what is very strange to me is,—maybe ‘tis not so -strange to scholars,—the language of that country went out of her head, -and she could only speak her own, that no one unnerstood. She recollects, as if -she had dreamed it, that she lay there always a-talking her own tongue, always -believing as the old boat was round the next pint in the bay, and begging and -imploring of ‘em to send theer and tell how she was dying, and bring back -a message of forgiveness, if it was on’y a wured. A’most the whole -time, she thowt,—now, that him as I made mention on just now was lurking -for her unnerneath the winder; now that him as had brought her to this was in -the room,—and cried to the good young woman not to give her up, and -know’d, at the same time, that she couldn’t unnerstand, and dreaded -that she must be took away. Likewise the fire was afore her eyes, and the -roarings in her ears; and theer was no today, nor yesterday, nor yet tomorrow; -but everything in her life as ever had been, or as ever could be, and -everything as never had been, and as never could be, was a crowding on her all -at once, and nothing clear nor welcome, and yet she sang and laughed about it! -How long this lasted, I doen’t know; but then theer come a sleep; and in -that sleep, from being a many times stronger than her own self, she fell into -the weakness of the littlest child.’ -</p> - -<p> -Here he stopped, as if for relief from the terrors of his own description. -After being silent for a few moments, he pursued his story. -</p> - -<p> -‘It was a pleasant arternoon when she awoke; and so quiet, that there -warn’t a sound but the rippling of that blue sea without a tide, upon the -shore. It was her belief, at first, that she was at home upon a Sunday morning; -but the vine leaves as she see at the winder, and the hills beyond, -warn’t home, and contradicted of her. Then, come in her friend to watch -alongside of her bed; and then she know’d as the old boat warn’t -round that next pint in the bay no more, but was fur off; and know’d -where she was, and why; and broke out a-crying on that good young woman’s -bosom, wheer I hope her baby is a-lying now, a-cheering of her with its pretty -eyes!’ -</p> - -<p> -He could not speak of this good friend of Emily’s without a flow of -tears. It was in vain to try. He broke down again, endeavouring to bless her! -</p> - -<p> -‘That done my Em’ly good,’ he resumed, after such emotion as -I could not behold without sharing in; and as to my aunt, she wept with all her -heart; ‘that done Em’ly good, and she begun to mend. But, the -language of that country was quite gone from her, and she was forced to make -signs. So she went on, getting better from day to day, slow, but sure, and -trying to learn the names of common things—names as she seemed never to -have heerd in all her life—till one evening come, when she was a-setting -at her window, looking at a little girl at play upon the beach. And of a sudden -this child held out her hand, and said, what would be in English, -“Fisherman’s daughter, here’s a shell!”—for you -are to unnerstand that they used at first to call her “Pretty -lady”, as the general way in that country is, and that she had taught -‘em to call her “Fisherman’s daughter” instead. The -child says of a sudden, “Fisherman’s daughter, here’s a -shell!” Then Em’ly unnerstands her; and she answers, bursting out -a-crying; and it all comes back! -</p> - -<p> -‘When Em’ly got strong again,’ said Mr. Peggotty, after -another short interval of silence, ‘she cast about to leave that good -young creetur, and get to her own country. The husband was come home, then; and -the two together put her aboard a small trader bound to Leghorn, and from that -to France. She had a little money, but it was less than little as they would -take for all they done. I’m a’most glad on it, though they was so -poor! What they done, is laid up wheer neither moth or rust doth corrupt, and -wheer thieves do not break through nor steal. Mas’r Davy, it’ll -outlast all the treasure in the wureld. -</p> - -<p> -‘Em’ly got to France, and took service to wait on travelling ladies -at a inn in the port. Theer, theer come, one day, that snake. —Let him -never come nigh me. I doen’t know what hurt I might do him!—Soon as -she see him, without him seeing her, all her fear and wildness returned upon -her, and she fled afore the very breath he draw’d. She come to England, -and was set ashore at Dover. -</p> - -<p> -‘I doen’t know,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘for sure, when her -‘art begun to fail her; but all the way to England she had thowt to come -to her dear home. Soon as she got to England she turned her face tow’rds -it. But, fear of not being forgiv, fear of being pinted at, fear of some of us -being dead along of her, fear of many things, turned her from it, kiender by -force, upon the road: “Uncle, uncle,” she says to me, “the -fear of not being worthy to do what my torn and bleeding breast so longed to -do, was the most fright’ning fear of all! I turned back, when my -‘art was full of prayers that I might crawl to the old door-step, in the -night, kiss it, lay my wicked face upon it, and theer be found dead in the -morning.” -</p> - -<p> -‘She come,’ said Mr. Peggotty, dropping his voice to an -awe-stricken whisper, ‘to London. She—as had never seen it in her -life—alone—without a penny—young—so pretty—come -to London. A’most the moment as she lighted heer, all so desolate, she -found (as she believed) a friend; a decent woman as spoke to her about the -needle-work as she had been brought up to do, about finding plenty of it fur -her, about a lodging fur the night, and making secret inquiration concerning of -me and all at home, tomorrow. When my child,’ he said aloud, and with an -energy of gratitude that shook him from head to foot, ‘stood upon the -brink of more than I can say or think on—Martha, trew to her promise, -saved her.’ -</p> - -<p> -I could not repress a cry of joy. -</p> - -<p> -‘Mas’r Davy!’ said he, gripping my hand in that strong hand -of his, ‘it was you as first made mention of her to me. I thankee, sir! -She was arnest. She had know’d of her bitter knowledge wheer to watch and -what to do. She had done it. And the Lord was above all! She come, white and -hurried, upon Em’ly in her sleep. She says to her, “Rise up from -worse than death, and come with me!” Them belonging to the house would -have stopped her, but they might as soon have stopped the sea. “Stand -away from me,” she says, “I am a ghost that calls her from beside -her open grave!” She told Em’ly she had seen me, and know’d I -loved her, and forgive her. She wrapped her, hasty, in her clothes. She took -her, faint and trembling, on her arm. She heeded no more what they said, than -if she had had no ears. She walked among ‘em with my child, minding only -her; and brought her safe out, in the dead of the night, from that black pit of -ruin! -</p> - -<p> -‘She attended on Em’ly,’ said Mr. Peggotty, who had released -my hand, and put his own hand on his heaving chest; ‘she attended to my -Em’ly, lying wearied out, and wandering betwixt whiles, till late next -day. Then she went in search of me; then in search of you, Mas’r Davy. -She didn’t tell Em’ly what she come out fur, lest her ‘art -should fail, and she should think of hiding of herself. How the cruel lady -know’d of her being theer, I can’t say. Whether him as I have spoke -so much of, chanced to see ‘em going theer, or whether (which is most -like, to my thinking) he had heerd it from the woman, I doen’t greatly -ask myself. My niece is found. -</p> - -<p> -‘All night long,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘we have been together, -Em’ly and me. ‘Tis little (considering the time) as she has said, -in wureds, through them broken-hearted tears; ‘tis less as I have seen of -her dear face, as grow’d into a woman’s at my hearth. But, all -night long, her arms has been about my neck; and her head has laid heer; and we -knows full well, as we can put our trust in one another, ever more.’ -</p> - -<p> -He ceased to speak, and his hand upon the table rested there in perfect repose, -with a resolution in it that might have conquered lions. -</p> - -<p> -‘It was a gleam of light upon me, Trot,’ said my aunt, drying her -eyes, ‘when I formed the resolution of being godmother to your sister -Betsey Trotwood, who disappointed me; but, next to that, hardly anything would -have given me greater pleasure, than to be godmother to that good young -creature’s baby!’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Peggotty nodded his understanding of my aunt’s feelings, but could -not trust himself with any verbal reference to the subject of her commendation. -We all remained silent, and occupied with our own reflections (my aunt drying -her eyes, and now sobbing convulsively, and now laughing and calling herself a -fool); until I spoke. -</p> - -<p> -‘You have quite made up your mind,’ said I to Mr. Peggotty, -‘as to the future, good friend? I need scarcely ask you.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Quite, Mas’r Davy,’ he returned; ‘and told -Em’ly. Theer’s mighty countries, fur from heer. Our future life -lays over the sea.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘They will emigrate together, aunt,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes!’ said Mr. Peggotty, with a hopeful smile. ‘No one -can’t reproach my darling in Australia. We will begin a new life over -theer!’ -</p> - -<p> -I asked him if he yet proposed to himself any time for going away. -</p> - -<p> -‘I was down at the Docks early this morning, sir,’ he returned, -‘to get information concerning of them ships. In about six weeks or two -months from now, there’ll be one sailing—I see her this -morning—went aboard—and we shall take our passage in her.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Quite alone?’ I asked. -</p> - -<p> -‘Aye, Mas’r Davy!’ he returned. ‘My sister, you see, -she’s that fond of you and yourn, and that accustomed to think on’y -of her own country, that it wouldn’t be hardly fair to let her go. -Besides which, theer’s one she has in charge, Mas’r Davy, as -doen’t ought to be forgot.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Poor Ham!’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘My good sister takes care of his house, you see, ma’am, and he -takes kindly to her,’ Mr. Peggotty explained for my aunt’s better -information. ‘He’ll set and talk to her, with a calm spirit, wen -it’s like he couldn’t bring himself to open his lips to another. -Poor fellow!’ said Mr. Peggotty, shaking his head, ‘theer’s -not so much left him, that he could spare the little as he has!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And Mrs. Gummidge?’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, I’ve had a mort of consideration, I do tell you,’ -returned Mr. Peggotty, with a perplexed look which gradually cleared as he went -on, ‘concerning of Missis Gummidge. You see, wen Missis Gummidge falls -a-thinking of the old ‘un, she an’t what you may call good company. -Betwixt you and me, Mas’r Davy—and you, ma’am—wen Mrs. -Gummidge takes to wimicking,’—our old country word for -crying,—‘she’s liable to be considered to be, by them as -didn’t know the old ‘un, peevish-like. Now I DID know the old -‘un,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘and I know’d his merits, so I -unnerstan’ her; but ‘tan’t entirely so, you see, with -others—nat’rally can’t be!’ -</p> - -<p> -My aunt and I both acquiesced. -</p> - -<p> -‘Wheerby,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘my sister might—I -doen’t say she would, but might—find Missis Gummidge give her a -leetle trouble now-and-again. Theerfur ‘tan’t my intentions to moor -Missis Gummidge ‘long with them, but to find a Beein’ fur her wheer -she can fisherate for herself.’ (A Beein’ signifies, in that -dialect, a home, and to fisherate is to provide.) ‘Fur which -purpose,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘I means to make her a ‘lowance -afore I go, as’ll leave her pretty comfort’ble. She’s the -faithfullest of creeturs. ‘Tan’t to be expected, of course, at her -time of life, and being lone and lorn, as the good old Mawther is to be knocked -about aboardship, and in the woods and wilds of a new and fur-away country. So -that’s what I’m a-going to do with her.’ -</p> - -<p> -He forgot nobody. He thought of everybody’s claims and strivings, but his -own. -</p> - -<p> -‘Em’ly,’ he continued, ‘will keep along with -me—poor child, she’s sore in need of peace and rest!—until -such time as we goes upon our voyage. She’ll work at them clothes, as -must be made; and I hope her troubles will begin to seem longer ago than they -was, wen she finds herself once more by her rough but loving uncle.’ -</p> - -<p> -My aunt nodded confirmation of this hope, and imparted great satisfaction to -Mr. Peggotty. -</p> - -<p> -‘Theer’s one thing furder, Mas’r Davy,’ said he, -putting his hand in his breast-pocket, and gravely taking out the little paper -bundle I had seen before, which he unrolled on the table. ‘Theer’s -these here banknotes—fifty pound, and ten. To them I wish to add the -money as she come away with. I’ve asked her about that (but not saying -why), and have added of it up. I an’t a scholar. Would you be so kind as -see how ‘tis?’ -</p> - -<p> -He handed me, apologetically for his scholarship, a piece of paper, and -observed me while I looked it over. It was quite right. -</p> - -<p> -‘Thankee, sir,’ he said, taking it back. ‘This money, if you -doen’t see objections, Mas’r Davy, I shall put up jest afore I go, -in a cover directed to him; and put that up in another, directed to his mother. -I shall tell her, in no more wureds than I speak to you, what it’s the -price on; and that I’m gone, and past receiving of it back.’ -</p> - -<p> -I told him that I thought it would be right to do so—that I was -thoroughly convinced it would be, since he felt it to be right. -</p> - -<p> -‘I said that theer was on’y one thing furder,’ he proceeded -with a grave smile, when he had made up his little bundle again, and put it in -his pocket; ‘but theer was two. I warn’t sure in my mind, wen I -come out this morning, as I could go and break to Ham, of my own self, what had -so thankfully happened. So I writ a letter while I was out, and put it in the -post-office, telling of ‘em how all was as ‘tis; and that I should -come down tomorrow to unload my mind of what little needs a-doing of down -theer, and, most-like, take my farewell leave of Yarmouth.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And do you wish me to go with you?’ said I, seeing that he left -something unsaid. -</p> - -<p> -‘If you could do me that kind favour, Mas’r Davy,’ he -replied. ‘I know the sight on you would cheer ‘em up a bit.’ -</p> - -<p> -My little Dora being in good spirits, and very desirous that I should -go—as I found on talking it over with her—I readily pledged myself -to accompany him in accordance with his wish. Next morning, consequently, we -were on the Yarmouth coach, and again travelling over the old ground. -</p> - -<p> -As we passed along the familiar street at night—Mr. Peggotty, in despite -of all my remonstrances, carrying my bag—I glanced into Omer and -Joram’s shop, and saw my old friend Mr. Omer there, smoking his pipe. I -felt reluctant to be present, when Mr. Peggotty first met his sister and Ham; -and made Mr. Omer my excuse for lingering behind. -</p> - -<p> -‘How is Mr. Omer, after this long time?’ said I, going in. -</p> - -<p> -He fanned away the smoke of his pipe, that he might get a better view of me, -and soon recognized me with great delight. -</p> - -<p> -‘I should get up, sir, to acknowledge such an honour as this -visit,’ said he, ‘only my limbs are rather out of sorts, and I am -wheeled about. With the exception of my limbs and my breath, howsoever, I am as -hearty as a man can be, I’m thankful to say.’ -</p> - -<p> -I congratulated him on his contented looks and his good spirits, and saw, now, -that his easy-chair went on wheels. -</p> - -<p> -‘It’s an ingenious thing, ain’t it?’ he inquired, -following the direction of my glance, and polishing the elbow with his arm. -‘It runs as light as a feather, and tracks as true as a mail-coach. Bless -you, my little Minnie—my grand-daughter you know, Minnie’s -child—puts her little strength against the back, gives it a shove, and -away we go, as clever and merry as ever you see anything! And I tell you -what—it’s a most uncommon chair to smoke a pipe in.’ -</p> - -<p> -I never saw such a good old fellow to make the best of a thing, and find out -the enjoyment of it, as Mr. Omer. He was as radiant, as if his chair, his -asthma, and the failure of his limbs, were the various branches of a great -invention for enhancing the luxury of a pipe. -</p> - -<p> -‘I see more of the world, I can assure you,’ said Mr. Omer, -‘in this chair, than ever I see out of it. You’d be surprised at -the number of people that looks in of a day to have a chat. You really would! -There’s twice as much in the newspaper, since I’ve taken to this -chair, as there used to be. As to general reading, dear me, what a lot of it I -do get through! That’s what I feel so strong, you know! If it had been my -eyes, what should I have done? If it had been my ears, what should I have done? -Being my limbs, what does it signify? Why, my limbs only made my breath shorter -when I used ‘em. And now, if I want to go out into the street or down to -the sands, I’ve only got to call Dick, Joram’s youngest -‘prentice, and away I go in my own carriage, like the Lord Mayor of -London.’ -</p> - -<p> -He half suffocated himself with laughing here. -</p> - -<p> -‘Lord bless you!’ said Mr. Omer, resuming his pipe, ‘a man -must take the fat with the lean; that’s what he must make up his mind to, -in this life. Joram does a fine business. Ex-cellent business!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I am very glad to hear it,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘I knew you would be,’ said Mr. Omer. ‘And Joram and Minnie -are like Valentines. What more can a man expect? What’s his limbs to -that!’ -</p> - -<p> -His supreme contempt for his own limbs, as he sat smoking, was one of the -pleasantest oddities I have ever encountered. -</p> - -<p> -‘And since I’ve took to general reading, you’ve took to -general writing, eh, sir?’ said Mr. Omer, surveying me admiringly. -‘What a lovely work that was of yours! What expressions in it! I read it -every word—every word. And as to feeling sleepy! Not at all!’ -</p> - -<p> -I laughingly expressed my satisfaction, but I must confess that I thought this -association of ideas significant. -</p> - -<p> -‘I give you my word and honour, sir,’ said Mr. Omer, ‘that -when I lay that book upon the table, and look at it outside; compact in three -separate and indiwidual wollumes—one, two, three; I am as proud as Punch -to think that I once had the honour of being connected with your family. And -dear me, it’s a long time ago, now, ain’t it? Over at Blunderstone. -With a pretty little party laid along with the other party. And you quite a -small party then, yourself. Dear, dear!’ -</p> - -<p> -I changed the subject by referring to Emily. After assuring him that I did not -forget how interested he had always been in her, and how kindly he had always -treated her, I gave him a general account of her restoration to her uncle by -the aid of Martha; which I knew would please the old man. He listened with the -utmost attention, and said, feelingly, when I had done: -</p> - -<p> -‘I am rejoiced at it, sir! It’s the best news I have heard for many -a day. Dear, dear, dear! And what’s going to be undertook for that -unfortunate young woman, Martha, now?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You touch a point that my thoughts have been dwelling on since -yesterday,’ said I, ‘but on which I can give you no information -yet, Mr. Omer. Mr. Peggotty has not alluded to it, and I have a delicacy in -doing so. I am sure he has not forgotten it. He forgets nothing that is -disinterested and good.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Because you know,’ said Mr. Omer, taking himself up, where he had -left off, ‘whatever is done, I should wish to be a member of. Put me down -for anything you may consider right, and let me know. I never could think the -girl all bad, and I am glad to find she’s not. So will my daughter Minnie -be. Young women are contradictory creatures in some things—her mother was -just the same as her—but their hearts are soft and kind. It’s all -show with Minnie, about Martha. Why she should consider it necessary to make -any show, I don’t undertake to tell you. But it’s all show, bless -you. She’d do her any kindness in private. So, put me down for whatever -you may consider right, will you be so good? and drop me a line where to -forward it. Dear me!’ said Mr. Omer, ‘when a man is drawing on to a -time of life, where the two ends of life meet; when he finds himself, however -hearty he is, being wheeled about for the second time, in a speeches of -go-cart; he should be over-rejoiced to do a kindness if he can. He wants -plenty. And I don’t speak of myself, particular,’ said Mr. Omer, -‘because, sir, the way I look at it is, that we are all drawing on to the -bottom of the hill, whatever age we are, on account of time never standing -still for a single moment. So let us always do a kindness, and be -over-rejoiced. To be sure!’ -</p> - -<p> -He knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and put it on a ledge in the back of his -chair, expressly made for its reception. -</p> - -<p> -‘There’s Em’ly’s cousin, him that she was to have been -married to,’ said Mr. Omer, rubbing his hands feebly, ‘as fine a -fellow as there is in Yarmouth! He’ll come and talk or read to me, in the -evening, for an hour together sometimes. That’s a kindness, I should call -it! All his life’s a kindness.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I am going to see him now,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Are you?’ said Mr. Omer. ‘Tell him I was hearty, and sent my -respects. Minnie and Joram’s at a ball. They would be as proud to see you -as I am, if they was at home. Minnie won’t hardly go out at all, you see, -“on account of father”, as she says. So I swore tonight, that if -she didn’t go, I’d go to bed at six. In consequence of -which,’ Mr. Omer shook himself and his chair with laughter at the success -of his device, ‘she and Joram’s at a ball.’ -</p> - -<p> -I shook hands with him, and wished him good night. -</p> - -<p> -‘Half a minute, sir,’ said Mr. Omer. ‘If you was to go -without seeing my little elephant, you’d lose the best of sights. You -never see such a sight! Minnie!’ A musical little voice answered, from -somewhere upstairs, ‘I am coming, grandfather!’ and a pretty little -girl with long, flaxen, curling hair, soon came running into the shop. -</p> - -<p> -‘This is my little elephant, sir,’ said Mr. Omer, fondling the -child. ‘Siamese breed, sir. Now, little elephant!’ -</p> - -<p> -The little elephant set the door of the parlour open, enabling me to see that, -in these latter days, it was converted into a bedroom for Mr. Omer who could -not be easily conveyed upstairs; and then hid her pretty forehead, and tumbled -her long hair, against the back of Mr. Omer’s chair. -</p> - -<p> -‘The elephant butts, you know, sir,’ said Mr. Omer, winking, -‘when he goes at a object. Once, elephant. Twice. Three times!’ -</p> - -<p> -At this signal, the little elephant, with a dexterity that was next to -marvellous in so small an animal, whisked the chair round with Mr. Omer in it, -and rattled it off, pell-mell, into the parlour, without touching the -door-post: Mr. Omer indescribably enjoying the performance, and looking back at -me on the road as if it were the triumphant issue of his life’s -exertions. -</p> - -<p> -After a stroll about the town I went to Ham’s house. Peggotty had now -removed here for good; and had let her own house to the successor of Mr. Barkis -in the carrying business, who had paid her very well for the good-will, cart, -and horse. I believe the very same slow horse that Mr. Barkis drove was still -at work. -</p> - -<p> -I found them in the neat kitchen, accompanied by Mrs. Gummidge, who had been -fetched from the old boat by Mr. Peggotty himself. I doubt if she could have -been induced to desert her post, by anyone else. He had evidently told them -all. Both Peggotty and Mrs. Gummidge had their aprons to their eyes, and Ham -had just stepped out ‘to take a turn on the beach’. He presently -came home, very glad to see me; and I hope they were all the better for my -being there. We spoke, with some approach to cheerfulness, of Mr. -Peggotty’s growing rich in a new country, and of the wonders he would -describe in his letters. We said nothing of Emily by name, but distantly -referred to her more than once. Ham was the serenest of the party. -</p> - -<p> -But, Peggotty told me, when she lighted me to a little chamber where the -Crocodile book was lying ready for me on the table, that he always was the -same. She believed (she told me, crying) that he was broken-hearted; though he -was as full of courage as of sweetness, and worked harder and better than any -boat-builder in any yard in all that part. There were times, she said, of an -evening, when he talked of their old life in the boat-house; and then he -mentioned Emily as a child. But, he never mentioned her as a woman. -</p> - -<p> -I thought I had read in his face that he would like to speak to me alone. I -therefore resolved to put myself in his way next evening, as he came home from -his work. Having settled this with myself, I fell asleep. That night, for the -first time in all those many nights, the candle was taken out of the window, -Mr. Peggotty swung in his old hammock in the old boat, and the wind murmured -with the old sound round his head. -</p> - -<p> -All next day, he was occupied in disposing of his fishing-boat and tackle; in -packing up, and sending to London by waggon, such of his little domestic -possessions as he thought would be useful to him; and in parting with the rest, -or bestowing them on Mrs. Gummidge. She was with him all day. As I had a -sorrowful wish to see the old place once more, before it was locked up, I -engaged to meet them there in the evening. But I so arranged it, as that I -should meet Ham first. -</p> - -<p> -It was easy to come in his way, as I knew where he worked. I met him at a -retired part of the sands, which I knew he would cross, and turned back with -him, that he might have leisure to speak to me if he really wished. I had not -mistaken the expression of his face. We had walked but a little way together, -when he said, without looking at me: -</p> - -<p> -‘Mas’r Davy, have you seen her?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Only for a moment, when she was in a swoon,’ I softly answered. -</p> - -<p> -We walked a little farther, and he said: -</p> - -<p> -‘Mas’r Davy, shall you see her, d’ye think?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘It would be too painful to her, perhaps,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘I have thowt of that,’ he replied. ‘So ‘twould, sir, -so ‘twould.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘But, Ham,’ said I, gently, ‘if there is anything that I -could write to her, for you, in case I could not tell it; if there is anything -you would wish to make known to her through me; I should consider it a sacred -trust.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I am sure on’t. I thankee, sir, most kind! I think theer is -something I could wish said or wrote.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘What is it?’ -</p> - -<p> -We walked a little farther in silence, and then he spoke. -</p> - -<p> -‘’Tan’t that I forgive her. ‘Tan’t that so much. -‘Tis more as I beg of her to forgive me, for having pressed my affections -upon her. Odd times, I think that if I hadn’t had her promise fur to -marry me, sir, she was that trustful of me, in a friendly way, that she’d -have told me what was struggling in her mind, and would have counselled with -me, and I might have saved her.’ -</p> - -<p> -I pressed his hand. ‘Is that all?’ ‘Theer’s yet a -something else,’ he returned, ‘if I can say it, Mas’r -Davy.’ -</p> - -<p> -We walked on, farther than we had walked yet, before he spoke again. He was not -crying when he made the pauses I shall express by lines. He was merely -collecting himself to speak very plainly. -</p> - -<p> -‘I loved her—and I love the mem’ry of her—too -deep—to be able to lead her to believe of my own self as I’m a -happy man. I could only be happy—by forgetting of her—and I’m -afeerd I couldn’t hardly bear as she should be told I done that. But if -you, being so full of learning, Mas’r Davy, could think of anything to -say as might bring her to believe I wasn’t greatly hurt: still loving of -her, and mourning for her: anything as might bring her to believe as I was not -tired of my life, and yet was hoping fur to see her without blame, wheer the -wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest—anything as would -ease her sorrowful mind, and yet not make her think as I could ever marry, or -as ‘twas possible that anyone could ever be to me what she was—I -should ask of you to say that—with my prayers for her—that was so -dear.’ -</p> - -<p> -I pressed his manly hand again, and told him I would charge myself to do this -as well as I could. -</p> - -<p> -‘I thankee, sir,’ he answered. ‘’Twas kind of you to -meet me. ‘Twas kind of you to bear him company down. Mas’r Davy, I -unnerstan’ very well, though my aunt will come to Lon’on afore they -sail, and they’ll unite once more, that I am not like to see him agen. I -fare to feel sure on’t. We doen’t say so, but so ‘twill be, -and better so. The last you see on him—the very last—will you give -him the lovingest duty and thanks of the orphan, as he was ever more than a -father to?’ -</p> - -<p> -This I also promised, faithfully. -</p> - -<p> -‘I thankee agen, sir,’ he said, heartily shaking hands. ‘I -know wheer you’re a-going. Good-bye!’ -</p> - -<p> -With a slight wave of his hand, as though to explain to me that he could not -enter the old place, he turned away. As I looked after his figure, crossing the -waste in the moonlight, I saw him turn his face towards a strip of silvery -light upon the sea, and pass on, looking at it, until he was a shadow in the -distance. -</p> - -<p> -The door of the boat-house stood open when I approached; and, on entering, I -found it emptied of all its furniture, saving one of the old lockers, on which -Mrs. Gummidge, with a basket on her knee, was seated, looking at Mr. Peggotty. -He leaned his elbow on the rough chimney-piece, and gazed upon a few expiring -embers in the grate; but he raised his head, hopefully, on my coming in, and -spoke in a cheery manner. -</p> - -<p> -‘Come, according to promise, to bid farewell to ‘t, eh, Mas’r -Davy?’ he said, taking up the candle. ‘Bare enough, now, an’t -it?’ ‘Indeed you have made good use of the time,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, we have not been idle, sir. Missis Gummidge has worked like -a—I doen’t know what Missis Gummidge an’t worked like,’ -said Mr. Peggotty, looking at her, at a loss for a sufficiently approving -simile. -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Gummidge, leaning on her basket, made no observation. -</p> - -<p> -‘Theer’s the very locker that you used to sit on, ‘long with -Em’ly!’ said Mr. Peggotty, in a whisper. ‘I’m a-going -to carry it away with me, last of all. And heer’s your old little -bedroom, see, Mas’r Davy! A’most as bleak tonight, as ‘art -could wish!’ -</p> - -<p> -In truth, the wind, though it was low, had a solemn sound, and crept around the -deserted house with a whispered wailing that was very mournful. Everything was -gone, down to the little mirror with the oyster-shell frame. I thought of -myself, lying here, when that first great change was being wrought at home. I -thought of the blue-eyed child who had enchanted me. I thought of Steerforth: -and a foolish, fearful fancy came upon me of his being near at hand, and liable -to be met at any turn. -</p> - -<p> -‘’Tis like to be long,’ said Mr. Peggotty, in a low voice, -‘afore the boat finds new tenants. They look upon ‘t, down heer, as -being unfortunate now!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Does it belong to anybody in the neighbourhood?’ I asked. -</p> - -<p> -‘To a mast-maker up town,’ said Mr. Peggotty. ‘I’m -a-going to give the key to him tonight.’ -</p> - -<p> -We looked into the other little room, and came back to Mrs. Gummidge, sitting -on the locker, whom Mr. Peggotty, putting the light on the chimney-piece, -requested to rise, that he might carry it outside the door before extinguishing -the candle. -</p> - -<p> -‘Dan’l,’ said Mrs. Gummidge, suddenly deserting her basket, -and clinging to his arm ‘my dear Dan’l, the parting words I speak -in this house is, I mustn’t be left behind. Doen’t ye think of -leaving me behind, Dan’l! Oh, doen’t ye ever do it!’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Peggotty, taken aback, looked from Mrs. Gummidge to me, and from me to Mrs. -Gummidge, as if he had been awakened from a sleep. -</p> - -<p> -‘Doen’t ye, dearest Dan’l, doen’t ye!’ cried Mrs. -Gummidge, fervently. ‘Take me ‘long with you, Dan’l, take me -‘long with you and Em’ly! I’ll be your servant, constant and -trew. If there’s slaves in them parts where you’re a-going, -I’ll be bound to you for one, and happy, but doen’t ye leave me -behind, Dan’l, that’s a deary dear!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘My good soul,’ said Mr. Peggotty, shaking his head, ‘you -doen’t know what a long voyage, and what a hard life ‘tis!’ -‘Yes, I do, Dan’l! I can guess!’ cried Mrs. Gummidge. -‘But my parting words under this roof is, I shall go into the house and -die, if I am not took. I can dig, Dan’l. I can work. I can live hard. I -can be loving and patient now—more than you think, Dan’l, if -you’ll on’y try me. I wouldn’t touch the ‘lowance, not -if I was dying of want, Dan’l Peggotty; but I’ll go with you and -Em’ly, if you’ll on’y let me, to the world’s end! I -know how ‘tis; I know you think that I am lone and lorn; but, deary love, -‘tan’t so no more! I ain’t sat here, so long, a-watching, and -a-thinking of your trials, without some good being done me. Mas’r Davy, -speak to him for me! I knows his ways, and Em’ly’s, and I knows -their sorrows, and can be a comfort to ‘em, some odd times, and labour -for ‘em allus! Dan’l, deary Dan’l, let me go ‘long with -you!’ -</p> - -<p> -And Mrs. Gummidge took his hand, and kissed it with a homely pathos and -affection, in a homely rapture of devotion and gratitude, that he well -deserved. -</p> - -<p> -We brought the locker out, extinguished the candle, fastened the door on the -outside, and left the old boat close shut up, a dark speck in the cloudy night. -Next day, when we were returning to London outside the coach, Mrs. Gummidge and -her basket were on the seat behind, and Mrs. Gummidge was happy. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0052"></a>CHAPTER 52. I ASSIST AT AN EXPLOSION</h2> - -<p> -When the time Mr. Micawber had appointed so mysteriously, was within -four-and-twenty hours of being come, my aunt and I consulted how we should -proceed; for my aunt was very unwilling to leave Dora. Ah! how easily I carried -Dora up and down stairs, now! -</p> - -<p> -We were disposed, notwithstanding Mr. Micawber’s stipulation for my -aunt’s attendance, to arrange that she should stay at home, and be -represented by Mr. Dick and me. In short, we had resolved to take this course, -when Dora again unsettled us by declaring that she never would forgive herself, -and never would forgive her bad boy, if my aunt remained behind, on any -pretence. -</p> - -<p> -‘I won’t speak to you,’ said Dora, shaking her curls at my -aunt. ‘I’ll be disagreeable! I’ll make Jip bark at you all -day. I shall be sure that you really are a cross old thing, if you don’t -go!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Tut, Blossom!’ laughed my aunt. ‘You know you can’t do -without me!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes, I can,’ said Dora. ‘You are no use to me at all. You -never run up and down stairs for me, all day long. You never sit and tell me -stories about Doady, when his shoes were worn out, and he was covered with -dust—oh, what a poor little mite of a fellow! You never do anything at -all to please me, do you, dear?’ Dora made haste to kiss my aunt, and -say, ‘Yes, you do! I’m only joking!’-lest my aunt should -think she really meant it. -</p> - -<p> -‘But, aunt,’ said Dora, coaxingly, ‘now listen. You must go. -I shall tease you, ‘till you let me have my own way about it. I shall -lead my naughty boy such a life, if he don’t make you go. I shall make -myself so disagreeable—and so will Jip! You’ll wish you had gone, -like a good thing, for ever and ever so long, if you don’t go. -Besides,’ said Dora, putting back her hair, and looking wonderingly at my -aunt and me, ‘why shouldn’t you both go? I am not very ill indeed. -Am I?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, what a question!’ cried my aunt. -</p> - -<p> -‘What a fancy!’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes! I know I am a silly little thing!’ said Dora, slowly looking -from one of us to the other, and then putting up her pretty lips to kiss us as -she lay upon her couch. ‘Well, then, you must both go, or I shall not -believe you; and then I shall cry!’ -</p> - -<p> -I saw, in my aunt’s face, that she began to give way now, and Dora -brightened again, as she saw it too. -</p> - -<p> -‘You’ll come back with so much to tell me, that it’ll take at -least a week to make me understand!’ said Dora. ‘Because I know I -shan’t understand, for a length of time, if there’s any business in -it. And there’s sure to be some business in it! If there’s anything -to add up, besides, I don’t know when I shall make it out; and my bad boy -will look so miserable all the time. There! Now you’ll go, won’t -you? You’ll only be gone one night, and Jip will take care of me while -you are gone. Doady will carry me upstairs before you go, and I won’t -come down again till you come back; and you shall take Agnes a dreadfully -scolding letter from me, because she has never been to see us!’ -</p> - -<p> -We agreed, without any more consultation, that we would both go, and that Dora -was a little Impostor, who feigned to be rather unwell, because she liked to be -petted. She was greatly pleased, and very merry; and we four, that is to say, -my aunt, Mr. Dick, Traddles, and I, went down to Canterbury by the Dover mail -that night. -</p> - -<p> -At the hotel where Mr. Micawber had requested us to await him, which we got -into, with some trouble, in the middle of the night, I found a letter, -importing that he would appear in the morning punctually at half past nine. -After which, we went shivering, at that uncomfortable hour, to our respective -beds, through various close passages; which smelt as if they had been steeped, -for ages, in a solution of soup and stables. -</p> - -<p> -Early in the morning, I sauntered through the dear old tranquil streets, and -again mingled with the shadows of the venerable gateways and churches. The -rooks were sailing about the cathedral towers; and the towers themselves, -overlooking many a long unaltered mile of the rich country and its pleasant -streams, were cutting the bright morning air, as if there were no such thing as -change on earth. Yet the bells, when they sounded, told me sorrowfully of -change in everything; told me of their own age, and my pretty Dora’s -youth; and of the many, never old, who had lived and loved and died, while the -reverberations of the bells had hummed through the rusty armour of the Black -Prince hanging up within, and, motes upon the deep of Time, had lost themselves -in air, as circles do in water. -</p> - -<p> -I looked at the old house from the corner of the street, but did not go nearer -to it, lest, being observed, I might unwittingly do any harm to the design I -had come to aid. The early sun was striking edgewise on its gables and -lattice-windows, touching them with gold; and some beams of its old peace -seemed to touch my heart. -</p> - -<p> -I strolled into the country for an hour or so, and then returned by the main -street, which in the interval had shaken off its last night’s sleep. -Among those who were stirring in the shops, I saw my ancient enemy the butcher, -now advanced to top-boots and a baby, and in business for himself. He was -nursing the baby, and appeared to be a benignant member of society. -</p> - -<p> -We all became very anxious and impatient, when we sat down to breakfast. As it -approached nearer and nearer to half past nine o’clock, our restless -expectation of Mr. Micawber increased. At last we made no more pretence of -attending to the meal, which, except with Mr. Dick, had been a mere form from -the first; but my aunt walked up and down the room. Traddles sat upon the sofa -affecting to read the paper with his eyes on the ceiling; and I looked out of -the window to give early notice of Mr. Micawber’s coming. Nor had I long -to watch, for, at the first chime of the half hour, he appeared in the street. -</p> - -<p> -‘Here he is,’ said I, ‘and not in his legal attire!’ -</p> - -<p> -My aunt tied the strings of her bonnet (she had come down to breakfast in it), -and put on her shawl, as if she were ready for anything that was resolute and -uncompromising. Traddles buttoned his coat with a determined air. Mr. Dick, -disturbed by these formidable appearances, but feeling it necessary to imitate -them, pulled his hat, with both hands, as firmly over his ears as he possibly -could; and instantly took it off again, to welcome Mr. Micawber. -</p> - -<p> -‘Gentlemen, and madam,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘good morning! My -dear sir,’ to Mr. Dick, who shook hands with him violently, ‘you -are extremely good.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Have you breakfasted?’ said Mr. Dick. ‘Have a chop!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Not for the world, my good sir!’ cried Mr. Micawber, stopping him -on his way to the bell; ‘appetite and myself, Mr. Dixon, have long been -strangers.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Dixon was so well pleased with his new name, and appeared to think it so -obliging in Mr. Micawber to confer it upon him, that he shook hands with him -again, and laughed rather childishly. -</p> - -<p> -‘Dick,’ said my aunt, ‘attention!’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Dick recovered himself, with a blush. -</p> - -<p> -‘Now, sir,’ said my aunt to Mr. Micawber, as she put on her gloves, -‘we are ready for Mount Vesuvius, or anything else, as soon as YOU -please.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Madam,’ returned Mr. Micawber, ‘I trust you will shortly -witness an eruption. Mr. Traddles, I have your permission, I believe, to -mention here that we have been in communication together?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘It is undoubtedly the fact, Copperfield,’ said Traddles, to whom I -looked in surprise. ‘Mr. Micawber has consulted me in reference to what -he has in contemplation; and I have advised him to the best of my -judgement.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Unless I deceive myself, Mr. Traddles,’ pursued Mr. Micawber, -‘what I contemplate is a disclosure of an important nature.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Highly so,’ said Traddles. -</p> - -<p> -‘Perhaps, under such circumstances, madam and gentlemen,’ said Mr. -Micawber, ‘you will do me the favour to submit yourselves, for the -moment, to the direction of one who, however unworthy to be regarded in any -other light but as a Waif and Stray upon the shore of human nature, is still -your fellow-man, though crushed out of his original form by individual errors, -and the accumulative force of a combination of circumstances?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘We have perfect confidence in you, Mr. Micawber,’ said I, -‘and will do what you please.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Mr. Copperfield,’ returned Mr. Micawber, ‘your confidence is -not, at the existing juncture, ill-bestowed. I would beg to be allowed a start -of five minutes by the clock; and then to receive the present company, -inquiring for Miss Wickfield, at the office of Wickfield and Heep, whose -Stipendiary I am.’ -</p> - -<p> -My aunt and I looked at Traddles, who nodded his approval. -</p> - -<p> -‘I have no more,’ observed Mr. Micawber, ‘to say at -present.’ -</p> - -<p> -With which, to my infinite surprise, he included us all in a comprehensive bow, -and disappeared; his manner being extremely distant, and his face extremely -pale. -</p> - -<p> -Traddles only smiled, and shook his head (with his hair standing upright on the -top of it), when I looked to him for an explanation; so I took out my watch, -and, as a last resource, counted off the five minutes. My aunt, with her own -watch in her hand, did the like. When the time was expired, Traddles gave her -his arm; and we all went out together to the old house, without saying one word -on the way. -</p> - -<p> -We found Mr. Micawber at his desk, in the turret office on the ground floor, -either writing, or pretending to write, hard. The large office-ruler was stuck -into his waistcoat, and was not so well concealed but that a foot or more of -that instrument protruded from his bosom, like a new kind of shirt-frill. -</p> - -<p> -As it appeared to me that I was expected to speak, I said aloud: -</p> - -<p> -‘How do you do, Mr. Micawber?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Mr. Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber, gravely, ‘I hope I see -you well?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Is Miss Wickfield at home?’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Mr. Wickfield is unwell in bed, sir, of a rheumatic fever,’ he -returned; ‘but Miss Wickfield, I have no doubt, will be happy to see old -friends. Will you walk in, sir?’ -</p> - -<p> -He preceded us to the dining-room—the first room I had entered in that -house—and flinging open the door of Mr. Wickfield’s former office, -said, in a sonorous voice: -</p> - -<p> -‘Miss Trotwood, Mr. David Copperfield, Mr. Thomas Traddles, and Mr. -Dixon!’ -</p> - -<p> -I had not seen Uriah Heep since the time of the blow. Our visit astonished him, -evidently; not the less, I dare say, because it astonished ourselves. He did -not gather his eyebrows together, for he had none worth mentioning; but he -frowned to that degree that he almost closed his small eyes, while the hurried -raising of his grisly hand to his chin betrayed some trepidation or surprise. -This was only when we were in the act of entering his room, and when I caught a -glance at him over my aunt’s shoulder. A moment afterwards, he was as -fawning and as humble as ever. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, I am sure,’ he said. ‘This is indeed an unexpected -pleasure! To have, as I may say, all friends round St. Paul’s at once, is -a treat unlooked for! Mr. Copperfield, I hope I see you well, and—if I -may umbly express myself so—friendly towards them as is ever your -friends, whether or not. Mrs. Copperfield, sir, I hope she’s getting on. -We have been made quite uneasy by the poor accounts we have had of her state, -lately, I do assure you.’ -</p> - -<p> -I felt ashamed to let him take my hand, but I did not know yet what else to do. -</p> - -<p> -‘Things are changed in this office, Miss Trotwood, since I was an umble -clerk, and held your pony; ain’t they?’ said Uriah, with his -sickliest smile. ‘But I am not changed, Miss Trotwood.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, sir,’ returned my aunt, ‘to tell you the truth, I -think you are pretty constant to the promise of your youth; if that’s any -satisfaction to you.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Thank you, Miss Trotwood,’ said Uriah, writhing in his ungainly -manner, ‘for your good opinion! Micawber, tell ‘em to let Miss -Agnes know—and mother. Mother will be quite in a state, when she sees the -present company!’ said Uriah, setting chairs. -</p> - -<p> -‘You are not busy, Mr. Heep?’ said Traddles, whose eye the cunning -red eye accidentally caught, as it at once scrutinized and evaded us. -</p> - -<p> -‘No, Mr. Traddles,’ replied Uriah, resuming his official seat, and -squeezing his bony hands, laid palm to palm between his bony knees. ‘Not -so much so as I could wish. But lawyers, sharks, and leeches, are not easily -satisfied, you know! Not but what myself and Micawber have our hands pretty -full, in general, on account of Mr. Wickfield’s being hardly fit for any -occupation, sir. But it’s a pleasure as well as a duty, I am sure, to -work for him. You’ve not been intimate with Mr. Wickfield, I think, Mr. -Traddles? I believe I’ve only had the honour of seeing you once -myself?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No, I have not been intimate with Mr. Wickfield,’ returned -Traddles; ‘or I might perhaps have waited on you long ago, Mr. -Heep.’ -</p> - -<p> -There was something in the tone of this reply, which made Uriah look at the -speaker again, with a very sinister and suspicious expression. But, seeing only -Traddles, with his good-natured face, simple manner, and hair on end, he -dismissed it as he replied, with a jerk of his whole body, but especially his -throat: -</p> - -<p> -‘I am sorry for that, Mr. Traddles. You would have admired him as much as -we all do. His little failings would only have endeared him to you the more. -But if you would like to hear my fellow-partner eloquently spoken of, I should -refer you to Copperfield. The family is a subject he’s very strong upon, -if you never heard him.’ -</p> - -<p> -I was prevented from disclaiming the compliment (if I should have done so, in -any case), by the entrance of Agnes, now ushered in by Mr. Micawber. She was -not quite so self-possessed as usual, I thought; and had evidently undergone -anxiety and fatigue. But her earnest cordiality, and her quiet beauty, shone -with the gentler lustre for it. -</p> - -<p> -I saw Uriah watch her while she greeted us; and he reminded me of an ugly and -rebellious genie watching a good spirit. In the meanwhile, some slight sign -passed between Mr. Micawber and Traddles; and Traddles, unobserved except by -me, went out. -</p> - -<p> -‘Don’t wait, Micawber,’ said Uriah. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Micawber, with his hand upon the ruler in his breast, stood erect before -the door, most unmistakably contemplating one of his fellow-men, and that man -his employer. -</p> - -<p> -‘What are you waiting for?’ said Uriah. ‘Micawber! did you -hear me tell you not to wait?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes!’ replied the immovable Mr. Micawber. -</p> - -<p> -‘Then why DO you wait?’ said Uriah. -</p> - -<p> -‘Because I—in short, choose,’ replied Mr. Micawber, with a -burst. -</p> - -<p> -Uriah’s cheeks lost colour, and an unwholesome paleness, still faintly -tinged by his pervading red, overspread them. He looked at Mr. Micawber -attentively, with his whole face breathing short and quick in every feature. -</p> - -<p> -‘You are a dissipated fellow, as all the world knows,’ he said, -with an effort at a smile, ‘and I am afraid you’ll oblige me to get -rid of you. Go along! I’ll talk to you presently.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘If there is a scoundrel on this earth,’ said Mr. Micawber, -suddenly breaking out again with the utmost vehemence, ‘with whom I have -already talked too much, that scoundrel’s name is—HEEP!’ -</p> - -<p> -Uriah fell back, as if he had been struck or stung. Looking slowly round upon -us with the darkest and wickedest expression that his face could wear, he said, -in a lower voice: -</p> - -<p> -‘Oho! This is a conspiracy! You have met here by appointment! You are -playing Booty with my clerk, are you, Copperfield? Now, take care. You’ll -make nothing of this. We understand each other, you and me. There’s no -love between us. You were always a puppy with a proud stomach, from your first -coming here; and you envy me my rise, do you? None of your plots against me; -I’ll counterplot you! Micawber, you be off. I’ll talk to you -presently.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Mr. Micawber,’ said I, ‘there is a sudden change in this -fellow, in more respects than the extraordinary one of his speaking the truth -in one particular, which assures me that he is brought to bay. Deal with him as -he deserves!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You are a precious set of people, ain’t you?’ said Uriah, in -the same low voice, and breaking out into a clammy heat, which he wiped from -his forehead, with his long lean hand, ‘to buy over my clerk, who is the -very scum of society,—as you yourself were, Copperfield, you know it, -before anyone had charity on you,—to defame me with his lies? Miss -Trotwood, you had better stop this; or I’ll stop your husband shorter -than will be pleasant to you. I won’t know your story professionally, for -nothing, old lady! Miss Wickfield, if you have any love for your father, you -had better not join that gang. I’ll ruin him, if you do. Now, come! I -have got some of you under the harrow. Think twice, before it goes over you. -Think twice, you, Micawber, if you don’t want to be crushed. I recommend -you to take yourself off, and be talked to presently, you fool! while -there’s time to retreat. Where’s mother?’ he said, suddenly -appearing to notice, with alarm, the absence of Traddles, and pulling down the -bell-rope. ‘Fine doings in a person’s own house!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Mrs. Heep is here, sir,’ said Traddles, returning with that worthy -mother of a worthy son. ‘I have taken the liberty of making myself known -to her.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Who are you to make yourself known?’ retorted Uriah. ‘And -what do you want here?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I am the agent and friend of Mr. Wickfield, sir,’ said Traddles, -in a composed and business-like way. ‘And I have a power of attorney from -him in my pocket, to act for him in all matters.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘The old ass has drunk himself into a state of dotage,’ said Uriah, -turning uglier than before, ‘and it has been got from him by -fraud!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Something has been got from him by fraud, I know,’ returned -Traddles quietly; ‘and so do you, Mr. Heep. We will refer that question, -if you please, to Mr. Micawber.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Ury—!’ Mrs. Heep began, with an anxious gesture. -</p> - -<p> -‘YOU hold your tongue, mother,’ he returned; ‘least said, -soonest mended.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘But, my Ury—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Will you hold your tongue, mother, and leave it to me?’ -</p> - -<p> -Though I had long known that his servility was false, and all his pretences -knavish and hollow, I had had no adequate conception of the extent of his -hypocrisy, until I now saw him with his mask off. The suddenness with which he -dropped it, when he perceived that it was useless to him; the malice, -insolence, and hatred, he revealed; the leer with which he exulted, even at -this moment, in the evil he had done—all this time being desperate too, -and at his wits’ end for the means of getting the better of -us—though perfectly consistent with the experience I had of him, at first -took even me by surprise, who had known him so long, and disliked him so -heartily. -</p> - -<p> -I say nothing of the look he conferred on me, as he stood eyeing us, one after -another; for I had always understood that he hated me, and I remembered the -marks of my hand upon his cheek. But when his eyes passed on to Agnes, and I -saw the rage with which he felt his power over her slipping away, and the -exhibition, in their disappointment, of the odious passions that had led him to -aspire to one whose virtues he could never appreciate or care for, I was -shocked by the mere thought of her having lived, an hour, within sight of such -a man. -</p> - -<p> -After some rubbing of the lower part of his face, and some looking at us with -those bad eyes, over his grisly fingers, he made one more address to me, half -whining, and half abusive. -</p> - -<p> -‘You think it justifiable, do you, Copperfield, you who pride yourself so -much on your honour and all the rest of it, to sneak about my place, -eaves-dropping with my clerk? If it had been ME, I shouldn’t have -wondered; for I don’t make myself out a gentleman (though I never was in -the streets either, as you were, according to Micawber), but being -you!—And you’re not afraid of doing this, either? You don’t -think at all of what I shall do, in return; or of getting yourself into trouble -for conspiracy and so forth? Very well. We shall see! Mr. -What’s-your-name, you were going to refer some question to Micawber. -There’s your referee. Why don’t you make him speak? He has learnt -his lesson, I see.’ -</p> - -<p> -Seeing that what he said had no effect on me or any of us, he sat on the edge -of his table with his hands in his pockets, and one of his splay feet twisted -round the other leg, waiting doggedly for what might follow. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Micawber, whose impetuosity I had restrained thus far with the greatest -difficulty, and who had repeatedly interposed with the first syllable of -SCOUN-drel! without getting to the second, now burst forward, drew the ruler -from his breast (apparently as a defensive weapon), and produced from his -pocket a foolscap document, folded in the form of a large letter. Opening this -packet, with his old flourish, and glancing at the contents, as if he cherished -an artistic admiration of their style of composition, he began to read as -follows: -</p> - -<p> -‘“Dear Miss Trotwood and gentlemen—“’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Bless and save the man!’ exclaimed my aunt in a low voice. -‘He’d write letters by the ream, if it was a capital -offence!’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Micawber, without hearing her, went on. -</p> - -<p> -‘“In appearing before you to denounce probably the most consummate -Villain that has ever existed,”’ Mr. Micawber, without looking off -the letter, pointed the ruler, like a ghostly truncheon, at Uriah Heep, -‘“I ask no consideration for myself. The victim, from my cradle, of -pecuniary liabilities to which I have been unable to respond, I have ever been -the sport and toy of debasing circumstances. Ignominy, Want, Despair, and -Madness, have, collectively or separately, been the attendants of my -career.”’ -</p> - -<p> -The relish with which Mr. Micawber described himself as a prey to these dismal -calamities, was only to be equalled by the emphasis with which he read his -letter; and the kind of homage he rendered to it with a roll of his head, when -he thought he had hit a sentence very hard indeed. -</p> - -<p> -‘“In an accumulation of Ignominy, Want, Despair, and Madness, I -entered the office—or, as our lively neighbour the Gaul would term it, -the Bureau—of the Firm, nominally conducted under the appellation of -Wickfield and—HEEP, but in reality, wielded by—HEEP alone. HEEP, -and only HEEP, is the mainspring of that machine. HEEP, and only HEEP, is the -Forger and the Cheat.”’ -</p> - -<p> -Uriah, more blue than white at these words, made a dart at the letter, as if to -tear it in pieces. Mr. Micawber, with a perfect miracle of dexterity or luck, -caught his advancing knuckles with the ruler, and disabled his right hand. It -dropped at the wrist, as if it were broken. The blow sounded as if it had -fallen on wood. -</p> - -<p> -‘The Devil take you!’ said Uriah, writhing in a new way with pain. -‘I’ll be even with you.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Approach me again, you—you—you HEEP of infamy,’ gasped -Mr. Micawber, ‘and if your head is human, I’ll break it. Come on, -come on!’ -</p> - -<p> -I think I never saw anything more ridiculous—I was sensible of it, even -at the time—than Mr. Micawber making broad-sword guards with the ruler, -and crying, ‘Come on!’ while Traddles and I pushed him back into a -corner, from which, as often as we got him into it, he persisted in emerging -again. -</p> - -<p> -His enemy, muttering to himself, after wringing his wounded hand for sometime, -slowly drew off his neck-kerchief and bound it up; then held it in his other -hand, and sat upon his table with his sullen face looking down. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Micawber, when he was sufficiently cool, proceeded with his letter. -</p> - -<p> -‘“The stipendiary emoluments in consideration of which I entered -into the service of—HEEP,”’ always pausing before that word -and uttering it with astonishing vigour, ‘“were not defined, beyond -the pittance of twenty-two shillings and six per week. The rest was left -contingent on the value of my professional exertions; in other and more -expressive words, on the baseness of my nature, the cupidity of my motives, the -poverty of my family, the general moral (or rather immoral) resemblance between -myself and—HEEP. Need I say, that it soon became necessary for me to -solicit from—HEEP—pecuniary advances towards the support of Mrs. -Micawber, and our blighted but rising family? Need I say that this necessity -had been foreseen by—HEEP? That those advances were secured by -I.O.U.‘s and other similar acknowledgements, known to the legal -institutions of this country? And that I thus became immeshed in the web he had -spun for my reception?”’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Micawber’s enjoyment of his epistolary powers, in describing this -unfortunate state of things, really seemed to outweigh any pain or anxiety that -the reality could have caused him. He read on: -</p> - -<p> -‘“Then it was that—HEEP—began to favour me with just so -much of his confidence, as was necessary to the discharge of his infernal -business. Then it was that I began, if I may so Shakespearianly express myself, -to dwindle, peak, and pine. I found that my services were constantly called -into requisition for the falsification of business, and the mystification of an -individual whom I will designate as Mr. W. That Mr. W. was imposed upon, kept -in ignorance, and deluded, in every possible way; yet, that all this while, the -ruffian—HEEP—was professing unbounded gratitude to, and unbounded -friendship for, that much-abused gentleman. This was bad enough; but, as the -philosophic Dane observes, with that universal applicability which -distinguishes the illustrious ornament of the Elizabethan Era, worse remains -behind!”’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Micawber was so very much struck by this happy rounding off with a -quotation, that he indulged himself, and us, with a second reading of the -sentence, under pretence of having lost his place. -</p> - -<p> -‘“It is not my intention,”’ he continued reading on, -‘“to enter on a detailed list, within the compass of the present -epistle (though it is ready elsewhere), of the various malpractices of a minor -nature, affecting the individual whom I have denominated Mr. W., to which I -have been a tacitly consenting party. My object, when the contest within myself -between stipend and no stipend, baker and no baker, existence and -non-existence, ceased, was to take advantage of my opportunities to discover -and expose the major malpractices committed, to that gentleman’s grievous -wrong and injury, by—HEEP. Stimulated by the silent monitor within, and -by a no less touching and appealing monitor without—to whom I will -briefly refer as Miss W.—I entered on a not unlaborious task of -clandestine investigation, protracted—now, to the best of my knowledge, -information, and belief, over a period exceeding twelve calendar -months.”’ -</p> - -<p> -He read this passage as if it were from an Act of Parliament; and appeared -majestically refreshed by the sound of the words. -</p> - -<p> -‘“My charges against—HEEP,”’ he read on, glancing -at him, and drawing the ruler into a convenient position under his left arm, in -case of need, ‘“are as follows.”’ -</p> - -<p> -We all held our breath, I think. I am sure Uriah held his. -</p> - -<p> -‘“First,”’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘“When Mr. -W.‘s faculties and memory for business became, through causes into which -it is not necessary or expedient for me to enter, weakened and -confused,—HEEP—designedly perplexed and complicated the whole of -the official transactions. When Mr. W. was least fit to enter on -business,—HEEP was always at hand to force him to enter on it. He -obtained Mr. W.‘s signature under such circumstances to documents of -importance, representing them to be other documents of no importance. He -induced Mr. W. to empower him to draw out, thus, one particular sum of -trust-money, amounting to twelve six fourteen, two and nine, and employed it to -meet pretended business charges and deficiencies which were either already -provided for, or had never really existed. He gave this proceeding, throughout, -the appearance of having originated in Mr. W.‘s own dishonest intention, -and of having been accomplished by Mr. W.‘s own dishonest act; and has -used it, ever since, to torture and constrain him.”’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You shall prove this, you Copperfield!’ said Uriah, with a -threatening shake of the head. ‘All in good time!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Ask—HEEP—Mr. Traddles, who lived in his house after -him,’ said Mr. Micawber, breaking off from the letter; ‘will -you?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘The fool himself—and lives there now,’ said Uriah, -disdainfully. -</p> - -<p> -‘Ask—HEEP—if he ever kept a pocket-book in that house,’ -said Mr. Micawber; ‘will you?’ -</p> - -<p> -I saw Uriah’s lank hand stop, involuntarily, in the scraping of his chin. -</p> - -<p> -‘Or ask him,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘if he ever burnt one there. -If he says yes, and asks you where the ashes are, refer him to Wilkins -Micawber, and he will hear of something not at all to his advantage!’ -</p> - -<p> -The triumphant flourish with which Mr. Micawber delivered himself of these -words, had a powerful effect in alarming the mother; who cried out, in much -agitation: -</p> - -<p> -‘Ury, Ury! Be umble, and make terms, my dear!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Mother!’ he retorted, ‘will you keep quiet? You’re in -a fright, and don’t know what you say or mean. Umble!’ he repeated, -looking at me, with a snarl; ‘I’ve umbled some of ‘em for a -pretty long time back, umble as I was!’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Micawber, genteelly adjusting his chin in his cravat, presently proceeded -with his composition. -</p> - -<p> -‘“Second. HEEP has, on several occasions, to the best of my -knowledge, information, and belief—“’ -</p> - -<p> -‘But that won’t do,’ muttered Uriah, relieved. ‘Mother, -you keep quiet.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘We will endeavour to provide something that WILL do, and do for you -finally, sir, very shortly,’ replied Mr. Micawber. -</p> - -<p> -‘“Second. HEEP has, on several occasions, to the best of my -knowledge, information, and belief, systematically forged, to various entries, -books, and documents, the signature of Mr. W.; and has distinctly done so in -one instance, capable of proof by me. To wit, in manner following, that is to -say:”’ -</p> - -<p> -Again, Mr. Micawber had a relish in this formal piling up of words, which, -however ludicrously displayed in his case, was, I must say, not at all peculiar -to him. I have observed it, in the course of my life, in numbers of men. It -seems to me to be a general rule. In the taking of legal oaths, for instance, -deponents seem to enjoy themselves mightily when they come to several good -words in succession, for the expression of one idea; as, that they utterly -detest, abominate, and abjure, or so forth; and the old anathemas were made -relishing on the same principle. We talk about the tyranny of words, but we -like to tyrannize over them too; we are fond of having a large superfluous -establishment of words to wait upon us on great occasions; we think it looks -important, and sounds well. As we are not particular about the meaning of our -liveries on state occasions, if they be but fine and numerous enough, so, the -meaning or necessity of our words is a secondary consideration, if there be but -a great parade of them. And as individuals get into trouble by making too great -a show of liveries, or as slaves when they are too numerous rise against their -masters, so I think I could mention a nation that has got into many great -difficulties, and will get into many greater, from maintaining too large a -retinue of words. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Micawber read on, almost smacking his lips: -</p> - -<p> -‘“To wit, in manner following, that is to say. Mr. W. being infirm, -and it being within the bounds of probability that his decease might lead to -some discoveries, and to the downfall of—HEEP’S—power over -the W. family,—as I, Wilkins Micawber, the undersigned, -assume—unless the filial affection of his daughter could be secretly -influenced from allowing any investigation of the partnership affairs to be -ever made, the said—HEEP—deemed it expedient to have a bond ready -by him, as from Mr. W., for the before-mentioned sum of twelve six fourteen, -two and nine, with interest, stated therein to have been advanced -by—HEEP—to Mr. W. to save Mr. W. from dishonour; though really the -sum was never advanced by him, and has long been replaced. The signatures to -this instrument purporting to be executed by Mr. W. and attested by Wilkins -Micawber, are forgeries by—HEEP. I have, in my possession, in his hand -and pocket-book, several similar imitations of Mr. W.‘s signature, here -and there defaced by fire, but legible to anyone. I never attested any such -document. And I have the document itself, in my possession.”’ Uriah -Heep, with a start, took out of his pocket a bunch of keys, and opened a -certain drawer; then, suddenly bethought himself of what he was about, and -turned again towards us, without looking in it. -</p> - -<p> -‘“And I have the document,”’ Mr. Micawber read again, -looking about as if it were the text of a sermon, ‘“in my -possession,—that is to say, I had, early this morning, when this was -written, but have since relinquished it to Mr. Traddles.”’ -</p> - -<p> -‘It is quite true,’ assented Traddles. -</p> - -<p> -‘Ury, Ury!’ cried the mother, ‘be umble and make terms. I -know my son will be umble, gentlemen, if you’ll give him time to think. -Mr. Copperfield, I’m sure you know that he was always very umble, -sir!’ -</p> - -<p> -It was singular to see how the mother still held to the old trick, when the son -had abandoned it as useless. -</p> - -<p> -‘Mother,’ he said, with an impatient bite at the handkerchief in -which his hand was wrapped, ‘you had better take and fire a loaded gun at -me.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘But I love you, Ury,’ cried Mrs. Heep. And I have no doubt she -did; or that he loved her, however strange it may appear; though, to be sure, -they were a congenial couple. ‘And I can’t bear to hear you -provoking the gentlemen, and endangering of yourself more. I told the gentleman -at first, when he told me upstairs it was come to light, that I would answer -for your being umble, and making amends. Oh, see how umble I am, gentlemen, and -don’t mind him!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, there’s Copperfield, mother,’ he angrily retorted, -pointing his lean finger at me, against whom all his animosity was levelled, as -the prime mover in the discovery; and I did not undeceive him; -‘there’s Copperfield, would have given you a hundred pound to say -less than you’ve blurted out!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I can’t help it, Ury,’ cried his mother. ‘I -can’t see you running into danger, through carrying your head so high. -Better be umble, as you always was.’ -</p> - -<p> -He remained for a little, biting the handkerchief, and then said to me with a -scowl: -</p> - -<p> -‘What more have you got to bring forward? If anything, go on with it. -What do you look at me for?’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Micawber promptly resumed his letter, glad to revert to a performance with -which he was so highly satisfied. -</p> - -<p> -‘“Third. And last. I am now in a condition to show, -by—HEEP’S—false books, and—HEEP’S—real -memoranda, beginning with the partially destroyed pocket-book (which I was -unable to comprehend, at the time of its accidental discovery by Mrs. Micawber, -on our taking possession of our present abode, in the locker or bin devoted to -the reception of the ashes calcined on our domestic hearth), that the -weaknesses, the faults, the very virtues, the parental affections, and the -sense of honour, of the unhappy Mr. W. have been for years acted on by, and -warped to the base purposes of—HEEP. That Mr. W. has been for years -deluded and plundered, in every conceivable manner, to the pecuniary -aggrandisement of the avaricious, false, and grasping—HEEP. That the -engrossing object of—HEEP—was, next to gain, to subdue Mr. and Miss -W. (of his ulterior views in reference to the latter I say nothing) entirely to -himself. That his last act, completed but a few months since, was to induce Mr. -W. to execute a relinquishment of his share in the partnership, and even a bill -of sale on the very furniture of his house, in consideration of a certain -annuity, to be well and truly paid by—HEEP—on the four common -quarter-days in each and every year. That these meshes; beginning with alarming -and falsified accounts of the estate of which Mr. W. is the receiver, at a -period when Mr. W. had launched into imprudent and ill-judged speculations, and -may not have had the money, for which he was morally and legally responsible, -in hand; going on with pretended borrowings of money at enormous interest, -really coming from—HEEP—and by—HEEP—fraudulently -obtained or withheld from Mr. W. himself, on pretence of such speculations or -otherwise; perpetuated by a miscellaneous catalogue of unscrupulous -chicaneries—gradually thickened, until the unhappy Mr. W. could see no -world beyond. Bankrupt, as he believed, alike in circumstances, in all other -hope, and in honour, his sole reliance was upon the monster in the garb of -man,”’—Mr. Micawber made a good deal of this, as a new turn -of expression,—‘“who, by making himself necessary to him, had -achieved his destruction. All this I undertake to show. Probably much -more!”’ -</p> - -<p> -I whispered a few words to Agnes, who was weeping, half joyfully, half -sorrowfully, at my side; and there was a movement among us, as if Mr. Micawber -had finished. He said, with exceeding gravity, ‘Pardon me,’ and -proceeded, with a mixture of the lowest spirits and the most intense enjoyment, -to the peroration of his letter. -</p> - -<p> -‘“I have now concluded. It merely remains for me to substantiate -these accusations; and then, with my ill-starred family, to disappear from the -landscape on which we appear to be an encumbrance. That is soon done. It may be -reasonably inferred that our baby will first expire of inanition, as being the -frailest member of our circle; and that our twins will follow next in order. So -be it! For myself, my Canterbury Pilgrimage has done much; imprisonment on -civil process, and want, will soon do more. I trust that the labour and hazard -of an investigation—of which the smallest results have been slowly pieced -together, in the pressure of arduous avocations, under grinding penurious -apprehensions, at rise of morn, at dewy eve, in the shadows of night, under the -watchful eye of one whom it were superfluous to call Demon—combined with -the struggle of parental Poverty to turn it, when completed, to the right -account, may be as the sprinkling of a few drops of sweet water on my funeral -pyre. I ask no more. Let it be, in justice, merely said of me, as of a gallant -and eminent naval Hero, with whom I have no pretensions to cope, that what I -have done, I did, in despite of mercenary and selfish objects, -</p> - -<p class="center"> -For England, home, and Beauty.<br/> -‘“Remaining always, &c. &c., WILKINS -MICAWBER.”’ -</p> - -<p> -Much affected, but still intensely enjoying himself, Mr. Micawber folded up his -letter, and handed it with a bow to my aunt, as something she might like to -keep. -</p> - -<p> -There was, as I had noticed on my first visit long ago, an iron safe in the -room. The key was in it. A hasty suspicion seemed to strike Uriah; and, with a -glance at Mr. Micawber, he went to it, and threw the doors clanking open. It -was empty. -</p> - -<p> -‘Where are the books?’ he cried, with a frightful face. ‘Some -thief has stolen the books!’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Micawber tapped himself with the ruler. ‘I did, when I got the key -from you as usual—but a little earlier—and opened it this -morning.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Don’t be uneasy,’ said Traddles. ‘They have come into -my possession. I will take care of them, under the authority I -mentioned.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You receive stolen goods, do you?’ cried Uriah. -</p> - -<p> -‘Under such circumstances,’ answered Traddles, ‘yes.’ -</p> - -<p> -What was my astonishment when I beheld my aunt, who had been profoundly quiet -and attentive, make a dart at Uriah Heep, and seize him by the collar with both -hands! -</p> - -<p> -‘You know what I want?’ said my aunt. -</p> - -<p> -‘A strait-waistcoat,’ said he. -</p> - -<p> -‘No. My property!’ returned my aunt. ‘Agnes, my dear, as long -as I believed it had been really made away with by your father, I -wouldn’t—and, my dear, I didn’t, even to Trot, as he -knows—breathe a syllable of its having been placed here for investment. -But, now I know this fellow’s answerable for it, and I’ll have it! -Trot, come and take it away from him!’ -</p> - -<p> -Whether my aunt supposed, for the moment, that he kept her property in his -neck-kerchief, I am sure I don’t know; but she certainly pulled at it as -if she thought so. I hastened to put myself between them, and to assure her -that we would all take care that he should make the utmost restitution of -everything he had wrongly got. This, and a few moments’ reflection, -pacified her; but she was not at all disconcerted by what she had done (though -I cannot say as much for her bonnet) and resumed her seat composedly. -</p> - -<p> -During the last few minutes, Mrs. Heep had been clamouring to her son to be -‘umble’; and had been going down on her knees to all of us in -succession, and making the wildest promises. Her son sat her down in his chair; -and, standing sulkily by her, holding her arm with his hand, but not rudely, -said to me, with a ferocious look: -</p> - -<p> -‘What do you want done?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I will tell you what must be done,’ said Traddles. -</p> - -<p> -‘Has that Copperfield no tongue?’ muttered Uriah, ‘I would do -a good deal for you if you could tell me, without lying, that somebody had cut -it out.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘My Uriah means to be umble!’ cried his mother. ‘Don’t -mind what he says, good gentlemen!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘What must be done,’ said Traddles, ‘is this. First, the deed -of relinquishment, that we have heard of, must be given over to me -now—here.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Suppose I haven’t got it,’ he interrupted. -</p> - -<p> -‘But you have,’ said Traddles; ‘therefore, you know, we -won’t suppose so.’ And I cannot help avowing that this was the -first occasion on which I really did justice to the clear head, and the plain, -patient, practical good sense, of my old schoolfellow. ‘Then,’ said -Traddles, ‘you must prepare to disgorge all that your rapacity has become -possessed of, and to make restoration to the last farthing. All the partnership -books and papers must remain in our possession; all your books and papers; all -money accounts and securities, of both kinds. In short, everything here.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Must it? I don’t know that,’ said Uriah. ‘I must have -time to think about that.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Certainly,’ replied Traddles; ‘but, in the meanwhile, and -until everything is done to our satisfaction, we shall maintain possession of -these things; and beg you—in short, compel you—to keep to your own -room, and hold no communication with anyone.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I won’t do it!’ said Uriah, with an oath. -</p> - -<p> -‘Maidstone jail is a safer place of detention,’ observed Traddles; -‘and though the law may be longer in righting us, and may not be able to -right us so completely as you can, there is no doubt of its punishing YOU. Dear -me, you know that quite as well as I! Copperfield, will you go round to the -Guildhall, and bring a couple of officers?’ -</p> - -<p> -Here, Mrs. Heep broke out again, crying on her knees to Agnes to interfere in -their behalf, exclaiming that he was very humble, and it was all true, and if -he didn’t do what we wanted, she would, and much more to the same -purpose; being half frantic with fears for her darling. To inquire what he -might have done, if he had had any boldness, would be like inquiring what a -mongrel cur might do, if it had the spirit of a tiger. He was a coward, from -head to foot; and showed his dastardly nature through his sullenness and -mortification, as much as at any time of his mean life. -</p> - -<p> -‘Stop!’ he growled to me; and wiped his hot face with his hand. -‘Mother, hold your noise. Well! Let ‘em have that deed. Go and -fetch it!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Do you help her, Mr. Dick,’ said Traddles, ‘if you -please.’ -</p> - -<p> -Proud of his commission, and understanding it, Mr. Dick accompanied her as a -shepherd’s dog might accompany a sheep. But, Mrs. Heep gave him little -trouble; for she not only returned with the deed, but with the box in which it -was, where we found a banker’s book and some other papers that were -afterwards serviceable. -</p> - -<p> -‘Good!’ said Traddles, when this was brought. ‘Now, Mr. Heep, -you can retire to think: particularly observing, if you please, that I declare -to you, on the part of all present, that there is only one thing to be done; -that it is what I have explained; and that it must be done without -delay.’ -</p> - -<p> -Uriah, without lifting his eyes from the ground, shuffled across the room with -his hand to his chin, and pausing at the door, said: -</p> - -<p> -‘Copperfield, I have always hated you. You’ve always been an -upstart, and you’ve always been against me.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘As I think I told you once before,’ said I, ‘it is you who -have been, in your greed and cunning, against all the world. It may be -profitable to you to reflect, in future, that there never were greed and -cunning in the world yet, that did not do too much, and overreach themselves. -It is as certain as death.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Or as certain as they used to teach at school (the same school where I -picked up so much umbleness), from nine o’clock to eleven, that labour -was a curse; and from eleven o’clock to one, that it was a blessing and a -cheerfulness, and a dignity, and I don’t know what all, eh?’ said -he with a sneer. ‘You preach, about as consistent as they did. -Won’t umbleness go down? I shouldn’t have got round my gentleman -fellow-partner without it, I think. —Micawber, you old bully, I’ll -pay YOU!’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Micawber, supremely defiant of him and his extended finger, and making a -great deal of his chest until he had slunk out at the door, then addressed -himself to me, and proffered me the satisfaction of ‘witnessing the -re-establishment of mutual confidence between himself and Mrs. Micawber’. -After which, he invited the company generally to the contemplation of that -affecting spectacle. -</p> - -<p> -‘The veil that has long been interposed between Mrs. Micawber and myself, -is now withdrawn,’ said Mr. Micawber; ‘and my children and the -Author of their Being can once more come in contact on equal terms.’ -</p> - -<p> -As we were all very grateful to him, and all desirous to show that we were, as -well as the hurry and disorder of our spirits would permit, I dare say we -should all have gone, but that it was necessary for Agnes to return to her -father, as yet unable to bear more than the dawn of hope; and for someone else -to hold Uriah in safe keeping. So, Traddles remained for the latter purpose, to -be presently relieved by Mr. Dick; and Mr. Dick, my aunt, and I, went home with -Mr. Micawber. As I parted hurriedly from the dear girl to whom I owed so much, -and thought from what she had been saved, perhaps, that morning—her -better resolution notwithstanding—I felt devoutly thankful for the -miseries of my younger days which had brought me to the knowledge of Mr. -Micawber. -</p> - -<p> -His house was not far off; and as the street door opened into the sitting-room, -and he bolted in with a precipitation quite his own, we found ourselves at once -in the bosom of the family. Mr. Micawber exclaiming, ‘Emma! my -life!’ rushed into Mrs. Micawber’s arms. Mrs. Micawber shrieked, -and folded Mr. Micawber in her embrace. Miss Micawber, nursing the unconscious -stranger of Mrs. Micawber’s last letter to me, was sensibly affected. The -stranger leaped. The twins testified their joy by several inconvenient but -innocent demonstrations. Master Micawber, whose disposition appeared to have -been soured by early disappointment, and whose aspect had become morose, -yielded to his better feelings, and blubbered. -</p> - -<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> -<img src="images/20373.jpg" alt="20373" width="100%" /> -</div> - -<h5> -<a href="images/20373.jpg"> -<img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /></a> -</h5> - -<p> -‘Emma!’ said Mr. Micawber. ‘The cloud is past from my mind. -Mutual confidence, so long preserved between us once, is restored, to know no -further interruption. Now, welcome poverty!’ cried Mr. Micawber, shedding -tears. ‘Welcome misery, welcome houselessness, welcome hunger, rags, -tempest, and beggary! Mutual confidence will sustain us to the end!’ -</p> - -<p> -With these expressions, Mr. Micawber placed Mrs. Micawber in a chair, and -embraced the family all round; welcoming a variety of bleak prospects, which -appeared, to the best of my judgement, to be anything but welcome to them; and -calling upon them to come out into Canterbury and sing a chorus, as nothing -else was left for their support. -</p> - -<p> -But Mrs. Micawber having, in the strength of her emotions, fainted away, the -first thing to be done, even before the chorus could be considered complete, -was to recover her. This my aunt and Mr. Micawber did; and then my aunt was -introduced, and Mrs. Micawber recognized me. -</p> - -<p> -‘Excuse me, dear Mr. Copperfield,’ said the poor lady, giving me -her hand, ‘but I am not strong; and the removal of the late -misunderstanding between Mr. Micawber and myself was at first too much for -me.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Is this all your family, ma’am?’ said my aunt. -</p> - -<p> -‘There are no more at present,’ returned Mrs. Micawber. -</p> - -<p> -‘Good gracious, I didn’t mean that, ma’am,’ said my -aunt. ‘I mean, are all these yours?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Madam,’ replied Mr. Micawber, ‘it is a true bill.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And that eldest young gentleman, now,’ said my aunt, musing, -‘what has he been brought up to?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘It was my hope when I came here,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘to -have got Wilkins into the Church: or perhaps I shall express my meaning more -strictly, if I say the Choir. But there was no vacancy for a tenor in the -venerable Pile for which this city is so justly eminent; and he has—in -short, he has contracted a habit of singing in public-houses, rather than in -sacred edifices.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘But he means well,’ said Mrs. Micawber, tenderly. -</p> - -<p> -‘I dare say, my love,’ rejoined Mr. Micawber, ‘that he means -particularly well; but I have not yet found that he carries out his meaning, in -any given direction whatsoever.’ -</p> - -<p> -Master Micawber’s moroseness of aspect returned upon him again, and he -demanded, with some temper, what he was to do? Whether he had been born a -carpenter, or a coach-painter, any more than he had been born a bird? Whether -he could go into the next street, and open a chemist’s shop? Whether he -could rush to the next assizes, and proclaim himself a lawyer? Whether he could -come out by force at the opera, and succeed by violence? Whether he could do -anything, without being brought up to something? -</p> - -<p> -My aunt mused a little while, and then said: -</p> - -<p> -‘Mr. Micawber, I wonder you have never turned your thoughts to -emigration.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Madam,’ returned Mr. Micawber, ‘it was the dream of my -youth, and the fallacious aspiration of my riper years.’ I am thoroughly -persuaded, by the by, that he had never thought of it in his life. -</p> - -<p> -‘Aye?’ said my aunt, with a glance at me. ‘Why, what a thing -it would be for yourselves and your family, Mr. and Mrs. Micawber, if you were -to emigrate now.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Capital, madam, capital,’ urged Mr. Micawber, gloomily. -</p> - -<p> -‘That is the principal, I may say the only difficulty, my dear Mr. -Copperfield,’ assented his wife. -</p> - -<p> -‘Capital?’ cried my aunt. ‘But you are doing us a great -service—have done us a great service, I may say, for surely much will -come out of the fire—and what could we do for you, that would be half so -good as to find the capital?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I could not receive it as a gift,’ said Mr. Micawber, full of fire -and animation, ‘but if a sufficient sum could be advanced, say at five -per cent interest, per annum, upon my personal liability—say my notes of -hand, at twelve, eighteen, and twenty-four months, respectively, to allow time -for something to turn up—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Could be? Can be and shall be, on your own terms,’ returned my -aunt, ‘if you say the word. Think of this now, both of you. Here are some -people David knows, going out to Australia shortly. If you decide to go, why -shouldn’t you go in the same ship? You may help each other. Think of this -now, Mr. and Mrs. Micawber. Take your time, and weigh it well.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘There is but one question, my dear ma’am, I could wish to -ask,’ said Mrs. Micawber. ‘The climate, I believe, is -healthy?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Finest in the world!’ said my aunt. -</p> - -<p> -‘Just so,’ returned Mrs. Micawber. ‘Then my question arises. -Now, are the circumstances of the country such, that a man of Mr. -Micawber’s abilities would have a fair chance of rising in the social -scale? I will not say, at present, might he aspire to be Governor, or anything -of that sort; but would there be a reasonable opening for his talents to -develop themselves—that would be amply sufficient—and find their -own expansion?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No better opening anywhere,’ said my aunt, ‘for a man who -conducts himself well, and is industrious.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘For a man who conducts himself well,’ repeated Mrs. Micawber, with -her clearest business manner, ‘and is industrious. Precisely. It is -evident to me that Australia is the legitimate sphere of action for Mr. -Micawber!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I entertain the conviction, my dear madam,’ said Mr. Micawber, -‘that it is, under existing circumstances, the land, the only land, for -myself and family; and that something of an extraordinary nature will turn up -on that shore. It is no distance—comparatively speaking; and though -consideration is due to the kindness of your proposal, I assure you that is a -mere matter of form.’ -</p> - -<p> -Shall I ever forget how, in a moment, he was the most sanguine of men, looking -on to fortune; or how Mrs. Micawber presently discoursed about the habits of -the kangaroo! Shall I ever recall that street of Canterbury on a market-day, -without recalling him, as he walked back with us; expressing, in the hardy -roving manner he assumed, the unsettled habits of a temporary sojourner in the -land; and looking at the bullocks, as they came by, with the eye of an -Australian farmer! -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0053"></a>CHAPTER 53. ANOTHER RETROSPECT</h2> - -<p> -I must pause yet once again. O, my child-wife, there is a figure in the moving -crowd before my memory, quiet and still, saying in its innocent love and -childish beauty, Stop to think of me—turn to look upon the Little -Blossom, as it flutters to the ground! -</p> - -<p> -I do. All else grows dim, and fades away. I am again with Dora, in our cottage. -I do not know how long she has been ill. I am so used to it in feeling, that I -cannot count the time. It is not really long, in weeks or months; but, in my -usage and experience, it is a weary, weary while. -</p> - -<p> -They have left off telling me to ‘wait a few days more’. I have -begun to fear, remotely, that the day may never shine, when I shall see my -child-wife running in the sunlight with her old friend Jip. -</p> - -<p> -He is, as it were suddenly, grown very old. It may be that he misses in his -mistress, something that enlivened him and made him younger; but he mopes, and -his sight is weak, and his limbs are feeble, and my aunt is sorry that he -objects to her no more, but creeps near her as he lies on Dora’s -bed—she sitting at the bedside—and mildly licks her hand. -</p> - -<p> -Dora lies smiling on us, and is beautiful, and utters no hasty or complaining -word. She says that we are very good to her; that her dear old careful boy is -tiring himself out, she knows; that my aunt has no sleep, yet is always -wakeful, active, and kind. Sometimes, the little bird-like ladies come to see -her; and then we talk about our wedding-day, and all that happy time. -</p> - -<p> -What a strange rest and pause in my life there seems to be—and in all -life, within doors and without—when I sit in the quiet, shaded, orderly -room, with the blue eyes of my child-wife turned towards me, and her little -fingers twining round my hand! Many and many an hour I sit thus; but, of all -those times, three times come the freshest on my mind. -</p> - -<p> -It is morning; and Dora, made so trim by my aunt’s hands, shows me how -her pretty hair will curl upon the pillow yet, an how long and bright it is, -and how she likes to have it loosely gathered in that net she wears. -</p> - -<p> -‘Not that I am vain of it, now, you mocking boy,’ she says, when I -smile; ‘but because you used to say you thought it so beautiful; and -because, when I first began to think about you, I used to peep in the glass, -and wonder whether you would like very much to have a lock of it. Oh what a -foolish fellow you were, Doady, when I gave you one!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘That was on the day when you were painting the flowers I had given you, -Dora, and when I told you how much in love I was.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Ah! but I didn’t like to tell you,’ says Dora, ‘then, -how I had cried over them, because I believed you really liked me! When I can -run about again as I used to do, Doady, let us go and see those places where we -were such a silly couple, shall we? And take some of the old walks? And not -forget poor papa?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes, we will, and have some happy days. So you must make haste to get -well, my dear.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, I shall soon do that! I am so much better, you don’t -know!’ -</p> - -<p> -It is evening; and I sit in the same chair, by the same bed, with the same face -turned towards me. We have been silent, and there is a smile upon her face. I -have ceased to carry my light burden up and down stairs now. She lies here all -the day. -</p> - -<p> -‘Doady!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear Dora!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You won’t think what I am going to say, unreasonable, after what -you told me, such a little while ago, of Mr. Wickfield’s not being well? -I want to see Agnes. Very much I want to see her.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I will write to her, my dear.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Will you?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Directly.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘What a good, kind boy! Doady, take me on your arm. Indeed, my dear, -it’s not a whim. It’s not a foolish fancy. I want, very much -indeed, to see her!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I am certain of it. I have only to tell her so, and she is sure to -come.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You are very lonely when you go downstairs, now?’ Dora whispers, -with her arm about my neck. -</p> - -<p> -‘How can I be otherwise, my own love, when I see your empty chair?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘My empty chair!’ She clings to me for a little while, in silence. -‘And you really miss me, Doady?’ looking up, and brightly smiling. -‘Even poor, giddy, stupid me?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘My heart, who is there upon earth that I could miss so much?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, husband! I am so glad, yet so sorry!’ creeping closer to me, -and folding me in both her arms. She laughs and sobs, and then is quiet, and -quite happy. -</p> - -<p> -‘Quite!’ she says. ‘Only give Agnes my dear love, and tell -her that I want very, very, much to see her; and I have nothing left to wish -for.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Except to get well again, Dora.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Ah, Doady! Sometimes I think—you know I always was a silly little -thing!—that that will never be!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Don’t say so, Dora! Dearest love, don’t think so!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I won’t, if I can help it, Doady. But I am very happy; though my -dear boy is so lonely by himself, before his child-wife’s empty -chair!’ -</p> - -<p> -It is night; and I am with her still. Agnes has arrived; has been among us for -a whole day and an evening. She, my aunt, and I, have sat with Dora since the -morning, all together. We have not talked much, but Dora has been perfectly -contented and cheerful. We are now alone. -</p> - -<p> -Do I know, now, that my child-wife will soon leave me? They have told me so; -they have told me nothing new to my thoughts—but I am far from sure that -I have taken that truth to heart. I cannot master it. I have withdrawn by -myself, many times today, to weep. I have remembered Who wept for a parting -between the living and the dead. I have bethought me of all that gracious and -compassionate history. I have tried to resign myself, and to console myself; -and that, I hope, I may have done imperfectly; but what I cannot firmly settle -in my mind is, that the end will absolutely come. I hold her hand in mine, I -hold her heart in mine, I see her love for me, alive in all its strength. I -cannot shut out a pale lingering shadow of belief that she will be spared. -</p> - -<p> -‘I am going to speak to you, Doady. I am going to say something I have -often thought of saying, lately. You won’t mind?’ with a gentle -look. -</p> - -<p> -‘Mind, my darling?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Because I don’t know what you will think, or what you may have -thought sometimes. Perhaps you have often thought the same. Doady, dear, I am -afraid I was too young.’ -</p> - -<p> -I lay my face upon the pillow by her, and she looks into my eyes, and speaks -very softly. Gradually, as she goes on, I feel, with a stricken heart, that she -is speaking of herself as past. -</p> - -<p> -‘I am afraid, dear, I was too young. I don’t mean in years only, -but in experience, and thoughts, and everything. I was such a silly little -creature! I am afraid it would have been better, if we had only loved each -other as a boy and girl, and forgotten it. I have begun to think I was not fit -to be a wife.’ -</p> - -<p> -I try to stay my tears, and to reply, ‘Oh, Dora, love, as fit as I to be -a husband!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I don’t know,’ with the old shake of her curls. -‘Perhaps! But if I had been more fit to be married I might have made you -more so, too. Besides, you are very clever, and I never was.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘We have been very happy, my sweet Dora.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I was very happy, very. But, as years went on, my dear boy would have -wearied of his child-wife. She would have been less and less a companion for -him. He would have been more and more sensible of what was wanting in his home. -She wouldn’t have improved. It is better as it is.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, Dora, dearest, dearest, do not speak to me so. Every word seems a -reproach!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No, not a syllable!’ she answers, kissing me. ‘Oh, my dear, -you never deserved it, and I loved you far too well to say a reproachful word -to you, in earnest—it was all the merit I had, except being -pretty—or you thought me so. Is it lonely, down-stairs, Doady?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Very! Very!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Don’t cry! Is my chair there?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘In its old place.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, how my poor boy cries! Hush, hush! Now, make me one promise. I want -to speak to Agnes. When you go downstairs, tell Agnes so, and send her up to -me; and while I speak to her, let no one come—not even aunt. I want to -speak to Agnes by herself. I want to speak to Agnes, quite alone.’ -</p> - -<p> -I promise that she shall, immediately; but I cannot leave her, for my grief. -</p> - -<p> -‘I said that it was better as it is!’ she whispers, as she holds me -in her arms. ‘Oh, Doady, after more years, you never could have loved -your child-wife better than you do; and, after more years, she would so have -tried and disappointed you, that you might not have been able to love her half -so well! I know I was too young and foolish. It is much better as it is!’ -</p> - -<p> -Agnes is downstairs, when I go into the parlour; and I give her the message. -She disappears, leaving me alone with Jip. -</p> - -<p> -His Chinese house is by the fire; and he lies within it, on his bed of flannel, -querulously trying to sleep. The bright moon is high and clear. As I look out -on the night, my tears fall fast, and my undisciplined heart is chastened -heavily—heavily. -</p> - -<p> -I sit down by the fire, thinking with a blind remorse of all those secret -feelings I have nourished since my marriage. I think of every little trifle -between me and Dora, and feel the truth, that trifles make the sum of life. -Ever rising from the sea of my remembrance, is the image of the dear child as I -knew her first, graced by my young love, and by her own, with every fascination -wherein such love is rich. Would it, indeed, have been better if we had loved -each other as a boy and a girl, and forgotten it? Undisciplined heart, reply! -</p> - -<p> -How the time wears, I know not; until I am recalled by my child-wife’s -old companion. More restless than he was, he crawls out of his house, and looks -at me, and wanders to the door, and whines to go upstairs. -</p> - -<p> -‘Not tonight, Jip! Not tonight!’ -</p> - -<p> -He comes very slowly back to me, licks my hand, and lifts his dim eyes to my -face. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, Jip! It may be, never again!’ -</p> - -<p> -He lies down at my feet, stretches himself out as if to sleep, and with a -plaintive cry, is dead. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, Agnes! Look, look, here!’ —That face, so full of pity, -and of grief, that rain of tears, that awful mute appeal to me, that solemn -hand upraised towards Heaven! -</p> - -<p> -‘Agnes?’ -</p> - -<p> -It is over. Darkness comes before my eyes; and, for a time, all things are -blotted out of my remembrance. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0054"></a>CHAPTER 54. Mr. MICAWBER’S TRANSACTIONS -</h2> - -<p> -This is not the time at which I am to enter on the state of my mind beneath its -load of sorrow. I came to think that the Future was walled up before me, that -the energy and action of my life were at an end, that I never could find any -refuge but in the grave. I came to think so, I say, but not in the first shock -of my grief. It slowly grew to that. If the events I go on to relate, had not -thickened around me, in the beginning to confuse, and in the end to augment, my -affliction, it is possible (though I think not probable), that I might have -fallen at once into this condition. As it was, an interval occurred before I -fully knew my own distress; an interval, in which I even supposed that its -sharpest pangs were past; and when my mind could soothe itself by resting on -all that was most innocent and beautiful, in the tender story that was closed -for ever. -</p> - -<p> -When it was first proposed that I should go abroad, or how it came to be agreed -among us that I was to seek the restoration of my peace in change and travel, I -do not, even now, distinctly know. The spirit of Agnes so pervaded all we -thought, and said, and did, in that time of sorrow, that I assume I may refer -the project to her influence. But her influence was so quiet that I know no -more. -</p> - -<p> -And now, indeed, I began to think that in my old association of her with the -stained-glass window in the church, a prophetic foreshadowing of what she would -be to me, in the calamity that was to happen in the fullness of time, had found -a way into my mind. In all that sorrow, from the moment, never to be forgotten, -when she stood before me with her upraised hand, she was like a sacred presence -in my lonely house. When the Angel of Death alighted there, my child-wife fell -asleep—they told me so when I could bear to hear it—on her bosom, -with a smile. From my swoon, I first awoke to a consciousness of her -compassionate tears, her words of hope and peace, her gentle face bending down -as from a purer region nearer Heaven, over my undisciplined heart, and -softening its pain. -</p> - -<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> -<img src="images/20383.jpg" alt="20383" width="100%" /> -</div> - -<h5> -<a href="images/20383.jpg"> -<img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /></a> -</h5> - -<p> -Let me go on. -</p> - -<p> -I was to go abroad. That seemed to have been determined among us from the -first. The ground now covering all that could perish of my departed wife, I -waited only for what Mr. Micawber called the ‘final pulverization of -Heep’; and for the departure of the emigrants. -</p> - -<p> -At the request of Traddles, most affectionate and devoted of friends in my -trouble, we returned to Canterbury: I mean my aunt, Agnes, and I. We proceeded -by appointment straight to Mr. Micawber’s house; where, and at Mr. -Wickfield’s, my friend had been labouring ever since our explosive -meeting. When poor Mrs. Micawber saw me come in, in my black clothes, she was -sensibly affected. There was a great deal of good in Mrs. Micawber’s -heart, which had not been dunned out of it in all those many years. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, Mr. and Mrs. Micawber,’ was my aunt’s first salutation -after we were seated. ‘Pray, have you thought about that emigration -proposal of mine?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear madam,’ returned Mr. Micawber, ‘perhaps I cannot -better express the conclusion at which Mrs. Micawber, your humble servant, and -I may add our children, have jointly and severally arrived, than by borrowing -the language of an illustrious poet, to reply that our Boat is on the shore, -and our Bark is on the sea.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘That’s right,’ said my aunt. ‘I augur all sort of good -from your sensible decision.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Madam, you do us a great deal of honour,’ he rejoined. He then -referred to a memorandum. ‘With respect to the pecuniary assistance -enabling us to launch our frail canoe on the ocean of enterprise, I have -reconsidered that important business-point; and would beg to propose my notes -of hand—drawn, it is needless to stipulate, on stamps of the amounts -respectively required by the various Acts of Parliament applying to such -securities—at eighteen, twenty-four, and thirty months. The proposition I -originally submitted, was twelve, eighteen, and twenty-four; but I am -apprehensive that such an arrangement might not allow sufficient time for the -requisite amount of—Something—to turn up. We might not,’ said -Mr. Micawber, looking round the room as if it represented several hundred acres -of highly cultivated land, ‘on the first responsibility becoming due, -have been successful in our harvest, or we might not have got our harvest in. -Labour, I believe, is sometimes difficult to obtain in that portion of our -colonial possessions where it will be our lot to combat with the teeming -soil.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Arrange it in any way you please, sir,’ said my aunt. -</p> - -<p> -‘Madam,’ he replied, ‘Mrs. Micawber and myself are deeply -sensible of the very considerate kindness of our friends and patrons. What I -wish is, to be perfectly business-like, and perfectly punctual. Turning over, -as we are about to turn over, an entirely new leaf; and falling back, as we are -now in the act of falling back, for a Spring of no common magnitude; it is -important to my sense of self-respect, besides being an example to my son, that -these arrangements should be concluded as between man and man.’ -</p> - -<p> -I don’t know that Mr. Micawber attached any meaning to this last phrase; -I don’t know that anybody ever does, or did; but he appeared to relish it -uncommonly, and repeated, with an impressive cough, ‘as between man and -man’. -</p> - -<p> -‘I propose,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘Bills—a convenience to -the mercantile world, for which, I believe, we are originally indebted to the -Jews, who appear to me to have had a devilish deal too much to do with them -ever since—because they are negotiable. But if a Bond, or any other -description of security, would be preferred, I should be happy to execute any -such instrument. As between man and man.’ -</p> - -<p> -My aunt observed, that in a case where both parties were willing to agree to -anything, she took it for granted there would be no difficulty in settling this -point. Mr. Micawber was of her opinion. -</p> - -<p> -‘In reference to our domestic preparations, madam,’ said Mr. -Micawber, with some pride, ‘for meeting the destiny to which we are now -understood to be self-devoted, I beg to report them. My eldest daughter attends -at five every morning in a neighbouring establishment, to acquire the -process—if process it may be called—of milking cows. My younger -children are instructed to observe, as closely as circumstances will permit, -the habits of the pigs and poultry maintained in the poorer parts of this city: -a pursuit from which they have, on two occasions, been brought home, within an -inch of being run over. I have myself directed some attention, during the past -week, to the art of baking; and my son Wilkins has issued forth with a -walking-stick and driven cattle, when permitted, by the rugged hirelings who -had them in charge, to render any voluntary service in that -direction—which I regret to say, for the credit of our nature, was not -often; he being generally warned, with imprecations, to desist.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘All very right indeed,’ said my aunt, encouragingly. ‘Mrs. -Micawber has been busy, too, I have no doubt.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear madam,’ returned Mrs. Micawber, with her business-like -air. ‘I am free to confess that I have not been actively engaged in -pursuits immediately connected with cultivation or with stock, though well -aware that both will claim my attention on a foreign shore. Such opportunities -as I have been enabled to alienate from my domestic duties, I have devoted to -corresponding at some length with my family. For I own it seems to me, my dear -Mr. Copperfield,’ said Mrs. Micawber, who always fell back on me, I -suppose from old habit, to whomsoever else she might address her discourse at -starting, ‘that the time is come when the past should be buried in -oblivion; when my family should take Mr. Micawber by the hand, and Mr. Micawber -should take my family by the hand; when the lion should lie down with the lamb, -and my family be on terms with Mr. Micawber.’ -</p> - -<p> -I said I thought so too. -</p> - -<p> -‘This, at least, is the light, my dear Mr. Copperfield,’ pursued -Mrs. Micawber, ‘in which I view the subject. When I lived at home with my -papa and mama, my papa was accustomed to ask, when any point was under -discussion in our limited circle, “In what light does my Emma view the -subject?” That my papa was too partial, I know; still, on such a point as -the frigid coldness which has ever subsisted between Mr. Micawber and my -family, I necessarily have formed an opinion, delusive though it may be.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No doubt. Of course you have, ma’am,’ said my aunt. -</p> - -<p> -‘Precisely so,’ assented Mrs. Micawber. ‘Now, I may be wrong -in my conclusions; it is very likely that I am, but my individual impression -is, that the gulf between my family and Mr. Micawber may be traced to an -apprehension, on the part of my family, that Mr. Micawber would require -pecuniary accommodation. I cannot help thinking,’ said Mrs. Micawber, -with an air of deep sagacity, ‘that there are members of my family who -have been apprehensive that Mr. Micawber would solicit them for their -names.—-I do not mean to be conferred in Baptism upon our children, but -to be inscribed on Bills of Exchange, and negotiated in the Money -Market.’ -</p> - -<p> -The look of penetration with which Mrs. Micawber announced this discovery, as -if no one had ever thought of it before, seemed rather to astonish my aunt; who -abruptly replied, ‘Well, ma’am, upon the whole, I shouldn’t -wonder if you were right!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Mr. Micawber being now on the eve of casting off the pecuniary shackles -that have so long enthralled him,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘and of -commencing a new career in a country where there is sufficient range for his -abilities,—which, in my opinion, is exceedingly important; Mr. -Micawber’s abilities peculiarly requiring space,—it seems to me -that my family should signalize the occasion by coming forward. What I could -wish to see, would be a meeting between Mr. Micawber and my family at a festive -entertainment, to be given at my family’s expense; where Mr. -Micawber’s health and prosperity being proposed, by some leading member -of my family, Mr. Micawber might have an opportunity of developing his -views.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear,’ said Mr. Micawber, with some heat, ‘it may be -better for me to state distinctly, at once, that if I were to develop my views -to that assembled group, they would possibly be found of an offensive nature: -my impression being that your family are, in the aggregate, impertinent Snobs; -and, in detail, unmitigated Ruffians.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Micawber,’ said Mrs. Micawber, shaking her head, ‘no! You -have never understood them, and they have never understood you.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Micawber coughed. -</p> - -<p> -‘They have never understood you, Micawber,’ said his wife. -‘They may be incapable of it. If so, that is their misfortune. I can pity -their misfortune.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I am extremely sorry, my dear Emma,’ said Mr. Micawber, relenting, -‘to have been betrayed into any expressions that might, even remotely, -have the appearance of being strong expressions. All I would say is, that I can -go abroad without your family coming forward to favour me,—in short, with -a parting Shove of their cold shoulders; and that, upon the whole, I would -rather leave England with such impetus as I possess, than derive any -acceleration of it from that quarter. At the same time, my dear, if they should -condescend to reply to your communications—which our joint experience -renders most improbable—far be it from me to be a barrier to your -wishes.’ -</p> - -<p> -The matter being thus amicably settled, Mr. Micawber gave Mrs. Micawber his -arm, and glancing at the heap of books and papers lying before Traddles on the -table, said they would leave us to ourselves; which they ceremoniously did. -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear Copperfield,’ said Traddles, leaning back in his chair -when they were gone, and looking at me with an affection that made his eyes -red, and his hair all kinds of shapes, ‘I don’t make any excuse for -troubling you with business, because I know you are deeply interested in it, -and it may divert your thoughts. My dear boy, I hope you are not worn -out?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I am quite myself,’ said I, after a pause. ‘We have more -cause to think of my aunt than of anyone. You know how much she has -done.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Surely, surely,’ answered Traddles. ‘Who can forget -it!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘But even that is not all,’ said I. ‘During the last -fortnight, some new trouble has vexed her; and she has been in and out of -London every day. Several times she has gone out early, and been absent until -evening. Last night, Traddles, with this journey before her, it was almost -midnight before she came home. You know what her consideration for others is. -She will not tell me what has happened to distress her.’ -</p> - -<p> -My aunt, very pale, and with deep lines in her face, sat immovable until I had -finished; when some stray tears found their way to her cheeks, and she put her -hand on mine. -</p> - -<p> -‘It’s nothing, Trot; it’s nothing. There will be no more of -it. You shall know by and by. Now Agnes, my dear, let us attend to these -affairs.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I must do Mr. Micawber the justice to say,’ Traddles began, -‘that although he would appear not to have worked to any good account for -himself, he is a most untiring man when he works for other people. I never saw -such a fellow. If he always goes on in the same way, he must be, virtually, -about two hundred years old, at present. The heat into which he has been -continually putting himself; and the distracted and impetuous manner in which -he has been diving, day and night, among papers and books; to say nothing of -the immense number of letters he has written me between this house and Mr. -Wickfield’s, and often across the table when he has been sitting -opposite, and might much more easily have spoken; is quite -extraordinary.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Letters!’ cried my aunt. ‘I believe he dreams in -letters!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘There’s Mr. Dick, too,’ said Traddles, ‘has been doing -wonders! As soon as he was released from overlooking Uriah Heep, whom he kept -in such charge as I never saw exceeded, he began to devote himself to Mr. -Wickfield. And really his anxiety to be of use in the investigations we have -been making, and his real usefulness in extracting, and copying, and fetching, -and carrying, have been quite stimulating to us.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Dick is a very remarkable man,’ exclaimed my aunt; ‘and I -always said he was. Trot, you know it.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I am happy to say, Miss Wickfield,’ pursued Traddles, at once with -great delicacy and with great earnestness, ‘that in your absence Mr. -Wickfield has considerably improved. Relieved of the incubus that had fastened -upon him for so long a time, and of the dreadful apprehensions under which he -had lived, he is hardly the same person. At times, even his impaired power of -concentrating his memory and attention on particular points of business, has -recovered itself very much; and he has been able to assist us in making some -things clear, that we should have found very difficult indeed, if not hopeless, -without him. But what I have to do is to come to results; which are short -enough; not to gossip on all the hopeful circumstances I have observed, or I -shall never have done.’ His natural manner and agreeable simplicity made -it transparent that he said this to put us in good heart, and to enable Agnes -to hear her father mentioned with greater confidence; but it was not the less -pleasant for that. -</p> - -<p> -‘Now, let me see,’ said Traddles, looking among the papers on the -table. ‘Having counted our funds, and reduced to order a great mass of -unintentional confusion in the first place, and of wilful confusion and -falsification in the second, we take it to be clear that Mr. Wickfield might -now wind up his business, and his agency-trust, and exhibit no deficiency or -defalcation whatever.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, thank Heaven!’ cried Agnes, fervently. -</p> - -<p> -‘But,’ said Traddles, ‘the surplus that would be left as his -means of support—and I suppose the house to be sold, even in saying -this—would be so small, not exceeding in all probability some hundreds of -pounds, that perhaps, Miss Wickfield, it would be best to consider whether he -might not retain his agency of the estate to which he has so long been -receiver. His friends might advise him, you know; now he is free. You yourself, -Miss Wickfield—Copperfield—I—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I have considered it, Trotwood,’ said Agnes, looking to me, -‘and I feel that it ought not to be, and must not be; even on the -recommendation of a friend to whom I am so grateful, and owe so much.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I will not say that I recommend it,’ observed Traddles. ‘I -think it right to suggest it. No more.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I am happy to hear you say so,’ answered Agnes, steadily, -‘for it gives me hope, almost assurance, that we think alike. Dear Mr. -Traddles and dear Trotwood, papa once free with honour, what could I wish for! -I have always aspired, if I could have released him from the toils in which he -was held, to render back some little portion of the love and care I owe him, -and to devote my life to him. It has been, for years, the utmost height of my -hopes. To take our future on myself, will be the next great happiness—the -next to his release from all trust and responsibility—that I can -know.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Have you thought how, Agnes?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Often! I am not afraid, dear Trotwood. I am certain of success. So many -people know me here, and think kindly of me, that I am certain. Don’t -mistrust me. Our wants are not many. If I rent the dear old house, and keep a -school, I shall be useful and happy.’ -</p> - -<p> -The calm fervour of her cheerful voice brought back so vividly, first the dear -old house itself, and then my solitary home, that my heart was too full for -speech. Traddles pretended for a little while to be busily looking among the -papers. -</p> - -<p> -‘Next, Miss Trotwood,’ said Traddles, ‘that property of -yours.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, sir,’ sighed my aunt. ‘All I have got to say about it -is, that if it’s gone, I can bear it; and if it’s not gone, I shall -be glad to get it back.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘It was originally, I think, eight thousand pounds, Consols?’ said -Traddles. -</p> - -<p> -‘Right!’ replied my aunt. -</p> - -<p> -‘I can’t account for more than five,’ said Traddles, with an -air of perplexity. -</p> - -<p> -‘—thousand, do you mean?’ inquired my aunt, with uncommon -composure, ‘or pounds?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Five thousand pounds,’ said Traddles. -</p> - -<p> -‘It was all there was,’ returned my aunt. ‘I sold three, -myself. One, I paid for your articles, Trot, my dear; and the other two I have -by me. When I lost the rest, I thought it wise to say nothing about that sum, -but to keep it secretly for a rainy day. I wanted to see how you would come out -of the trial, Trot; and you came out nobly—persevering, self-reliant, -self-denying! So did Dick. Don’t speak to me, for I find my nerves a -little shaken!’ -</p> - -<p> -Nobody would have thought so, to see her sitting upright, with her arms folded; -but she had wonderful self-command. -</p> - -<p> -‘Then I am delighted to say,’ cried Traddles, beaming with joy, -‘that we have recovered the whole money!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Don’t congratulate me, anybody!’ exclaimed my aunt. -‘How so, sir?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You believed it had been misappropriated by Mr. Wickfield?’ said -Traddles. -</p> - -<p> -‘Of course I did,’ said my aunt, ‘and was therefore easily -silenced. Agnes, not a word!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And indeed,’ said Traddles, ‘it was sold, by virtue of the -power of management he held from you; but I needn’t say by whom sold, or -on whose actual signature. It was afterwards pretended to Mr. Wickfield, by -that rascal,—and proved, too, by figures,—that he had possessed -himself of the money (on general instructions, he said) to keep other -deficiencies and difficulties from the light. Mr. Wickfield, being so weak and -helpless in his hands as to pay you, afterwards, several sums of interest on a -pretended principal which he knew did not exist, made himself, unhappily, a -party to the fraud.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And at last took the blame upon himself,’ added my aunt; -‘and wrote me a mad letter, charging himself with robbery, and wrong -unheard of. Upon which I paid him a visit early one morning, called for a -candle, burnt the letter, and told him if he ever could right me and himself, -to do it; and if he couldn’t, to keep his own counsel for his -daughter’s sake.—-If anybody speaks to me, I’ll leave the -house!’ -</p> - -<p> -We all remained quiet; Agnes covering her face. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, my dear friend,’ said my aunt, after a pause, ‘and you -have really extorted the money back from him?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, the fact is,’ returned Traddles, ‘Mr. Micawber had so -completely hemmed him in, and was always ready with so many new points if an -old one failed, that he could not escape from us. A most remarkable -circumstance is, that I really don’t think he grasped this sum even so -much for the gratification of his avarice, which was inordinate, as in the -hatred he felt for Copperfield. He said so to me, plainly. He said he would -even have spent as much, to baulk or injure Copperfield.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Ha!’ said my aunt, knitting her brows thoughtfully, and glancing -at Agnes. ‘And what’s become of him?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I don’t know. He left here,’ said Traddles, ‘with his -mother, who had been clamouring, and beseeching, and disclosing, the whole -time. They went away by one of the London night coaches, and I know no more -about him; except that his malevolence to me at parting was audacious. He -seemed to consider himself hardly less indebted to me, than to Mr. Micawber; -which I consider (as I told him) quite a compliment.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Do you suppose he has any money, Traddles?’ I asked. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh dear, yes, I should think so,’ he replied, shaking his head, -seriously. ‘I should say he must have pocketed a good deal, in one way or -other. But, I think you would find, Copperfield, if you had an opportunity of -observing his course, that money would never keep that man out of mischief. He -is such an incarnate hypocrite, that whatever object he pursues, he must pursue -crookedly. It’s his only compensation for the outward restraints he puts -upon himself. Always creeping along the ground to some small end or other, he -will always magnify every object in the way; and consequently will hate and -suspect everybody that comes, in the most innocent manner, between him and it. -So the crooked courses will become crookeder, at any moment, for the least -reason, or for none. It’s only necessary to consider his history -here,’ said Traddles, ‘to know that.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘He’s a monster of meanness!’ said my aunt. -</p> - -<p> -‘Really I don’t know about that,’ observed Traddles -thoughtfully. ‘Many people can be very mean, when they give their minds -to it.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And now, touching Mr. Micawber,’ said my aunt. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, really,’ said Traddles, cheerfully, ‘I must, once -more, give Mr. Micawber high praise. But for his having been so patient and -persevering for so long a time, we never could have hoped to do anything worth -speaking of. And I think we ought to consider that Mr. Micawber did right, for -right’s sake, when we reflect what terms he might have made with Uriah -Heep himself, for his silence.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I think so too,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Now, what would you give him?’ inquired my aunt. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh! Before you come to that,’ said Traddles, a little -disconcerted, ‘I am afraid I thought it discreet to omit (not being able -to carry everything before me) two points, in making this lawless -adjustment—for it’s perfectly lawless from beginning to -end—of a difficult affair. Those I.O.U.‘s, and so forth, which Mr. -Micawber gave him for the advances he had—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Well! They must be paid,’ said my aunt. -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes, but I don’t know when they may be proceeded on, or where they -are,’ rejoined Traddles, opening his eyes; ‘and I anticipate, that, -between this time and his departure, Mr. Micawber will be constantly arrested, -or taken in execution.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Then he must be constantly set free again, and taken out of -execution,’ said my aunt. ‘What’s the amount -altogether?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, Mr. Micawber has entered the transactions—he calls them -transactions—with great form, in a book,’ rejoined Traddles, -smiling; ‘and he makes the amount a hundred and three pounds, -five.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Now, what shall we give him, that sum included?’ said my aunt. -‘Agnes, my dear, you and I can talk about division of it afterwards. What -should it be? Five hundred pounds?’ -</p> - -<p> -Upon this, Traddles and I both struck in at once. We both recommended a small -sum in money, and the payment, without stipulation to Mr. Micawber, of the -Uriah claims as they came in. We proposed that the family should have their -passage and their outfit, and a hundred pounds; and that Mr. Micawber’s -arrangement for the repayment of the advances should be gravely entered into, -as it might be wholesome for him to suppose himself under that responsibility. -To this, I added the suggestion, that I should give some explanation of his -character and history to Mr. Peggotty, who I knew could be relied on; and that -to Mr. Peggotty should be quietly entrusted the discretion of advancing another -hundred. I further proposed to interest Mr. Micawber in Mr. Peggotty, by -confiding so much of Mr. Peggotty’s story to him as I might feel -justified in relating, or might think expedient; and to endeavour to bring each -of them to bear upon the other, for the common advantage. We all entered warmly -into these views; and I may mention at once, that the principals themselves did -so, shortly afterwards, with perfect good will and harmony. -</p> - -<p> -Seeing that Traddles now glanced anxiously at my aunt again, I reminded him of -the second and last point to which he had adverted. -</p> - -<p> -‘You and your aunt will excuse me, Copperfield, if I touch upon a painful -theme, as I greatly fear I shall,’ said Traddles, hesitating; ‘but -I think it necessary to bring it to your recollection. On the day of Mr. -Micawber’s memorable denunciation a threatening allusion was made by -Uriah Heep to your aunt’s—husband.’ -</p> - -<p> -My aunt, retaining her stiff position, and apparent composure, assented with a -nod. -</p> - -<p> -‘Perhaps,’ observed Traddles, ‘it was mere purposeless -impertinence?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No,’ returned my aunt. -</p> - -<p> -‘There was—pardon me—really such a person, and at all in his -power?’ hinted Traddles. -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes, my good friend,’ said my aunt. -</p> - -<p> -Traddles, with a perceptible lengthening of his face, explained that he had not -been able to approach this subject; that it had shared the fate of Mr. -Micawber’s liabilities, in not being comprehended in the terms he had -made; that we were no longer of any authority with Uriah Heep; and that if he -could do us, or any of us, any injury or annoyance, no doubt he would. -</p> - -<p> -My aunt remained quiet; until again some stray tears found their way to her -cheeks. ‘You are quite right,’ she said. ‘It was very -thoughtful to mention it.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Can I—or Copperfield—do anything?’ asked Traddles, -gently. -</p> - -<p> -‘Nothing,’ said my aunt. ‘I thank you many times. Trot, my -dear, a vain threat! Let us have Mr. and Mrs. Micawber back. And don’t -any of you speak to me!’ With that she smoothed her dress, and sat, with -her upright carriage, looking at the door. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, Mr. and Mrs. Micawber!’ said my aunt, when they entered. -‘We have been discussing your emigration, with many apologies to you for -keeping you out of the room so long; and I’ll tell you what arrangements -we propose.’ -</p> - -<p> -These she explained to the unbounded satisfaction of the family,—children -and all being then present,—and so much to the awakening of Mr. -Micawber’s punctual habits in the opening stage of all bill transactions, -that he could not be dissuaded from immediately rushing out, in the highest -spirits, to buy the stamps for his notes of hand. But, his joy received a -sudden check; for within five minutes, he returned in the custody of a sheriff -‘s officer, informing us, in a flood of tears, that all was lost. We, -being quite prepared for this event, which was of course a proceeding of Uriah -Heep’s, soon paid the money; and in five minutes more Mr. Micawber was -seated at the table, filling up the stamps with an expression of perfect joy, -which only that congenial employment, or the making of punch, could impart in -full completeness to his shining face. To see him at work on the stamps, with -the relish of an artist, touching them like pictures, looking at them sideways, -taking weighty notes of dates and amounts in his pocket-book, and contemplating -them when finished, with a high sense of their precious value, was a sight -indeed. -</p> - -<p> -‘Now, the best thing you can do, sir, if you’ll allow me to advise -you,’ said my aunt, after silently observing him, ‘is to abjure -that occupation for evermore.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Madam,’ replied Mr. Micawber, ‘it is my intention to -register such a vow on the virgin page of the future. Mrs. Micawber will attest -it. I trust,’ said Mr. Micawber, solemnly, ‘that my son Wilkins -will ever bear in mind, that he had infinitely better put his fist in the fire, -than use it to handle the serpents that have poisoned the life-blood of his -unhappy parent!’ Deeply affected, and changed in a moment to the image of -despair, Mr. Micawber regarded the serpents with a look of gloomy abhorrence -(in which his late admiration of them was not quite subdued), folded them up -and put them in his pocket. -</p> - -<p> -This closed the proceedings of the evening. We were weary with sorrow and -fatigue, and my aunt and I were to return to London on the morrow. It was -arranged that the Micawbers should follow us, after effecting a sale of their -goods to a broker; that Mr. Wickfield’s affairs should be brought to a -settlement, with all convenient speed, under the direction of Traddles; and -that Agnes should also come to London, pending those arrangements. We passed -the night at the old house, which, freed from the presence of the Heeps, seemed -purged of a disease; and I lay in my old room, like a shipwrecked wanderer come -home. -</p> - -<p> -We went back next day to my aunt’s house—not to mine—and when -she and I sat alone, as of old, before going to bed, she said: -</p> - -<p> -‘Trot, do you really wish to know what I have had upon my mind -lately?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Indeed I do, aunt. If there ever was a time when I felt unwilling that -you should have a sorrow or anxiety which I could not share, it is now.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You have had sorrow enough, child,’ said my aunt, affectionately, -‘without the addition of my little miseries. I could have no other -motive, Trot, in keeping anything from you.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I know that well,’ said I. ‘But tell me now.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Would you ride with me a little way tomorrow morning?’ asked my -aunt. -</p> - -<p> -‘Of course.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘At nine,’ said she. ‘I’ll tell you then, my -dear.’ -</p> - -<p> -At nine, accordingly, we went out in a little chariot, and drove to London. We -drove a long way through the streets, until we came to one of the large -hospitals. Standing hard by the building was a plain hearse. The driver -recognized my aunt, and, in obedience to a motion of her hand at the window, -drove slowly off; we following. -</p> - -<p> -‘You understand it now, Trot,’ said my aunt. ‘He is -gone!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Did he die in the hospital?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes.’ -</p> - -<p> -She sat immovable beside me; but, again I saw the stray tears on her face. -</p> - -<p> -‘He was there once before,’ said my aunt presently. ‘He was -ailing a long time—a shattered, broken man, these many years. When he -knew his state in this last illness, he asked them to send for me. He was sorry -then. Very sorry.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You went, I know, aunt.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I went. I was with him a good deal afterwards.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘He died the night before we went to Canterbury?’ said I. My aunt -nodded. ‘No one can harm him now,’ she said. ‘It was a vain -threat.’ -</p> - -<p> -We drove away, out of town, to the churchyard at Hornsey. ‘Better here -than in the streets,’ said my aunt. ‘He was born here.’ -</p> - -<p> -We alighted; and followed the plain coffin to a corner I remember well, where -the service was read consigning it to the dust. -</p> - -<p> -‘Six-and-thirty years ago, this day, my dear,’ said my aunt, as we -walked back to the chariot, ‘I was married. God forgive us all!’ We -took our seats in silence; and so she sat beside me for a long time, holding my -hand. At length she suddenly burst into tears, and said: -</p> - -<p> -‘He was a fine-looking man when I married him, Trot—and he was -sadly changed!’ -</p> - -<p> -It did not last long. After the relief of tears, she soon became composed, and -even cheerful. Her nerves were a little shaken, she said, or she would not have -given way to it. God forgive us all! -</p> - -<p> -So we rode back to her little cottage at Highgate, where we found the following -short note, which had arrived by that morning’s post from Mr. Micawber: -</p> - -<p class="right"> -‘Canterbury,<br/> -‘Friday. -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear Madam, and Copperfield, -</p> - -<p> -‘The fair land of promise lately looming on the horizon is again -enveloped in impenetrable mists, and for ever withdrawn from the eyes of a -drifting wretch whose Doom is sealed! -</p> - -<p> -‘Another writ has been issued (in His Majesty’s High Court of -King’s Bench at Westminster), in another cause of HEEP V. MICAWBER, and -the defendant in that cause is the prey of the sheriff having legal -jurisdiction in this bailiwick. -</p> - -<p class="poem"> -‘Now’s the day, and now’s the hour,<br/> -See the front of battle lower,<br/> -See approach proud EDWARD’S power—<br/> -Chains and slavery! -</p> - -<p> -‘Consigned to which, and to a speedy end (for mental torture is not -supportable beyond a certain point, and that point I feel I have attained), my -course is run. Bless you, bless you! Some future traveller, visiting, from -motives of curiosity, not unmingled, let us hope, with sympathy, the place of -confinement allotted to debtors in this city, may, and I trust will, Ponder, as -he traces on its wall, inscribed with a rusty nail, -</p> - -<p class="right"> -‘The obscure initials,<br/> -‘W. M. -</p> - -<p> -‘P.S. I re-open this to say that our common friend, Mr. Thomas Traddles -(who has not yet left us, and is looking extremely well), has paid the debt and -costs, in the noble name of Miss Trotwood; and that myself and family are at -the height of earthly bliss.’ -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0055"></a>CHAPTER 55. TEMPEST</h2> - -<p> -I now approach an event in my life, so indelible, so awful, so bound by an -infinite variety of ties to all that has preceded it, in these pages, that, -from the beginning of my narrative, I have seen it growing larger and larger as -I advanced, like a great tower in a plain, and throwing its fore-cast shadow -even on the incidents of my childish days. -</p> - -<p> -For years after it occurred, I dreamed of it often. I have started up so -vividly impressed by it, that its fury has yet seemed raging in my quiet room, -in the still night. I dream of it sometimes, though at lengthened and uncertain -intervals, to this hour. I have an association between it and a stormy wind, or -the lightest mention of a sea-shore, as strong as any of which my mind is -conscious. As plainly as I behold what happened, I will try to write it down. I -do not recall it, but see it done; for it happens again before me. -</p> - -<p> -The time drawing on rapidly for the sailing of the emigrant-ship, my good old -nurse (almost broken-hearted for me, when we first met) came up to London. I -was constantly with her, and her brother, and the Micawbers (they being very -much together); but Emily I never saw. -</p> - -<p> -One evening when the time was close at hand, I was alone with Peggotty and her -brother. Our conversation turned on Ham. She described to us how tenderly he -had taken leave of her, and how manfully and quietly he had borne himself. Most -of all, of late, when she believed he was most tried. It was a subject of which -the affectionate creature never tired; and our interest in hearing the many -examples which she, who was so much with him, had to relate, was equal to hers -in relating them. -</p> - -<p> -My aunt and I were at that time vacating the two cottages at Highgate; I -intending to go abroad, and she to return to her house at Dover. We had a -temporary lodging in Covent Garden. As I walked home to it, after this -evening’s conversation, reflecting on what had passed between Ham and -myself when I was last at Yarmouth, I wavered in the original purpose I had -formed, of leaving a letter for Emily when I should take leave of her uncle on -board the ship, and thought it would be better to write to her now. She might -desire, I thought, after receiving my communication, to send some parting word -by me to her unhappy lover. I ought to give her the opportunity. -</p> - -<p> -I therefore sat down in my room, before going to bed, and wrote to her. I told -her that I had seen him, and that he had requested me to tell her what I have -already written in its place in these sheets. I faithfully repeated it. I had -no need to enlarge upon it, if I had had the right. Its deep fidelity and -goodness were not to be adorned by me or any man. I left it out, to be sent -round in the morning; with a line to Mr. Peggotty, requesting him to give it to -her; and went to bed at daybreak. -</p> - -<p> -I was weaker than I knew then; and, not falling asleep until the sun was up, -lay late, and unrefreshed, next day. I was roused by the silent presence of my -aunt at my bedside. I felt it in my sleep, as I suppose we all do feel such -things. -</p> - -<p> -‘Trot, my dear,’ she said, when I opened my eyes, ‘I -couldn’t make up my mind to disturb you. Mr. Peggotty is here; shall he -come up?’ -</p> - -<p> -I replied yes, and he soon appeared. -</p> - -<p> -‘Mas’r Davy,’ he said, when we had shaken hands, ‘I giv -Em’ly your letter, sir, and she writ this heer; and begged of me fur to -ask you to read it, and if you see no hurt in’t, to be so kind as take -charge on’t.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Have you read it?’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -He nodded sorrowfully. I opened it, and read as follows: -</p> - -<p> -‘I have got your message. Oh, what can I write, to thank you for your -good and blessed kindness to me! -</p> - -<p> -‘I have put the words close to my heart. I shall keep them till I die. -They are sharp thorns, but they are such comfort. I have prayed over them, oh, -I have prayed so much. When I find what you are, and what uncle is, I think -what God must be, and can cry to him. -</p> - -<p> -‘Good-bye for ever. Now, my dear, my friend, good-bye for ever in this -world. In another world, if I am forgiven, I may wake a child and come to you. -All thanks and blessings. Farewell, evermore.’ -</p> - -<p> -This, blotted with tears, was the letter. -</p> - -<p> -‘May I tell her as you doen’t see no hurt in’t, and as -you’ll be so kind as take charge on’t, Mas’r Davy?’ -said Mr. Peggotty, when I had read it. ‘Unquestionably,’ said -I—‘but I am thinking—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes, Mas’r Davy?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I am thinking,’ said I, ‘that I’ll go down again to -Yarmouth. There’s time, and to spare, for me to go and come back before -the ship sails. My mind is constantly running on him, in his solitude; to put -this letter of her writing in his hand at this time, and to enable you to tell -her, in the moment of parting, that he has got it, will be a kindness to both -of them. I solemnly accepted his commission, dear good fellow, and cannot -discharge it too completely. The journey is nothing to me. I am restless, and -shall be better in motion. I’ll go down tonight.’ -</p> - -<p> -Though he anxiously endeavoured to dissuade me, I saw that he was of my mind; -and this, if I had required to be confirmed in my intention, would have had the -effect. He went round to the coach office, at my request, and took the box-seat -for me on the mail. In the evening I started, by that conveyance, down the road -I had traversed under so many vicissitudes. -</p> - -<p> -‘Don’t you think that,’ I asked the coachman, in the first -stage out of London, ‘a very remarkable sky? I don’t remember to -have seen one like it.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Nor I—not equal to it,’ he replied. ‘That’s -wind, sir. There’ll be mischief done at sea, I expect, before -long.’ -</p> - -<p> -It was a murky confusion—here and there blotted with a colour like the -colour of the smoke from damp fuel—of flying clouds, tossed up into most -remarkable heaps, suggesting greater heights in the clouds than there were -depths below them to the bottom of the deepest hollows in the earth, through -which the wild moon seemed to plunge headlong, as if, in a dread disturbance of -the laws of nature, she had lost her way and were frightened. There had been a -wind all day; and it was rising then, with an extraordinary great sound. In -another hour it had much increased, and the sky was more overcast, and blew -hard. -</p> - -<p> -But, as the night advanced, the clouds closing in and densely over-spreading -the whole sky, then very dark, it came on to blow, harder and harder. It still -increased, until our horses could scarcely face the wind. Many times, in the -dark part of the night (it was then late in September, when the nights were not -short), the leaders turned about, or came to a dead stop; and we were often in -serious apprehension that the coach would be blown over. Sweeping gusts of rain -came up before this storm, like showers of steel; and, at those times, when -there was any shelter of trees or lee walls to be got, we were fain to stop, in -a sheer impossibility of continuing the struggle. -</p> - -<p> -When the day broke, it blew harder and harder. I had been in Yarmouth when the -seamen said it blew great guns, but I had never known the like of this, or -anything approaching to it. We came to Ipswich—very late, having had to -fight every inch of ground since we were ten miles out of London; and found a -cluster of people in the market-place, who had risen from their beds in the -night, fearful of falling chimneys. Some of these, congregating about the -inn-yard while we changed horses, told us of great sheets of lead having been -ripped off a high church-tower, and flung into a by-street, which they then -blocked up. Others had to tell of country people, coming in from neighbouring -villages, who had seen great trees lying torn out of the earth, and whole ricks -scattered about the roads and fields. Still, there was no abatement in the -storm, but it blew harder. -</p> - -<p> -As we struggled on, nearer and nearer to the sea, from which this mighty wind -was blowing dead on shore, its force became more and more terrific. Long before -we saw the sea, its spray was on our lips, and showered salt rain upon us. The -water was out, over miles and miles of the flat country adjacent to Yarmouth; -and every sheet and puddle lashed its banks, and had its stress of little -breakers setting heavily towards us. When we came within sight of the sea, the -waves on the horizon, caught at intervals above the rolling abyss, were like -glimpses of another shore with towers and buildings. When at last we got into -the town, the people came out to their doors, all aslant, and with streaming -hair, making a wonder of the mail that had come through such a night. -</p> - -<p> -I put up at the old inn, and went down to look at the sea; staggering along the -street, which was strewn with sand and seaweed, and with flying blotches of -sea-foam; afraid of falling slates and tiles; and holding by people I met, at -angry corners. Coming near the beach, I saw, not only the boatmen, but half the -people of the town, lurking behind buildings; some, now and then braving the -fury of the storm to look away to sea, and blown sheer out of their course in -trying to get zigzag back. -</p> - -<p> -Joining these groups, I found bewailing women whose husbands were away in -herring or oyster boats, which there was too much reason to think might have -foundered before they could run in anywhere for safety. Grizzled old sailors -were among the people, shaking their heads, as they looked from water to sky, -and muttering to one another; ship-owners, excited and uneasy; children, -huddling together, and peering into older faces; even stout mariners, disturbed -and anxious, levelling their glasses at the sea from behind places of shelter, -as if they were surveying an enemy. -</p> - -<p> -The tremendous sea itself, when I could find sufficient pause to look at it, in -the agitation of the blinding wind, the flying stones and sand, and the awful -noise, confounded me. As the high watery walls came rolling in, and, at their -highest, tumbled into surf, they looked as if the least would engulf the town. -As the receding wave swept back with a hoarse roar, it seemed to scoop out deep -caves in the beach, as if its purpose were to undermine the earth. When some -white-headed billows thundered on, and dashed themselves to pieces before they -reached the land, every fragment of the late whole seemed possessed by the full -might of its wrath, rushing to be gathered to the composition of another -monster. Undulating hills were changed to valleys, undulating valleys (with a -solitary storm-bird sometimes skimming through them) were lifted up to hills; -masses of water shivered and shook the beach with a booming sound; every shape -tumultuously rolled on, as soon as made, to change its shape and place, and -beat another shape and place away; the ideal shore on the horizon, with its -towers and buildings, rose and fell; the clouds fell fast and thick; I seemed -to see a rending and upheaving of all nature. -</p> - -<p> -Not finding Ham among the people whom this memorable wind—for it is still -remembered down there, as the greatest ever known to blow upon that -coast—had brought together, I made my way to his house. It was shut; and -as no one answered to my knocking, I went, by back ways and by-lanes, to the -yard where he worked. I learned, there, that he had gone to Lowestoft, to meet -some sudden exigency of ship-repairing in which his skill was required; but -that he would be back tomorrow morning, in good time. -</p> - -<p> -I went back to the inn; and when I had washed and dressed, and tried to sleep, -but in vain, it was five o’clock in the afternoon. I had not sat five -minutes by the coffee-room fire, when the waiter, coming to stir it, as an -excuse for talking, told me that two colliers had gone down, with all hands, a -few miles away; and that some other ships had been seen labouring hard in the -Roads, and trying, in great distress, to keep off shore. Mercy on them, and on -all poor sailors, said he, if we had another night like the last! -</p> - -<p> -I was very much depressed in spirits; very solitary; and felt an uneasiness in -Ham’s not being there, disproportionate to the occasion. I was seriously -affected, without knowing how much, by late events; and my long exposure to the -fierce wind had confused me. There was that jumble in my thoughts and -recollections, that I had lost the clear arrangement of time and distance. -Thus, if I had gone out into the town, I should not have been surprised, I -think, to encounter someone who I knew must be then in London. So to speak, -there was in these respects a curious inattention in my mind. Yet it was busy, -too, with all the remembrances the place naturally awakened; and they were -particularly distinct and vivid. -</p> - -<p> -In this state, the waiter’s dismal intelligence about the ships -immediately connected itself, without any effort of my volition, with my -uneasiness about Ham. I was persuaded that I had an apprehension of his -returning from Lowestoft by sea, and being lost. This grew so strong with me, -that I resolved to go back to the yard before I took my dinner, and ask the -boat-builder if he thought his attempting to return by sea at all likely? If he -gave me the least reason to think so, I would go over to Lowestoft and prevent -it by bringing him with me. -</p> - -<p> -I hastily ordered my dinner, and went back to the yard. I was none too soon; -for the boat-builder, with a lantern in his hand, was locking the yard-gate. He -quite laughed when I asked him the question, and said there was no fear; no man -in his senses, or out of them, would put off in such a gale of wind, least of -all Ham Peggotty, who had been born to seafaring. -</p> - -<p> -So sensible of this, beforehand, that I had really felt ashamed of doing what I -was nevertheless impelled to do, I went back to the inn. If such a wind could -rise, I think it was rising. The howl and roar, the rattling of the doors and -windows, the rumbling in the chimneys, the apparent rocking of the very house -that sheltered me, and the prodigious tumult of the sea, were more fearful than -in the morning. But there was now a great darkness besides; and that invested -the storm with new terrors, real and fanciful. -</p> - -<p> -I could not eat, I could not sit still, I could not continue steadfast to -anything. Something within me, faintly answering to the storm without, tossed -up the depths of my memory and made a tumult in them. Yet, in all the hurry of -my thoughts, wild running with the thundering sea,—the storm, and my -uneasiness regarding Ham were always in the fore-ground. -</p> - -<p> -My dinner went away almost untasted, and I tried to refresh myself with a glass -or two of wine. In vain. I fell into a dull slumber before the fire, without -losing my consciousness, either of the uproar out of doors, or of the place in -which I was. Both became overshadowed by a new and indefinable horror; and when -I awoke—or rather when I shook off the lethargy that bound me in my -chair—my whole frame thrilled with objectless and unintelligible fear. -</p> - -<p> -I walked to and fro, tried to read an old gazetteer, listened to the awful -noises: looked at faces, scenes, and figures in the fire. At length, the steady -ticking of the undisturbed clock on the wall tormented me to that degree that I -resolved to go to bed. -</p> - -<p> -It was reassuring, on such a night, to be told that some of the inn-servants -had agreed together to sit up until morning. I went to bed, exceedingly weary -and heavy; but, on my lying down, all such sensations vanished, as if by magic, -and I was broad awake, with every sense refined. -</p> - -<p> -For hours I lay there, listening to the wind and water; imagining, now, that I -heard shrieks out at sea; now, that I distinctly heard the firing of signal -guns; and now, the fall of houses in the town. I got up, several times, and -looked out; but could see nothing, except the reflection in the window-panes of -the faint candle I had left burning, and of my own haggard face looking in at -me from the black void. -</p> - -<p> -At length, my restlessness attained to such a pitch, that I hurried on my -clothes, and went downstairs. In the large kitchen, where I dimly saw bacon and -ropes of onions hanging from the beams, the watchers were clustered together, -in various attitudes, about a table, purposely moved away from the great -chimney, and brought near the door. A pretty girl, who had her ears stopped -with her apron, and her eyes upon the door, screamed when I appeared, supposing -me to be a spirit; but the others had more presence of mind, and were glad of -an addition to their company. One man, referring to the topic they had been -discussing, asked me whether I thought the souls of the collier-crews who had -gone down, were out in the storm? -</p> - -<p> -I remained there, I dare say, two hours. Once, I opened the yard-gate, and -looked into the empty street. The sand, the sea-weed, and the flakes of foam, -were driving by; and I was obliged to call for assistance before I could shut -the gate again, and make it fast against the wind. -</p> - -<p> -There was a dark gloom in my solitary chamber, when I at length returned to it; -but I was tired now, and, getting into bed again, fell—off a tower and -down a precipice—into the depths of sleep. I have an impression that for -a long time, though I dreamed of being elsewhere and in a variety of scenes, it -was always blowing in my dream. At length, I lost that feeble hold upon -reality, and was engaged with two dear friends, but who they were I don’t -know, at the siege of some town in a roar of cannonading. -</p> - -<p> -The thunder of the cannon was so loud and incessant, that I could not hear -something I much desired to hear, until I made a great exertion and awoke. It -was broad day—eight or nine o’clock; the storm raging, in lieu of -the batteries; and someone knocking and calling at my door. -</p> - -<p> -‘What is the matter?’ I cried. -</p> - -<p> -‘A wreck! Close by!’ -</p> - -<p> -I sprung out of bed, and asked, what wreck? -</p> - -<p> -‘A schooner, from Spain or Portugal, laden with fruit and wine. Make -haste, sir, if you want to see her! It’s thought, down on the beach, -she’ll go to pieces every moment.’ -</p> - -<p> -The excited voice went clamouring along the staircase; and I wrapped myself in -my clothes as quickly as I could, and ran into the street. -</p> - -<p> -Numbers of people were there before me, all running in one direction, to the -beach. I ran the same way, outstripping a good many, and soon came facing the -wild sea. -</p> - -<p> -The wind might by this time have lulled a little, though not more sensibly than -if the cannonading I had dreamed of, had been diminished by the silencing of -half-a-dozen guns out of hundreds. But the sea, having upon it the additional -agitation of the whole night, was infinitely more terrific than when I had seen -it last. Every appearance it had then presented, bore the expression of being -swelled; and the height to which the breakers rose, and, looking over one -another, bore one another down, and rolled in, in interminable hosts, was most -appalling. In the difficulty of hearing anything but wind and waves, and in the -crowd, and the unspeakable confusion, and my first breathless efforts to stand -against the weather, I was so confused that I looked out to sea for the wreck, -and saw nothing but the foaming heads of the great waves. A half-dressed -boatman, standing next me, pointed with his bare arm (a tattoo’d arrow on -it, pointing in the same direction) to the left. Then, O great Heaven, I saw -it, close in upon us! -</p> - -<p> -One mast was broken short off, six or eight feet from the deck, and lay over -the side, entangled in a maze of sail and rigging; and all that ruin, as the -ship rolled and beat—which she did without a moment’s pause, and -with a violence quite inconceivable—beat the side as if it would stave it -in. Some efforts were even then being made, to cut this portion of the wreck -away; for, as the ship, which was broadside on, turned towards us in her -rolling, I plainly descried her people at work with axes, especially one active -figure with long curling hair, conspicuous among the rest. But a great cry, -which was audible even above the wind and water, rose from the shore at this -moment; the sea, sweeping over the rolling wreck, made a clean breach, and -carried men, spars, casks, planks, bulwarks, heaps of such toys, into the -boiling surge. -</p> - -<p> -The second mast was yet standing, with the rags of a rent sail, and a wild -confusion of broken cordage flapping to and fro. The ship had struck once, the -same boatman hoarsely said in my ear, and then lifted in and struck again. I -understood him to add that she was parting amidships, and I could readily -suppose so, for the rolling and beating were too tremendous for any human work -to suffer long. As he spoke, there was another great cry of pity from the -beach; four men arose with the wreck out of the deep, clinging to the rigging -of the remaining mast; uppermost, the active figure with the curling hair. -</p> - -<p> -There was a bell on board; and as the ship rolled and dashed, like a desperate -creature driven mad, now showing us the whole sweep of her deck, as she turned -on her beam-ends towards the shore, now nothing but her keel, as she sprung -wildly over and turned towards the sea, the bell rang; and its sound, the knell -of those unhappy men, was borne towards us on the wind. Again we lost her, and -again she rose. Two men were gone. The agony on the shore increased. Men -groaned, and clasped their hands; women shrieked, and turned away their faces. -Some ran wildly up and down along the beach, crying for help where no help -could be. I found myself one of these, frantically imploring a knot of sailors -whom I knew, not to let those two lost creatures perish before our eyes. -</p> - -<p> -They were making out to me, in an agitated way—I don’t know how, -for the little I could hear I was scarcely composed enough to -understand—that the lifeboat had been bravely manned an hour ago, and -could do nothing; and that as no man would be so desperate as to attempt to -wade off with a rope, and establish a communication with the shore, there was -nothing left to try; when I noticed that some new sensation moved the people on -the beach, and saw them part, and Ham come breaking through them to the front. -</p> - -<p> -I ran to him—as well as I know, to repeat my appeal for help. But, -distracted though I was, by a sight so new to me and terrible, the -determination in his face, and his look out to sea—exactly the same look -as I remembered in connexion with the morning after Emily’s -flight—awoke me to a knowledge of his danger. I held him back with both -arms; and implored the men with whom I had been speaking, not to listen to him, -not to do murder, not to let him stir from off that sand! -</p> - -<p> -Another cry arose on shore; and looking to the wreck, we saw the cruel sail, -with blow on blow, beat off the lower of the two men, and fly up in triumph -round the active figure left alone upon the mast. -</p> - -<p> -Against such a sight, and against such determination as that of the calmly -desperate man who was already accustomed to lead half the people present, I -might as hopefully have entreated the wind. ‘Mas’r Davy,’ he -said, cheerily grasping me by both hands, ‘if my time is come, ‘tis -come. If ‘tan’t, I’ll bide it. Lord above bless you, and -bless all! Mates, make me ready! I’m a-going off!’ -</p> - -<p> -I was swept away, but not unkindly, to some distance, where the people around -me made me stay; urging, as I confusedly perceived, that he was bent on going, -with help or without, and that I should endanger the precautions for his safety -by troubling those with whom they rested. I don’t know what I answered, -or what they rejoined; but I saw hurry on the beach, and men running with ropes -from a capstan that was there, and penetrating into a circle of figures that -hid him from me. Then, I saw him standing alone, in a seaman’s frock and -trousers: a rope in his hand, or slung to his wrist: another round his body: -and several of the best men holding, at a little distance, to the latter, which -he laid out himself, slack upon the shore, at his feet. -</p> - -<p> -The wreck, even to my unpractised eye, was breaking up. I saw that she was -parting in the middle, and that the life of the solitary man upon the mast hung -by a thread. Still, he clung to it. He had a singular red cap on,—not -like a sailor’s cap, but of a finer colour; and as the few yielding -planks between him and destruction rolled and bulged, and his anticipative -death-knell rung, he was seen by all of us to wave it. I saw him do it now, and -thought I was going distracted, when his action brought an old remembrance to -my mind of a once dear friend. -</p> - -<p> -Ham watched the sea, standing alone, with the silence of suspended breath -behind him, and the storm before, until there was a great retiring wave, when, -with a backward glance at those who held the rope which was made fast round his -body, he dashed in after it, and in a moment was buffeting with the water; -rising with the hills, falling with the valleys, lost beneath the foam; then -drawn again to land. They hauled in hastily. -</p> - -<p> -He was hurt. I saw blood on his face, from where I stood; but he took no -thought of that. He seemed hurriedly to give them some directions for leaving -him more free—or so I judged from the motion of his arm—and was -gone as before. -</p> - -<p> -And now he made for the wreck, rising with the hills, falling with the valleys, -lost beneath the rugged foam, borne in towards the shore, borne on towards the -ship, striving hard and valiantly. The distance was nothing, but the power of -the sea and wind made the strife deadly. At length he neared the wreck. He was -so near, that with one more of his vigorous strokes he would be clinging to -it,—when a high, green, vast hill-side of water, moving on shoreward, -from beyond the ship, he seemed to leap up into it with a mighty bound, and the -ship was gone! -</p> - -<p> -Some eddying fragments I saw in the sea, as if a mere cask had been broken, in -running to the spot where they were hauling in. Consternation was in every -face. They drew him to my very feet—insensible—dead. He was carried -to the nearest house; and, no one preventing me now, I remained near him, busy, -while every means of restoration were tried; but he had been beaten to death by -the great wave, and his generous heart was stilled for ever. -</p> - -<p> -As I sat beside the bed, when hope was abandoned and all was done, a fisherman, -who had known me when Emily and I were children, and ever since, whispered my -name at the door. -</p> - -<p> -‘Sir,’ said he, with tears starting to his weather-beaten face, -which, with his trembling lips, was ashy pale, ‘will you come over -yonder?’ -</p> - -<p> -The old remembrance that had been recalled to me, was in his look. I asked him, -terror-stricken, leaning on the arm he held out to support me: -</p> - -<p> -‘Has a body come ashore?’ -</p> - -<p> -He said, ‘Yes.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Do I know it?’ I asked then. -</p> - -<p> -He answered nothing. -</p> - -<p> -But he led me to the shore. And on that part of it where she and I had looked -for shells, two children—on that part of it where some lighter fragments -of the old boat, blown down last night, had been scattered by the -wind—among the ruins of the home he had wronged—I saw him lying -with his head upon his arm, as I had often seen him lie at school. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0056"></a>CHAPTER 56. THE NEW WOUND, AND THE OLD</h2> - -<p> -No need, O Steerforth, to have said, when we last spoke together, in that hour -which I so little deemed to be our parting-hour—no need to have said, -‘Think of me at my best!’ I had done that ever; and could I change -now, looking on this sight! -</p> - -<p> -They brought a hand-bier, and laid him on it, and covered him with a flag, and -took him up and bore him on towards the houses. All the men who carried him had -known him, and gone sailing with him, and seen him merry and bold. They carried -him through the wild roar, a hush in the midst of all the tumult; and took him -to the cottage where Death was already. -</p> - -<p> -But when they set the bier down on the threshold, they looked at one another, -and at me, and whispered. I knew why. They felt as if it were not right to lay -him down in the same quiet room. -</p> - -<p> -We went into the town, and took our burden to the inn. So soon as I could at -all collect my thoughts, I sent for Joram, and begged him to provide me a -conveyance in which it could be got to London in the night. I knew that the -care of it, and the hard duty of preparing his mother to receive it, could only -rest with me; and I was anxious to discharge that duty as faithfully as I -could. -</p> - -<p> -I chose the night for the journey, that there might be less curiosity when I -left the town. But, although it was nearly midnight when I came out of the yard -in a chaise, followed by what I had in charge, there were many people waiting. -At intervals, along the town, and even a little way out upon the road, I saw -more: but at length only the bleak night and the open country were around me, -and the ashes of my youthful friendship. -</p> - -<p> -Upon a mellow autumn day, about noon, when the ground was perfumed by fallen -leaves, and many more, in beautiful tints of yellow, red, and brown, yet hung -upon the trees, through which the sun was shining, I arrived at Highgate. I -walked the last mile, thinking as I went along of what I had to do; and left -the carriage that had followed me all through the night, awaiting orders to -advance. -</p> - -<p> -The house, when I came up to it, looked just the same. Not a blind was raised; -no sign of life was in the dull paved court, with its covered way leading to -the disused door. The wind had quite gone down, and nothing moved. -</p> - -<p> -I had not, at first, the courage to ring at the gate; and when I did ring, my -errand seemed to me to be expressed in the very sound of the bell. The little -parlour-maid came out, with the key in her hand; and looking earnestly at me as -she unlocked the gate, said: -</p> - -<p> -‘I beg your pardon, sir. Are you ill?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I have been much agitated, and am fatigued.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Is anything the matter, sir?—-Mr. James?—’ -‘Hush!’ said I. ‘Yes, something has happened, that I have to -break to Mrs. Steerforth. She is at home?’ -</p> - -<p> -The girl anxiously replied that her mistress was very seldom out now, even in a -carriage; that she kept her room; that she saw no company, but would see me. -Her mistress was up, she said, and Miss Dartle was with her. What message -should she take upstairs? -</p> - -<p> -Giving her a strict charge to be careful of her manner, and only to carry in my -card and say I waited, I sat down in the drawing-room (which we had now -reached) until she should come back. Its former pleasant air of occupation was -gone, and the shutters were half closed. The harp had not been used for many -and many a day. His picture, as a boy, was there. The cabinet in which his -mother had kept his letters was there. I wondered if she ever read them now; if -she would ever read them more! -</p> - -<p> -The house was so still that I heard the girl’s light step upstairs. On -her return, she brought a message, to the effect that Mrs. Steerforth was an -invalid and could not come down; but that if I would excuse her being in her -chamber, she would be glad to see me. In a few moments I stood before her. -</p> - -<p> -She was in his room; not in her own. I felt, of course, that she had taken to -occupy it, in remembrance of him; and that the many tokens of his old sports -and accomplishments, by which she was surrounded, remained there, just as he -had left them, for the same reason. She murmured, however, even in her -reception of me, that she was out of her own chamber because its aspect was -unsuited to her infirmity; and with her stately look repelled the least -suspicion of the truth. -</p> - -<p> -At her chair, as usual, was Rosa Dartle. From the first moment of her dark eyes -resting on me, I saw she knew I was the bearer of evil tidings. The scar sprung -into view that instant. She withdrew herself a step behind the chair, to keep -her own face out of Mrs. Steerforth’s observation; and scrutinized me -with a piercing gaze that never faltered, never shrunk. -</p> - -<p> -‘I am sorry to observe you are in mourning, sir,’ said Mrs. -Steerforth. -</p> - -<p> -‘I am unhappily a widower,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘You are very young to know so great a loss,’ she returned. -‘I am grieved to hear it. I am grieved to hear it. I hope Time will be -good to you.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I hope Time,’ said I, looking at her, ‘will be good to all -of us. Dear Mrs. Steerforth, we must all trust to that, in our heaviest -misfortunes.’ -</p> - -<p> -The earnestness of my manner, and the tears in my eyes, alarmed her. The whole -course of her thoughts appeared to stop, and change. -</p> - -<p> -I tried to command my voice in gently saying his name, but it trembled. She -repeated it to herself, two or three times, in a low tone. Then, addressing me, -she said, with enforced calmness: -</p> - -<p> -‘My son is ill.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Very ill.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You have seen him?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I have.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Are you reconciled?’ -</p> - -<p> -I could not say Yes, I could not say No. She slightly turned her head towards -the spot where Rosa Dartle had been standing at her elbow, and in that moment I -said, by the motion of my lips, to Rosa, ‘Dead!’ -</p> - -<p> -That Mrs. Steerforth might not be induced to look behind her, and read, plainly -written, what she was not yet prepared to know, I met her look quickly; but I -had seen Rosa Dartle throw her hands up in the air with vehemence of despair -and horror, and then clasp them on her face. -</p> - -<p> -The handsome lady—so like, oh so like!—regarded me with a fixed -look, and put her hand to her forehead. I besought her to be calm, and prepare -herself to bear what I had to tell; but I should rather have entreated her to -weep, for she sat like a stone figure. -</p> - -<p> -‘When I was last here,’ I faltered, ‘Miss Dartle told me he -was sailing here and there. The night before last was a dreadful one at sea. If -he were at sea that night, and near a dangerous coast, as it is said he was; -and if the vessel that was seen should really be the ship which—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Rosa!’ said Mrs. Steerforth, ‘come to me!’ -</p> - -<p> -She came, but with no sympathy or gentleness. Her eyes gleamed like fire as she -confronted his mother, and broke into a frightful laugh. -</p> - -<p> -‘Now,’ she said, ‘is your pride appeased, you madwoman? Now -has he made atonement to you—with his life! Do you hear?—-His -life!’ -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Steerforth, fallen back stiffly in her chair, and making no sound but a -moan, cast her eyes upon her with a wide stare. -</p> - -<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> -<img src="images/20417.jpg" alt="20417" width="100%" /> -</div> - -<h5> -<a href="images/20417.jpg"> -<img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /></a> -</h5> - -<p> -‘Aye!’ cried Rosa, smiting herself passionately on the breast, -‘look at me! Moan, and groan, and look at me! Look here!’ striking -the scar, ‘at your dead child’s handiwork!’ -</p> - -<p> -The moan the mother uttered, from time to time, went to My heart. Always the -same. Always inarticulate and stifled. Always accompanied with an incapable -motion of the head, but with no change of face. Always proceeding from a rigid -mouth and closed teeth, as if the jaw were locked and the face frozen up in -pain. -</p> - -<p> -‘Do you remember when he did this?’ she proceeded. ‘Do you -remember when, in his inheritance of your nature, and in your pampering of his -pride and passion, he did this, and disfigured me for life? Look at me, marked -until I die with his high displeasure; and moan and groan for what you made -him!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Miss Dartle,’ I entreated her. ‘For Heaven’s -sake—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I WILL speak!’ she said, turning on me with her lightning eyes. -‘Be silent, you! Look at me, I say, proud mother of a proud, false son! -Moan for your nurture of him, moan for your corruption of him, moan for your -loss of him, moan for mine!’ -</p> - -<p> -She clenched her hand, and trembled through her spare, worn figure, as if her -passion were killing her by inches. -</p> - -<p> -‘You, resent his self-will!’ she exclaimed. ‘You, injured by -his haughty temper! You, who opposed to both, when your hair was grey, the -qualities which made both when you gave him birth! YOU, who from his cradle -reared him to be what he was, and stunted what he should have been! Are you -rewarded, now, for your years of trouble?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, Miss Dartle, shame! Oh cruel!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I tell you,’ she returned, ‘I WILL speak to her. No power on -earth should stop me, while I was standing here! Have I been silent all these -years, and shall I not speak now? I loved him better than you ever loved -him!’ turning on her fiercely. ‘I could have loved him, and asked -no return. If I had been his wife, I could have been the slave of his caprices -for a word of love a year. I should have been. Who knows it better than I? You -were exacting, proud, punctilious, selfish. My love would have been -devoted—would have trod your paltry whimpering under foot!’ -</p> - -<p> -With flashing eyes, she stamped upon the ground as if she actually did it. -</p> - -<p> -‘Look here!’ she said, striking the scar again, with a relentless -hand. ‘When he grew into the better understanding of what he had done, he -saw it, and repented of it! I could sing to him, and talk to him, and show the -ardour that I felt in all he did, and attain with labour to such knowledge as -most interested him; and I attracted him. When he was freshest and truest, he -loved me. Yes, he did! Many a time, when you were put off with a slight word, -he has taken Me to his heart!’ -</p> - -<p> -She said it with a taunting pride in the midst of her frenzy—for it was -little less—yet with an eager remembrance of it, in which the smouldering -embers of a gentler feeling kindled for the moment. -</p> - -<p> -‘I descended—as I might have known I should, but that he fascinated -me with his boyish courtship—into a doll, a trifle for the occupation of -an idle hour, to be dropped, and taken up, and trifled with, as the inconstant -humour took him. When he grew weary, I grew weary. As his fancy died out, I -would no more have tried to strengthen any power I had, than I would have -married him on his being forced to take me for his wife. We fell away from one -another without a word. Perhaps you saw it, and were not sorry. Since then, I -have been a mere disfigured piece of furniture between you both; having no -eyes, no ears, no feelings, no remembrances. Moan? Moan for what you made him; -not for your love. I tell you that the time was, when I loved him better than -you ever did!’ -</p> - -<p> -She stood with her bright angry eyes confronting the wide stare, and the set -face; and softened no more, when the moaning was repeated, than if the face had -been a picture. -</p> - -<p> -‘Miss Dartle,’ said I, ‘if you can be so obdurate as not to -feel for this afflicted mother—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Who feels for me?’ she sharply retorted. ‘She has sown this. -Let her moan for the harvest that she reaps today!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And if his faults—’ I began. -</p> - -<p> -‘Faults!’ she cried, bursting into passionate tears. ‘Who -dares malign him? He had a soul worth millions of the friends to whom he -stooped!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No one can have loved him better, no one can hold him in dearer -remembrance than I,’ I replied. ‘I meant to say, if you have no -compassion for his mother; or if his faults—you have been bitter on -them—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘It’s false,’ she cried, tearing her black hair; ‘I -loved him!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘—if his faults cannot,’ I went on, ‘be banished from -your remembrance, in such an hour; look at that figure, even as one you have -never seen before, and render it some help!’ -</p> - -<p> -All this time, the figure was unchanged, and looked unchangeable. Motionless, -rigid, staring; moaning in the same dumb way from time to time, with the same -helpless motion of the head; but giving no other sign of life. Miss Dartle -suddenly kneeled down before it, and began to loosen the dress. -</p> - -<p> -‘A curse upon you!’ she said, looking round at me, with a mingled -expression of rage and grief. ‘It was in an evil hour that you ever came -here! A curse upon you! Go!’ -</p> - -<p> -After passing out of the room, I hurried back to ring the bell, the sooner to -alarm the servants. She had then taken the impassive figure in her arms, and, -still upon her knees, was weeping over it, kissing it, calling to it, rocking -it to and fro upon her bosom like a child, and trying every tender means to -rouse the dormant senses. No longer afraid of leaving her, I noiselessly turned -back again; and alarmed the house as I went out. -</p> - -<p> -Later in the day, I returned, and we laid him in his mother’s room. She -was just the same, they told me; Miss Dartle never left her; doctors were in -attendance, many things had been tried; but she lay like a statue, except for -the low sound now and then. -</p> - -<p> -I went through the dreary house, and darkened the windows. The windows of the -chamber where he lay, I darkened last. I lifted up the leaden hand, and held it -to my heart; and all the world seemed death and silence, broken only by his -mother’s moaning. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0057"></a>CHAPTER 57. THE EMIGRANTS</h2> - -<p> -One thing more, I had to do, before yielding myself to the shock of these -emotions. It was, to conceal what had occurred, from those who were going away; -and to dismiss them on their voyage in happy ignorance. In this, no time was to -be lost. -</p> - -<p> -I took Mr. Micawber aside that same night, and confided to him the task of -standing between Mr. Peggotty and intelligence of the late catastrophe. He -zealously undertook to do so, and to intercept any newspaper through which it -might, without such precautions, reach him. -</p> - -<p> -‘If it penetrates to him, sir,’ said Mr. Micawber, striking himself -on the breast, ‘it shall first pass through this body!’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Micawber, I must observe, in his adaptation of himself to a new state of -society, had acquired a bold buccaneering air, not absolutely lawless, but -defensive and prompt. One might have supposed him a child of the wilderness, -long accustomed to live out of the confines of civilization, and about to -return to his native wilds. -</p> - -<p> -He had provided himself, among other things, with a complete suit of oilskin, -and a straw hat with a very low crown, pitched or caulked on the outside. In -this rough clothing, with a common mariner’s telescope under his arm, and -a shrewd trick of casting up his eye at the sky as looking out for dirty -weather, he was far more nautical, after his manner, than Mr. Peggotty. His -whole family, if I may so express it, were cleared for action. I found Mrs. -Micawber in the closest and most uncompromising of bonnets, made fast under the -chin; and in a shawl which tied her up (as I had been tied up, when my aunt -first received me) like a bundle, and was secured behind at the waist, in a -strong knot. Miss Micawber I found made snug for stormy weather, in the same -manner; with nothing superfluous about her. Master Micawber was hardly visible -in a Guernsey shirt, and the shaggiest suit of slops I ever saw; and the -children were done up, like preserved meats, in impervious cases. Both Mr. -Micawber and his eldest son wore their sleeves loosely turned back at the -wrists, as being ready to lend a hand in any direction, and to ‘tumble -up’, or sing out, ‘Yeo—Heave—Yeo!’ on the -shortest notice. -</p> - -<p> -Thus Traddles and I found them at nightfall, assembled on the wooden steps, at -that time known as Hungerford Stairs, watching the departure of a boat with -some of their property on board. I had told Traddles of the terrible event, and -it had greatly shocked him; but there could be no doubt of the kindness of -keeping it a secret, and he had come to help me in this last service. It was -here that I took Mr. Micawber aside, and received his promise. -</p> - -<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> -<img src="images/20423.jpg" alt="20423" width="100%" /> -</div> - -<h5> -<a href="images/20423.jpg"> -<img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /></a> -</h5> - -<p> -The Micawber family were lodged in a little, dirty, tumble-down public-house, -which in those days was close to the stairs, and whose protruding wooden rooms -overhung the river. The family, as emigrants, being objects of some interest in -and about Hungerford, attracted so many beholders, that we were glad to take -refuge in their room. It was one of the wooden chambers upstairs, with the tide -flowing underneath. My aunt and Agnes were there, busily making some little -extra comforts, in the way of dress, for the children. Peggotty was quietly -assisting, with the old insensible work-box, yard-measure, and bit of -wax-candle before her, that had now outlived so much. -</p> - -<p> -It was not easy to answer her inquiries; still less to whisper Mr. Peggotty, -when Mr. Micawber brought him in, that I had given the letter, and all was -well. But I did both, and made them happy. If I showed any trace of what I -felt, my own sorrows were sufficient to account for it. -</p> - -<p> -‘And when does the ship sail, Mr. Micawber?’ asked my aunt. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Micawber considered it necessary to prepare either my aunt or his wife, by -degrees, and said, sooner than he had expected yesterday. -</p> - -<p> -‘The boat brought you word, I suppose?’ said my aunt. -</p> - -<p> -‘It did, ma’am,’ he returned. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well?’ said my aunt. ‘And she sails—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Madam,’ he replied, ‘I am informed that we must positively -be on board before seven tomorrow morning.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Heyday!’ said my aunt, ‘that’s soon. Is it a sea-going -fact, Mr. Peggotty?’ ‘’Tis so, ma’am. She’ll drop -down the river with that theer tide. If Mas’r Davy and my sister comes -aboard at Gravesen’, arternoon o’ next day, they’ll see the -last on us.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And that we shall do,’ said I, ‘be sure!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Until then, and until we are at sea,’ observed Mr. Micawber, with -a glance of intelligence at me, ‘Mr. Peggotty and myself will constantly -keep a double look-out together, on our goods and chattels. Emma, my -love,’ said Mr. Micawber, clearing his throat in his magnificent way, -‘my friend Mr. Thomas Traddles is so obliging as to solicit, in my ear, -that he should have the privilege of ordering the ingredients necessary to the -composition of a moderate portion of that Beverage which is peculiarly -associated, in our minds, with the Roast Beef of Old England. I allude -to—in short, Punch. Under ordinary circumstances, I should scruple to -entreat the indulgence of Miss Trotwood and Miss Wickfield, but-’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I can only say for myself,’ said my aunt, ‘that I will drink -all happiness and success to you, Mr. Micawber, with the utmost -pleasure.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And I too!’ said Agnes, with a smile. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Micawber immediately descended to the bar, where he appeared to be quite at -home; and in due time returned with a steaming jug. I could not but observe -that he had been peeling the lemons with his own clasp-knife, which, as became -the knife of a practical settler, was about a foot long; and which he wiped, -not wholly without ostentation, on the sleeve of his coat. Mrs. Micawber and -the two elder members of the family I now found to be provided with similar -formidable instruments, while every child had its own wooden spoon attached to -its body by a strong line. In a similar anticipation of life afloat, and in the -Bush, Mr. Micawber, instead of helping Mrs. Micawber and his eldest son and -daughter to punch, in wine-glasses, which he might easily have done, for there -was a shelf-full in the room, served it out to them in a series of villainous -little tin pots; and I never saw him enjoy anything so much as drinking out of -his own particular pint pot, and putting it in his pocket at the close of the -evening. -</p> - -<p> -‘The luxuries of the old country,’ said Mr. Micawber, with an -intense satisfaction in their renouncement, ‘we abandon. The denizens of -the forest cannot, of course, expect to participate in the refinements of the -land of the Free.’ -</p> - -<p> -Here, a boy came in to say that Mr. Micawber was wanted downstairs. -</p> - -<p> -‘I have a presentiment,’ said Mrs. Micawber, setting down her tin -pot, ‘that it is a member of my family!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘If so, my dear,’ observed Mr. Micawber, with his usual suddenness -of warmth on that subject, ‘as the member of your family—whoever -he, she, or it, may be—has kept us waiting for a considerable period, -perhaps the Member may now wait MY convenience.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Micawber,’ said his wife, in a low tone, ‘at such a time as -this—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘“It is not meet,”’ said Mr. Micawber, rising, -‘“that every nice offence should bear its comment!” Emma, I -stand reproved.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘The loss, Micawber,’ observed his wife, ‘has been my -family’s, not yours. If my family are at length sensible of the -deprivation to which their own conduct has, in the past, exposed them, and now -desire to extend the hand of fellowship, let it not be repulsed.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear,’ he returned, ‘so be it!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘If not for their sakes; for mine, Micawber,’ said his wife. -</p> - -<p> -‘Emma,’ he returned, ‘that view of the question is, at such a -moment, irresistible. I cannot, even now, distinctly pledge myself to fall upon -your family’s neck; but the member of your family, who is now in -attendance, shall have no genial warmth frozen by me.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Micawber withdrew, and was absent some little time; in the course of which -Mrs. Micawber was not wholly free from an apprehension that words might have -arisen between him and the Member. At length the same boy reappeared, and -presented me with a note written in pencil, and headed, in a legal manner, -‘Heep v. Micawber’. From this document, I learned that Mr. Micawber -being again arrested, ‘Was in a final paroxysm of despair; and that he -begged me to send him his knife and pint pot, by bearer, as they might prove -serviceable during the brief remainder of his existence, in jail. He also -requested, as a last act of friendship, that I would see his family to the -Parish Workhouse, and forget that such a Being ever lived. -</p> - -<p> -Of course I answered this note by going down with the boy to pay the money, -where I found Mr. Micawber sitting in a corner, looking darkly at the Sheriff -‘s Officer who had effected the capture. On his release, he embraced me -with the utmost fervour; and made an entry of the transaction in his -pocket-book—being very particular, I recollect, about a halfpenny I -inadvertently omitted from my statement of the total. -</p> - -<p> -This momentous pocket-book was a timely reminder to him of another transaction. -On our return to the room upstairs (where he accounted for his absence by -saying that it had been occasioned by circumstances over which he had no -control), he took out of it a large sheet of paper, folded small, and quite -covered with long sums, carefully worked. From the glimpse I had of them, I -should say that I never saw such sums out of a school ciphering-book. These, it -seemed, were calculations of compound interest on what he called ‘the -principal amount of forty-one, ten, eleven and a half’, for various -periods. After a careful consideration of these, and an elaborate estimate of -his resources, he had come to the conclusion to select that sum which -represented the amount with compound interest to two years, fifteen calendar -months, and fourteen days, from that date. For this he had drawn a note-of-hand -with great neatness, which he handed over to Traddles on the spot, a discharge -of his debt in full (as between man and man), with many acknowledgements. -</p> - -<p> -‘I have still a presentiment,’ said Mrs. Micawber, pensively -shaking her head, ‘that my family will appear on board, before we finally -depart.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Micawber evidently had his presentiment on the subject too, but he put it -in his tin pot and swallowed it. -</p> - -<p> -‘If you have any opportunity of sending letters home, on your passage, -Mrs. Micawber,’ said my aunt, ‘you must let us hear from you, you -know.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear Miss Trotwood,’ she replied, ‘I shall only be too -happy to think that anyone expects to hear from us. I shall not fail to -correspond. Mr. Copperfield, I trust, as an old and familiar friend, will not -object to receive occasional intelligence, himself, from one who knew him when -the twins were yet unconscious?’ -</p> - -<p> -I said that I should hope to hear, whenever she had an opportunity of writing. -</p> - -<p> -‘Please Heaven, there will be many such opportunities,’ said Mr. -Micawber. ‘The ocean, in these times, is a perfect fleet of ships; and we -can hardly fail to encounter many, in running over. It is merely -crossing,’ said Mr. Micawber, trifling with his eye-glass, ‘merely -crossing. The distance is quite imaginary.’ -</p> - -<p> -I think, now, how odd it was, but how wonderfully like Mr. Micawber, that, when -he went from London to Canterbury, he should have talked as if he were going to -the farthest limits of the earth; and, when he went from England to Australia, -as if he were going for a little trip across the channel. -</p> - -<p> -‘On the voyage, I shall endeavour,’ said Mr. Micawber, -‘occasionally to spin them a yarn; and the melody of my son Wilkins will, -I trust, be acceptable at the galley-fire. When Mrs. Micawber has her sea-legs -on—an expression in which I hope there is no conventional -impropriety—she will give them, I dare say, “Little Tafflin”. -Porpoises and dolphins, I believe, will be frequently observed athwart our -Bows; and, either on the starboard or the larboard quarter, objects of interest -will be continually descried. In short,’ said Mr. Micawber, with the old -genteel air, ‘the probability is, all will be found so exciting, alow and -aloft, that when the lookout, stationed in the main-top, cries Land-oh! we -shall be very considerably astonished!’ -</p> - -<p> -With that he flourished off the contents of his little tin pot, as if he had -made the voyage, and had passed a first-class examination before the highest -naval authorities. -</p> - -<p> -‘What I chiefly hope, my dear Mr. Copperfield,’ said Mrs. Micawber, -‘is, that in some branches of our family we may live again in the old -country. Do not frown, Micawber! I do not now refer to my own family, but to -our children’s children. However vigorous the sapling,’ said Mrs. -Micawber, shaking her head, ‘I cannot forget the parent-tree; and when -our race attains to eminence and fortune, I own I should wish that fortune to -flow into the coffers of Britannia.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘Britannia must take her -chance. I am bound to say that she has never done much for me, and that I have -no particular wish upon the subject.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Micawber,’ returned Mrs. Micawber, ‘there, you are wrong. -You are going out, Micawber, to this distant clime, to strengthen, not to -weaken, the connexion between yourself and Albion.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘The connexion in question, my love,’ rejoined Mr. Micawber, -‘has not laid me, I repeat, under that load of personal obligation, that -I am at all sensitive as to the formation of another connexion.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Micawber,’ returned Mrs. Micawber. ‘There, I again say, you -are wrong. You do not know your power, Micawber. It is that which will -strengthen, even in this step you are about to take, the connexion between -yourself and Albion.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Micawber sat in his elbow-chair, with his eyebrows raised; half receiving -and half repudiating Mrs. Micawber’s views as they were stated, but very -sensible of their foresight. -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear Mr. Copperfield,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘I wish Mr. -Micawber to feel his position. It appears to me highly important that Mr. -Micawber should, from the hour of his embarkation, feel his position. Your old -knowledge of me, my dear Mr. Copperfield, will have told you that I have not -the sanguine disposition of Mr. Micawber. My disposition is, if I may say so, -eminently practical. I know that this is a long voyage. I know that it will -involve many privations and inconveniences. I cannot shut my eyes to those -facts. But I also know what Mr. Micawber is. I know the latent power of Mr. -Micawber. And therefore I consider it vitally important that Mr. Micawber -should feel his position.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘My love,’ he observed, ‘perhaps you will allow me to remark -that it is barely possible that I DO feel my position at the present -moment.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I think not, Micawber,’ she rejoined. ‘Not fully. My dear -Mr. Copperfield, Mr. Micawber’s is not a common case. Mr. Micawber is -going to a distant country expressly in order that he may be fully understood -and appreciated for the first time. I wish Mr. Micawber to take his stand upon -that vessel’s prow, and firmly say, “This country I am come to -conquer! Have you honours? Have you riches? Have you posts of profitable -pecuniary emolument? Let them be brought forward. They are mine!”’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Micawber, glancing at us all, seemed to think there was a good deal in this -idea. -</p> - -<p> -‘I wish Mr. Micawber, if I make myself understood,’ said Mrs. -Micawber, in her argumentative tone, ‘to be the Caesar of his own -fortunes. That, my dear Mr. Copperfield, appears to me to be his true position. -From the first moment of this voyage, I wish Mr. Micawber to stand upon that -vessel’s prow and say, “Enough of delay: enough of disappointment: -enough of limited means. That was in the old country. This is the new. Produce -your reparation. Bring it forward!”’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Micawber folded his arms in a resolute manner, as if he were then stationed -on the figure-head. -</p> - -<p> -‘And doing that,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘—feeling his -position—am I not right in saying that Mr. Micawber will strengthen, and -not weaken, his connexion with Britain? An important public character arising -in that hemisphere, shall I be told that its influence will not be felt at -home? Can I be so weak as to imagine that Mr. Micawber, wielding the rod of -talent and of power in Australia, will be nothing in England? I am but a woman; -but I should be unworthy of myself and of my papa, if I were guilty of such -absurd weakness.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Micawber’s conviction that her arguments were unanswerable, gave a -moral elevation to her tone which I think I had never heard in it before. -</p> - -<p> -‘And therefore it is,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘that I the more -wish, that, at a future period, we may live again on the parent soil. Mr. -Micawber may be—I cannot disguise from myself that the probability is, -Mr. Micawber will be—a page of History; and he ought then to be -represented in the country which gave him birth, and did NOT give him -employment!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘My love,’ observed Mr. Micawber, ‘it is impossible for me -not to be touched by your affection. I am always willing to defer to your good -sense. What will be—will be. Heaven forbid that I should grudge my native -country any portion of the wealth that may be accumulated by our -descendants!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘That’s well,’ said my aunt, nodding towards Mr. Peggotty, -‘and I drink my love to you all, and every blessing and success attend -you!’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Peggotty put down the two children he had been nursing, one on each knee, -to join Mr. and Mrs. Micawber in drinking to all of us in return; and when he -and the Micawbers cordially shook hands as comrades, and his brown face -brightened with a smile, I felt that he would make his way, establish a good -name, and be beloved, go where he would. -</p> - -<p> -Even the children were instructed, each to dip a wooden spoon into Mr. -Micawber’s pot, and pledge us in its contents. When this was done, my -aunt and Agnes rose, and parted from the emigrants. It was a sorrowful -farewell. They were all crying; the children hung about Agnes to the last; and -we left poor Mrs. Micawber in a very distressed condition, sobbing and weeping -by a dim candle, that must have made the room look, from the river, like a -miserable light-house. -</p> - -<p> -I went down again next morning to see that they were away. They had departed, -in a boat, as early as five o’clock. It was a wonderful instance to me of -the gap such partings make, that although my association of them with the -tumble-down public-house and the wooden stairs dated only from last night, both -seemed dreary and deserted, now that they were gone. -</p> - -<p> -In the afternoon of the next day, my old nurse and I went down to Gravesend. We -found the ship in the river, surrounded by a crowd of boats; a favourable wind -blowing; the signal for sailing at her mast-head. I hired a boat directly, and -we put off to her; and getting through the little vortex of confusion of which -she was the centre, went on board. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Peggotty was waiting for us on deck. He told me that Mr. Micawber had just -now been arrested again (and for the last time) at the suit of Heep, and that, -in compliance with a request I had made to him, he had paid the money, which I -repaid him. He then took us down between decks; and there, any lingering fears -I had of his having heard any rumours of what had happened, were dispelled by -Mr. Micawber’s coming out of the gloom, taking his arm with an air of -friendship and protection, and telling me that they had scarcely been asunder -for a moment, since the night before last. -</p> - -<p> -It was such a strange scene to me, and so confined and dark, that, at first, I -could make out hardly anything; but, by degrees, it cleared, as my eyes became -more accustomed to the gloom, and I seemed to stand in a picture by OSTADE. -Among the great beams, bulks, and ringbolts of the ship, and the -emigrant-berths, and chests, and bundles, and barrels, and heaps of -miscellaneous baggage—‘lighted up, here and there, by dangling -lanterns; and elsewhere by the yellow daylight straying down a windsail or a -hatchway—were crowded groups of people, making new friendships, taking -leave of one another, talking, laughing, crying, eating and drinking; some, -already settled down into the possession of their few feet of space, with their -little households arranged, and tiny children established on stools, or in -dwarf elbow-chairs; others, despairing of a resting-place, and wandering -disconsolately. From babies who had but a week or two of life behind them, to -crooked old men and women who seemed to have but a week or two of life before -them; and from ploughmen bodily carrying out soil of England on their boots, to -smiths taking away samples of its soot and smoke upon their skins; every age -and occupation appeared to be crammed into the narrow compass of the -‘tween decks. -</p> - -<p> -As my eye glanced round this place, I thought I saw sitting, by an open port, -with one of the Micawber children near her, a figure like Emily’s; it -first attracted my attention, by another figure parting from it with a kiss; -and as it glided calmly away through the disorder, reminding me of—Agnes! -But in the rapid motion and confusion, and in the unsettlement of my own -thoughts, I lost it again; and only knew that the time was come when all -visitors were being warned to leave the ship; that my nurse was crying on a -chest beside me; and that Mrs. Gummidge, assisted by some younger stooping -woman in black, was busily arranging Mr. Peggotty’s goods. -</p> - -<p> -‘Is there any last wured, Mas’r Davy?’ said he. ‘Is -there any one forgotten thing afore we parts?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘One thing!’ said I. ‘Martha!’ -</p> - -<p> -He touched the younger woman I have mentioned on the shoulder, and Martha stood -before me. -</p> - -<p> -‘Heaven bless you, you good man!’ cried I. ‘You take her with -you!’ -</p> - -<p> -She answered for him, with a burst of tears. I could speak no more at that -time, but I wrung his hand; and if ever I have loved and honoured any man, I -loved and honoured that man in my soul. -</p> - -<p> -The ship was clearing fast of strangers. The greatest trial that I had, -remained. I told him what the noble spirit that was gone, had given me in -charge to say at parting. It moved him deeply. But when he charged me, in -return, with many messages of affection and regret for those deaf ears, he -moved me more. -</p> - -<p> -The time was come. I embraced him, took my weeping nurse upon my arm, and -hurried away. On deck, I took leave of poor Mrs. Micawber. She was looking -distractedly about for her family, even then; and her last words to me were, -that she never would desert Mr. Micawber. -</p> - -<p> -We went over the side into our boat, and lay at a little distance, to see the -ship wafted on her course. It was then calm, radiant sunset. She lay between -us, and the red light; and every taper line and spar was visible against the -glow. A sight at once so beautiful, so mournful, and so hopeful, as the -glorious ship, lying, still, on the flushed water, with all the life on board -her crowded at the bulwarks, and there clustering, for a moment, bare-headed -and silent, I never saw. -</p> - -<p> -Silent, only for a moment. As the sails rose to the wind, and the ship began to -move, there broke from all the boats three resounding cheers, which those on -board took up, and echoed back, and which were echoed and re-echoed. My heart -burst out when I heard the sound, and beheld the waving of the hats and -handkerchiefs—and then I saw her! -</p> - -<p> -Then I saw her, at her uncle’s side, and trembling on his shoulder. He -pointed to us with an eager hand; and she saw us, and waved her last good-bye -to me. Aye, Emily, beautiful and drooping, cling to him with the utmost trust -of thy bruised heart; for he has clung to thee, with all the might of his great -love! -</p> - -<p> -Surrounded by the rosy light, and standing high upon the deck, apart together, -she clinging to him, and he holding her, they solemnly passed away. The night -had fallen on the Kentish hills when we were rowed ashore—and fallen -darkly upon me. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0058"></a>CHAPTER 58. ABSENCE</h2> - -<p> -It was a long and gloomy night that gathered on me, haunted by the ghosts of -many hopes, of many dear remembrances, many errors, many unavailing sorrows and -regrets. -</p> - -<p> -I went away from England; not knowing, even then, how great the shock was, that -I had to bear. I left all who were dear to me, and went away; and believed that -I had borne it, and it was past. As a man upon a field of battle will receive a -mortal hurt, and scarcely know that he is struck, so I, when I was left alone -with my undisciplined heart, had no conception of the wound with which it had -to strive. -</p> - -<p> -The knowledge came upon me, not quickly, but little by little, and grain by -grain. The desolate feeling with which I went abroad, deepened and widened -hourly. At first it was a heavy sense of loss and sorrow, wherein I could -distinguish little else. By imperceptible degrees, it became a hopeless -consciousness of all that I had lost—love, friendship, interest; of all -that had been shattered—my first trust, my first affection, the whole -airy castle of my life; of all that remained—a ruined blank and waste, -lying wide around me, unbroken, to the dark horizon. -</p> - -<p> -If my grief were selfish, I did not know it to be so. I mourned for my -child-wife, taken from her blooming world, so young. I mourned for him who -might have won the love and admiration of thousands, as he had won mine long -ago. I mourned for the broken heart that had found rest in the stormy sea; and -for the wandering remnants of the simple home, where I had heard the night-wind -blowing, when I was a child. -</p> - -<p> -From the accumulated sadness into which I fell, I had at length no hope of ever -issuing again. I roamed from place to place, carrying my burden with me -everywhere. I felt its whole weight now; and I drooped beneath it, and I said -in my heart that it could never be lightened. -</p> - -<p> -When this despondency was at its worst, I believed that I should die. -Sometimes, I thought that I would like to die at home; and actually turned back -on my road, that I might get there soon. At other times, I passed on farther -away,—from city to city, seeking I know not what, and trying to leave I -know not what behind. -</p> - -<p> -It is not in my power to retrace, one by one, all the weary phases of distress -of mind through which I passed. There are some dreams that can only be -imperfectly and vaguely described; and when I oblige myself to look back on -this time of my life, I seem to be recalling such a dream. I see myself passing -on among the novelties of foreign towns, palaces, cathedrals, temples, -pictures, castles, tombs, fantastic streets—the old abiding places of -History and Fancy—as a dreamer might; bearing my painful load through -all, and hardly conscious of the objects as they fade before me. Listlessness -to everything, but brooding sorrow, was the night that fell on my undisciplined -heart. Let me look up from it—as at last I did, thank Heaven!—and -from its long, sad, wretched dream, to dawn. -</p> - -<p> -For many months I travelled with this ever-darkening cloud upon my mind. Some -blind reasons that I had for not returning home—reasons then struggling -within me, vainly, for more distinct expression—kept me on my pilgrimage. -Sometimes, I had proceeded restlessly from place to place, stopping nowhere; -sometimes, I had lingered long in one spot. I had had no purpose, no sustaining -soul within me, anywhere. -</p> - -<p> -I was in Switzerland. I had come out of Italy, over one of the great passes of -the Alps, and had since wandered with a guide among the by-ways of the -mountains. If those awful solitudes had spoken to my heart, I did not know it. -I had found sublimity and wonder in the dread heights and precipices, in the -roaring torrents, and the wastes of ice and snow; but as yet, they had taught -me nothing else. -</p> - -<p> -I came, one evening before sunset, down into a valley, where I was to rest. In -the course of my descent to it, by the winding track along the mountain-side, -from which I saw it shining far below, I think some long-unwonted sense of -beauty and tranquillity, some softening influence awakened by its peace, moved -faintly in my breast. I remember pausing once, with a kind of sorrow that was -not all oppressive, not quite despairing. I remember almost hoping that some -better change was possible within me. -</p> - -<p> -I came into the valley, as the evening sun was shining on the remote heights of -snow, that closed it in, like eternal clouds. The bases of the mountains -forming the gorge in which the little village lay, were richly green; and high -above this gentler vegetation, grew forests of dark fir, cleaving the wintry -snow-drift, wedge-like, and stemming the avalanche. Above these, were range -upon range of craggy steeps, grey rock, bright ice, and smooth verdure-specks -of pasture, all gradually blending with the crowning snow. Dotted here and -there on the mountain’s-side, each tiny dot a home, were lonely wooden -cottages, so dwarfed by the towering heights that they appeared too small for -toys. So did even the clustered village in the valley, with its wooden bridge -across the stream, where the stream tumbled over broken rocks, and roared away -among the trees. In the quiet air, there was a sound of distant -singing—shepherd voices; but, as one bright evening cloud floated midway -along the mountain’s-side, I could almost have believed it came from -there, and was not earthly music. All at once, in this serenity, great Nature -spoke to me; and soothed me to lay down my weary head upon the grass, and weep -as I had not wept yet, since Dora died! -</p> - -<p> -I had found a packet of letters awaiting me but a few minutes before, and had -strolled out of the village to read them while my supper was making ready. -Other packets had missed me, and I had received none for a long time. Beyond a -line or two, to say that I was well, and had arrived at such a place, I had not -had fortitude or constancy to write a letter since I left home. -</p> - -<p> -The packet was in my hand. I opened it, and read the writing of Agnes. -</p> - -<p> -She was happy and useful, was prospering as she had hoped. That was all she -told me of herself. The rest referred to me. -</p> - -<p> -She gave me no advice; she urged no duty on me; she only told me, in her own -fervent manner, what her trust in me was. She knew (she said) how such a nature -as mine would turn affliction to good. She knew how trial and emotion would -exalt and strengthen it. She was sure that in my every purpose I should gain a -firmer and a higher tendency, through the grief I had undergone. She, who so -gloried in my fame, and so looked forward to its augmentation, well knew that I -would labour on. She knew that in me, sorrow could not be weakness, but must be -strength. As the endurance of my childish days had done its part to make me -what I was, so greater calamities would nerve me on, to be yet better than I -was; and so, as they had taught me, would I teach others. She commended me to -God, who had taken my innocent darling to His rest; and in her sisterly -affection cherished me always, and was always at my side go where I would; -proud of what I had done, but infinitely prouder yet of what I was reserved to -do. -</p> - -<p> -I put the letter in my breast, and thought what had I been an hour ago! When I -heard the voices die away, and saw the quiet evening cloud grow dim, and all -the colours in the valley fade, and the golden snow upon the mountain-tops -become a remote part of the pale night sky, yet felt that the night was passing -from my mind, and all its shadows clearing, there was no name for the love I -bore her, dearer to me, henceforward, than ever until then. -</p> - -<p> -I read her letter many times. I wrote to her before I slept. I told her that I -had been in sore need of her help; that without her I was not, and I never had -been, what she thought me; but that she inspired me to be that, and I would -try. -</p> - -<p> -I did try. In three months more, a year would have passed since the beginning -of my sorrow. I determined to make no resolutions until the expiration of those -three months, but to try. I lived in that valley, and its neighbourhood, all -the time. -</p> - -<p> -The three months gone, I resolved to remain away from home for some time -longer; to settle myself for the present in Switzerland, which was growing dear -to me in the remembrance of that evening; to resume my pen; to work. -</p> - -<p> -I resorted humbly whither Agnes had commended me; I sought out Nature, never -sought in vain; and I admitted to my breast the human interest I had lately -shrunk from. It was not long, before I had almost as many friends in the valley -as in Yarmouth: and when I left it, before the winter set in, for Geneva, and -came back in the spring, their cordial greetings had a homely sound to me, -although they were not conveyed in English words. -</p> - -<p> -I worked early and late, patiently and hard. I wrote a Story, with a purpose -growing, not remotely, out of my experience, and sent it to Traddles, and he -arranged for its publication very advantageously for me; and the tidings of my -growing reputation began to reach me from travellers whom I encountered by -chance. After some rest and change, I fell to work, in my old ardent way, on a -new fancy, which took strong possession of me. As I advanced in the execution -of this task, I felt it more and more, and roused my utmost energies to do it -well. This was my third work of fiction. It was not half written, when, in an -interval of rest, I thought of returning home. -</p> - -<p> -For a long time, though studying and working patiently, I had accustomed myself -to robust exercise. My health, severely impaired when I left England, was quite -restored. I had seen much. I had been in many countries, and I hope I had -improved my store of knowledge. -</p> - -<p> -I have now recalled all that I think it needful to recall here, of this term of -absence—with one reservation. I have made it, thus far, with no purpose -of suppressing any of my thoughts; for, as I have elsewhere said, this -narrative is my written memory. I have desired to keep the most secret current -of my mind apart, and to the last. I enter on it now. I cannot so completely -penetrate the mystery of my own heart, as to know when I began to think that I -might have set its earliest and brightest hopes on Agnes. I cannot say at what -stage of my grief it first became associated with the reflection, that, in my -wayward boyhood, I had thrown away the treasure of her love. I believe I may -have heard some whisper of that distant thought, in the old unhappy loss or -want of something never to be realized, of which I had been sensible. But the -thought came into my mind as a new reproach and new regret, when I was left so -sad and lonely in the world. -</p> - -<p> -If, at that time, I had been much with her, I should, in the weakness of my -desolation, have betrayed this. It was what I remotely dreaded when I was first -impelled to stay away from England. I could not have borne to lose the smallest -portion of her sisterly affection; yet, in that betrayal, I should have set a -constraint between us hitherto unknown. -</p> - -<p> -I could not forget that the feeling with which she now regarded me had grown up -in my own free choice and course. That if she had ever loved me with another -love—and I sometimes thought the time was when she might have done -so—I had cast it away. It was nothing, now, that I had accustomed myself -to think of her, when we were both mere children, as one who was far removed -from my wild fancies. I had bestowed my passionate tenderness upon another -object; and what I might have done, I had not done; and what Agnes was to me, I -and her own noble heart had made her. -</p> - -<p> -In the beginning of the change that gradually worked in me, when I tried to get -a better understanding of myself and be a better man, I did glance, through -some indefinite probation, to a period when I might possibly hope to cancel the -mistaken past, and to be so blessed as to marry her. But, as time wore on, this -shadowy prospect faded, and departed from me. If she had ever loved me, then, I -should hold her the more sacred; remembering the confidences I had reposed in -her, her knowledge of my errant heart, the sacrifice she must have made to be -my friend and sister, and the victory she had won. If she had never loved me, -could I believe that she would love me now? -</p> - -<p> -I had always felt my weakness, in comparison with her constancy and fortitude; -and now I felt it more and more. Whatever I might have been to her, or she to -me, if I had been more worthy of her long ago, I was not now, and she was not. -The time was past. I had let it go by, and had deservedly lost her. -</p> - -<p> -That I suffered much in these contentions, that they filled me with unhappiness -and remorse, and yet that I had a sustaining sense that it was required of me, -in right and honour, to keep away from myself, with shame, the thought of -turning to the dear girl in the withering of my hopes, from whom I had -frivolously turned when they were bright and fresh—which consideration -was at the root of every thought I had concerning her—is all equally -true. I made no effort to conceal from myself, now, that I loved her, that I -was devoted to her; but I brought the assurance home to myself, that it was now -too late, and that our long-subsisting relation must be undisturbed. -</p> - -<p> -I had thought, much and often, of my Dora’s shadowing out to me what -might have happened, in those years that were destined not to try us; I had -considered how the things that never happen, are often as much realities to us, -in their effects, as those that are accomplished. The very years she spoke of, -were realities now, for my correction; and would have been, one day, a little -later perhaps, though we had parted in our earliest folly. I endeavoured to -convert what might have been between myself and Agnes, into a means of making -me more self-denying, more resolved, more conscious of myself, and my defects -and errors. Thus, through the reflection that it might have been, I arrived at -the conviction that it could never be. -</p> - -<p> -These, with their perplexities and inconsistencies, were the shifting -quicksands of my mind, from the time of my departure to the time of my return -home, three years afterwards. Three years had elapsed since the sailing of the -emigrant ship; when, at that same hour of sunset, and in the same place, I -stood on the deck of the packet vessel that brought me home, looking on the -rosy water where I had seen the image of that ship reflected. -</p> - -<p> -Three years. Long in the aggregate, though short as they went by. And home was -very dear to me, and Agnes too—but she was not mine—she was never -to be mine. She might have been, but that was past! -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0059"></a>CHAPTER 59. RETURN</h2> - -<p> -I landed in London on a wintry autumn evening. It was dark and raining, and I -saw more fog and mud in a minute than I had seen in a year. I walked from the -Custom House to the Monument before I found a coach; and although the very -house-fronts, looking on the swollen gutters, were like old friends to me, I -could not but admit that they were very dingy friends. -</p> - -<p> -I have often remarked—I suppose everybody has—that one’s -going away from a familiar place, would seem to be the signal for change in it. -As I looked out of the coach window, and observed that an old house on -Fish-street Hill, which had stood untouched by painter, carpenter, or -bricklayer, for a century, had been pulled down in my absence; and that a -neighbouring street, of time-honoured insalubrity and inconvenience, was being -drained and widened; I half expected to find St. Paul’s Cathedral looking -older. -</p> - -<p> -For some changes in the fortunes of my friends, I was prepared. My aunt had -long been re-established at Dover, and Traddles had begun to get into some -little practice at the Bar, in the very first term after my departure. He had -chambers in Gray’s Inn, now; and had told me, in his last letters, that -he was not without hopes of being soon united to the dearest girl in the world. -</p> - -<p> -They expected me home before Christmas; but had no idea of my returning so -soon. I had purposely misled them, that I might have the pleasure of taking -them by surprise. And yet, I was perverse enough to feel a chill and -disappointment in receiving no welcome, and rattling, alone and silent, through -the misty streets. -</p> - -<p> -The well-known shops, however, with their cheerful lights, did something for -me; and when I alighted at the door of the Gray’s Inn Coffee-house, I had -recovered my spirits. It recalled, at first, that so-different time when I had -put up at the Golden Cross, and reminded me of the changes that had come to -pass since then; but that was natural. -</p> - -<p> -‘Do you know where Mr. Traddles lives in the Inn?’ I asked the -waiter, as I warmed myself by the coffee-room fire. -</p> - -<p> -‘Holborn Court, sir. Number two.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Mr. Traddles has a rising reputation among the lawyers, I -believe?’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, sir,’ returned the waiter, ‘probably he has, sir; but -I am not aware of it myself.’ -</p> - -<p> -This waiter, who was middle-aged and spare, looked for help to a waiter of more -authority—a stout, potential old man, with a double chin, in black -breeches and stockings, who came out of a place like a churchwarden’s -pew, at the end of the coffee-room, where he kept company with a cash-box, a -Directory, a Law-list, and other books and papers. -</p> - -<p> -‘Mr. Traddles,’ said the spare waiter. ‘Number two in the -Court.’ -</p> - -<p> -The potential waiter waved him away, and turned, gravely, to me. -</p> - -<p> -‘I was inquiring,’ said I, ‘whether Mr. Traddles, at number -two in the Court, has not a rising reputation among the lawyers?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Never heard his name,’ said the waiter, in a rich husky voice. -</p> - -<p> -I felt quite apologetic for Traddles. -</p> - -<p> -‘He’s a young man, sure?’ said the portentous waiter, fixing -his eyes severely on me. ‘How long has he been in the Inn?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Not above three years,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -The waiter, who I supposed had lived in his churchwarden’s pew for forty -years, could not pursue such an insignificant subject. He asked me what I would -have for dinner? -</p> - -<p> -I felt I was in England again, and really was quite cast down on -Traddles’s account. There seemed to be no hope for him. I meekly ordered -a bit of fish and a steak, and stood before the fire musing on his obscurity. -</p> - -<p> -As I followed the chief waiter with my eyes, I could not help thinking that the -garden in which he had gradually blown to be the flower he was, was an arduous -place to rise in. It had such a prescriptive, stiff-necked, long-established, -solemn, elderly air. I glanced about the room, which had had its sanded floor -sanded, no doubt, in exactly the same manner when the chief waiter was a -boy—if he ever was a boy, which appeared improbable; and at the shining -tables, where I saw myself reflected, in unruffled depths of old mahogany; and -at the lamps, without a flaw in their trimming or cleaning; and at the -comfortable green curtains, with their pure brass rods, snugly enclosing the -boxes; and at the two large coal fires, brightly burning; and at the rows of -decanters, burly as if with the consciousness of pipes of expensive old port -wine below; and both England, and the law, appeared to me to be very difficult -indeed to be taken by storm. I went up to my bedroom to change my wet clothes; -and the vast extent of that old wainscoted apartment (which was over the -archway leading to the Inn, I remember), and the sedate immensity of the -four-post bedstead, and the indomitable gravity of the chests of drawers, all -seemed to unite in sternly frowning on the fortunes of Traddles, or on any such -daring youth. I came down again to my dinner; and even the slow comfort of the -meal, and the orderly silence of the place—which was bare of guests, the -Long Vacation not yet being over—were eloquent on the audacity of -Traddles, and his small hopes of a livelihood for twenty years to come. -</p> - -<p> -I had seen nothing like this since I went away, and it quite dashed my hopes -for my friend. The chief waiter had had enough of me. He came near me no more; -but devoted himself to an old gentleman in long gaiters, to meet whom a pint of -special port seemed to come out of the cellar of its own accord, for he gave no -order. The second waiter informed me, in a whisper, that this old gentleman was -a retired conveyancer living in the Square, and worth a mint of money, which it -was expected he would leave to his laundress’s daughter; likewise that it -was rumoured that he had a service of plate in a bureau, all tarnished with -lying by, though more than one spoon and a fork had never yet been beheld in -his chambers by mortal vision. By this time, I quite gave Traddles up for lost; -and settled in my own mind that there was no hope for him. -</p> - -<p> -Being very anxious to see the dear old fellow, nevertheless, I dispatched my -dinner, in a manner not at all calculated to raise me in the opinion of the -chief waiter, and hurried out by the back way. Number two in the Court was soon -reached; and an inscription on the door-post informing me that Mr. Traddles -occupied a set of chambers on the top storey, I ascended the staircase. A crazy -old staircase I found it to be, feebly lighted on each landing by a club-headed -little oil wick, dying away in a little dungeon of dirty glass. -</p> - -<p> -In the course of my stumbling upstairs, I fancied I heard a pleasant sound of -laughter; and not the laughter of an attorney or barrister, or attorney’s -clerk or barrister’s clerk, but of two or three merry girls. Happening, -however, as I stopped to listen, to put my foot in a hole where the Honourable -Society of Gray’s Inn had left a plank deficient, I fell down with some -noise, and when I recovered my footing all was silent. -</p> - -<p> -Groping my way more carefully, for the rest of the journey, my heart beat high -when I found the outer door, which had Mr. TRADDLES painted on it, open. I -knocked. A considerable scuffling within ensued, but nothing else. I therefore -knocked again. -</p> - -<p> -A small sharp-looking lad, half-footboy and half-clerk, who was very much out -of breath, but who looked at me as if he defied me to prove it legally, -presented himself. -</p> - -<p> -‘Is Mr. Traddles within?’ I said. -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes, sir, but he’s engaged.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I want to see him.’ -</p> - -<p> -After a moment’s survey of me, the sharp-looking lad decided to let me -in; and opening the door wider for that purpose, admitted me, first, into a -little closet of a hall, and next into a little sitting-room; where I came into -the presence of my old friend (also out of breath), seated at a table, and -bending over papers. -</p> - -<p> -‘Good God!’ cried Traddles, looking up. ‘It’s -Copperfield!’ and rushed into my arms, where I held him tight. -</p> - -<p> -‘All well, my dear Traddles?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘All well, my dear, dear Copperfield, and nothing but good news!’ -</p> - -<p> -We cried with pleasure, both of us. -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear fellow,’ said Traddles, rumpling his hair in his -excitement, which was a most unnecessary operation, ‘my dearest -Copperfield, my long-lost and most welcome friend, how glad I am to see you! -How brown you are! How glad I am! Upon my life and honour, I never was so -rejoiced, my beloved Copperfield, never!’ -</p> - -<p> -I was equally at a loss to express my emotions. I was quite unable to speak, at -first. -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear fellow!’ said Traddles. ‘And grown so famous! My -glorious Copperfield! Good gracious me, WHEN did you come, WHERE have you come -from, WHAT have you been doing?’ -</p> - -<p> -Never pausing for an answer to anything he said, Traddles, who had clapped me -into an easy-chair by the fire, all this time impetuously stirred the fire with -one hand, and pulled at my neck-kerchief with the other, under some wild -delusion that it was a great-coat. Without putting down the poker, he now -hugged me again; and I hugged him; and, both laughing, and both wiping our -eyes, we both sat down, and shook hands across the hearth. -</p> - -<p> -‘To think,’ said Traddles, ‘that you should have been so -nearly coming home as you must have been, my dear old boy, and not at the -ceremony!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘What ceremony, my dear Traddles?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Good gracious me!’ cried Traddles, opening his eyes in his old -way. ‘Didn’t you get my last letter?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Certainly not, if it referred to any ceremony.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, my dear Copperfield,’ said Traddles, sticking his hair -upright with both hands, and then putting his hands on my knees, ‘I am -married!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Married!’ I cried joyfully. -</p> - -<p> -‘Lord bless me, yes!’ said Traddles—‘by the Reverend -Horace—to Sophy—down in Devonshire. Why, my dear boy, she’s -behind the window curtain! Look here!’ -</p> - -<p> -To my amazement, the dearest girl in the world came at that same instant, -laughing and blushing, from her place of concealment. And a more cheerful, -amiable, honest, happy, bright-looking bride, I believe (as I could not help -saying on the spot) the world never saw. I kissed her as an old acquaintance -should, and wished them joy with all my might of heart. -</p> - -<p> -‘Dear me,’ said Traddles, ‘what a delightful re-union this -is! You are so extremely brown, my dear Copperfield! God bless my soul, how -happy I am!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And so am I,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘And I am sure I am!’ said the blushing and laughing Sophy. -</p> - -<p> -‘We are all as happy as possible!’ said Traddles. ‘Even the -girls are happy. Dear me, I declare I forgot them!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Forgot?’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘The girls,’ said Traddles. ‘Sophy’s sisters. They are -staying with us. They have come to have a peep at London. The fact is, -when—was it you that tumbled upstairs, Copperfield?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘It was,’ said I, laughing. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well then, when you tumbled upstairs,’ said Traddles, ‘I was -romping with the girls. In point of fact, we were playing at Puss in the -Corner. But as that wouldn’t do in Westminster Hall, and as it -wouldn’t look quite professional if they were seen by a client, they -decamped. And they are now—listening, I have no doubt,’ said -Traddles, glancing at the door of another room. -</p> - -<p> -‘I am sorry,’ said I, laughing afresh, ‘to have occasioned -such a dispersion.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Upon my word,’ rejoined Traddles, greatly delighted, ‘if you -had seen them running away, and running back again, after you had knocked, to -pick up the combs they had dropped out of their hair, and going on in the -maddest manner, you wouldn’t have said so. My love, will you fetch the -girls?’ -</p> - -<p> -Sophy tripped away, and we heard her received in the adjoining room with a peal -of laughter. -</p> - -<p> -‘Really musical, isn’t it, my dear Copperfield?’ said -Traddles. ‘It’s very agreeable to hear. It quite lights up these -old rooms. To an unfortunate bachelor of a fellow who has lived alone all his -life, you know, it’s positively delicious. It’s charming. Poor -things, they have had a great loss in Sophy—who, I do assure you, -Copperfield is, and ever was, the dearest girl!—and it gratifies me -beyond expression to find them in such good spirits. The society of girls is a -very delightful thing, Copperfield. It’s not professional, but it’s -very delightful.’ -</p> - -<p> -Observing that he slightly faltered, and comprehending that in the goodness of -his heart he was fearful of giving me some pain by what he had said, I -expressed my concurrence with a heartiness that evidently relieved and pleased -him greatly. -</p> - -<p> -‘But then,’ said Traddles, ‘our domestic arrangements are, to -say the truth, quite unprofessional altogether, my dear Copperfield. Even -Sophy’s being here, is unprofessional. And we have no other place of -abode. We have put to sea in a cockboat, but we are quite prepared to rough it. -And Sophy’s an extraordinary manager! You’ll be surprised how those -girls are stowed away. I am sure I hardly know how it’s done!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Are many of the young ladies with you?’ I inquired. -</p> - -<p> -‘The eldest, the Beauty is here,’ said Traddles, in a low -confidential voice, ‘Caroline. And Sarah’s here—the one I -mentioned to you as having something the matter with her spine, you know. -Immensely better! And the two youngest that Sophy educated are with us. And -Louisa’s here.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Indeed!’ cried I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes,’ said Traddles. ‘Now the whole set—I mean the -chambers—is only three rooms; but Sophy arranges for the girls in the -most wonderful way, and they sleep as comfortably as possible. Three in that -room,’ said Traddles, pointing. ‘Two in that.’ -</p> - -<p> -I could not help glancing round, in search of the accommodation remaining for -Mr. and Mrs. Traddles. Traddles understood me. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well!’ said Traddles, ‘we are prepared to rough it, as I -said just now, and we did improvise a bed last week, upon the floor here. But -there’s a little room in the roof—a very nice room, when -you’re up there—which Sophy papered herself, to surprise me; and -that’s our room at present. It’s a capital little gipsy sort of -place. There’s quite a view from it.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And you are happily married at last, my dear Traddles!’ said I. -‘How rejoiced I am!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Thank you, my dear Copperfield,’ said Traddles, as we shook hands -once more. ‘Yes, I am as happy as it’s possible to be. -There’s your old friend, you see,’ said Traddles, nodding -triumphantly at the flower-pot and stand; ‘and there’s the table -with the marble top! All the other furniture is plain and serviceable, you -perceive. And as to plate, Lord bless you, we haven’t so much as a -tea-spoon.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘All to be earned?’ said I, cheerfully. -</p> - -<p> -‘Exactly so,’ replied Traddles, ‘all to be earned. Of course -we have something in the shape of tea-spoons, because we stir our tea. But -they’re Britannia metal.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘The silver will be the brighter when it comes,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘The very thing we say!’ cried Traddles. ‘You see, my dear -Copperfield,’ falling again into the low confidential tone, ‘after -I had delivered my argument in DOE dem. JIPES versus WIGZIELL, which did me -great service with the profession, I went down into Devonshire, and had some -serious conversation in private with the Reverend Horace. I dwelt upon the fact -that Sophy—who I do assure you, Copperfield, is the dearest -girl!—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I am certain she is!’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘She is, indeed!’ rejoined Traddles. ‘But I am afraid I am -wandering from the subject. Did I mention the Reverend Horace?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You said that you dwelt upon the fact—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘True! Upon the fact that Sophy and I had been engaged for a long period, -and that Sophy, with the permission of her parents, was more than content to -take me—in short,’ said Traddles, with his old frank smile, -‘on our present Britannia-metal footing. Very well. I then proposed to -the Reverend Horace—who is a most excellent clergyman, Copperfield, and -ought to be a Bishop; or at least ought to have enough to live upon, without -pinching himself—that if I could turn the corner, say of two hundred and -fifty pounds, in one year; and could see my way pretty clearly to that, or -something better, next year; and could plainly furnish a little place like -this, besides; then, and in that case, Sophy and I should be united. I took the -liberty of representing that we had been patient for a good many years; and -that the circumstance of Sophy’s being extraordinarily useful at home, -ought not to operate with her affectionate parents, against her establishment -in life—don’t you see?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Certainly it ought not,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘I am glad you think so, Copperfield,’ rejoined Traddles, -‘because, without any imputation on the Reverend Horace, I do think -parents, and brothers, and so forth, are sometimes rather selfish in such -cases. Well! I also pointed out, that my most earnest desire was, to be useful -to the family; and that if I got on in the world, and anything should happen to -him—I refer to the Reverend Horace—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I understand,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘—Or to Mrs. Crewler—it would be the utmost gratification of -my wishes, to be a parent to the girls. He replied in a most admirable manner, -exceedingly flattering to my feelings, and undertook to obtain the consent of -Mrs. Crewler to this arrangement. They had a dreadful time of it with her. It -mounted from her legs into her chest, and then into her head—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘What mounted?’ I asked. -</p> - -<p> -‘Her grief,’ replied Traddles, with a serious look. ‘Her -feelings generally. As I mentioned on a former occasion, she is a very superior -woman, but has lost the use of her limbs. Whatever occurs to harass her, -usually settles in her legs; but on this occasion it mounted to the chest, and -then to the head, and, in short, pervaded the whole system in a most alarming -manner. However, they brought her through it by unremitting and affectionate -attention; and we were married yesterday six weeks. You have no idea what a -Monster I felt, Copperfield, when I saw the whole family crying and fainting -away in every direction! Mrs. Crewler couldn’t see me before we -left—couldn’t forgive me, then, for depriving her of her -child—but she is a good creature, and has done so since. I had a -delightful letter from her, only this morning.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And in short, my dear friend,’ said I, ‘you feel as blest as -you deserve to feel!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh! That’s your partiality!’ laughed Traddles. ‘But, -indeed, I am in a most enviable state. I work hard, and read Law insatiably. I -get up at five every morning, and don’t mind it at all. I hide the girls -in the daytime, and make merry with them in the evening. And I assure you I am -quite sorry that they are going home on Tuesday, which is the day before the -first day of Michaelmas Term. But here,’ said Traddles, breaking off in -his confidence, and speaking aloud, ‘ARE the girls! Mr. Copperfield, Miss -Crewler—Miss Sarah—Miss Louisa—Margaret and Lucy!’ -</p> - -<p> -They were a perfect nest of roses; they looked so wholesome and fresh. They -were all pretty, and Miss Caroline was very handsome; but there was a loving, -cheerful, fireside quality in Sophy’s bright looks, which was better than -that, and which assured me that my friend had chosen well. We all sat round the -fire; while the sharp boy, who I now divined had lost his breath in putting the -papers out, cleared them away again, and produced the tea-things. After that, -he retired for the night, shutting the outer door upon us with a bang. Mrs. -Traddles, with perfect pleasure and composure beaming from her household eyes, -having made the tea, then quietly made the toast as she sat in a corner by the -fire. -</p> - -<p> -She had seen Agnes, she told me while she was toasting. ‘Tom’ had -taken her down into Kent for a wedding trip, and there she had seen my aunt, -too; and both my aunt and Agnes were well, and they had all talked of nothing -but me. ‘Tom’ had never had me out of his thoughts, she really -believed, all the time I had been away. ‘Tom’ was the authority for -everything. ‘Tom’ was evidently the idol of her life; never to be -shaken on his pedestal by any commotion; always to be believed in, and done -homage to with the whole faith of her heart, come what might. -</p> - -<p> -The deference which both she and Traddles showed towards the Beauty, pleased me -very much. I don’t know that I thought it very reasonable; but I thought -it very delightful, and essentially a part of their character. If Traddles ever -for an instant missed the tea-spoons that were still to be won, I have no doubt -it was when he handed the Beauty her tea. If his sweet-tempered wife could have -got up any self-assertion against anyone, I am satisfied it could only have -been because she was the Beauty’s sister. A few slight indications of a -rather petted and capricious manner, which I observed in the Beauty, were -manifestly considered, by Traddles and his wife, as her birthright and natural -endowment. If she had been born a Queen Bee, and they labouring Bees, they -could not have been more satisfied of that. -</p> - -<p> -But their self-forgetfulness charmed me. Their pride in these girls, and their -submission of themselves to all their whims, was the pleasantest little -testimony to their own worth I could have desired to see. If Traddles were -addressed as ‘a darling’, once in the course of that evening; and -besought to bring something here, or carry something there, or take something -up, or put something down, or find something, or fetch something, he was so -addressed, by one or other of his sisters-in-law, at least twelve times in an -hour. Neither could they do anything without Sophy. Somebody’s hair fell -down, and nobody but Sophy could put it up. Somebody forgot how a particular -tune went, and nobody but Sophy could hum that tune right. Somebody wanted to -recall the name of a place in Devonshire, and only Sophy knew it. Something was -wanted to be written home, and Sophy alone could be trusted to write before -breakfast in the morning. Somebody broke down in a piece of knitting, and no -one but Sophy was able to put the defaulter in the right direction. They were -entire mistresses of the place, and Sophy and Traddles waited on them. How many -children Sophy could have taken care of in her time, I can’t imagine; but -she seemed to be famous for knowing every sort of song that ever was addressed -to a child in the English tongue; and she sang dozens to order with the -clearest little voice in the world, one after another (every sister issuing -directions for a different tune, and the Beauty generally striking in last), so -that I was quite fascinated. The best of all was, that, in the midst of their -exactions, all the sisters had a great tenderness and respect both for Sophy -and Traddles. I am sure, when I took my leave, and Traddles was coming out to -walk with me to the coffee-house, I thought I had never seen an obstinate head -of hair, or any other head of hair, rolling about in such a shower of kisses. -</p> - -<p> -Altogether, it was a scene I could not help dwelling on with pleasure, for a -long time after I got back and had wished Traddles good night. If I had beheld -a thousand roses blowing in a top set of chambers, in that withered -Gray’s Inn, they could not have brightened it half so much. The idea of -those Devonshire girls, among the dry law-stationers and the attorneys’ -offices; and of the tea and toast, and children’s songs, in that grim -atmosphere of pounce and parchment, red-tape, dusty wafers, ink-jars, brief and -draft paper, law reports, writs, declarations, and bills of costs; seemed -almost as pleasantly fanciful as if I had dreamed that the Sultan’s -famous family had been admitted on the roll of attorneys, and had brought the -talking bird, the singing tree, and the golden water into Gray’s Inn -Hall. Somehow, I found that I had taken leave of Traddles for the night, and -come back to the coffee-house, with a great change in my despondency about him. -I began to think he would get on, in spite of all the many orders of chief -waiters in England. -</p> - -<p> -Drawing a chair before one of the coffee-room fires to think about him at my -leisure, I gradually fell from the consideration of his happiness to tracing -prospects in the live-coals, and to thinking, as they broke and changed, of the -principal vicissitudes and separations that had marked my life. I had not seen -a coal fire, since I had left England three years ago: though many a wood fire -had I watched, as it crumbled into hoary ashes, and mingled with the feathery -heap upon the hearth, which not inaptly figured to me, in my despondency, my -own dead hopes. -</p> - -<p> -I could think of the past now, gravely, but not bitterly; and could contemplate -the future in a brave spirit. Home, in its best sense, was for me no more. She -in whom I might have inspired a dearer love, I had taught to be my sister. She -would marry, and would have new claimants on her tenderness; and in doing it, -would never know the love for her that had grown up in my heart. It was right -that I should pay the forfeit of my headlong passion. What I reaped, I had -sown. -</p> - -<p> -I was thinking. And had I truly disciplined my heart to this, and could I -resolutely bear it, and calmly hold the place in her home which she had calmly -held in mine,—when I found my eyes resting on a countenance that might -have arisen out of the fire, in its association with my early remembrances. -</p> - -<p> -Little Mr. Chillip the Doctor, to whose good offices I was indebted in the very -first chapter of this history, sat reading a newspaper in the shadow of an -opposite corner. He was tolerably stricken in years by this time; but, being a -mild, meek, calm little man, had worn so easily, that I thought he looked at -that moment just as he might have looked when he sat in our parlour, waiting -for me to be born. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Chillip had left Blunderstone six or seven years ago, and I had never seen -him since. He sat placidly perusing the newspaper, with his little head on one -side, and a glass of warm sherry negus at his elbow. He was so extremely -conciliatory in his manner that he seemed to apologize to the very newspaper -for taking the liberty of reading it. -</p> - -<p> -I walked up to where he was sitting, and said, ‘How do you do, Mr. -Chillip?’ -</p> - -<p> -He was greatly fluttered by this unexpected address from a stranger, and -replied, in his slow way, ‘I thank you, sir, you are very good. Thank -you, sir. I hope YOU are well.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You don’t remember me?’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, sir,’ returned Mr. Chillip, smiling very meekly, and shaking -his head as he surveyed me, ‘I have a kind of an impression that -something in your countenance is familiar to me, sir; but I couldn’t lay -my hand upon your name, really.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And yet you knew it, long before I knew it myself,’ I returned. -</p> - -<p> -‘Did I indeed, sir?’ said Mr. Chillip. ‘Is it possible that I -had the honour, sir, of officiating when—?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Dear me!’ cried Mr. Chillip. ‘But no doubt you are a good -deal changed since then, sir?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Probably,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, sir,’ observed Mr. Chillip, ‘I hope you’ll -excuse me, if I am compelled to ask the favour of your name?’ -</p> - -<p> -On my telling him my name, he was really moved. He quite shook hands with -me—which was a violent proceeding for him, his usual course being to -slide a tepid little fish-slice, an inch or two in advance of his hip, and -evince the greatest discomposure when anybody grappled with it. Even now, he -put his hand in his coat-pocket as soon as he could disengage it, and seemed -relieved when he had got it safe back. -</p> - -<p> -‘Dear me, sir!’ said Mr. Chillip, surveying me with his head on one -side. ‘And it’s Mr. Copperfield, is it? Well, sir, I think I should -have known you, if I had taken the liberty of looking more closely at you. -There’s a strong resemblance between you and your poor father, -sir.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I never had the happiness of seeing my father,’ I observed. -</p> - -<p> -‘Very true, sir,’ said Mr. Chillip, in a soothing tone. ‘And -very much to be deplored it was, on all accounts! We are not ignorant, -sir,’ said Mr. Chillip, slowly shaking his little head again, ‘down -in our part of the country, of your fame. There must be great excitement here, -sir,’ said Mr. Chillip, tapping himself on the forehead with his -forefinger. ‘You must find it a trying occupation, sir!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘What is your part of the country now?’ I asked, seating myself -near him. -</p> - -<p> -‘I am established within a few miles of Bury St. Edmund’s, -sir,’ said Mr. Chillip. ‘Mrs. Chillip, coming into a little -property in that neighbourhood, under her father’s will, I bought a -practice down there, in which you will be glad to hear I am doing well. My -daughter is growing quite a tall lass now, sir,’ said Mr. Chillip, giving -his little head another little shake. ‘Her mother let down two tucks in -her frocks only last week. Such is time, you see, sir!’ -</p> - -<p> -As the little man put his now empty glass to his lips, when he made this -reflection, I proposed to him to have it refilled, and I would keep him company -with another. ‘Well, sir,’ he returned, in his slow way, -‘it’s more than I am accustomed to; but I can’t deny myself -the pleasure of your conversation. It seems but yesterday that I had the honour -of attending you in the measles. You came through them charmingly, sir!’ -</p> - -<p> -I acknowledged this compliment, and ordered the negus, which was soon produced. -‘Quite an uncommon dissipation!’ said Mr. Chillip, stirring it, -‘but I can’t resist so extraordinary an occasion. You have no -family, sir?’ -</p> - -<p> -I shook my head. -</p> - -<p> -‘I was aware that you sustained a bereavement, sir, some time ago,’ -said Mr. Chillip. ‘I heard it from your father-in-law’s sister. -Very decided character there, sir?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Why, yes,’ said I, ‘decided enough. Where did you see her, -Mr. Chillip?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Are you not aware, sir,’ returned Mr. Chillip, with his placidest -smile, ‘that your father-in-law is again a neighbour of mine?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘He is indeed, sir!’ said Mr. Chillip. ‘Married a young lady -of that part, with a very good little property, poor thing.—-And this -action of the brain now, sir? Don’t you find it fatigue you?’ said -Mr. Chillip, looking at me like an admiring Robin. -</p> - -<p> -I waived that question, and returned to the Murdstones. ‘I was aware of -his being married again. Do you attend the family?’ I asked. -</p> - -<p> -‘Not regularly. I have been called in,’ he replied. ‘Strong -phrenological developments of the organ of firmness, in Mr. Murdstone and his -sister, sir.’ -</p> - -<p> -I replied with such an expressive look, that Mr. Chillip was emboldened by -that, and the negus together, to give his head several short shakes, and -thoughtfully exclaim, ‘Ah, dear me! We remember old times, Mr. -Copperfield!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And the brother and sister are pursuing their old course, are -they?’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, sir,’ replied Mr. Chillip, ‘a medical man, being so -much in families, ought to have neither eyes nor ears for anything but his -profession. Still, I must say, they are very severe, sir: both as to this life -and the next.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘The next will be regulated without much reference to them, I dare -say,’ I returned: ‘what are they doing as to this?’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Chillip shook his head, stirred his negus, and sipped it. -</p> - -<p> -‘She was a charming woman, sir!’ he observed in a plaintive manner. -</p> - -<p> -‘The present Mrs. Murdstone?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘A charming woman indeed, sir,’ said Mr. Chillip; ‘as -amiable, I am sure, as it was possible to be! Mrs. Chillip’s opinion is, -that her spirit has been entirely broken since her marriage, and that she is -all but melancholy mad. And the ladies,’ observed Mr. Chillip, -timorously, ‘are great observers, sir.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I suppose she was to be subdued and broken to their detestable mould, -Heaven help her!’ said I. ‘And she has been.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, sir, there were violent quarrels at first, I assure you,’ -said Mr. Chillip; ‘but she is quite a shadow now. Would it be considered -forward if I was to say to you, sir, in confidence, that since the sister came -to help, the brother and sister between them have nearly reduced her to a state -of imbecility?’ -</p> - -<p> -I told him I could easily believe it. -</p> - -<p> -‘I have no hesitation in saying,’ said Mr. Chillip, fortifying -himself with another sip of negus, ‘between you and me, sir, that her -mother died of it—or that tyranny, gloom, and worry have made Mrs. -Murdstone nearly imbecile. She was a lively young woman, sir, before marriage, -and their gloom and austerity destroyed her. They go about with her, now, more -like her keepers than her husband and sister-in-law. That was Mrs. -Chillip’s remark to me, only last week. And I assure you, sir, the ladies -are great observers. Mrs. Chillip herself is a great observer!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Does he gloomily profess to be (I am ashamed to use the word in such -association) religious still?’ I inquired. -</p> - -<p> -‘You anticipate, sir,’ said Mr. Chillip, his eyelids getting quite -red with the unwonted stimulus in which he was indulging. ‘One of Mrs. -Chillip’s most impressive remarks. Mrs. Chillip,’ he proceeded, in -the calmest and slowest manner, ‘quite electrified me, by pointing out -that Mr. Murdstone sets up an image of himself, and calls it the Divine Nature. -You might have knocked me down on the flat of my back, sir, with the feather of -a pen, I assure you, when Mrs. Chillip said so. The ladies are great observers, -sir?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Intuitively,’ said I, to his extreme delight. -</p> - -<p> -‘I am very happy to receive such support in my opinion, sir,’ he -rejoined. ‘It is not often that I venture to give a non-medical opinion, -I assure you. Mr. Murdstone delivers public addresses sometimes, and it is -said,—in short, sir, it is said by Mrs. Chillip,—that the darker -tyrant he has lately been, the more ferocious is his doctrine.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I believe Mrs. Chillip to be perfectly right,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Mrs. Chillip does go so far as to say,’ pursued the meekest of -little men, much encouraged, ‘that what such people miscall their -religion, is a vent for their bad humours and arrogance. And do you know I must -say, sir,’ he continued, mildly laying his head on one side, ‘that -I DON’T find authority for Mr. and Miss Murdstone in the New -Testament?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I never found it either!’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘In the meantime, sir,’ said Mr. Chillip, ‘they are much -disliked; and as they are very free in consigning everybody who dislikes them -to perdition, we really have a good deal of perdition going on in our -neighbourhood! However, as Mrs. Chillip says, sir, they undergo a continual -punishment; for they are turned inward, to feed upon their own hearts, and -their own hearts are very bad feeding. Now, sir, about that brain of yours, if -you’ll excuse my returning to it. Don’t you expose it to a good -deal of excitement, sir?’ -</p> - -<p> -I found it not difficult, in the excitement of Mr. Chillip’s own brain, -under his potations of negus, to divert his attention from this topic to his -own affairs, on which, for the next half-hour, he was quite loquacious; giving -me to understand, among other pieces of information, that he was then at the -Gray’s Inn Coffee-house to lay his professional evidence before a -Commission of Lunacy, touching the state of mind of a patient who had become -deranged from excessive drinking. ‘And I assure you, sir,’ he said, -‘I am extremely nervous on such occasions. I could not support being what -is called Bullied, sir. It would quite unman me. Do you know it was some time -before I recovered the conduct of that alarming lady, on the night of your -birth, Mr. Copperfield?’ -</p> - -<p> -I told him that I was going down to my aunt, the Dragon of that night, early in -the morning; and that she was one of the most tender-hearted and excellent of -women, as he would know full well if he knew her better. The mere notion of the -possibility of his ever seeing her again, appeared to terrify him. He replied -with a small pale smile, ‘Is she so, indeed, sir? Really?’ and -almost immediately called for a candle, and went to bed, as if he were not -quite safe anywhere else. He did not actually stagger under the negus; but I -should think his placid little pulse must have made two or three more beats in -a minute, than it had done since the great night of my aunt’s -disappointment, when she struck at him with her bonnet. -</p> - -<p> -Thoroughly tired, I went to bed too, at midnight; passed the next day on the -Dover coach; burst safe and sound into my aunt’s old parlour while she -was at tea (she wore spectacles now); and was received by her, and Mr. Dick, -and dear old Peggotty, who acted as housekeeper, with open arms and tears of -joy. My aunt was mightily amused, when we began to talk composedly, by my -account of my meeting with Mr. Chillip, and of his holding her in such dread -remembrance; and both she and Peggotty had a great deal to say about my poor -mother’s second husband, and ‘that murdering woman of a -sister’,—on whom I think no pain or penalty would have induced my -aunt to bestow any Christian or Proper Name, or any other designation. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0060"></a>CHAPTER 60. AGNES</h2> - -<p> -My aunt and I, when we were left alone, talked far into the night. How the -emigrants never wrote home, otherwise than cheerfully and hopefully; how Mr. -Micawber had actually remitted divers small sums of money, on account of those -‘pecuniary liabilities’, in reference to which he had been so -business-like as between man and man; how Janet, returning into my aunt’s -service when she came back to Dover, had finally carried out her renunciation -of mankind by entering into wedlock with a thriving tavern-keeper; and how my -aunt had finally set her seal on the same great principle, by aiding and -abetting the bride, and crowning the marriage-ceremony with her presence; were -among our topics—already more or less familiar to me through the letters -I had had. Mr. Dick, as usual, was not forgotten. My aunt informed me how he -incessantly occupied himself in copying everything he could lay his hands on, -and kept King Charles the First at a respectful distance by that semblance of -employment; how it was one of the main joys and rewards of her life that he was -free and happy, instead of pining in monotonous restraint; and how (as a novel -general conclusion) nobody but she could ever fully know what he was. -</p> - -<p> -‘And when, Trot,’ said my aunt, patting the back of my hand, as we -sat in our old way before the fire, ‘when are you going over to -Canterbury?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I shall get a horse, and ride over tomorrow morning, aunt, unless you -will go with me?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No!’ said my aunt, in her short abrupt way. ‘I mean to stay -where I am.’ -</p> - -<p> -Then, I should ride, I said. I could not have come through Canterbury today -without stopping, if I had been coming to anyone but her. -</p> - -<p> -She was pleased, but answered, ‘Tut, Trot; MY old bones would have kept -till tomorrow!’ and softly patted my hand again, as I sat looking -thoughtfully at the fire. -</p> - -<p> -Thoughtfully, for I could not be here once more, and so near Agnes, without the -revival of those regrets with which I had so long been occupied. Softened -regrets they might be, teaching me what I had failed to learn when my younger -life was all before me, but not the less regrets. ‘Oh, Trot,’ I -seemed to hear my aunt say once more; and I understood her better -now—‘Blind, blind, blind!’ -</p> - -<p> -We both kept silence for some minutes. When I raised my eyes, I found that she -was steadily observant of me. Perhaps she had followed the current of my mind; -for it seemed to me an easy one to track now, wilful as it had been once. -</p> - -<p> -‘You will find her father a white-haired old man,’ said my aunt, -‘though a better man in all other respects—a reclaimed man. Neither -will you find him measuring all human interests, and joys, and sorrows, with -his one poor little inch-rule now. Trust me, child, such things must shrink -very much, before they can be measured off in that way.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Indeed they must,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘You will find her,’ pursued my aunt, ‘as good, as beautiful, -as earnest, as disinterested, as she has always been. If I knew higher praise, -Trot, I would bestow it on her.’ -</p> - -<p> -There was no higher praise for her; no higher reproach for me. Oh, how had I -strayed so far away! -</p> - -<p> -‘If she trains the young girls whom she has about her, to be like -herself,’ said my aunt, earnest even to the filling of her eyes with -tears, ‘Heaven knows, her life will be well employed! Useful and happy, -as she said that day! How could she be otherwise than useful and happy!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Has Agnes any—’ I was thinking aloud, rather than speaking. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well? Hey? Any what?’ said my aunt, sharply. -</p> - -<p> -‘Any lover,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘A score,’ cried my aunt, with a kind of indignant pride. -‘She might have married twenty times, my dear, since you have been -gone!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No doubt,’ said I. ‘No doubt. But has she any lover who is -worthy of her? Agnes could care for no other.’ -</p> - -<p> -My aunt sat musing for a little while, with her chin upon her hand. Slowly -raising her eyes to mine, she said: -</p> - -<p> -‘I suspect she has an attachment, Trot.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘A prosperous one?’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Trot,’ returned my aunt gravely, ‘I can’t say. I have -no right to tell you even so much. She has never confided it to me, but I -suspect it.’ -</p> - -<p> -She looked so attentively and anxiously at me (I even saw her tremble), that I -felt now, more than ever, that she had followed my late thoughts. I summoned -all the resolutions I had made, in all those many days and nights, and all -those many conflicts of my heart. -</p> - -<p> -‘If it should be so,’ I began, ‘and I hope it is-’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I don’t know that it is,’ said my aunt curtly. ‘You -must not be ruled by my suspicions. You must keep them secret. They are very -slight, perhaps. I have no right to speak.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘If it should be so,’ I repeated, ‘Agnes will tell me at her -own good time. A sister to whom I have confided so much, aunt, will not be -reluctant to confide in me.’ -</p> - -<p> -My aunt withdrew her eyes from mine, as slowly as she had turned them upon me; -and covered them thoughtfully with her hand. By and by she put her other hand -on my shoulder; and so we both sat, looking into the past, without saying -another word, until we parted for the night. -</p> - -<p> -I rode away, early in the morning, for the scene of my old school-days. I -cannot say that I was yet quite happy, in the hope that I was gaining a victory -over myself; even in the prospect of so soon looking on her face again. -</p> - -<p> -The well-remembered ground was soon traversed, and I came into the quiet -streets, where every stone was a boy’s book to me. I went on foot to the -old house, and went away with a heart too full to enter. I returned; and -looking, as I passed, through the low window of the turret-room where first -Uriah Heep, and afterwards Mr. Micawber, had been wont to sit, saw that it was -a little parlour now, and that there was no office. Otherwise the staid old -house was, as to its cleanliness and order, still just as it had been when I -first saw it. I requested the new maid who admitted me, to tell Miss Wickfield -that a gentleman who waited on her from a friend abroad, was there; and I was -shown up the grave old staircase (cautioned of the steps I knew so well), into -the unchanged drawing-room. The books that Agnes and I had read together, were -on their shelves; and the desk where I had laboured at my lessons, many a -night, stood yet at the same old corner of the table. All the little changes -that had crept in when the Heeps were there, were changed again. Everything was -as it used to be, in the happy time. -</p> - -<p> -I stood in a window, and looked across the ancient street at the opposite -houses, recalling how I had watched them on wet afternoons, when I first came -there; and how I had used to speculate about the people who appeared at any of -the windows, and had followed them with my eyes up and down stairs, while women -went clicking along the pavement in pattens, and the dull rain fell in slanting -lines, and poured out of the water-spout yonder, and flowed into the road. The -feeling with which I used to watch the tramps, as they came into the town on -those wet evenings, at dusk, and limped past, with their bundles drooping over -their shoulders at the ends of sticks, came freshly back to me; fraught, as -then, with the smell of damp earth, and wet leaves and briar, and the sensation -of the very airs that blew upon me in my own toilsome journey. -</p> - -<p> -The opening of the little door in the panelled wall made me start and turn. Her -beautiful serene eyes met mine as she came towards me. She stopped and laid her -hand upon her bosom, and I caught her in my arms. -</p> - -<p> -‘Agnes! my dear girl! I have come too suddenly upon you.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No, no! I am so rejoiced to see you, Trotwood!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Dear Agnes, the happiness it is to me, to see you once again!’ -</p> - -<p> -I folded her to my heart, and, for a little while, we were both silent. -Presently we sat down, side by side; and her angel-face was turned upon me with -the welcome I had dreamed of, waking and sleeping, for whole years. -</p> - -<p> -She was so true, she was so beautiful, she was so good,—I owed her so -much gratitude, she was so dear to me, that I could find no utterance for what -I felt. I tried to bless her, tried to thank her, tried to tell her (as I had -often done in letters) what an influence she had upon me; but all my efforts -were in vain. My love and joy were dumb. -</p> - -<p> -With her own sweet tranquillity, she calmed my agitation; led me back to the -time of our parting; spoke to me of Emily, whom she had visited, in secret, -many times; spoke to me tenderly of Dora’s grave. With the unerring -instinct of her noble heart, she touched the chords of my memory so softly and -harmoniously, that not one jarred within me; I could listen to the sorrowful, -distant music, and desire to shrink from nothing it awoke. How could I, when, -blended with it all, was her dear self, the better angel of my life? -</p> - -<p> -‘And you, Agnes,’ I said, by and by. ‘Tell me of yourself. -You have hardly ever told me of your own life, in all this lapse of -time!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘What should I tell?’ she answered, with her radiant smile. -‘Papa is well. You see us here, quiet in our own home; our anxieties set -at rest, our home restored to us; and knowing that, dear Trotwood, you know -all.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘All, Agnes?’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -She looked at me, with some fluttering wonder in her face. -</p> - -<p> -‘Is there nothing else, Sister?’ I said. -</p> - -<p> -Her colour, which had just now faded, returned, and faded again. She smiled; -with a quiet sadness, I thought; and shook her head. -</p> - -<p> -I had sought to lead her to what my aunt had hinted at; for, sharply painful to -me as it must be to receive that confidence, I was to discipline my heart, and -do my duty to her. I saw, however, that she was uneasy, and I let it pass. -</p> - -<p> -‘You have much to do, dear Agnes?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘With my school?’ said she, looking up again, in all her bright -composure. -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes. It is laborious, is it not?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘The labour is so pleasant,’ she returned, ‘that it is -scarcely grateful in me to call it by that name.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Nothing good is difficult to you,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -Her colour came and went once more; and once more, as she bent her head, I saw -the same sad smile. -</p> - -<p> -‘You will wait and see papa,’ said Agnes, cheerfully, ‘and -pass the day with us? Perhaps you will sleep in your own room? We always call -it yours.’ -</p> - -<p> -I could not do that, having promised to ride back to my aunt’s at night; -but I would pass the day there, joyfully. -</p> - -<p> -‘I must be a prisoner for a little while,’ said Agnes, ‘but -here are the old books, Trotwood, and the old music.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Even the old flowers are here,’ said I, looking round; ‘or -the old kinds.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I have found a pleasure,’ returned Agnes, smiling, ‘while -you have been absent, in keeping everything as it used to be when we were -children. For we were very happy then, I think.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Heaven knows we were!’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘And every little thing that has reminded me of my brother,’ said -Agnes, with her cordial eyes turned cheerfully upon me, ‘has been a -welcome companion. Even this,’ showing me the basket-trifle, full of -keys, still hanging at her side, ‘seems to jingle a kind of old -tune!’ -</p> - -<p> -She smiled again, and went out at the door by which she had come. -</p> - -<p> -It was for me to guard this sisterly affection with religious care. It was all -that I had left myself, and it was a treasure. If I once shook the foundations -of the sacred confidence and usage, in virtue of which it was given to me, it -was lost, and could never be recovered. I set this steadily before myself. The -better I loved her, the more it behoved me never to forget it. -</p> - -<p> -I walked through the streets; and, once more seeing my old adversary the -butcher—now a constable, with his staff hanging up in the shop—went -down to look at the place where I had fought him; and there meditated on Miss -Shepherd and the eldest Miss Larkins, and all the idle loves and likings, and -dislikings, of that time. Nothing seemed to have survived that time but Agnes; -and she, ever a star above me, was brighter and higher. -</p> - -<p> -When I returned, Mr. Wickfield had come home, from a garden he had, a couple of -miles or so out of town, where he now employed himself almost every day. I -found him as my aunt had described him. We sat down to dinner, with some -half-dozen little girls; and he seemed but the shadow of his handsome picture -on the wall. -</p> - -<p> -The tranquillity and peace belonging, of old, to that quiet ground in my -memory, pervaded it again. When dinner was done, Mr. Wickfield taking no wine, -and I desiring none, we went up-stairs; where Agnes and her little charges sang -and played, and worked. After tea the children left us; and we three sat -together, talking of the bygone days. -</p> - -<p> -‘My part in them,’ said Mr. Wickfield, shaking his white head, -‘has much matter for regret—for deep regret, and deep contrition, -Trotwood, you well know. But I would not cancel it, if it were in my -power.’ -</p> - -<p> -I could readily believe that, looking at the face beside him. -</p> - -<p> -‘I should cancel with it,’ he pursued, ‘such patience and -devotion, such fidelity, such a child’s love, as I must not forget, no! -even to forget myself.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I understand you, sir,’ I softly said. ‘I hold it—I -have always held it—in veneration.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘But no one knows, not even you,’ he returned, ‘how much she -has done, how much she has undergone, how hard she has striven. Dear -Agnes!’ -</p> - -<p> -She had put her hand entreatingly on his arm, to stop him; and was very, very -pale. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, well!’ he said with a sigh, dismissing, as I then saw, some -trial she had borne, or was yet to bear, in connexion with what my aunt had -told me. ‘Well! I have never told you, Trotwood, of her mother. Has -anyone?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Never, sir.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘It’s not much—though it was much to suffer. She married me -in opposition to her father’s wish, and he renounced her. She prayed him -to forgive her, before my Agnes came into this world. He was a very hard man, -and her mother had long been dead. He repulsed her. He broke her heart.’ -</p> - -<p> -Agnes leaned upon his shoulder, and stole her arm about his neck. -</p> - -<p> -‘She had an affectionate and gentle heart,’ he said; ‘and it -was broken. I knew its tender nature very well. No one could, if I did not. She -loved me dearly, but was never happy. She was always labouring, in secret, -under this distress; and being delicate and downcast at the time of his last -repulse—for it was not the first, by many—pined away and died. She -left me Agnes, two weeks old; and the grey hair that you recollect me with, -when you first came.’ He kissed Agnes on her cheek. -</p> - -<p> -‘My love for my dear child was a diseased love, but my mind was all -unhealthy then. I say no more of that. I am not speaking of myself, Trotwood, -but of her mother, and of her. If I give you any clue to what I am, or to what -I have been, you will unravel it, I know. What Agnes is, I need not say. I have -always read something of her poor mother’s story, in her character; and -so I tell it you tonight, when we three are again together, after such great -changes. I have told it all.’ -</p> - -<p> -His bowed head, and her angel-face and filial duty, derived a more pathetic -meaning from it than they had had before. If I had wanted anything by which to -mark this night of our re-union, I should have found it in this. -</p> - -<p> -Agnes rose up from her father’s side, before long; and going softly to -her piano, played some of the old airs to which we had often listened in that -place. -</p> - -<p> -‘Have you any intention of going away again?’ Agnes asked me, as I -was standing by. -</p> - -<p> -‘What does my sister say to that?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I hope not.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Then I have no such intention, Agnes.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I think you ought not, Trotwood, since you ask me,’ she said, -mildly. ‘Your growing reputation and success enlarge your power of doing -good; and if I could spare my brother,’ with her eyes upon me, -‘perhaps the time could not.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘What I am, you have made me, Agnes. You should know best.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I made you, Trotwood?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes! Agnes, my dear girl!’ I said, bending over her. ‘I -tried to tell you, when we met today, something that has been in my thoughts -since Dora died. You remember, when you came down to me in our little -room—pointing upward, Agnes?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, Trotwood!’ she returned, her eyes filled with tears. ‘So -loving, so confiding, and so young! Can I ever forget?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘As you were then, my sister, I have often thought since, you have ever -been to me. Ever pointing upward, Agnes; ever leading me to something better; -ever directing me to higher things!’ -</p> - -<p> -She only shook her head; through her tears I saw the same sad quiet smile. -</p> - -<p> -‘And I am so grateful to you for it, Agnes, so bound to you, that there -is no name for the affection of my heart. I want you to know, yet don’t -know how to tell you, that all my life long I shall look up to you, and be -guided by you, as I have been through the darkness that is past. Whatever -betides, whatever new ties you may form, whatever changes may come between us, -I shall always look to you, and love you, as I do now, and have always done. -You will always be my solace and resource, as you have always been. Until I -die, my dearest sister, I shall see you always before me, pointing -upward!’ -</p> - -<p> -She put her hand in mine, and told me she was proud of me, and of what I said; -although I praised her very far beyond her worth. Then she went on softly -playing, but without removing her eyes from me. ‘Do you know, what I have -heard tonight, Agnes,’ said I, strangely seems to be a part of the -feeling with which I regarded you when I saw you first—with which I sat -beside you in my rough school-days?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You knew I had no mother,’ she replied with a smile, ‘and -felt kindly towards me.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘More than that, Agnes, I knew, almost as if I had known this story, that -there was something inexplicably gentle and softened, surrounding you; -something that might have been sorrowful in someone else (as I can now -understand it was), but was not so in you.’ -</p> - -<p> -She softly played on, looking at me still. -</p> - -<p> -‘Will you laugh at my cherishing such fancies, Agnes?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Or at my saying that I really believe I felt, even then, that you could -be faithfully affectionate against all discouragement, and never cease to be -so, until you ceased to live?—-Will you laugh at such a dream?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, no! Oh, no!’ -</p> - -<p> -For an instant, a distressful shadow crossed her face; but, even in the start -it gave me, it was gone; and she was playing on, and looking at me with her own -calm smile. -</p> - -<p> -As I rode back in the lonely night, the wind going by me like a restless -memory, I thought of this, and feared she was not happy. I was not happy; but, -thus far, I had faithfully set the seal upon the Past, and, thinking of her, -pointing upward, thought of her as pointing to that sky above me, where, in the -mystery to come, I might yet love her with a love unknown on earth, and tell -her what the strife had been within me when I loved her here. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0061"></a>CHAPTER 61. I AM SHOWN TWO INTERESTING -PENITENTS</h2> - -<p> -For a time—at all events until my book should be completed, which would -be the work of several months—I took up my abode in my aunt’s house -at Dover; and there, sitting in the window from which I had looked out at the -moon upon the sea, when that roof first gave me shelter, I quietly pursued my -task. -</p> - -<p> -In pursuance of my intention of referring to my own fictions only when their -course should incidentally connect itself with the progress of my story, I do -not enter on the aspirations, the delights, anxieties, and triumphs of my art. -That I truly devoted myself to it with my strongest earnestness, and bestowed -upon it every energy of my soul, I have already said. If the books I have -written be of any worth, they will supply the rest. I shall otherwise have -written to poor purpose, and the rest will be of interest to no one. -</p> - -<p> -Occasionally, I went to London; to lose myself in the swarm of life there, or -to consult with Traddles on some business point. He had managed for me, in my -absence, with the soundest judgement; and my worldly affairs were prospering. -As my notoriety began to bring upon me an enormous quantity of letters from -people of whom I had no knowledge—chiefly about nothing, and extremely -difficult to answer—I agreed with Traddles to have my name painted up on -his door. There, the devoted postman on that beat delivered bushels of letters -for me; and there, at intervals, I laboured through them, like a Home Secretary -of State without the salary. -</p> - -<p> -Among this correspondence, there dropped in, every now and then, an obliging -proposal from one of the numerous outsiders always lurking about the Commons, -to practise under cover of my name (if I would take the necessary steps -remaining to make a proctor of myself), and pay me a percentage on the profits. -But I declined these offers; being already aware that there were plenty of such -covert practitioners in existence, and considering the Commons quite bad -enough, without my doing anything to make it worse. -</p> - -<p> -The girls had gone home, when my name burst into bloom on Traddles’s -door; and the sharp boy looked, all day, as if he had never heard of Sophy, -shut up in a back room, glancing down from her work into a sooty little strip -of garden with a pump in it. But there I always found her, the same bright -housewife; often humming her Devonshire ballads when no strange foot was coming -up the stairs, and blunting the sharp boy in his official closet with melody. -</p> - -<p> -I wondered, at first, why I so often found Sophy writing in a copy-book; and -why she always shut it up when I appeared, and hurried it into the -table-drawer. But the secret soon came out. One day, Traddles (who had just -come home through the drizzling sleet from Court) took a paper out of his desk, -and asked me what I thought of that handwriting? -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, DON’T, Tom!’ cried Sophy, who was warming his slippers -before the fire. -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear,’ returned Tom, in a delighted state, ‘why not? What -do you say to that writing, Copperfield?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘It’s extraordinarily legal and formal,’ said I. ‘I -don’t think I ever saw such a stiff hand.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Not like a lady’s hand, is it?’ said Traddles. -</p> - -<p> -‘A lady’s!’ I repeated. ‘Bricks and mortar are more -like a lady’s hand!’ -</p> - -<p> -Traddles broke into a rapturous laugh, and informed me that it was -Sophy’s writing; that Sophy had vowed and declared he would need a -copying-clerk soon, and she would be that clerk; that she had acquired this -hand from a pattern; and that she could throw off—I forget how many -folios an hour. Sophy was very much confused by my being told all this, and -said that when ‘Tom’ was made a judge he wouldn’t be so ready -to proclaim it. Which ‘Tom’ denied; averring that he should always -be equally proud of it, under all circumstances. -</p> - -<p> -‘What a thoroughly good and charming wife she is, my dear -Traddles!’ said I, when she had gone away, laughing. -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear Copperfield,’ returned Traddles, ‘she is, without -any exception, the dearest girl! The way she manages this place; her -punctuality, domestic knowledge, economy, and order; her cheerfulness, -Copperfield!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Indeed, you have reason to commend her!’ I returned. ‘You -are a happy fellow. I believe you make yourselves, and each other, two of the -happiest people in the world.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I am sure we ARE two of the happiest people,’ returned Traddles. -‘I admit that, at all events. Bless my soul, when I see her getting up by -candle-light on these dark mornings, busying herself in the day’s -arrangements, going out to market before the clerks come into the Inn, caring -for no weather, devising the most capital little dinners out of the plainest -materials, making puddings and pies, keeping everything in its right place, -always so neat and ornamental herself, sitting up at night with me if -it’s ever so late, sweet-tempered and encouraging always, and all for me, -I positively sometimes can’t believe it, Copperfield!’ -</p> - -<p> -He was tender of the very slippers she had been warming, as he put them on, and -stretched his feet enjoyingly upon the fender. -</p> - -<p> -‘I positively sometimes can’t believe it,’ said Traddles. -‘Then our pleasures! Dear me, they are inexpensive, but they are quite -wonderful! When we are at home here, of an evening, and shut the outer door, -and draw those curtains—which she made—where could we be more snug? -When it’s fine, and we go out for a walk in the evening, the streets -abound in enjoyment for us. We look into the glittering windows of the -jewellers’ shops; and I show Sophy which of the diamond-eyed serpents, -coiled up on white satin rising grounds, I would give her if I could afford it; -and Sophy shows me which of the gold watches that are capped and jewelled and -engine-turned, and possessed of the horizontal lever-escape-movement, and all -sorts of things, she would buy for me if she could afford it; and we pick out -the spoons and forks, fish-slices, butter-knives, and sugar-tongs, we should -both prefer if we could both afford it; and really we go away as if we had got -them! Then, when we stroll into the squares, and great streets, and see a house -to let, sometimes we look up at it, and say, how would THAT do, if I was made a -judge? And we parcel it out—such a room for us, such rooms for the girls, -and so forth; until we settle to our satisfaction that it would do, or it -wouldn’t do, as the case may be. Sometimes, we go at half-price to the -pit of the theatre—the very smell of which is cheap, in my opinion, at -the money—and there we thoroughly enjoy the play: which Sophy believes -every word of, and so do I. In walking home, perhaps we buy a little bit of -something at a cook’s-shop, or a little lobster at the fishmongers, and -bring it here, and make a splendid supper, chatting about what we have seen. -Now, you know, Copperfield, if I was Lord Chancellor, we couldn’t do -this!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You would do something, whatever you were, my dear Traddles,’ -thought I, ‘that would be pleasant and amiable. And by the way,’ I -said aloud, ‘I suppose you never draw any skeletons now?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Really,’ replied Traddles, laughing, and reddening, ‘I -can’t wholly deny that I do, my dear Copperfield. For being in one of the -back rows of the King’s Bench the other day, with a pen in my hand, the -fancy came into my head to try how I had preserved that accomplishment. And I -am afraid there’s a skeleton—in a wig—on the ledge of the -desk.’ -</p> - -<p> -After we had both laughed heartily, Traddles wound up by looking with a smile -at the fire, and saying, in his forgiving way, ‘Old Creakle!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I have a letter from that old—Rascal here,’ said I. For I -never was less disposed to forgive him the way he used to batter Traddles, than -when I saw Traddles so ready to forgive him himself. -</p> - -<p> -‘From Creakle the schoolmaster?’ exclaimed Traddles. -‘No!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Among the persons who are attracted to me in my rising fame and -fortune,’ said I, looking over my letters, ‘and who discover that -they were always much attached to me, is the self-same Creakle. He is not a -schoolmaster now, Traddles. He is retired. He is a Middlesex Magistrate.’ -</p> - -<p> -I thought Traddles might be surprised to hear it, but he was not so at all. -</p> - -<p> -‘How do you suppose he comes to be a Middlesex Magistrate?’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh dear me!’ replied Traddles, ‘it would be very difficult -to answer that question. Perhaps he voted for somebody, or lent money to -somebody, or bought something of somebody, or otherwise obliged somebody, or -jobbed for somebody, who knew somebody who got the lieutenant of the county to -nominate him for the commission.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘On the commission he is, at any rate,’ said I. ‘And he -writes to me here, that he will be glad to show me, in operation, the only true -system of prison discipline; the only unchallengeable way of making sincere and -lasting converts and penitents—which, you know, is by solitary -confinement. What do you say?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘To the system?’ inquired Traddles, looking grave. -</p> - -<p> -‘No. To my accepting the offer, and your going with me?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I don’t object,’ said Traddles. -</p> - -<p> -‘Then I’ll write to say so. You remember (to say nothing of our -treatment) this same Creakle turning his son out of doors, I suppose, and the -life he used to lead his wife and daughter?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Perfectly,’ said Traddles. -</p> - -<p> -‘Yet, if you’ll read his letter, you’ll find he is the -tenderest of men to prisoners convicted of the whole calendar of -felonies,’ said I; ‘though I can’t find that his tenderness -extends to any other class of created beings.’ -</p> - -<p> -Traddles shrugged his shoulders, and was not at all surprised. I had not -expected him to be, and was not surprised myself; or my observation of similar -practical satires would have been but scanty. We arranged the time of our -visit, and I wrote accordingly to Mr. Creakle that evening. -</p> - -<p> -On the appointed day—I think it was the next day, but no -matter—Traddles and I repaired to the prison where Mr. Creakle was -powerful. It was an immense and solid building, erected at a vast expense. I -could not help thinking, as we approached the gate, what an uproar would have -been made in the country, if any deluded man had proposed to spend one half the -money it had cost, on the erection of an industrial school for the young, or a -house of refuge for the deserving old. -</p> - -<p> -In an office that might have been on the ground-floor of the Tower of Babel, it -was so massively constructed, we were presented to our old schoolmaster; who -was one of a group, composed of two or three of the busier sort of magistrates, -and some visitors they had brought. He received me, like a man who had formed -my mind in bygone years, and had always loved me tenderly. On my introducing -Traddles, Mr. Creakle expressed, in like manner, but in an inferior degree, -that he had always been Traddles’s guide, philosopher, and friend. Our -venerable instructor was a great deal older, and not improved in appearance. -His face was as fiery as ever; his eyes were as small, and rather deeper set. -The scanty, wet-looking grey hair, by which I remembered him, was almost gone; -and the thick veins in his bald head were none the more agreeable to look at. -</p> - -<p> -After some conversation among these gentlemen, from which I might have supposed -that there was nothing in the world to be legitimately taken into account but -the supreme comfort of prisoners, at any expense, and nothing on the wide earth -to be done outside prison-doors, we began our inspection. It being then just -dinner-time, we went, first into the great kitchen, where every -prisoner’s dinner was in course of being set out separately (to be handed -to him in his cell), with the regularity and precision of clock-work. I said -aside, to Traddles, that I wondered whether it occurred to anybody, that there -was a striking contrast between these plentiful repasts of choice quality, and -the dinners, not to say of paupers, but of soldiers, sailors, labourers, the -great bulk of the honest, working community; of whom not one man in five -hundred ever dined half so well. But I learned that the ‘system’ -required high living; and, in short, to dispose of the system, once for all, I -found that on that head and on all others, ‘the system’ put an end -to all doubts, and disposed of all anomalies. Nobody appeared to have the least -idea that there was any other system, but THE system, to be considered. -</p> - -<p> -As we were going through some of the magnificent passages, I inquired of Mr. -Creakle and his friends what were supposed to be the main advantages of this -all-governing and universally over-riding system? I found them to be the -perfect isolation of prisoners—so that no one man in confinement there, -knew anything about another; and the reduction of prisoners to a wholesome -state of mind, leading to sincere contrition and repentance. -</p> - -<p> -Now, it struck me, when we began to visit individuals in their cells, and to -traverse the passages in which those cells were, and to have the manner of the -going to chapel and so forth, explained to us, that there was a strong -probability of the prisoners knowing a good deal about each other, and of their -carrying on a pretty complete system of intercourse. This, at the time I write, -has been proved, I believe, to be the case; but, as it would have been flat -blasphemy against the system to have hinted such a doubt then, I looked out for -the penitence as diligently as I could. -</p> - -<p> -And here again, I had great misgivings. I found as prevalent a fashion in the -form of the penitence, as I had left outside in the forms of the coats and -waistcoats in the windows of the tailors’ shops. I found a vast amount of -profession, varying very little in character: varying very little (which I -thought exceedingly suspicious), even in words. I found a great many foxes, -disparaging whole vineyards of inaccessible grapes; but I found very few foxes -whom I would have trusted within reach of a bunch. Above all, I found that the -most professing men were the greatest objects of interest; and that their -conceit, their vanity, their want of excitement, and their love of deception -(which many of them possessed to an almost incredible extent, as their -histories showed), all prompted to these professions, and were all gratified by -them. -</p> - -<p> -However, I heard so repeatedly, in the course of our goings to and fro, of a -certain Number Twenty Seven, who was the Favourite, and who really appeared to -be a Model Prisoner, that I resolved to suspend my judgement until I should see -Twenty Seven. Twenty Eight, I understood, was also a bright particular star; -but it was his misfortune to have his glory a little dimmed by the -extraordinary lustre of Twenty Seven. I heard so much of Twenty Seven, of his -pious admonitions to everybody around him, and of the beautiful letters he -constantly wrote to his mother (whom he seemed to consider in a very bad way), -that I became quite impatient to see him. -</p> - -<p> -I had to restrain my impatience for some time, on account of Twenty Seven being -reserved for a concluding effect. But, at last, we came to the door of his -cell; and Mr. Creakle, looking through a little hole in it, reported to us, in -a state of the greatest admiration, that he was reading a Hymn Book. -</p> - -<p> -There was such a rush of heads immediately, to see Number Twenty Seven reading -his Hymn Book, that the little hole was blocked up, six or seven heads deep. To -remedy this inconvenience, and give us an opportunity of conversing with Twenty -Seven in all his purity, Mr. Creakle directed the door of the cell to be -unlocked, and Twenty Seven to be invited out into the passage. This was done; -and whom should Traddles and I then behold, to our amazement, in this converted -Number Twenty Seven, but Uriah Heep! -</p> - -<p> -He knew us directly; and said, as he came out—with the old writhe,— -</p> - -<p> -‘How do you do, Mr. Copperfield? How do you do, Mr. Traddles?’ -</p> - -<p> -This recognition caused a general admiration in the party. I rather thought -that everyone was struck by his not being proud, and taking notice of us. -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, Twenty Seven,’ said Mr. Creakle, mournfully admiring him. -‘How do you find yourself today?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I am very umble, sir!’ replied Uriah Heep. -</p> - -<p> -‘You are always so, Twenty Seven,’ said Mr. Creakle. -</p> - -<p> -Here, another gentleman asked, with extreme anxiety: ‘Are you quite -comfortable?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes, I thank you, sir!’ said Uriah Heep, looking in that -direction. ‘Far more comfortable here, than ever I was outside. I see my -follies, now, sir. That’s what makes me comfortable.’ -</p> - -<p> -Several gentlemen were much affected; and a third questioner, forcing himself -to the front, inquired with extreme feeling: ‘How do you find the -beef?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Thank you, sir,’ replied Uriah, glancing in the new direction of -this voice, ‘it was tougher yesterday than I could wish; but it’s -my duty to bear. I have committed follies, gentlemen,’ said Uriah, -looking round with a meek smile, ‘and I ought to bear the consequences -without repining.’ A murmur, partly of gratification at Twenty -Seven’s celestial state of mind, and partly of indignation against the -Contractor who had given him any cause of complaint (a note of which was -immediately made by Mr. Creakle), having subsided, Twenty Seven stood in the -midst of us, as if he felt himself the principal object of merit in a highly -meritorious museum. That we, the neophytes, might have an excess of light -shining upon us all at once, orders were given to let out Twenty Eight. -</p> - -<p> -I had been so much astonished already, that I only felt a kind of resigned -wonder when Mr. Littimer walked forth, reading a good book! -</p> - -<p> -‘Twenty Eight,’ said a gentleman in spectacles, who had not yet -spoken, ‘you complained last week, my good fellow, of the cocoa. How has -it been since?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I thank you, sir,’ said Mr. Littimer, ‘it has been better -made. If I might take the liberty of saying so, sir, I don’t think the -milk which is boiled with it is quite genuine; but I am aware, sir, that there -is a great adulteration of milk, in London, and that the article in a pure -state is difficult to be obtained.’ -</p> - -<p> -It appeared to me that the gentleman in spectacles backed his Twenty Eight -against Mr. Creakle’s Twenty Seven, for each of them took his own man in -hand. -</p> - -<p> -‘What is your state of mind, Twenty Eight?’ said the questioner in -spectacles. -</p> - -<p> -‘I thank you, sir,’ returned Mr. Littimer; ‘I see my follies -now, sir. I am a good deal troubled when I think of the sins of my former -companions, sir; but I trust they may find forgiveness.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You are quite happy yourself?’ said the questioner, nodding -encouragement. -</p> - -<p> -‘I am much obliged to you, sir,’ returned Mr. Littimer. -‘Perfectly so.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Is there anything at all on your mind now?’ said the questioner. -‘If so, mention it, Twenty Eight.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Sir,’ said Mr. Littimer, without looking up, ‘if my eyes -have not deceived me, there is a gentleman present who was acquainted with me -in my former life. It may be profitable to that gentleman to know, sir, that I -attribute my past follies, entirely to having lived a thoughtless life in the -service of young men; and to having allowed myself to be led by them into -weaknesses, which I had not the strength to resist. I hope that gentleman will -take warning, sir, and will not be offended at my freedom. It is for his good. -I am conscious of my own past follies. I hope he may repent of all the -wickedness and sin to which he has been a party.’ -</p> - -<p> -I observed that several gentlemen were shading their eyes, each with one hand, -as if they had just come into church. -</p> - -<p> -‘This does you credit, Twenty Eight,’ returned the questioner. -‘I should have expected it of you. Is there anything else?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Sir,’ returned Mr. Littimer, slightly lifting up his eyebrows, but -not his eyes, ‘there was a young woman who fell into dissolute courses, -that I endeavoured to save, sir, but could not rescue. I beg that gentleman, if -he has it in his power, to inform that young woman from me that I forgive her -her bad conduct towards myself, and that I call her to repentance—if he -will be so good.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I have no doubt, Twenty Eight,’ returned the questioner, -‘that the gentleman you refer to feels very strongly—as we all -must—what you have so properly said. We will not detain you.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I thank you, sir,’ said Mr. Littimer. ‘Gentlemen, I wish you -a good day, and hoping you and your families will also see your wickedness, and -amend!’ -</p> - -<p> -With this, Number Twenty Eight retired, after a glance between him and Uriah; -as if they were not altogether unknown to each other, through some medium of -communication; and a murmur went round the group, as his door shut upon him, -that he was a most respectable man, and a beautiful case. -</p> - -<p> -‘Now, Twenty Seven,’ said Mr. Creakle, entering on a clear stage -with his man, ‘is there anything that anyone can do for you? If so, -mention it.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I would umbly ask, sir,’ returned Uriah, with a jerk of his -malevolent head, ‘for leave to write again to mother.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘It shall certainly be granted,’ said Mr. Creakle. -</p> - -<p> -‘Thank you, sir! I am anxious about mother. I am afraid she ain’t -safe.’ -</p> - -<p> -Somebody incautiously asked, what from? But there was a scandalized whisper of -‘Hush!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Immortally safe, sir,’ returned Uriah, writhing in the direction -of the voice. ‘I should wish mother to be got into my state. I never -should have been got into my present state if I hadn’t come here. I wish -mother had come here. It would be better for everybody, if they got took up, -and was brought here.’ -</p> - -<p> -This sentiment gave unbounded satisfaction—greater satisfaction, I think, -than anything that had passed yet. -</p> - -<p> -‘Before I come here,’ said Uriah, stealing a look at us, as if he -would have blighted the outer world to which we belonged, if he could, ‘I -was given to follies; but now I am sensible of my follies. There’s a deal -of sin outside. There’s a deal of sin in mother. There’s nothing -but sin everywhere—except here.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You are quite changed?’ said Mr. Creakle. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh dear, yes, sir!’ cried this hopeful penitent. -</p> - -<p> -‘You wouldn’t relapse, if you were going out?’ asked somebody -else. -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh de-ar no, sir!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Well!’ said Mr. Creakle, ‘this is very gratifying. You have -addressed Mr. Copperfield, Twenty Seven. Do you wish to say anything further to -him?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You knew me, a long time before I came here and was changed, Mr. -Copperfield,’ said Uriah, looking at me; and a more villainous look I -never saw, even on his visage. ‘You knew me when, in spite of my follies, -I was umble among them that was proud, and meek among them that was -violent—you was violent to me yourself, Mr. Copperfield. Once, you struck -me a blow in the face, you know.’ -</p> - -<p> -General commiseration. Several indignant glances directed at me. -</p> - -<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> -<img src="images/20481.jpg" alt="20481" width="100%" /> -</div> - -<h5> -<a href="images/20481.jpg"> -<img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /></a> -</h5> - -<p> -‘But I forgive you, Mr. Copperfield,’ said Uriah, making his -forgiving nature the subject of a most impious and awful parallel, which I -shall not record. ‘I forgive everybody. It would ill become me to bear -malice. I freely forgive you, and I hope you’ll curb your passions in -future. I hope Mr. W. will repent, and Miss W., and all of that sinful lot. -You’ve been visited with affliction, and I hope it may do you good; but -you’d better have come here. Mr. W. had better have come here, and Miss -W. too. The best wish I could give you, Mr. Copperfield, and give all of you -gentlemen, is, that you could be took up and brought here. When I think of my -past follies, and my present state, I am sure it would be best for you. I pity -all who ain’t brought here!’ -</p> - -<p> -He sneaked back into his cell, amidst a little chorus of approbation; and both -Traddles and I experienced a great relief when he was locked in. -</p> - -<p> -It was a characteristic feature in this repentance, that I was fain to ask what -these two men had done, to be there at all. That appeared to be the last thing -about which they had anything to say. I addressed myself to one of the two -warders, who, I suspected from certain latent indications in their faces, knew -pretty well what all this stir was worth. -</p> - -<p> -‘Do you know,’ said I, as we walked along the passage, ‘what -felony was Number Twenty Seven’s last “folly”?’ -</p> - -<p> -The answer was that it was a Bank case. -</p> - -<p> -‘A fraud on the Bank of England?’ I asked. ‘Yes, sir. Fraud, -forgery, and conspiracy. He and some others. He set the others on. It was a -deep plot for a large sum. Sentence, transportation for life. Twenty Seven was -the knowingest bird of the lot, and had very nearly kept himself safe; but not -quite. The Bank was just able to put salt upon his tail—and only -just.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Do you know Twenty Eight’s offence?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Twenty Eight,’ returned my informant, speaking throughout in a low -tone, and looking over his shoulder as we walked along the passage, to guard -himself from being overheard, in such an unlawful reference to these -Immaculates, by Creakle and the rest; ‘Twenty Eight (also transportation) -got a place, and robbed a young master of a matter of two hundred and fifty -pounds in money and valuables, the night before they were going abroad. I -particularly recollect his case, from his being took by a dwarf.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘A what?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘A little woman. I have forgot her name?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Not Mowcher?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘That’s it! He had eluded pursuit, and was going to America in a -flaxen wig, and whiskers, and such a complete disguise as never you see in all -your born days; when the little woman, being in Southampton, met him walking -along the street—picked him out with her sharp eye in a moment—ran -betwixt his legs to upset him—and held on to him like grim Death.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Excellent Miss Mowcher!’ cried I. -</p> - -<p> -‘You’d have said so, if you had seen her, standing on a chair in -the witness-box at the trial, as I did,’ said my friend. ‘He cut -her face right open, and pounded her in the most brutal manner, when she took -him; but she never loosed her hold till he was locked up. She held so tight to -him, in fact, that the officers were obliged to take ‘em both together. -She gave her evidence in the gamest way, and was highly complimented by the -Bench, and cheered right home to her lodgings. She said in Court that -she’d have took him single-handed (on account of what she knew concerning -him), if he had been Samson. And it’s my belief she would!’ -</p> - -<p> -It was mine too, and I highly respected Miss Mowcher for it. -</p> - -<p> -We had now seen all there was to see. It would have been in vain to represent -to such a man as the Worshipful Mr. Creakle, that Twenty Seven and Twenty Eight -were perfectly consistent and unchanged; that exactly what they were then, they -had always been; that the hypocritical knaves were just the subjects to make -that sort of profession in such a place; that they knew its market-value at -least as well as we did, in the immediate service it would do them when they -were expatriated; in a word, that it was a rotten, hollow, painfully suggestive -piece of business altogether. We left them to their system and themselves, and -went home wondering. -</p> - -<p> -‘Perhaps it’s a good thing, Traddles,’ said I, ‘to have -an unsound Hobby ridden hard; for it’s the sooner ridden to death.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I hope so,’ replied Traddles. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0062"></a>CHAPTER 62. A LIGHT SHINES ON MY WAY</h2> - -<p> -The year came round to Christmas-time, and I had been at home above two months. -I had seen Agnes frequently. However loud the general voice might be in giving -me encouragement, and however fervent the emotions and endeavours to which it -roused me, I heard her lightest word of praise as I heard nothing else. -</p> - -<p> -At least once a week, and sometimes oftener, I rode over there, and passed the -evening. I usually rode back at night; for the old unhappy sense was always -hovering about me now—most sorrowfully when I left her—and I was -glad to be up and out, rather than wandering over the past in weary wakefulness -or miserable dreams. I wore away the longest part of many wild sad nights, in -those rides; reviving, as I went, the thoughts that had occupied me in my long -absence. -</p> - -<p> -Or, if I were to say rather that I listened to the echoes of those thoughts, I -should better express the truth. They spoke to me from afar off. I had put them -at a distance, and accepted my inevitable place. When I read to Agnes what I -wrote; when I saw her listening face; moved her to smiles or tears; and heard -her cordial voice so earnest on the shadowy events of that imaginative world in -which I lived; I thought what a fate mine might have been—but only -thought so, as I had thought after I was married to Dora, what I could have -wished my wife to be. -</p> - -<p> -My duty to Agnes, who loved me with a love, which, if I disquieted, I wronged -most selfishly and poorly, and could never restore; my matured assurance that -I, who had worked out my own destiny, and won what I had impetuously set my -heart on, had no right to murmur, and must bear; comprised what I felt and what -I had learned. But I loved her: and now it even became some consolation to me, -vaguely to conceive a distant day when I might blamelessly avow it; when all -this should be over; when I could say ‘Agnes, so it was when I came home; -and now I am old, and I never have loved since!’ -</p> - -<p> -She did not once show me any change in herself. What she always had been to me, -she still was; wholly unaltered. -</p> - -<p> -Between my aunt and me there had been something, in this connexion, since the -night of my return, which I cannot call a restraint, or an avoidance of the -subject, so much as an implied understanding that we thought of it together, -but did not shape our thoughts into words. When, according to our old custom, -we sat before the fire at night, we often fell into this train; as naturally, -and as consciously to each other, as if we had unreservedly said so. But we -preserved an unbroken silence. I believed that she had read, or partly read, my -thoughts that night; and that she fully comprehended why I gave mine no more -distinct expression. -</p> - -<p> -This Christmas-time being come, and Agnes having reposed no new confidence in -me, a doubt that had several times arisen in my mind—whether she could -have that perception of the true state of my breast, which restrained her with -the apprehension of giving me pain—began to oppress me heavily. If that -were so, my sacrifice was nothing; my plainest obligation to her unfulfilled; -and every poor action I had shrunk from, I was hourly doing. I resolved to set -this right beyond all doubt;—if such a barrier were between us, to break -it down at once with a determined hand. -</p> - -<p> -It was—what lasting reason have I to remember it!—a cold, harsh, -winter day. There had been snow, some hours before; and it lay, not deep, but -hard-frozen on the ground. Out at sea, beyond my window, the wind blew ruggedly -from the north. I had been thinking of it, sweeping over those mountain wastes -of snow in Switzerland, then inaccessible to any human foot; and had been -speculating which was the lonelier, those solitary regions, or a deserted -ocean. -</p> - -<p> -‘Riding today, Trot?’ said my aunt, putting her head in at the -door. -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes,’ said I, ‘I am going over to Canterbury. It’s a -good day for a ride.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I hope your horse may think so too,’ said my aunt; ‘but at -present he is holding down his head and his ears, standing before the door -there, as if he thought his stable preferable.’ -</p> - -<p> -My aunt, I may observe, allowed my horse on the forbidden ground, but had not -at all relented towards the donkeys. -</p> - -<p> -‘He will be fresh enough, presently!’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘The ride will do his master good, at all events,’ observed my -aunt, glancing at the papers on my table. ‘Ah, child, you pass a good -many hours here! I never thought, when I used to read books, what work it was -to write them.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘It’s work enough to read them, sometimes,’ I returned. -‘As to the writing, it has its own charms, aunt.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Ah! I see!’ said my aunt. ‘Ambition, love of approbation, -sympathy, and much more, I suppose? Well: go along with you!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Do you know anything more,’ said I, standing composedly before -her—she had patted me on the shoulder, and sat down in my -chair—‘of that attachment of Agnes?’ -</p> - -<p> -She looked up in my face a little while, before replying: -</p> - -<p> -‘I think I do, Trot.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Are you confirmed in your impression?’ I inquired. -</p> - -<p> -‘I think I am, Trot.’ -</p> - -<p> -She looked so steadfastly at me: with a kind of doubt, or pity, or suspense in -her affection: that I summoned the stronger determination to show her a -perfectly cheerful face. -</p> - -<p> -‘And what is more, Trot—’ said my aunt. -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I think Agnes is going to be married.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘God bless her!’ said I, cheerfully. -</p> - -<p> -‘God bless her!’ said my aunt, ‘and her husband too!’ -</p> - -<p> -I echoed it, parted from my aunt, and went lightly downstairs, mounted, and -rode away. There was greater reason than before to do what I had resolved to -do. -</p> - -<p> -How well I recollect the wintry ride! The frozen particles of ice, brushed from -the blades of grass by the wind, and borne across my face; the hard clatter of -the horse’s hoofs, beating a tune upon the ground; the stiff-tilled soil; -the snowdrift, lightly eddying in the chalk-pit as the breeze ruffled it; the -smoking team with the waggon of old hay, stopping to breathe on the hill-top, -and shaking their bells musically; the whitened slopes and sweeps of Down-land -lying against the dark sky, as if they were drawn on a huge slate! -</p> - -<p> -I found Agnes alone. The little girls had gone to their own homes now, and she -was alone by the fire, reading. She put down her book on seeing me come in; and -having welcomed me as usual, took her work-basket and sat in one of the -old-fashioned windows. -</p> - -<p> -I sat beside her on the window-seat, and we talked of what I was doing, and -when it would be done, and of the progress I had made since my last visit. -Agnes was very cheerful; and laughingly predicted that I should soon become too -famous to be talked to, on such subjects. -</p> - -<p> -‘So I make the most of the present time, you see,’ said Agnes, -‘and talk to you while I may.’ -</p> - -<p> -As I looked at her beautiful face, observant of her work, she raised her mild -clear eyes, and saw that I was looking at her. -</p> - -<p> -‘You are thoughtful today, Trotwood!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Agnes, shall I tell you what about? I came to tell you.’ -</p> - -<p> -She put aside her work, as she was used to do when we were seriously discussing -anything; and gave me her whole attention. -</p> - -<p> -‘My dear Agnes, do you doubt my being true to you?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No!’ she answered, with a look of astonishment. -</p> - -<p> -‘Do you doubt my being what I always have been to you?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘No!’ she answered, as before. -</p> - -<p> -‘Do you remember that I tried to tell you, when I came home, what a debt -of gratitude I owed you, dearest Agnes, and how fervently I felt towards -you?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I remember it,’ she said, gently, ‘very well.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You have a secret,’ said I. ‘Let me share it, Agnes.’ -</p> - -<p> -She cast down her eyes, and trembled. -</p> - -<p> -‘I could hardly fail to know, even if I had not heard—but from -other lips than yours, Agnes, which seems strange—that there is someone -upon whom you have bestowed the treasure of your love. Do not shut me out of -what concerns your happiness so nearly! If you can trust me, as you say you -can, and as I know you may, let me be your friend, your brother, in this -matter, of all others!’ -</p> - -<p> -With an appealing, almost a reproachful, glance, she rose from the window; and -hurrying across the room as if without knowing where, put her hands before her -face, and burst into such tears as smote me to the heart. -</p> - -<p> -And yet they awakened something in me, bringing promise to my heart. Without my -knowing why, these tears allied themselves with the quietly sad smile which was -so fixed in my remembrance, and shook me more with hope than fear or sorrow. -</p> - -<p> -‘Agnes! Sister! Dearest! What have I done?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Let me go away, Trotwood. I am not well. I am not myself. I will speak -to you by and by—another time. I will write to you. Don’t speak to -me now. Don’t! don’t!’ -</p> - -<p> -I sought to recollect what she had said, when I had spoken to her on that -former night, of her affection needing no return. It seemed a very world that I -must search through in a moment. ‘Agnes, I cannot bear to see you so, and -think that I have been the cause. My dearest girl, dearer to me than anything -in life, if you are unhappy, let me share your unhappiness. If you are in need -of help or counsel, let me try to give it to you. If you have indeed a burden -on your heart, let me try to lighten it. For whom do I live now, Agnes, if it -is not for you!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Oh, spare me! I am not myself! Another time!’ was all I could -distinguish. -</p> - -<p> -Was it a selfish error that was leading me away? Or, having once a clue to -hope, was there something opening to me that I had not dared to think of? -</p> - -<p> -‘I must say more. I cannot let you leave me so! For Heaven’s sake, -Agnes, let us not mistake each other after all these years, and all that has -come and gone with them! I must speak plainly. If you have any lingering -thought that I could envy the happiness you will confer; that I could not -resign you to a dearer protector, of your own choosing; that I could not, from -my removed place, be a contented witness of your joy; dismiss it, for I -don’t deserve it! I have not suffered quite in vain. You have not taught -me quite in vain. There is no alloy of self in what I feel for you.’ -</p> - -<p> -She was quiet now. In a little time, she turned her pale face towards me, and -said in a low voice, broken here and there, but very clear: -</p> - -<p> -‘I owe it to your pure friendship for me, Trotwood—which, indeed, I -do not doubt—to tell you, you are mistaken. I can do no more. If I have -sometimes, in the course of years, wanted help and counsel, they have come to -me. If I have sometimes been unhappy, the feeling has passed away. If I have -ever had a burden on my heart, it has been lightened for me. If I have any -secret, it is—no new one; and is—not what you suppose. I cannot -reveal it, or divide it. It has long been mine, and must remain mine.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Agnes! Stay! A moment!’ -</p> - -<p> -She was going away, but I detained her. I clasped my arm about her waist. -‘In the course of years!’ ‘It is not a new one!’ New -thoughts and hopes were whirling through my mind, and all the colours of my -life were changing. -</p> - -<p> -‘Dearest Agnes! Whom I so respect and honour—whom I so devotedly -love! When I came here today, I thought that nothing could have wrested this -confession from me. I thought I could have kept it in my bosom all our lives, -till we were old. But, Agnes, if I have indeed any new-born hope that I may -ever call you something more than Sister, widely different from -Sister!—’ -</p> - -<p> -Her tears fell fast; but they were not like those she had lately shed, and I -saw my hope brighten in them. -</p> - -<p> -‘Agnes! Ever my guide, and best support! If you had been more mindful of -yourself, and less of me, when we grew up here together, I think my heedless -fancy never would have wandered from you. But you were so much better than I, -so necessary to me in every boyish hope and disappointment, that to have you to -confide in, and rely upon in everything, became a second nature, supplanting -for the time the first and greater one of loving you as I do!’ -</p> - -<p> -Still weeping, but not sadly—joyfully! And clasped in my arms as she had -never been, as I had thought she never was to be! -</p> - -<p> -‘When I loved Dora—fondly, Agnes, as you know—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes!’ she cried, earnestly. ‘I am glad to know it!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘When I loved her—even then, my love would have been incomplete, -without your sympathy. I had it, and it was perfected. And when I lost her, -Agnes, what should I have been without you, still!’ -</p> - -<p> -Closer in my arms, nearer to my heart, her trembling hand upon my shoulder, her -sweet eyes shining through her tears, on mine! -</p> - -<p> -‘I went away, dear Agnes, loving you. I stayed away, loving you. I -returned home, loving you!’ -</p> - -<p> -And now, I tried to tell her of the struggle I had had, and the conclusion I -had come to. I tried to lay my mind before her, truly, and entirely. I tried to -show her how I had hoped I had come into the better knowledge of myself and of -her; how I had resigned myself to what that better knowledge brought; and how I -had come there, even that day, in my fidelity to this. If she did so love me (I -said) that she could take me for her husband, she could do so, on no deserving -of mine, except upon the truth of my love for her, and the trouble in which it -had ripened to be what it was; and hence it was that I revealed it. And O, -Agnes, even out of thy true eyes, in that same time, the spirit of my -child-wife looked upon me, saying it was well; and winning me, through thee, to -tenderest recollections of the Blossom that had withered in its bloom! -</p> - -<p> -‘I am so blest, Trotwood—my heart is so overcharged—but there -is one thing I must say.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Dearest, what?’ -</p> - -<p> -She laid her gentle hands upon my shoulders, and looked calmly in my face. -</p> - -<p> -‘Do you know, yet, what it is?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I am afraid to speculate on what it is. Tell me, my dear.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I have loved you all my life!’ -</p> - -<p> -O, we were happy, we were happy! Our tears were not for the trials (hers so -much the greater) through which we had come to be thus, but for the rapture of -being thus, never to be divided more! -</p> - -<p> -We walked, that winter evening, in the fields together; and the blessed calm -within us seemed to be partaken by the frosty air. The early stars began to -shine while we were lingering on, and looking up to them, we thanked our GOD -for having guided us to this tranquillity. -</p> - -<p> -We stood together in the same old-fashioned window at night, when the moon was -shining; Agnes with her quiet eyes raised up to it; I following her glance. -Long miles of road then opened out before my mind; and, toiling on, I saw a -ragged way-worn boy, forsaken and neglected, who should come to call even the -heart now beating against mine, his own. -</p> - -<p> -It was nearly dinner-time next day when we appeared before my aunt. She was up -in my study, Peggotty said: which it was her pride to keep in readiness and -order for me. We found her, in her spectacles, sitting by the fire. -</p> - -<p> -‘Goodness me!’ said my aunt, peering through the dusk, -‘who’s this you’re bringing home?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Agnes,’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -As we had arranged to say nothing at first, my aunt was not a little -discomfited. She darted a hopeful glance at me, when I said -‘Agnes’; but seeing that I looked as usual, she took off her -spectacles in despair, and rubbed her nose with them. -</p> - -<p> -She greeted Agnes heartily, nevertheless; and we were soon in the lighted -parlour downstairs, at dinner. My aunt put on her spectacles twice or thrice, -to take another look at me, but as often took them off again, disappointed, and -rubbed her nose with them. Much to the discomfiture of Mr. Dick, who knew this -to be a bad symptom. -</p> - -<p> -‘By the by, aunt,’ said I, after dinner; ‘I have been -speaking to Agnes about what you told me.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Then, Trot,’ said my aunt, turning scarlet, ‘you did wrong, -and broke your promise.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You are not angry, aunt, I trust? I am sure you won’t be, when you -learn that Agnes is not unhappy in any attachment.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Stuff and nonsense!’ said my aunt. -</p> - -<p> -As my aunt appeared to be annoyed, I thought the best way was to cut her -annoyance short. I took Agnes in my arm to the back of her chair, and we both -leaned over her. My aunt, with one clap of her hands, and one look through her -spectacles, immediately went into hysterics, for the first and only time in all -my knowledge of her. -</p> - -<p> -The hysterics called up Peggotty. The moment my aunt was restored, she flew at -Peggotty, and calling her a silly old creature, hugged her with all her might. -After that, she hugged Mr. Dick (who was highly honoured, but a good deal -surprised); and after that, told them why. Then, we were all happy together. -</p> - -<p> -I could not discover whether my aunt, in her last short conversation with me, -had fallen on a pious fraud, or had really mistaken the state of my mind. It -was quite enough, she said, that she had told me Agnes was going to be married; -and that I now knew better than anyone how true it was. -</p> - -<p> -We were married within a fortnight. Traddles and Sophy, and Doctor and Mrs. -Strong, were the only guests at our quiet wedding. We left them full of joy; -and drove away together. Clasped in my embrace, I held the source of every -worthy aspiration I had ever had; the centre of myself, the circle of my life, -my own, my wife; my love of whom was founded on a rock! -</p> - -<p> -‘Dearest husband!’ said Agnes. ‘Now that I may call you by -that name, I have one thing more to tell you.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Let me hear it, love.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘It grows out of the night when Dora died. She sent you for me.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘She did.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘She told me that she left me something. Can you think what it -was?’ -</p> - -<p> -I believed I could. I drew the wife who had so long loved me, closer to my -side. -</p> - -<p> -‘She told me that she made a last request to me, and left me a last -charge.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And it was—’ -</p> - -<p> -‘That only I would occupy this vacant place.’ -</p> - -<p> -And Agnes laid her head upon my breast, and wept; and I wept with her, though -we were so happy. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0063"></a>CHAPTER 63. A VISITOR</h2> - -<p> -What I have purposed to record is nearly finished; but there is yet an incident -conspicuous in my memory, on which it often rests with delight, and without -which one thread in the web I have spun would have a ravelled end. -</p> - -<p> -I had advanced in fame and fortune, my domestic joy was perfect, I had been -married ten happy years. Agnes and I were sitting by the fire, in our house in -London, one night in spring, and three of our children were playing in the -room, when I was told that a stranger wished to see me. -</p> - -<p> -He had been asked if he came on business, and had answered No; he had come for -the pleasure of seeing me, and had come a long way. He was an old man, my -servant said, and looked like a farmer. -</p> - -<p> -As this sounded mysterious to the children, and moreover was like the beginning -of a favourite story Agnes used to tell them, introductory to the arrival of a -wicked old Fairy in a cloak who hated everybody, it produced some commotion. -One of our boys laid his head in his mother’s lap to be out of -harm’s way, and little Agnes (our eldest child) left her doll in a chair -to represent her, and thrust out her little heap of golden curls from between -the window-curtains, to see what happened next. -</p> - -<p> -‘Let him come in here!’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -There soon appeared, pausing in the dark doorway as he entered, a hale, -grey-haired old man. Little Agnes, attracted by his looks, had run to bring him -in, and I had not yet clearly seen his face, when my wife, starting up, cried -out to me, in a pleased and agitated voice, that it was Mr. Peggotty! -</p> - -<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> -<img src="images/20495.jpg" alt="20495" width="100%" /> -</div> - -<h5> -<a href="images/20495.jpg"> -<img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /></a> -</h5> - -<p> -It WAS Mr. Peggotty. An old man now, but in a ruddy, hearty, strong old age. -When our first emotion was over, and he sat before the fire with the children -on his knees, and the blaze shining on his face, he looked, to me, as vigorous -and robust, withal as handsome, an old man, as ever I had seen. -</p> - -<p> -‘Mas’r Davy,’ said he. And the old name in the old tone fell -so naturally on my ear! ‘Mas’r Davy, ‘tis a joyful hour as I -see you, once more, ‘long with your own trew wife!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘A joyful hour indeed, old friend!’ cried I. -</p> - -<p> -‘And these heer pretty ones,’ said Mr. Peggotty. ‘To look at -these heer flowers! Why, Mas’r Davy, you was but the heighth of the -littlest of these, when I first see you! When Em’ly warn’t no -bigger, and our poor lad were BUT a lad!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Time has changed me more than it has changed you since then,’ said -I. ‘But let these dear rogues go to bed; and as no house in England but -this must hold you, tell me where to send for your luggage (is the old black -bag among it, that went so far, I wonder!), and then, over a glass of Yarmouth -grog, we will have the tidings of ten years!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Are you alone?’ asked Agnes. -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said, kissing her hand, ‘quite -alone.’ -</p> - -<p> -We sat him between us, not knowing how to give him welcome enough; and as I -began to listen to his old familiar voice, I could have fancied he was still -pursuing his long journey in search of his darling niece. -</p> - -<p> -‘It’s a mort of water,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘fur to come -across, and on’y stay a matter of fower weeks. But water -(‘specially when ‘tis salt) comes nat’ral to me; and friends -is dear, and I am heer. —Which is verse,’ said Mr. Peggotty, -surprised to find it out, ‘though I hadn’t such intentions.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Are you going back those many thousand miles, so soon?’ asked -Agnes. -</p> - -<p> -‘Yes, ma’am,’ he returned. ‘I giv the promise to -Em’ly, afore I come away. You see, I doen’t grow younger as the -years comes round, and if I hadn’t sailed as ‘twas, most like I -shouldn’t never have done ‘t. And it’s allus been on my mind, -as I must come and see Mas’r Davy and your own sweet blooming self, in -your wedded happiness, afore I got to be too old.’ -</p> - -<p> -He looked at us, as if he could never feast his eyes on us sufficiently. Agnes -laughingly put back some scattered locks of his grey hair, that he might see us -better. -</p> - -<p> -‘And now tell us,’ said I, ‘everything relating to your -fortunes.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Our fortuns, Mas’r Davy,’ he rejoined, ‘is soon told. -We haven’t fared nohows, but fared to thrive. We’ve allus thrived. -We’ve worked as we ought to ‘t, and maybe we lived a leetle hard at -first or so, but we have allus thrived. What with sheep-farming, and what with -stock-farming, and what with one thing and what with t’other, we are as -well to do, as well could be. Theer’s been kiender a blessing fell upon -us,’ said Mr. Peggotty, reverentially inclining his head, ‘and -we’ve done nowt but prosper. That is, in the long run. If not yesterday, -why then today. If not today, why then tomorrow.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘And Emily?’ said Agnes and I, both together. -</p> - -<p> -‘Em’ly,’ said he, ‘arter you left her, -ma’am—and I never heerd her saying of her prayers at night, -t’other side the canvas screen, when we was settled in the Bush, but what -I heerd your name—and arter she and me lost sight of Mas’r Davy, -that theer shining sundown—was that low, at first, that, if she had -know’d then what Mas’r Davy kep from us so kind and thowtful, -‘tis my opinion she’d have drooped away. But theer was some poor -folks aboard as had illness among ‘em, and she took care of them; and -theer was the children in our company, and she took care of them; and so she -got to be busy, and to be doing good, and that helped her.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘When did she first hear of it?’ I asked. -</p> - -<p> -‘I kep it from her arter I heerd on ‘t,’ said Mr. Peggotty, -‘going on nigh a year. We was living then in a solitary place, but among -the beautifullest trees, and with the roses a-covering our Beein to the roof. -Theer come along one day, when I was out a-working on the land, a traveller -from our own Norfolk or Suffolk in England (I doen’t rightly mind which), -and of course we took him in, and giv him to eat and drink, and made him -welcome. We all do that, all the colony over. He’d got an old newspaper -with him, and some other account in print of the storm. That’s how she -know’d it. When I came home at night, I found she know’d it.’ -</p> - -<p> -He dropped his voice as he said these words, and the gravity I so well -remembered overspread his face. -</p> - -<p> -‘Did it change her much?’ we asked. -</p> - -<p> -‘Aye, for a good long time,’ he said, shaking his head; ‘if -not to this present hour. But I think the solitoode done her good. And she had -a deal to mind in the way of poultry and the like, and minded of it, and come -through. I wonder,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘if you could see my -Em’ly now, Mas’r Davy, whether you’d know her!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Is she so altered?’ I inquired. -</p> - -<p> -‘I doen’t know. I see her ev’ry day, and doen’t know; -But, odd-times, I have thowt so. A slight figure,’ said Mr. Peggotty, -looking at the fire, ‘kiender worn; soft, sorrowful, blue eyes; a -delicate face; a pritty head, leaning a little down; a quiet voice and -way—timid a’most. That’s Em’ly!’ -</p> - -<p> -We silently observed him as he sat, still looking at the fire. -</p> - -<p> -‘Some thinks,’ he said, ‘as her affection was ill-bestowed; -some, as her marriage was broken off by death. No one knows how ‘tis. She -might have married well, a mort of times, “but, uncle,” she says to -me, “that’s gone for ever.” Cheerful along with me; retired -when others is by; fond of going any distance fur to teach a child, or fur to -tend a sick person, or fur to do some kindness tow’rds a young -girl’s wedding (and she’s done a many, but has never seen one); -fondly loving of her uncle; patient; liked by young and old; sowt out by all -that has any trouble. That’s Em’ly!’ -</p> - -<p> -He drew his hand across his face, and with a half-suppressed sigh looked up -from the fire. -</p> - -<p> -‘Is Martha with you yet?’ I asked. -</p> - -<p> -‘Martha,’ he replied, ‘got married, Mas’r Davy, in the -second year. A young man, a farm-labourer, as come by us on his way to market -with his mas’r’s drays—a journey of over five hundred mile, -theer and back—made offers fur to take her fur his wife (wives is very -scarce theer), and then to set up fur their two selves in the Bush. She spoke -to me fur to tell him her trew story. I did. They was married, and they live -fower hundred mile away from any voices but their own and the singing -birds.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Mrs. Gummidge?’ I suggested. -</p> - -<p> -It was a pleasant key to touch, for Mr. Peggotty suddenly burst into a roar of -laughter, and rubbed his hands up and down his legs, as he had been accustomed -to do when he enjoyed himself in the long-shipwrecked boat. -</p> - -<p> -‘Would you believe it!’ he said. ‘Why, someun even made offer -fur to marry her! If a ship’s cook that was turning settler, Mas’r -Davy, didn’t make offers fur to marry Missis Gummidge, I’m -Gormed—and I can’t say no fairer than that!’ -</p> - -<p> -I never saw Agnes laugh so. This sudden ecstasy on the part of Mr. Peggotty was -so delightful to her, that she could not leave off laughing; and the more she -laughed the more she made me laugh, and the greater Mr. Peggotty’s -ecstasy became, and the more he rubbed his legs. -</p> - -<p> -‘And what did Mrs. Gummidge say?’ I asked, when I was grave enough. -</p> - -<p> -‘If you’ll believe me,’ returned Mr. Peggotty, ‘Missis -Gummidge, ‘stead of saying “thank you, I’m much obleeged to -you, I ain’t a-going fur to change my condition at my time of -life,” up’d with a bucket as was standing by, and laid it over that -theer ship’s cook’s head ‘till he sung out fur help, and I -went in and reskied of him.’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Peggotty burst into a great roar of laughter, and Agnes and I both kept him -company. -</p> - -<p> -‘But I must say this, for the good creetur,’ he resumed, wiping his -face, when we were quite exhausted; ‘she has been all she said -she’d be to us, and more. She’s the willingest, the trewest, the -honestest-helping woman, Mas’r Davy, as ever draw’d the breath of -life. I have never know’d her to be lone and lorn, for a single minute, -not even when the colony was all afore us, and we was new to it. And thinking -of the old ‘un is a thing she never done, I do assure you, since she left -England!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Now, last, not least, Mr. Micawber,’ said I. ‘He has paid -off every obligation he incurred here—even to Traddles’s bill, you -remember my dear Agnes—and therefore we may take it for granted that he -is doing well. But what is the latest news of him?’ -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Peggotty, with a smile, put his hand in his breast-pocket, and produced a -flat-folded, paper parcel, from which he took out, with much care, a little -odd-looking newspaper. -</p> - -<p> -‘You are to understan’, Mas’r Davy,’ said he, ‘as -we have left the Bush now, being so well to do; and have gone right away round -to Port Middlebay Harbour, wheer theer’s what we call a town.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Mr. Micawber was in the Bush near you?’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -‘Bless you, yes,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘and turned to with a -will. I never wish to meet a better gen’l’man for turning to with a -will. I’ve seen that theer bald head of his a perspiring in the sun, -Mas’r Davy, till I a’most thowt it would have melted away. And now -he’s a Magistrate.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘A Magistrate, eh?’ said I. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Peggotty pointed to a certain paragraph in the newspaper, where I read -aloud as follows, from the Port Middlebay Times: -</p> - -<p> -‘The public dinner to our distinguished fellow-colonist and townsman, -WILKINS MICAWBER, ESQUIRE, Port Middlebay District Magistrate, came off -yesterday in the large room of the Hotel, which was crowded to suffocation. It -is estimated that not fewer than forty-seven persons must have been -accommodated with dinner at one time, exclusive of the company in the passage -and on the stairs. The beauty, fashion, and exclusiveness of Port Middlebay, -flocked to do honour to one so deservedly esteemed, so highly talented, and so -widely popular. Doctor Mell (of Colonial Salem-House Grammar School, Port -Middlebay) presided, and on his right sat the distinguished guest. After the -removal of the cloth, and the singing of Non Nobis (beautifully executed, and -in which we were at no loss to distinguish the bell-like notes of that gifted -amateur, WILKINS MICAWBER, ESQUIRE, JUNIOR), the usual loyal and patriotic -toasts were severally given and rapturously received. Doctor Mell, in a speech -replete with feeling, then proposed “Our distinguished Guest, the -ornament of our town. May he never leave us but to better himself, and may his -success among us be such as to render his bettering himself impossible!” -The cheering with which the toast was received defies description. Again and -again it rose and fell, like the waves of ocean. At length all was hushed, and -WILKINS MICAWBER, ESQUIRE, presented himself to return thanks. Far be it from -us, in the present comparatively imperfect state of the resources of our -establishment, to endeavour to follow our distinguished townsman through the -smoothly-flowing periods of his polished and highly-ornate address! Suffice it -to observe, that it was a masterpiece of eloquence; and that those passages in -which he more particularly traced his own successful career to its source, and -warned the younger portion of his auditory from the shoals of ever incurring -pecuniary liabilities which they were unable to liquidate, brought a tear into -the manliest eye present. The remaining toasts were DOCTOR MELL; Mrs. MICAWBER -(who gracefully bowed her acknowledgements from the side-door, where a galaxy -of beauty was elevated on chairs, at once to witness and adorn the gratifying -scene), Mrs. RIDGER BEGS (late Miss Micawber); Mrs. MELL; WILKINS MICAWBER, -ESQUIRE, JUNIOR (who convulsed the assembly by humorously remarking that he -found himself unable to return thanks in a speech, but would do so, with their -permission, in a song); Mrs. MICAWBER’S FAMILY (well known, it is -needless to remark, in the mother-country), &c. &c. &c. At the -conclusion of the proceedings the tables were cleared as if by art-magic for -dancing. Among the votaries of TERPSICHORE, who disported themselves until Sol -gave warning for departure, Wilkins Micawber, Esquire, Junior, and the lovely -and accomplished Miss Helena, fourth daughter of Doctor Mell, were particularly -remarkable.’ -</p> - -<p> -I was looking back to the name of Doctor Mell, pleased to have discovered, in -these happier circumstances, Mr. Mell, formerly poor pinched usher to my -Middlesex magistrate, when Mr. Peggotty pointing to another part of the paper, -my eyes rested on my own name, and I read thus: -</p> - -<p> -‘TO DAVID COPPERFIELD, ESQUIRE, -</p> - -<p> -‘THE EMINENT AUTHOR. -</p> - -<p> -‘My Dear Sir, -</p> - -<p> -‘Years have elapsed, since I had an opportunity of ocularly perusing the -lineaments, now familiar to the imaginations of a considerable portion of the -civilized world. -</p> - -<p> -‘But, my dear Sir, though estranged (by the force of circumstances over -which I have had no control) from the personal society of the friend and -companion of my youth, I have not been unmindful of his soaring flight. Nor -have I been debarred, -</p> - -<p class="poem"> -Though seas between us braid ha’ roared, -</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -(BURNS) from participating in the intellectual feasts he has spread before us. -</p> - -<p> -‘I cannot, therefore, allow of the departure from this place of an -individual whom we mutually respect and esteem, without, my dear Sir, taking -this public opportunity of thanking you, on my own behalf, and, I may undertake -to add, on that of the whole of the Inhabitants of Port Middlebay, for the -gratification of which you are the ministering agent. -</p> - -<p> -‘Go on, my dear Sir! You are not unknown here, you are not unappreciated. -Though “remote”, we are neither “unfriended”, -“melancholy”, nor (I may add) “slow”. Go on, my dear -Sir, in your Eagle course! The inhabitants of Port Middlebay may at least -aspire to watch it, with delight, with entertainment, with instruction! -</p> - -<p> -‘Among the eyes elevated towards you from this portion of the globe, will -ever be found, while it has light and life, -</p> - -<p class="right"> -‘The <br/> -‘Eye <br/> -‘Appertaining to <br/> -‘WILKINS MICAWBER, <br/> -‘Magistrate.’ -</p> - -<p> -I found, on glancing at the remaining contents of the newspaper, that Mr. -Micawber was a diligent and esteemed correspondent of that journal. There was -another letter from him in the same paper, touching a bridge; there was an -advertisement of a collection of similar letters by him, to be shortly -republished, in a neat volume, ‘with considerable additions’; and, -unless I am very much mistaken, the Leading Article was his also. -</p> - -<p> -We talked much of Mr. Micawber, on many other evenings while Mr. Peggotty -remained with us. He lived with us during the whole term of his -stay,—which, I think, was something less than a month,—and his -sister and my aunt came to London to see him. Agnes and I parted from him -aboard-ship, when he sailed; and we shall never part from him more, on earth. -</p> - -<p> -But before he left, he went with me to Yarmouth, to see a little tablet I had -put up in the churchyard to the memory of Ham. While I was copying the plain -inscription for him at his request, I saw him stoop, and gather a tuft of grass -from the grave and a little earth. -</p> - -<p> -‘For Em’ly,’ he said, as he put it in his breast. ‘I -promised, Mas’r Davy.’ -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="link2HCH0064"></a>CHAPTER 64. A LAST RETROSPECT</h2> - -<p> -And now my written story ends. I look back, once more—for the last -time—before I close these leaves. -</p> - -<p> -I see myself, with Agnes at my side, journeying along the road of life. I see -our children and our friends around us; and I hear the roar of many voices, not -indifferent to me as I travel on. -</p> - -<p> -What faces are the most distinct to me in the fleeting crowd? Lo, these; all -turning to me as I ask my thoughts the question! -</p> - -<p> -Here is my aunt, in stronger spectacles, an old woman of four-score years and -more, but upright yet, and a steady walker of six miles at a stretch in winter -weather. -</p> - -<p> -Always with her, here comes Peggotty, my good old nurse, likewise in -spectacles, accustomed to do needle-work at night very close to the lamp, but -never sitting down to it without a bit of wax candle, a yard-measure in a -little house, and a work-box with a picture of St. Paul’s upon the lid. -</p> - -<p> -The cheeks and arms of Peggotty, so hard and red in my childish days, when I -wondered why the birds didn’t peck her in preference to apples, are -shrivelled now; and her eyes, that used to darken their whole neighbourhood in -her face, are fainter (though they glitter still); but her rough forefinger, -which I once associated with a pocket nutmeg-grater, is just the same, and when -I see my least child catching at it as it totters from my aunt to her, I think -of our little parlour at home, when I could scarcely walk. My aunt’s old -disappointment is set right, now. She is godmother to a real living Betsey -Trotwood; and Dora (the next in order) says she spoils her. -</p> - -<p> -There is something bulky in Peggotty’s pocket. It is nothing smaller than -the Crocodile Book, which is in rather a dilapidated condition by this time, -with divers of the leaves torn and stitched across, but which Peggotty exhibits -to the children as a precious relic. I find it very curious to see my own -infant face, looking up at me from the Crocodile stories; and to be reminded by -it of my old acquaintance Brooks of Sheffield. -</p> - -<p> -Among my boys, this summer holiday time, I see an old man making giant kites, -and gazing at them in the air, with a delight for which there are no words. He -greets me rapturously, and whispers, with many nods and winks, ‘Trotwood, -you will be glad to hear that I shall finish the Memorial when I have nothing -else to do, and that your aunt’s the most extraordinary woman in the -world, sir!’ -</p> - -<p> -Who is this bent lady, supporting herself by a stick, and showing me a -countenance in which there are some traces of old pride and beauty, feebly -contending with a querulous, imbecile, fretful wandering of the mind? She is in -a garden; and near her stands a sharp, dark, withered woman, with a white scar -on her lip. Let me hear what they say. -</p> - -<p> -‘Rosa, I have forgotten this gentleman’s name.’ -</p> - -<p> -Rosa bends over her, and calls to her, ‘Mr. Copperfield.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘I am glad to see you, sir. I am sorry to observe you are in mourning. I -hope Time will be good to you.’ -</p> - -<p> -Her impatient attendant scolds her, tells her I am not in mourning, bids her -look again, tries to rouse her. -</p> - -<p> -‘You have seen my son, sir,’ says the elder lady. ‘Are you -reconciled?’ -</p> - -<p> -Looking fixedly at me, she puts her hand to her forehead, and moans. Suddenly, -she cries, in a terrible voice, ‘Rosa, come to me. He is dead!’ -Rosa kneeling at her feet, by turns caresses her, and quarrels with her; now -fiercely telling her, ‘I loved him better than you ever -did!’—now soothing her to sleep on her breast, like a sick child. -Thus I leave them; thus I always find them; thus they wear their time away, -from year to year. -</p> - -<p> -What ship comes sailing home from India, and what English lady is this, married -to a growling old Scotch Croesus with great flaps of ears? Can this be Julia -Mills? -</p> - -<p> -Indeed it is Julia Mills, peevish and fine, with a black man to carry cards and -letters to her on a golden salver, and a copper-coloured woman in linen, with a -bright handkerchief round her head, to serve her Tiffin in her dressing-room. -But Julia keeps no diary in these days; never sings Affection’s Dirge; -eternally quarrels with the old Scotch Croesus, who is a sort of yellow bear -with a tanned hide. Julia is steeped in money to the throat, and talks and -thinks of nothing else. I liked her better in the Desert of Sahara. -</p> - -<p> -Or perhaps this IS the Desert of Sahara! For, though Julia has a stately house, -and mighty company, and sumptuous dinners every day, I see no green growth near -her; nothing that can ever come to fruit or flower. What Julia calls -‘society’, I see; among it Mr. Jack Maldon, from his Patent Place, -sneering at the hand that gave it him, and speaking to me of the Doctor as -‘so charmingly antique’. But when society is the name for such -hollow gentlemen and ladies, Julia, and when its breeding is professed -indifference to everything that can advance or can retard mankind, I think we -must have lost ourselves in that same Desert of Sahara, and had better find the -way out. -</p> - -<p> -And lo, the Doctor, always our good friend, labouring at his Dictionary -(somewhere about the letter D), and happy in his home and wife. Also the Old -Soldier, on a considerably reduced footing, and by no means so influential as -in days of yore! -</p> - -<p> -Working at his chambers in the Temple, with a busy aspect, and his hair (where -he is not bald) made more rebellious than ever by the constant friction of his -lawyer’s-wig, I come, in a later time, upon my dear old Traddles. His -table is covered with thick piles of papers; and I say, as I look around me: -</p> - -<p> -‘If Sophy were your clerk, now, Traddles, she would have enough to -do!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘You may say that, my dear Copperfield! But those were capital days, too, -in Holborn Court! Were they not?’ -</p> - -<p> -‘When she told you you would be a judge? But it was not the town talk -then!’ -</p> - -<p> -‘At all events,’ says Traddles, ‘if I ever am -one—’ ‘Why, you know you will be.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Well, my dear Copperfield, WHEN I am one, I shall tell the story, as I -said I would.’ -</p> - -<p> -We walk away, arm in arm. I am going to have a family dinner with Traddles. It -is Sophy’s birthday; and, on our road, Traddles discourses to me of the -good fortune he has enjoyed. -</p> - -<p> -‘I really have been able, my dear Copperfield, to do all that I had most -at heart. There’s the Reverend Horace promoted to that living at four -hundred and fifty pounds a year; there are our two boys receiving the very best -education, and distinguishing themselves as steady scholars and good fellows; -there are three of the girls married very comfortably; there are three more -living with us; there are three more keeping house for the Reverend Horace -since Mrs. Crewler’s decease; and all of them happy.’ -</p> - -<p> -‘Except—’ I suggest. -</p> - -<p> -‘Except the Beauty,’ says Traddles. ‘Yes. It was very -unfortunate that she should marry such a vagabond. But there was a certain dash -and glare about him that caught her. However, now we have got her safe at our -house, and got rid of him, we must cheer her up again.’ -</p> - -<p> -Traddles’s house is one of the very houses—or it easily may have -been—which he and Sophy used to parcel out, in their evening walks. It is -a large house; but Traddles keeps his papers in his dressing-room and his boots -with his papers; and he and Sophy squeeze themselves into upper rooms, -reserving the best bedrooms for the Beauty and the girls. There is no room to -spare in the house; for more of ‘the girls’ are here, and always -are here, by some accident or other, than I know how to count. Here, when we go -in, is a crowd of them, running down to the door, and handing Traddles about to -be kissed, until he is out of breath. Here, established in perpetuity, is the -poor Beauty, a widow with a little girl; here, at dinner on Sophy’s -birthday, are the three married girls with their three husbands, and one of the -husband’s brothers, and another husband’s cousin, and another -husband’s sister, who appears to me to be engaged to the cousin. -Traddles, exactly the same simple, unaffected fellow as he ever was, sits at -the foot of the large table like a Patriarch; and Sophy beams upon him, from -the head, across a cheerful space that is certainly not glittering with -Britannia metal. -</p> - -<p> -And now, as I close my task, subduing my desire to linger yet, these faces fade -away. But one face, shining on me like a Heavenly light by which I see all -other objects, is above them and beyond them all. And that remains. -</p> - -<p> -I turn my head, and see it, in its beautiful serenity, beside me. -</p> - -<p> -My lamp burns low, and I have written far into the night; but the dear -presence, without which I were nothing, bears me company. -</p> - -<p> -O Agnes, O my soul, so may thy face be by me when I close my life indeed; so -may I, when realities are melting from me, like the shadows which I now -dismiss, still find thee near me, pointing upward! -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DAVID COPPERFIELD ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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