第 7 页

should have regarded it as much more than I had had reason to expect.

We used to walk about that dim old flat at Yarmouth in a loving manner,

hours and hours. The days sported by us, as if Time had not grown up

himself yet, but were a child too, and always at play. I told Em’ly

I adored her, and that unless she confessed she adored me I should be

reduced to the necessity of killing myself with a sword. She said she

did, and I have no doubt she did.

As to any sense of inequality, or youthfulness, or other difficulty

in our way, little Em’ly and I had no such trouble, because we had no

future. We made no more provision for growing older, than we did for

growing younger. We were the admiration of Mrs. Gummidge and Peggotty,

who used to whisper of an evening when we sat, lovingly, on our little

locker side by side, ‘Lor! wasn’t it beautiful!’ Mr. Peggotty smiled at

us from behind his pipe, and Ham grinned all the evening and did nothing

else. They had something of the sort of pleasure in us, I suppose, that

they might have had in a pretty toy, or a pocket model of the Colosseum.

I soon found out that Mrs. Gummidge did not always make herself so

agreeable as she might have been expected to do, under the circumstances

of her residence with Mr. Peggotty. Mrs. Gummidge’s was rather a fretful

disposition, and she whimpered more sometimes than was comfortable for

other parties in so small an establishment. I was very sorry for

her; but there were moments when it would have been more agreeable, I

thought, if Mrs. Gummidge had had a convenient apartment of her own to

retire to, and had stopped there until her spirits revived.

Mr. Peggotty went occasionally to a public-house called The Willing

Mind. I discovered this, by his being out on the second or third evening

of our visit, and by Mrs. Gummidge’s looking up at the Dutch clock,

between eight and nine, and saying he was there, and that, what was

more, she had known in the morning he would go there.

Mrs. Gummidge had been in a low state all day, and had burst into tears

in the forenoon, when the fire smoked. ‘I am a lone lorn creetur’,’ were

Mrs. Gummidge’s words, when that unpleasant occurrence took place, ‘and

everythink goes contrary with me.’

‘Oh, it’ll soon leave off,’ said Peggotty--I again mean our

Peggotty--‘and besides, you know, it’s not more disagreeable to you than

to us.’

‘I feel it more,’ said Mrs. Gummidge.

It was a very cold day, with cutting blasts of wind. Mrs. Gummidge’s

peculiar corner of the fireside seemed to me to be the warmest and

snuggest in the place, as her chair was certainly the easiest, but it

didn’t suit her that day at all. She was constantly complaining of the

cold, and of its occasioning a visitation in her back which she called

‘the creeps’. At last she shed tears on that subject, and said again

that she was ‘a lone lorn creetur’ and everythink went contrary with

her’.

‘It is certainly very cold,’ said Peggotty. ‘Everybody must feel it so.’

‘I feel it more than other people,’ said Mrs. Gummidge.

So at dinner; when Mrs. Gummidge was always helped immediately after me,

to whom the preference was given as a visitor of distinction. The

fish were small and bony, and the potatoes were a little burnt. We all

acknowledged that we felt this something of a disappointment; but Mrs.

Gummidge said she felt it more than we did, and shed tears again, and

made that former declaration with great bitterness.

Accordingly, when Mr. Peggotty came home about nine o’clock, this

unfortunate Mrs. Gummidge was knitting in her corner, in a very wretched

and miserable condition. Peggotty had been working cheerfully. Ham had

been patching up a great pair of waterboots; and I, with little Em’ly

by my side, had been reading to them. Mrs. Gummidge had never made any

other remark than a forlorn sigh, and had never raised her eyes since

tea.

‘Well, Mates,’ said Mr. Peggotty, taking his seat, ‘and how are you?’

We all said something, or looked something, to welcome him, except Mrs.

Gummidge, who only shook her head over her knitting.

‘What’s amiss?’ said Mr. Peggotty, with a clap of his hands. ‘Cheer up,

old Mawther!’ (Mr. Peggotty meant old girl.)

Mrs. Gummidge did not appear to be able to cheer up. She took out an old

black silk handkerchief and wiped her eyes; but instead of putting it

in her pocket, kept it out, and wiped them again, and still kept it out,

ready for use.

‘What’s amiss, dame?’ said Mr. Peggotty.

‘Nothing,’ returned Mrs. Gummidge. ‘You’ve come from The Willing Mind,

Dan’l?’

‘Why yes, I’ve took a short spell at The Willing Mind tonight,’ said Mr.

Peggotty.

‘I’m sorry I should drive you there,’ said Mrs. Gummidge.

‘Drive! I don’t want no driving,’ returned Mr. Peggotty with an honest

laugh. ‘I only go too ready.’

‘Very ready,’ said Mrs. Gummidge, shaking her head, and wiping her eyes.

‘Yes, yes, very ready. I am sorry it should be along of me that you’re

so ready.’

‘Along o’ you! It an’t along o’ you!’ said Mr. Peggotty. ‘Don’t ye

believe a bit on it.’

‘Yes, yes, it is,’ cried Mrs. Gummidge. ‘I know what I am. I know that I

am a lone lorn creetur’, and not only that everythink goes contrary with

me, but that I go contrary with everybody. Yes, yes. I feel more than

other people do, and I show it more. It’s my misfortun’.’

I really couldn’t help thinking, as I sat taking in all this, that the

misfortune extended to some other members of that family besides Mrs.

Gummidge. But Mr. Peggotty made no such retort, only answering with

another entreaty to Mrs. Gummidge to cheer up.

‘I an’t what I could wish myself to be,’ said Mrs. Gummidge. ‘I am far

from it. I know what I am. My troubles has made me contrary. I feel my

troubles, and they make me contrary. I wish I didn’t feel ‘em, but I

do. I wish I could be hardened to ‘em, but I an’t. I make the house

uncomfortable. I don’t wonder at it. I’ve made your sister so all day,

and Master Davy.’

Here I was suddenly melted, and roared out, ‘No, you haven’t, Mrs.

Gummidge,’ in great mental distress.

‘It’s far from right that I should do it,’ said Mrs. Gummidge. ‘It an’t

a fit return. I had better go into the house and die. I am a lone lorn

creetur’, and had much better not make myself contrary here. If thinks

must go contrary with me, and I must go contrary myself, let me go

contrary in my parish. Dan’l, I’d better go into the house, and die and

be a riddance!’

Mrs. Gummidge retired with these words, and betook herself to bed. When

she was gone, Mr. Peggotty, who had not exhibited a trace of any feeling

but the profoundest sympathy, looked round upon us, and nodding his head

with a lively expression of that sentiment still animating his face,

said in a whisper:

‘She’s been thinking of the old ‘un!’

I did not quite understand what old one Mrs. Gummidge was supposed to

have fixed her mind upon, until Peggotty, on seeing me to bed, explained

that it was the late Mr. Gummidge; and that her brother always took that

for a received truth on such occasions, and that it always had a moving

effect upon him. Some time after he was in his hammock that night, I

heard him myself repeat to Ham, ‘Poor thing! She’s been thinking of the

old ‘un!’ And whenever Mrs. Gummidge was overcome in a similar manner

during the remainder of our stay (which happened some few times), he

always said the same thing in extenuation of the circumstance, and

always with the tenderest commiseration.

So the fortnight slipped away, varied by nothing but the variation of

the tide, which altered Mr. Peggotty’s times of going out and coming in,

and altered Ham’s engagements also. When the latter was unemployed, he

sometimes walked with us to show us the boats and ships, and once

or twice he took us for a row. I don’t know why one slight set of

impressions should be more particularly associated with a place than

another, though I believe this obtains with most people, in reference

especially to the associations of their childhood. I never hear the

name, or read the name, of Yarmouth, but I am reminded of a certain

Sunday morning on the beach, the bells ringing for church, little Em’ly

leaning on my shoulder, Ham lazily dropping stones into the water, and

the sun, away at sea, just breaking through the heavy mist, and showing

us the ships, like their own shadows.

At last the day came for going home. I bore up against the separation

from Mr. Peggotty and Mrs. Gummidge, but my agony of mind at leaving

little Em’ly was piercing. We went arm-in-arm to the public-house where

the carrier put up, and I promised, on the road, to write to her. (I

redeemed that promise afterwards, in characters larger than those in

which apartments are usually announced in manuscript, as being to let.)

We were greatly overcome at parting; and if ever, in my life, I have had

a void made in my heart, I had one made that day.

Now, all the time I had been on my visit, I had been ungrateful to my

home again, and had thought little or nothing about it. But I was no

sooner turned towards it, than my reproachful young conscience seemed

to point that way with a ready finger; and I felt, all the more for the

sinking of my spirits, that it was my nest, and that my mother was my

comforter and friend.

This gained upon me as we went along; so that the nearer we drew, the

more familiar the objects became that we passed, the more excited I was

to get there, and to run into her arms. But Peggotty, instead of sharing

in those transports, tried to check them (though very kindly), and

looked confused and out of sorts.

Blunderstone Rookery would come, however, in spite of her, when the

carrier’s horse pleased--and did. How well I recollect it, on a cold

grey afternoon, with a dull sky, threatening rain!

The door opened, and I looked, half laughing and half crying in my

pleasant agitation, for my mother. It was not she, but a strange

servant.

‘Why, Peggotty!’ I said, ruefully, ‘isn’t she come home?’

‘Yes, yes, Master Davy,’ said Peggotty. ‘She’s come home. Wait a bit,

Master Davy, and I’ll--I’ll tell you something.’

Between her agitation, and her natural awkwardness in getting out of the

cart, Peggotty was making a most extraordinary festoon of herself, but

I felt too blank and strange to tell her so. When she had got down, she

took me by the hand; led me, wondering, into the kitchen; and shut the

door.

‘Peggotty!’ said I, quite frightened. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘Nothing’s the matter, bless you, Master Davy dear!’ she answered,

assuming an air of sprightliness.

‘Something’s the matter, I’m sure. Where’s mama?’

‘Where’s mama, Master Davy?’ repeated Peggotty.

‘Yes. Why hasn’t she come out to the gate, and what have we come in here

for? Oh, Peggotty!’ My eyes were full, and I felt as if I were going to

tumble down.

‘Bless the precious boy!’ cried Peggotty, taking hold of me. ‘What is

it? Speak, my pet!’

‘Not dead, too! Oh, she’s not dead, Peggotty?’

Peggotty cried out No! with an astonishing volume of voice; and then sat

down, and began to pant, and said I had given her a turn.

I gave her a hug to take away the turn, or to give her another turn

in the right direction, and then stood before her, looking at her in

anxious inquiry.

‘You see, dear, I should have told you before now,’ said Peggotty,

‘but I hadn’t an opportunity. I ought to have made it, perhaps, but

I couldn’t azackly’--that was always the substitute for exactly, in

Peggotty’s militia of words--‘bring my mind to it.’

‘Go on, Peggotty,’ said I, more frightened than before.

‘Master Davy,’ said Peggotty, untying her bonnet with a shaking hand,

and speaking in a breathless sort of way. ‘What do you think? You have

got a Pa!’

I trembled, and turned white. Something--I don’t know what, or

how--connected with the grave in the churchyard, and the raising of the

dead, seemed to strike me like an unwholesome wind.

‘A new one,’ said Peggotty.

‘A new one?’ I repeated.

Peggotty gave a gasp, as if she were swallowing something that was very

hard, and, putting out her hand, said:

‘Come and see him.’

‘I don’t want to see him.’ --‘And your mama,’ said Peggotty.

I ceased to draw back, and we went straight to the best parlour, where

she left me. On one side of the fire, sat my mother; on the other, Mr.

Murdstone. My mother dropped her work, and arose hurriedly, but timidly

I thought.

‘Now, Clara my dear,’ said Mr. Murdstone. ‘Recollect! control yourself,

always control yourself! Davy boy, how do you do?’

I gave him my hand. After a moment of suspense, I went and kissed my

mother: she kissed me, patted me gently on the shoulder, and sat down

again to her work. I could not look at her, I could not look at him,

I knew quite well that he was looking at us both; and I turned to the

window and looked out there, at some shrubs that were drooping their

heads in the cold.

As soon as I could creep away, I crept upstairs. My old dear bedroom was

changed, and I was to lie a long way off. I rambled downstairs to find

anything that was like itself, so altered it all seemed; and roamed into

the yard. I very soon started back from there, for the empty dog-kennel

was filled up with a great dog--deep mouthed and black-haired like

Him--and he was very angry at the sight of me, and sprang out to get at

me.

CHAPTER 4. I FALL INTO DISGRACE

If the room to which my bed was removed were a sentient thing that could

give evidence, I might appeal to it at this day--who sleeps there now,

I wonder!--to bear witness for me what a heavy heart I carried to it.

I went up there, hearing the dog in the yard bark after me all the way

while I climbed the stairs; and, looking as blank and strange upon the

room as the room looked upon me, sat down with my small hands crossed,

and thought.

I thought of the oddest things. Of the shape of the room, of the

cracks in the ceiling, of the paper on the walls, of the flaws in

the window-glass making ripples and dimples on the prospect, of the

washing-stand being rickety on its three legs, and having a discontented

something about it, which reminded me of Mrs. Gummidge under the