第 40 页

to be let or sold. God knows I had no part in it while they remained

there, but it pained me to think of the dear old place as altogether

abandoned; of the weeds growing tall in the garden, and the fallen

leaves lying thick and wet upon the paths. I imagined how the winds

of winter would howl round it, how the cold rain would beat upon the

window-glass, how the moon would make ghosts on the walls of the empty

rooms, watching their solitude all night. I thought afresh of the grave

in the churchyard, underneath the tree: and it seemed as if the house

were dead too, now, and all connected with my father and mother were

faded away.

There was no other news in Peggotty’s letters. Mr. Barkis was an

excellent husband, she said, though still a little near; but we all had

our faults, and she had plenty (though I am sure I don’t know what they

were); and he sent his duty, and my little bedroom was always ready for

me. Mr. Peggotty was well, and Ham was well, and Mrs. Gummidge was but

poorly, and little Em’ly wouldn’t send her love, but said that Peggotty

might send it, if she liked.

All this intelligence I dutifully imparted to my aunt, only reserving

to myself the mention of little Em’ly, to whom I instinctively felt

that she would not very tenderly incline. While I was yet new at Doctor

Strong’s, she made several excursions over to Canterbury to see me, and

always at unseasonable hours: with the view, I suppose, of taking me by

surprise. But, finding me well employed, and bearing a good character,

and hearing on all hands that I rose fast in the school, she soon

discontinued these visits. I saw her on a Saturday, every third or

fourth week, when I went over to Dover for a treat; and I saw Mr. Dick

every alternate Wednesday, when he arrived by stage-coach at noon, to

stay until next morning.

On these occasions Mr. Dick never travelled without a leathern

writing-desk, containing a supply of stationery and the Memorial; in

relation to which document he had a notion that time was beginning to

press now, and that it really must be got out of hand.

Mr. Dick was very partial to gingerbread. To render his visits the more

agreeable, my aunt had instructed me to open a credit for him at a cake

shop, which was hampered with the stipulation that he should not be

served with more than one shilling’s-worth in the course of any one day.

This, and the reference of all his little bills at the county inn where

he slept, to my aunt, before they were paid, induced me to suspect that

he was only allowed to rattle his money, and not to spend it. I found

on further investigation that this was so, or at least there was an

agreement between him and my aunt that he should account to her for

all his disbursements. As he had no idea of deceiving her, and always

desired to please her, he was thus made chary of launching into expense.

On this point, as well as on all other possible points, Mr. Dick was

convinced that my aunt was the wisest and most wonderful of women; as he

repeatedly told me with infinite secrecy, and always in a whisper.

‘Trotwood,’ said Mr. Dick, with an air of mystery, after imparting this

confidence to me, one Wednesday; ‘who’s the man that hides near our

house and frightens her?’

‘Frightens my aunt, sir?’

Mr. Dick nodded. ‘I thought nothing would have frightened her,’ he said,

‘for she’s--’ here he whispered softly, ‘don’t mention it--the wisest

and most wonderful of women.’ Having said which, he drew back, to

observe the effect which this description of her made upon me.

‘The first time he came,’ said Mr. Dick, ‘was--let me see--sixteen

hundred and forty-nine was the date of King Charles’s execution. I think

you said sixteen hundred and forty-nine?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I don’t know how it can be,’ said Mr. Dick, sorely puzzled and shaking

his head. ‘I don’t think I am as old as that.’

‘Was it in that year that the man appeared, sir?’ I asked.

‘Why, really’ said Mr. Dick, ‘I don’t see how it can have been in that

year, Trotwood. Did you get that date out of history?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I suppose history never lies, does it?’ said Mr. Dick, with a gleam of

hope.

‘Oh dear, no, sir!’ I replied, most decisively. I was ingenuous and

young, and I thought so.

‘I can’t make it out,’ said Mr. Dick, shaking his head. ‘There’s

something wrong, somewhere. However, it was very soon after the mistake

was made of putting some of the trouble out of King Charles’s head into

my head, that the man first came. I was walking out with Miss Trotwood

after tea, just at dark, and there he was, close to our house.’

‘Walking about?’ I inquired.

‘Walking about?’ repeated Mr. Dick. ‘Let me see, I must recollect a bit.

N-no, no; he was not walking about.’

I asked, as the shortest way to get at it, what he WAS doing.

‘Well, he wasn’t there at all,’ said Mr. Dick, ‘until he came up behind

her, and whispered. Then she turned round and fainted, and I stood still

and looked at him, and he walked away; but that he should have

been hiding ever since (in the ground or somewhere), is the most

extraordinary thing!’

‘HAS he been hiding ever since?’ I asked.

‘To be sure he has,’ retorted Mr. Dick, nodding his head gravely. ‘Never

came out, till last night! We were walking last night, and he came up

behind her again, and I knew him again.’

‘And did he frighten my aunt again?’

‘All of a shiver,’ said Mr. Dick, counterfeiting that affection and

making his teeth chatter. ‘Held by the palings. Cried. But, Trotwood,

come here,’ getting me close to him, that he might whisper very softly;

‘why did she give him money, boy, in the moonlight?’

‘He was a beggar, perhaps.’

Mr. Dick shook his head, as utterly renouncing the suggestion; and

having replied a great many times, and with great confidence, ‘No

beggar, no beggar, no beggar, sir!’ went on to say, that from his window

he had afterwards, and late at night, seen my aunt give this person

money outside the garden rails in the moonlight, who then slunk

away--into the ground again, as he thought probable--and was seen no

more: while my aunt came hurriedly and secretly back into the house, and

had, even that morning, been quite different from her usual self; which

preyed on Mr. Dick’s mind.

I had not the least belief, in the outset of this story, that the

unknown was anything but a delusion of Mr. Dick’s, and one of the line

of that ill-fated Prince who occasioned him so much difficulty; but

after some reflection I began to entertain the question whether an

attempt, or threat of an attempt, might have been twice made to take

poor Mr. Dick himself from under my aunt’s protection, and whether

my aunt, the strength of whose kind feeling towards him I knew from

herself, might have been induced to pay a price for his peace and quiet.

As I was already much attached to Mr. Dick, and very solicitous for his

welfare, my fears favoured this supposition; and for a long time his

Wednesday hardly ever came round, without my entertaining a misgiving

that he would not be on the coach-box as usual. There he always

appeared, however, grey-headed, laughing, and happy; and he never had

anything more to tell of the man who could frighten my aunt.

These Wednesdays were the happiest days of Mr. Dick’s life; they were

far from being the least happy of mine. He soon became known to every

boy in the school; and though he never took an active part in any game

but kite-flying, was as deeply interested in all our sports as anyone

among us. How often have I seen him, intent upon a match at marbles

or pegtop, looking on with a face of unutterable interest, and hardly

breathing at the critical times! How often, at hare and hounds, have

I seen him mounted on a little knoll, cheering the whole field on

to action, and waving his hat above his grey head, oblivious of King

Charles the Martyr’s head, and all belonging to it! How many a

summer hour have I known to be but blissful minutes to him in

the cricket-field! How many winter days have I seen him, standing

blue-nosed, in the snow and east wind, looking at the boys going down

the long slide, and clapping his worsted gloves in rapture!

He was an universal favourite, and his ingenuity in little things was

transcendent. He could cut oranges into such devices as none of us had

an idea of. He could make a boat out of anything, from a skewer upwards.

He could turn cramp-bones into chessmen; fashion Roman chariots from old

court cards; make spoked wheels out of cotton reels, and bird-cages of

old wire. But he was greatest of all, perhaps, in the articles of string

and straw; with which we were all persuaded he could do anything that

could be done by hands.

Mr. Dick’s renown was not long confined to us. After a few Wednesdays,

Doctor Strong himself made some inquiries of me about him, and I told

him all my aunt had told me; which interested the Doctor so much that

he requested, on the occasion of his next visit, to be presented to him.

This ceremony I performed; and the Doctor begging Mr. Dick, whensoever

he should not find me at the coach office, to come on there, and rest

himself until our morning’s work was over, it soon passed into a custom

for Mr. Dick to come on as a matter of course, and, if we were a little

late, as often happened on a Wednesday, to walk about the courtyard,

waiting for me. Here he made the acquaintance of the Doctor’s beautiful

young wife (paler than formerly, all this time; more rarely seen by

me or anyone, I think; and not so gay, but not less beautiful), and so

became more and more familiar by degrees, until, at last, he would come

into the school and wait. He always sat in a particular corner, on a

particular stool, which was called ‘Dick’, after him; here he would sit,

with his grey head bent forward, attentively listening to whatever might

be going on, with a profound veneration for the learning he had never

been able to acquire.

This veneration Mr. Dick extended to the Doctor, whom he thought the

most subtle and accomplished philosopher of any age. It was long before

Mr. Dick ever spoke to him otherwise than bareheaded; and even when he

and the Doctor had struck up quite a friendship, and would walk together

by the hour, on that side of the courtyard which was known among us as

The Doctor’s Walk, Mr. Dick would pull off his hat at intervals to show

his respect for wisdom and knowledge. How it ever came about that the

Doctor began to read out scraps of the famous Dictionary, in these

walks, I never knew; perhaps he felt it all the same, at first, as

reading to himself. However, it passed into a custom too; and Mr. Dick,

listening with a face shining with pride and pleasure, in his heart of

hearts believed the Dictionary to be the most delightful book in the

world.

As I think of them going up and down before those schoolroom

windows--the Doctor reading with his complacent smile, an occasional

flourish of the manuscript, or grave motion of his head; and Mr. Dick

listening, enchained by interest, with his poor wits calmly wandering

God knows where, upon the wings of hard words--I think of it as one of

the pleasantest things, in a quiet way, that I have ever seen. I feel

as if they might go walking to and fro for ever, and the world might

somehow be the better for it--as if a thousand things it makes a noise

about, were not one half so good for it, or me.

Agnes was one of Mr. Dick’s friends, very soon; and in often coming

to the house, he made acquaintance with Uriah. The friendship between

himself and me increased continually, and it was maintained on this odd

footing: that, while Mr. Dick came professedly to look after me as my

guardian, he always consulted me in any little matter of doubt that

arose, and invariably guided himself by my advice; not only having a

high respect for my native sagacity, but considering that I inherited a

good deal from my aunt.

One Thursday morning, when I was about to walk with Mr. Dick from the

hotel to the coach office before going back to school (for we had an

hour’s school before breakfast), I met Uriah in the street, who reminded

me of the promise I had made to take tea with himself and his mother:

adding, with a writhe, ‘But I didn’t expect you to keep it, Master

Copperfield, we’re so very umble.’

I really had not yet been able to make up my mind whether I liked Uriah

or detested him; and I was very doubtful about it still, as I stood

looking him in the face in the street. But I felt it quite an affront to

be supposed proud, and said I only wanted to be asked.

‘Oh, if that’s all, Master Copperfield,’ said Uriah, ‘and it really

isn’t our umbleness that prevents you, will you come this evening?

But if it is our umbleness, I hope you won’t mind owning to it, Master

Copperfield; for we are well aware of our condition.’

I said I would mention it to Mr. Wickfield, and if he approved, as I had

no doubt he would, I would come with pleasure. So, at six o’clock that

evening, which was one of the early office evenings, I announced myself

as ready, to Uriah.

‘Mother will be proud, indeed,’ he said, as we walked away together. ‘Or

she would be proud, if it wasn’t sinful, Master Copperfield.’

‘Yet you didn’t mind supposing I was proud this morning,’ I returned.

‘Oh dear, no, Master Copperfield!’ returned Uriah. ‘Oh, believe me, no!

Such a thought never came into my head! I shouldn’t have deemed it at

all proud if you had thought US too umble for you. Because we are so

very umble.’

‘Have you been studying much law lately?’ I asked, to change the

subject.

‘Oh, Master Copperfield,’ he said, with an air of self-denial, ‘my

reading is hardly to be called study. I have passed an hour or two in

the evening, sometimes, with Mr. Tidd.’

‘Rather hard, I suppose?’ said I. ‘He is hard to me sometimes,’ returned

Uriah. ‘But I don’t know what he might be to a gifted person.’

After beating a little tune on his chin as he walked on, with the two

forefingers of his skeleton right hand, he added:

‘There are expressions, you see, Master Copperfield--Latin words

and terms--in Mr. Tidd, that are trying to a reader of my umble

attainments.’

‘Would you like to be taught Latin?’ I said briskly. ‘I will teach it