第 16 页

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.’

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