第 51 页

means of excitement that presented itself freshly to him; so none of his

proceedings surprised me.

Another cause of our being sometimes apart, was, that I had naturally an

interest in going over to Blunderstone, and revisiting the old familiar

scenes of my childhood; while Steerforth, after being there once, had

naturally no great interest in going there again. Hence, on three or

four days that I can at once recall, we went our several ways after an

early breakfast, and met again at a late dinner. I had no idea how he

employed his time in the interval, beyond a general knowledge that

he was very popular in the place, and had twenty means of actively

diverting himself where another man might not have found one.

For my own part, my occupation in my solitary pilgrimages was to recall

every yard of the old road as I went along it, and to haunt the old

spots, of which I never tired. I haunted them, as my memory had often

done, and lingered among them as my younger thoughts had lingered when I

was far away. The grave beneath the tree, where both my parents lay--on

which I had looked out, when it was my father’s only, with such curious

feelings of compassion, and by which I had stood, so desolate, when it

was opened to receive my pretty mother and her baby--the grave which

Peggotty’s own faithful care had ever since kept neat, and made a garden

of, I walked near, by the hour. It lay a little off the churchyard path,

in a quiet corner, not so far removed but I could read the names

upon the stone as I walked to and fro, startled by the sound of the

church-bell when it struck the hour, for it was like a departed voice to

me. My reflections at these times were always associated with the figure

I was to make in life, and the distinguished things I was to do. My

echoing footsteps went to no other tune, but were as constant to that as

if I had come home to build my castles in the air at a living mother’s

side.

There were great changes in my old home. The ragged nests, so long

deserted by the rooks, were gone; and the trees were lopped and topped

out of their remembered shapes. The garden had run wild, and half the

windows of the house were shut up. It was occupied, but only by a poor

lunatic gentleman, and the people who took care of him. He was always

sitting at my little window, looking out into the churchyard; and I

wondered whether his rambling thoughts ever went upon any of the fancies

that used to occupy mine, on the rosy mornings when I peeped out of

that same little window in my night-clothes, and saw the sheep quietly

feeding in the light of the rising sun.

Our old neighbours, Mr. and Mrs. Grayper, were gone to South America,

and the rain had made its way through the roof of their empty house,

and stained the outer walls. Mr. Chillip was married again to a tall,

raw-boned, high-nosed wife; and they had a weazen little baby, with a

heavy head that it couldn’t hold up, and two weak staring eyes, with

which it seemed to be always wondering why it had ever been born.

It was with a singular jumble of sadness and pleasure that I used to

linger about my native place, until the reddening winter sun admonished

me that it was time to start on my returning walk. But, when the place

was left behind, and especially when Steerforth and I were happily

seated over our dinner by a blazing fire, it was delicious to think of

having been there. So it was, though in a softened degree, when I

went to my neat room at night; and, turning over the leaves of the

crocodile-book (which was always there, upon a little table), remembered

with a grateful heart how blest I was in having such a friend as

Steerforth, such a friend as Peggotty, and such a substitute for what I

had lost as my excellent and generous aunt.

MY nearest way to Yarmouth, in coming back from these long walks, was by

a ferry. It landed me on the flat between the town and the sea, which I

could make straight across, and so save myself a considerable circuit by

the high road. Mr. Peggotty’s house being on that waste-place, and not

a hundred yards out of my track, I always looked in as I went by.

Steerforth was pretty sure to be there expecting me, and we went on

together through the frosty air and gathering fog towards the twinkling

lights of the town.

One dark evening, when I was later than usual--for I had, that day, been

making my parting visit to Blunderstone, as we were now about to return

home--I found him alone in Mr. Peggotty’s house, sitting thoughtfully

before the fire. He was so intent upon his own reflections that he was

quite unconscious of my approach. This, indeed, he might easily have

been if he had been less absorbed, for footsteps fell noiselessly on the

sandy ground outside; but even my entrance failed to rouse him. I was

standing close to him, looking at him; and still, with a heavy brow, he

was lost in his meditations.

He gave such a start when I put my hand upon his shoulder, that he made

me start too.

‘You come upon me,’ he said, almost angrily, ‘like a reproachful ghost!’

‘I was obliged to announce myself, somehow,’ I replied. ‘Have I called

you down from the stars?’

‘No,’ he answered. ‘No.’

‘Up from anywhere, then?’ said I, taking my seat near him.

‘I was looking at the pictures in the fire,’ he returned.

‘But you are spoiling them for me,’ said I, as he stirred it quickly

with a piece of burning wood, striking out of it a train of red-hot

sparks that went careering up the little chimney, and roaring out into

the air.

‘You would not have seen them,’ he returned. ‘I detest this mongrel

time, neither day nor night. How late you are! Where have you been?’

‘I have been taking leave of my usual walk,’ said I.

‘And I have been sitting here,’ said Steerforth, glancing round the

room, ‘thinking that all the people we found so glad on the night of

our coming down, might--to judge from the present wasted air of the

place--be dispersed, or dead, or come to I don’t know what harm. David,

I wish to God I had had a judicious father these last twenty years!’

‘My dear Steerforth, what is the matter?’

‘I wish with all my soul I had been better guided!’ he exclaimed. ‘I

wish with all my soul I could guide myself better!’

There was a passionate dejection in his manner that quite amazed me. He

was more unlike himself than I could have supposed possible.

‘It would be better to be this poor Peggotty, or his lout of a nephew,’

he said, getting up and leaning moodily against the chimney-piece, with

his face towards the fire, ‘than to be myself, twenty times richer and

twenty times wiser, and be the torment to myself that I have been, in

this Devil’s bark of a boat, within the last half-hour!’

I was so confounded by the alteration in him, that at first I could only

observe him in silence, as he stood leaning his head upon his hand, and

looking gloomily down at the fire. At length I begged him, with all

the earnestness I felt, to tell me what had occurred to cross him so

unusually, and to let me sympathize with him, if I could not hope to

advise him. Before I had well concluded, he began to laugh--fretfully at

first, but soon with returning gaiety.

‘Tut, it’s nothing, Daisy! nothing!’ he replied. ‘I told you at the

inn in London, I am heavy company for myself, sometimes. I have been a

nightmare to myself, just now--must have had one, I think. At odd dull

times, nursery tales come up into the memory, unrecognized for what

they are. I believe I have been confounding myself with the bad boy who

“didn’t care”, and became food for lions--a grander kind of going to

the dogs, I suppose. What old women call the horrors, have been creeping

over me from head to foot. I have been afraid of myself.’

‘You are afraid of nothing else, I think,’ said I.

‘Perhaps not, and yet may have enough to be afraid of too,’ he answered.

‘Well! So it goes by! I am not about to be hipped again, David; but I

tell you, my good fellow, once more, that it would have been well for me

(and for more than me) if I had had a steadfast and judicious father!’

His face was always full of expression, but I never saw it express such

a dark kind of earnestness as when he said these words, with his glance

bent on the fire.

‘So much for that!’ he said, making as if he tossed something light

into the air, with his hand. “‘Why, being gone, I am a man again,” like

Macbeth. And now for dinner! If I have not (Macbeth-like) broken up the

feast with most admired disorder, Daisy.’

‘But where are they all, I wonder!’ said I.

‘God knows,’ said Steerforth. ‘After strolling to the ferry looking

for you, I strolled in here and found the place deserted. That set me

thinking, and you found me thinking.’

The advent of Mrs. Gummidge with a basket, explained how the house had

happened to be empty. She had hurried out to buy something that was

needed, against Mr. Peggotty’s return with the tide; and had left the

door open in the meanwhile, lest Ham and little Em’ly, with whom it was

an early night, should come home while she was gone. Steerforth, after

very much improving Mrs. Gummidge’s spirits by a cheerful salutation and

a jocose embrace, took my arm, and hurried me away.

He had improved his own spirits, no less than Mrs. Gummidge’s, for

they were again at their usual flow, and he was full of vivacious

conversation as we went along.

‘And so,’ he said, gaily, ‘we abandon this buccaneer life tomorrow, do

we?’

‘So we agreed,’ I returned. ‘And our places by the coach are taken, you

know.’

‘Ay! there’s no help for it, I suppose,’ said Steerforth. ‘I have

almost forgotten that there is anything to do in the world but to go out

tossing on the sea here. I wish there was not.’

‘As long as the novelty should last,’ said I, laughing.

‘Like enough,’ he returned; ‘though there’s a sarcastic meaning in that

observation for an amiable piece of innocence like my young friend.

Well! I dare say I am a capricious fellow, David. I know I am; but

while the iron is hot, I can strike it vigorously too. I could pass

a reasonably good examination already, as a pilot in these waters, I

think.’

‘Mr. Peggotty says you are a wonder,’ I returned.

‘A nautical phenomenon, eh?’ laughed Steerforth.

‘Indeed he does, and you know how truly; I know how ardent you are

in any pursuit you follow, and how easily you can master it. And that

amazes me most in you, Steerforth--that you should be contented with

such fitful uses of your powers.’

‘Contented?’ he answered, merrily. ‘I am never contented, except with

your freshness, my gentle Daisy. As to fitfulness, I have never learnt

the art of binding myself to any of the wheels on which the Ixions of

these days are turning round and round. I missed it somehow in a bad

apprenticeship, and now don’t care about it.---You know I have bought a

boat down here?’

‘What an extraordinary fellow you are, Steerforth!’ I exclaimed,

stopping--for this was the first I had heard of it. ‘When you may never

care to come near the place again!’

‘I don’t know that,’ he returned. ‘I have taken a fancy to the place. At

all events,’ walking me briskly on, ‘I have bought a boat that was for

sale--a clipper, Mr. Peggotty says; and so she is--and Mr. Peggotty will

be master of her in my absence.’

‘Now I understand you, Steerforth!’ said I, exultingly. ‘You pretend

to have bought it for yourself, but you have really done so to confer

a benefit on him. I might have known as much at first, knowing you.

My dear kind Steerforth, how can I tell you what I think of your

generosity?’

‘Tush!’ he answered, turning red. ‘The less said, the better.’

‘Didn’t I know?’ cried I, ‘didn’t I say that there was not a joy, or

sorrow, or any emotion of such honest hearts that was indifferent to

you?’

‘Aye, aye,’ he answered, ‘you told me all that. There let it rest. We

have said enough!’

Afraid of offending him by pursuing the subject when he made so light

of it, I only pursued it in my thoughts as we went on at even a quicker

pace than before.

‘She must be newly rigged,’ said Steerforth, ‘and I shall leave Littimer

behind to see it done, that I may know she is quite complete. Did I tell

you Littimer had come down?’

‘No.’

‘Oh yes! came down this morning, with a letter from my mother.’

As our looks met, I observed that he was pale even to his lips, though

he looked very steadily at me. I feared that some difference between him

and his mother might have led to his being in the frame of mind in which

I had found him at the solitary fireside. I hinted so.

‘Oh no!’ he said, shaking his head, and giving a slight laugh. ‘Nothing

of the sort! Yes. He is come down, that man of mine.’

‘The same as ever?’ said I.

‘The same as ever,’ said Steerforth. ‘Distant and quiet as the North

Pole. He shall see to the boat being fresh named. She’s the “Stormy

Petrel” now. What does Mr. Peggotty care for Stormy Petrels! I’ll have

her christened again.’

‘By what name?’ I asked.

‘The “Little Em’ly”.’

As he had continued to look steadily at me, I took it as a reminder that

he objected to being extolled for his consideration. I could not help

showing in my face how much it pleased me, but I said little, and he

resumed his usual smile, and seemed relieved.

‘But see here,’ he said, looking before us, ‘where the original little

Em’ly comes! And that fellow with her, eh? Upon my soul, he’s a true

knight. He never leaves her!’

Ham was a boat-builder in these days, having improved a natural

ingenuity in that handicraft, until he had become a skilled workman. He

was in his working-dress, and looked rugged enough, but manly withal,

and a very fit protector for the blooming little creature at his

side. Indeed, there was a frankness in his face, an honesty, and an

undisguised show of his pride in her, and his love for her, which were,

to me, the best of good looks. I thought, as they came towards us, that

they were well matched even in that particular.

She withdrew her hand timidly from his arm as we stopped to speak to

them, and blushed as she gave it to Steerforth and to me. When they

passed on, after we had exchanged a few words, she did not like to