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willingly into my aunt’s pretence, as a means of enabling me to pass a

few tranquil hours with Agnes. I consulted the good Doctor relative

to an absence of three days; and the Doctor wishing me to take that

relaxation,--he wished me to take more; but my energy could not bear

that,--I made up my mind to go.

As to the Commons, I had no great occasion to be particular about my

duties in that quarter. To say the truth, we were getting in no very

good odour among the tip-top proctors, and were rapidly sliding down

to but a doubtful position. The business had been indifferent under Mr.

Jorkins, before Mr. Spenlow’s time; and although it had been quickened

by the infusion of new blood, and by the display which Mr. Spenlow made,

still it was not established on a sufficiently strong basis to bear,

without being shaken, such a blow as the sudden loss of its active

manager. It fell off very much. Mr. Jorkins, notwithstanding his

reputation in the firm, was an easy-going, incapable sort of man, whose

reputation out of doors was not calculated to back it up. I was turned

over to him now, and when I saw him take his snuff and let the business

go, I regretted my aunt’s thousand pounds more than ever.

But this was not the worst of it. There were a number of hangers-on and

outsiders about the Commons, who, without being proctors themselves,

dabbled in common-form business, and got it done by real proctors, who

lent their names in consideration of a share in the spoil;--and there

were a good many of these too. As our house now wanted business on any

terms, we joined this noble band; and threw out lures to the hangers-on

and outsiders, to bring their business to us. Marriage licences and

small probates were what we all looked for, and what paid us best;

and the competition for these ran very high indeed. Kidnappers and

inveiglers were planted in all the avenues of entrance to the Commons,

with instructions to do their utmost to cut off all persons in mourning,

and all gentlemen with anything bashful in their appearance, and entice

them to the offices in which their respective employers were interested;

which instructions were so well observed, that I myself, before I was

known by sight, was twice hustled into the premises of our principal

opponent. The conflicting interests of these touting gentlemen being of

a nature to irritate their feelings, personal collisions took place;

and the Commons was even scandalized by our principal inveigler (who

had formerly been in the wine trade, and afterwards in the sworn brokery

line) walking about for some days with a black eye. Any one of these

scouts used to think nothing of politely assisting an old lady in

black out of a vehicle, killing any proctor whom she inquired for,

representing his employer as the lawful successor and representative of

that proctor, and bearing the old lady off (sometimes greatly affected)

to his employer’s office. Many captives were brought to me in this way.

As to marriage licences, the competition rose to such a pitch, that a

shy gentleman in want of one, had nothing to do but submit himself

to the first inveigler, or be fought for, and become the prey of the

strongest. One of our clerks, who was an outsider, used, in the height

of this contest, to sit with his hat on, that he might be ready to rush

out and swear before a surrogate any victim who was brought in. The

system of inveigling continues, I believe, to this day. The last time I

was in the Commons, a civil able-bodied person in a white apron pounced

out upon me from a doorway, and whispering the word ‘Marriage-licence’

in my ear, was with great difficulty prevented from taking me up in

his arms and lifting me into a proctor’s. From this digression, let me

proceed to Dover.

I found everything in a satisfactory state at the cottage; and was

enabled to gratify my aunt exceedingly by reporting that the tenant

inherited her feud, and waged incessant war against donkeys. Having

settled the little business I had to transact there, and slept there one

night, I walked on to Canterbury early in the morning. It was now

winter again; and the fresh, cold windy day, and the sweeping downland,

brightened up my hopes a little.

Coming into Canterbury, I loitered through the old streets with a sober

pleasure that calmed my spirits, and eased my heart. There were the old

signs, the old names over the shops, the old people serving in them. It

appeared so long, since I had been a schoolboy there, that I wondered

the place was so little changed, until I reflected how little I

was changed myself. Strange to say, that quiet influence which was

inseparable in my mind from Agnes, seemed to pervade even the city where

she dwelt. The venerable cathedral towers, and the old jackdaws and

rooks whose airy voices made them more retired than perfect silence

would have done; the battered gateways, one stuck full with statues,

long thrown down, and crumbled away, like the reverential pilgrims

who had gazed upon them; the still nooks, where the ivied growth of

centuries crept over gabled ends and ruined walls; the ancient houses,

the pastoral landscape of field, orchard, and garden; everywhere--on

everything--I felt the same serener air, the same calm, thoughtful,

softening spirit.

Arrived at Mr. Wickfield’s house, I found, in the little lower room on

the ground floor, where Uriah Heep had been of old accustomed to sit,

Mr. Micawber plying his pen with great assiduity. He was dressed in a

legal-looking suit of black, and loomed, burly and large, in that small

office.

Mr. Micawber was extremely glad to see me, but a little confused too.

He would have conducted me immediately into the presence of Uriah, but I

declined.

‘I know the house of old, you recollect,’ said I, ‘and will find my way

upstairs. How do you like the law, Mr. Micawber?’

‘My dear Copperfield,’ he replied. ‘To a man possessed of the higher

imaginative powers, the objection to legal studies is the amount of

detail which they involve. Even in our professional correspondence,’

said Mr. Micawber, glancing at some letters he was writing, ‘the mind is

not at liberty to soar to any exalted form of expression. Still, it is a

great pursuit. A great pursuit!’

He then told me that he had become the tenant of Uriah Heep’s old house;

and that Mrs. Micawber would be delighted to receive me, once more,

under her own roof.

‘It is humble,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘--to quote a favourite expression

of my friend Heep; but it may prove the stepping-stone to more ambitious

domiciliary accommodation.’

I asked him whether he had reason, so far, to be satisfied with his

friend Heep’s treatment of him? He got up to ascertain if the door were

close shut, before he replied, in a lower voice:

‘My dear Copperfield, a man who labours under the pressure of pecuniary

embarrassments, is, with the generality of people, at a disadvantage.

That disadvantage is not diminished, when that pressure necessitates the

drawing of stipendiary emoluments, before those emoluments are strictly

due and payable. All I can say is, that my friend Heep has responded

to appeals to which I need not more particularly refer, in a manner

calculated to redound equally to the honour of his head, and of his

heart.’

‘I should not have supposed him to be very free with his money either,’

I observed.

‘Pardon me!’ said Mr. Micawber, with an air of constraint, ‘I speak of

my friend Heep as I have experience.’

‘I am glad your experience is so favourable,’ I returned.

‘You are very obliging, my dear Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber; and

hummed a tune.

‘Do you see much of Mr. Wickfield?’ I asked, to change the subject.

‘Not much,’ said Mr. Micawber, slightingly. ‘Mr. Wickfield is, I dare

say, a man of very excellent intentions; but he is--in short, he is

obsolete.’

‘I am afraid his partner seeks to make him so,’ said I.

‘My dear Copperfield!’ returned Mr. Micawber, after some uneasy

evolutions on his stool, ‘allow me to offer a remark! I am here, in

a capacity of confidence. I am here, in a position of trust. The

discussion of some topics, even with Mrs. Micawber herself (so long the

partner of my various vicissitudes, and a woman of a remarkable lucidity

of intellect), is, I am led to consider, incompatible with the functions

now devolving on me. I would therefore take the liberty of suggesting

that in our friendly intercourse--which I trust will never be

disturbed!--we draw a line. On one side of this line,’ said Mr.

Micawber, representing it on the desk with the office ruler, ‘is the

whole range of the human intellect, with a trifling exception; on

the other, IS that exception; that is to say, the affairs of Messrs

Wickfield and Heep, with all belonging and appertaining thereunto. I

trust I give no offence to the companion of my youth, in submitting this

proposition to his cooler judgement?’

Though I saw an uneasy change in Mr. Micawber, which sat tightly on

him, as if his new duties were a misfit, I felt I had no right to be

offended. My telling him so, appeared to relieve him; and he shook hands

with me.

‘I am charmed, Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘let me assure you, with

Miss Wickfield. She is a very superior young lady, of very remarkable

attractions, graces, and virtues. Upon my honour,’ said Mr. Micawber,

indefinitely kissing his hand and bowing with his genteelest air, ‘I do

Homage to Miss Wickfield! Hem!’ ‘I am glad of that, at least,’ said I.

‘If you had not assured us, my dear Copperfield, on the occasion of that

agreeable afternoon we had the happiness of passing with you, that D.

was your favourite letter,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘I should unquestionably

have supposed that A. had been so.’

We have all some experience of a feeling, that comes over us

occasionally, of what we are saying and doing having been said and done

before, in a remote time--of our having been surrounded, dim ages ago,

by the same faces, objects, and circumstances--of our knowing perfectly

what will be said next, as if we suddenly remembered it! I never had

this mysterious impression more strongly in my life, than before he

uttered those words.

I took my leave of Mr. Micawber, for the time, charging him with my best

remembrances to all at home. As I left him, resuming his stool and his

pen, and rolling his head in his stock, to get it into easier writing

order, I clearly perceived that there was something interposed between

him and me, since he had come into his new functions, which prevented

our getting at each other as we used to do, and quite altered the

character of our intercourse.

There was no one in the quaint old drawing-room, though it presented

tokens of Mrs. Heep’s whereabouts. I looked into the room still

belonging to Agnes, and saw her sitting by the fire, at a pretty

old-fashioned desk she had, writing.

My darkening the light made her look up. What a pleasure to be the cause

of that bright change in her attentive face, and the object of that

sweet regard and welcome!

‘Ah, Agnes!’ said I, when we were sitting together, side by side; ‘I

have missed you so much, lately!’

‘Indeed?’ she replied. ‘Again! And so soon?’

I shook my head.

‘I don’t know how it is, Agnes; I seem to want some faculty of mind that

I ought to have. You were so much in the habit of thinking for me, in

the happy old days here, and I came so naturally to you for counsel and

support, that I really think I have missed acquiring it.’

‘And what is it?’ said Agnes, cheerfully.

‘I don’t know what to call it,’ I replied. ‘I think I am earnest and

persevering?’

‘I am sure of it,’ said Agnes.

‘And patient, Agnes?’ I inquired, with a little hesitation.

‘Yes,’ returned Agnes, laughing. ‘Pretty well.’

‘And yet,’ said I, ‘I get so miserable and worried, and am so unsteady

and irresolute in my power of assuring myself, that I know I must

want--shall I call it--reliance, of some kind?’

‘Call it so, if you will,’ said Agnes.

‘Well!’ I returned. ‘See here! You come to London, I rely on you, and I

have an object and a course at once. I am driven out of it, I come

here, and in a moment I feel an altered person. The circumstances that

distressed me are not changed, since I came into this room; but an

influence comes over me in that short interval that alters me, oh, how

much for the better! What is it? What is your secret, Agnes?’

Her head was bent down, looking at the fire.

‘It’s the old story,’ said I. ‘Don’t laugh, when I say it was always

the same in little things as it is in greater ones. My old troubles were

nonsense, and now they are serious; but whenever I have gone away from

my adopted sister--’

Agnes looked up--with such a Heavenly face!--and gave me her hand, which

I kissed.

‘Whenever I have not had you, Agnes, to advise and approve in the

beginning, I have seemed to go wild, and to get into all sorts of

difficulty. When I have come to you, at last (as I have always done),

I have come to peace and happiness. I come home, now, like a tired

traveller, and find such a blessed sense of rest!’

I felt so deeply what I said, it affected me so sincerely, that my voice

failed, and I covered my face with my hand, and broke into tears. I

write the truth. Whatever contradictions and inconsistencies there were

within me, as there are within so many of us; whatever might have been

so different, and so much better; whatever I had done, in which I had

perversely wandered away from the voice of my own heart; I knew nothing

of. I only knew that I was fervently in earnest, when I felt the rest

and peace of having Agnes near me.

In her placid sisterly manner; with her beaming eyes; with her tender

voice; and with that sweet composure, which had long ago made the house

that held her quite a sacred place to me; she soon won me from this

weakness, and led me on to tell all that had happened since our last

meeting.

‘And there is not another word to tell, Agnes,’ said I, when I had made

an end of my confidence. ‘Now, my reliance is on you.’

‘But it must not be on me, Trotwood,’ returned Agnes, with a pleasant

smile. ‘It must be on someone else.’