第 15 页

‘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