第 24 页

the clerk had given her away, and there had been no witnesses of the

ceremony. She was a little confused when Mr. Barkis made this abrupt

announcement of their union, and could not hug me enough in token of her

unimpaired affection; but she soon became herself again, and said she

was very glad it was over.

We drove to a little inn in a by-road, where we were expected, and

where we had a very comfortable dinner, and passed the day with great

satisfaction. If Peggotty had been married every day for the last ten

years, she could hardly have been more at her ease about it; it made no

sort of difference in her: she was just the same as ever, and went

out for a stroll with little Em’ly and me before tea, while Mr. Barkis

philosophically smoked his pipe, and enjoyed himself, I suppose, with

the contemplation of his happiness. If so, it sharpened his appetite;

for I distinctly call to mind that, although he had eaten a good deal of

pork and greens at dinner, and had finished off with a fowl or two, he

was obliged to have cold boiled bacon for tea, and disposed of a large

quantity without any emotion.

I have often thought, since, what an odd, innocent, out-of-the-way kind

of wedding it must have been! We got into the chaise again soon after

dark, and drove cosily back, looking up at the stars, and talking about

them. I was their chief exponent, and opened Mr. Barkis’s mind to

an amazing extent. I told him all I knew, but he would have believed

anything I might have taken it into my head to impart to him; for he

had a profound veneration for my abilities, and informed his wife in my

hearing, on that very occasion, that I was ‘a young Roeshus’--by which I

think he meant prodigy.

When we had exhausted the subject of the stars, or rather when I had

exhausted the mental faculties of Mr. Barkis, little Em’ly and I made a

cloak of an old wrapper, and sat under it for the rest of the journey.

Ah, how I loved her! What happiness (I thought) if we were married,

and were going away anywhere to live among the trees and in the fields,

never growing older, never growing wiser, children ever, rambling hand

in hand through sunshine and among flowery meadows, laying down our

heads on moss at night, in a sweet sleep of purity and peace, and buried

by the birds when we were dead! Some such picture, with no real world in

it, bright with the light of our innocence, and vague as the stars afar

off, was in my mind all the way. I am glad to think there were two such

guileless hearts at Peggotty’s marriage as little Em’ly’s and mine. I

am glad to think the Loves and Graces took such airy forms in its homely

procession.

Well, we came to the old boat again in good time at night; and there

Mr. and Mrs. Barkis bade us good-bye, and drove away snugly to their

own home. I felt then, for the first time, that I had lost Peggotty. I

should have gone to bed with a sore heart indeed under any other roof

but that which sheltered little Em’ly’s head.

Mr. Peggotty and Ham knew what was in my thoughts as well as I did, and

were ready with some supper and their hospitable faces to drive it away.

Little Em’ly came and sat beside me on the locker for the only time in

all that visit; and it was altogether a wonderful close to a wonderful

day.

It was a night tide; and soon after we went to bed, Mr. Peggotty and Ham

went out to fish. I felt very brave at being left alone in the solitary

house, the protector of Em’ly and Mrs. Gummidge, and only wished that

a lion or a serpent, or any ill-disposed monster, would make an attack

upon us, that I might destroy him, and cover myself with glory. But as

nothing of the sort happened to be walking about on Yarmouth flats that

night, I provided the best substitute I could by dreaming of dragons

until morning.

With morning came Peggotty; who called to me, as usual, under my window

as if Mr. Barkis the carrier had been from first to last a dream too.

After breakfast she took me to her own home, and a beautiful little

home it was. Of all the moveables in it, I must have been impressed by

a certain old bureau of some dark wood in the parlour (the tile-floored

kitchen was the general sitting-room), with a retreating top which

opened, let down, and became a desk, within which was a large quarto

edition of Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. This precious volume, of which I do

not recollect one word, I immediately discovered and immediately applied

myself to; and I never visited the house afterwards, but I kneeled on

a chair, opened the casket where this gem was enshrined, spread my arms

over the desk, and fell to devouring the book afresh. I was chiefly

edified, I am afraid, by the pictures, which were numerous, and

represented all kinds of dismal horrors; but the Martyrs and Peggotty’s

house have been inseparable in my mind ever since, and are now.

I took leave of Mr. Peggotty, and Ham, and Mrs. Gummidge, and little

Em’ly, that day; and passed the night at Peggotty’s, in a little room

in the roof (with the Crocodile Book on a shelf by the bed’s head) which

was to be always mine, Peggotty said, and should always be kept for me

in exactly the same state.

‘Young or old, Davy dear, as long as I am alive and have this house over

my head,’ said Peggotty, ‘you shall find it as if I expected you here

directly minute. I shall keep it every day, as I used to keep your old

little room, my darling; and if you was to go to China, you might think

of it as being kept just the same, all the time you were away.’

I felt the truth and constancy of my dear old nurse, with all my heart,

and thanked her as well as I could. That was not very well, for she

spoke to me thus, with her arms round my neck, in the morning, and I was

going home in the morning, and I went home in the morning, with herself

and Mr. Barkis in the cart. They left me at the gate, not easily or

lightly; and it was a strange sight to me to see the cart go on, taking

Peggotty away, and leaving me under the old elm-trees looking at the

house, in which there was no face to look on mine with love or liking

any more.

And now I fell into a state of neglect, which I cannot look back upon

without compassion. I fell at once into a solitary condition,--apart

from all friendly notice, apart from the society of all other boys of

my own age, apart from all companionship but my own spiritless

thoughts,--which seems to cast its gloom upon this paper as I write.

What would I have given, to have been sent to the hardest school that

ever was kept!--to have been taught something, anyhow, anywhere! No

such hope dawned upon me. They disliked me; and they sullenly, sternly,

steadily, overlooked me. I think Mr. Murdstone’s means were straitened

at about this time; but it is little to the purpose. He could not bear

me; and in putting me from him he tried, as I believe, to put away the

notion that I had any claim upon him--and succeeded.

I was not actively ill-used. I was not beaten, or starved; but the wrong

that was done to me had no intervals of relenting, and was done in a

systematic, passionless manner. Day after day, week after week, month

after month, I was coldly neglected. I wonder sometimes, when I think

of it, what they would have done if I had been taken with an illness;

whether I should have lain down in my lonely room, and languished

through it in my usual solitary way, or whether anybody would have

helped me out.

When Mr. and Miss Murdstone were at home, I took my meals with them; in

their absence, I ate and drank by myself. At all times I lounged about

the house and neighbourhood quite disregarded, except that they were

jealous of my making any friends: thinking, perhaps, that if I did, I

might complain to someone. For this reason, though Mr. Chillip often

asked me to go and see him (he was a widower, having, some years before

that, lost a little small light-haired wife, whom I can just remember

connecting in my own thoughts with a pale tortoise-shell cat), it was

but seldom that I enjoyed the happiness of passing an afternoon in his

closet of a surgery; reading some book that was new to me, with

the smell of the whole Pharmacopoeia coming up my nose, or pounding

something in a mortar under his mild directions.

For the same reason, added no doubt to the old dislike of her, I was

seldom allowed to visit Peggotty. Faithful to her promise, she either

came to see me, or met me somewhere near, once every week, and never

empty-handed; but many and bitter were the disappointments I had, in

being refused permission to pay a visit to her at her house. Some few

times, however, at long intervals, I was allowed to go there; and then

I found out that Mr. Barkis was something of a miser, or as Peggotty

dutifully expressed it, was ‘a little near’, and kept a heap of money

in a box under his bed, which he pretended was only full of coats

and trousers. In this coffer, his riches hid themselves with such a

tenacious modesty, that the smallest instalments could only be tempted

out by artifice; so that Peggotty had to prepare a long and elaborate

scheme, a very Gunpowder Plot, for every Saturday’s expenses.

All this time I was so conscious of the waste of any promise I had

given, and of my being utterly neglected, that I should have been

perfectly miserable, I have no doubt, but for the old books. They were

my only comfort; and I was as true to them as they were to me, and read

them over and over I don’t know how many times more.

I now approach a period of my life, which I can never lose the

remembrance of, while I remember anything: and the recollection of

which has often, without my invocation, come before me like a ghost, and

haunted happier times.

I had been out, one day, loitering somewhere, in the listless,

meditative manner that my way of life engendered, when, turning the

corner of a lane near our house, I came upon Mr. Murdstone walking with

a gentleman. I was confused, and was going by them, when the gentleman

cried:

‘What! Brooks!’

‘No, sir, David Copperfield,’ I said.

‘Don’t tell me. You are Brooks,’ said the gentleman. ‘You are Brooks of

Sheffield. That’s your name.’

At these words, I observed the gentleman more attentively. His laugh

coming to my remembrance too, I knew him to be Mr. Quinion, whom I

had gone over to Lowestoft with Mr. Murdstone to see, before--it is no

matter--I need not recall when.

‘And how do you get on, and where are you being educated, Brooks?’ said

Mr. Quinion.

He had put his hand upon my shoulder, and turned me about, to walk

with them. I did not know what to reply, and glanced dubiously at Mr.

Murdstone.

‘He is at home at present,’ said the latter. ‘He is not being educated

anywhere. I don’t know what to do with him. He is a difficult subject.’

That old, double look was on me for a moment; and then his eyes darkened

with a frown, as it turned, in its aversion, elsewhere.

‘Humph!’ said Mr. Quinion, looking at us both, I thought. ‘Fine

weather!’

Silence ensued, and I was considering how I could best disengage my

shoulder from his hand, and go away, when he said:

‘I suppose you are a pretty sharp fellow still? Eh, Brooks?’

‘Aye! He is sharp enough,’ said Mr. Murdstone, impatiently. ‘You had

better let him go. He will not thank you for troubling him.’

On this hint, Mr. Quinion released me, and I made the best of my

way home. Looking back as I turned into the front garden, I saw Mr.

Murdstone leaning against the wicket of the churchyard, and Mr. Quinion

talking to him. They were both looking after me, and I felt that they

were speaking of me.

Mr. Quinion lay at our house that night. After breakfast, the next

morning, I had put my chair away, and was going out of the room, when

Mr. Murdstone called me back. He then gravely repaired to another table,

where his sister sat herself at her desk. Mr. Quinion, with his hands

in his pockets, stood looking out of window; and I stood looking at them

all.

‘David,’ said Mr. Murdstone, ‘to the young this is a world for action;

not for moping and droning in.’ --‘As you do,’ added his sister.

‘Jane Murdstone, leave it to me, if you please. I say, David, to the

young this is a world for action, and not for moping and droning in. It

is especially so for a young boy of your disposition, which requires a

great deal of correcting; and to which no greater service can be done

than to force it to conform to the ways of the working world, and to

bend it and break it.’

‘For stubbornness won’t do here,’ said his sister ‘What it wants is, to

be crushed. And crushed it must be. Shall be, too!’

He gave her a look, half in remonstrance, half in approval, and went on:

‘I suppose you know, David, that I am not rich. At any rate, you know it

now. You have received some considerable education already. Education is

costly; and even if it were not, and I could afford it, I am of opinion

that it would not be at all advantageous to you to be kept at school.

What is before you, is a fight with the world; and the sooner you begin

it, the better.’

I think it occurred to me that I had already begun it, in my poor way:

but it occurs to me now, whether or no.

‘You have heard the “counting-house” mentioned sometimes,’ said Mr.

Murdstone.

‘The counting-house, sir?’ I repeated. ‘Of Murdstone and Grinby, in the

wine trade,’ he replied.

I suppose I looked uncertain, for he went on hastily:

‘You have heard the “counting-house” mentioned, or the business, or the

cellars, or the wharf, or something about it.’

‘I think I have heard the business mentioned, sir,’ I said, remembering

what I vaguely knew of his and his sister’s resources. ‘But I don’t know

when.’

‘It does not matter when,’ he returned. ‘Mr. Quinion manages that

business.’

I glanced at the latter deferentially as he stood looking out of window.

‘Mr. Quinion suggests that it gives employment to some other boys,

and that he sees no reason why it shouldn’t, on the same terms, give

employment to you.’

‘He having,’ Mr. Quinion observed in a low voice, and half turning

round, ‘no other prospect, Murdstone.’

Mr. Murdstone, with an impatient, even an angry gesture, resumed,

without noticing what he had said: