Neil and her grandfather went out to walk. A terrible thunderstorm
coming on, they were forced to take refuge in a small public house; and
here they saw some shabbily dressed and wicked looking men were playing
cards. The old man watched them with increasing interest and excitement,
until his whole appearance underwent a complete change. His face was
flushed and eager, his teeth set. With a hand that trembled violently he
seized Nell's little purse, and in spite of her pleadings joined in the
game, gambling with such a savage thirst for gain that the distressed
and frightened child could almost better have borne to see him dead. It
was long after midnight when the play came to an end; and they were
forced to remain where they were until the morning. And in the night the
child was wakened from her troubled sleep to find a figure in the
room--a figure busying its hands about her garments, while its face was
turned to her, listening and looking lest she should awake. It was her
grandfather himself, his white face pinched and sharpened by the
greediness which made his eyes unnaturally bright, counting the money of
which his hands were robbing her.
Evening after evening, after that night, the old man would steal away,
not to return until the night was far spent, demanding, wildly, money.
And at last there came an hour when the child overheard him, tempted
beyond his feeble powers of resistance, undertake to find more money to
feed the desperate passion which had laid its hold upon his weakness by
robbing the kind Mrs. Jarley, who had done so much for them. The poor
old man had become so weak in his mind, that he did not understand how
wicked was his act.
That night the child took her grandfather by the hand and led him forth.
Through the strait streets and narrow outskirts of the town their
trembling feet passed quickly; the child sustained by one idea--that
they were flying from wickedness and disgrace, and that she could save
her grandfather only by her firmness unaided by one word of advice or
any helping hand; the old man following her as though she had been an
angel messenger sent to lead him where she would.
The hardest part of all their wanderings was now before them. They slept
in the open air that night, and on the following morning some men
offered to take them a long distance on their barge on the river. These
men, though they were not unkindly, were very rugged, noisy fellows, and
they drank and quarreled fearfully among themselves, to Nell's
inexpressible terror. It rained, too, heavily, and she was wet and
cold. At last they reached the great city whither the barge was bound,
and here they wandered up and down, being now penniless, and watched the
faces of those who passed, to find among them a ray of encouragement or
hope. Ill in body, and sick to death at heart, the child needed her
utmost courage and will even to creep along.
They lay down that night, and the next night too, with nothing between
them and the sky; a penny loaf was all they had had that day, and when
the third morning came, it found the child much weaker, yet she made no
complaint. The great city with its many factories hemmed them in on
every side, and seemed to shut out hope.
Faint and spiritless as they were, its streets were terrible to them.
After humbly asking for relief at some few doors, and being driven away,
they agreed to make their way out of it as speedily as they could, and
try if the people living in some lone house beyond would have more pity
on their worn out state.
They were dragging themselves along through the last street, and the
child felt that the time was close at hand when her enfeebled powers
would bear no more. There appeared before them, at this moment, going in
the same direction as themselves, a traveler on foot, who, with a
bundle of clothing strapped to his back, leaned upon a stout stick as he
walked, and read from a book which he held in his other hand.
It was not an easy matter to come up with him and ask his aid, for he
walked fast, and was a little distance in advance. At length he stopped,
to look more attentively at some passage in his book. Encouraged by a
ray of hope, the child shot on before her grandfather, and, going close
to the stranger without rousing him by the sound of her footsteps,
began, in a few faint words, to beg his help.
He turned his head. The child clapped her hands together, uttered a wild
shriek, and fell senseless at his feet.
It was the poor schoolmaster. No other than the poor schoolmaster.
Scarcely less moved and surprised by the sight of the child than she had
been on recognizing him, he stood, for a moment, silent, without even
the presence of mind to raise her from the ground.
But, quickly recovering himself, he threw down his stick and book, and,
dropping on one knee beside her, tried simple means as came to his mind,
to restore her to herself; while her grandfather, standing idly by,
wrung his hands, and begged her, with many words of love, to speak to
him, were it only a whisper.
"She appears to be quite worn out," said the schoolmaster, glancing
upward into his face. "You have used up all her strength, friend."
"She is dying of want," answered the old man. "I never thought how weak
and ill she was till now."
Casting a look upon him, half-angry and half-pitiful, the schoolmaster
took the child in his arms, and, bidding the old man gather up her
little basket and follow him directly, bore her away at his utmost
speed.
There was a small inn within sight, to which, it would seem, he had been
walking when so unexpectedly overtaken. Toward this place he hurried
with his unconscious burden, and rushing into the kitchen, and calling
upon the company there assembled to make way for God's sake, laid it
down on a chair before the fire.
The company, who rose in confusion on the schoolmaster's entrance, did
as people usually do under such circumstances. Everybody called for his
or her favorite remedy, which nobody brought; each cried for more air,
at the same time carefully shutting out what air there was, by closing
round the object of sympathy; and all wondered why somebody else didn't
do what it never appeared to occur to them might be done by themselves.
The landlady, however, who had more readiness and activity than any of
them, and who seemed to understand the case more quickly, soon came
running in, with a little hot medicine, followed by her servant-girl,
carrying vinegar, hartshorn, smelling-salts, and such other
restoratives; which, being duly given, helped the child so far as to
enable her to thank them in a faint voice, and to hold out her hand to
the poor schoolmaster, who stood, with an anxious face, near her side.
Without suffering her to speak another word, or so much as to stir a
finger any more, the women straightway carried her off to bed; and,
having covered her up warm, bathed her cold feet, and wrapped them in
flannel, they sent a messenger for the doctor.
The doctor, who was a red-nosed gentleman with a great bunch of seals
dangling below a waistcoat of ribbed black satin, arrived with all
speed, and taking his seat by the bedside of poor Nell, drew out his
watch, and felt her pulse. Then he looked at her tongue, then he felt
her pulse again, and while he did so, he eyed the half-emptied
wine-glass as if in profound abstraction.
"I should give her," said the doctor at length, "a teaspoonful, every
now and then, of hot medicine."
"Why, that's exactly what we've done, sir!" said the delighted landlady.
"I should also," observed the doctor, who had passed the foot-bath on
the stairs, "I should also," said the doctor, in a very wise tone of
voice, "put her feet in hot water and wrap them up in flannel. I should
likewise," said the doctor, with increased solemnity, "give her
something light for supper--the wing of a roasted chicken now------"
"Why, goodness gracious me, sir, it's cooking at the kitchen fire this
instant!" cried the landlady. And so indeed it was, for the schoolmaster
had ordered it to be put down, and it was getting on so well that the
doctor might have smelled it if he had tried; perhaps he did.
"You may then," said the doctor, rising gravely, "give her a glass of
hot mulled port-wine, if she likes wine------"
"And a piece of toast, sir?" suggested the landlady.
"Ay," said the doctor, in a very dignified tone, "And a toast--of bread.
But be very particular to make it of bread, if you please, ma'am."
With which parting advice, slowly and solemnly given, the doctor
departed, leaving the whole house in admiration of that wisdom which
agreed so closely with their own. Everybody said he was a very shrewd
doctor indeed, and knew perfectly what people's bodies needed; which
there appears some reason to suppose he did.
While her supper was preparing, the child fell into a refreshing sleep,
from which they were obliged to rouse her when it was ready. As she
showed extraordinary uneasiness on learning that her grandfather was
below stairs, and as she was greatly troubled at the thought of their
being apart, he took his supper with her. Finding her still very anxious
for the old man, they made him up a bed in an inner room, to which he
soon went. The key of this room happened by good-fortune to be on that
side of the door which was in Nell's room; she turned it on him when the
landlady had withdrawn, and crept to bed again with a thankful heart.
The schoolmaster sat for a long time smoking his pipe by the kitchen
fire, which was now deserted, thinking, with a very happy face, on the
fortunate chance which had brought him at just the right moment to the
child's assistance.
The schoolmaster, as it appeared, was on his way to a new home. And
when the child had recovered somewhat from her hunger and weariness, it
was arranged that she and her grandfather should go with him to the
village whither he was bound, and that he should endeavor to find them
some work by which they could get their living.
It was a lonely little village, lying among the quiet country scenes
Nell loved. And here, her grandfather being peaceful and at rest, a
great calm fell upon the spirit of the child. Often she would steal into
the church, and, sitting down among the quiet figures carved upon the
tombs, would think of the summer days and the bright spring-time that
would come; of the rays of sun that would fall in, aslant those sleeping
forms; of the songs of birds, and the sweet air that would steal in.
What if the spot awakened thoughts of death! It would be no pain to
sleep amid such sights and sounds as these. For the time was drawing
nearer every day when Nell was to rest indeed. She never murmured or
complained, but faded like a light upon a summer's evening and died. Day
after day and all day long, the old man, broken-hearted and with no love
or care for anything in life, would sit beside her grave with her straw
hat and the little basket she had been used to carry, waiting till she
should come to him again. At last they found him lying dead upon the
stone. And in the church where they had often prayed and mused and
lingered, hand in hand, the child and the old man slept together.
FOOTNOTE:
[C] The Lord Chancellor, it may be explained, is the highest judge in
the courts of England; and when in court always wears a great wig and a
robe.
VII.
LITTLE DAVID COPPERFIELD.
I, little David Copperfield, lived with my mother in a pretty house in
the village of Blunderstone in Suffolk. I had never known my father, who
died before I could remember anything, and I had neither brothers nor
sisters. I was fondly loved by my pretty young mother, and our kind,
good servant, Peggotty, and was a very happy little fellow. We had very
few friends, and the only relation my mother talked about was an aunt of
my father's, a tall and rather terrible old lady, from all accounts, who
had once been to see us when I was quite a tiny baby, and had been so
angry to find I was not a little girl that she had left the house quite
offended, and had never been heard of since. One visitor, a tall dark
gentleman, I did not like at all, and was rather inclined to be jealous
that my mother should be so friendly with the stranger.
Peggotty and I were sitting one night by the parlor fire, alone. I had
been reading to Peggotty about crocodiles. I was tired of reading, and
dead sleepy; but having leave, as a high treat, to sit up until my
mother came home from spending the evening at a neighbor's, I would
rather have died upon my post (of course) than have gone to bed. I had
reached that stage of sleepiness when Peggotty seemed to swell and grow
immensely large. I propped my eyelids open with my two forefingers, and
looked perseveringly at her as she sat at work; at the little house with
a thatched roof, where she kept her yard-measure; at her work-box with a
sliding-lid, with a view of St. Paul's Cathedral (with a pink dome)
painted on the top; at the brass thimble on her finger; at herself, whom
I thought lovely. I felt so sleepy that I knew if I lost sight of
anything, for a moment, I was gone.
"Peggotty," says I, suddenly, "were you ever married?"
"Lord, Master Davy!" replied Peggotty. "What's put marriage in your
head?"
She answered with such a start that it quite awoke me. And then she
stopped in her work and looked at me, with her needle drawn out to its
thread's length.
"But _were_ you ever married, Peggotty?" says I. "You are a very
handsome woman, ain't you?"
"Me handsome, Davy!" said Peggotty. "Lawk, no, my dear! But what put
marriage in your head?"
"I don't know! You mustn't marry more than one person at a time, may
you, Peggotty?"
"Certainly not," says Peggotty, with the promptest decision.
"But if you marry a person, and the person dies, why then you may marry
another person, mayn't you, Peggotty?"
"You MAY," says Peggotty, "if you choose, my dear. That's a matter of
opinion."
"But what is your opinion, Peggotty?" said I.
I asked her and looked curiously at her, because she looked so curiously
at me.
"My opinion is," said Peggotty, taking her eyes from me, after waiting a
little, and going on with her work, "that I never was married myself,
Master Davy, and that I don't expect to be. That's all I know about the
subject."
"You ain't cross, I suppose, Peggotty, are you?" said I, after sitting
quiet for a minute.
I really thought she was, she had been so short with me; but I was quite
mistaken; for she laid aside her work (which was a stocking of her own)
and opening her arms wide, took my curly head within them, and gave it a
good squeeze. I know it was a good squeeze, because, being very plump,
whenever she made any little exertion after she was dressed, some of the
buttons on the back of her flew off. And I recollect two bursting to the
opposite side of the parlor while she was hugging me.
One day Peggotty asked me if I would like to go with her on a visit to
her brother at Yarmouth.
"Is your brother an agreeable man, Peggotty?" I inquired.
"Oh, what an agreeable man he is!" cried Peggotty. "Then there's the
sea, and the boats and ships, and the fishermen, and the beach. And 'Am
to play with."
Ham was her nephew. I was quite anxious to go when I heard of all these
delights; but my mother, what would she do all alone? Peggotty told me
my mother was going to pay a visit to some friends, and would be sure to
let me go. So all was arranged, and we were to start the next day in the
carrier's cart. I was so eager that I wanted to put my hat and coat on
the night before! But when the time came to say good-by to my dear
mamma, I cried a little, for I had never left her before. It was rather
a slow way of traveling, and I was very tired and sleepy when I arrived
at Yarmouth, and found Ham waiting to meet me. He was a great strong
fellow, six feet high, and took me on his back and the box under his
arm to carry both to the house. I was delighted to find that this house
was made of a real big black boat, with a door and windows cut in the
side, and an iron funnel sticking out of the roof for a chimney. Inside,
it was very cozy and clean, and I had a tiny bedroom in the stern. I was
very much pleased to find a dear little girl, about my own age, to play
with, and after tea I said:
"Mr. Peggotty."
"Sir," says he.
"Did you give your son the name of Ham because you lived in a sort of
ark?"
Mr. Peggotty seemed to think it a deep idea, but answered:
"No, sir. I never giv' him no name."
"Who gave him that name, then?" said I, putting question number two of
the catechism to Mr. Peggotty.
"Why, sir, his father giv' it him," said Mr. Peggotty.
"I thought you were his father!"
"My brother Joe was _his_ father," said Mr. Peggotty.
"Dead, Mr. Peggotty?" I hinted, after a respectful pause.
"Drowndead," said Mr. Peggotty.
I was very much surprised that Mr. Peggotty was not Ham's father, and
began to wonder whether I was mistaken about his relationship to anybody
else there. I was so curious to know that I made up my mind to have it
out with Mr. Peggotty.
"Little Em'ly," I said, glancing at her. "She is your daughter, isn't
she, Mr. Peggotty?"
"No, sir. My brother-in-law, Tom, was _her_ father."
I couldn't help it. "----Dead, Mr. Peggotty?" I hinted, after another
respectful silence.
"Drowndead," said Mr. Peggotty.
I felt the difficulty of resuming the subject, but had not got to the
bottom of it yet, and must get to the bottom somehow. So I said:
"Haven't you _any_ children, Mr. Peggotty?"
"No, master," he answered, with a short laugh. "I'm a bacheldore."
"A bachelor!" I said, astonished. "Why, who's that, Mr. Peggotty?"
Pointing to the person in the apron who was knitting.
"That's Missis Gummidge," said Mr. Peggotty.
"Gummidge, Mr. Peggotty?"
But at this point Peggotty--I mean my own Peggotty--made such impressive
motions to me not to ask any more questions, that I could only sit and
look at all the company, until it was time to go to bed.
Mrs. Gummidge lived with them too, and did the cooking and cleaning, for
she was a poor widow and had no home of her own. I thought Mr. Peggotty
was very good to take all these people to live with him, and I was quite
right, for Mr. Peggotty was only a poor man himself and had to work hard
to get a living.
Almost as soon as morning shone upon the oyster-shell frame of my mirror
I was out of bed, and out with tittle Em'ly, picking up stones upon the
beach.
"You're quite a sailor I suppose?" I said to Em'ly. I don't know that I
supposed anything of the kind, but I felt it proper to say something;
and a shining sail close to us made such a pretty little image of
itself, at the moment, in her bright eye, that it came into my head to
say this.
"No," replied Em'ly, shaking her head, "I'm afraid of the sea."
"Afraid!" I said, with a becoming air of boldness, and looking very big
at the mighty ocean. "I ain't."
"Ah! but it's cruel," said Em'ly. "I have seen it very cruel to some of
our men. I have seen it tear a boat as big as our house all to pieces."
"I hope it wasn't the boat that--"
"That father was drowned in?" said Em'ly. "No. Not that one, I never see
that boat."
"Nor him?" I asked her.
Little Em'ly shook her head. "Not to remember!"
Here was something remarkable. I immediately went into an explanation
how I had never seen my own father; and how my mother and I had always
lived by ourselves in the happiest state imaginable, and lived so then,
and always meant to live so; and how my father's grave was in the
churchyard near our house, and shaded by a tree, beneath the boughs of
which I had walked and heard the birds sing many a pleasant morning. But
there were some differences between Em'ly's orphanhood and mine, it
appeared. She had lost her mother before her father, and where her
father's grave was no one knew, except that it was somewhere in the
depths of the sea.
"Besides," said Em'ly, as she looked about for shells and pebbles, "your
father was a gentleman and your mother is a lady; and my father was a
fisherman and my mother was a fisherman's daughter, and my Uncle Dan is
a fisherman."
"Dan is Mr. Peggotty, is he?" said I.
[Illustration: David Copperfield and Little Em'ly.
Page 131]
"Uncle--yonder," answered Em'ly, nodding at the boat-house.
"Yes. I mean him. He must be very good, I should think."
"Good?" said Em'ly. "If I was ever to be a lady, I'd give him a sky-blue
coat with diamond buttons, nankeen trousers, a red velvet waistcoat, a
cocked hat, a large gold watch, a silver pipe, and a box of money."
I said I had no doubt that Mr. Peggotty well deserved these treasures.
Little Em'ly had stopped and looked up at the sky while she named these
articles, as if they were a glorious vision. We went on again picking up
shells and pebbles.
"You would like to be a lady?" I said.
Em'ly looked at me, and laughed and nodded "yes."
"I should like it very much. We would all be gentlefolks together, then.
Me, and uncle, and Ham, and Mrs. Gummidge. We wouldn't mind then, when
there come stormy weather. Not for our own sakes, I mean. We would for
the poor fishermen's, to be sure, and we'd help 'em with money when they
come to any hurt."
I was quite sorry to leave these kind people and my dear little
companion, but I was glad to think I should get back to my own dear
mamma. When I reached home, however, I found a great change. My mother
was married to the dark man I did not like, whose name was Mr.
Murdstone, and he was a stern, hard man, who had no love for me, and did
not allow my mother to pet and indulge me as she had done before. Mr.
Murdstone's sister came to live with us, and as she was even more
difficult to please than her brother, and disliked boys, my life was no
longer a happy one. I tried to be good and obedient, for I knew it made
my mother very unhappy to see me punished and found fault with. I had
always had lessons with my mother, and as she was patient and gentle, I
had enjoyed learning to read, but now I had a great many very hard
lessons to do, and was so frightened and shy when Mr. and Miss Murdstone
were in the room, that I did not get on at all well, and was continually
in disgrace.
Let me remember how it used to be, and bring one morning back again.
I come into the second-best parlor after breakfast, with my books, and
an exercise-book and a slate. My mother is ready for me at her
writing-desk, but not half so ready as Mr. Murdstone in his easy-chair
by the window (though he pretends to be reading a book), or as Miss
Murdstone, sitting near my mother stringing steel beads. The very sight
of these two has such an influence over me that I begin to feel the
words I have been at infinite pains to get into my head all sliding
away, and going I don't know where. I wonder where they _do_ go,
by-the-by?
I hand the first book to my mother. Perhaps it is a grammar, perhaps a
history, or geography. I take a last drowning look at the page as I give
it into her hand, and start off aloud at a racing pace while I have got
it fresh. I trip over a word. Mr. Murdstone looks up. I trip over
another word. Miss Murdstone looks up. I redden, tumble over half a
dozen words and stop. I think my mother would show me the book if she
dared, but she does not dare, and she says softly:
"Oh, Davy, Davy!"
"Now, Clara," says Mr. Murdstone, "be firm with the boy. Don't say, 'Oh,
Davy, Davy!' That's childish. He knows his lesson, or he does not know
it."
"He does _not_ know it," Miss Murdstone interposes awfully.
"I am really afraid he does not," says my mother.
"Then you see, Clara," returns Miss Murdstone, "you should just give
him the book back, and make him know it."
"Yes, certainly," says my mother; "that is what I intend to do, my dear
Jane. Now, Davy, try once more, and don't be stupid."
I obey the first clause of my mother's words by trying once more, but am
not so successful with the second, for I am very stupid. I tumble down
before I get to the old place, at a point where I was all right before,
and stop to think. But I can't think about the lesson. I think of the
number of yards of net in Miss Murdstone's cap, or of the price of Mr.
Murdstone's dressing-gown, or any such ridiculous matter that I have no
business with, and don't want to have anything at all to do with. Mr.
Murdstone makes a movement of impatience which I have been expecting for
a long time. Miss Murdstone does the same. My mother glances
submissively at them, shuts the book, and lays it by, to be worked out
when my other tasks are done.
There is a pile of these tasks very soon, and it swells like a rolling
snowball. The bigger it gets, the more stupid _I_ get. The case is so
hopeless, and I feel that I am wallowing in such a bog of nonsense, that
I give up all idea of getting out, and abandon myself to my fate. The
despairing way in which my mother and I look at each other, as I
blunder on, is truly melancholy. But the greatest effect in these
miserable lessons is when my mother (thinking nobody is observing her)
tries to give me the cue by the motion of her lips. At that instant,
Miss Murdstone, who has been lying in wait for nothing else all along
says in a deep warning voice:
"Clara!"