 What I have purpose to record is nearly finished, but there is yet an incident conspicuous in my memory, on which it often rests with delight, and without which one thread in the web I have spun would have a ravelled end. I had advanced in fame and fortune. My domestic joy was perfect. I had been married ten happy years. Agnes and I were sitting by the fire, in our house in London, one night in spring, and three of our children were playing in the room when I was told that a stranger wished to see me. He had been asked if he came on business, and had answered no. He had come for the pleasure of seeing me, and had come a long way. He was an old man, my servant said, and looked like a farmer. As this sounded mysterious to the children, and moreover was like the beginning of a favourite story Agnes used to tell them, introductory to the arrival of the wicked old fairy in a cloak who hated everybody, had produced some commotion. One of our boys laid his head in his mother's lap to be out of harm's way, and little Agnes, our eldest child, left her doll in a chair to represent her and thrust out her little heap of golden curls from between the window curtains to see what happened next. Let him come in here, said I. There soon appeared, pausing in the dark doorway as he entered, a hail grey-haired old man. Little Agnes, attracted by his looks, had run to bring him in, and I had not yet clearly seen his face when my wife, starting up, cried out to me in a pleased and agitated voice that it was Mr. Pegaty. It was Mr. Pegaty, an old man now, but in a ruddy, hearty, strong old age. When our first emotion was over, and he sat before the fire with the children on his knees, and the blaze shining on his face, he looked to me as vigorous and robust, with all as handsome an old man as ever I had seen. Master Davy, said he, and the old name in the old tone fell so naturally on my ear. Master Davy, it is a joyful hour as I see you once more, long with your own true wife. A joyful hour indeed, old friend, cried I. And these here, pretty ones, said Mr. Pegaty. To look at these here flowers, why, Master Davy, you was but the height of the littlest of these when I first see you, when Emily want no bigger, and our poor lad were but a lad. Time has changed me more than it has changed you since then, said I, but let these dear rogues go to bed, and as no house in England but this must hold you, tell me where to send for your luggage, is the old black bag among it that went so far, I wonder. And then over a glass of yarmouth grog we will have the tidings of ten years. Are you alone? asked Agnes. Yes, ma'am, he said, kissing her hand, quite a lawn. We sat him between us, not knowing how to give him welcome enough, and as I began to listen to his old familiar voice, I could have fancied he was still pursuing his long journey in search of his darling niece. It's a mort of water, said Mr. Pegaty, for to come across and only stay a matter of four weeks. But water, specially when to salt, comes natural to me, and friends is dear, and I am here. Which is verse, said Mr. Pegaty, surprised to find it out, though I hadn't such intentions. Are you going back those many thousand miles so soon? asked Agnes. Yes, ma'am, he returned. I give the promise to Emily before I come away. You see, I don't grow younger as the years come round, and if I hadn't sailed as twas most like I shouldn't never have done it. And it's all a spin on my mind, as I must come and see Master Davy and your own sweet bloom himself in your wedded happiness before I get to be too old. He looked at us as if he could never feast his eyes on us sufficiently. Agnes laughingly put back some scattered locks of his grey hair that he might see us better. And now tell us, said I, everything relating to your fortunes. Our fortunes, Master Davy, he rejoined. As soon told, we haven't farred no house but farred to thrive. We've all us thrived. We've worked as we ought to it, and maybe we lived a little hard at first or so, but we have all us thrived. What with sheep farming, and what with stuck farming, and what with one thing, and what with another? We are as well to do as well could be. There has been a kinder blessing fell upon us, said Mr. Pegaty, reverentially inclining his head. And we've done not but prosper. That is, in the long run, if not yesterday, why then today, if not today, why then tomorrow. And Emily, said Agnes and I both together, Emily, said he, Arte, you left her man. And I never heard her saying of her prayers at night, till the side came the screen, when we was settled in the bush. But what I heard your name, and Arte, she in me, lost sight of Master Davy, that there shining sun down, was that low at first, that if she had known then what Master Davy kept from us so kind and thoughtful. It is my opinion she'd have drooped away. But there was some poor folks aboard, as she had illness among them, and she took care of them, and there was the children in our company, and she took care of them, and so she got to be busy, and to be doing good, and that helped her. When did she first hear of it, I asked. I kept it from her after I heard on it, said Mr. Pegaty, going on night a year. We was living then in a solitary place, but among the beautifulest trees, and with the roses a cover and an hour beamed to the roof. There come along one day, when I was out to work and on the land, a traveller from our own Norfolk or Suffolk in England, I don't write my mind which. And of course we took him in, and give him to eat and drink, and made him welcome. We all do that, all the colony over. He'd got an old newspaper with him, and some other account in print of the storm. That's how she'd known it. When I came home at night, I found she'd ignored it. He dropped his voice as he said these words, and the gravity I so well remembered overspread his face. Did it change her much, we asked? I, for a good long time, he said, shaking his head. If not to this present hour. But I think the solitude done her good, and she had a deal to mind in the way of poultry and the like, and minded of it, and come through. I wonder, he said thoughtfully, if you could see my Emily now, Master Davy, whether you'd know her. Is she so altered? I inquired. I don't know. I see her every day and don't know. But odd times I have thought so. A slight figure, said Mr. Pegady, looking at the fire. Kinda worn, soft, sorrowful, blue eyes, a delicate face, a pretty head. Leaning a little down, a quiet voice and wave timid almost. That's Emily. We silently observed him as he sat, still looking at the fire. Some thinks, he said. As her affection was ill bestowed, some as her marriage was broken off by death, no one knows how it is. She might have married well, a mort of times. But uncle, she says to me, that's gone forever. Cheerful along with me, retired when others as by, fond by going any distance, fur to teach child, or fur to tend a sick person, or fur to do some kindness towards a young girl's wedding. And she's done a many, but has never seen one. Funly loving of her uncle, patient, liked by young and old, sought out by all that has any trouble, that's Emily. He drew his hand across his face, and with a half-suppressed sigh, looked up from the fire. As Martha with you yet, I asked. Martha, he replied, got married, Master Davy, in the second year. A young man, a farm labourer, has come by us on his way to market with his Marcer's Trace. A journey of over five hundred miles, there and back, made offers fur to take her for his wife. Wives is very scarce there. And then to set up for their two selves in the bush. She spoke to me fur to tell him her true story. I did. They was married, and they lived four hundred miles away. From any voices but their own and the singing birds. Mrs. Gummidge, I suggested. It was a pleasant key to touch, for Mr. Peggity suddenly burst into a roar of laughter, and rubbed his hands up and down his legs, as he had been accustomed to when he enjoyed himself in the long shipwrecked boat. Would you believe it? He said, while someone even made offer fur to marry her, if a ship's cook that was turning settler, Master Davy, didn't make offers fur to marry Mrs. Gummidge, I'm gone. And I can't say no fairer than that. I never saw Agnes laugh so. This sudden ecstasy on the part of Mr. Peggity was so delightful to her that she could not leave off laughing. And the more she laughed, the more she made me laugh. And the greater Mr. Peggity's ecstasy became, and the more he rubbed his legs. And what did Mrs. Gummidge say, I asked when I was grave enough? If you'll believe me, returned Mr. Peggity. Mrs. Gummidge, instead of saying, Thank you, I'm much obliged to you. I ain't to go and fur to change my condition at my time of laugh, upped with a bucket of the standing bar, and laid it over that there ship's cook's head till he sung out for help, and I went in and rescued of him. Mr. Peggity burst into a great roar of laughter, and Agnes and I both kept him company. But I must say this, for the good creature, he resumed wiping his face when we were quite exhausted. She has been all she said she'd be to us and more. She's the willingness, the truest, the honestest, helping woman, Master Davy, has ever drawed the breath of laugh. I have never known her to be lone and learned for a single minute, not even when the colony was all a forest and we was new to it. And thinking of the old one is the thing she never done, I'd do assure you since she left England. Now last, not least, Mr. McCorber said I. He's paid off every obligation he incurred here, even to treadle's bills, you remember my dear Agnes, and therefore we may take it for granted that he is doing well. But what is the latest news of him? Mr. Peggity with a smile put his hand in his breast pocket and produced a flat-folded paper parcel from which he took out, with much care, a little odd-looking newspaper. But I understand, Master Davy, said he, as we have left the bush now, been so well to do, and have gone right away round to Port Middle Bay Harbour, where there is what we call a town. Mr. McCorber was in the bush near you, said I. Bless you, yes, said Mr. Peggity, and turned to with a will. I never wish to meet a better gentleman for turning to with a will. I have seen that there bold head of his a perspiring in the sun, Master Davy, till I almost thought it would have melted away. And now he's a magistrate. A magistrate, eh? said I. Mr. Peggity pointed to a certain paragraph in the newspaper, where I read aloud as follows from the Port Middle Bay time. The public dinner to our distinguished fellow colonist and townsman Wilkins McCorber Esquire, Port Middle Bay District Magistrate, came off yesterday in the large room of the hotel, which was crowded to suffocation. It is estimated that not fewer than 47 persons must have been accommodated with dinner at one time, exclusive of the company in the passage and on the stairs. The beauty, fashioned, and exclusiveness of Port Middle Bay locked to do honour to one so deservedly esteemed, so highly talented, and so widely popular. Dr. Mel, of Colonial Salem House Grammar School, Port Middle Bay, presided, and on his right sat the distinguished guest. After the removal of the cloth and the singing of Non-Novis, beautifully executed, and in which we were at no loss to distinguish the bell-like notes of that gifted amateur Wilkins McCorber Esquire, Jr., the usual loyal and patriotic toasts were severally given and rapturously received. Dr. Mel, in a speech replete with feeling, then proposed, our distinguished guest, the ornament of our town. May he never leave us but to better himself, and may his success among us be such as to render his bettering himself impossible. The cheering with which the toast was received defies description. Again and again it rose and fell like the waves of ocean. At length all was hushed and Wilkins McCorber Esquire presented himself to return thanks. Far be it from us, in the present comparatively imperfect state of the resources of our establishment, to endeavour to follow our distinguished townsmen through the smoothly flowing periods of his polished and highly ornate address. Suffice it to observe that it was a masterpiece of eloquence, and that those passages in which he more particularly traced his own successful career to its source, and warned the younger portion of his auditory from the shoals of ever-incuring pecuniary liabilities which they were unable to liquidate, brought a tear into the manliest I present. The remaining toasts were Dr. Mel, Mrs. McCorber, who gracefully bowed her acknowledgements from the side door, where a galaxy of beauty was elevated on chairs, had once to witness and adorn the gratifying scene. Mrs. Ridger Beggs, late Ms. McCorber. Mrs. Mel, Wilkins McCorber Esquire Jr., who convulsed the assembly by humorously remarking that he found himself unable to return thanks in a speech, but would do so with their permission in a song. Mrs. McCorber's family, well known it is needless to remark in the mother country, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And the conclusion of the proceedings, the tables were cleared as if by art magic for dancing. Among the vocaries of Turpish Gore, who desported themselves until soul gave warning for departure, Wilkins McCorber Esquire Jr., and the lovely and accomplished Ms. Helena, fourth daughter of Dr. Mel, were particularly remarkable. I was looking back to the name of Dr. Mel, pleased to have discovered in these happier circumstances, Mr. Mel, formerly poor pinched usher to my middle sex magistrate, when Mr. Pegatee pointing to another part of the paper, my eyes rested on my own name, and I read thus, to David Copperfield Esquire, the eminent author. My dear sir, years have elapsed since I had an opportunity of ocularly perusing the lineaments now familiar to the imaginations of a considerable portion of the civilized world. But my dear sir, though estranged by the force of circumstances over which I have had no control, from the personal society of the friend and companion of my youth, I have not been unmindful of his soaring flight, nor have I been debarred. Those seas between us, Braid Harrod, burns from participating in the intellectual feasts he has spread before us. I cannot therefore allow of the departure from this place of an individual whom we mutually respect and esteem, without, my dear sir, taking this public opportunity of thanking you on my own behalf, and I may undertake to add, on that of the whole of the inhabitants of Port Middle Bay, for the gratification of which you are the ministering agent. Go on my dear sir, you are not unknown here, you are not unappreciated, though remote, we are neither unfriended, melancholy, nor, I may add, slow. Go on my dear sir, in your eagle course, the inhabitants of Port Middle Bay may at least aspire to watch it with delight, with entertainment, with instruction. Among the eyes elevated towards you from this portion of the globe will ever be found, while it has light and life, the eye appertaining to Wilkins McCorber Magistrate. I found, on glancing at the remaining contents of the newspaper, that Mr. McCorber was a diligent and esteemed correspondent of that journal. There was another letter from him in the same paper, touching a bridge. There was an advertisement of a collection of similar letters by him to be shortly republished in a neat volume, with considerable additions. And, unless I am very much mistaken, the leading article was his also. We talked much of Mr. McCorber, on many other evenings, while Mr. Pegaty remained with us. He lived with us during the whole term of his stay, which I think was something less than a month, and his sister and my aunt came to London to see him. Agnes and I parted from him aboard ship when he sailed, and we shall never part from him more on earth. But before he left, he went with me to Yarmouth, to see a little tablet I had put up in the churchyard to the memory of him. While I was copying the plain inscription for him at his request, I saw him stoop and gather a tuft of grass from the grave and a little earth. For Emily, he said, as he put it in his breast. I promised, Master Gaby. End of Chapter 63 Recording by Graham Jolliff, Kyogle And now my written story ends. I look back, once more, for the last time before I close these leaves. I see myself with Agnes at my side, journeying along the road of life. I see our children and our friends around us, and I hear the roar of many voices, not indifferent to me as I travel on. What faces are the most distinct to me in the fleeting crowd? Low, these, all turning to me as I ask my thoughts the question. Here is my aunt in stronger spectacles, an old woman of four-score ears and more, but upright yet, and a steady walker of six miles at a stretch in winter weather. All is with her. Here comes Piggity, my good old nurse, likewise in spectacles, accustomed to do needlework at night very close to the lamp, but never sitting down to it without a bit of wax candle, a yard measuring a little house, and a work box with a picture of St. Paul's upon the lid. The cheeks and arms of Piggity, so hard and red in my childish days, when I wondered why the birds didn't pick her in preference to apples, are shriveled now. And her eyes, that used to darken their whole neighborhood in her face, are fainter, though they glitter still, but her rough forefinger, which I once associated with the pocket nutmeg grater, is just the same, and when I see my least child catching at it as it totters from my aunt to her, I think of our little parlor at home, when I could scarcely walk. My aunt's old disappointment is set right now. She has got mother to a real living Betsy Trotwood, and Dora, the next in order, says she spoils her. There is something bulky in Piggity's pocket, it has nothing smaller than the crocodile book, which is in rather a dilapidated condition by this time, with divers of the leaves torn and stitched across, but which Piggity exhibits to the children as a precious relic. I find it very curious to see my own ventured face, looking up at me from the crocodile's stories, and to be reminded by it of my old acquaintance Brooks of Sheffield. Among my boys, this summer holiday time, I see an old man making giant kites, and gazing at them in the air, with a delight for which there are no words. He greets me rapturously, and whispers, with many nods and winks, Trotwood, who will be glad to hear that I shall finish the memorial, but I have nothing else to do, and that your aunt's the most extraordinary woman in the world, sir. Who is this bent lady, supporting herself by a stick, and showing me a countenance in which there are some traces of old pride and beauty, feebly contending with a quarrelous, imbecile, fretful wandering of the mind? She is in a garden, and near her stands a sharp, dark, withered woman, with a white scar on her lip. Let me hear what they say. Rosa, I forgotten this gentleman's name. Rosa bends over her, and calls to her. Mr. Copperfield, I am glad to see you, sir. I am sorry to observe you are in mourning. I hope time will be good to you. Her impatient attendance calls her, tells her I am not in mourning, bids her look again, tries to rouse her. You have seen my son, sir, says the older lady. Are you reconciled? Looking fixedly at me, she puts her hand to her forehead and moans. Suddenly she cries in a terrible voice. Rosa, come to me. He is dead. Rosa kneeling at her feet, by turns, carresses her, and curls with her, now frisely telling her, I love them better than you ever did, now soothing her to sleep on her breast, like a sick child. Thus I leave them. Thus I always find them. Thus they veer their time away from ear to ear. What ship comes sailing home from India, and what English lady is this, married to a growling old scotch-cresses with great flaps of ears? Can this be Julia Mills? Indeed it is Julia Mills, peevish and fine, with a black man to carry cards and letters to her on a golden sabre, and a copper-colored woman in linen, with a bright handkerchief round her head, to serve her tiffin in her dressing-room. But Julia keeps no diary in these days. Never sings affections dirge. Eternally curls with the old scotch-cresses, who is a sort of yellow bear with a tanned hide. Julia is steeped in money to the throat, and talks and thinks of nothing else. I liked her better in the desert of Sahara. But perhaps this IS the desert of Sahara. For, though Julia has a stately house, and mighty company, and sumptuous dinners every day, I see no green growth near her. Nothing that can ever come to fruit or flower. But Julia calls society, I see, among it Mr. Jack Meldon, from his patent place, sneering at the hand that gave it him, and speaking to me of the doctor as so charmingly antique. But when society is a name for such hollow gentlemen and ladies, Julia, and where its braiding is professed indifference to everything that can advance or can retort mankind, I think we must have lost ourselves in that same desert of Sahara, and had better find the way out. And, lo, the doctor, always our good friend, laboring at his dictionary, some more about the letter D, and happy in his home and wife. Also the old soldier, on a considerably reduced footing, and by no means so influential as in days of yore. Working at his chambers in the temple with a busy aspect, and his hair, where he is not bald, made more rebellious than ever by the constant friction of his lawyer's wig, I come, in a later time, upon my dear old treadles. His table is covered with thick piles of paper, and I say, as I look around me, if Sophie were your clerk now, treadles, she would have enough to do. You may say that, my dear Copperfield, but those were capital days, too, in Holburn Court, were they not? I should tell you you would be a judge, but it was not the town talk then, at all events, says treadles, if I ever am one, why you know you will be, well, my dear Copperfield, when I am one, I shall tell the story as I said I would. We walk away, arm in arm. I am going to have a family dinner with treadles. It is Sophie's birthday, and, on our road, treadles discourses to me of the good fortune he has enjoyed. I really have been able, my dear Copperfield, to do all that I had most at heart. There's a Reverend Horace promoted to that living at four hundred and fifty pounds a year. There are our two boys receiving the very best education, and distinguishing themselves as titty scholars and good fellows. There are three of the girls married very comfortably. There are the three more living with us. There are three more keeping house for the Reverend Horace, since Mrs. Cruller's disease, and all of them happy. Except, I suggest, except the beauty, says treadles. Yes, it was very unfortunate that she should marry such a vagabond, but there was a certain dash and glare about him that caught her. However, now we have got her safe at our house, and got rid of him. We must cheer her up again. Treadles' house is one of the very houses, or it easily may have been, which he and Sophie used to parcel out in their evening walks. It is a large house, but treadles keeps his papers in his dressing room, and his boots with his papers, and he and Sophie squeeze themselves into upper rooms. Preserving the best bedrooms for the beauty and the girls. There is no room to spare in the house, for more of the girls are here, and always are here, by some accident or other, than I know how to count. Here, when we go in, in a crowd of them running down to the door, and handing treadles about to be kissed until it is out of breath, here is tablished in perpetuity, as a poor beauty, a widow with a little girl. Here, at dinner and Sophie's birthday, are the three married girls with their three husbands, and one of the husband's brothers, and another husband's cousin, and another husband's sister who appears to me to be engaged to the cousin. Treadles, exactly the same simple, unaffected fellow as he ever was, sits at the foot of the large table like a patriarch, and Sophie beams upon him from the head, across a cheerful space that is certainly not glittering with Britannia metal. And now, as I close my task, stop doing my desire to linger yet, these faces fade away. But one face shining on me like a heavenly light, by which I see all other objects, is above them and beyond them all, and that remains. I turn my head and see it, in its beautiful serenity beside me. My lamp burns low, and I have written far into the night. But the dear presence, without which I were nothing, bears my company. Oh, Agnes, oh my soul, so may thy face be by me when I close my life indeed. So may I, when realities are melting from me like the shadows which I now dismiss, still find thee near me, pointing upward.