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she to do it?’

‘Perhaps,’ Mr. Dick simpered, after thinking a little, ‘she did it for

pleasure.’

‘Pleasure, indeed!’ replied my aunt. ‘A mighty pleasure for the poor

Baby to fix her simple faith upon any dog of a fellow, certain to

ill-use her in some way or other. What did she propose to herself,

I should like to know! She had had one husband. She had seen David

Copperfield out of the world, who was always running after wax dolls

from his cradle. She had got a baby--oh, there were a pair of babies

when she gave birth to this child sitting here, that Friday night!--and

what more did she want?’

Mr. Dick secretly shook his head at me, as if he thought there was no

getting over this.

‘She couldn’t even have a baby like anybody else,’ said my aunt. ‘Where

was this child’s sister, Betsey Trotwood? Not forthcoming. Don’t tell

me!’

Mr. Dick seemed quite frightened.

‘That little man of a doctor, with his head on one side,’ said my aunt,

‘Jellips, or whatever his name was, what was he about? All he could do,

was to say to me, like a robin redbreast--as he is--“It’s a boy.” A boy!

Yah, the imbecility of the whole set of ‘em!’

The heartiness of the ejaculation startled Mr. Dick exceedingly; and me,

too, if I am to tell the truth.

‘And then, as if this was not enough, and she had not stood sufficiently

in the light of this child’s sister, Betsey Trotwood,’ said my aunt,

‘she marries a second time--goes and marries a Murderer--or a man with

a name like it--and stands in THIS child’s light! And the natural

consequence is, as anybody but a baby might have foreseen, that he

prowls and wanders. He’s as like Cain before he was grown up, as he can

be.’

Mr. Dick looked hard at me, as if to identify me in this character.

‘And then there’s that woman with the Pagan name,’ said my aunt, ‘that

Peggotty, she goes and gets married next. Because she has not seen

enough of the evil attending such things, she goes and gets married

next, as the child relates. I only hope,’ said my aunt, shaking her

head, ‘that her husband is one of those Poker husbands who abound in the

newspapers, and will beat her well with one.’

I could not bear to hear my old nurse so decried, and made the subject

of such a wish. I told my aunt that indeed she was mistaken. That

Peggotty was the best, the truest, the most faithful, most devoted, and

most self-denying friend and servant in the world; who had ever loved

me dearly, who had ever loved my mother dearly; who had held my mother’s

dying head upon her arm, on whose face my mother had imprinted her last

grateful kiss. And my remembrance of them both, choking me, I broke down

as I was trying to say that her home was my home, and that all she had

was mine, and that I would have gone to her for shelter, but for her

humble station, which made me fear that I might bring some trouble on

her--I broke down, I say, as I was trying to say so, and laid my face in

my hands upon the table.

‘Well, well!’ said my aunt, ‘the child is right to stand by those who

have stood by him--Janet! Donkeys!’

I thoroughly believe that but for those unfortunate donkeys, we should

have come to a good understanding; for my aunt had laid her hand on my

shoulder, and the impulse was upon me, thus emboldened, to embrace her

and beseech her protection. But the interruption, and the disorder she

was thrown into by the struggle outside, put an end to all softer ideas

for the present, and kept my aunt indignantly declaiming to Mr. Dick

about her determination to appeal for redress to the laws of her

country, and to bring actions for trespass against the whole donkey

proprietorship of Dover, until tea-time.

After tea, we sat at the window--on the look-out, as I imagined, from

my aunt’s sharp expression of face, for more invaders--until dusk, when

Janet set candles, and a backgammon-board, on the table, and pulled down

the blinds.

‘Now, Mr. Dick,’ said my aunt, with her grave look, and her forefinger

up as before, ‘I am going to ask you another question. Look at this

child.’

‘David’s son?’ said Mr. Dick, with an attentive, puzzled face.

‘Exactly so,’ returned my aunt. ‘What would you do with him, now?’

‘Do with David’s son?’ said Mr. Dick.

‘Ay,’ replied my aunt, ‘with David’s son.’

‘Oh!’ said Mr. Dick. ‘Yes. Do with--I should put him to bed.’

‘Janet!’ cried my aunt, with the same complacent triumph that I had

remarked before. ‘Mr. Dick sets us all right. If the bed is ready, we’ll

take him up to it.’

Janet reporting it to be quite ready, I was taken up to it; kindly, but

in some sort like a prisoner; my aunt going in front and Janet bringing

up the rear. The only circumstance which gave me any new hope, was my

aunt’s stopping on the stairs to inquire about a smell of fire that was

prevalent there; and janet’s replying that she had been making tinder

down in the kitchen, of my old shirt. But there were no other clothes in

my room than the odd heap of things I wore; and when I was left there,

with a little taper which my aunt forewarned me would burn exactly five

minutes, I heard them lock my door on the outside. Turning these things

over in my mind I deemed it possible that my aunt, who could know

nothing of me, might suspect I had a habit of running away, and took

precautions, on that account, to have me in safe keeping.

The room was a pleasant one, at the top of the house, overlooking the

sea, on which the moon was shining brilliantly. After I had said my

prayers, and the candle had burnt out, I remember how I still sat

looking at the moonlight on the water, as if I could hope to read my

fortune in it, as in a bright book; or to see my mother with her child,

coming from Heaven, along that shining path, to look upon me as she had

looked when I last saw her sweet face. I remember how the solemn feeling

with which at length I turned my eyes away, yielded to the sensation of

gratitude and rest which the sight of the white-curtained bed--and how

much more the lying softly down upon it, nestling in the snow-white

sheets!--inspired. I remember how I thought of all the solitary places

under the night sky where I had slept, and how I prayed that I never

might be houseless any more, and never might forget the houseless. I

remember how I seemed to float, then, down the melancholy glory of that

track upon the sea, away into the world of dreams.

CHAPTER 14. MY AUNT MAKES UP HER MIND ABOUT ME

On going down in the morning, I found my aunt musing so profoundly over

the breakfast table, with her elbow on the tray, that the contents of

the urn had overflowed the teapot and were laying the whole table-cloth

under water, when my entrance put her meditations to flight. I felt sure

that I had been the subject of her reflections, and was more than ever

anxious to know her intentions towards me. Yet I dared not express my

anxiety, lest it should give her offence.

My eyes, however, not being so much under control as my tongue, were

attracted towards my aunt very often during breakfast. I never could

look at her for a few moments together but I found her looking at me--in

an odd thoughtful manner, as if I were an immense way off, instead of

being on the other side of the small round table. When she had finished

her breakfast, my aunt very deliberately leaned back in her chair,

knitted her brows, folded her arms, and contemplated me at her leisure,

with such a fixedness of attention that I was quite overpowered by

embarrassment. Not having as yet finished my own breakfast, I attempted

to hide my confusion by proceeding with it; but my knife tumbled over my

fork, my fork tripped up my knife, I chipped bits of bacon a surprising

height into the air instead of cutting them for my own eating, and

choked myself with my tea, which persisted in going the wrong way

instead of the right one, until I gave in altogether, and sat blushing

under my aunt’s close scrutiny.

‘Hallo!’ said my aunt, after a long time.

I looked up, and met her sharp bright glance respectfully.

‘I have written to him,’ said my aunt.

‘To--?’

‘To your father-in-law,’ said my aunt. ‘I have sent him a letter that

I’ll trouble him to attend to, or he and I will fall out, I can tell

him!’

‘Does he know where I am, aunt?’ I inquired, alarmed.

‘I have told him,’ said my aunt, with a nod.

‘Shall I--be--given up to him?’ I faltered.

‘I don’t know,’ said my aunt. ‘We shall see.’

‘Oh! I can’t think what I shall do,’ I exclaimed, ‘if I have to go back

to Mr. Murdstone!’

‘I don’t know anything about it,’ said my aunt, shaking her head. ‘I

can’t say, I am sure. We shall see.’

My spirits sank under these words, and I became very downcast and heavy

of heart. My aunt, without appearing to take much heed of me, put on a

coarse apron with a bib, which she took out of the press; washed up the

teacups with her own hands; and, when everything was washed and set in

the tray again, and the cloth folded and put on the top of the whole,

rang for Janet to remove it. She next swept up the crumbs with a little

broom (putting on a pair of gloves first), until there did not appear

to be one microscopic speck left on the carpet; next dusted and arranged

the room, which was dusted and arranged to a hair’s breadth already.

When all these tasks were performed to her satisfaction, she took off

the gloves and apron, folded them up, put them in the particular corner

of the press from which they had been taken, brought out her work-box

to her own table in the open window, and sat down, with the green fan

between her and the light, to work.

‘I wish you’d go upstairs,’ said my aunt, as she threaded her needle,

‘and give my compliments to Mr. Dick, and I’ll be glad to know how he

gets on with his Memorial.’

I rose with all alacrity, to acquit myself of this commission.

‘I suppose,’ said my aunt, eyeing me as narrowly as she had eyed the

needle in threading it, ‘you think Mr. Dick a short name, eh?’

‘I thought it was rather a short name, yesterday,’ I confessed.

‘You are not to suppose that he hasn’t got a longer name, if he chose

to use it,’ said my aunt, with a loftier air. ‘Babley--Mr. Richard

Babley--that’s the gentleman’s true name.’

I was going to suggest, with a modest sense of my youth and the

familiarity I had been already guilty of, that I had better give him the

full benefit of that name, when my aunt went on to say:

‘But don’t you call him by it, whatever you do. He can’t bear his name.

That’s a peculiarity of his. Though I don’t know that it’s much of a

peculiarity, either; for he has been ill-used enough, by some that bear

it, to have a mortal antipathy for it, Heaven knows. Mr. Dick is his

name here, and everywhere else, now--if he ever went anywhere else,

which he don’t. So take care, child, you don’t call him anything BUT Mr.

Dick.’

I promised to obey, and went upstairs with my message; thinking, as I

went, that if Mr. Dick had been working at his Memorial long, at the

same rate as I had seen him working at it, through the open door, when

I came down, he was probably getting on very well indeed. I found him

still driving at it with a long pen, and his head almost laid upon the

paper. He was so intent upon it, that I had ample leisure to observe the

large paper kite in a corner, the confusion of bundles of manuscript,

the number of pens, and, above all, the quantity of ink (which he seemed

to have in, in half-gallon jars by the dozen), before he observed my

being present.

‘Ha! Phoebus!’ said Mr. Dick, laying down his pen. ‘How does the world

go? I’ll tell you what,’ he added, in a lower tone, ‘I shouldn’t wish it

to be mentioned, but it’s a--’ here he beckoned to me, and put his lips

close to my ear--‘it’s a mad world. Mad as Bedlam, boy!’ said Mr. Dick,

taking snuff from a round box on the table, and laughing heartily.

Without presuming to give my opinion on this question, I delivered my

message.

‘Well,’ said Mr. Dick, in answer, ‘my compliments to her, and I--I

believe I have made a start. I think I have made a start,’ said Mr.

Dick, passing his hand among his grey hair, and casting anything but a

confident look at his manuscript. ‘You have been to school?’

‘Yes, sir,’ I answered; ‘for a short time.’

‘Do you recollect the date,’ said Mr. Dick, looking earnestly at me, and

taking up his pen to note it down, ‘when King Charles the First had his

head cut off?’ I said I believed it happened in the year sixteen hundred

and forty-nine.

‘Well,’ returned Mr. Dick, scratching his ear with his pen, and looking

dubiously at me. ‘So the books say; but I don’t see how that can be.

Because, if it was so long ago, how could the people about him have made

that mistake of putting some of the trouble out of his head, after it

was taken off, into mine?’

I was very much surprised by the inquiry; but could give no information

on this point.

‘It’s very strange,’ said Mr. Dick, with a despondent look upon his

papers, and with his hand among his hair again, ‘that I never can get

that quite right. I never can make that perfectly clear. But no matter,

no matter!’ he said cheerfully, and rousing himself, ‘there’s time

enough! My compliments to Miss Trotwood, I am getting on very well

indeed.’

I was going away, when he directed my attention to the kite.

‘What do you think of that for a kite?’ he said.

I answered that it was a beautiful one. I should think it must have been

as much as seven feet high.

‘I made it. We’ll go and fly it, you and I,’ said Mr. Dick. ‘Do you see

this?’

He showed me that it was covered with manuscript, very closely and

laboriously written; but so plainly, that as I looked along the lines,

I thought I saw some allusion to King Charles the First’s head again, in

one or two places.

‘There’s plenty of string,’ said Mr. Dick, ‘and when it flies high, it

takes the facts a long way. That’s my manner of diffusing ‘em. I don’t

know where they may come down. It’s according to circumstances, and the

wind, and so forth; but I take my chance of that.’

His face was so very mild and pleasant, and had something so reverend in

it, though it was hale and hearty, that I was not sure but that he was