 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Valiko John. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. The Author's Preface. Preface to the 1850 edition. I do not find it easy to get sufficiently far away from this book, in the first sensations of having finished it, to refer to it with the composure which this formal heading would seem to require. My interest in it is so recent and strong, and my mind is so divided between pleasure and regret, pleasure in the achievement of a long design, regret in the separation from many companions, that I am in danger of wearing the reader whom I love, with personal competences and private emotions. Besides which, all that I could say of the story to any purpose, I have endeavored to say in that. I would concern the reader little, perhaps, to know how sorrowfully the pen is laid down at the close of a two-year's imaginative task, or how another feels as if he were dismissing some portion of himself into the shadowy world, when a crowd of the creatures of his brain are going from him forever. Yet I have nothing else to tell, unless indeed I were to confess, which might be of less moment still, that no one can ever believe this narrative in the reading, more than I have believed it in the writing. Instead of looking back, therefore, I will look forward. I cannot close this volume more agreeably to myself, there was a hopeful glance towards the time when I shall again put forth my two green leaves once among, and with a faithful remembrance of the genial sun and showers that have fallen on these leaves of David Copperfield, and made me happy. London, October 1850 Preface to the Charles Dickens edition I remarked, in the original preface to this book, that I did not find it easy to get sufficiently far away from it, in the first sensations of having finished it, to refer to it with the composure which this formal heading would seem to require. My interest in it was so recent and strong, and my mind was so divided between pleasure and regret, pleasure in the achievement of a long design, regret in the separation from many companions, that I was in danger of weering the reader with personal confidences and private emotions. Besides which, all that I could have said of the story to any purpose, I had endeavored to say it. It would concern the reader little, perhaps, to know how sorrowfully the pen is laid down at the close of a two-year's imaginative task, or how nothing feels as if we are dismissing some portion of himself into the shadowy world, when a crowd of the creatures of his brain are growing from him forever. Yet, I had nothing else to tell, unless indeed I were to confess, which might be a blessed moment still, that no one can ever believe this narrative in the reading, more than I believed it in the writing. So sure are these avows at the present day, that I can now only take the reader into one confidence more. Of all my books, I like this the best. It will be easily believed that I am a fond parent to every child in my fancy, and that no one can ever love that family as dearly as I love them. But, like many fond parents, I have in my heart of hearts a favorite child, and his name is David Copperfield, 1869, and the author's briefcase. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens Chapter 1 I am born. Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born, as I have been informed and believed, on a Friday, at twelve o'clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry simultaneously. In consideration of the day and hour of my birth, it was declared by the nurse, and by some sage women in the neighborhood, who had taken a lively interest in me several months before there was any possibility of our becoming personally acquainted. First, that I was destined to be unlucky in life. And secondly, that I was privileged to see ghosts and spirits. Both these gifts inevitably attaching, as they believed, to all unlucky infants of either gender, burned towards the small errors on a Friday night. I would say nothing here in the first head, because nothing can show better than my history whether that prediction was verified or falsified by the result. On the second branch of the question, I will only remark, that unless I ran through that part of my inheritance while I was still a baby, I have not come into it yet. But I do not at all complain of having been kept out of this property, and if anybody else should be in the present enjoyment of it, he is hurtily welcome to keep it. I was born with a call, which was advertised for sale in the newspapers at the low price of fifteen guineas. Whether see-going people were short of money about that time, or were short of face and preferred cork jackets, I don't know. All I know is that there was but one solitary bidding, and that was from an attorney connected with the bill-breaking business, who offered two pounds in cash and a balance in sherry, but declined to be guaranteed from drowning on any higher bargain. Consequently, the advertisement was withdrawn at a dead loss. For us to sherry. My poor dear mother's own sherry was in the market then. And ten years afterwards, the call was put up in a rifle down in our part of the country, to fifty members at half a crown ahead, the winner to spend five shillings. I was present myself, and I remembered to have felt quite uncomfortable and confused, at a part of myself being disposed of in that way. The call was won, I recollect, by an old lady with a hand-basket, who, very reluctantly, produced from it the stipulated five shillings. All in half-pence, and two-pence have been assured, as it took an immense time and a great waste of arithmetic to endeavor without any effect to prove to her. It is a fact which will be long remembered as remarkable down there that she was never drowned, but died triumphantly in bed, at ninety-two. I have understood that it was, to the last, her proudest boast, that she never had been on the water in her life, except upon a bridge. And that over her tea to which she was extremely partial, she, to the last, expressed her indignation at the impiety of mariners and others who had the presumption to go meandering about the world. It was in vain to represent to her that some conveniences, tea perhaps included, resulted from this objectionable practice. Who was returned with greater emphasis, and with an instinctive knowledge of the strengths of her objection, let us have no meandering. Not to meander myself at present. I will go back to my birth. I was born at Blunderstone in Suffolk, or thereby, as they say in Scotland. I was a posthumous child. My father's eyes had closed upon the light of this world six months when mine opened on it. And something strange to me, even now, in the reflection that he never saw me. And something stranger yet, in the shadowy remembrance that I have of my first childish associations with his white gravestone in the chargeyard. And of the indefinable compassion I used to feel for it lying out alone there in the dark night, when our little parlor was warm and bright with fire and candle, and the doors of our house were almost cruelly, seemed to me sometimes, boltened and locked against it. An ant of my father's, and consequently a great ant of mine, of whom I shall have mortal relate by and by, was a principal magnate of our family. Miss Trotwood, or Miss Betsy, as my poor mother always called her, when she sufficiently overcame her dread of this formidable personess to mention her at all, which was seldom, had been married to a husband younger than herself, who was very handsome. Except in the sense of the homely attitude handsome is, that handsome does. For he was strongly suspected of having beaten Miss Betsy, and even of having won, on a disputed question of supplies, made some hasty but determined arrangements to throw her out of a two-pair-of-stairs window. These evidences of an incompatibility of temper induced Miss Betsy to pay him off, and effect separation by mutual consent. He went to India with his capital, and there, according to a wild legend in our family, he was once seen riding on an elephant in company with a baboon. But I think it must have been a baboo, or a begum. Anyhow, from India tidings of his deaths reached home within ten years. How they affected my aunt? Nobody knew. For immediately upon the separation she took her maiden name again, bought a cottage in a hamlet on the sea coast a long way off, established herself there as a single woman with one servant, and was understood to live secluded ever afterwards in an inflexible retirement. My father had once been a favorite of hers, I believe, when she was mortally affronted by his marriage, on the ground that my mother was a wax doll. She had never seen my mother, but she knew her to be not yet twenty. My father and Miss Betsy never met again. He was double my mother's age when he married, and of but a delicate constitution. He died a year afterwards, and, as I have said, six months before I came into the world. This was the state of matters on the afternoon of, what I may be excused for calling, that eventful and important Friday. I can make no claims, therefore, to have known at that time how matters stood, or to have any remembrance founded on the evidence of my own senses of what follows. My mother was sitting by the fire, but poorly in hills, and very low in spirits, looking at it through her tears and desponding heavily about herself and the fatherless little stranger, who was already welcomed by some grossest of prophetic pins in a drawer upstairs, to a world not at all excited on the subject of his arrival. My mother, I say, was sitting by the fire, that bright windy march after dawn, very timid and sad, and very doubtful of ever coming alive out of the trial that was before her, when, lifting her eyes as she dried them to the wind of opposite, she saw a strange lady coming up the garden. My mother had assured of her boating at a second glance that it was with Betsy. The setting sun was glowing on the strange lady over the garden fence, and she came walking up to the door with the fell rigidity of figure and composure of countenance that could have belonged to nobody else. When she reached the house, she gave another proof of her identity. The father had often hinted that she seldom conducted herself like any ordinary Christian, and now, instead of ringing the bell, she came and looked in at that identical window, pressing the end of her nose against the glass, to that extent that my poor dear mother used to say it became perfectly flat and white in a moment. She gave the mother such a turn that I have always been convinced I am indebted to Miss Betsy for having been born on a Friday. My mother had left her chair in her agitation, and gone behind it in the corner. Miss Betsy, looking around the room slowly and inquiringly, began on the other side, and carried her eyes on, like a Saracen said in the Dutch clock, until they reached my mother. Then she made a frown and a gesture to my mother, like one who was accustomed to be obeyed, to come and open the door. My mother went, Mrs. David Copperfield, I think," said Miss Betsy, the emphasis referring, perhaps, to my mother's morning reads and her condition. Yes," said my mother faintly. Miss Chottwood," said the visitor, you have heard of her, I dare say? My mother answered she had had that pleasure, and she had a disagreeable consciousness of not appearing to imply that it had been an over-pairing pleasure. Now see her," said Miss Betsy. My mother bent her head and begged her to walk in. They went into the parlor my mother had come from, the fire in the bedroom on the other side of the passage not being lighted, not having been lighted, indeed, since my father's funeral. And when they were both seated, and Miss Betsy said nothing, my mother, after vainly trying to restrain herself, began to cry. Oh, tut, tut, tut," said Miss Betsy in a hurry. Don't do that. Come, come. My mother couldn't help but notwithstanding, so she cried until she had had her cry out. Take out your cap, child," said Miss Betsy. And let me see you. My mother was too much afraid of her to refuse compliance with this odd request, if she had any disposition to do so. Therefore she did as she was told, and did it with such nervous hands that her hair, which was luxuriant and beautiful, fell all about her face. Why, bless my heart," exclaimed Miss Betsy. You are a very baby. My mother was, no doubt, unusually youthful in appearance, even for her ears. She hung her head, as if it were her fault, per se, and said, sobbing that indeed she was afraid she was but a childish widow, and would be but a childish mother if she lived. In a short pause which ensued, she had a fancy that she felt Miss Betsy touch her hair, and that with no one gentle hand. But, looking at her, in her timid hope, she found that ladies sitting with the skirt of her dress tucked up, her hands folded on one knee, and her feet upon the fender frowning at the fire. In the name of heaven," said Miss Betsy suddenly. Why, Rukery? Do you mean the house, ma'am?" asked my mother. Why, Rukery? said Miss Betsy. Rukery would have been more to the purpose if you had had any practical ideas of life, either of you. The name was Mr. Copperfield's choice. Returned my mother. When he bought the house, he liked to think that there were rugs about it. The evening wind made such a disturbance just now, among some tall old elm trees at the bottom of the garden, that neither my mother nor Miss Betsy could forbid her glancing that way. As the elms bent to one another, like giants who were whispering secrets, and after a few seconds of such repose, fell into violent fury, tossing their wild arms about, as if their late confidences were really too wicked for their peace of mind. Some weather-beaten ragged old Ruk's nests burdening their higher branches swung like wrecks upon a stormy sea. Where are the birds? asked Miss Betsy. My mother had been thinking of something else. The rugs. What had become of them? asked Miss Betsy. There had not been any since we have lived here, said my mother. We thought—Mr. Copperfield thought—it was quite a large Rukery. But the nests were very old ones, and the birds have deserted them a long while. David Copperfield all over, cried Miss Betsy. David Copperfield from head to foot. Calls a house or Rukery when there's not a Ruk near it, and takes the birds on trust because he sees the nests. Mr. Copperfield—returned my mother—is dead, and if you dare to speak unkindly of him to me. My poor dear mother, I suppose, had some momentary intention of committing an assault and battery upon my aunt, who could easily have settled her with one hand, even if my mother had been in far better training for a certain encounter than she was that evening. But it passed with the action of rising from her chair. And she sat down again very meekly, and fainted. When she came to herself, or when Miss Betsy had restored her, whichever it was, she found the ladder standing at the window. The twilight was by this time shading down into darkness, and dimly as they saw each other they could not have done that without the aid of the fire. Well, said Miss Betsy, coming back to her chair, as if she had only been taking a casual look at the prospect. And when do you expect? I'm all in a tremble, faltered my mother. I don't know what's the matter. I shall die, I'm sure. No, no, no, said Miss Betsy. Have some tea. Oh, dear me, dear me, do you think it will do me any good? cried my mother in a helpless manner. Of course it will, said Miss Betsy. It's nothing but fancy. What did you call your girl? I don't know that it will be a girl yet, ma'am, said my mother innocently. Bless the baby, exclaimed Miss Betsy, unconsciously quoting the second sentiment of the pincushion in the drawer upstairs, but applying it to my mother instead of me. I don't mean that, I mean your servant. Peggyty, said my mother, Peggyty, repeated Miss Betsy with some indignation, deemed me to say, child, that any human being has gone into a Christian church and got herself named Peggyty. It's her surname, said my mother faintly. Mr. Copperfield called her by it because her Christian name was the same as mine. Hey, Peggy! cried Miss Betsy, opening the parlor door. Tea, your mistress is a little unwell. Don't dawdle. Having issued this mandate with as much potentiality as if she had been a recognized authority in the house ever since it had been a house, and having looked out to confront the amazed Peggyty coming along the passage with a candle at the sound of a strange voice, Miss Betsy shut the door again and sat down as before, with her feet on the fender, the skirt of her dress tucked up, and her hands folded on one knee. You were speaking about it being a girl, said Miss Betsy. I have no doubt it will be a girl. I have a presentiment that it must be a girl. Now, child, for the moment of the birth of this girl, perhaps, boy, my mother took the liberty of putting in. I tell you I have a presentiment that it must be a girl. return, Miss Betsy. Don't contradict. From the moment of this girl's birth, child, I intend to be your friend. I intend to be your godmother. And I beg you to call her Betsy Trotwood, Copperfield. There must be no mistakes in life as this Betsy Trotwood. There must be no traveling with her affections, poor dear. She must be well brought up and well guarded from reposing any foolish confidences where they're not deserved. I must make that my care. There was a twitch of Miss Betsy's head after a reach of these sentences, as if her own old drawings were working within her, and she repressed any plainer reference to them by strong constraint. So my mother suspected, at least, as she observed her by the low glimmer of the fire, too much scared by Miss Betsy, too uneasy in herself, and too subdued and bewildered altogether to observe anything very clearly or to know what to say. And was David good to you, child? I asked Miss Betsy when she had been silent for a little while, and these motions of her head had gradually seized. Were you comfortable together? We were very happy, said my mother. Mrs. Copperfield was only too good to me. What! he spoiled you, I suppose! returned Miss Betsy. From being quite alone and dependent on myself in this rough world again, yes, I fear he did indeed, sobbed my mother. Well, don't cry, said Miss Betsy. You were not equally matched, child, if any two people can be equally matched, and so I asked the question. You were an orphan, weren't you? Yes. And a governess? I was a nursery governess and a family where Mr. Copperfield came to visit. Mr. Copperfield was very kind to me, and took a great deal of notice of me, and paid me a good deal of attention, and at last proposed to me, and I accepted him, and so we were married. Said my mother simply. Ha! poor baby! news Miss Betsy, with her frown still bent upon the fire. Do you know anything? I beg your pardon, ma'am," faltered my mother. About keeping house, for instance, said Miss Betsy. Not much, I fear, returned my mother. Not so much as I could wish, but Mr. Copperfield was teaching me what he knew about it himself, said Miss Betsy in the parenthesis. And I hope I should have improved, being very anxious to learn, and he very patient to teach, if the great misfortune of his death. My mother broke down again here, and could get no further. Well, well," said Miss Betsy. I kept my housekeeping book regularly, and balanced it with Mr. Copperfield every night, cried my mother in another burst of distress, and breaking down again. Well, well," said Miss Betsy. Don't cry any more. And I'm sure we never had a word of difference respecting it, except when Mr. Copperfield objected to my threes and fives being too much like each other, or to my putting curly tails to my sevens and nines. Resumed my mother in another burst, and breaking down again. You'll make yourself ill," said Miss Betsy. I didn't know that would not be good either for you or for my goddaughter. Come, you mustn't do it. This argument had some share in quieting my mother, though her increasing anger one. There was an interval of silence, only broken by Miss Betsy is occasionally ejaculating, ha! as she sat with her feet upon the fender. David had bought an annuity for himself with his money, I know," said she, by and by. What did they do for you?" Mr. Copperfield," said my mother, answering with some difficulty, was to consider it as good as to secure the reversion of a part of it to me. How much?" asked Miss Betsy. A hundred and five pounds a year," said my mother. He might have done worse," said my aunt. The word was appropriate to the moment. My mother was so much worse that Pegaty, coming in with the teabird and candles and seeing at a glance how ill she was, as Miss Betsy might have done sooner if there had been light enough, can wait her upstairs to her own room with all speed. And immediately dispatched hand, Pegaty. Her nephew had been for some days unknown to my mother as a special messenger in case of emergency to fetch the nurse and doctor. These allied powers were considerably astonished when they arrived within a few minutes of each other to find an unknown lady of pertentus appear sitting before the fire with her bonnet tied over her left arms topping her ears with jeweler's cotton. Pegaty knowing nothing about her and my mother saying nothing about her she was quite a mystery in the parlor. And the fact of her having a magazine of jeweler's cotton in her pocket and sticking the article in her ears in that way did not detract from the solemnity of her presence. The doctor having been upstairs and come down again, and having satisfied himself I suppose that there was a probability of this unknown lady and himself having to sit there face to face for some hours let himself have to be polite and social. He was the meekest of his sex, the mildest of little men. He sidled in the night of a room gently as a ghost in Hamlet and more slowly. He carried his head on one side partly in modest depreciation of himself partly in modest propitiation of everybody else. It is nothing to say that he hadn't a word to throw at a dog. He couldn't have shown a word at a mad dog. He might have offered him one gently or a half one or a fragment of one for he spoke as slowly as he walked but he wouldn't have been rude to him and he couldn't have been quick with him Mr. Chillip looking mildly at my aunt with his head on one side and making her a little bow said in allusion to the juror's cotton as he softly touched his left ear Some local irritation, ma'am. What? replied my aunt, pulling the cotton out of one ear like a cork. Mr. Chillip was so alarmed by her abruptness as he told my mother after his that it was a mercy he didn't lose his presence of mind Some local irritation, ma'am. Nonsense! replied my aunt and corked herself again at one blow Mr. Chillip could do nothing after this but she didn't look at her feebly as she said and looked at the fire until he was called upstairs again after some quarter of an hour's absence he returned Well! said my aunt, taking the cotton out of the ear nearest to him Well, ma'am! protrured Mr. Chillip You are progressing slowly, ma'am Bah! said my aunt with the perfect shake on the contemptuous interjection and corked herself as before Really? As Mr. Chillip told my mother he was almost shocked Speaking in the professional point of view alone he was almost shocked but he sat and looked at her, notwithstanding for nearly two hours as she sat looking at the fire until he was again called out in the absence he again returned Well! said my aunt, taking out the cotton on that side again Well, ma'am! returned Mr. Chillip We are... we are progressing slowly, ma'am Bah! said my aunt with such a snarl at him that Mr. Chillip absolutely couldn't bear it It was nearly calculated to break his pyramid he said afterwards He preferred to go and sit upon the stairs in the draft until he was again sent for it Han Piggity who went to the national school and was a very dragon at his catechism and who made their fur be regarded as a credible witness reported next day that happening to people at the party during an hour after this he was instantly described by Miss Betsy then walking to and fro in a state of agitation and pounced upon before he could make his escape that there were now occasional sounds of feet and voices over her which inferred the cotton did not exclude from the circumstance of his evidently being clutched by the lady as a victim on whom to expend her super-abundant agitation when the sounds were loudest that marching him constantly up and down by the collar as if he had been taking too much of a lot in him she, at those times, shook him, rumbled his air made light of his linen stopped his ears as if she confounded them with her own and otherwise tuzzled and maltreated him this was in part confirmed by his aunt who saw him at half past twelve o'clock soon after his release and affirmed that he was then as red as I was the mild Mr. Chillip could not possibly bear malice at such a time if at any time he sidled into the parlor as soon as he was at liberty and said to my aunt in his meekest manner well, ma'am I'm happy to congratulate you what upon said my aunt sharply Mr. Chillip was fluttered again by the extreme severity of my aunt's manner so he made her a little bow and gave her a little smile to modify her mercy on the man, what's he doing cried my aunt impatiently can't he speak become my dear ma'am said Mr. Chillip in his softest accents there is no longer any occasion for uneasiness, ma'am become it has since been considered almost a miracle that my aunt didn't shake him and shake what he had to say out of him she only shook her own head at him but in a way that made him quail well, ma'am resumed Mr. Chillip as soon as he had courage I am happy to congratulate you all is now over, ma'am and well over during the five minutes or so that Mr. Chillip devoted to the delivery of this oration my aunt eyed in narrowly how is she said my aunt folding her arms with her bonnet still tied on one of them well, ma'am she will soon be quite comfortable, I hope return Mr. Chillip quite as comfortable as we can expect a young mother to be under these melancholy domestic circumstances there cannot be any objection to your seeing her presently, ma'am it may do her good and she, have a she said my aunt sharply Mr. Chillip ladies yet a little more on one side I looked at my aunt like an amiable bird the baby said my aunt, how is she ma'am returned Mr. Chillip I apprehended you had known it's a boy my aunt said never a word but took her bonnet by the strings in the manner of a sling aimed a blow at Mr. Chillip's head with it put it unbent walked out and never came back she vanished like a discontented fairy or like one of those supernatural beings whom it was popularly supposed I was entitled to see and never came back anymore no I lay in my basket and my mother lay in her bed but Betsy taught with Copperfield was forever in the land of dreams and shadows the tremendous region whence I had so lately traveled and the light upon the window of her room shone out upon the ear sleep born of all such travelers and the mound above the ashes and the dust that once was he without whom I had never been End of Chapter 1 Chapter 2 of David Copperfield this is a Librebox recording all Librebox recordings are in the public domain for more information auto-volunteer please visit Librebox.org David Copperfield by Charles Dickens I observe the first objects that assume a distinct presence before me as I look far back into the blank of my infancy are my mother with her pretty hair and youthful shape and Pagotti with no shape at all and I so dark that they seemed to darken their whole neighborhood in her face and cheeks and arms so hard and red that I wondered the birds didn't pick her in preference to apples I believe I can remember these two at a little distance apart dwarfed to my sight by stooping down or kneeling on the floor and I going unsteadily from the one to the other I have an impression on my mind which I cannot distinguish from actual remembrance of the touch of Pagotti's forefinger as she used to hold it out to me and of its being roughened by needlework like a pocket nutmeg greater this may be fancy though I think the memory of most of us can go farther back into such times than many of us suppose just as I believe the power of observation in numbers of very young children to be quite wonderful for its closeness and accuracy indeed I think that most grown men who are remarkable in this respect may with greater propriety be said not to have lost the faculty than to have acquired it there rather as I generally observed such men to retain a certain freshness and gentleness and capacity of being pleased which are also the inheritance they have preserved from their childhood I might have a misgiving that I am meandering in stopping to say this but that it brings me to remark that I build these conclusions in part upon my own experience of myself and if it should appear from anything I may set down in this narrative that I was a child of close observation but that as a man I have a strong memory of my childhood I undoubtedly lay claim to both of these characteristics looking back as I was saying into the blank of my infancy the first objects I can remember is standing out by themselves from the confusion of things are my mother and Pagotti what else do I remember there comes out of the cloud our house not new to me but quite familiar in its earliest remembrance on the ground floor is Pagotti's kitchen opening into a backyard with a pigeon house on a pole in the centre without any pigeons in it a great dog kennel in a corner without any dog there are cells that look terribly tall to me walking about in a menacing and ferocious manner there is one cock who gets upon a post to crow and seems to take particular notice of me as I look at him through the kitchen window who makes me shiver he is so fierce of the geese outside the side gate who come waddling after me a long neck stretched out when I go that way I dream at night as a man environed by wild beasts my dream of lions here is a long passage what an enormous perspective I make of it leading from Pagotti's kitchen to the front door a dark storeroom opens out of it and that is a place to be run past at night what may be among those tubs and jars and old tea chests when there is nobody in there with a dimly burning light letting a mouldy air come out of the door in which there is the smell of soap pickles, pepper candles and coffee all at one whiff then there are the two parlours the parlour in which we sit of an evening and Pagotti for Pagotti is quite our companion when her work is done and we are alone and the best parlour where we sit on a Sunday grandly but not so comfortably there is something of a doleful air about that room to me for Pagotti has told me I don't know when but apparently ages ago about my father's funeral and the company having their black cloaks put on one Sunday night my mother reads to Pagotti and me in there how Lazarus was raised up from the dead and I am so frightened that they are afterwards obliged to take me out of bed and show me the quiet churchyard out of the bedroom window with the dead all lying in their graves at rest below the solemn moon there is nothing half so green than I know anywhere as the grass of the churchyard nothing half so shady as its trees nothing half so quiet as its tombstones the sheep are feeding there when I kneel up early in the morning in my little bed in a closet within my mother's room to look out at it and I see the red light shining on the sundial and think within myself is the sundial glad I wonder that it can tell the time again here is our pew in the church what a high back pew with a window near it out of which our house can be seen and is so many times during the morning service by Pagotti who looks to make herself as sure as she can that it's not been robbed or is not in flames but though Pagotti's eye wanders she is much offended if mine does and frowns to me as I stand upon the seat that I am to look at the clergyman but I can't always look at him I know him without that white thing on and I am afraid of his wondering why I stare so and perhaps stopping the service to inquire and what am I to do it's a dreadful thing to gape but I must do something I look at my mother but she pretends not to see me I look at a boy in the aisle and he makes faces at me I look at the sunlight coming in at the open door through the porch and there I see a stray sheep I don't mean a sinner but mutton half making up his mind to come into the church I feel that if I looked at him any longer I might be tempted to say something out loud and what would become of me then I look up at the monumental tablets on the wall and try to think of Mr. Bodgers late at this parish and what the feelings of Mrs. Bodgers must have been when affliction saw long time Mr. Bodgers bore and physicians were in vain I wonder whether they called in Mr. Chillop and he was in vain and if so how he likes to be reminded of it once a week I look from Mr. Chillop in his Sunday neckcloth to the pulpit and think what a good place it would be to play in and what a castle it would make with another boy coming up the stairs to attack it and having the velvet cushion with the tassels thrown down on his head in time my eyes gradually shut up and from seeming to hear the clergyman singing a drowsy song in the heat I hear nothing until I fall off the seat with a crash and am taken out more dead than alive by Pagotti and now I see the outside of our house with the lattice bedroom windows to let in the sweet smelling air and the ragged old brooks nests still dangling in the elm trees at the bottom of the front garden now I am in the garden at the back beyond the yard where the empty pigeon house and dog kennel are a very preserved of butterflies as I remember it with a high fence and a gate and padlock and branches on the trees and riper and richer than fruit has ever been since in any garden and where my mother gathers some in a basket while I stand by bolting 30 gooseberries and trying to look unmoved a great wind rises and the summer is gone in a moment we are playing in the winter twilight dancing about the parlor when my mother is out of breath and rests herself in her elbow chair I watch her winding her bright curls round her fingers and straightening her waist and nobody knows better than I do that she likes to look so well and is proud of being so pretty that is among my very earliest impressions that we were both a little afraid of Pagotti and submitted ourselves in most things to her direction were among the first opinions if they may be so called that I ever derived from what I saw Pagotti and I were sitting one night by the parlor fire alone I had been reading to Pagotti about crocodiles with the bread very perspicuously or the poor soul must have been deeply interested for I remember she had a cloudy impression after I had done that they were a sort of vegetable I was tired of reading and dead sleepy but having lived as a high tree to sit up until my mother came home from spending the evening I would rather have died upon my post of course than have gone to bed I had reached that stage of sleepiness when Pagotti seemed to swell and grow immensely large I propped my eyelids open with my two four fingers and looked perceivingly at her as she sat at work at the little bit of wax candle she kept for her thread how old it looked being so wrinkled in all directions at the little house with attached roof where the yard measure lived 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 I thought lovely I felt so sleepy that I knew if I lost sight of anything for a moment I was gone Pagotti says I suddenly were you ever married Lord Master Davy replied Pagotti what's put marriage into 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 threads length but were you ever married Pagotti says I you are a very handsome woman aren't you I thought her in a different style from my mother certainly but of another school of beauty I considered her a perfect example there was a red velvet footstool in the best parlor on which my mother had painted a nose-gain the groundwork of that stool and Pagotti's complexion appeared to me to be one and the same thing the stool was smooth and Pagotti was rough but that made no difference me handsome Davy said Pagotti look 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 Pagotti certainly not says Pagotti with the promptest decision but if you marry a person and the person dies why then you may marry another person won't you Pagotti you may says Pagotti if you choose my dear that's a matter of opinion but what is your opinion Pagotti said I I asked her and looked curiously at her because she looked so curiously at me my opinion is said Pagotti taking her eyes from me after a little indecision 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 Pagotti 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 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 gown flew off and I recollect two bursting to the opposite side now let me hear some more about the crocodiles said Pagotti who was not quite sure in the name yet for I ain't heard half enough I couldn't quite understand why Pagotti looked so queer or why she was ready to go back to the crocodiles however we returned to those monsters with fresh wakefulness and we left their eggs in the sand for the sun to hatch and we ran away from them and baffled them by constantly turning which they were unable to do quickly on account of their unwieldy make and we went into the water after them as natives and put sharp pieces of timber down their throats and in short we ran the whole crocodile gauntlet I did at least but I had my doubts of Pagotti who was thoughtfully sticking her needle into various parts of her face and arms all the time we had exhausted the crocodiles and begun with the alligators when the garden bell rang we went out to the door and there was my mother unusually pretty I thought and with her a gentleman with beautiful black hair and whiskers who had walked home with us from church last Sunday as my mother stooped down on the threshold to take me in her arms and kiss me the gentleman said I was a more highly privileged little fellow than a monarch or something like that but after understanding comes I am sensible to my aid here what does that mean I asked him over her shoulder he patted me on the head but somehow I didn't like him or his deep voice and I was jealous that his hand should touch my mother's in touching me which it did I put it away as well as I could my baby remonstrated my mother dear boy said the gentleman I cannot wonder at his devotion I never saw such a beautiful colour on my mother's face before she gently chid me for being rude and keeping me close to her shore turned to thank the gentleman for taking so much trouble as to bring her home she put out her hand for him as she spoke and as he met it with his own she glanced I thought at me let us say good night my fine boy said the gentleman when he had bent his head I saw him over my mother's little glove good night said I come let us be the best friends in the world said the gentleman laughing shake hands my right hand was in my mother's left so I gave him the other boy that's the wrong hand David laughed the gentleman my mother drew my right hand forward but I was resolved for my former reason not to give it him and I did not I gave him the other and he shook it heartily and said I was a brave fellow and I went away at this minute I saw him turn round in the garden and give us a last look with his ill omen black eyes before the door was shut Pagotti who had not said a word or moved a finger secured the fastenings instantly and we all went into the parlour instead of coming to the elbow chair by the fire remained at the other end of the room and sat singing to herself hope you have had a pleasant evening man said Pagotti standing a step as a barrel in the centre of the room with a candlestick in her hand much obliged to you Pagotti returned my mother with a cheerful voice I have had a very pleasant evening a stranger also makes an agreeable change suggested Pagotti a very agreeable change indeed returned my mother Pagotti continuing to stand motionless in the middle of the room and my mother resuming her singing I fell asleep though I was not so sound asleep but that I could hear voices without hearing what they said when I awoke from this uncomfortable dose I found Pagotti and my mother both in tears and both talking not such a one as this Mr. Copperfield wouldn't have liked said Pagotti that I say and that I swear good heavens cried my mother you'll drive me mad was ever any poor girl so ill used by her servants as I am why do I do myself the injustice of calling myself a girl have I never been married Pagotti God knows you have man returned Pagotti then how can you dare said my mother you know I don't mean Pagotti but how can you have the heart to make me so uncomfortable and say such bitter things to me when you are well aware that I haven't out of this place a single friend to turn to the more is the reason return Pagotti for saying that it won't do no that it won't do no no price could make it do no I thought Pagotti would have thrown the candle stick away she was so emphatic with it how can you be so aggravating said my mother shedding more tears than before as to talk in such an unjust manner how can you go on as if it was all settled and arranged Pagotti when I tell you over and over again that beyond the commonest abilities nothing has passed you talk of admiration what am I to do if people are so silly as to indulge the sentiment is it my fault what am I to do I ask you would you wish me to shave my head and black my face or disfigure myself with a burn or a skull I thought I daresay you would Pagotti I daresay you'd quite enjoy it Pagotti seemed to take this asversion very much to heart I thought and my dear boy cried my mother coming to the elbow chair in which I was and caressing me my own little Davey is it to be hinted to me precious treasure the dearest little fellow that ever was nobody never went and hinted no such a thing said Pagotti you did Pagotti returned my mother you know you did what else was it possible to infer from what you said you unkind creature when you know as well as I do that on his account only I can buy myself a new parasol though that old green one is frayed the whole way up and the fringe is perfectly mangy you know it is Pagotti you can't deny it then turning affectionately to me with a cheek against mine am I a naughty mama to you Davey am I a nasty cruel selfish bad mama I am my child say yes dear boy and Pagotti will love you and Pagotti's love is a great deal better than mine Davey I don't love you at all do I at this we all fell are crying together I think I was the loudest of the party but I am sure we were all sincere about it I was quite heartbroken myself and I'm afraid that in the first transports of wounded tenderness I call Pagotti a beast that honest creature was in deep affliction I remember and must have become quite buttonless on the occasion for a little volley of those explosives went off when after having made it up with my mother she kneeled down by the elbow chair and made it up with me we went to bed greatly dejected my sobs kept waking me for a long time and when one very strong sob quite hoisted me up in bed I found my mother sitting on the coverlet and leaning over me I fell asleep in her arms after that and slept soundly I was the following Sunday when I saw the gentleman again or whether there was any greater lapse of time before he reappeared I cannot recall I don't profess to be clear about dates but there he was in church and he walked home with us afterwards he came in too to look at a famous geranium we had in the window it did not appear to me that he took much notice of it but before he went he asked my mother to give him a bit of the blossom she begged him to choose it for himself that he refused to do that I could not understand why so she plucked it for him and gave it into his hand he said he would never know any more and I thought he must be quite a fool not to know that it would fall to pieces in a day or two Pagotti began to be less with us of an evening than she had always been my mother deferred to her very much more than usual it occurred to me and we were all three from what we used to be and were not so comfortable among ourselves sometimes I fancied that Pagotti perhaps objected to my mother's wearing all the pretty dresses she had in her drawers all to her going so often to visit at the neighbours but I couldn't to my satisfaction make out how it was gradually I became used to seeing the gentleman with the black whiskers I liked him no better than at first and had the same uneasy jealousy of him but if I had any reason for it beyond a child's instinctive dislike and a general idea that Pagotti and I could make much of my mother without any help it certainly was not the reason I might have found if I had been older no such thing came into my mind or near it I could observe in little pieces as it were but as to making a net of a number of these pieces and catching anybody in it that was as yet beyond me one autumn morning I was with my mother in the front garden of the stone I knew him by that name now came by on horseback he rained up his horse to salute my mother and said he was going to Lostoft to see some friends who were there with the yacht and merrily proposed to take me on the saddle before him if I would like to ride the air was so clear of the ride so much himself as he stood snorting and pouring at the garden gate that I had a great desire to go so I was sent upstairs to Pagotti to be made spruce and in the meantime Mr. Murdstone dismounted and with his horses bridle drawn over his arm walked slowly up and down on the outer side by a fence while my mother walked slowly up and down on the inner to keep him company I recollect Pagotti and I peeping out at them from my little window I recollect how closely they seemed to be examining the sweet briar between them as they strolled along and how from being in a perfectly angelic temper I turned cross in a moment and brushed my hair the wrong way excessively hard Mr. Murdstone and I were soon off and trotting along on the green turf by the side of the road he held me quite easily with one arm and I don't think I was restless usually but I could not make up my mind without turning my head sometimes and looking up in his face he had that kind of shallow black eye I want a better word to express an eye that has no depth in it to be looked into which when it is abstracted seems from some peculiarity of light to be disfigured for a moment at a time by a cast several times when I glanced at him I observed that appearance with a sort of awe and wondered what he was thinking about so closely his hair and whiskers were blacker and thicker looked at so near than even I had given them credit for being a squareness about the lower part of his face and the dotted indication of the strong black beard close every day reminded me at the waxwork that had travelled into our neighbourhood some half a year before this his regular eyebrows and the rich white and black and brown of his complexion couldn't found his complexion and his memory made me think him in spite of my misgivings of the man I have no doubt that my poor dear mother thought him so too we went to an hotel by the sea where two gentlemen were smoking cigars in a room by themselves each of them was lying on at least four chairs and had a large rough jacket on in a corner was a heap of coats all bundled up together they both rolled onto their feet in an untidy sort of manner when we came in and said helloa, Mirdstone we thought you were dead not yet, said Mr Mirdstone and who's this shaver said one of the gentlemen taking hold of me that's Davey returned Mr Mirdstone he who said the gentleman Jones Copperfield said Mr Mirdstone what bewitching Mrs Copperfield's encumbrance cried the gentleman that pretty little widow Quinion said Mr Mirdstone take care if you please somebody sharp who is he asked the gentleman laughing curious to know only Brooks of Sheffield said Mr Mirdstone I was quite relieved to find that it was only Brooks of Sheffield for at first I really thought it was I there seemed to be something very comical in the reputation of Mr Brooks of Sheffield for both the gentleman laughed heartily when he was mentioned Mr Mirdstone was a good deal amused also after some laughing the gentleman whom he had called Quinion said and what is the opinion of Brooks of Sheffield in reference to the projected business why I don't know that Brooks understands much about it at present replied Mr Mirdstone but he's not generally favourable I believe there was more laughter at this and Mr Quinion said he would bring the bell for some sherry in which to drink to Brooks this he did and when the wine came he made me have a little with a biscuit and before I drunk it stand up and say confusion to Brooks of Sheffield the toast was received with great applause for the laughter that it made me laugh too at which they laughed the more in short we quite endured ourselves we walked about on the cliff after that and sat on the grass and looked at things through a telescope I could make out nothing myself when it was put to my eye but I pretended I could and then we came back all the time we were out the two gentlemen smoked incessantly which I thought if I might judge from the smell of their rough coats they must have been doing ever since the coats had first come home from the tailors I must not forget that we went on board the yacht where they all three descended into the cabin and were busy with some papers I saw them quite hard at work when I looked down through the open skylight they left me during this time with a very nice man with a very large head of red hair and a very small shiny hat upon it who had got a cross-barred shirt or waistcoat on with sky luck in capital letters across the chest I thought it was his name and that as he lived on board ship and hadn't a street door to put his name on he put it there instead but when I called him Mr Skylark he said it meant the vessel I observed all day that Mr Murdstone was graver and steadier than the two gentlemen they were very gay and careless they joked freely with one another but seldom with him it appeared to me that he was more clever and cold than they were and that they regarded him with something of my own feeling I remarked that once or twice when Mr Quinion was talking he looked at Mr Murdstone sideways as if to make sure of his not being displeased and that once when Mr Pasnidge the other gentleman was in high spirits he trod upon his foot and gave him a secret caution with his eyes to observe Mr Murdstone who was sitting still and silent nor do I recollect that Mr Murdstone laughed at all that day except at the Sheffield joke the guy was his own we went home early in the evening it was a very fine evening and my mother and he had another stroll by the sweet briar while I was sent in to get my tea when he was gone my mother asked me all about the day I had had and what they had said and done I mentioned what they had said and she laughed and told me they were impudent fellows who talked nonsense but I knew it pleased her I knew it quite as well as I know it now I took the opportunity of asking if she was at all acquainted with Mr Brooks of Sheffield but she answered no only she supposed he must be a manufacturer or way can I say of her face altered as I have reason to remember it perished as I know it is that it is gone when here it comes before me at this instant as distinct as any face that I may choose to look on in a crowded street can I say of her innocent and girlish beauty that had faded more when it's breath falls on my cheek now as it fell that night can I say she ever changed when my remembrance brings her back to life thus only and truer to it's loving youth than I had been all man ever is still holds fast what it cherished then I write of her she was when I had gone to bed after this talk and she came to bid me good night she kneeled down playfully by the side of the bed and laying her chin upon her hands and laughing said what was it they said Davey tell me again I can't believe it be witchy I begun my mother put her hands upon my lips to stop me it was never be witchy she said laughing it never could have been be witchy Davey now I know it wasn't yes it was be witchy Mrs. Copperfield I repeated stoutly and pretty no no it was never pretty not pretty interposed my mother laying her fingers on my lips again yes it was pretty little widow what foolish impudent creatures cried my mother laughing and covering her face what ridiculous mean aren't they Davey dear well ma don't tell Pagotti she might be angry with them I am dreadfully angry with them myself but I would rather I didn't know I promised of course and we kissed one another over and over again and I soon fell fast asleep it seems to me at this distance of time as if it were the next day when Pagotti broached the striking and adventurous proposition I am about to mention but it was probably about two months afterwards we were sitting as before one evening when my mother was out as before in company with the stocking and the yard measure and the bit of wax and the box with some pawls on the lid and the crocodile book when Pagotti after looking at me several times and opening her mouth as if she were going to speak without doing it I thought was merely gaping or I should have been rather alarmed said coaxingly Master Davy how should you like to go along with me and spend a fortnight at my brother's at Yamaeth wouldn't that be a treat is your brother an agreeable man Pagotti I inquired provisionally cried Pagotti holding up her hands then there's the sea and the boats and ships and the fishermen and the beach and and to play with Pagotti meant her nephew Ham mentioned in my first chapter but she spoke of him as a morsel of English grammar I was flushed by her summary of delights and replied that it would indeed be a treat but what would my mother say why then I'll as good as bet a guinea said Pagotti intent upon my face that she'll let us go I'll ask her if you like as soon as ever she comes home there now but what she to do while we're away said I putting my small elbows on the table to argue the point she can't live by herself if Pagotti were looking for a hole all of a sudden in the heel of that stocking it must have been a very little one indeed and not worth darning I say Pagotti she can't live by herself you know oh bless you said Pagotti looking at me again at last don't you know she's going to stay for a fortnight with Mrs. Graeper Mrs. Graeper's going to have a lot of company oh if that was it I was quite ready to go I waited in the utmost impatience until my mother came home from Mrs. Graeper's for it was that identical neighbour to a certain if we could get leave to carry out this great idea without being nearly so much surprised as I had expected my mother entered into it readily and it was all arranged that night and my board and lodging during visit were to be paid for the day soon came for our going it was such an early day that it came soon even to me who was in a fever of expectation and half afraid that an earthquake or a fiery mountain or some other great convulsion of nature might interpose to stop the expedition we were to go in a carrier's car which departed in the morning after breakfast I would have given any money to have been allowed to wrap myself up overnight and sleep in my hat and boots it touches me nearly now although I tell it lightly to recollect how eager I was to leave my happy home to think how little I suspected what I did leave forever I am glad to recollect that when the carrier's car was at the gate and my mother stood there kissing me a grateful fondness for her and for the old place I had never turned my back upon before made me cry I am glad to know that my mother cried too and that I felt her heart beat against mine I am glad to recollect that when the carrier began to move my mother ran out at the gate and called to him to stop that she might kiss me once more I am glad to dwell upon the earnestness and love with which she lifted up her face to mine and did so as we left her standing on the road Mr. Murdstone came up to where she was and seemed to expostulate with her the being so moved I was looking back round the awning of the cart and wondered what business it was of his also looking back on the other side seemed anything but satisfied as the face she brought back in the cart denoted I sat looking at Pagotti for some time in a reverie on this superstitious case whether if she were employed to lose me like the boy in the fairy tale I should be able to track my way home again by the battens she would shed end of chapter 2 chapter 3 of David Copperfield this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Valeco John David Copperfield by Charles Dickens chapter 3 I have a change the carrier's horse was the easiest horse in the world I should hope and shuffled along with his head down as if he liked to keep the people waiting to whom the packages were directed I fancied indeed that he sometimes chuckled audibly over this reflection but the carrier said he was only troubled with a cough the carrier had a way of keeping his head down like his horse and of drooping sleepily forward as he drove with one of his arms and each of his knees I say drove but it struck me that the cart would have gone out quite as well without him for the horse did all that and as to conversation he had no idea of it but whistling Pagari had a basket of refreshments on her knee which would have lasted us out handsomely if we had been going to London by the same conveyance we ate a good deal and slept a good deal Pagari always went to sleep with her chin upon the handle of the basket her hold of which never relaxed and I could not have believed unless I heard her do it no one defenseless woman could have snored so much we made so many deviations up and down lanes and were such a long time delivering a bedstead at a public house and calling at other places that I was quite tired and very glad when we saw Yarmouth it looked rather spongy and soppy I thought as I carried my eye over the great dull waste that lay across the river and I could not help wondering if the world were really as round as my geography book said how any part of it came to be so flat but I reflected that Yarmouth might be situated one of the poles which would account for it as we drew a little near and saw the whole adjacent prospect lying a straight low line under the sky I hinted to Pagari that a mound or so might have improved it and also that if the land had been a little more separated from the sea and the town and the tide had not been quite so much mixed up like toast and water it would have been nicer but Pagari said with greater emphasis than usual that we must take things as we found them and that for her part she was proud to call herself a Yarmouth bloater when we got into the street which was strange enough to me and smelt the fish and pitch and oakum and tar and saw the sailors walking about and the cars jingling up and down over the stones I felt that I had done so busy a place and injustice and said as much to Pagari who heard my expressions of delight with great complacency and told me it was well known I supposed to those who had the good fortune to be born bloaters that Yarmouth was, upon the whole the finest place in the universe here's my am, scream Pagari grow out of knowledge he was waiting for us in fact at the public house and asked me how I found myself like an old acquaintance I did not feel at first that I knew him because he had never come to our house since the night I was born and naturally he had the advantage of me but our intimacy was much advanced by his taking me on his back to carry me home he was now a huge strong fellow of six feet high broad in proportion and round shoulder but with a simple invoice face and a curly light hair that gave him quite a sheepish look he was dressed in a canvas jacket and a pair of such very stiff trousers that they would have stood quite as well alone without any legs in them and you couldn't so properly have said he wore a hat as that he was covered in a top like an old building with something pitchy ham carrying me on his back and a small box of ours under his arm and Pagari carrying another small box of ours we turned down lanes be strewn with bits of chips and little hillocks of sand and went past gas works rope walks, boat builders yards ship rides yards ship breakers yards caulkers yards smith's forges and a great litter of such places until we came out upon the dull waist I had already seen at a distance when ham said yon's our house master david I looked in all directions as far as I could stare over the wilderness and away at the sea and away at the river but no house could I make out there was a black barge or some other kind of super anutated boat not far off high and dry on the ground with an iron funnel sticking out of it for a chimney and smoking very causally but nothing else in the way of a habitation that was visible to me that's not it said I that ship looking thing that's it master david returned ham if it had been a lantern's palace rock's egg and all I suppose I could not have been more charm with the romantic idea of living in it there was a delightful door cut on the side and it was roofed in and there were little windows in it but the wonderful charm of it was that it was a real boat which had no doubt been upon the water hundreds of times and which had never been intended to be lived in on dry land that was the captivation of it to me if it had ever been meant to be lived in I might have thought it small or inconvenient or lonely but never having been designed for any such use it became a perfect boat it was beautifully clean inside and as tidy as possible there was a table and a dutch clock and a chest of drawers and on the chest of drawers there was a tea tray with a painting on it of a lady with a parasol taking a walk with a military looking child who was trundling a hoop the tray was kept from tumbling down by a bible and the tray if it had tumbled down would have smashed a quantity of cups and saucers and a teapot that were grouped around the book on the walls there were some common colored pictures framed and glazed of scripture subjects such as I have never seen since in the hands of peddlers without seeing the whole interior of Pagari's brother's house again at one view Abraham in red going to sacrifice Isaac in blue and Daniel in yellow cast into a den of green lions with the most prominent of these over the little mantel shelf was a picture of the Sarah Jane Lugger built at Sunderland with a real little wooden stern stuck onto it a work of art combining composition with carpentry which I consider to be one of the most enviable possessions that the world could afford there were some hooks in the beams of the ceiling the use of which I did not divine then and some lockers and boxes and conveniences of that sort which served for seats and eked out the chairs all this I saw in the first glance after I crossed the threshold childlike according to my theory and then Pagari opened the little door and showed me my bedroom it was the completest and most desirable bedroom ever seen in the stern of the vessel with a little window where the rudder used to go through a little looking glass which was quite tight for me nailed against the wall and framed with oyster shells a little bed which there was just enough room to get into and a nose gave seaweed and a blue mug on the table the walls were white washed as white as milk and the patchwork counter paint made my eyes quite ache with its brightness one thing I particularly noticed in this delightful house was the smell of fish which was quite my nose I found its mouth exactly as if it had wrapped up a lobster I'm mind parting this discovery in confidence to Pagari she informed me that her brother dealt in lobsters, crabs and crawfish and afterwards I found a heap of these creatures in a state of wonderful conglomeration with one another and never leaving off pinching whatever they were told of were usually to be found in a little wooden we were welcomed by a very civil woman in a white apron whom I had seen courtesy at the door when I was on hands back about a quarter mile off likewise by a most beautiful little girl or I thought her so with a necklace of blue beads on who wouldn't let me kiss her when I offered to but ran away and hit herself by and by when we had dined in the sumptuous manner of boiled dabs, melted butter and potatoes with a chop for me a hairy man with a very good natured face came home as he called Pagasi last and gave her a hearty smack on the cheek I had no doubt from the general propriety of her conduct that he was her brother and so he turned out being presently introduced to me as Mr. Pagari the master of the house glad to see you sir said Mr. Pagari you'll find us rough sir I thanked them and replied that I was sure I should be happy in such a delightful place how's your master said Mr. Pagari did you leave her pretty jolly I gave Mr. Pagari to understand that she was as jolly as I could wish and that she desired her compliments which was about light fiction on my part I much the bleach to her I'm sure said Mr. Pagari well sir if you can make out here for a fortnight along with her nodding in his sister and ham and little Emily we shall be proud of your company having done the honors of his house in the suspittable manner Mr. Pagari went out to wash himself in a kettle full of hot water remarking that cold would never get his muck off he soon returned greatly improved in appearance but so rebuked that I couldn't help thinking that this uncommon of lobster's crabs and crawfish that it went into the hot water very black and came out very red after tea when the door was shut and always made snog the nights being cold and misty now it seemed to me the most delicious retreat that the imagination of man could conceive to hear the wind getting up out at sea to know that the fog was creeping over the desolate flat outside and to look at the fire it seemed that there was no house near but this one and that this one about was like enchantment little Emily had overcome her shyness and was sitting by my side upon the lowest and least of the lockers which was just large enough for us to and just fit it into the chimney corner Mrs. Pagari with the white apron was knitting on the opposite side of the fire Pagari had her needlework was as much at home with St. Paul's and a bit of wax candle as if they had never known any other roof Ham who had been giving me my first lesson in all fours was trying to recollect a scheme of telling fortune with the dirty cards and was printing efficient impressions of his thumb on all the cards he turned Mr. Pagari was smoking his pipe I felt it was a time for conversation and confidence Mr. Pagari says I Sir, says he give your son the name of Ham because you lived in a sort of arc Mr. Pagari seemed to think it a deep idea but answered no sir I never give him no name who gave him that name then said I putting question number two of the catechism to Mr. Pagari why sir, his father give it him said Mr. Pagari I thought you were his father my brother Joe was his father said Mr. Pagari dead Mr. Pagari I hinted after respectful pause drowned dead said Mr. Pagari I was very much surprised that Mr. Pagari 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. Pagari little Emily I said glancing at her she is your daughter isn't she Mr. Pagari no sir my brother-in-law Tom was her father I couldn't help it dead Mr. Pagari I hinted after another respectful silence drowned dead said Mr. Pagari 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. Pagari no master he answered with a short laugh I'm a bachelor a bachelor I said astonished why who's that Mr. Pagari pointing to the person in the apron who was knitting that's Mrs. Gummage said Mr. Pagari Gummage Mr. Pagari but at this point Pagari I mean my own peculiar Pagari made such impressive motions to me not to ask any more questions then I could only sit and look at all the silent company until it was time to go to bed then in the privacy of my own little cabin she informed me that Ham and Emily were an orphan nephew and niece whom my host had at different times adopted in their childhood when they were left destitute and that Mrs. Gummage was the widow of his partner in the boat who had died very poor and himself said Pagari but as good as gold and as true as steel those were her similes the only subject she informed me on when she ever showed a violent temper or sworn oath was this generosity of his and if it were ever referred to by any one of them he struggled to table a heavy blow with his right hand had splitted on one such occasion and swore a dreadful oath that he would be gormed if it was ever mentioned again it appeared in answer to my inquiries that nobody had the least idea of the etymology of this terrible verb passive to be gormed but they all regarded it as constituting a more solemn imprecation I was very sensible with my entertainer's goodness and listened to the women going to bed in another little crib like mine at the opposite end of the boat and to him and Ham bringing up two hammocks with themselves on the hoax I had noticed in the roof in a very luxurious state of mind enhanced by my being sleepy as slumber gradually stole upon me I heard the wind howling out at sea and coming on across the flat so fiercely that I had a lazy apprehension of the great deep rising in the night but I bit thought myself that I was in a boat after all and that a man like Mr. Pikari was a bad person to have on board if anything did happen nothing happened however, worse than morning almost as soon as it shone upon the oyster shell frame of my mirror I was out of bed and out with little Emily picking up stones upon the beach you're quite a sailor I suppose I said to Emily I don't know that I supposed anything of the kind but I felt that an act of gallantry to say something and a shining sail close to us and a shining little image of itself at the moment in her bright eye that I came into my head to say this no replied Emily 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 Emily I have seen it very cruel to some of our men I have seen it terrible as big as our house, all to pieces I hope it wasn't about that that father was drowned in said Emily no, not that one I never see that boat nor him I asked her little Emily shook her head not to remember here was a coincidence 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 and the happiest they'd 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 she did 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 Emily's orphanhood and mine it appeared she had lost her mother before her father and where her father's grave was no one knew that she was somewhere in the depths of the sea besides said Emily 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. Picotti you see uncle Dan Yander answered Emily looking, nodding at the boat house yes, I mean him he must be very good I should think good? said Emily if I was ever to be a lady I'd give him a sky blue coat with diamond buttons nankine 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. Picotti well deserved these treasures I must acknowledge that I felt it difficult to picture him quite at his ease in the Raymond propose room by his grateful little niece and that I was particularly doubtful of the policy of the cocked hat but I kept these sentiments to myself little Emily had stopped and looked up at the sky and her enumeration of 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 me and laughed and nodded yes I should like it very much we would all be gentle folks together then me and uncle and ham and Mrs. Gummage we wouldn't mind then when there comes stormy weather not for our own sakes I mean we would for the poor fishermen to be sure and we'd help them with the money when they come to any hurt this seemed to be a very satisfactory and therefore not a low probable picture I expressed my pleasure in the contemplation of it and little Emily was in bolden to say shyly don't you think you are afraid of the sea now? it was quite enough to reassure me but I have no doubt if I had seen a moderately large wave come tumbling in I should have taken to my heels with an awful recollection of her drowned relations however I said no and I added you don't seem to be either though you say you are for she was walking much too near the brink of a sort of old jetty or wooden causeway we had strolled upon and I was afraid of her falling over I'm not afraid in this way said little Emily but I awake when it blows and trembled to think of uncle Dan and ham and believe I hear him crying out for help that's why I should like so much to be a lady but I'm not afraid in this way not a bit look here she started from my side and ran along a jagged timber which protruded from the place we stood upon and overhung the deep water at some height without the least defense the incident is so impressed on my remembrance that if I were a drawltsman I could draw out swarm here I dare say acridly as it was that day and little Emily springing forward as it appeared to me with a look that I have never forgotten directed out to sea the light, bold, fluttering little figure turned and came back safe to me and I soon laughed at my fears and at the cry I had uttered fruitlessly in any case for there was no one near but there have been time since in my manhood many times there have been when I've thought is it possible among the possibilities of hidden things that in the sudden rashness of the child and her wild look so far off there was any merciful attraction of her into danger and he tempting her towards him permitted on the part of her dead father that her life might have a chance of ending that day there has been a time since when I have wondered whether if the life before her could have been revealed to me at a glance and so revealed as that a child could fully comprehend it and if her preservation could have dependent on a motion of my hand I ought to have held it up to savor there has been a time since I do not say it lasted long but it has been when I have asked myself the question would it have been better for little Emily to have had the waters close above her head that morning in my sight and when I have answered yes it would have been this may be premature I have set it down too soon perhaps but let it stand we strolled a long way and loaded ourselves with things that we thought curious and put some stranded starfish carefully back into the water I hardly know enough of the race at this moment to be quite certain whether they had reason to feel obliged to us for doing so with a reverse and then made our way home to Mr. Picari's dwelling we stopped under the lee of the lobster outhouse to exchange an innocent kiss and went into breakfast glowing and pleasure like two young Mavishes Mr. Picari said I knew this meant in our local dialect like two young thrushes and received it as a compliment of course I was in love with little Emily I am sure I love that baby quite as truly quite as tenderly with greater purity and more disinterestedness than can enter into the best love of a later time of life high and ennobling as it is I am sure my fancy raised up something round that blue eyed might of a child which Ithar realized and made a very angel of her if any sunny forenoon she had spread a little pair of wings and flown away before my eyes I don't think I should have regarded it as much more than that I had reason to expect we used to walk about that dim old flat at Yarmouth in a loving manner hours and hours the days supported by us were not grown up himself yet but were a child too and always at play I told Emily 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 Emily 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. Gammage and Pagari who used to whisper of an evening when we sat lovingly on a little locker side by side lore wasn't it beautiful Mr. Pagari smiled at us from behind this pipe and ham-grinned all the evening and did nothing else they had something of the sort of pleasure in us I suppose they might have had in a pretty toy or a pocket model of the Coliseum I soon found out that Mrs. Gammage did not always make herself so agreeable as she might have been expected to do under the circumstances of her residence with Mr. Pagari Mrs. Gammage was rather a fretful disposition and she whimpered more sometimes than was comfortable for other parties and so small an establishment I was very sorry for her but there were moments when it would have been more agreeable if Mrs. Gammage had had a convenient apartment of her own to retire to and had stopped there until her spirits revived Mr. Pagari went occasionally to a public house called The Willing Mind I discovered this by his being out on the second or third evening of her visit and by Mrs. Gammage is looking up at the Dutch clock between 8 and 9 and saying he was there and that what was more she had known in the morning he would go there Mrs. Gammage had been in a low state all day and had burst into tears in the four noon when the fire smoked I am a lone, lorn creature where Mrs. Gammage is where it is and that unpleasant occurrence took place and everything goes contrary with me oh it'll soon leave off said Pagari I again mean our Pagari and besides, you know it's not more disagreeable to you than to us I feel it more said Mrs. Gammage it was a very cold day with cutting blasts of wind Mrs. Gammage's peculiar corner of the fire seemed 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 of 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 creature and everything went contrary with her it was certainly very cold said Pagari everybody must feel it so I feel it more than other people said Mrs. Gammage so at dinner when Mrs. Gammage was always helped immediately after me to whom the preference was given as a visitor of distinction the fish was small in bony and the potatoes were a little burnt we all acknowledged that we felt this something of a disappointment but Mrs. Gammage said she felt it more than we did and shed tears again and made that former declaration with great bitterness accordingly when Mr. Pagari came home about nine o'clock this unfortunate Mrs. Gammage was knitting in her corner in a very wretched and miserable condition Pagari had been working cheerfully Ham had been patching up a great pair of water boots and I with little Emily by my side had been reading to them Mrs. Gammage had never made any other remark than a forlorn sigh and had never raised her eyes since tea well mates said Mr. Pagari taking his seat and how are you we all said something or looked something to welcome him except Mrs. Gammage who only shook her head over her knitting what's a miss Mrs. Gammage said Mr. Pagari with a clap of his hands cheer up old mother Mr. Pagari meant old girl Mrs. Gammage 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 a miss dame said Mr. Pagari Mrs. Gammage you've come from the willing mind Daniel why yes I've took a short spell at the willing mind tonight said Mr. Pagari I'm sorry I should drive you there said Mrs. Gammage drive I don't want no driving returned Mr. Pagari with an honest laugh I only go too ready very ready said Mrs. Gammage shaking her head and wiping her eyes yes yes very ready I'm sorry it should be a long course already along are you Mr. Pagari don't you believe a bit on it yes yes it is Mrs. Gammage I know what I am I know that I am a lone, lone creature and not only that everything goes contrary with me but that I go contrary with everyone yes yes I feel more than other people do and I show it more 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. Gammage but Mr. Pagari made no such retort only answering with another treaty to Mrs. Gammage to cheer up I ant what I could wish myself to be said Mrs. Gammage I am far from it I know what I am my troubles has made me contrary I feel all my troubles and they make me contrary I wish I didn't feel them but I do I wish I could be hardened to them but I ant I make the house uncomfortable I don't wonder at it I've made your sister so all day and master Dave here I was suddenly melted and roared out no you haven't Mrs. Gammage in great mental distress it's far from right that I should do it Mrs. Gammage it ant a fit return I had better go into the house and die I am a lone, lone creature and had much better not make myself contrary here if things must go contrary with me and I must go contrary myself let me go contrary in my parish Daniel I'd better go into the house and die and be a riddance Mrs. Gammage retired with these words and took herself to bed when she was gone Mr. Pagari who had not exhibited a trace of any feeling but the profound 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 one I did not quite understand what old one Mrs. Gammage was supposed to have fixed her mind upon until Pagari on seeing me to bed explained that it was the late Mr. Gammage and that her brother always took that for a received truth on such occasions and that it always had a moving effect upon him sometime after he was in his hammock that night I heard him myself repeat to him poor thing she's been thinking of the old one and whenever Mrs. Gammage was overcome in a similar manner during the remainder of our stay which happened some few times he always said the same thing in extinuation of the circumstance and always with the tenderest commissuration so the fortnight slipped away varied by nothing but the variation of the tide which altered Mr. Pagari'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 seven-pression 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 Emily 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 proof separation from Mr. Pagari and Mrs. Gommage but my agony of mind that leaving little Emily 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 deemed 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 reportful young conscience seemed to point that way with a steady 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 and the more familiar the object became that we passed the more excited I was to get there and to run into her arms but Pagari instead of sharing in these transports I had to check them though very kindly and looked confused and out of sorts Blunderstorm Rookery would come however in spite of her when the carrier's horse pleased and did how well I recollected 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 I said ruefully isn't she come home yes yes master devi said Pagari she's come home wait a bit master devi and I'll tell you something between her agitation and her natural awkwardness in getting out of the cart Pagari was making a most extraordinary festoon of herself but I felt too blank and strange to tell her so when she all got down she took me by the hand led me wondering into the kitchen and shut the door Pagari said I quite frightened what's the matter nothing's the matter master devi dear she answered assuming a narrow spreadliness something's the matter I'm sure where's mama where's mama master devi repeated Pagari yes why hasn't she come out to the gate and what have we come in here for oh Pagari my eyes were full and I felt as if I were going to tumble bless the precious boy cried Pagari taking hold of me what is it speak my pet not dead too oh she's not dead Pagari Pagari 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 enquiry you see dear I should have told you before now said Pagari but I hadn't an opportunity I ought to have made it perhaps but I couldn't exactly that was always the substitute for exactly in Pagari's militia words bring my mind to it go on Pagari said I more frightened than before master devi said Pagari untying her bonnet with a shaking hand and speaking in a breathless sort of way what do you think you've got a pot I trampled 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 Pagari a new one I repeated Pagari 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 Pagari I ceased to draw back and we went straight to the best parlor where she left me on one side of the fire said my mother on the other Mr. Murdstone my mother dropped her work and rose hurriedly but timidly I thought now Clara my dear said Mr. Murdstone recollect control yourself David 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 dock handle 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 end of chapter 3 The end of chapter 3 The end of chapter 3