David Copperfield by Charles Dickens Preface.
PREFACE.
PREFACE TO 1850 EDITION
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.
Besides which, all that I could say of the
Story, to any purpose, I have endeavoured
to say in it.
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.
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.
London, October, 1850.
PREFACE TO THE CHARLES DICKENS EDITION
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.
Besides which, all that I could have said
of the Story to any purpose, I had endeavoured
to say in it.
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.
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
DAVID COPPERFIELD.
1869
THE 
PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE OF DAVID COPPERFIELD
THE YOUNGER
CHAPTER 1. I AM BORN
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.
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.
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.
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.’
Not to meander myself, at present, I will
go back to my birth.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
‘Mrs. David Copperfield, I think,’ said
Miss Betsey; the emphasis referring, perhaps,
to my mother’s mourning weeds, and her condition.
‘Yes,’ said my mother, faintly.
‘Miss Trotwood,’ said the visitor. ‘You
have heard of her, I dare say?’
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.
‘Now you see her,’ said Miss Betsey. My
mother bent her head, and begged her to walk
in.
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!’
My mother couldn’t help it notwithstanding,
so she cried until she had had her cry out.
‘Take off your cap, child,’ said Miss
Betsey, ‘and let me see you.’
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.
‘Why, bless my heart!’ exclaimed Miss
Betsey. ‘You are a very Baby!’
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.
‘In the name of Heaven,’ said Miss Betsey,
suddenly, ‘why Rookery?’
‘Do you mean the house, ma’am?’ asked
my mother.
‘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.’
‘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.’
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.
‘Where are the birds?’ asked Miss Betsey.
‘The—?’ My mother had been thinking
of something else.
‘The rooks—what has become of them?’
asked Miss Betsey.
‘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.’
‘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!’
‘Mr. Copperfield,’ returned my mother,
‘is dead, and if you dare to speak unkindly
of him to me—’
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.
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.
‘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—’
‘I am all in a tremble,’ faltered my mother.
‘I don’t know what’s the matter. I shall
die, I am sure!’
‘No, no, no,’ said Miss Betsey. ‘Have
some tea.’
‘Oh dear me, dear me, do you think it will
do me any good?’ cried my mother in a helpless
manner.
‘Of course it will,’ said Miss Betsey.
‘It’s nothing but fancy. What do you call
your girl?’
‘I don’t know that it will be a girl,
yet, ma’am,’ said my mother innocently.
‘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.’
‘Peggotty,’ said my mother.
‘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.’
‘Here! Peggotty!’ cried Miss Betsey, opening
the parlour door. ‘Tea. Your mistress is
a little unwell. Don’t dawdle.’
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.
‘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—’
‘Perhaps boy,’ my mother took the liberty
of putting in.
‘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.’
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.
‘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?’
‘We were very happy,’ said my mother.
‘Mr. Copperfield was only too good to me.’
‘What, he spoilt you, I suppose?’ returned
Miss Betsey.
‘For being quite alone and dependent on
myself in this rough world again, yes, I fear
he did indeed,’ sobbed my mother.
‘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.’
‘And a governess?’
‘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.
‘Ha! Poor Baby!’ mused Miss Betsey, with
her frown still bent upon the fire. ‘Do
you know anything?’
‘I beg your pardon, ma’am,’ faltered
my mother.
‘About keeping house, for instance,’ said
Miss Betsey.
‘Not much, I fear,’ returned my mother.
‘Not so much as I could wish. But Mr. Copperfield
was teaching me—’
(‘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.
‘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.
‘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.
‘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!’
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.
‘David had bought an annuity for himself
with his money, I know,’ said she, by and
by. ‘What did he do for you?’
‘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.’
‘How much?’ asked Miss Betsey.
‘A hundred and five pounds a year,’ said
my mother.
‘He might have done worse,’ said my aunt.
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.
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.
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.
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:
‘Some local irritation, ma’am?’
‘What!’ replied my aunt, pulling the cotton
out of one ear like a cork.
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:
‘Some local irritation, ma’am?’
‘Nonsense!’ replied my aunt, and corked
herself again, at one blow.
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.
‘Well?’ said my aunt, taking the cotton
out of the ear nearest to him.
‘Well, ma’am,’ returned Mr. Chillip,
‘we are—we are progressing slowly, ma’am.’
‘Ba—a—ah!’ said my aunt, with a perfect
shake on the contemptuous interjection. And
corked herself as before.
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.
‘Well?’ said my aunt, taking out the cotton
on that side again.
‘Well, ma’am,’ returned Mr. Chillip,
‘we are—we are progressing slowly, ma’am.’
‘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.
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.
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:
‘Well, ma’am, I am happy to congratulate
you.’
‘What upon?’ said my aunt, sharply.
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.
‘Mercy on the man, what’s he doing!’
cried my aunt, impatiently. ‘Can’t he
speak?’
‘Be calm, my dear ma’am,’ said Mr. Chillip,
in his softest accents.
‘There is no longer any occasion for uneasiness,
ma’am. Be calm.’
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.
‘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.’
During the five minutes or so that Mr. Chillip
devoted to the delivery of this oration, my
aunt eyed him narrowly.
‘How is she?’ said my aunt, folding her
arms with her bonnet still tied on one of
them.
‘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.’
‘And SHE. How is SHE?’ said my aunt, sharply.
Mr. Chillip laid his head a little more on
one side, and looked at my aunt like an amiable
bird.
‘The baby,’ said my aunt. ‘How is she?’
‘Ma’am,’ returned Mr. Chillip, ‘I
apprehended you had known. It’s a boy.’
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.
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.
CHAPTER 2. I OBSERVE
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?’
0041
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.
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.
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.
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.
‘Peggotty,’ says I, suddenly, ‘were
you ever married?’
‘Lord, Master Davy,’ replied Peggotty.
‘What’s put marriage in your head?’
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.
‘But WERE you ever married, Peggotty?’
says I. ‘You are a very handsome woman,
an’t you?’
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.
‘Me handsome, Davy!’ said Peggotty. ‘Lawk,
no, my dear! But what put marriage in your
head?’
‘I don’t know!—You mustn’t marry more
than one person at a time, may you, Peggotty?’
‘Certainly not,’ says Peggotty, with the
promptest decision.
‘But if you marry a person, and the person
dies, why then you may marry another person,
mayn’t you, Peggotty?’
‘YOU MAY,’ says Peggotty, ‘if you choose,
my dear. That’s a matter of opinion.’
‘But what is your opinion, Peggotty?’
said I.
I asked her, and looked curiously at her,
because she looked so curiously at me.
‘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.’
‘You an’t cross, I suppose, Peggotty,
are you?’ said I, after sitting quiet for
a minute.
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.
‘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.’
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.
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.
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.
‘What does that mean?’ I asked him, over
her shoulder.
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.
‘Oh, Davy!’ remonstrated my mother.
‘Dear boy!’ said the gentleman. ‘I cannot
wonder at his devotion!’
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.
‘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.
‘Good night!’ said I.
‘Come! Let us be the best friends in the
world!’ said the gentleman, laughing. ‘Shake
hands!’
My right hand was in my mother’s left, so
I gave him the other.
‘Why, that’s the Wrong hand, Davy!’
laughed the gentleman.
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.
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.
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.
‘Much obliged to you, Peggotty,’ returned
my mother, in a cheerful voice, ‘I have
had a VERY pleasant evening.’
‘A stranger or so makes an agreeable change,’
suggested Peggotty.
‘A very agreeable change, indeed,’ returned
my mother.
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.
‘Not such a one as this, Mr. Copperfield
wouldn’t have liked,’ said Peggotty. ‘That
I say, and that I swear!’
‘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?’
‘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?’
‘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.
‘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.’
Peggotty seemed to take this aspersion very
much to heart, I thought.
‘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!’
‘Nobody never went and hinted no such a
thing,’ said Peggotty.
‘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?’
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!’
‘Not yet,’ said Mr. Murdstone.
‘And who’s this shaver?’ said one of
the gentlemen, taking hold of me.
‘That’s Davy,’ returned Mr. Murdstone.
‘Davy who?’ said the gentleman. ‘Jones?’
‘Copperfield,’ said Mr. Murdstone.
‘What! Bewitching Mrs. Copperfield’s encumbrance?’
cried the gentleman. ‘The pretty little
widow?’
‘Quinion,’ said Mr. Murdstone, ‘take
care, if you please. Somebody’s sharp.’
‘Who is?’ asked the gentleman, laughing.
I looked up, quickly; being curious to know.
‘Only Brooks of Sheffield,’ said Mr. Murdstone.
I was quite relieved to find that it was only
Brooks of Sheffield; for, at first, I really
thought it was I.
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:
‘And what is the opinion of Brooks of Sheffield,
in reference to the projected business?’
‘Why, I don’t know that Brooks understands
much about it at present,’ replied Mr. Murdstone;
‘but he is not generally favourable, I believe.’
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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:
‘What was it they said, Davy? Tell me again.
I can’t believe it.’
‘“Bewitching—“’ I began.
My mother put her hands upon my lips to stop
me.
‘It was never bewitching,’ she said, laughing.
‘It never could have been bewitching, Davy.
Now I know it wasn’t!’
‘Yes, it was. “Bewitching Mrs. Copperfield”,’
I repeated stoutly. ‘And, “pretty.”’
‘No, no, it was never pretty. Not pretty,’
interposed my mother, laying her fingers on
my lips again.
‘Yes it was. “Pretty little widow.”’
‘What foolish, impudent creatures!’ cried
my mother, laughing and covering her face.
‘What ridiculous men! An’t they? Davy
dear—’
‘Well, Ma.’
‘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.’
I promised, of course; and we kissed one another
over and over again, and I soon fell fast
asleep.
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.
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:
‘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?’
‘Is your brother an agreeable man, Peggotty?’
I inquired, provisionally.
‘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—’
Peggotty meant her nephew Ham, mentioned in
my first chapter; but she spoke of him as
a morsel of English Grammar.
I was flushed by her summary of delights,
and replied that it would indeed be a treat,
but what would my mother say?
‘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!’
‘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.’
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.
‘I say! Peggotty! She can’t live by herself,
you know.’
‘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.’
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
CHAPTER 3. I HAVE A CHANGE
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
‘Here’s my Am!’ screamed Peggotty, ‘growed
out of knowledge!’
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.
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,
‘Yon’s our house, Mas’r Davy!’
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.
‘That’s not it?’ said I. ‘That ship-looking
thing?’
‘That’s it, Mas’r Davy,’ returned
Ham.
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.
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.
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.
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.
‘Glad to see you, sir,’ said Mr. Peggotty.
‘You’ll find us rough, sir, but you’ll
find us ready.’
0061
I thanked him, and replied that I was sure
I should be happy in such a delightful place.
‘How’s your Ma, sir?’ said Mr. Peggotty.
‘Did you leave her pretty jolly?’
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.
‘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.’
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.
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.
‘Mr. Peggotty!’ says I.
‘Sir,’ says he.
‘Did you give your son the name of Ham,
because you lived in a sort of ark?’
Mr. Peggotty seemed to think it a deep idea,
but answered:
‘No, sir. I never giv him no name.’
‘Who gave him that name, then?’ said I,
putting question number two of the catechism
to Mr. Peggotty.
‘Why, sir, his father giv it him,’ said
Mr. Peggotty.
‘I thought you were his father!’
‘My brother Joe was his father,’ said
Mr. Peggotty.
‘Dead, Mr. Peggotty?’ I hinted, after
a respectful pause.
‘Drowndead,’ said Mr. Peggotty.
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.
‘Little Em’ly,’ I said, glancing at
her. ‘She is your daughter, isn’t she,
Mr. Peggotty?’
‘No, sir. My brother-in-law, Tom, was her
father.’
I couldn’t help it. ‘—Dead, Mr. Peggotty?’
I hinted, after another respectful silence.
‘Drowndead,’ said Mr. Peggotty.
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:
‘Haven’t you ANY children, Mr. Peggotty?’
‘No, master,’ he answered with a short
laugh. ‘I’m a bacheldore.’
‘A bachelor!’ I said, astonished. ‘Why,
who’s that, Mr. Peggotty?’ pointing to
the person in the apron who was knitting.
‘That’s Missis Gummidge,’ said Mr. Peggotty.
‘Gummidge, Mr. Peggotty?’
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.
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.
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.
‘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.
‘No,’ replied Em’ly, shaking her head,
‘I’m afraid of the sea.’
‘Afraid!’ I said, with a becoming air
of boldness, and looking very big at the mighty
ocean. ‘I an’t!’
‘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.’
‘I hope it wasn’t the boat that—’
‘That father was drownded in?’ said Em’ly.
‘No. Not that one, I never see that boat.’
‘Nor him?’ I asked her.
Little Em’ly shook her head. ‘Not to remember!’
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.
‘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.’
‘Dan is Mr. Peggotty, is he?’ said I.
‘Uncle Dan—yonder,’ answered Em’ly,
nodding at the boat-house.
‘Yes. I mean him. He must be very good,
I should think?’
‘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.’
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.
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.
‘You would like to be a lady?’ I said.
Emily looked at me, and laughed and nodded
‘yes’.
‘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,
‘Don’t you think you are afraid of the
sea, now?’
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.
‘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!’
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.
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.
This may be premature. I have set it down
too soon, perhaps. But let it stand.
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.
‘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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.’
‘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.’
‘I feel it more,’ said Mrs. Gummidge.
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’.
‘It is certainly very cold,’ said Peggotty.
‘Everybody must feel it so.’
‘I feel it more than other people,’ said
Mrs. Gummidge.
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.
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.
‘Well, Mates,’ said Mr. Peggotty, taking
his seat, ‘and how are you?’
We all said something, or looked something,
to welcome him, except Mrs. Gummidge, who
only shook her head over her knitting.
‘What’s amiss?’ said Mr. Peggotty, with
a clap of his hands. ‘Cheer up, old Mawther!’
(Mr. Peggotty meant old girl.)
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.
‘What’s amiss, dame?’ said Mr. Peggotty.
‘Nothing,’ returned Mrs. Gummidge. ‘You’ve
come from The Willing Mind, Dan’l?’
‘Why yes, I’ve took a short spell at The
Willing Mind tonight,’ said Mr. Peggotty.
‘I’m sorry I should drive you there,’
said Mrs. Gummidge.
‘Drive! I don’t want no driving,’ returned
Mr. Peggotty with an honest laugh. ‘I only
go too ready.’
‘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.’
‘Along o’ you! It an’t along o’ you!’
said Mr. Peggotty. ‘Don’t ye believe a
bit on it.’
‘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’.’
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.
‘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.’
Here I was suddenly melted, and roared out,
‘No, you haven’t, Mrs. Gummidge,’ in
great mental distress.
‘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!’
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:
‘She’s been thinking of the old ‘un!’
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
‘Why, Peggotty!’ I said, ruefully, ‘isn’t
she come home?’
‘Yes, yes, Master Davy,’ said Peggotty.
‘She’s come home. Wait a bit, Master Davy,
and I’ll—I’ll tell you something.’
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.
‘Peggotty!’ said I, quite frightened.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing’s the matter, bless you, Master
Davy dear!’ she answered, assuming an air
of sprightliness.
‘Something’s the matter, I’m sure. Where’s
mama?’
‘Where’s mama, Master Davy?’ repeated
Peggotty.
‘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.
‘Bless the precious boy!’ cried Peggotty,
taking hold of me. ‘What is it? Speak, my
pet!’
‘Not dead, too! Oh, she’s not dead, Peggotty?’
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.
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.
‘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.’
‘Go on, Peggotty,’ said I, more frightened
than before.
‘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!’
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.
‘A new one,’ said Peggotty.
‘A new one?’ I repeated.
Peggotty gave a gasp, as if she were swallowing
something that was very hard, and, putting
out her hand, said:
‘Come and see him.’
‘I don’t want to see him.’ —‘And
your mama,’ said Peggotty.
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.
‘Now, Clara my dear,’ said Mr. Murdstone.
‘Recollect! control yourself, always control
yourself! Davy boy, how do you do?’
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.
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.
CHAPTER 4. I FALL INTO DISGRACE
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.
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.
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.
‘Davy,’ said my mother. ‘What’s the
matter?’
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!’
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.
‘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?’
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!’
‘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!’
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:
‘What’s this? Clara, my love, have you
forgotten?—Firmness, my dear!’
‘I am very sorry, Edward,’ said my mother.
‘I meant to be very good, but I am so uncomfortable.’
‘Indeed!’ he answered. ‘That’s a bad
hearing, so soon, Clara.’
‘I say it’s very hard I should be made
so now,’ returned my mother, pouting; ‘and
it is—very hard—isn’t it?’
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.
‘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?’
‘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?’
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.
‘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?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I beat him.’
I had answered in a kind of breathless whisper,
but I felt, in my silence, that my breath
was shorter now.
‘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?’
‘Dirt,’ I said.
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.
‘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.’
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.
‘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.’
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
‘Is that your boy, sister-in-law?’
My mother acknowledged me.
‘Generally speaking,’ said Miss Murdstone,
‘I don’t like boys. How d’ye do, boy?’
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:
‘Wants manner!’
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.
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.
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.
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:
‘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.’
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.
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.
‘Clara!’ said Mr. Murdstone sternly. ‘Clara!
I wonder at you.’
‘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.’
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.
‘It’s very hard,’ said my mother, ‘that
in my own house—’
‘My own house?’ repeated Mr. Murdstone.
‘Clara!’
‘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!’
‘Edward,’ said Miss Murdstone, ‘let
there be an end of this. I go tomorrow.’
‘Jane Murdstone,’ said her brother, ‘be
silent! How dare you to insinuate that you
don’t know my character better than your
words imply?’
‘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.’
‘Edward,’ said Miss Murdstone, again,
‘let there be an end of this. I go tomorrow.’
‘Jane Murdstone,’ thundered Mr. Murdstone.
‘Will you be silent? How dare you?’
Miss Murdstone made a jail-delivery of her
pocket-handkerchief, and held it before her
eyes.
‘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—’
‘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!’
‘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.’
‘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.’
‘There is no extent of mere weakness, Clara,’
said Mr. Murdstone in reply, ‘that can have
the least weight with me. You lose breath.’
‘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.
‘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!’
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Let me remember how it used to be, and bring
one morning back again.
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?
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:
‘Oh, Davy, Davy!’
‘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.’
‘He does NOT know it,’ Miss Murdstone
interposes awfully.
‘I am really afraid he does not,’ says
my mother.
‘Then, you see, Clara,’ returns Miss Murdstone,
‘you should just give him the book back,
and make him know it.’
‘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.’
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.
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:
‘Clara!’
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
‘I tell you, Clara,’ said Mr. Murdstone,
‘I have been often flogged myself.’
‘To be sure; of course,’ said Miss Murdstone.
‘Certainly, my dear Jane,’ faltered my
mother, meekly. ‘But—but do you think
it did Edward good?’
‘Do you think it did Edward harm, Clara?’
asked Mr. Murdstone, gravely.
‘That’s the point,’ said his sister.
To this my mother returned, ‘Certainly,
my dear Jane,’ and said no more.
I felt apprehensive that I was personally
interested in this dialogue, and sought Mr.
Murdstone’s eye as it lighted on mine.
‘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.
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.
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.
‘Clara!’ said Miss Murdstone, in her warning
voice.
‘I am not quite well, my dear Jane, I think,’
said my mother.
I saw him wink, solemnly, at his sister, as
he rose and said, taking up the cane:
‘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.’
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.
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.
‘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!’
‘Can’t you, indeed, David?’ he said.
‘We’ll try that.’
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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:
‘Is that you, Peggotty?’
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.
I groped my way to the door, and putting my
own lips to the keyhole, whispered: ‘Is
that you, Peggotty dear?’
‘Yes, my own precious Davy,’ she replied.
‘Be as soft as a mouse, or the Cat’ll
hear us.’
I understood this to mean Miss Murdstone,
and was sensible of the urgency of the case;
her room being close by.
‘How’s mama, dear Peggotty? Is she very
angry with me?’
I could hear Peggotty crying softly on her
side of the keyhole, as I was doing on mine,
before she answered. ‘No. Not very.’
‘What is going to be done with me, Peggotty
dear? Do you know?’
‘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.
‘When, Peggotty?’
‘Tomorrow.’
‘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.
‘Yes,’ said Peggotty. ‘Box.’
‘Shan’t I see mama?’
‘Yes,’ said Peggotty. ‘Morning.’
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.
‘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?’
‘Ye-ye-ye-yes, Peggotty!’ I sobbed.
‘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.
‘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?’
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.
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.
‘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.’
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.
‘Master Copperfield’s box there!’ said
Miss Murdstone, when wheels were heard at
the gate.
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.
‘Clara!’ said Miss Murdstone, in her warning
note.
‘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.’
‘Clara!’ Miss Murdstone repeated.
‘Certainly, my dear Jane,’ replied my
mother, who was holding me. ‘I forgive you,
my dear boy. God bless you!’
‘Clara!’ Miss Murdstone repeated.
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.
CHAPTER 5. I AM SENT AWAY FROM HOME
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
‘All the way where?’ inquired the carrier.
‘There,’ I said.
‘Where’s there?’ inquired the carrier.
‘Near London,’ I said.
‘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.’
‘Are you only going to Yarmouth then?’
I asked.
‘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.’
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.
‘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.
‘Peggotty, do you mean, sir?’
‘Ah!’ said Mr. Barkis. ‘Her.’
‘Yes. She makes all our pastry, and does
all our cooking.’
‘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:
‘No sweethearts, I b’lieve?’
‘Sweetmeats did you say, Mr. Barkis?’
For I thought he wanted something else to
eat, and had pointedly alluded to that description
of refreshment.
‘Hearts,’ said Mr. Barkis. ‘Sweet hearts;
no person walks with her!’
‘With Peggotty?’
‘Ah!’ he said. ‘Her.’
‘Oh, no. She never had a sweetheart.’
‘Didn’t she, though!’ said Mr. Barkis.
Again he made up his mouth to whistle, and
again he didn’t whistle, but sat looking
at the horse’s ears.
‘So she makes,’ said Mr. Barkis, after
a long interval of reflection, ‘all the
apple parsties, and doos all the cooking,
do she?’
I replied that such was the fact.
‘Well. I’ll tell you what,’ said Mr.
Barkis. ‘P’raps you might be writin’
to her?’
‘I shall certainly write to her,’ I rejoined.
‘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?’
‘That Barkis is willing,’ I repeated,
innocently. ‘Is that all the message?’
‘Ye-es,’ he said, considering. ‘Ye-es.
Barkis is willin’.’
‘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.’
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.’
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.
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:
‘Is that the little gentleman from Blunderstone?’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ I said.
‘What name?’ inquired the lady.
‘Copperfield, ma’am,’ I said.
‘That won’t do,’ returned the lady.
‘Nobody’s dinner is paid for here, in
that name.’
‘Is it Murdstone, ma’am?’ I said.
‘If you’re Master Murdstone,’ said the
lady, ‘why do you go and give another name,
first?’
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.
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.
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!’
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:
‘There’s half a pint of ale for you. Will
you have it now?’
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.
‘My eye!’ he said. ‘It seems a good
deal, don’t it?’
‘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.
‘There was a gentleman here, yesterday,’
he said—‘a stout gentleman, by the name
of Topsawyer—perhaps you know him?’
‘No,’ I said, ‘I don’t think—’
‘In breeches and gaiters, broad-brimmed
hat, grey coat, speckled choker,’ said the
waiter.
‘No,’ I said bashfully, ‘I haven’t
the pleasure—’
‘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.’
I was very much shocked to hear of this melancholy
accident, and said I thought I had better
have some water.
‘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?’
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.
‘What have we got here?’ he said, putting
a fork into my dish. ‘Not chops?’
‘Chops,’ I said.
‘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?’
0101
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.
‘How’s the pie?’ he said, rousing himself.
‘It’s a pudding,’ I made answer.
‘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!’
‘Yes, it is indeed.’
‘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.’
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.
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.
I said, ‘Near London,’ which was all I
knew.
‘Oh! my eye!’ he said, looking very low-spirited,
‘I am sorry for that.’
‘Why?’ I asked him.
‘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?’
I told him between eight and nine.
‘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.’
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.’
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.
‘There’s a sheet of letter-paper,’ he
returned. ‘Did you ever buy a sheet of letter-paper?’
I could not remember that I ever had.
‘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.’
‘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.
‘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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!’
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.
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.
The guard’s eye lighted on me as he was
getting down, and he said at the booking-office
door:
‘Is there anybody here for a yoongster booked
in the name of Murdstone, from Bloonderstone,
Sooffolk, to be left till called for?’
Nobody answered.
‘Try Copperfield, if you please, sir,’
said I, looking helplessly down.
‘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?’
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.
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.
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.
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.
‘You’re the new boy?’ he said. ‘Yes,
sir,’ I said.
I supposed I was. I didn’t know.
‘I’m one of the masters at Salem House,’
he said.
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.
‘If you please, sir,’ I said, when we
had accomplished about the same distance as
before, ‘is it far?’
‘It’s down by Blackheath,’ he said.
‘Is that far, sir?’ I diffidently asked.
‘It’s a good step,’ he said. ‘We shall
go by the stage-coach. It’s about six miles.’
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.
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.
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.
‘Can you cook this young gentleman’s breakfast
for him, if you please?’ said the Master
at Salem House.
‘Can I?’ said the old woman. ‘Yes can
I, sure!’
‘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.
‘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.’
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.
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:
‘Have you got your flute with you?’
‘Yes,’ he returned.
‘Have a blow at it,’ said the old woman,
coaxingly. ‘Do!’
0111
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.
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.
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.
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.
‘The new boy,’ said the Master.
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!’
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.
‘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.’
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.
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.
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.
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.’
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?
‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ says I, ‘if
you please, I’m looking for the dog.’
‘Dog?’ he says. ‘What dog?’
‘Isn’t it a dog, sir?’
‘Isn’t what a dog?’
‘That’s to be taken care of, sir; that
bites.’
‘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.
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.
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!’
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.
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.
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.
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.
CHAPTER 6. I ENLARGE MY CIRCLE OF ACQUAINTANCE
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.
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.
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.
‘So!’ said Mr. Creakle. ‘This is the
young gentleman whose teeth are to be filed!
Turn him round.’
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?’
‘There’s nothing against him yet,’ returned
the man with the wooden leg. ‘There has
been no opportunity.’
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.
‘Come here, sir!’ said Mr. Creakle, beckoning
to me.
‘Come here!’ said the man with the wooden
leg, repeating the gesture.
‘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.
‘Not yet, sir,’ I said, flinching with
the pain.
‘Not yet? Hey?’ repeated Mr. Creakle.
‘But you will soon. Hey?’
‘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.
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.
‘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.’
‘A Tartar,’ said the man with the wooden
leg.
‘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.’
‘—Will have a thing done, I will have
it done,’ repeated the man with the wooden
leg.
‘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?’
‘No,’ was the answer.
‘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.’
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:
‘If you please, sir—’
Mr. Creakle whispered, ‘Hah! What’s this?’
and bent his eyes upon me, as if he would
have burnt me up with them.
‘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—’
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
‘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.
‘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.’
I hastened to comply with his friendly suggestion,
and opening Peggotty’s purse, turned it
upside down into his hand.
‘Do you want to spend anything now?’ he
asked me.
‘No thank you,’ I replied.
‘You can, if you like, you know,’ said
Steerforth. ‘Say the word.’
‘No, thank you, sir,’ I repeated.
‘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.’
It certainly had not occurred to me before,
but I said, Yes, I should like that.
‘Very good,’ said Steerforth. ‘You’ll
be glad to spend another shilling or so, in
almond cakes, I dare say?’
I said, Yes, I should like that, too.
‘And another shilling or so in biscuits,
and another in fruit, eh?’ said Steerforth.
‘I say, young Copperfield, you’re going
it!’
I smiled because he smiled, but I was a little
troubled in my mind, too.
‘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:
‘There you are, young Copperfield, and a
royal spread you’ve got.’
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
‘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.’
‘You haven’t got a sister, have you?’
said Steerforth, yawning.
‘No,’ I answered.
‘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.’
‘Good night, sir,’ I replied.
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.
CHAPTER 7. MY ‘FIRST HALF’ AT SALEM HOUSE
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.
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.
Mr. Creakle was seen to speak, and Tungay
was heard, to this effect.
‘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!’
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
‘And do you recollect them?’ Steerforth
said.
‘Oh yes,’ I replied; I had a good memory,
and I believed I recollected them very well.
‘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.’
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.
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.
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.
‘Now, I’ll tell you what, young Copperfield,’
said he: ‘the wine shall be kept to wet
your whistle when you are story-telling.’
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
‘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?’
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.
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.
‘Silence, Mr. Steerforth!’ said Mr. Mell.
‘Silence yourself,’ said Steerforth, turning
red. ‘Whom are you talking to?’
‘Sit down,’ said Mr. Mell.
‘Sit down yourself,’ said Steerforth,
‘and mind your business.’
0135
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.
‘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.’
‘I don’t give myself the trouble of thinking
at all about you,’ said Steerforth, coolly;
‘so I’m not mistaken, as it happens.’
‘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—’
‘A what?—where is he?’ said Steerforth.
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.’
‘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.’
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.
‘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?’
‘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.’
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:
‘Now, sir, as he don’t condescend to tell
me, what is this?’
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.
‘What did he mean by talking about favourites,
then?’ said Steerforth at length.
‘Favourites?’ repeated Mr. Creakle, with
the veins in his forehead swelling quickly.
‘Who talked about favourites?’
‘He did,’ said Steerforth.
‘And pray, what did you mean by that, sir?’
demanded Mr. Creakle, turning angrily on his
assistant.
‘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.’
‘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.’
‘It was not judicious, sir, I am willing
to admit,’ said Mr. Mell. ‘I should not
have done so, if I had been cool.’
Here Steerforth struck in.
‘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.’
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.
‘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.’
Steerforth gave a short laugh.
‘That’s not an answer, sir,’ said Mr.
Creakle, ‘to my remark. I expect more than
that from you, Steerforth.’
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.
‘Deny that he is a beggar, Steerforth?’
cried Mr. Creakle. ‘Why, where does he go
a-begging?’
‘If he is not a beggar himself, his near
relation’s one,’ said Steerforth. ‘It’s
all the same.’
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.
‘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.’
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.’
Mr. Creakle turned to his assistant, with
a severe frown and laboured politeness:
‘Now, you hear what this gentleman says,
Mr. Mell. Have the goodness, if you please,
to set him right before the assembled school.’
‘He is right, sir, without correction,’
returned Mr. Mell, in the midst of a dead
silence; ‘what he has said is true.’
‘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?’
‘I believe not directly,’ he returned.
‘Why, you know not,’ said Mr. Creakle.
‘Don’t you, man?’
‘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.’
‘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.’
‘There is no time,’ answered Mr. Mell,
rising, ‘like the present.’
‘Sir, to you!’ said Mr. Creakle.
‘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.’
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.
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.
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.
‘Who has ill-used him, you girl?’ said
Steerforth.
‘Why, you have,’ returned Traddles.
‘What have I done?’ said Steerforth.
‘What have you done?’ retorted Traddles.
‘Hurt his feelings, and lost him his situation.’
‘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?’
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.
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.
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.
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!’
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.
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.
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.
‘Cheer up, Mas’r Davy bor’!’ said
Ham, in his simpering way. ‘Why, how you
have growed!’
‘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.
‘Growed, Mas’r Davy bor’? Ain’t he
growed!’ said Ham.
‘Ain’t he growed!’ said Mr. Peggotty.
They made me laugh again by laughing at each
other, and then we all three laughed until
I was in danger of crying again.
‘Do you know how mama is, Mr. Peggotty?’
I said. ‘And how my dear, dear, old Peggotty
is?’
‘Oncommon,’ said Mr. Peggotty.
‘And little Em’ly, and Mrs. Gummidge?’
‘On—common,’ said Mr. Peggotty.
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.
‘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.’
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:
‘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.’
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?
‘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.
‘Her pretty face!’ said Mr. Peggotty,
with his own shining like a light.
‘Her learning!’ said Ham.
‘Her writing!’ said Mr. Peggotty. ‘Why
it’s as black as jet! And so large it is,
you might see it anywheres.’
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.
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.
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—!
‘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.’
‘Aye, aye?’ said Steerforth, returning.
‘I am glad to see them. How are you both?’
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.
‘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.’
‘Nonsense!’ said Steerforth, laughing.
‘You mustn’t tell them anything of the
sort.’
‘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!’
‘Made out of a boat, is it?’ said Steerforth.
‘It’s the right sort of a house for such
a thorough-built boatman.’
‘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!’
Mr. Peggotty was no less pleased than his
nephew, though his modesty forbade him to
claim a personal compliment so vociferously.
‘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.’
‘The best of men can do no more, Mr. Peggotty,’
said Steerforth. He had got his name already.
‘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!’
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
CHAPTER 8. MY HOLIDAYS. ESPECIALLY ONE HAPPY
AFTERNOON
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.
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.
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.
‘You look very well, Mr. Barkis,’ I said,
thinking he would like to know it.
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.
‘I gave your message, Mr. Barkis,’ I said:
‘I wrote to Peggotty.’
‘Ah!’ said Mr. Barkis.
Mr. Barkis seemed gruff, and answered drily.
‘Wasn’t it right, Mr. Barkis?’ I asked,
after a little hesitation.
‘Why, no,’ said Mr. Barkis.
‘Not the message?’
‘The message was right enough, perhaps,’
said Mr. Barkis; ‘but it come to an end
there.’
Not understanding what he meant, I repeated
inquisitively: ‘Came to an end, Mr. Barkis?’
‘Nothing come of it,’ he explained, looking
at me sideways. ‘No answer.’
‘There was an answer expected, was there,
Mr. Barkis?’ said I, opening my eyes. For
this was a new light to me.
‘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.’
‘Well, Mr. Barkis?’
‘Well,’ said Mr. Barkis, carrying his
eyes back to his horse’s ears; ‘that man’s
been a-waitin’ for a answer ever since.’
‘Have you told her so, Mr. Barkis?’
‘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.’
‘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?’
‘Her name?’
‘Ah!’ said Mr. Barkis, with a nod of his
head.
‘Peggotty.’
‘Chrisen name? Or nat’ral name?’ said
Mr. Barkis.
‘Oh, it’s not her Christian name. Her
Christian name is Clara.’
‘Is it though?’ said Mr. Barkis.
He seemed to find an immense fund of reflection
in this circumstance, and sat pondering and
inwardly whistling for some time.
‘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.’
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
0151
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.
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.
‘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.
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.
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.
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.
‘Peggotty,’ said my mother. ‘What’s
the matter?’
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.
‘What are you doing, you stupid creature?’
said my mother, laughing.
‘Oh, drat the man!’ cried Peggotty. ‘He
wants to marry me.’
‘It would be a very good match for you;
wouldn’t it?’ said my mother.
‘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.’
‘Then, why don’t you tell him so, you
ridiculous thing?’ said my mother.
‘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.’
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.
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,
‘Peggotty, dear, you are not going to be
married?’
‘Me, ma’am?’ returned Peggotty, staring.
‘Lord bless you, no!’
‘Not just yet?’ said my mother, tenderly.
‘Never!’ cried Peggotty.
My mother took her hand, and said:
‘Don’t leave me, Peggotty. Stay with me.
It will not be for long, perhaps. What should
I ever do without you!’
‘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.
But my mother made no answer, except to thank
her, and Peggotty went running on in her own
fashion.
‘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.’
‘And, Peggotty,’ says I, ‘I shall be
glad to see you, and I’ll make you as welcome
as a queen.’
‘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.
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.
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.
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.
‘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!’
‘Well, but I really do wonder, ma’am,’
said Peggotty.
‘What can have put such a person in your
head?’ inquired my mother. ‘Is there nobody
else in the world to come there?’
‘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?’
‘How absurd you are, Peggotty!’ returned
my mother. ‘One would suppose you wanted
a second visit from her.’
‘Lord forbid!’ cried Peggotty.
‘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.’
‘No!’ mused Peggotty. ‘No, that ain’t
likely at all.—-I wonder, if she was to
die, whether she’d leave Davy anything?’
‘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.’
‘I suppose she wouldn’t be inclined to
forgive him now,’ hinted Peggotty.
‘Why should she be inclined to forgive him
now?’ said my mother, rather sharply.
‘Now that he’s got a brother, I mean,’
said Peggotty.
My mother immediately began to cry, and wondered
how Peggotty dared to say such a thing.
‘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?’
‘I should make Miss Murdstone happy, if
I was to,’ said Peggotty.
‘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.’
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.
‘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—’
‘Pretty,’ suggested Peggotty.
‘Well,’ returned my mother, half laughing,
‘and if she is so silly as to say so, can
I be blamed for it?’
‘No one says you can,’ said Peggotty.
‘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?’
‘I don’t insinuate at all,’ said Peggotty.
‘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—’
‘I never talked of ‘em,’ said Peggotty.
‘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.’
Peggotty sat with her chin on the foot of
the stocking, looking silently at the fire.
‘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.’
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.’
‘I am glad to hear you are sorry, David,’
he replied.
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.
‘How do you do, ma’am?’ I said to Miss
Murdstone.
‘Ah, dear me!’ sighed Miss Murdstone,
giving me the tea-caddy scoop instead of her
fingers. ‘How long are the holidays?’
‘A month, ma’am.’
‘Counting from when?’
‘From today, ma’am.’
‘Oh!’ said Miss Murdstone. ‘Then here’s
one day off.’
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.
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.
‘My dear Jane!’ cried my mother.
‘Good heavens, Clara, do you see?’ exclaimed
Miss Murdstone.
‘See what, my dear Jane?’ said my mother;
‘where?’
‘He’s got it!’ cried Miss Murdstone.
‘The boy has got the baby!’
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.’
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:
‘Davy! come here!’ and looked at mine.
I saw Miss Murdstone lay her beads down.
‘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.’
‘What are you talking about, Clara?’ said
Miss Murdstone.
‘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.’
‘Clara!’ said Miss Murdstone, rising angrily,
‘you are a positive fool sometimes.’
‘My dear Jane,’ remonstrated my mother.
‘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.
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.
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.
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.
‘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.’
‘As sulky as a bear!’ said Miss Murdstone.
I stood still, and hung my head.
‘Now, David,’ said Mr. Murdstone, ‘a
sullen obdurate disposition is, of all tempers,
the worst.’
‘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?’
‘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?’
‘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.’
‘No doubt, my dear Jane,’ returned my
mother, ‘your understanding is very vigorous—’
‘Oh dear, no! Pray don’t say that, Clara,’
interposed Miss Murdstone, angrily.
‘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.’
‘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.’
‘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.’
‘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—’
‘You only said something weak and inconsiderate,’
he replied. ‘Try not to do it again, my
dear Clara, and keep a watch upon yourself.’
My mother’s lips moved, as if she answered
‘Yes, my dear Edward,’ but she said nothing
aloud.
‘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.’
‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ I faltered.
‘I have never meant to be sullen since I
came back.’
‘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.’
Miss Murdstone gave a hoarse chuckle.
‘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.’
He ordered me like a dog, and I obeyed like
a dog.
‘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.’
‘A most unaccountable delusion it is!’
cried Miss Murdstone.
‘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.’
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.
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!
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!
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!
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
CHAPTER 9. I 
HAVE A MEMORABLE BIRTHDAY
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.
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.
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:
‘David Copperfield is to go into the parlour.’
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.
‘Don’t hurry, David,’ said Mr. Sharp.
‘There’s time enough, my boy, don’t
hurry.’
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.
‘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.’
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.
‘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.’
I looked at her earnestly.
‘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?’
I trembled without distinctly knowing why,
and still looked at her earnestly, making
no attempt to answer.
‘Because,’ said she, ‘I grieve to tell
you that I hear this morning your mama is
very ill.’
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.
‘She is very dangerously ill,’ she added.
I knew all now.
‘She is dead.’
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
‘Master Copperfield?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘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.’
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.
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.
‘Well,’ said my conductor to one of the
three young women. ‘How do you get on, Minnie?’
‘We shall be ready by the trying-on time,’
she replied gaily, without looking up. ‘Don’t
you be afraid, father.’
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:
‘That’s right.’
‘Father!’ said Minnie, playfully. ‘What
a porpoise you do grow!’
‘Well, I don’t know how it is, my dear,’
he replied, considering about it. ‘I am
rather so.’
‘You are such a comfortable man, you see,’
said Minnie. ‘You take things so easy.’
‘No use taking ‘em otherwise, my dear,’
said Mr. Omer.
‘No, indeed,’ returned his daughter. ‘We
are all pretty gay here, thank Heaven! Ain’t
we, father?’
‘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?’
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’.
‘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.’
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.
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.
‘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.’
‘Have you, sir?’
‘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.’
‘RAT—tat-tat, RAT—tat-tat, RAT—tat-tat,’
across the yard.
‘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.’
‘Do you know how my little brother is, sir?’
I inquired.
Mr. Omer shook his head.
‘RAT—tat-tat, RAT—tat-tat, RAT—tat-tat.’
‘He is in his mother’s arms,’ said he.
‘Oh, poor little fellow! Is he dead?’
‘Don’t mind it more than you can help,’
said Mr. Omer. ‘Yes. The baby’s dead.’
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!
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.
‘Well, Joram!’ said Mr. Omer. ‘How do
you get on?’
‘All right,’ said Joram. ‘Done, sir.’
Minnie coloured a little, and the other two
girls smiled at one another.
‘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.
‘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.’
‘Oh! I thought you were going to leave me
out altogether,’ said Mr. Omer, laughing
till he coughed.
‘—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?’
‘I will,’ said Mr. Omer, rising. ‘My
dear’; and he stopped and turned to me:
‘would you like to see your—’
‘No, father,’ Minnie interposed.
‘I thought it might be agreeable, my dear,’
said Mr. Omer. ‘But perhaps you’re right.’
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
I said: ‘Yes.’
‘And your shirts,’ said Miss Murdstone;
‘have you brought ‘em home?’
‘Yes, ma’am. I have brought home all my
clothes.’
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.
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.
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.
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.
‘And how is Master David?’ he says, kindly.
I cannot tell him very well. I give him my
hand, which he holds in his.
‘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.
‘There is a great improvement here, ma’am?’
says Mr. Chillip.
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.
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.
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.
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.’
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.
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.
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.
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.
‘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.
‘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.’
Here Peggotty stopped, and softly beat upon
my hand a little while.
‘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.”
‘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.”
‘“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!”
‘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.
‘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.”’
Another silence followed this, and another
gentle beating on my hand.
‘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!
‘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!’
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.
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.
CHAPTER 10. I BECOME NEGLECTED, AND AM PROVIDED
FOR
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.
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.
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.
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.
‘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.’
‘Perhaps it’s his sorrow,’ said Peggotty,
stroking my hair.
‘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.’
‘How do you know it’s not that?’ said
Peggotty, after a silence.
‘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.’
‘What would he be?’ said Peggotty.
‘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.’
Peggotty said nothing for a little while;
and I warmed my hands, as silent as she.
‘Davy,’ she said at length.
‘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.’
‘And what do you mean to do, Peggotty,’
says I, wistfully. ‘Do you mean to go and
seek your fortune?’
‘I expect I shall be forced to go to Yarmouth,’
replied Peggotty, ‘and live there.’
‘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?’
‘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!’
I felt a great weight taken off my mind by
this promise: but even this was not all, for
Peggotty went on to say:
‘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.’
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.
‘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.’
Peggotty had an angry answer ready, I could
see; but she swallowed it for my sake, and
remained silent.
‘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.’
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.
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.
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.
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.
‘It’s a beautiful day, Mr. Barkis!’
I said, as an act of politeness.
‘It ain’t bad,’ said Mr. Barkis, who
generally qualified his speech, and rarely
committed himself.
‘Peggotty is quite comfortable now, Mr.
Barkis,’ I remarked, for his satisfaction.
‘Is she, though?’ said Mr. Barkis.
After reflecting about it, with a sagacious
air, Mr. Barkis eyed her, and said:
‘ARE you pretty comfortable?’
Peggotty laughed, and answered in the affirmative.
‘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?’
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.
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.
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.
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.
‘I say,’ growled Mr. Barkis, ‘it was
all right.’
I looked up into his face, and answered, with
an attempt to be very profound: ‘Oh!’
‘It didn’t come to a end there,’ said
Mr. Barkis, nodding confidentially. ‘It
was all right.’
Again I answered, ‘Oh!’
‘You know who was willin’,’ said my
friend. ‘It was Barkis, and Barkis only.’
I nodded assent.
‘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.’
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.
‘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?’
‘Why—I suppose you would like me as much
then, Peggotty, as you do now?’ I returned,
after a little consideration.
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.
‘Tell me what should you say, darling?’
she asked again, when this was over, and we
were walking on.
‘If you were thinking of being married—to
Mr. Barkis, Peggotty?’
‘Yes,’ said Peggotty.
‘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.’
‘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!’
We neither of us said anything for a little
while.
‘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.’
‘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.
‘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.
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.
But there was no little Em’ly to be seen,
so I asked Mr. Peggotty where she was.
‘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!’
Mrs. Gummidge moaned.
‘Cheer up, Mawther!’ cried Mr. Peggotty.
‘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.’
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.
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.
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.
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.
‘Oh, it’s you, is it?’ said little Em’ly.
‘Why, you knew who it was, Em’ly,’ said
I.
‘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.
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.
‘A little puss, it is!’ said Mr. Peggotty,
patting her with his great hand.
‘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.
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.
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.
‘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.’
‘If I had you for my guardian, Mr. Peggotty,’
said I, shaking my head, ‘I don’t think
I should FEEL much like it.’
‘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.
‘Steerforth?’ said I.
‘That’s the name!’ cried Mr. Peggotty,
turning to Ham. ‘I knowed it was something
in our way.’
‘You said it was Rudderford,’ observed
Ham, laughing.
‘Well!’ retorted Mr. Peggotty. ‘And
ye steer with a rudder, don’t ye? It ain’t
fur off. How is he, sir?’
‘He was very well indeed when I came away,
Mr. Peggotty.’
‘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!’
‘He is very handsome, is he not?’ said
I, my heart warming with this praise.
‘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!’
‘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.’
‘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.’
‘Yes,’ said I, delighted; ‘he knows
everything. He is astonishingly clever.’
‘There’s a friend!’ murmured Mr. Peggotty,
with a grave toss of his head.
‘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.’
Mr. Peggotty gave his head another toss, as
much as to say: ‘Of course he will.’
‘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.’
Mr. Peggotty gave his head another toss, as
much as to say: ‘I have no doubt of it.’
‘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.’
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.
‘Em’ly is like me,’ said Peggotty, ‘and
would like to see him.’
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
‘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.’
‘Come, old gal!’ cried Mr. Peggotty. ‘Take
and heave it.’
‘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.’
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.
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.
0193
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.
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:
‘What name was it as I wrote up in the cart?’
‘Clara Peggotty,’ I answered.
‘What name would it be as I should write
up now, if there was a tilt here?’
‘Clara Peggotty, again?’ I suggested.
‘Clara Peggotty BARKIS!’ he returned,
and burst into a roar of laughter that shook
the chaise.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
‘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.’
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
‘What! Brooks!’
‘No, sir, David Copperfield,’ I said.
‘Don’t tell me. You are Brooks,’ said
the gentleman. ‘You are Brooks of Sheffield.
That’s your name.’
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.
‘And how do you get on, and where are you
being educated, Brooks?’ said Mr. Quinion.
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.
‘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.’
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.
‘Humph!’ said Mr. Quinion, looking at
us both, I thought. ‘Fine weather!’
Silence ensued, and I was considering how
I could best disengage my shoulder from his
hand, and go away, when he said:
‘I suppose you are a pretty sharp fellow
still? Eh, Brooks?’
‘Aye! He is sharp enough,’ said Mr. Murdstone,
impatiently. ‘You had better let him go.
He will not thank you for troubling him.’
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.
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.
‘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.
‘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.’
‘For stubbornness won’t do here,’ said
his sister ‘What it wants is, to be crushed.
And crushed it must be. Shall be, too!’
He gave her a look, half in remonstrance,
half in approval, and went on:
‘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.’
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.
‘You have heard the “counting-house”
mentioned sometimes,’ said Mr. Murdstone.
‘The counting-house, sir?’ I repeated.
‘Of Murdstone and Grinby, in the wine trade,’
he replied.
I suppose I looked uncertain, for he went
on hastily:
‘You have heard the “counting-house”
mentioned, or the business, or the cellars,
or the wharf, or something about it.’
‘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.’
‘It does not matter when,’ he returned.
‘Mr. Quinion manages that business.’
I glanced at the latter deferentially as he
stood looking out of window.
‘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.’
‘He having,’ Mr. Quinion observed in a
low voice, and half turning round, ‘no other
prospect, Murdstone.’
Mr. Murdstone, with an impatient, even an
angry gesture, resumed, without noticing what
he had said:
‘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—’
‘—Which will be kept down to my estimate,’
said his sister.
‘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.’
‘In short, you are provided for,’ observed
his sister; ‘and will please to do your
duty.’
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.
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!
CHAPTER 11. I BEGIN LIFE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT,
AND DON’T LIKE IT
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
‘This,’ said Mr. Quinion, in allusion
to myself, ‘is he.’
‘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?’
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.
‘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.
‘This is Mr. Micawber,’ said Mr. Quinion
to me.
‘Ahem!’ said the stranger, ‘that is
my name.’
‘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.’
‘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.’
I made him a bow.
‘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.’
I thanked him with all my heart, for it was
friendly in him to offer to take that trouble.
‘At what hour,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘shall
I—’
‘At about eight,’ said Mr. Quinion.
‘At about eight,’ said Mr. Micawber. ‘I
beg to wish you good day, Mr. Quinion. I will
intrude no longer.’
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
‘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.’
I said: ‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘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.’
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.
‘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.’
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.
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.
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!
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.
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!
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.
‘Twopence-halfpenny,’ says the landlord,
‘is the price of the Genuine Stunning ale.’
‘Then,’ says I, producing the money, ‘just
draw me a glass of the Genuine Stunning, if
you please, with a good head to it.’
0211
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
‘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.’
It made me very miserable to hear it, and
I looked at Mrs. Micawber’s red eyes with
the utmost sympathy.
‘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.’
‘Dear me!’ I said, in great concern.
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.
‘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.’
I begged Mrs. Micawber to name it.
‘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—’
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
‘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.’
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.
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.
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.
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!
CHAPTER 12. LIKING LIFE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT
NO BETTER, I FORM A GREAT RESOLUTION
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.
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.
‘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.’
‘Are they dead, ma’am?’ I inquired,
after drinking the toast in a wine-glass.
‘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.’
Mrs. Micawber shook her head, and dropped
a pious tear upon the twin who happened to
be in hand.
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:
‘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?’
‘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.’
I said I was sure of that.
‘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.’
‘That he may be ready?’ I suggested.
‘Exactly,’ returned Mrs. Micawber. ‘That
he may be ready—in case of anything turning
up.’
‘And do you go too, ma’am?’
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:
‘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!’
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.
‘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!’
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
Gee up, Dobbin,
Gee ho, Dobbin,
Gee up, Dobbin,
Gee up, and gee ho—o—o!
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.
‘Emma, my angel!’ cried Mr. Micawber,
running into the room; ‘what is the matter?’
‘I never will desert you, Micawber!’ she
exclaimed.
‘My life!’ said Mr. Micawber, taking her
in his arms. ‘I am perfectly aware of it.’
‘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!’
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.
‘How is Mrs. Micawber now, sir?’ I said.
‘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!’
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
We had a very pleasant day, though we were
all in a tender state about our approaching
separation.
‘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.’
‘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.’
I expressed my sense of this commendation,
and said I was very sorry we were going to
lose one another.
‘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.’
‘My dear Micawber!’ urged his wife.
‘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!’
‘My poor papa’s maxim,’ Mrs. Micawber
observed.
‘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.
‘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!’
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.
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.
‘Master Copperfield,’ said Mrs. Micawber,
‘God bless you! I never can forget all that,
you know, and I never would if I could.’
‘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.’
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
‘Wot job?’ said the long-legged young
man.
‘To move a box,’ I answered.
‘Wot box?’ said the long-legged young
man.
I told him mine, which was down that street
there, and which I wanted him to take to the
Dover coach office for sixpence.
‘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.
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.
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.
‘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!’
‘You give me my money back, if you please,’
said I, very much frightened; ‘and leave
me alone.’
‘Come to the pollis!’ said the young man.
‘You shall prove it yourn to the pollis.’
‘Give me my box and money, will you,’
I cried, bursting into tears.
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.
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.
