第 22 页

month’s warning too. I mustered courage once, to ask Miss Murdstone when

I was going back to school; and she answered dryly, she believed I was

not going back at all. I was told nothing more. I was very anxious to

know what was going to be done with me, and so was Peggotty; but neither

she nor I could pick up any information on the subject.

There was one change in my condition, which, while it relieved me of

a great deal of present uneasiness, might have made me, if I had been

capable of considering it closely, yet more uncomfortable about the

future. It was this. The constraint that had been put upon me, was quite

abandoned. I was so far from being required to keep my dull post in

the parlour, that on several occasions, when I took my seat there, Miss

Murdstone frowned to me to go away. I was so far from being warned off

from Peggotty’s society, that, provided I was not in Mr. Murdstone’s, I

was never sought out or inquired for. At first I was in daily dread of

his taking my education in hand again, or of Miss Murdstone’s

devoting herself to it; but I soon began to think that such fears were

groundless, and that all I had to anticipate was neglect.

I do not conceive that this discovery gave me much pain then. I was

still giddy with the shock of my mother’s death, and in a kind of

stunned state as to all tributary things. I can recollect, indeed, to

have speculated, at odd times, on the possibility of my not being taught

any more, or cared for any more; and growing up to be a shabby, moody

man, lounging an idle life away, about the village; as well as on the

feasibility of my getting rid of this picture by going away somewhere,

like the hero in a story, to seek my fortune: but these were transient

visions, daydreams I sat looking at sometimes, as if they were faintly

painted or written on the wall of my room, and which, as they melted

away, left the wall blank again.

‘Peggotty,’ I said in a thoughtful whisper, one evening, when I was

warming my hands at the kitchen fire, ‘Mr. Murdstone likes me less than

he used to. He never liked me much, Peggotty; but he would rather not

even see me now, if he can help it.’

‘Perhaps it’s his sorrow,’ said Peggotty, stroking my hair.

‘I am sure, Peggotty, I am sorry too. If I believed it was his sorrow,

I should not think of it at all. But it’s not that; oh, no, it’s not

that.’

‘How do you know it’s not that?’ said Peggotty, after a silence.

‘Oh, his sorrow is another and quite a different thing. He is sorry at

this moment, sitting by the fireside with Miss Murdstone; but if I was

to go in, Peggotty, he would be something besides.’

‘What would he be?’ said Peggotty.

‘Angry,’ I answered, with an involuntary imitation of his dark frown.

‘If he was only sorry, he wouldn’t look at me as he does. I am only

sorry, and it makes me feel kinder.’

Peggotty said nothing for a little while; and I warmed my hands, as

silent as she.

‘Davy,’ she said at length.

‘Yes, Peggotty?’ ‘I have tried, my dear, all ways I could think of--all

the ways there are, and all the ways there ain’t, in short--to get a

suitable service here, in Blunderstone; but there’s no such a thing, my

love.’

‘And what do you mean to do, Peggotty,’ says I, wistfully. ‘Do you mean

to go and seek your fortune?’

‘I expect I shall be forced to go to Yarmouth,’ replied Peggotty, ‘and

live there.’

‘You might have gone farther off,’ I said, brightening a little, ‘and

been as bad as lost. I shall see you sometimes, my dear old Peggotty,

there. You won’t be quite at the other end of the world, will you?’

‘Contrary ways, please God!’ cried Peggotty, with great animation. ‘As

long as you are here, my pet, I shall come over every week of my life to

see you. One day, every week of my life!’

I felt a great weight taken off my mind by this promise: but even this

was not all, for Peggotty went on to say:

‘I’m a-going, Davy, you see, to my brother’s, first, for another

fortnight’s visit--just till I have had time to look about me, and

get to be something like myself again. Now, I have been thinking that

perhaps, as they don’t want you here at present, you might be let to go

along with me.’

If anything, short of being in a different relation to every one about

me, Peggotty excepted, could have given me a sense of pleasure at that

time, it would have been this project of all others. The idea of being

again surrounded by those honest faces, shining welcome on me; of

renewing the peacefulness of the sweet Sunday morning, when the bells

were ringing, the stones dropping in the water, and the shadowy ships

breaking through the mist; of roaming up and down with little Em’ly,

telling her my troubles, and finding charms against them in the shells

and pebbles on the beach; made a calm in my heart. It was ruffled next

moment, to be sure, by a doubt of Miss Murdstone’s giving her consent;

but even that was set at rest soon, for she came out to take an evening

grope in the store-closet while we were yet in conversation, and

Peggotty, with a boldness that amazed me, broached the topic on the

spot.

‘The boy will be idle there,’ said Miss Murdstone, looking into a

pickle-jar, ‘and idleness is the root of all evil. But, to be sure, he

would be idle here--or anywhere, in my opinion.’

Peggotty had an angry answer ready, I could see; but she swallowed it

for my sake, and remained silent.

‘Humph!’ said Miss Murdstone, still keeping her eye on the pickles;

‘it is of more importance than anything else--it is of paramount

importance--that my brother should not be disturbed or made

uncomfortable. I suppose I had better say yes.’

I thanked her, without making any demonstration of joy, lest it should

induce her to withdraw her assent. Nor could I help thinking this a

prudent course, since she looked at me out of the pickle-jar, with

as great an access of sourness as if her black eyes had absorbed its

contents. However, the permission was given, and was never retracted;

for when the month was out, Peggotty and I were ready to depart.

Mr. Barkis came into the house for Peggotty’s boxes. I had never known

him to pass the garden-gate before, but on this occasion he came into

the house. And he gave me a look as he shouldered the largest box and

went out, which I thought had meaning in it, if meaning could ever be

said to find its way into Mr. Barkis’s visage.

Peggotty was naturally in low spirits at leaving what had been her home

so many years, and where the two strong attachments of her life--for

my mother and myself--had been formed. She had been walking in the

churchyard, too, very early; and she got into the cart, and sat in it

with her handkerchief at her eyes.

So long as she remained in this condition, Mr. Barkis gave no sign

of life whatever. He sat in his usual place and attitude like a great

stuffed figure. But when she began to look about her, and to speak to

me, he nodded his head and grinned several times. I have not the least

notion at whom, or what he meant by it.

‘It’s a beautiful day, Mr. Barkis!’ I said, as an act of politeness.

‘It ain’t bad,’ said Mr. Barkis, who generally qualified his speech, and

rarely committed himself.

‘Peggotty is quite comfortable now, Mr. Barkis,’ I remarked, for his

satisfaction.

‘Is she, though?’ said Mr. Barkis.

After reflecting about it, with a sagacious air, Mr. Barkis eyed her,

and said:

‘ARE you pretty comfortable?’

Peggotty laughed, and answered in the affirmative.

‘But really and truly, you know. Are you?’ growled Mr. Barkis, sliding

nearer to her on the seat, and nudging her with his elbow. ‘Are you?

Really and truly pretty comfortable? Are you? Eh?’

At each of these inquiries Mr. Barkis shuffled nearer to her, and gave

her another nudge; so that at last we were all crowded together in the

left-hand corner of the cart, and I was so squeezed that I could hardly

bear it.

Peggotty calling his attention to my sufferings, Mr. Barkis gave me a

little more room at once, and got away by degrees. But I could not help

observing that he seemed to think he had hit upon a wonderful expedient

for expressing himself in a neat, agreeable, and pointed manner, without

the inconvenience of inventing conversation. He manifestly chuckled over

it for some time. By and by he turned to Peggotty again, and repeating,

‘Are you pretty comfortable though?’ bore down upon us as before, until

the breath was nearly edged out of my body. By and by he made another

descent upon us with the same inquiry, and the same result. At length,

I got up whenever I saw him coming, and standing on the foot-board,

pretended to look at the prospect; after which I did very well.

He was so polite as to stop at a public-house, expressly on our account,

and entertain us with broiled mutton and beer. Even when Peggotty was

in the act of drinking, he was seized with one of those approaches, and

almost choked her. But as we drew nearer to the end of our journey, he

had more to do and less time for gallantry; and when we got on Yarmouth

pavement, we were all too much shaken and jolted, I apprehend, to have

any leisure for anything else.

Mr. Peggotty and Ham waited for us at the old place. They received me

and Peggotty in an affectionate manner, and shook hands with Mr. Barkis,

who, with his hat on the very back of his head, and a shame-faced leer

upon his countenance, and pervading his very legs, presented but a

vacant appearance, I thought. They each took one of Peggotty’s trunks,

and we were going away, when Mr. Barkis solemnly made a sign to me with

his forefinger to come under an archway.

‘I say,’ growled Mr. Barkis, ‘it was all right.’

I looked up into his face, and answered, with an attempt to be very

profound: ‘Oh!’

‘It didn’t come to a end there,’ said Mr. Barkis, nodding

confidentially. ‘It was all right.’

Again I answered, ‘Oh!’

‘You know who was willin’,’ said my friend. ‘It was Barkis, and Barkis

only.’

I nodded assent.

‘It’s all right,’ said Mr. Barkis, shaking hands; ‘I’m a friend of

your’n. You made it all right, first. It’s all right.’

In his attempts to be particularly lucid, Mr. Barkis was so extremely

mysterious, that I might have stood looking in his face for an hour, and

most assuredly should have got as much information out of it as out

of the face of a clock that had stopped, but for Peggotty’s calling me

away. As we were going along, she asked me what he had said; and I told

her he had said it was all right.

‘Like his impudence,’ said Peggotty, ‘but I don’t mind that! Davy dear,

what should you think if I was to think of being married?’

‘Why--I suppose you would like me as much then, Peggotty, as you do

now?’ I returned, after a little consideration.

Greatly to the astonishment of the passengers in the street, as well as

of her relations going on before, the good soul was obliged to stop and

embrace me on the spot, with many protestations of her unalterable love.

‘Tell me what should you say, darling?’ she asked again, when this was

over, and we were walking on.

‘If you were thinking of being married--to Mr. Barkis, Peggotty?’

‘Yes,’ said Peggotty.

‘I should think it would be a very good thing. For then you know,

Peggotty, you would always have the horse and cart to bring you over to

see me, and could come for nothing, and be sure of coming.’

‘The sense of the dear!’ cried Peggotty. ‘What I have been thinking

of, this month back! Yes, my precious; and I think I should be more

independent altogether, you see; let alone my working with a better

heart in my own house, than I could in anybody else’s now. I don’t know

what I might be fit for, now, as a servant to a stranger. And I shall be

always near my pretty’s resting-place,’ said Peggotty, musing, ‘and be

able to see it when I like; and when I lie down to rest, I may be laid

not far off from my darling girl!’

We neither of us said anything for a little while.

‘But I wouldn’t so much as give it another thought,’ said Peggotty,

cheerily ‘if my Davy was anyways against it--not if I had been asked in

church thirty times three times over, and was wearing out the ring in my

pocket.’

‘Look at me, Peggotty,’ I replied; ‘and see if I am not really glad, and

don’t truly wish it!’ As indeed I did, with all my heart.

‘Well, my life,’ said Peggotty, giving me a squeeze, ‘I have thought of

it night and day, every way I can, and I hope the right way; but I’ll

think of it again, and speak to my brother about it, and in the meantime

we’ll keep it to ourselves, Davy, you and me. Barkis is a good plain

creature,’ said Peggotty, ‘and if I tried to do my duty by him, I think

it would be my fault if I wasn’t--if I wasn’t pretty comfortable,’

said Peggotty, laughing heartily. This quotation from Mr. Barkis was

so appropriate, and tickled us both so much, that we laughed again and

again, and were quite in a pleasant humour when we came within view of

Mr. Peggotty’s cottage.

It looked just the same, except that it may, perhaps, have shrunk a

little in my eyes; and Mrs. Gummidge was waiting at the door as if she

had stood there ever since. All within was the same, down to the seaweed

in the blue mug in my bedroom. I went into the out-house to look about

me; and the very same lobsters, crabs, and crawfish possessed by the

same desire to pinch the world in general, appeared to be in the same

state of conglomeration in the same old corner.

But there was no little Em’ly to be seen, so I asked Mr. Peggotty where

she was.

‘She’s at school, sir,’ said Mr. Peggotty, wiping the heat consequent

on the porterage of Peggotty’s box from his forehead; ‘she’ll be home,’

looking at the Dutch clock, ‘in from twenty minutes to half-an-hour’s

time. We all on us feel the loss of her, bless ye!’

Mrs. Gummidge moaned.

‘Cheer up, Mawther!’ cried Mr. Peggotty.

‘I feel it more than anybody else,’ said Mrs. Gummidge; ‘I’m a lone

lorn creetur’, and she used to be a’most the only thing that didn’t go

contrary with me.’

Mrs. Gummidge, whimpering and shaking her head, applied herself to

blowing the fire. Mr. Peggotty, looking round upon us while she was so