第 136 页

the truth of my love for her, and the trouble in which it had ripened to

be what it was; and hence it was that I revealed it. And O, Agnes, even

out of thy true eyes, in that same time, the spirit of my child-wife

looked upon me, saying it was well; and winning me, through thee, to

tenderest recollections of the Blossom that had withered in its bloom!

‘I am so blest, Trotwood--my heart is so overcharged--but there is one

thing I must say.’

‘Dearest, what?’

She laid her gentle hands upon my shoulders, and looked calmly in my

face.

‘Do you know, yet, what it is?’

‘I am afraid to speculate on what it is. Tell me, my dear.’

‘I have loved you all my life!’

O, we were happy, we were happy! Our tears were not for the trials (hers

so much the greater) through which we had come to be thus, but for the

rapture of being thus, never to be divided more!

We walked, that winter evening, in the fields together; and the blessed

calm within us seemed to be partaken by the frosty air. The early stars

began to shine while we were lingering on, and looking up to them, we

thanked our GOD for having guided us to this tranquillity.

We stood together in the same old-fashioned window at night, when the

moon was shining; Agnes with her quiet eyes raised up to it; I following

her glance. Long miles of road then opened out before my mind; and,

toiling on, I saw a ragged way-worn boy, forsaken and neglected, who

should come to call even the heart now beating against mine, his own.

It was nearly dinner-time next day when we appeared before my aunt. She

was up in my study, Peggotty said: which it was her pride to keep in

readiness and order for me. We found her, in her spectacles, sitting by

the fire.

‘Goodness me!’ said my aunt, peering through the dusk, ‘who’s this

you’re bringing home?’

‘Agnes,’ said I.

As we had arranged to say nothing at first, my aunt was not a little

discomfited. She darted a hopeful glance at me, when I said ‘Agnes’; but

seeing that I looked as usual, she took off her spectacles in despair,

and rubbed her nose with them.

She greeted Agnes heartily, nevertheless; and we were soon in the

lighted parlour downstairs, at dinner. My aunt put on her spectacles

twice or thrice, to take another look at me, but as often took them

off again, disappointed, and rubbed her nose with them. Much to the

discomfiture of Mr. Dick, who knew this to be a bad symptom.

‘By the by, aunt,’ said I, after dinner; ‘I have been speaking to Agnes

about what you told me.’

‘Then, Trot,’ said my aunt, turning scarlet, ‘you did wrong, and broke

your promise.’

‘You are not angry, aunt, I trust? I am sure you won’t be, when you

learn that Agnes is not unhappy in any attachment.’

‘Stuff and nonsense!’ said my aunt.

As my aunt appeared to be annoyed, I thought the best way was to cut her

annoyance short. I took Agnes in my arm to the back of her chair, and we

both leaned over her. My aunt, with one clap of her hands, and one look

through her spectacles, immediately went into hysterics, for the first

and only time in all my knowledge of her.

The hysterics called up Peggotty. The moment my aunt was restored, she

flew at Peggotty, and calling her a silly old creature, hugged her with

all her might. After that, she hugged Mr. Dick (who was highly honoured,

but a good deal surprised); and after that, told them why. Then, we were

all happy together.

I could not discover whether my aunt, in her last short conversation

with me, had fallen on a pious fraud, or had really mistaken the state

of my mind. It was quite enough, she said, that she had told me Agnes

was going to be married; and that I now knew better than anyone how true

it was.

We were married within a fortnight. Traddles and Sophy, and Doctor and

Mrs. Strong, were the only guests at our quiet wedding. We left them

full of joy; and drove away together. Clasped in my embrace, I held the

source of every worthy aspiration I had ever had; the centre of myself,

the circle of my life, my own, my wife; my love of whom was founded on a

rock!

‘Dearest husband!’ said Agnes. ‘Now that I may call you by that name, I

have one thing more to tell you.’

‘Let me hear it, love.’

‘It grows out of the night when Dora died. She sent you for me.’

‘She did.’

‘She told me that she left me something. Can you think what it was?’

I believed I could. I drew the wife who had so long loved me, closer to

my side.

‘She told me that she made a last request to me, and left me a last

charge.’

‘And it was--’

‘That only I would occupy this vacant place.’

And Agnes laid her head upon my breast, and wept; and I wept with her,

though we were so happy.

CHAPTER 63. A VISITOR

What I have purposed to record is nearly finished; but there is yet an

incident conspicuous in my memory, on which it often rests with delight,

and without which one thread in the web I have spun would have a

ravelled end.

I had advanced in fame and fortune, my domestic joy was perfect, I had

been married ten happy years. Agnes and I were sitting by the fire, in

our house in London, one night in spring, and three of our children were

playing in the room, when I was told that a stranger wished to see me.

He had been asked if he came on business, and had answered No; he had

come for the pleasure of seeing me, and had come a long way. He was an

old man, my servant said, and looked like a farmer.

As this sounded mysterious to the children, and moreover was like the

beginning of a favourite story Agnes used to tell them, introductory

to the arrival of a wicked old Fairy in a cloak who hated everybody, it

produced some commotion. One of our boys laid his head in his mother’s

lap to be out of harm’s way, and little Agnes (our eldest child) left

her doll in a chair to represent her, and thrust out her little heap

of golden curls from between the window-curtains, to see what happened

next.

‘Let him come in here!’ said I.

There soon appeared, pausing in the dark doorway as he entered, a hale,

grey-haired old man. Little Agnes, attracted by his looks, had run to

bring him in, and I had not yet clearly seen his face, when my wife,

starting up, cried out to me, in a pleased and agitated voice, that it

was Mr. Peggotty!

It WAS Mr. Peggotty. An old man now, but in a ruddy, hearty, strong old

age. When our first emotion was over, and he sat before the fire with

the children on his knees, and the blaze shining on his face, he looked,

to me, as vigorous and robust, withal as handsome, an old man, as ever I

had seen.

‘Mas’r Davy,’ said he. And the old name in the old tone fell so

naturally on my ear! ‘Mas’r Davy, ‘tis a joyful hour as I see you, once

more, ‘long with your own trew wife!’

‘A joyful hour indeed, old friend!’ cried I.

‘And these heer pretty ones,’ said Mr. Peggotty. ‘To look at these heer

flowers! Why, Mas’r Davy, you was but the heighth of the littlest of

these, when I first see you! When Em’ly warn’t no bigger, and our poor

lad were BUT a lad!’

‘Time has changed me more than it has changed you since then,’ said I.

‘But let these dear rogues go to bed; and as no house in England but

this must hold you, tell me where to send for your luggage (is the old

black bag among it, that went so far, I wonder!), and then, over a glass

of Yarmouth grog, we will have the tidings of ten years!’

‘Are you alone?’ asked Agnes.

‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said, kissing her hand, ‘quite alone.’

We sat him between us, not knowing how to give him welcome enough; and

as I began to listen to his old familiar voice, I could have fancied he

was still pursuing his long journey in search of his darling niece.

‘It’s a mort of water,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘fur to come across, and

on’y stay a matter of fower weeks. But water [‘specially when ‘tis salt)

comes nat’ral to me; and friends is dear, and I am heer. --Which is

verse,’ said Mr. Peggotty, surprised to find it out, ‘though I hadn’t

such intentions.’

‘Are you going back those many thousand miles, so soon?’ asked Agnes.

‘Yes, ma’am,’ he returned. ‘I giv the promise to Em’ly, afore I come

away. You see, I doen’t grow younger as the years comes round, and if

I hadn’t sailed as ‘twas, most like I shouldn’t never have done ‘t. And

it’s allus been on my mind, as I must come and see Mas’r Davy and your

own sweet blooming self, in your wedded happiness, afore I got to be too

old.’

He looked at us, as if he could never feast his eyes on us sufficiently.

Agnes laughingly put back some scattered locks of his grey hair, that he

might see us better.

‘And now tell us,’ said I, ‘everything relating to your fortunes.’

‘Our fortuns, Mas’r Davy,’ he rejoined, ‘is soon told. We haven’t fared

nohows, but fared to thrive. We’ve allus thrived. We’ve worked as we

ought to ‘t, and maybe we lived a leetle hard at first or so, but

we have allus thrived. What with sheep-farming, and what with

stock-farming, and what with one thing and what with t’other, we are as

well to do, as well could be. Theer’s been kiender a blessing fell upon

us,’ said Mr. Peggotty, reverentially inclining his head, ‘and we’ve

done nowt but prosper. That is, in the long run. If not yesterday, why

then today. If not today, why then tomorrow.’

‘And Emily?’ said Agnes and I, both together.

‘Em’ly,’ said he, ‘arter you left her, ma’am--and I never heerd her

saying of her prayers at night, t’other side the canvas screen, when we

was settled in the Bush, but what I heerd your name--and arter she and

me lost sight of Mas’r Davy, that theer shining sundown--was that low,

at first, that, if she had know’d then what Mas’r Davy kep from us so

kind and thowtful, ‘tis my opinion she’d have drooped away. But theer

was some poor folks aboard as had illness among ‘em, and she took care

of them; and theer was the children in our company, and she took care of

them; and so she got to be busy, and to be doing good, and that helped

her.’

‘When did she first hear of it?’ I asked.

‘I kep it from her arter I heerd on ‘t,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘going

on nigh a year. We was living then in a solitary place, but among the

beautifullest trees, and with the roses a-covering our Beein to the

roof. Theer come along one day, when I was out a-working on the land, a

traveller from our own Norfolk or Suffolk in England (I doen’t rightly

mind which), and of course we took him in, and giv him to eat and drink,

and made him welcome. We all do that, all the colony over. He’d got an

old newspaper with him, and some other account in print of the storm.

That’s how she know’d it. When I came home at night, I found she know’d

it.’

He dropped his voice as he said these words, and the gravity I so well

remembered overspread his face.

‘Did it change her much?’ we asked.

‘Aye, for a good long time,’ he said, shaking his head; ‘if not to this

present hour. But I think the solitoode done her good. And she had a

deal to mind in the way of poultry and the like, and minded of it, and

come through. I wonder,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘if you could see my

Em’ly now, Mas’r Davy, whether you’d know her!’

‘Is she so altered?’ I inquired.

‘I doen’t know. I see her ev’ry day, and doen’t know; But, odd-times, I

have thowt so. A slight figure,’ said Mr. Peggotty, looking at the fire,

‘kiender worn; soft, sorrowful, blue eyes; a delicate face; a pritty

head, leaning a little down; a quiet voice and way--timid a’most. That’s

Em’ly!’

We silently observed him as he sat, still looking at the fire.

‘Some thinks,’ he said, ‘as her affection was ill-bestowed; some, as her

marriage was broken off by death. No one knows how ‘tis. She might have

married well, a mort of times, “but, uncle,” she says to me, “that’s

gone for ever.” Cheerful along with me; retired when others is by;

fond of going any distance fur to teach a child, or fur to tend a sick

person, or fur to do some kindness tow’rds a young girl’s wedding (and

she’s done a many, but has never seen one); fondly loving of her uncle;

patient; liked by young and old; sowt out by all that has any trouble.

That’s Em’ly!’

He drew his hand across his face, and with a half-suppressed sigh looked

up from the fire.

‘Is Martha with you yet?’ I asked.

‘Martha,’ he replied, ‘got married, Mas’r Davy, in the second year. A

young man, a farm-labourer, as come by us on his way to market with his

mas’r’s drays--a journey of over five hundred mile, theer and back--made

offers fur to take her fur his wife (wives is very scarce theer), and

then to set up fur their two selves in the Bush. She spoke to me fur to

tell him her trew story. I did. They was married, and they live fower

hundred mile away from any voices but their own and the singing birds.’

‘Mrs. Gummidge?’ I suggested.

It was a pleasant key to touch, for Mr. Peggotty suddenly burst into a

roar of laughter, and rubbed his hands up and down his legs, as he had

been accustomed to do when he enjoyed himself in the long-shipwrecked

boat.

‘Would you believe it!’ he said. ‘Why, someun even made offer fur to

marry her! If a ship’s cook that was turning settler, Mas’r Davy, didn’t

make offers fur to marry Missis Gummidge, I’m Gormed--and I can’t say no

fairer than that!’

I never saw Agnes laugh so. This sudden ecstasy on the part of Mr.

Peggotty was so delightful to her, that she could not leave off

laughing; and the more she laughed the more she made me laugh, and the

greater Mr. Peggotty’s ecstasy became, and the more he rubbed his legs.

‘And what did Mrs. Gummidge say?’ I asked, when I was grave enough.

‘If you’ll believe me,’ returned Mr. Peggotty, ‘Missis Gummidge, ‘stead

of saying “thank you, I’m much obleeged to you, I ain’t a-going fur

to change my condition at my time of life,” up’d with a bucket as was

standing by, and laid it over that theer ship’s cook’s head ‘till he

sung out fur help, and I went in and reskied of him.’

Mr. Peggotty burst into a great roar of laughter, and Agnes and I both

kept him company.

‘But I must say this, for the good creetur,’ he resumed, wiping his

face, when we were quite exhausted; ‘she has been all she said she’d

be to us, and more. She’s the willingest, the trewest, the