CHAPTER 13. THE SEQUEL OF MY RESOLUTION

For anything I know, I may have had some wild idea of running all the

way to Dover, when I gave up the pursuit of the young man with the

donkey-cart, and started for Greenwich. My scattered senses were soon

collected as to that point, if I had; for I came to a stop in the Kent

Road, at a terrace with a piece of water before it, and a great foolish

image in the middle, blowing a dry shell. Here I sat down on a doorstep,

quite spent and exhausted with the efforts I had already made, and with

hardly breath enough to cry for the loss of my box and half-guinea.

It was by this time dark; I heard the clocks strike ten, as I sat

resting. But it was a summer night, fortunately, and fine weather. When

I had recovered my breath, and had got rid of a stifling sensation in

my throat, I rose up and went on. In the midst of my distress, I had no

notion of going back. I doubt if I should have had any, though there had

been a Swiss snow-drift in the Kent Road.

But my standing possessed of only three-halfpence in the world (and I

am sure I wonder how they came to be left in my pocket on a Saturday

night!) troubled me none the less because I went on. I began to picture

to myself, as a scrap of newspaper intelligence, my being found dead in

a day or two, under some hedge; and I trudged on miserably, though as

fast as I could, until I happened to pass a little shop, where it was

written up that ladies’ and gentlemen’s wardrobes were bought, and that

the best price was given for rags, bones, and kitchen-stuff. The master

of this shop was sitting at the door in his shirt-sleeves, smoking; and

as there were a great many coats and pairs of trousers dangling from

the low ceiling, and only two feeble candles burning inside to show

what they were, I fancied that he looked like a man of a revengeful

disposition, who had hung all his enemies, and was enjoying himself.

My late experiences with Mr. and Mrs. Micawber suggested to me that here

might be a means of keeping off the wolf for a little while. I went up

the next by-street, took off my waistcoat, rolled it neatly under my

arm, and came back to the shop door.

‘If you please, sir,’ I said, ‘I am to sell this for a fair price.’

Mr. Dolloby--Dolloby was the name over the shop door, at least--took the

waistcoat, stood his pipe on its head, against the door-post, went into

the shop, followed by me, snuffed the two candles with his fingers,

spread the waistcoat on the counter, and looked at it there, held it up

against the light, and looked at it there, and ultimately said:

‘What do you call a price, now, for this here little weskit?’

‘Oh! you know best, sir,’ I returned modestly.

‘I can’t be buyer and seller too,’ said Mr. Dolloby. ‘Put a price on

this here little weskit.’

‘Would eighteenpence be?’--I hinted, after some hesitation.

Mr. Dolloby rolled it up again, and gave it me back. ‘I should rob my

family,’ he said, ‘if I was to offer ninepence for it.’

This was a disagreeable way of putting the business; because it imposed

upon me, a perfect stranger, the unpleasantness of asking Mr. Dolloby to

rob his family on my account. My circumstances being so very pressing,

however, I said I would take ninepence for it, if he pleased. Mr.

Dolloby, not without some grumbling, gave ninepence. I wished him good

night, and walked out of the shop the richer by that sum, and the

poorer by a waistcoat. But when I buttoned my jacket, that was not much.

Indeed, I foresaw pretty clearly that my jacket would go next, and that

I should have to make the best of my way to Dover in a shirt and a pair

of trousers, and might deem myself lucky if I got there even in that

trim. But my mind did not run so much on this as might be supposed.

Beyond a general impression of the distance before me, and of the young

man with the donkey-cart having used me cruelly, I think I had no

very urgent sense of my difficulties when I once again set off with my

ninepence in my pocket.

A plan had occurred to me for passing the night, which I was going to

carry into execution. This was, to lie behind the wall at the back of my

old school, in a corner where there used to be a haystack. I imagined

it would be a kind of company to have the boys, and the bedroom where

I used to tell the stories, so near me: although the boys would know

nothing of my being there, and the bedroom would yield me no shelter.

I had had a hard day’s work, and was pretty well jaded when I came

climbing out, at last, upon the level of Blackheath. It cost me some

trouble to find out Salem House; but I found it, and I found a haystack

in the corner, and I lay down by it; having first walked round the wall,

and looked up at the windows, and seen that all was dark and silent

within. Never shall I forget the lonely sensation of first lying down,

without a roof above my head!

Sleep came upon me as it came on many other outcasts, against whom

house-doors were locked, and house-dogs barked, that night--and I

dreamed of lying on my old school-bed, talking to the boys in my room;

and found myself sitting upright, with Steerforth’s name upon my lips,

looking wildly at the stars that were glistening and glimmering above

me. When I remembered where I was at that untimely hour, a feeling

stole upon me that made me get up, afraid of I don’t know what, and walk

about. But the fainter glimmering of the stars, and the pale light in

the sky where the day was coming, reassured me: and my eyes being very

heavy, I lay down again and slept--though with a knowledge in my sleep

that it was cold--until the warm beams of the sun, and the ringing of

the getting-up bell at Salem House, awoke me. If I could have hoped that

Steerforth was there, I would have lurked about until he came out

alone; but I knew he must have left long since. Traddles still remained,

perhaps, but it was very doubtful; and I had not sufficient confidence

in his discretion or good luck, however strong my reliance was on his

good nature, to wish to trust him with my situation. So I crept away

from the wall as Mr. Creakle’s boys were getting up, and struck into the

long dusty track which I had first known to be the Dover Road when I was

one of them, and when I little expected that any eyes would ever see me

the wayfarer I was now, upon it.

What a different Sunday morning from the old Sunday morning at Yarmouth!

In due time I heard the church-bells ringing, as I plodded on; and I met

people who were going to church; and I passed a church or two where the

congregation were inside, and the sound of singing came out into the

sunshine, while the beadle sat and cooled himself in the shade of the

porch, or stood beneath the yew-tree, with his hand to his forehead,

glowering at me going by. But the peace and rest of the old Sunday

morning were on everything, except me. That was the difference. I felt

quite wicked in my dirt and dust, with my tangled hair. But for the

quiet picture I had conjured up, of my mother in her youth and beauty,

weeping by the fire, and my aunt relenting to her, I hardly think I

should have had the courage to go on until next day. But it always went

before me, and I followed.

I got, that Sunday, through three-and-twenty miles on the straight

road, though not very easily, for I was new to that kind of toil. I

see myself, as evening closes in, coming over the bridge at Rochester,

footsore and tired, and eating bread that I had bought for supper.

One or two little houses, with the notice, ‘Lodgings for Travellers’,

hanging out, had tempted me; but I was afraid of spending the few pence

I had, and was even more afraid of the vicious looks of the trampers I

had met or overtaken. I sought no shelter, therefore, but the sky; and

toiling into Chatham,--which, in that night’s aspect, is a mere dream of

chalk, and drawbridges, and mastless ships in a muddy river, roofed

like Noah’s arks,--crept, at last, upon a sort of grass-grown battery

overhanging a lane, where a sentry was walking to and fro. Here I

lay down, near a cannon; and, happy in the society of the sentry’s

footsteps, though he knew no more of my being above him than the boys

at Salem House had known of my lying by the wall, slept soundly until

morning.

Very stiff and sore of foot I was in the morning, and quite dazed by the

beating of drums and marching of troops, which seemed to hem me in on

every side when I went down towards the long narrow street. Feeling

that I could go but a very little way that day, if I were to reserve any

strength for getting to my journey’s end, I resolved to make the sale

of my jacket its principal business. Accordingly, I took the jacket off,

that I might learn to do without it; and carrying it under my arm, began

a tour of inspection of the various slop-shops.

It was a likely place to sell a jacket in; for the dealers in

second-hand clothes were numerous, and were, generally speaking, on the

look-out for customers at their shop doors. But as most of them had,

hanging up among their stock, an officer’s coat or two, epaulettes and

all, I was rendered timid by the costly nature of their dealings, and

walked about for a long time without offering my merchandise to anyone.

This modesty of mine directed my attention to the marine-store shops,

and such shops as Mr. Dolloby’s, in preference to the regular dealers.

At last I found one that I thought looked promising, at the corner of a

dirty lane, ending in an enclosure full of stinging-nettles, against the

palings of which some second-hand sailors’ clothes, that seemed to have

overflowed the shop, were fluttering among some cots, and rusty guns,

and oilskin hats, and certain trays full of so many old rusty keys of so

many sizes that they seemed various enough to open all the doors in the

world.

Into this shop, which was low and small, and which was darkened

rather than lighted by a little window, overhung with clothes, and was

descended into by some steps, I went with a palpitating heart; which was

not relieved when an ugly old man, with the lower part of his face all

covered with a stubbly grey beard, rushed out of a dirty den behind it,

and seized me by the hair of my head. He was a dreadful old man to look

at, in a filthy flannel waistcoat, and smelling terribly of rum. His

bedstead, covered with a tumbled and ragged piece of patchwork, was in

the den he had come from, where another little window showed a prospect

of more stinging-nettles, and a lame donkey.

‘Oh, what do you want?’ grinned this old man, in a fierce, monotonous

whine. ‘Oh, my eyes and limbs, what do you want? Oh, my lungs and liver,

what do you want? Oh, goroo, goroo!’

I was so much dismayed by these words, and particularly by the

repetition of the last unknown one, which was a kind of rattle in his

throat, that I could make no answer; hereupon the old man, still holding

me by the hair, repeated:

‘Oh, what do you want? Oh, my eyes and limbs, what do you want? Oh, my

lungs and liver, what do you want? Oh, goroo!’--which he screwed out of

himself, with an energy that made his eyes start in his head.

‘I wanted to know,’ I said, trembling, ‘if you would buy a jacket.’

‘Oh, let’s see the jacket!’ cried the old man. ‘Oh, my heart on fire,

show the jacket to us! Oh, my eyes and limbs, bring the jacket out!’

With that he took his trembling hands, which were like the claws of a

great bird, out of my hair; and put on a pair of spectacles, not at all

ornamental to his inflamed eyes.

‘Oh, how much for the jacket?’ cried the old man, after examining it.

‘Oh--goroo!--how much for the jacket?’

‘Half-a-crown,’ I answered, recovering myself.

‘Oh, my lungs and liver,’ cried the old man, ‘no! Oh, my eyes, no! Oh,

my limbs, no! Eighteenpence. Goroo!’

Every time he uttered this ejaculation, his eyes seemed to be in danger

of starting out; and every sentence he spoke, he delivered in a sort

of tune, always exactly the same, and more like a gust of wind, which

begins low, mounts up high, and falls again, than any other comparison I

can find for it.

‘Well,’ said I, glad to have closed the bargain, ‘I’ll take

eighteenpence.’

‘Oh, my liver!’ cried the old man, throwing the jacket on a shelf. ‘Get

out of the shop! Oh, my lungs, get out of the shop! Oh, my eyes and

limbs--goroo!--don’t ask for money; make it an exchange.’ I never was

so frightened in my life, before or since; but I told him humbly that

I wanted money, and that nothing else was of any use to me, but that I

would wait for it, as he desired, outside, and had no wish to hurry

him. So I went outside, and sat down in the shade in a corner. And I sat

there so many hours, that the shade became sunlight, and the sunlight

became shade again, and still I sat there waiting for the money.

There never was such another drunken madman in that line of business,

I hope. That he was well known in the neighbourhood, and enjoyed the

reputation of having sold himself to the devil, I soon understood from

the visits he received from the boys, who continually came skirmishing

about the shop, shouting that legend, and calling to him to bring out

his gold. ‘You ain’t poor, you know, Charley, as you pretend. Bring out

your gold. Bring out some of the gold you sold yourself to the devil

for. Come! It’s in the lining of the mattress, Charley. Rip it open

and let’s have some!’ This, and many offers to lend him a knife for

the purpose, exasperated him to such a degree, that the whole day was a

succession of rushes on his part, and flights on the part of the boys.

Sometimes in his rage he would take me for one of them, and come at me,

mouthing as if he were going to tear me in pieces; then, remembering

me, just in time, would dive into the shop, and lie upon his bed, as I

thought from the sound of his voice, yelling in a frantic way, to his

own windy tune, the ‘Death of Nelson’; with an Oh! before every line,

and innumerable Goroos interspersed. As if this were not bad enough for

me, the boys, connecting me with the establishment, on account of the

patience and perseverance with which I sat outside, half-dressed, pelted

me, and used me very ill all day.

He made many attempts to induce me to consent to an exchange; at one

time coming out with a fishing-rod, at another with a fiddle, at another

with a cocked hat, at another with a flute. But I resisted all these

overtures, and sat there in desperation; each time asking him, with

tears in my eyes, for my money or my jacket. At last he began to pay me

in halfpence at a time; and was full two hours getting by easy stages to

a shilling.

‘Oh, my eyes and limbs!’ he then cried, peeping hideously out of the

shop, after a long pause, ‘will you go for twopence more?’

‘I can’t,’ I said; ‘I shall be starved.’

‘Oh, my lungs and liver, will you go for threepence?’

‘I would go for nothing, if I could,’ I said, ‘but I want the money

badly.’

‘Oh, go-roo!’ (it is really impossible to express how he twisted this

ejaculation out of himself, as he peeped round the door-post at me,

showing nothing but his crafty old head); ‘will you go for fourpence?’

I was so faint and weary that I closed with this offer; and taking the

money out of his claw, not without trembling, went away more hungry and

thirsty than I had ever been, a little before sunset. But at an expense

of threepence I soon refreshed myself completely; and, being in better

spirits then, limped seven miles upon my road.

My bed at night was under another haystack, where I rested comfortably,

after having washed my blistered feet in a stream, and dressed them as

well as I was able, with some cool leaves. When I took the road again

next morning, I found that it lay through a succession of hop-grounds

and orchards. It was sufficiently late in the year for the orchards

to be ruddy with ripe apples; and in a few places the hop-pickers were

already at work. I thought it all extremely beautiful, and made up

my mind to sleep among the hops that night: imagining some cheerful

companionship in the long perspectives of poles, with the graceful

leaves twining round them.

The trampers were worse than ever that day, and inspired me with a

dread that is yet quite fresh in my mind. Some of them were most

ferocious-looking ruffians, who stared at me as I went by; and stopped,

perhaps, and called after me to come back and speak to them, and when I

took to my heels, stoned me. I recollect one young fellow--a tinker, I

suppose, from his wallet and brazier--who had a woman with him, and

who faced about and stared at me thus; and then roared to me in such a

tremendous voice to come back, that I halted and looked round.

‘Come here, when you’re called,’ said the tinker, ‘or I’ll rip your

young body open.’

I thought it best to go back. As I drew nearer to them, trying to

propitiate the tinker by my looks, I observed that the woman had a black

eye.

‘Where are you going?’ said the tinker, gripping the bosom of my shirt

with his blackened hand.

‘I am going to Dover,’ I said.

‘Where do you come from?’ asked the tinker, giving his hand another turn

in my shirt, to hold me more securely.

‘I come from London,’ I said.

‘What lay are you upon?’ asked the tinker. ‘Are you a prig?’

‘N-no,’ I said.

‘Ain’t you, by G--? If you make a brag of your honesty to me,’ said the

tinker, ‘I’ll knock your brains out.’

With his disengaged hand he made a menace of striking me, and then

looked at me from head to foot.

‘Have you got the price of a pint of beer about you?’ said the tinker.

‘If you have, out with it, afore I take it away!’

I should certainly have produced it, but that I met the woman’s look,

and saw her very slightly shake her head, and form ‘No!’ with her lips.

‘I am very poor,’ I said, attempting to smile, ‘and have got no money.’

‘Why, what do you mean?’ said the tinker, looking so sternly at me, that

I almost feared he saw the money in my pocket.

‘Sir!’ I stammered.

‘What do you mean,’ said the tinker, ‘by wearing my brother’s silk

handkerchief! Give it over here!’ And he had mine off my neck in a

moment, and tossed it to the woman.

The woman burst into a fit of laughter, as if she thought this a joke,

and tossed it back to me, nodded once, as slightly as before, and made

the word ‘Go!’ with her lips. Before I could obey, however, the tinker

seized the handkerchief out of my hand with a roughness that threw me

away like a feather, and putting it loosely round his own neck, turned

upon the woman with an oath, and knocked her down. I never shall forget

seeing her fall backward on the hard road, and lie there with her bonnet

tumbled off, and her hair all whitened in the dust; nor, when I looked

back from a distance, seeing her sitting on the pathway, which was a

bank by the roadside, wiping the blood from her face with a corner of

her shawl, while he went on ahead.

This adventure frightened me so, that, afterwards, when I saw any of

these people coming, I turned back until I could find a hiding-place,

where I remained until they had gone out of sight; which happened so

often, that I was very seriously delayed. But under this difficulty, as

under all the other difficulties of my journey, I seemed to be sustained

and led on by my fanciful picture of my mother in her youth, before I

came into the world. It always kept me company. It was there, among

the hops, when I lay down to sleep; it was with me on my waking in the

morning; it went before me all day. I have associated it, ever since,

with the sunny street of Canterbury, dozing as it were in the hot light;

and with the sight of its old houses and gateways, and the stately,

grey Cathedral, with the rooks sailing round the towers. When I came,

at last, upon the bare, wide downs near Dover, it relieved the solitary

aspect of the scene with hope; and not until I reached that first great

aim of my journey, and actually set foot in the town itself, on the

sixth day of my flight, did it desert me. But then, strange to say,

when I stood with my ragged shoes, and my dusty, sunburnt, half-clothed

figure, in the place so long desired, it seemed to vanish like a dream,

and to leave me helpless and dispirited.

I inquired about my aunt among the boatmen first, and received various

answers. One said she lived in the South Foreland Light, and had singed

her whiskers by doing so; another, that she was made fast to the great

buoy outside the harbour, and could only be visited at half-tide; a

third, that she was locked up in Maidstone jail for child-stealing; a

fourth, that she was seen to mount a broom in the last high wind, and

make direct for Calais. The fly-drivers, among whom I inquired next,

were equally jocose and equally disrespectful; and the shopkeepers, not

liking my appearance, generally replied, without hearing what I had

to say, that they had got nothing for me. I felt more miserable and

destitute than I had done at any period of my running away. My money was

all gone, I had nothing left to dispose of; I was hungry, thirsty, and

worn out; and seemed as distant from my end as if I had remained in

London.

The morning had worn away in these inquiries, and I was sitting on

the step of an empty shop at a street corner, near the market-place,

deliberating upon wandering towards those other places which had been

mentioned, when a fly-driver, coming by with his carriage, dropped a

horsecloth. Something good-natured in the man’s face, as I handed it up,

encouraged me to ask him if he could tell me where Miss Trotwood lived;

though I had asked the question so often, that it almost died upon my

lips.

‘Trotwood,’ said he. ‘Let me see. I know the name, too. Old lady?’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘rather.’

‘Pretty stiff in the back?’ said he, making himself upright.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I should think it very likely.’

‘Carries a bag?’ said he--‘bag with a good deal of room in it--is

gruffish, and comes down upon you, sharp?’

My heart sank within me as I acknowledged the undoubted accuracy of this

description.

‘Why then, I tell you what,’ said he. ‘If you go up there,’ pointing

with his whip towards the heights, ‘and keep right on till you come to

some houses facing the sea, I think you’ll hear of her. My opinion is

she won’t stand anything, so here’s a penny for you.’

I accepted the gift thankfully, and bought a loaf with it. Dispatching

this refreshment by the way, I went in the direction my friend had

indicated, and walked on a good distance without coming to the houses

he had mentioned. At length I saw some before me; and approaching them,

went into a little shop (it was what we used to call a general shop,

at home), and inquired if they could have the goodness to tell me where

Miss Trotwood lived. I addressed myself to a man behind the counter,

who was weighing some rice for a young woman; but the latter, taking the

inquiry to herself, turned round quickly.

‘My mistress?’ she said. ‘What do you want with her, boy?’

‘I want,’ I replied, ‘to speak to her, if you please.’

‘To beg of her, you mean,’ retorted the damsel.

‘No,’ I said, ‘indeed.’ But suddenly remembering that in truth I came

for no other purpose, I held my peace in confusion, and felt my face

burn.

My aunt’s handmaid, as I supposed she was from what she had said, put

her rice in a little basket and walked out of the shop; telling me that

I could follow her, if I wanted to know where Miss Trotwood lived. I

needed no second permission; though I was by this time in such a state

of consternation and agitation, that my legs shook under me. I followed

the young woman, and we soon came to a very neat little cottage with

cheerful bow-windows: in front of it, a small square gravelled court or

garden full of flowers, carefully tended, and smelling deliciously.

‘This is Miss Trotwood’s,’ said the young woman. ‘Now you know; and

that’s all I have got to say.’ With which words she hurried into the

house, as if to shake off the responsibility of my appearance; and left

me standing at the garden-gate, looking disconsolately over the top of

it towards the parlour window, where a muslin curtain partly undrawn

in the middle, a large round green screen or fan fastened on to the

windowsill, a small table, and a great chair, suggested to me that my

aunt might be at that moment seated in awful state.

My shoes were by this time in a woeful condition. The soles had shed

themselves bit by bit, and the upper leathers had broken and burst until

the very shape and form of shoes had departed from them. My hat (which

had served me for a night-cap, too) was so crushed and bent, that no old

battered handleless saucepan on a dunghill need have been ashamed to vie

with it. My shirt and trousers, stained with heat, dew, grass, and

the Kentish soil on which I had slept--and torn besides--might have

frightened the birds from my aunt’s garden, as I stood at the gate. My

hair had known no comb or brush since I left London. My face, neck, and

hands, from unaccustomed exposure to the air and sun, were burnt to a

berry-brown. From head to foot I was powdered almost as white with chalk

and dust, as if I had come out of a lime-kiln. In this plight, and with

a strong consciousness of it, I waited to introduce myself to, and make

my first impression on, my formidable aunt.

The unbroken stillness of the parlour window leading me to infer, after

a while, that she was not there, I lifted up my eyes to the window above

it, where I saw a florid, pleasant-looking gentleman, with a grey head,

who shut up one eye in a grotesque manner, nodded his head at me several

times, shook it at me as often, laughed, and went away.

I had been discomposed enough before; but I was so much the more

discomposed by this unexpected behaviour, that I was on the point of

slinking off, to think how I had best proceed, when there came out of

the house a lady with her handkerchief tied over her cap, and a pair

of gardening gloves on her hands, wearing a gardening pocket like a

toll-man’s apron, and carrying a great knife. I knew her immediately

to be Miss Betsey, for she came stalking out of the house exactly as

my poor mother had so often described her stalking up our garden at

Blunderstone Rookery.

‘Go away!’ said Miss Betsey, shaking her head, and making a distant chop

in the air with her knife. ‘Go along! No boys here!’

I watched her, with my heart at my lips, as she marched to a corner of

her garden, and stooped to dig up some little root there. Then, without

a scrap of courage, but with a great deal of desperation, I went softly

in and stood beside her, touching her with my finger.

‘If you please, ma’am,’ I began.

She started and looked up.

‘If you please, aunt.’

‘EH?’ exclaimed Miss Betsey, in a tone of amazement I have never heard

approached.

‘If you please, aunt, I am your nephew.’

‘Oh, Lord!’ said my aunt. And sat flat down in the garden-path.

‘I am David Copperfield, of Blunderstone, in Suffolk--where you came,

on the night when I was born, and saw my dear mama. I have been very

unhappy since she died. I have been slighted, and taught nothing, and

thrown upon myself, and put to work not fit for me. It made me run away

to you. I was robbed at first setting out, and have walked all the

way, and have never slept in a bed since I began the journey.’ Here

my self-support gave way all at once; and with a movement of my hands,

intended to show her my ragged state, and call it to witness that I had

suffered something, I broke into a passion of crying, which I suppose

had been pent up within me all the week.

My aunt, with every sort of expression but wonder discharged from her

countenance, sat on the gravel, staring at me, until I began to cry;

when she got up in a great hurry, collared me, and took me into the

parlour. Her first proceeding there was to unlock a tall press, bring

out several bottles, and pour some of the contents of each into my

mouth. I think they must have been taken out at random, for I am sure

I tasted aniseed water, anchovy sauce, and salad dressing. When she had

administered these restoratives, as I was still quite hysterical, and

unable to control my sobs, she put me on the sofa, with a shawl under

my head, and the handkerchief from her own head under my feet, lest I

should sully the cover; and then, sitting herself down behind the green

fan or screen I have already mentioned, so that I could not see her

face, ejaculated at intervals, ‘Mercy on us!’ letting those exclamations

off like minute guns.

After a time she rang the bell. ‘Janet,’ said my aunt, when her servant

came in. ‘Go upstairs, give my compliments to Mr. Dick, and say I wish

to speak to him.’

Janet looked a little surprised to see me lying stiffly on the sofa (I

was afraid to move lest it should be displeasing to my aunt), but went

on her errand. My aunt, with her hands behind her, walked up and down

the room, until the gentleman who had squinted at me from the upper

window came in laughing.

‘Mr. Dick,’ said my aunt, ‘don’t be a fool, because nobody can be more

discreet than you can, when you choose. We all know that. So don’t be a

fool, whatever you are.’

The gentleman was serious immediately, and looked at me, I thought, as

if he would entreat me to say nothing about the window.

‘Mr. Dick,’ said my aunt, ‘you have heard me mention David Copperfield?

Now don’t pretend not to have a memory, because you and I know better.’

‘David Copperfield?’ said Mr. Dick, who did not appear to me to

remember much about it. ‘David Copperfield? Oh yes, to be sure. David,

certainly.’

‘Well,’ said my aunt, ‘this is his boy--his son. He would be as like his

father as it’s possible to be, if he was not so like his mother, too.’

‘His son?’ said Mr. Dick. ‘David’s son? Indeed!’

‘Yes,’ pursued my aunt, ‘and he has done a pretty piece of business.

He has run away. Ah! His sister, Betsey Trotwood, never would have run

away.’ My aunt shook her head firmly, confident in the character and

behaviour of the girl who never was born.

‘Oh! you think she wouldn’t have run away?’ said Mr. Dick.

‘Bless and save the man,’ exclaimed my aunt, sharply, ‘how he talks!

Don’t I know she wouldn’t? She would have lived with her god-mother,

and we should have been devoted to one another. Where, in the name of

wonder, should his sister, Betsey Trotwood, have run from, or to?’

‘Nowhere,’ said Mr. Dick.

‘Well then,’ returned my aunt, softened by the reply, ‘how can you

pretend to be wool-gathering, Dick, when you are as sharp as a surgeon’s

lancet? Now, here you see young David Copperfield, and the question I

put to you is, what shall I do with him?’

‘What shall you do with him?’ said Mr. Dick, feebly, scratching his

head. ‘Oh! do with him?’

‘Yes,’ said my aunt, with a grave look, and her forefinger held up.

‘Come! I want some very sound advice.’

‘Why, if I was you,’ said Mr. Dick, considering, and looking vacantly

at me, ‘I should--’ The contemplation of me seemed to inspire him with a

sudden idea, and he added, briskly, ‘I should wash him!’

‘Janet,’ said my aunt, turning round with a quiet triumph, which I did

not then understand, ‘Mr. Dick sets us all right. Heat the bath!’

Although I was deeply interested in this dialogue, I could not help

observing my aunt, Mr. Dick, and Janet, while it was in progress, and

completing a survey I had already been engaged in making of the room.

My aunt was a tall, hard-featured lady, but by no means ill-looking.

There was an inflexibility in her face, in her voice, in her gait and

carriage, amply sufficient to account for the effect she had made upon

a gentle creature like my mother; but her features were rather handsome

than otherwise, though unbending and austere. I particularly noticed

that she had a very quick, bright eye. Her hair, which was grey, was

arranged in two plain divisions, under what I believe would be called a

mob-cap; I mean a cap, much more common then than now, with side-pieces

fastening under the chin. Her dress was of a lavender colour, and

perfectly neat; but scantily made, as if she desired to be as little

encumbered as possible. I remember that I thought it, in form, more like

a riding-habit with the superfluous skirt cut off, than anything else.

She wore at her side a gentleman’s gold watch, if I might judge from its

size and make, with an appropriate chain and seals; she had some linen

at her throat not unlike a shirt-collar, and things at her wrists like

little shirt-wristbands.

Mr. Dick, as I have already said, was grey-headed, and florid: I should

have said all about him, in saying so, had not his head been curiously

bowed--not by age; it reminded me of one of Mr. Creakle’s boys’ heads

after a beating--and his grey eyes prominent and large, with a strange

kind of watery brightness in them that made me, in combination with his

vacant manner, his submission to my aunt, and his childish delight when

she praised him, suspect him of being a little mad; though, if he were

mad, how he came to be there puzzled me extremely. He was dressed

like any other ordinary gentleman, in a loose grey morning coat and

waistcoat, and white trousers; and had his watch in his fob, and his

money in his pockets: which he rattled as if he were very proud of it.

Janet was a pretty blooming girl, of about nineteen or twenty, and a

perfect picture of neatness. Though I made no further observation of

her at the moment, I may mention here what I did not discover until

afterwards, namely, that she was one of a series of protegees whom my

aunt had taken into her service expressly to educate in a renouncement

of mankind, and who had generally completed their abjuration by marrying

the baker.

The room was as neat as Janet or my aunt. As I laid down my pen, a

moment since, to think of it, the air from the sea came blowing

in again, mixed with the perfume of the flowers; and I saw the

old-fashioned furniture brightly rubbed and polished, my aunt’s

inviolable chair and table by the round green fan in the bow-window, the

drugget-covered carpet, the cat, the kettle-holder, the two canaries,

the old china, the punchbowl full of dried rose-leaves, the tall press

guarding all sorts of bottles and pots, and, wonderfully out of keeping

with the rest, my dusty self upon the sofa, taking note of everything.

Janet had gone away to get the bath ready, when my aunt, to my great

alarm, became in one moment rigid with indignation, and had hardly voice

to cry out, ‘Janet! Donkeys!’

Upon which, Janet came running up the stairs as if the house were in

flames, darted out on a little piece of green in front, and warned off

two saddle-donkeys, lady-ridden, that had presumed to set hoof upon it;

while my aunt, rushing out of the house, seized the bridle of a third

animal laden with a bestriding child, turned him, led him forth from

those sacred precincts, and boxed the ears of the unlucky urchin in

attendance who had dared to profane that hallowed ground.

To this hour I don’t know whether my aunt had any lawful right of way

over that patch of green; but she had settled it in her own mind that

she had, and it was all the same to her. The one great outrage of her

life, demanding to be constantly avenged, was the passage of a donkey

over that immaculate spot. In whatever occupation she was engaged,

however interesting to her the conversation in which she was taking

part, a donkey turned the current of her ideas in a moment, and she was

upon him straight. Jugs of water, and watering-pots, were kept in secret

places ready to be discharged on the offending boys; sticks were laid

in ambush behind the door; sallies were made at all hours; and

incessant war prevailed. Perhaps this was an agreeable excitement to the

donkey-boys; or perhaps the more sagacious of the donkeys, understanding

how the case stood, delighted with constitutional obstinacy in coming

that way. I only know that there were three alarms before the bath was

ready; and that on the occasion of the last and most desperate of all,

I saw my aunt engage, single-handed, with a sandy-headed lad of fifteen,

and bump his sandy head against her own gate, before he seemed to

comprehend what was the matter. These interruptions were of the more

ridiculous to me, because she was giving me broth out of a table-spoon

at the time (having firmly persuaded herself that I was actually

starving, and must receive nourishment at first in very small

quantities), and, while my mouth was yet open to receive the spoon, she

would put it back into the basin, cry ‘Janet! Donkeys!’ and go out to

the assault.

The bath was a great comfort. For I began to be sensible of acute pains

in my limbs from lying out in the fields, and was now so tired and low

that I could hardly keep myself awake for five minutes together. When I

had bathed, they (I mean my aunt and Janet) enrobed me in a shirt and a

pair of trousers belonging to Mr. Dick, and tied me up in two or three

great shawls. What sort of bundle I looked like, I don’t know, but I

felt a very hot one. Feeling also very faint and drowsy, I soon lay down

on the sofa again and fell asleep.

It might have been a dream, originating in the fancy which had occupied

my mind so long, but I awoke with the impression that my aunt had come

and bent over me, and had put my hair away from my face, and laid my

head more comfortably, and had then stood looking at me. The words,

‘Pretty fellow,’ or ‘Poor fellow,’ seemed to be in my ears, too; but

certainly there was nothing else, when I awoke, to lead me to believe

that they had been uttered by my aunt, who sat in the bow-window gazing

at the sea from behind the green fan, which was mounted on a kind of

swivel, and turned any way.

We dined soon after I awoke, off a roast fowl and a pudding; I sitting

at table, not unlike a trussed bird myself, and moving my arms with

considerable difficulty. But as my aunt had swathed me up, I made no

complaint of being inconvenienced. All this time I was deeply anxious

to know what she was going to do with me; but she took her dinner in

profound silence, except when she occasionally fixed her eyes on me

sitting opposite, and said, ‘Mercy upon us!’ which did not by any means

relieve my anxiety.

The cloth being drawn, and some sherry put upon the table (of which I

had a glass), my aunt sent up for Mr. Dick again, who joined us, and

looked as wise as he could when she requested him to attend to my story,

which she elicited from me, gradually, by a course of questions. During

my recital, she kept her eyes on Mr. Dick, who I thought would have gone

to sleep but for that, and who, whensoever he lapsed into a smile, was

checked by a frown from my aunt.

‘Whatever possessed that poor unfortunate Baby, that she must go and be

married again,’ said my aunt, when I had finished, ‘I can’t conceive.’

‘Perhaps she fell in love with her second husband,’ Mr. Dick suggested.

‘Fell in love!’ repeated my aunt. ‘What do you mean? What business had

she to do it?’

‘Perhaps,’ Mr. Dick simpered, after thinking a little, ‘she did it for

pleasure.’

‘Pleasure, indeed!’ replied my aunt. ‘A mighty pleasure for the poor

Baby to fix her simple faith upon any dog of a fellow, certain to

ill-use her in some way or other. What did she propose to herself,

I should like to know! She had had one husband. She had seen David

Copperfield out of the world, who was always running after wax dolls

from his cradle. She had got a baby--oh, there were a pair of babies

when she gave birth to this child sitting here, that Friday night!--and

what more did she want?’

Mr. Dick secretly shook his head at me, as if he thought there was no

getting over this.

‘She couldn’t even have a baby like anybody else,’ said my aunt. ‘Where

was this child’s sister, Betsey Trotwood? Not forthcoming. Don’t tell

me!’

Mr. Dick seemed quite frightened.

‘That little man of a doctor, with his head on one side,’ said my aunt,

‘Jellips, or whatever his name was, what was he about? All he could do,

was to say to me, like a robin redbreast--as he is--“It’s a boy.” A boy!

Yah, the imbecility of the whole set of ‘em!’

The heartiness of the ejaculation startled Mr. Dick exceedingly; and me,

too, if I am to tell the truth.

‘And then, as if this was not enough, and she had not stood sufficiently

in the light of this child’s sister, Betsey Trotwood,’ said my aunt,

‘she marries a second time--goes and marries a Murderer--or a man with

a name like it--and stands in THIS child’s light! And the natural

consequence is, as anybody but a baby might have foreseen, that he

prowls and wanders. He’s as like Cain before he was grown up, as he can

be.’

Mr. Dick looked hard at me, as if to identify me in this character.

‘And then there’s that woman with the Pagan name,’ said my aunt, ‘that

Peggotty, she goes and gets married next. Because she has not seen

enough of the evil attending such things, she goes and gets married

next, as the child relates. I only hope,’ said my aunt, shaking her

head, ‘that her husband is one of those Poker husbands who abound in the

newspapers, and will beat her well with one.’

I could not bear to hear my old nurse so decried, and made the subject

of such a wish. I told my aunt that indeed she was mistaken. That

Peggotty was the best, the truest, the most faithful, most devoted, and

most self-denying friend and servant in the world; who had ever loved

me dearly, who had ever loved my mother dearly; who had held my mother’s

dying head upon her arm, on whose face my mother had imprinted her last

grateful kiss. And my remembrance of them both, choking me, I broke down

as I was trying to say that her home was my home, and that all she had

was mine, and that I would have gone to her for shelter, but for her

humble station, which made me fear that I might bring some trouble on

her--I broke down, I say, as I was trying to say so, and laid my face in

my hands upon the table.

‘Well, well!’ said my aunt, ‘the child is right to stand by those who

have stood by him--Janet! Donkeys!’

I thoroughly believe that but for those unfortunate donkeys, we should

have come to a good understanding; for my aunt had laid her hand on my

shoulder, and the impulse was upon me, thus emboldened, to embrace her

and beseech her protection. But the interruption, and the disorder she

was thrown into by the struggle outside, put an end to all softer ideas

for the present, and kept my aunt indignantly declaiming to Mr. Dick

about her determination to appeal for redress to the laws of her

country, and to bring actions for trespass against the whole donkey

proprietorship of Dover, until tea-time.

After tea, we sat at the window--on the look-out, as I imagined, from

my aunt’s sharp expression of face, for more invaders--until dusk, when

Janet set candles, and a backgammon-board, on the table, and pulled down

the blinds.

‘Now, Mr. Dick,’ said my aunt, with her grave look, and her forefinger

up as before, ‘I am going to ask you another question. Look at this

child.’

‘David’s son?’ said Mr. Dick, with an attentive, puzzled face.

‘Exactly so,’ returned my aunt. ‘What would you do with him, now?’

‘Do with David’s son?’ said Mr. Dick.

‘Ay,’ replied my aunt, ‘with David’s son.’

‘Oh!’ said Mr. Dick. ‘Yes. Do with--I should put him to bed.’

‘Janet!’ cried my aunt, with the same complacent triumph that I had

remarked before. ‘Mr. Dick sets us all right. If the bed is ready, we’ll

take him up to it.’

Janet reporting it to be quite ready, I was taken up to it; kindly, but

in some sort like a prisoner; my aunt going in front and Janet bringing

up the rear. The only circumstance which gave me any new hope, was my

aunt’s stopping on the stairs to inquire about a smell of fire that was

prevalent there; and janet’s replying that she had been making tinder

down in the kitchen, of my old shirt. But there were no other clothes in

my room than the odd heap of things I wore; and when I was left there,

with a little taper which my aunt forewarned me would burn exactly five

minutes, I heard them lock my door on the outside. Turning these things

over in my mind I deemed it possible that my aunt, who could know

nothing of me, might suspect I had a habit of running away, and took

precautions, on that account, to have me in safe keeping.

The room was a pleasant one, at the top of the house, overlooking the

sea, on which the moon was shining brilliantly. After I had said my

prayers, and the candle had burnt out, I remember how I still sat

looking at the moonlight on the water, as if I could hope to read my

fortune in it, as in a bright book; or to see my mother with her child,

coming from Heaven, along that shining path, to look upon me as she had

looked when I last saw her sweet face. I remember how the solemn feeling

with which at length I turned my eyes away, yielded to the sensation of

gratitude and rest which the sight of the white-curtained bed--and how

much more the lying softly down upon it, nestling in the snow-white

sheets!--inspired. I remember how I thought of all the solitary places

under the night sky where I had slept, and how I prayed that I never

might be houseless any more, and never might forget the houseless. I

remember how I seemed to float, then, down the melancholy glory of that

track upon the sea, away into the world of dreams.