第 127 页

body by a strong line. In a similar anticipation of life afloat, and in

the Bush, Mr. Micawber, instead of helping Mrs. Micawber and his eldest

son and daughter to punch, in wine-glasses, which he might easily have

done, for there was a shelf-full in the room, served it out to them in a

series of villainous little tin pots; and I never saw him enjoy anything

so much as drinking out of his own particular pint pot, and putting it

in his pocket at the close of the evening.

‘The luxuries of the old country,’ said Mr. Micawber, with an intense

satisfaction in their renouncement, ‘we abandon. The denizens of the

forest cannot, of course, expect to participate in the refinements of

the land of the Free.’

Here, a boy came in to say that Mr. Micawber was wanted downstairs.

‘I have a presentiment,’ said Mrs. Micawber, setting down her tin pot,

‘that it is a member of my family!’

‘If so, my dear,’ observed Mr. Micawber, with his usual suddenness of

warmth on that subject, ‘as the member of your family--whoever he, she,

or it, may be--has kept us waiting for a considerable period, perhaps

the Member may now wait MY convenience.’

‘Micawber,’ said his wife, in a low tone, ‘at such a time as this--’

‘“It is not meet,”’ said Mr. Micawber, rising, ‘“that every nice offence

should bear its comment!” Emma, I stand reproved.’

‘The loss, Micawber,’ observed his wife, ‘has been my family’s, not

yours. If my family are at length sensible of the deprivation to which

their own conduct has, in the past, exposed them, and now desire to

extend the hand of fellowship, let it not be repulsed.’

‘My dear,’ he returned, ‘so be it!’

‘If not for their sakes; for mine, Micawber,’ said his wife.

‘Emma,’ he returned, ‘that view of the question is, at such a moment,

irresistible. I cannot, even now, distinctly pledge myself to fall

upon your family’s neck; but the member of your family, who is now in

attendance, shall have no genial warmth frozen by me.’

Mr. Micawber withdrew, and was absent some little time; in the course of

which Mrs. Micawber was not wholly free from an apprehension that words

might have arisen between him and the Member. At length the same boy

reappeared, and presented me with a note written in pencil, and headed,

in a legal manner, ‘Heep v. Micawber’. From this document, I learned

that Mr. Micawber being again arrested, ‘Was in a final paroxysm of

despair; and that he begged me to send him his knife and pint pot, by

bearer, as they might prove serviceable during the brief remainder of

his existence, in jail. He also requested, as a last act of friendship,

that I would see his family to the Parish Workhouse, and forget that

such a Being ever lived.

Of course I answered this note by going down with the boy to pay the

money, where I found Mr. Micawber sitting in a corner, looking darkly at

the Sheriff ‘s Officer who had effected the capture. On his release,

he embraced me with the utmost fervour; and made an entry of the

transaction in his pocket-book--being very particular, I recollect,

about a halfpenny I inadvertently omitted from my statement of the

total.

This momentous pocket-book was a timely reminder to him of another

transaction. On our return to the room upstairs (where he accounted for

his absence by saying that it had been occasioned by circumstances over

which he had no control), he took out of it a large sheet of paper,

folded small, and quite covered with long sums, carefully worked. From

the glimpse I had of them, I should say that I never saw such sums

out of a school ciphering-book. These, it seemed, were calculations of

compound interest on what he called ‘the principal amount of forty-one,

ten, eleven and a half’, for various periods. After a careful

consideration of these, and an elaborate estimate of his resources,

he had come to the conclusion to select that sum which represented the

amount with compound interest to two years, fifteen calendar months, and

fourteen days, from that date. For this he had drawn a note-of-hand

with great neatness, which he handed over to Traddles on the spot,

a discharge of his debt in full (as between man and man), with many

acknowledgements.

‘I have still a presentiment,’ said Mrs. Micawber, pensively shaking her

head, ‘that my family will appear on board, before we finally depart.’

Mr. Micawber evidently had his presentiment on the subject too, but he

put it in his tin pot and swallowed it.

‘If you have any opportunity of sending letters home, on your passage,

Mrs. Micawber,’ said my aunt, ‘you must let us hear from you, you know.’

‘My dear Miss Trotwood,’ she replied, ‘I shall only be too happy

to think that anyone expects to hear from us. I shall not fail to

correspond. Mr. Copperfield, I trust, as an old and familiar friend,

will not object to receive occasional intelligence, himself, from one

who knew him when the twins were yet unconscious?’

I said that I should hope to hear, whenever she had an opportunity of

writing.

‘Please Heaven, there will be many such opportunities,’ said Mr.

Micawber. ‘The ocean, in these times, is a perfect fleet of ships; and

we can hardly fail to encounter many, in running over. It is merely

crossing,’ said Mr. Micawber, trifling with his eye-glass, ‘merely

crossing. The distance is quite imaginary.’

I think, now, how odd it was, but how wonderfully like Mr. Micawber,

that, when he went from London to Canterbury, he should have talked as

if he were going to the farthest limits of the earth; and, when he went

from England to Australia, as if he were going for a little trip across

the channel.

‘On the voyage, I shall endeavour,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘occasionally

to spin them a yarn; and the melody of my son Wilkins will, I trust,

be acceptable at the galley-fire. When Mrs. Micawber has her

sea-legs on--an expression in which I hope there is no conventional

impropriety--she will give them, I dare say, “Little Tafflin”. Porpoises

and dolphins, I believe, will be frequently observed athwart our

Bows; and, either on the starboard or the larboard quarter, objects of

interest will be continually descried. In short,’ said Mr. Micawber,

with the old genteel air, ‘the probability is, all will be found so

exciting, alow and aloft, that when the lookout, stationed in the

main-top, cries Land-oh! we shall be very considerably astonished!’

With that he flourished off the contents of his little tin pot, as if he

had made the voyage, and had passed a first-class examination before the

highest naval authorities.

‘What I chiefly hope, my dear Mr. Copperfield,’ said Mrs. Micawber,

‘is, that in some branches of our family we may live again in the old

country. Do not frown, Micawber! I do not now refer to my own family,

but to our children’s children. However vigorous the sapling,’ said Mrs.

Micawber, shaking her head, ‘I cannot forget the parent-tree; and when

our race attains to eminence and fortune, I own I should wish that

fortune to flow into the coffers of Britannia.’

‘My dear,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘Britannia must take her chance. I am

bound to say that she has never done much for me, and that I have no

particular wish upon the subject.’

‘Micawber,’ returned Mrs. Micawber, ‘there, you are wrong. You are going

out, Micawber, to this distant clime, to strengthen, not to weaken, the

connexion between yourself and Albion.’

‘The connexion in question, my love,’ rejoined Mr. Micawber, ‘has not

laid me, I repeat, under that load of personal obligation, that I am at

all sensitive as to the formation of another connexion.’

‘Micawber,’ returned Mrs. Micawber. ‘There, I again say, you are wrong.

You do not know your power, Micawber. It is that which will strengthen,

even in this step you are about to take, the connexion between yourself

and Albion.’

Mr. Micawber sat in his elbow-chair, with his eyebrows raised; half

receiving and half repudiating Mrs. Micawber’s views as they were

stated, but very sensible of their foresight.

‘My dear Mr. Copperfield,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘I wish Mr. Micawber to

feel his position. It appears to me highly important that Mr. Micawber

should, from the hour of his embarkation, feel his position. Your old

knowledge of me, my dear Mr. Copperfield, will have told you that I have

not the sanguine disposition of Mr. Micawber. My disposition is, if I

may say so, eminently practical. I know that this is a long voyage. I

know that it will involve many privations and inconveniences. I cannot

shut my eyes to those facts. But I also know what Mr. Micawber is.

I know the latent power of Mr. Micawber. And therefore I consider it

vitally important that Mr. Micawber should feel his position.’

‘My love,’ he observed, ‘perhaps you will allow me to remark that it is

barely possible that I DO feel my position at the present moment.’

‘I think not, Micawber,’ she rejoined. ‘Not fully. My dear Mr.

Copperfield, Mr. Micawber’s is not a common case. Mr. Micawber is going

to a distant country expressly in order that he may be fully understood

and appreciated for the first time. I wish Mr. Micawber to take his

stand upon that vessel’s prow, and firmly say, “This country I am

come to conquer! Have you honours? Have you riches? Have you posts of

profitable pecuniary emolument? Let them be brought forward. They are

mine!”’

Mr. Micawber, glancing at us all, seemed to think there was a good deal

in this idea.

‘I wish Mr. Micawber, if I make myself understood,’ said Mrs. Micawber,

in her argumentative tone, ‘to be the Caesar of his own fortunes. That,

my dear Mr. Copperfield, appears to me to be his true position. From

the first moment of this voyage, I wish Mr. Micawber to stand upon

that vessel’s prow and say, “Enough of delay: enough of disappointment:

enough of limited means. That was in the old country. This is the new.

Produce your reparation. Bring it forward!”’

Mr. Micawber folded his arms in a resolute manner, as if he were then

stationed on the figure-head.

‘And doing that,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘--feeling his position--am I not

right in saying that Mr. Micawber will strengthen, and not weaken, his

connexion with Britain? An important public character arising in that

hemisphere, shall I be told that its influence will not be felt at home?

Can I be so weak as to imagine that Mr. Micawber, wielding the rod of

talent and of power in Australia, will be nothing in England? I am but

a woman; but I should be unworthy of myself and of my papa, if I were

guilty of such absurd weakness.’

Mrs. Micawber’s conviction that her arguments were unanswerable, gave

a moral elevation to her tone which I think I had never heard in it

before.

‘And therefore it is,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘that I the more wish, that,

at a future period, we may live again on the parent soil. Mr. Micawber

may be--I cannot disguise from myself that the probability is, Mr.

Micawber will be--a page of History; and he ought then to be represented

in the country which gave him birth, and did NOT give him employment!’

‘My love,’ observed Mr. Micawber, ‘it is impossible for me not to be

touched by your affection. I am always willing to defer to your good

sense. What will be--will be. Heaven forbid that I should grudge my

native country any portion of the wealth that may be accumulated by our

descendants!’

‘That’s well,’ said my aunt, nodding towards Mr. Peggotty, ‘and I drink

my love to you all, and every blessing and success attend you!’

Mr. Peggotty put down the two children he had been nursing, one on each

knee, to join Mr. and Mrs. Micawber in drinking to all of us in return;

and when he and the Micawbers cordially shook hands as comrades, and his

brown face brightened with a smile, I felt that he would make his way,

establish a good name, and be beloved, go where he would.

Even the children were instructed, each to dip a wooden spoon into Mr.

Micawber’s pot, and pledge us in its contents. When this was done, my

aunt and Agnes rose, and parted from the emigrants. It was a sorrowful

farewell. They were all crying; the children hung about Agnes to the

last; and we left poor Mrs. Micawber in a very distressed condition,

sobbing and weeping by a dim candle, that must have made the room look,

from the river, like a miserable light-house.

I went down again next morning to see that they were away. They had

departed, in a boat, as early as five o’clock. It was a wonderful

instance to me of the gap such partings make, that although my

association of them with the tumble-down public-house and the wooden

stairs dated only from last night, both seemed dreary and deserted, now

that they were gone.

In the afternoon of the next day, my old nurse and I went down to

Gravesend. We found the ship in the river, surrounded by a crowd

of boats; a favourable wind blowing; the signal for sailing at her

mast-head. I hired a boat directly, and we put off to her; and getting

through the little vortex of confusion of which she was the centre, went

on board.

Mr. Peggotty was waiting for us on deck. He told me that Mr. Micawber

had just now been arrested again (and for the last time) at the suit of

Heep, and that, in compliance with a request I had made to him, he had

paid the money, which I repaid him. He then took us down between decks;

and there, any lingering fears I had of his having heard any rumours of

what had happened, were dispelled by Mr. Micawber’s coming out of the

gloom, taking his arm with an air of friendship and protection, and

telling me that they had scarcely been asunder for a moment, since the

night before last.

It was such a strange scene to me, and so confined and dark, that, at

first, I could make out hardly anything; but, by degrees, it cleared, as

my eyes became more accustomed to the gloom, and I seemed to stand in

a picture by OSTADE. Among the great beams, bulks, and ringbolts of the

ship, and the emigrant-berths, and chests, and bundles, and barrels, and

heaps of miscellaneous baggage--‘lighted up, here and there, by dangling

lanterns; and elsewhere by the yellow daylight straying down a windsail

or a hatchway--were crowded groups of people, making new friendships,

taking leave of one another, talking, laughing, crying, eating and