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monsters, with fresh wakefulness on my part, and we left their eggs in

the sand for the sun to hatch; and we ran away from them, and baffled

them by constantly turning, which they were unable to do quickly, on

account of their unwieldy make; and we went into the water after them,

as natives, and put sharp pieces of timber down their throats; and in

short we ran the whole crocodile gauntlet. I did, at least; but I had

my doubts of Peggotty, who was thoughtfully sticking her needle into

various parts of her face and arms, all the time.

We had exhausted the crocodiles, and begun with the alligators, when

the garden-bell rang. We went out to the door; and there was my mother,

looking unusually pretty, I thought, and with her a gentleman with

beautiful black hair and whiskers, who had walked home with us from

church last Sunday.

As my mother stooped down on the threshold to take me in her arms and

kiss me, the gentleman said I was a more highly privileged little fellow

than a monarch--or something like that; for my later understanding

comes, I am sensible, to my aid here.

‘What does that mean?’ I asked him, over her shoulder.

He patted me on the head; but somehow, I didn’t like him or his deep

voice, and I was jealous that his hand should touch my mother’s in

touching me--which it did. I put it away, as well as I could.

‘Oh, Davy!’ remonstrated my mother.

‘Dear boy!’ said the gentleman. ‘I cannot wonder at his devotion!’

I never saw such a beautiful colour on my mother’s face before. She

gently chid me for being rude; and, keeping me close to her shawl,

turned to thank the gentleman for taking so much trouble as to bring her

home. She put out her hand to him as she spoke, and, as he met it with

his own, she glanced, I thought, at me.

‘Let us say “good night”, my fine boy,’ said the gentleman, when he had

bent his head--I saw him!--over my mother’s little glove.

‘Good night!’ said I.

‘Come! Let us be the best friends in the world!’ said the gentleman,

laughing. ‘Shake hands!’

My right hand was in my mother’s left, so I gave him the other.

‘Why, that’s the Wrong hand, Davy!’ laughed the gentleman.

My mother drew my right hand forward, but I was resolved, for my former

reason, not to give it him, and I did not. I gave him the other, and he

shook it heartily, and said I was a brave fellow, and went away.

At this minute I see him turn round in the garden, and give us a last

look with his ill-omened black eyes, before the door was shut.

Peggotty, who had not said a word or moved a finger, secured the

fastenings instantly, and we all went into the parlour. My mother,

contrary to her usual habit, instead of coming to the elbow-chair by the

fire, remained at the other end of the room, and sat singing to herself.

--‘Hope you have had a pleasant evening, ma’am,’ said Peggotty, standing

as stiff as a barrel in the centre of the room, with a candlestick in

her hand.

‘Much obliged to you, Peggotty,’ returned my mother, in a cheerful

voice, ‘I have had a VERY pleasant evening.’

‘A stranger or so makes an agreeable change,’ suggested Peggotty.

‘A very agreeable change, indeed,’ returned my mother.

Peggotty continuing to stand motionless in the middle of the room, and

my mother resuming her singing, I fell asleep, though I was not so sound

asleep but that I could hear voices, without hearing what they said.

When I half awoke from this uncomfortable doze, I found Peggotty and my

mother both in tears, and both talking.

‘Not such a one as this, Mr. Copperfield wouldn’t have liked,’ said

Peggotty. ‘That I say, and that I swear!’

‘Good Heavens!’ cried my mother, ‘you’ll drive me mad! Was ever any

poor girl so ill-used by her servants as I am! Why do I do myself

the injustice of calling myself a girl? Have I never been married,

Peggotty?’

‘God knows you have, ma’am,’ returned Peggotty. ‘Then, how can you

dare,’ said my mother--‘you know I don’t mean how can you dare,

Peggotty, but how can you have the heart--to make me so uncomfortable

and say such bitter things to me, when you are well aware that I

haven’t, out of this place, a single friend to turn to?’

‘The more’s the reason,’ returned Peggotty, ‘for saying that it won’t

do. No! That it won’t do. No! No price could make it do. No!’--I thought

Peggotty would have thrown the candlestick away, she was so emphatic

with it.

‘How can you be so aggravating,’ said my mother, shedding more tears

than before, ‘as to talk in such an unjust manner! How can you go on as

if it was all settled and arranged, Peggotty, when I tell you over

and over again, you cruel thing, that beyond the commonest civilities

nothing has passed! You talk of admiration. What am I to do? If people

are so silly as to indulge the sentiment, is it my fault? What am I to

do, I ask you? Would you wish me to shave my head and black my face, or

disfigure myself with a burn, or a scald, or something of that sort? I

dare say you would, Peggotty. I dare say you’d quite enjoy it.’

Peggotty seemed to take this aspersion very much to heart, I thought.

‘And my dear boy,’ cried my mother, coming to the elbow-chair in which

I was, and caressing me, ‘my own little Davy! Is it to be hinted to me

that I am wanting in affection for my precious treasure, the dearest

little fellow that ever was!’

‘Nobody never went and hinted no such a thing,’ said Peggotty.

‘You did, Peggotty!’ returned my mother. ‘You know you did. What else

was it possible to infer from what you said, you unkind creature,

when you know as well as I do, that on his account only last quarter I

wouldn’t buy myself a new parasol, though that old green one is frayed

the whole way up, and the fringe is perfectly mangy? You know it is,

Peggotty. You can’t deny it.’ Then, turning affectionately to me, with

her cheek against mine, ‘Am I a naughty mama to you, Davy? Am I a nasty,

cruel, selfish, bad mama? Say I am, my child; say “yes”, dear boy, and

Peggotty will love you; and Peggotty’s love is a great deal better than

mine, Davy. I don’t love you at all, do I?’

At this, we all fell a-crying together. I think I was the loudest of

the party, but I am sure we were all sincere about it. I was quite

heart-broken myself, and am afraid that in the first transports of

wounded tenderness I called Peggotty a ‘Beast’. That honest creature was

in deep affliction, I remember, and must have become quite buttonless

on the occasion; for a little volley of those explosives went off,

when, after having made it up with my mother, she kneeled down by the

elbow-chair, and made it up with me.

We went to bed greatly dejected. My sobs kept waking me, for a long

time; and when one very strong sob quite hoisted me up in bed, I found

my mother sitting on the coverlet, and leaning over me. I fell asleep in

her arms, after that, and slept soundly.

Whether it was the following Sunday when I saw the gentleman again,

or whether there was any greater lapse of time before he reappeared,

I cannot recall. I don’t profess to be clear about dates. But there he

was, in church, and he walked home with us afterwards. He came in, too,

to look at a famous geranium we had, in the parlour-window. It did not

appear to me that he took much notice of it, but before he went he asked

my mother to give him a bit of the blossom. She begged him to choose it

for himself, but he refused to do that--I could not understand why--so

she plucked it for him, and gave it into his hand. He said he would

never, never part with it any more; and I thought he must be quite a

fool not to know that it would fall to pieces in a day or two.

Peggotty began to be less with us, of an evening, than she had always

been. My mother deferred to her very much--more than usual, it occurred

to me--and we were all three excellent friends; still we were different

from what we used to be, and were not so comfortable among ourselves.

Sometimes I fancied that Peggotty perhaps objected to my mother’s

wearing all the pretty dresses she had in her drawers, or to her

going so often to visit at that neighbour’s; but I couldn’t, to my

satisfaction, make out how it was.

Gradually, I became used to seeing the gentleman with the black

whiskers. I liked him no better than at first, and had the same uneasy

jealousy of him; but if I had any reason for it beyond a child’s

instinctive dislike, and a general idea that Peggotty and I could make

much of my mother without any help, it certainly was not THE reason that

I might have found if I had been older. No such thing came into my mind,

or near it. I could observe, in little pieces, as it were; but as to

making a net of a number of these pieces, and catching anybody in it,

that was, as yet, beyond me.

One autumn morning I was with my mother in the front garden, when Mr.

Murdstone--I knew him by that name now--came by, on horseback. He reined

up his horse to salute my mother, and said he was going to Lowestoft to

see some friends who were there with a yacht, and merrily proposed to

take me on the saddle before him if I would like the ride.

The air was so clear and pleasant, and the horse seemed to like the

idea of the ride so much himself, as he stood snorting and pawing at the

garden-gate, that I had a great desire to go. So I was sent upstairs

to Peggotty to be made spruce; and in the meantime Mr. Murdstone

dismounted, and, with his horse’s bridle drawn over his arm, walked

slowly up and down on the outer side of the sweetbriar fence, while my

mother walked slowly up and down on the inner to keep him company. I

recollect Peggotty and I peeping out at them from my little window; I

recollect how closely they seemed to be examining the sweetbriar between

them, as they strolled along; and how, from being in a perfectly angelic

temper, Peggotty turned cross in a moment, and brushed my hair the wrong

way, excessively hard.

Mr. Murdstone and I were soon off, and trotting along on the green turf

by the side of the road. He held me quite easily with one arm, and I

don’t think I was restless usually; but I could not make up my mind to

sit in front of him without turning my head sometimes, and looking up in

his face. He had that kind of shallow black eye--I want a better word to

express an eye that has no depth in it to be looked into--which, when

it is abstracted, seems from some peculiarity of light to be disfigured,

for a moment at a time, by a cast. Several times when I glanced at him,

I observed that appearance with a sort of awe, and wondered what he

was thinking about so closely. His hair and whiskers were blacker and

thicker, looked at so near, than even I had given them credit for being.

A squareness about the lower part of his face, and the dotted indication

of the strong black beard he shaved close every day, reminded me of

the wax-work that had travelled into our neighbourhood some half-a-year

before. This, his regular eyebrows, and the rich white, and black, and

brown, of his complexion--confound his complexion, and his memory!--made

me think him, in spite of my misgivings, a very handsome man. I have no

doubt that my poor dear mother thought him so too.

We went to an hotel by the sea, where two gentlemen were smoking cigars

in a room by themselves. Each of them was lying on at least four chairs,

and had a large rough jacket on. In a corner was a heap of coats and

boat-cloaks, and a flag, all bundled up together.

They both rolled on to their feet in an untidy sort of manner, when we

came in, and said, ‘Halloa, Murdstone! We thought you were dead!’

‘Not yet,’ said Mr. Murdstone.

‘And who’s this shaver?’ said one of the gentlemen, taking hold of me.

‘That’s Davy,’ returned Mr. Murdstone.

‘Davy who?’ said the gentleman. ‘Jones?’

‘Copperfield,’ said Mr. Murdstone.

‘What! Bewitching Mrs. Copperfield’s encumbrance?’ cried the gentleman.

‘The pretty little widow?’

‘Quinion,’ said Mr. Murdstone, ‘take care, if you please. Somebody’s

sharp.’

‘Who is?’ asked the gentleman, laughing. I looked up, quickly; being

curious to know.

‘Only Brooks of Sheffield,’ said Mr. Murdstone.

I was quite relieved to find that it was only Brooks of Sheffield; for,

at first, I really thought it was I.

There seemed to be something very comical in the reputation of Mr.

Brooks of Sheffield, for both the gentlemen laughed heartily when he

was mentioned, and Mr. Murdstone was a good deal amused also. After some

laughing, the gentleman whom he had called Quinion, said:

‘And what is the opinion of Brooks of Sheffield, in reference to the

projected business?’

‘Why, I don’t know that Brooks understands much about it at present,’

replied Mr. Murdstone; ‘but he is not generally favourable, I believe.’

There was more laughter at this, and Mr. Quinion said he would ring the

bell for some sherry in which to drink to Brooks. This he did; and when

the wine came, he made me have a little, with a biscuit, and, before

I drank it, stand up and say, ‘Confusion to Brooks of Sheffield!’ The

toast was received with great applause, and such hearty laughter that

it made me laugh too; at which they laughed the more. In short, we quite

enjoyed ourselves.

We walked about on the cliff after that, and sat on the grass, and

looked at things through a telescope--I could make out nothing myself

when it was put to my eye, but I pretended I could--and then we came

back to the hotel to an early dinner. All the time we were out, the two

gentlemen smoked incessantly--which, I thought, if I might judge from

the smell of their rough coats, they must have been doing, ever since

the coats had first come home from the tailor’s. I must not forget that

we went on board the yacht, where they all three descended into the

cabin, and were busy with some papers. I saw them quite hard at work,

when I looked down through the open skylight. They left me, during this

time, with a very nice man with a very large head of red hair and a very

small shiny hat upon it, who had got a cross-barred shirt or waistcoat

on, with ‘Skylark’ in capital letters across the chest. I thought it was

his name; and that as he lived on board ship and hadn’t a street door

to put his name on, he put it there instead; but when I called him Mr.