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engaged, said in a low voice, which he shaded with his hand: ‘The old

‘un!’ From this I rightly conjectured that no improvement had taken

place since my last visit in the state of Mrs. Gummidge’s spirits.

Now, the whole place was, or it should have been, quite as delightful

a place as ever; and yet it did not impress me in the same way. I felt

rather disappointed with it. Perhaps it was because little Em’ly was

not at home. I knew the way by which she would come, and presently found

myself strolling along the path to meet her.

A figure appeared in the distance before long, and I soon knew it to be

Em’ly, who was a little creature still in stature, though she was grown.

But when she drew nearer, and I saw her blue eyes looking bluer, and her

dimpled face looking brighter, and her whole self prettier and gayer, a

curious feeling came over me that made me pretend not to know her, and

pass by as if I were looking at something a long way off. I have done

such a thing since in later life, or I am mistaken.

Little Em’ly didn’t care a bit. She saw me well enough; but instead of

turning round and calling after me, ran away laughing. This obliged me

to run after her, and she ran so fast that we were very near the cottage

before I caught her.

‘Oh, it’s you, is it?’ said little Em’ly.

‘Why, you knew who it was, Em’ly,’ said I.

‘And didn’t YOU know who it was?’ said Em’ly. I was going to kiss her,

but she covered her cherry lips with her hands, and said she wasn’t a

baby now, and ran away, laughing more than ever, into the house.

She seemed to delight in teasing me, which was a change in her I

wondered at very much. The tea table was ready, and our little locker

was put out in its old place, but instead of coming to sit by me, she

went and bestowed her company upon that grumbling Mrs. Gummidge: and on

Mr. Peggotty’s inquiring why, rumpled her hair all over her face to hide

it, and could do nothing but laugh.

‘A little puss, it is!’ said Mr. Peggotty, patting her with his great

hand.

‘So sh’ is! so sh’ is!’ cried Ham. ‘Mas’r Davy bor’, so sh’ is!’ and he

sat and chuckled at her for some time, in a state of mingled admiration

and delight, that made his face a burning red.

Little Em’ly was spoiled by them all, in fact; and by no one more than

Mr. Peggotty himself, whom she could have coaxed into anything, by

only going and laying her cheek against his rough whisker. That was my

opinion, at least, when I saw her do it; and I held Mr. Peggotty to be

thoroughly in the right. But she was so affectionate and sweet-natured,

and had such a pleasant manner of being both sly and shy at once, that

she captivated me more than ever.

She was tender-hearted, too; for when, as we sat round the fire after

tea, an allusion was made by Mr. Peggotty over his pipe to the loss

I had sustained, the tears stood in her eyes, and she looked at me so

kindly across the table, that I felt quite thankful to her.

‘Ah!’ said Mr. Peggotty, taking up her curls, and running them over his

hand like water, ‘here’s another orphan, you see, sir. And here,’ said

Mr. Peggotty, giving Ham a backhanded knock in the chest, ‘is another of

‘em, though he don’t look much like it.’

‘If I had you for my guardian, Mr. Peggotty,’ said I, shaking my head,

‘I don’t think I should FEEL much like it.’

‘Well said, Mas’r Davy bor’!’ cried Ham, in an ecstasy. ‘Hoorah! Well

said! Nor more you wouldn’t! Hor! Hor!’--Here he returned Mr. Peggotty’s

back-hander, and little Em’ly got up and kissed Mr. Peggotty. ‘And how’s

your friend, sir?’ said Mr. Peggotty to me.

‘Steerforth?’ said I.

‘That’s the name!’ cried Mr. Peggotty, turning to Ham. ‘I knowed it was

something in our way.’

‘You said it was Rudderford,’ observed Ham, laughing.

‘Well!’ retorted Mr. Peggotty. ‘And ye steer with a rudder, don’t ye? It

ain’t fur off. How is he, sir?’

‘He was very well indeed when I came away, Mr. Peggotty.’

‘There’s a friend!’ said Mr. Peggotty, stretching out his pipe. ‘There’s

a friend, if you talk of friends! Why, Lord love my heart alive, if it

ain’t a treat to look at him!’

‘He is very handsome, is he not?’ said I, my heart warming with this

praise.

‘Handsome!’ cried Mr. Peggotty. ‘He stands up to you like--like a--why I

don’t know what he don’t stand up to you like. He’s so bold!’

‘Yes! That’s just his character,’ said I. ‘He’s as brave as a lion, and

you can’t think how frank he is, Mr. Peggotty.’

‘And I do suppose, now,’ said Mr. Peggotty, looking at me through the

smoke of his pipe, ‘that in the way of book-larning he’d take the wind

out of a’most anything.’

‘Yes,’ said I, delighted; ‘he knows everything. He is astonishingly

clever.’

‘There’s a friend!’ murmured Mr. Peggotty, with a grave toss of his

head.

‘Nothing seems to cost him any trouble,’ said I. ‘He knows a task if he

only looks at it. He is the best cricketer you ever saw. He will give

you almost as many men as you like at draughts, and beat you easily.’

Mr. Peggotty gave his head another toss, as much as to say: ‘Of course

he will.’

‘He is such a speaker,’ I pursued, ‘that he can win anybody over; and I

don’t know what you’d say if you were to hear him sing, Mr. Peggotty.’

Mr. Peggotty gave his head another toss, as much as to say: ‘I have no

doubt of it.’

‘Then, he’s such a generous, fine, noble fellow,’ said I, quite carried

away by my favourite theme, ‘that it’s hardly possible to give him as

much praise as he deserves. I am sure I can never feel thankful enough

for the generosity with which he has protected me, so much younger and

lower in the school than himself.’

I was running on, very fast indeed, when my eyes rested on little

Em’ly’s face, which was bent forward over the table, listening with the

deepest attention, her breath held, her blue eyes sparkling like jewels,

and the colour mantling in her cheeks. She looked so extraordinarily

earnest and pretty, that I stopped in a sort of wonder; and they all

observed her at the same time, for as I stopped, they laughed and looked

at her.

‘Em’ly is like me,’ said Peggotty, ‘and would like to see him.’

Em’ly was confused by our all observing her, and hung down her head,

and her face was covered with blushes. Glancing up presently through her

stray curls, and seeing that we were all looking at her still (I am sure

I, for one, could have looked at her for hours), she ran away, and kept

away till it was nearly bedtime.

I lay down in the old little bed in the stern of the boat, and the wind

came moaning on across the flat as it had done before. But I could not

help fancying, now, that it moaned of those who were gone; and instead

of thinking that the sea might rise in the night and float the boat

away, I thought of the sea that had risen, since I last heard those

sounds, and drowned my happy home. I recollect, as the wind and water

began to sound fainter in my ears, putting a short clause into my

prayers, petitioning that I might grow up to marry little Em’ly, and so

dropping lovingly asleep.

The days passed pretty much as they had passed before, except--it was

a great exception--that little Em’ly and I seldom wandered on the beach

now. She had tasks to learn, and needle-work to do; and was absent

during a great part of each day. But I felt that we should not have had

those old wanderings, even if it had been otherwise. Wild and full of

childish whims as Em’ly was, she was more of a little woman than I

had supposed. She seemed to have got a great distance away from me,

in little more than a year. She liked me, but she laughed at me, and

tormented me; and when I went to meet her, stole home another way, and

was laughing at the door when I came back, disappointed. The best times

were when she sat quietly at work in the doorway, and I sat on the

wooden step at her feet, reading to her. It seems to me, at this

hour, that I have never seen such sunlight as on those bright April

afternoons; that I have never seen such a sunny little figure as I used

to see, sitting in the doorway of the old boat; that I have never beheld

such sky, such water, such glorified ships sailing away into golden air.

On the very first evening after our arrival, Mr. Barkis appeared in an

exceedingly vacant and awkward condition, and with a bundle of oranges

tied up in a handkerchief. As he made no allusion of any kind to this

property, he was supposed to have left it behind him by accident when

he went away; until Ham, running after him to restore it, came back with

the information that it was intended for Peggotty. After that occasion

he appeared every evening at exactly the same hour, and always with a

little bundle, to which he never alluded, and which he regularly put

behind the door and left there. These offerings of affection were of a

most various and eccentric description. Among them I remember a double

set of pigs’ trotters, a huge pin-cushion, half a bushel or so of

apples, a pair of jet earrings, some Spanish onions, a box of dominoes,

a canary bird and cage, and a leg of pickled pork.

Mr. Barkis’s wooing, as I remember it, was altogether of a peculiar

kind. He very seldom said anything; but would sit by the fire in much

the same attitude as he sat in his cart, and stare heavily at Peggotty,

who was opposite. One night, being, as I suppose, inspired by love, he

made a dart at the bit of wax-candle she kept for her thread, and put

it in his waistcoat-pocket and carried it off. After that, his great

delight was to produce it when it was wanted, sticking to the lining of

his pocket, in a partially melted state, and pocket it again when it was

done with. He seemed to enjoy himself very much, and not to feel at all

called upon to talk. Even when he took Peggotty out for a walk on the

flats, he had no uneasiness on that head, I believe; contenting himself

with now and then asking her if she was pretty comfortable; and I

remember that sometimes, after he was gone, Peggotty would throw her

apron over her face, and laugh for half-an-hour. Indeed, we were

all more or less amused, except that miserable Mrs. Gummidge, whose

courtship would appear to have been of an exactly parallel nature, she

was so continually reminded by these transactions of the old one.

At length, when the term of my visit was nearly expired, it was given

out that Peggotty and Mr. Barkis were going to make a day’s holiday

together, and that little Em’ly and I were to accompany them. I had but

a broken sleep the night before, in anticipation of the pleasure of

a whole day with Em’ly. We were all astir betimes in the morning; and

while we were yet at breakfast, Mr. Barkis appeared in the distance,

driving a chaise-cart towards the object of his affections.

Peggotty was dressed as usual, in her neat and quiet mourning; but Mr.

Barkis bloomed in a new blue coat, of which the tailor had given him

such good measure, that the cuffs would have rendered gloves unnecessary

in the coldest weather, while the collar was so high that it pushed his

hair up on end on the top of his head. His bright buttons, too, were

of the largest size. Rendered complete by drab pantaloons and a buff

waistcoat, I thought Mr. Barkis a phenomenon of respectability.

When we were all in a bustle outside the door, I found that Mr. Peggotty

was prepared with an old shoe, which was to be thrown after us for luck,

and which he offered to Mrs. Gummidge for that purpose.

‘No. It had better be done by somebody else, Dan’l,’ said Mrs. Gummidge.

‘I’m a lone lorn creetur’ myself, and everythink that reminds me of

creetur’s that ain’t lone and lorn, goes contrary with me.’

‘Come, old gal!’ cried Mr. Peggotty. ‘Take and heave it.’

‘No, Dan’l,’ returned Mrs. Gummidge, whimpering and shaking her head.

‘If I felt less, I could do more. You don’t feel like me, Dan’l; thinks

don’t go contrary with you, nor you with them; you had better do it

yourself.’

But here Peggotty, who had been going about from one to another in a

hurried way, kissing everybody, called out from the cart, in which we

all were by this time (Em’ly and I on two little chairs, side by side),

that Mrs. Gummidge must do it. So Mrs. Gummidge did it; and, I am sorry

to relate, cast a damp upon the festive character of our departure, by

immediately bursting into tears, and sinking subdued into the arms of

Ham, with the declaration that she knowed she was a burden, and had

better be carried to the House at once. Which I really thought was a

sensible idea, that Ham might have acted on.

Away we went, however, on our holiday excursion; and the first thing

we did was to stop at a church, where Mr. Barkis tied the horse to some

rails, and went in with Peggotty, leaving little Em’ly and me alone in

the chaise. I took that occasion to put my arm round Em’ly’s waist, and

propose that as I was going away so very soon now, we should determine

to be very affectionate to one another, and very happy, all day. Little

Em’ly consenting, and allowing me to kiss her, I became desperate;

informing her, I recollect, that I never could love another, and that

I was prepared to shed the blood of anybody who should aspire to her

affections.

How merry little Em’ly made herself about it! With what a demure

assumption of being immensely older and wiser than I, the fairy little

woman said I was ‘a silly boy’; and then laughed so charmingly that

I forgot the pain of being called by that disparaging name, in the

pleasure of looking at her.

Mr. Barkis and Peggotty were a good while in the church, but came out at

last, and then we drove away into the country. As we were going along,

Mr. Barkis turned to me, and said, with a wink,--by the by, I should

hardly have thought, before, that he could wink:

‘What name was it as I wrote up in the cart?’

‘Clara Peggotty,’ I answered.

‘What name would it be as I should write up now, if there was a tilt

here?’

‘Clara Peggotty, again?’ I suggested.

‘Clara Peggotty BARKIS!’ he returned, and burst into a roar of laughter

that shook the chaise.

In a word, they were married, and had gone into the church for no other

purpose. Peggotty was resolved that it should be quietly done; and