 CHAPTER X I become neglected and am provided for. The first act of business, Miss Murdstone performed when the day of the solemnity was over, and light was freely admitted into the house, was to give Pegatee a month's warning. Much as Pegatee would have disliked such a service, I believe she would have retained it for my sake in preference to the best upon earth. She told me we must part and told me why, and we condoled with one another in all sincerity. As to me or my future, not a word was said or a step taken. Maybe they would have been, I daresay, if they could have dismissed me at a month's warning too. I mustered courage once to ask Miss Murdstone when I was going back to school, and she answered dryly she believed I was not going back at all. I was told nothing more. I was very anxious to know what was going to be done with me, and so was Pegatee, but neither she nor I could pick up any information on the subject. There was one change in my condition, which, while it relieved me of a great deal of present uneasiness, might have made me, if I had been capable of considering it closely, yet more uncomfortable about the future. It was this. The constraint that had been put upon me was quite abandoned. I was so far from being required to keep my dull post in the parlor that on several occasions when I took my seat there Miss Murdstone frowned to me to go away. I was so far from being warned off from Pegatee's society that provided I was not in Mr. Murdstone's I was never sought out or inquired for. At first I was in daily dread of his taking my education in hand again, or of Miss Murdstone's devoting herself to it, but I soon began to think that such fears were groundless and that all I had to anticipate was neglect. I did not conceive that this discovery gave me much pain then. I was still giddy with the shock of my mother's death, and in a kind of stunned state as to all tributary things. I can recollect indeed to have speculated, at odd times, on the possibility of my not being taught any more, or cared for any more, and growing up to be a shabby, moody man lounging an idle life away about the village, as well as on the feasibility of my getting rid of this picture by going away somewhere like the hero in a story to seek my fortune. But these were transient visions, daydreams I sat looking at sometimes, as if they were faintly painted or written on the wall of my room, and which, as they melted away, left the wall blank again. Pegatee, I said in a thoughtful whisper one evening when I was warming my hands at the kitchen fire, Mr. Murdstone likes me less than he used to. He never liked me much, Pegatee, but he would rather not even see me now if he could help it. Perhaps it's his sorrow, said Pegatee, stroking my hair. I am sure, Pegatee, I am sorry, too. If I believed it was his sorrow, I should not think of it at all. But it's not that. Oh, no, it's not that. How do you know it's not that, said Pegatee, after a silence? Oh, his sorrow is another, and quite a different thing. He is sorry at this moment, sitting by the fireside with Mr. Murdstone, but if I was to go in, Pegatee, he would be something besides. What would he be, said Pegatee? Angry, I answered, with an involuntary imitation of his dark frown. If he was only sorry, he wouldn't look at me as he does. I am only sorry, and it makes me feel kinder. Pegatee said nothing for a little while, and I warmed my hands, a silent as she. Davey, she said at length, yes, Pegatee? I have tried, my dear, all ways I could think of. All the ways there are, and all the ways there ain't, in short, to get a suitable service here in Blunderstone, but there's no such a thing, my love. And what do you mean to do, Pegatee, says I, wistfully? Do you mean to go and seek your fortune? I expect I shall be forced to go to Yarmouth, replied Pegatee, and live there. You might have gone farther off, I said, brightening a little, and been as bad as lost. I shall see you sometimes, my dear old Pegatee, there. You won't be quite at the other end of the world, will you? Contrary ways, please God, cried Pegatee with great animation. As long as you are here, my pet, I shall come over every week of my life to see you, one day, every week of my life. I felt a great weight taken off my mind by this promise, but even this was not all, for Pegatee went on to say, I'm a going, Davey, to see to my brothers, first for another fortnight's visit, just till I have had time to look about me and get to be something like myself again. Now, I have been thinking that perhaps, as they don't want you here at present, you might be let to go along with me. If anything, short of being in a different relation to everyone about me, Pegatee accepted, could have given me a sense of pleasure at that time, it would have been this project of all others. The idea of being again surrounded by those honest faces, shining welcome on me, of renewing the peacefulness of the sweet Sunday morning when the bells were ringing, the stones dropping in the water, and the shadowy ships breaking through the mist, of roaming up and down with little Emily, telling her my troubles and finding charms against them in the shells and pebbles on the beach, made a calm in my heart. It was ruffled, next moment, to be sure, by a doubt of mismerged stones giving her consent. But even that was set at rest soon, for she came out to take an evening grope in the store closet while we were yet in conversation, and Pegatee, with a boldness that amazed me, broached the topic on the spot. The boy will be idle there, said Miss Mirdstone, looking into a pickle jar, and idleness is the root of all evil, but to be sure he would be idle here or anywhere in my opinion. Pegatee had an angry answer ready, I could see, but she swallowed it for my sake and remained silent. Hump! said Miss Mirdstone, still keeping her eye on the pickles. It is of more importance than anything else. It is of paramount importance that my brother should not be disturbed or made uncomfortable. I suppose I had better say yes. I thanked her without making any demonstration of joy lest it should induce her to withdraw her assent. Nor could I help thinking this a prudent course, since she looked at me out of the pickle jar with as great an access of sourness as if her black eyes had absorbed its contents. However, the permission was given and was never retracted, for when the month was out Pegatee and I were ready to depart. Mr. Barkas came into the house for Pegatee's boxes. I had never known him to pass the garden gate before, but on this occasion he came into the house, and he gave me a look as he shouldered the largest box and went out, which I thought had meaning in it if meaning could ever be said to find its way into Mr. Barkas's visage. Pegatee was naturally in low spirits at leaving what had been her home so many years, and where the two strong attachments of her life, from my mother and myself, had been formed. She had been walking in the churchyard, too, very early, and she got into the cart and sat in it with her handkerchief at her eyes. So long as she remained in this condition Mr. Barkas gave no sign of life whatever. He sat in his usual place and attitude like a great stuffed figure, but when she began to look about her and to speak to me, he nodded his head and grinned several times. I have not the least notion at whom or what he meant by it. It's a beautiful day, Mr. Barkas, I said, as an act of politeness. It ain't bad, said Mr. Barkas, who generally qualified his speech and rarely committed himself. Pegatee is quite comfortable now, Mr. Barkas, I remarked, for his satisfaction. Is she, though, said Mr. Barkas. After reflecting about it with a sagacious air, Mr. Barkas eyed her and said, Are you pretty comfortable? Pegatee laughed and answered in the affirmative. But really and truly, you know, are you? growled Mr. Barkas, sliding nearer to her on the seat and nudging her with his elbow. Are you really and truly pretty comfortable? Are you, eh? In each of these inquiries Mr. Barkas shuffled nearer to her and gave her another nudge so that at last we were all crowded together in the left-hand corner of the cart, and I was so squeezed that I could hardly bear it. Pegatee, calling his attention to my sufferings, Mr. Barkas gave me a little more room at once and got away by degrees. But I could not help observing that he seemed to think he had hit upon a wonderful expedient for expressing himself in a neat, agreeable, and pointed manner without the inconvenience of inventing conversation. He manifestly chuckled over it for some time. By and by he turned to Pegatee again and repeating, Are you pretty comfortable, though? Bore down upon us as before until the breath was nearly edged out of my body. By and by he made another descent upon us with the same inquiry and the same result. At length I got up whenever I saw him coming and standing on the footboard pretended to look at the prospect, after which I did very well. He was so polite as to stop at a public house expressly on our account and entertain us with broiled mutton and beer. Even when Pegatee was in the act of drinking he was seized with one of those approaches and almost choked her. But as we drew nearer to the end of our journey he had more to do and less time for gallantry. And when we got on Yarmouth pavement we were all too much shaken and jolted, I apprehend, to have any leisure for anything else. Mr. Pegatee and Ham waited for us at the old place. They received me and Pegatee in an affectionate manner and shook hands with Mr. Barkas, who, with his hat on the very back of his head and a shame-faced leer upon his countenance in pervading his very legs, presented but a vacant appearance, I thought. They each took one of Pegatee's trunks and we were going away when Mr. Barkas solemnly made a sign to me with his forefinger to come under an archway. I say, growled Mr. Barkas, it was all right. I looked up into his face and answered with an attempt to be very profound. Oh, it didn't come to an end there, said Mr. Barkas, nodding confidentially. It was all right. Again I answered, oh, you know who was willing, said my friend, it was Barkas and Barkas only. I nodded ascent. It's all right, said Mr. Barkas, shaking hands. I'm a friend of yours. You made it all right first. It's all right. In his attempts to be particularly lucid, Mr. Barkas was so extremely mysterious that I might have stood looking in his face for an hour and most assured they should have got as much information out of it as out of the face of a clock that had stopped, but for Pegatee's calling me away. As we were going along, she asked me what he had said, and I told her he had said it was all right. Like his impudence, said Pegatee, but I don't mind that. Davey, dear, what should you think if I was to think of being married? Why, I suppose you would like me as much then Pegatee as you do now, I returned after a little consideration. Greatly to the astonishment of the passengers in the street as well as of her relations going on before, the good soul was obliged to stop and embrace me on the spot with many protestations of her unalterable love. Tell me what should you say, darling, she asked again when this was over and we were walking on. If you were thinking of being married to Mr. Barkas, Pegatee? Yes, said Pegatee. I should think it would be a very good thing. For then, you know, Pegatee, you would always have the horse and cart to bring you over to see me and could come for nothing and be sure of coming. The sense of the dear, cried Pegatee, what I have been thinking of this month back. Yes, my precious, and I think I should be more independent altogether, you see, let alone my working with a better heart in my own house than I could in anybody else's now. I don't know what I might be fit for now as a servant to a stranger, and I shall be always near my pretty's resting place, said Pegatee Musing, and be able to see it when I like, and when I lie down to rest I may be laid not far off from my darling girl. We neither of us said anything for a little while. But I wouldn't so much as give it another thought, said Pegatee cheerly, if my Davy was any ways against it, not if I had been asked in church thirty times three times over and was wearing out the ring in my pocket. Look at me, Pegatee, I replied, and see if I am not really glad and don't truly wish it, as indeed I did with all my heart. Well, my life, said Pegatee, giving me a squeeze, I have thought of it night and day every way I can, and I hope the right way, but I'll think of it again and speak to my brother about it, and in the meantime we'll keep it to ourselves, Davy, you and me. Barkas is a good, plain creature, said Pegatee, and if I tried to do my duty by him, I think it would be my fault if I wasn't pretty comfortable, said Pegatee, laughing heartily. This quotation from Mr. Barkas was so appropriate and tickled us both so much that we laughed again and again and were quite in a pleasant humor when we came within view of Mr. Pegatee's cottage. It looked just the same, except that it may perhaps have shrunk a little in my eyes, and Mrs. Gummidge was waiting at the door as if she had stood there ever since. All within was the same, down to the seaweed and the blue mug in my bedroom. I went into the outhouse to look about me, and the very same lobster's crabs and crawfish possessed by the same desire to pinch the world in general appeared to be in the same state of conglomeration in the same old corner. But there was no little Emily to be seen, so I asked Mr. Pegatee where she was. She's at school, sir, said Mr. Pegatee, wiping the heat consequent on the porterage of Pegatee's box from his forehead. She'll be home, looking at the Dutch clock, in from twenty minutes to half an hour's time. We all on us feel the loss of her, bless ye. Mrs. Gummidge moaned. Cheer up, mother, cried Mr. Pegatee. I feel it more than anybody else, said Mrs. Gummidge. I'm a lone, lorn creeder, and she used to be almost the only thing that didn't go contrary with me. Mrs. Gummidge, whimpering and shaking her head, applied herself to blowing the fire. Mr. Pegatee, looking round upon us while she was so engaged, said in a low voice, which he shaded with his hand. The old un... From this I rightly conjectured that no improvement had taken place since my last visit in the state of Mrs. Gummidge's spirits. Now, the whole place was, or it should have been, quite as delightful a place as ever, and yet it did not impress me in the same way. I felt rather disappointed with it. Perhaps it was because little Emily was not at home. I knew the way by which she would come, and presently found myself strolling along the path to meet her. A figure appeared in the distance before long, and I soon knew it to be Emily, who was a little creature still in stature, though she was grown. But when she drew nearer, and I saw her blue eyes looking bluer, and her dimpled face looking brighter, and her whole self prettier and gayer, a curious feeling came over me that made me pretend not to know her, and passed by as if I were looking at something a long way off. I have done such a thing since in later life, or I am mistaken. Little Emily didn't care a bit. She saw me well enough, but instead of turning round and calling after me, ran away, laughing. This obliged me to run after her, and she ran so fast that we were very near the cottage before I caught her. Oh, it's you, is it, said little Emily. Well, you knew who it was, Emily, said I. And didn't you know who it was, said Emily? I was going to kiss her, but she covered her cherry lips with her hands, and said she wasn't a baby now, and ran away, laughing more than ever, into the house. She seemed to delight in teasing me, which was a change in her I wondered at very much. The tea table was ready, and our little locker was put out in its old place. But instead of coming to sit by me, she went and bestowed her company upon that grumbling Mrs. Gummidge. And then Mr. Pagedy's inquiring why, rumbled her hair all over her face to hide it, and could do nothing but laugh. A little puss it is, said Mr. Pagedy, patting her with his great hand. So she is, so she is, cried Ham. Master Davy Boer, so she is. And he sat and chuckled at her for some time in a state of mingled admiration and delight that made his face a burning red. Little Emily was spoiled by them all, in fact, and by no one more than Mr. Pagedy himself, whom she could have coaxed into anything by only going and laying her cheek against his rough whisker. That was my opinion, at least, when I saw her do it, and I held Mr. Pagedy to be thoroughly in the right. But she was so affectionate and sweet-natured, and had such a pleasant manner of being both sly and shy at once, she captivated me more than ever. She was tender-hearted, too, for when, as we sat round the fire after tea, an allusion was made by Mr. Pagedy over his pipe to the loss I had sustained, the tears stood in her eyes, and she looked at me so kindly across the table that I felt quite thankful to her. Ah, said Mr. Pagedy, taking up her curls and running them over his hand like water, here's another orphan, you see, sir, and here, said Mr. Pagedy, giving Ham a back-handed knock in the chest, there's another of them, though he don't look much like it. If I had you for my guardian, Mr. Pagedy, said I, shaking my head, I don't think I should feel much like it. Well said, Master David Bohr, cried Ham in an ecstasy, Hurrah, well said, but no more you wouldn't, hor, hor! Here he returned Mr. Pagedy's back-hander, and little Emily got up and kissed Mr. Pagedy. And how is your friend, sir, said Mr. Pagedy to me? Steerforth said I? That's the name, cried Mr. Pagedy, turning to Ham. I know it was something in our way. You said it was Rutterford, observed Ham, laughing. Well, retorted Mr. Pagedy, and you steer with the Rutter, don't you? It ain't fur off. How is he, sir? He was very well indeed when I came away, Mr. Pagedy. There is a friend, said Mr. Pagedy, stretching out his pipe. There is a friend, if you talk of friends, why Lord, love my heart alive if it ain't a treat to look at him. He is very handsome, is he not, said I, my heart warming with this praise. Handsome, cried Mr. Pagedy. He stands up to you like a, well, I don't know what he don't stand up to you like, he's so bold. Yes, that's just his character, said I. He's as brave as a lion, and you can't think how frank he is, Mr. Pagedy. And I do suppose now, said Mr. Pagedy, looking at me through the smoke of his pipe, that in the way of book-learning he'd take the wind out of a most anything. Yes, said I, delighted. He knows everything. He is astonishingly clever. There is a friend, murmured Mr. Pagedy with a grave toss of his head. Nothing seems to cost him any trouble, said I. He knows a task if he only looks at it. He is the best cricketer you ever saw. He will give you almost as many men as you like at drafts, and beat you easily. Mr. Pagedy gave his head another toss, as much as to say, of course he will. He is such a speaker, I pursued, that he can win anybody over, and I don't know what you'd say if you were to hear him sing, Mr. Pagedy. Mr. Pagedy gave his head another toss, as much as to say, I have no doubt of it. And he's such a generous, fine noble fellow, said I, quite carried away by my favorite theme, that it's hardly possible to give him as much praise as he deserves. I am sure I can never feel thankful enough for the generosity with which he has protected me, so much younger and lower in the school than himself. I was running on, very fast indeed, when my eyes rested on little Emily's face, which was bent forward over the table, listening with the deepest attention, her breath held, her blue eyes sparkling like jewels, and the color mantling in her cheeks. She looked so extraordinarily earnest and pretty that I stopped in a sort of wonder, and they all observed her at the same time, for as I stopped they laughed and looked at her. Emily is like me, said Pagedy, and would like to see him. Emily was confused by our all observing her, and hung down her head, and her face was covered with blushes, glancing up presently through her stray curls, and seeing that we were all looking at her still. I am sure I, for one, could have looked at her for hours. She ran away and kept away, till it was nearly bedtime. I lay down in the old little bed in the stern of the boat, and the wind came moaning on across the flat as it had done before. But I could not help fancying, now, that it moaned of those who were gone, and instead of thinking that the sea might rise in the night and float the boat away, I thought of the sea that had risen, since I last heard those sounds and drowned my happy home. I recollect as the wind and water began to sound fainter in my ears, putting a short clause into my prayers, petitioning that I might grow up to marry little Emily, and so dropping lovingly asleep. The days passed pretty much as they had passed before, except it was a great exception, that little Emily and I seldom wandered on the beach now. She had tasks to learn and needlework to do, and was absent during a great part of each day. But I felt that we should not have had those old wanderings, even if it had been otherwise. Wild and full of childish whims as Emily was, she was more of a little woman than I had supposed. She seemed to have got a great distance away from me in a little more than a year. She liked me, but she laughed at me and tormented me, and when I went to meet her, stole home another way, and was laughing at the door when I came back, disappointed. The best times were when she sat quietly at work in the doorway, and I sat on the wooden step at her feet, reading to her. It seems to me at this hour that I have never seen such sunlight as on those bright April afternoons, that I have never seen such a sunny little figure as I used to see sitting in the doorway of the old boat, that I have never beheld such sky, such water, such glorified ships sailing away into golden air. From the very first evening after our arrival Mr. Barkas appeared in an exceedingly vacant and awkward condition, and was a bundle of oranges tied up in a handkerchief. As he made no allusion of any kind to this property, he was supposed to have left it behind him by accident when he went away, until Ham, running after him to restore it, came back with the information that it was intended for peggedee. After that occasion he appeared every evening at exactly the same hour, and always with a little bundle to which he never eluded, and which he regularly put behind the door and left there. These offerings of affection were of a most various and eccentric description. Among them I remember a double set of pigs-trotters, a huge pin cushion, half a bushel or so of apples, a pair of jet earrings, some Spanish onions, a box of dominoes, a canary-burden cage, and a leg of pickled pork. Mr. Barkas' wooing, as I remember, it was altogether of a peculiar kind. He very seldom said anything but would sit by the fire in much the same attitude as he sat in his cart, and stare heavily at peggedee, who was opposite. One night, being, as I suppose, inspired by love, he made a dart at the bit of wax candle she kept for her thread, and put it in his waistcoat pocket and carried it off. After that his great delight was to produce it when it was wanted, sticking to the lining of his pocket in a partially melted state, and pocketed it again when it was done with. He seemed to enjoy himself very much, and not to feel at all called upon to talk. Even when he took peggedee out for a walk on the flats he had no uneasiness on that head, I believe, contending himself with now and then asking her if she was pretty comfortable. And I remember that sometimes, after he was gone, peggedee would throw her apron over her face and laugh for half an hour. Indeed, we were all more or less amused, except that miserable Mrs. Gummidge, whose courtship would appear to have been of an exactly parallel nature. She was so continually reminded by these transactions of the old one. At length, when the term of my visit was nearly expired, it was given out that peggedee and Mr. Barkas were going to make a day's holiday together, and that little Emily and I were to accompany them. I had but a broken sleep the night before in anticipation of the pleasure of a whole day with Emily. We were all a stirby times in the morning, and while we were yet at breakfast, Mr. Barkas appeared in the distance, driving his haze cart toward the object of his affections. Pagedee was dressed as usual, in her neat and quiet morning, but Mr. Barkas bloomed in a new blue coat of which the tailor had given him such good measure that the cuffs would have rendered gloves unnecessary in the coldest weather, while the collar was so high that it pushed his hair up on end on the top of his head. His bright buttons, too, were of the largest size. Rendered complete by drab pantaloons and a buff waistcoat, I thought Mr. Barkas a phenomenon of respectability. When we were all in a bustle outside the door, I found that Mr. Pagedee was prepared with an old shoe which was to be thrown after us for luck, and which he offered to Mrs. Gummidge for that purpose. No, it had better be done by somebody else, Dantle, said Mrs. Gummidge. I'm a lone, lorn creedier myself, and everything that reminds me of creeders that ain't lone and lorn goes contrary with me. Come, old gal, cried Mr. Pagedee, take it and heave it. No, Dantle, returned Mrs. Gummidge, whimpering and shaking her head. If I felt less, I could do more. You don't feel like me, Dantle. Things don't go contrary with you nor you with them. You had better do it yourself. But here, Pagedee, who had been going about from one to another in a hurried way kissing everybody, called out from the cart, in which we all were by this time, Emily and I on two little chairs side by side, that Mrs. Gummidge must do it. So Mrs. Gummidge did it, and I am sorry to relate cast a damp upon the festive character of our departure by immediately bursting into tears and sinking subdued into the arms of Ham with the declaration that she knowed she was a burden and had better be carried to the house at once, which I really thought was a sensible idea that Ham might have acted on. Away we went, however, on our holiday excursion, and the first thing we did was to stop at a church where Mr. Barkas tied the horse to some rails and went in with Pagedee, leaving little Emily and me alone in the chaise. I took that occasion to put my arm round Emily's waist and proposed that as I was going away so very soon now, we should determine to be very affectionate to one another and very happy all day. Little Emily consenting and allowing me to kiss her, I became desperate, informing her, I recollect, that I never could love another and that I was prepared to shed the blood of anybody who should aspire to her affections. How Mary little Emily made herself about it. With what a demure assumption of being immensely older and wiser than I, the fairy little woman said I was a silly boy and then laughed so charmingly that I forgot the pain of being called by that disparaging name and the pleasure of looking at her. Mr. Barkas and Pagedee were a good while in the church, but came out at last and then we drove away into the country. As we were going along Mr. Barkas turned to me and said with a wink, by the by I should hardly have thought before that he could wink. What name was it as I rolled up in the cart? Clara Pagedee I answered. What name would it be as I should write out now if there was a tilt here? Clara Pagedee again I suggested. Clara Pagedee Barkas he returned and burst into a roar of laughter that shook the chaise. In a word they were married and had gone into the church for no other purpose. Pagedee was resolved that it should be quietly done and the clerk had given her away and there had been no witnesses of the ceremony. She was a little confused when Mr. Barkas made this abrupt announcement of their union and could not hug me enough in token of her unimpaired affection, but she soon became herself again and said she was very glad it was over. We drove to a little inn in a by-road where we were expected and where we had a very comfortable dinner and passed the day with great satisfaction. If Pagedee had been married every day for the last ten years she could hardly have been more at her ease about it. It made no sort of difference in her. She was just the same as ever and went out for a stroll with little Emily and me before tea while Mr. Barkas philosophically smoked his pipe and enjoyed himself, I suppose, with a contemplation of his happiness. If so it sharpened his appetite for I distinctly called to mind that although he had eaten a good deal of pork and greens at dinner and had finished off with a fowl or two he was obliged to have cold-boiled bacon for tea and disposed of a large quantity without any emotion. I have often thought since what an odd innocent out-of-the-way kind of wedding it must have been. We got into the chase again soon after dark and drove causally back looking up at the stars and talking about them. I was their chief exponent and opened Mr. Barkas's mind to an amazing extent. I told him all I knew, but he would have believed anything I might have taken it into my head to impart to him, for he had a profound veneration for my abilities and informed his wife in my hearing on that very occasion that I was a young rocious by which I think he meant prodigy. When we had exhausted the subject of the stars, or rather when I had exhausted the mental faculties of Mr. Barkas, little Emily and I met a cloak of an old wrapper and sat under it for the rest of the journey. Ah-how I loved her! What happiness, I thought, if we were married, and were going away anywhere to live among the trees and in the fields, never growing older, never growing wiser, children ever, rambling hand-in-hand through sunshine and among flowery meadows, laying down our heads on moss at night in a sweet sleep of purity and peace, and buried by the birds when we were dead. Some such picture, with no real world in it, bright with the light of our innocence and vague as the stars afar off, was in my mind all the way. I am glad to think there were two such guileless hearts at Pegatee's marriage as little Emily's and mine. I am glad to think the loves and graces took such airy forms in its homely procession. Well, we came to the old boat again in good time at night, and there Mr. and Mrs. Barkas made us goodbye, and drove away snugly to their own home. I felt, then, for the first time that I had lost Pegatee. I should have gone to bed with a sore heart, indeed, under any other roof but that which sheltered little Emily's head. Mr. Pegatee and Ham knew what was in my thoughts as well as I did, and were ready with some supper and their hospitable faces to drive it away. Little Emily came and sat beside me on the locker for the only time in all that visit, and it was altogether a wonderful close to a wonderful day. It was a night tied, and soon after we went to bed Mr. Pegatee and Ham went out to fish. I felt very brave at being left alone in the solitary house, the protector of Emily and Mrs. Gummidge, and only wished that a lion or a serpent or any ill-disposed monster would make an attack upon us that I might destroy him and cover myself with glory. But as nothing of the sort happened to be walking about on Yarmouth Flats that night, I provided the best substitute I could by dreaming of dragons until morning. With morning came Pegatee, who called to me as usual, under my window as if Mr. Barkas the Carrier had been from first to last a dream, too. After breakfast she took me to her own home and a beautiful little home it was. Of all the movables in it I must have been impressed by a certain old bureau of some dark wood in the parlor. The tile-floored kitchen was the general sitting-room, with a retreating top which opened, let down, and became a desk within which was a large quarter-edition of Fox's Book of Martyrs. This precious volume of which I do not recollect one word I immediately discovered and immediately applied myself to, and I never visited the house afterwards, but I kneeled on a chair, opened the casket where this gem was enshrined, spread my arms over the desk, and fell to devouring the Book of Fresh. I was chiefly edified, I am afraid, by the pictures, which were numerous and represented all kinds of dismal horrors, but the Martyrs and Pegatee's house have been inseparable in my mind ever since and are now. I took leave of Mr. Pegatee and Ham and Mrs. Gummage and Little Emily that day and passed the night at Pegatee's in a little room in the roof with the crocodile book on a shelf by the bed's head, which was to be always mine, Pegatee said, and should always be kept for me in exactly the same state. Young or old, David, dear, as long as I am alive and have this house over my head, said Pegatee, you shall find it as if I expected you here directly minute. I shall keep it every day as I used to keep your old little room, my darling, and if you was to go to China you might think of it as being kept just the same all the time you were away. I felt the truce and constancy of my dear old nurse with all my heart and thanked her as well as I could. That was not very well, for she spoke to me thus with her arms round my neck in the morning and I was going home in the morning and I went home in the morning with herself and Mr. Barkas in the cart. They left me at the gate, not easily or lightly, and it was a strange sight to me to see the cart go on taking Pegatee away and leaving me under the old elm trees looking at the house in which there was no face to look on mine with love or liking any more. And now I fell into a state of neglect which I cannot look back upon without compassion. I fell at once into a solitary condition, apart from all friendly notice, apart from the society of all other boys of my own age, apart from all companionship but my own spiritless thoughts which seems to cast its gloom upon this paper as I write. What would I have given to have been sent to the hardest school that ever was kept, to have been taught something anyhow, anywhere? No such hope dawned upon me. They disliked me and they sullenly, sternly, steadily overlooked me. I think Mr. Mergedstone's means were straightened at about this time, but it is little to the purpose. He could not bear me, and in putting me from him he tried, as I believe, to put away the notion that I had any claim upon him, and succeeded. I was not actively ill-used, I was not beaten or starved, but the wrong that was done to me had no intervals of relenting and was done in a systematic, passionless manner. Day after day, week after week, month after month, I was coldly neglected. I wonder sometimes when I think of what they would have done if I had been taken with an illness. Whether I should have lain down in my lonely room and languished through it in my usual solitary way, or whether anybody would have helped me out. When Mr. and Ms. Mergedstone were at home I took my meals with them. In their absence I ate and drank by myself. At all times I lounged about the house and neighborhood quite disregarded, except that they were jealous of my making any friends, thinking, perhaps, that if I did I might complain to someone. For this reason, though Mr. Chillop often asked me to go and see him, he was a widower, having some years before that lost a little small light-haired wife whom I can just remember connecting in my own thoughts with a pale tortoise-shell cat. It was but seldom that I enjoyed the happiness of passing an afternoon in his closet of a surgery, reading some book that was new to me, with the smell of the whole pharmacopia coming up my nose, or pounding something in a mortar under his mild directions. For the same reason added no doubt to the old dislike of her I was seldom allowed to visit Pegadie. Faithful to her promise she either came to see me or met me somewhere near once every week, and never empty-handed. But many and bitter were the disappointments I had in being refused permission to pay a visit to her at her house. Some few times, however, at long intervals I was allowed to go there, and then I found out that Mr. Barkas was something of a miser, or, as Pegadie dutifully expressed it, was a little near, and kept a heap of money in a box under his bed which he pretended was only full of coats and trousers. In this coffer his riches hid themselves with such a tenacious modesty that the smallest installments could only be tempted out by artifice, so that Pegadie had to prepare a long and elaborate scheme, a very gunpowder plot for every Saturday's expenses. All this time I was so conscious of the waste of any promise I had given, and of my being utterly neglected, that I should have been perfectly miserable I have no doubt but for the old books. They were my only comfort, and I was as true to them as they were to me, and read them over and over I don't know how many times more. I now approach a period of my life which I can never lose the remembrance of while I remember anything, and the recollection of which has often, without my invocation, come before me like a ghost and haunted happier times. I had been out one day, loitering somewhere in the listless meditative manner that my way of life engendered. When turning the corner of a lane near our house, I came upon Mr. Mirdstone walking with the gentleman. I was confused and was going by them when the gentleman cried, What, Brooks? No, sir, David Copperfield, I said. Don't tell me, you are Brooks, said the gentleman, you are Brooks of Sheffield, that's your name. At these words I observed the gentleman more attentively. His laugh coming to my remembrance, too, I knew him to be Mr. Quinion, whom I had gone over to Lowstaff with Mr. Mirdstone to see before it is no matter, I need not recall when. And how do you get on, and where are you being educated, Brooks, said Mr. Quinion? He had put his hand upon my shoulder and turned me about to walk with them. I did not know what to reply and glanced dubiously at Mr. Mirdstone. He is at home at present, said the latter. He is not being educated anywhere. I don't know what to do with him. He is a difficult subject. That old double look was on me for a moment, and then his eyes darkened with a frown as it turned in its aversion elsewhere. Hump! said Mr. Quinion, looking at us both, I thought. Fine weather! Silence ensued, and I was considering how I could best disengage my shoulder from his hand and go away, when he said, I suppose you are a pretty sharp fellow still, eh, Brooks? Aye, he is sharp enough, said Mr. Mirdstone impatiently. You had better let him go. He will not thank you for troubling him. On this hint Mr. Quinion released me and I made the best of my way home. Looking back as I turned into the front garden, I saw Mr. Mirdstone leaning against the wicked of the churchyard and Mr. Quinion talking to him. They were both looking after me and I felt that they were speaking of me. Mr. Quinion lay at our house that night. After breakfast the next morning I had put my chair away and was going out of the room when Mr. Mirdstone called me back. He then gravely repaired to another table where his sister sat herself at her desk. Mr. Quinion with his hands in his pocket stood looking out of window and I stood looking at them all. David, said Mr. Mirdstone, to the young this is a world for action, not for moping and droning in. As you do, added his sister, Jane Mirdstone leave it to me if you please. I say, David, to the young this is a world for action and not for moping and droning in. It is especially so for a young boy of your disposition which requires a great deal of correcting and to which no greater service can be done than to force it to conform to the ways of the working world and to bend it and break it. For stubbornness won't do here, said his sister. What it wants is to be crushed, and crushed it must be, shall be too. He gave her a look, half in remonstrance, half in approval, and went on. I suppose you know, David, that I am not rich. At any rate, you know it now. You have received some considerable education already. Education is costly, and even if it were not, and I could afford it, I am of opinion that it would not be at all adentigious to you to be kept at school. What is before you is a fight with the world, and the sooner you begin it the better. I think it occurred to me that I had already begun it in my poor way, but it occurs to me now, whether or not. You have heard the counting-house mentioned sometimes, said Mr. Murdstone. The counting-house, sir, I repeated? Of Murdstone and Grinby in the wine trade, he replied. I suppose I looked uncertain, for he went on hastily. You have heard the counting-house mentioned, or the business, or the sellers of the war, for something about it. I think I have heard the business mentioned, sir, I said, remembering what I vaguely knew of his and his sister's resources, but I don't know when. It does not matter when, he returned, Mr. Quinion manages that business. I glanced at the latter deferentially, as he stood looking out of window. Mr. Quinion suggests that it gives employment to some other boys and that he sees no reason why it shouldn't, on the same terms, give employment to you. He having, Mr. Quinion observed in a low voice and half turning round, no other prospect, Mr. Murdstone. Mr. Murdstone was an impatient, even an angry gesture, resumed, without noticing what he had said. Those terms are that you will earn enough for yourself to provide for your eating and drinking and pocket money. Your lodging, which I have arranged for, will be paid by me. So will your washing. Which will be kept down to my estimate, said his sister. Your clothes will be looked after for you, too, said Mr. Murdstone, as you will not be able yet a while to get them for yourself. So you are now going to London, David, with Mr. Quinion, to begin the world on your own account. In short, you are provided for, observed his sister, and will please to do your duty. Though I quite understood that the purpose of this announcement was to get rid of me, I have no distinct remembrance, whether it pleased or frightened me. My impression is that I was in a state of confusion about it, and oscillating between the two points touched neither, nor had I much time for the clearing of my thoughts, as Mr. Quinion was to go upon the morrow. Behold me on the morrow in a much worn little white hat, with a black crepe rounded for my mother, a black jacket and a pair of hard stiff corduroy trousers, which Ms. Murdstone considered the best armor for the legs in that fight with the world which was now to come off. Behold me so attired, and with my little worldly all before me in a small trunk, sitting, a lone, lorn child, as Mrs. Gummidge might have said, in the post-chase that was carrying Mr. Quinion to the London coach at Yarmouth. See how our house and church are lessening in the distance, how the grave beneath the tree is blotted out by intervening objects, how the spire points upwards from my old playground no more, and the sky is empty. CHAPTER 11 I begin life on my own account, and don't like it. I know enough of the world now to have almost lost the capacity of being much surprised by anything. But it is matter of some surprise to me, even now, that I can't have been so easily thrown away at such an age. A child of excellent abilities, and with strong powers of observation, quick, eager, delicate, and soon hurt bodily or mentally. It seems wonderful to me that nobody should have made any sign in my behalf. But none was made, and I became, at ten years old, a little laboring hind in the service of Murdstone and Grinby. Murdstone and Grinby's warehouse was at the waterside. It was down in Blackfriars. Modern improvements have altered the place, but it was the last house at the bottom of a narrow street, curving downhill to the river with some stairs at the end where people took boat. It was a crazy old house with a wharf of its own abutting on the water when the tide was in, and on the mud when the tide was out, and literally overrun with rats. Its paneled rooms discolored with the dirt and smoke of a hundred years, I daresay. Its decaying floors and staircase, the squeaking and scuffling of the old gray rats down in the cellars, and the dirt and rottenness of the place are things not of many years ago in my mind, but of the present instant. They are all before me, just as they were in the evil hour when I went among them for the first time with my trembling hand in Mr. Quinions. Murdstone and Grinby's trade was among a good many kinds of people, but an important branch of it was the supply of wines and spirits to certain packet ships. I forget now where they chiefly went, but I think there were some among them and that made voyages both to the east and west Indies. I know that a great many empty bottles were one of the consequences of this traffic, and that certain men and boys were employed to examine them against the light and reject those that were flawed and to rinse and wash them. When the empty bottles ran short there were labels to be pasted on full ones, or corks to be fitted to them, or seals to be put upon the corks, or finished bottles to be packed in casks. All this work was my work, and of the boys employed upon it I was one. There were three or four of us counting me. My working place was established in a corner of the warehouse where Mr. Quinion could see me when he chose to stand up on the bottom rail of his stool in the counting house and look at me through a window above the desk. Hither, on the first morning of my so auspiciously beginning life on my own account, the oldest of the regular boys was summoned to show me my business. His name was Mick Walker, and he wore a ragged apron and a paper cap. He informed me that his father was a bargeman, and walked in a black velvet headdress in the Lord Mayor's show. He also informed me that our principal associate would be another boy whom he introduced by the, to me, extraordinary name of mealy potatoes. I discovered, however, that this youth had not been christened by that name, but that it had been bestowed upon him in the warehouse on account of his complexion, which was pale or mealy. Mealy's father was a waterman who had the additional distinction of being a fireman and was engaged as such at one of the large theaters, where some young relation of mealy's, I think his little sister, did imps in the pantomimes. No words can express the secret agony of my soul as I sunk into this companionship, compared these henceforth everyday associates with those of my happier childhood, not to say with steer-forth, trattles, and the rest of those boys, and felt my hopes of growing up to be a learned and distinguished man crushed in my bosom. The deep remembrance of the sense I had of being utterly without hope now, of the shame I felt in my position, of the misery it was to my young heart to believe that day by day what I had learned and thought and delighted in, and raised my fancy and my emulation up by, would pass away from me little by little, never to be brought back anymore, cannot be written. As often as Mick Walker went away in the course of that forenoon, I mingled my tears with the water in which I was washing the bottles, and sobbed as if there were a flaw in my own breast and it were in danger of bursting. The counting-house clock was at half-past twelve, and there was general preparation for going to dinner when Mr. Quinyin tapped at the counting-house window and beckoned to me to go in. I went in and found there a stoutish middle-aged person and a brown shirt-out, and black tights and shoes, with no more hair upon his head, which was a large one and very shining, than there is upon an egg, and with a very extensive face which he turned full upon me. His clothes were shabby, but he had an imposing shirt collar on. He carried a jaunty sort of a stick with a large pair of rusty tassels to it, and a quizzing glass hung outside his coat, for ornament I afterwards found as he very seldom looked through it and couldn t see anything when he did. This, said Mr. Quinyin in allusion to myself, is he. This, said the stranger, with a certain condescending role in his voice and a certain indescribable air of doing something gentile, which impressed me very much, is Master Copperfield. I hope I see you well, sir. I said I was very well and hoped he was. I was sufficiently ill at ease, heaven knows, but it was not in my nature to complain much at that time of my life, so I said I was very well and hoped he was. I am, said the stranger, thank heaven quite well. I have received a letter from Mr. Mergedstone in which he mentions that he would desire me to receive into an apartment in the rear of my house, which is at present unoccupied and is, in short, to be let as a, in short, said the stranger with a smile and not a burst of confidence, as a bedroom. The young beginner whom I have now the pleasure to, and the stranger, waved his hand and settled his chin in his shirt collar. This, is Mr. McCauber, said Mr. Quinion, to me. Ahem, said the stranger, that is my name. Mr. McCauber, said Mr. Quinion, is known to Mr. Mergedstone. He takes orders for us on commission when he can get any. He has been written to by Mr. Mergedstone on the subject of your lodgings, and he will receive you as a lodger. My address, said Mr. McCauber, is Windsor Terrace, City Road. I, in short, said Mr. McCauber, with the same gentile air and in another burst of confidence, I live there. I made him a bow. Under the impression, said Mr. McCauber, that your pair of granations in this metropolis have not as yet been extensive, and that you might have some difficulty in penetrating the arcana of the modern Babylon in the direction of the city road, in short, said Mr. McCauber, in another burst of confidence, that you might lose yourself. I shall be happy to call this evening and install you in the knowledge of the nearest way. I thanked him with all my heart, for it was friendly in him to offer to take that trouble. At what hour, said Mr. McCauber, shall I? At about eight, said Mr. Quinion. At about eight, said Mr. McCauber, I beg to wish you good day, Mr. Quinion, I will intrude no longer. So he put on his hat and went out with his cane under his arm, very upright, and humming a tune when he was clear of the counting-house. Mr. Quinion then formally engaged me to be as useful as I could in the warehouse of Mergestone and Grinby at a salary, I think, of six shillings a week. I am not clear whether it was six or seven. I am inclined to believe, from my uncertainty on this head, that it was six at first and seven afterwards. He paid me a week down from his own pocket, I believe, and I gave me six pence out of it to get my trunk carried to Windsor Terrace that night, yet being too heavy for my strength, small as it was. I paid six pence more for my dinner, which was a meat pie and a turn at a neighboring pump, and passed the hour which was allowed for that meal in walking about the streets. At the appointed time in the evening, Mr. McCauber reappeared. I washed my hands and face to do the greater honor to his gentility, and we walked to our house, as I suppose I must now call it, together. Mr. McCauber, impressing the name of streets and the shapes of corner houses upon me, as we went along, that I might find my way back easily in the morning. Arrived at this house in Windsor Terrace, which I noticed was shabby like himself, but also like himself, made all the show it could. He presented me to Mrs. McCauber, a thin and faded lady, not at all young, who was sitting in the parlor. The first floor was altogether unfurnished, and the blinds were kept down to delude the neighbors, with a baby at her breast. This baby was one of twins, and I may remark here that I hardly ever, in all my experience of the family, saw both the twins detached from Mrs. McCauber at the same time. One of them was always taking refreshment. There were two other children. Master McCauber aged about four, and Miss McCauber aged about three. These, and a dark complexioned young woman with a habit of snorting, who was servant to the family, and informed me before half an hour had expired that she was an orfling, and came from St. Luke's Workhouse in the neighborhood, completed the establishment. My room was at the top of the house, at the back, a closed chamber, stenciled all over with an ornament which my young imagination represented as a blue muffin, and very scantily furnished. I never thought, said Mrs. McCauber, when she came up, twin and all, to show me the apartment, and sat down to take breath, before I was married when I lived with Papa and Mama that I should ever find it necessary to take a lodger. But Mr. McCauber being in difficulties, all considerations of private feeling must give way. I said, yes, ma'am. Mr. McCauber's difficulties are almost overwhelming just to present, said Mrs. McCauber, and whether it is possible to bring him through them I don't know. When I lived at home with Papa and Mama, I really should have hardly understood what the word meant, in the sense in which I now employ it. But experientia does it, as Papa used to say. I cannot satisfy myself whether she told me that Mr. McCauber had been an officer in the Marines, or whether I have imagined it. I only know that I believe to this hour that he was in the Marines once upon a time, without knowing why. He was a sort of town traveler for a number of miscellaneous houses now, but made little or nothing of it, I am afraid. If Mr. McCauber's creditors will not give him time, said Mrs. McCauber, they must take the consequences, and the sooner they bring it to an issue the better. Blood cannot be obtained from a stone, neither can anything on account be obtained at present, not to mention law expenses, from Mr. McCauber. I never can quite understand whether my precocious self-dependence confused Mrs. McCauber in reference to my age, or whether she was so full of the subject that she would have talked about it to the very twins if there had been nobody else to communicate with, but this was the strain in which she began, and she went on accordingly all the time I knew her. Poor Mrs. McCauber. She said she had tried to exert herself, and so I have no doubt she had. The center of the street door was perfectly covered with a great brass plate on which was engraved Mrs. McCauber's boarding establishment for young ladies. But I never found that any young lady had ever been to school there, or that any young lady ever came or proposed to come, or that the least preparation was ever made to receive any young lady. The only visitors I ever saw or heard of were creditors. They used to come at all hours, and some of them were quite ferocious. One dirty-faced man, I think he was a bootmaker, used to edge himself into the passage as early as seven o'clock in the morning, and call up the stairs to Mr. McCauber. Come, you ain't out yet, you know. Pay us, will you? Don't hide, you know. That's mean. I wouldn't be mean if I was you. Pay us, will you? You just pay us. Do you hear? Come. Receiving no answer to these taunts, he would mount in his wrath to the words, swindlers and robbers, and these being ineffectual too, would sometimes go to the extremity of crossing the street and roaring up at the windows of the second floor where he knew Mr. McCauber was. At these times Mr. McCauber would be transported with grief and mortification, even to the length, as I was once made aware by a scream from his wife, of making motions at himself with a razor. But within half an hour afterwards he would polish up his shoes with extraordinary pains and go out humming a tune with a greater air of gentility than ever. Mrs. McCauber was quite as elastic. I have known her to be thrown into fainting fits by the king's taxes at three o'clock and to eat lamb chops, breaded, and drink warm ale, paid for with two teaspoons that had gone to the pawnbrokers at four. On one occasion, when an execution had just been put in, coming home through some chance as early as six o'clock, I saw her lying, of course, with a twin, under the grate in a swoon with her hair all torn about her face. But I never knew her more cheerful than she was that very same night over a veal cutlet before the kitchen fire, telling me stories about her papa and mama and the company they used to keep. In this house and with this family I passed my leisure time. My own exclusive breakfast of a penny loaf and a penny worth of milk I provided myself. I kept another small loaf and a modicum of cheese on a particular shelf of a particular cupboard to make my supper on when I came back at night. This made a hole in the six or seven shillings I know well, and I was out at the warehouse all day and had to support myself on that money all the week. From Monday morning until Saturday night I had no advice, no counsel, no encouragement, no consolation, no assistance, no support of any kind from anyone that I can call to mind as I hope to go to heaven. I was so young and childish and so little qualified, how could I be otherwise, to undertake the whole charge of my own existence, that often in going to Mirdstone and Grinby's of a morning I could not resist the stale pastry put out for sale at half price at the pastry cook's doors, and spent in that the money I should have kept for my dinner. Then I went without my dinner or bought a roll or a slice of pudding. I remember two pudding shops between which I was divided according to my finances. One was in a court close to St. Martin's Church at the back of the church, which is now removed altogether. The pudding at that shop was made of occurrence, and was rather a special pudding, but was dear, too penny-worth not being larger than a penny-worth of more ordinary pudding. A good shop for the latter was in the Strand, somewhere in that part which has been rebuilt since. It was a stout pale pudding, heavy and flabby and with great flat raisins in it, stuck in hole at wide distances apart. It came up hot at about my time every day, and many a day did I dine off it. When I dined regularly and handsomely, I had a Savaloy and a penny loaf, or a four penny plate of red beef from a cook's shop, or a plate of bread and cheese and a glass of beer from a miserable old public house opposite our place of business called the Lion, or the Lion and something else that I have forgotten. Once I remember carrying my own bread, which I had brought from home in the morning, under my arm wrapped in a piece of paper, like a book, and going to a famous alamode beef house near Drury Lane and ordering a small plate of that delicacy to eat with it. What the waiter thought of such a strange little apparition coming in all alone, I don't know, but I can see him now staring at me as I ate my dinner and bringing up the other waiter to look. I gave him a half penny for himself and I wish he hadn't taken it. We had half an hour, I think, for tea. When I had money enough, I used to get half a pint of ready-made coffee and a slice of bread and butter. When I had none, I used to look at a venison shop in Fleet Street, or I have strolled at such a time as far as Covent Garden market and stared at the pineapples. I was fond of wandering about the Adelphi because it was a mysterious place with those dark arches. I see myself emerging one evening from some of these arches on a little public house close to the river with an open space before it where some coal heavers were dancing to look at whom I sat down upon a bench. I wonder what they thought of me. I was such a child and so little that frequently when I went into the bar of a strange public house for a glass of ale or porter to moisten what I had had for dinner they were afraid to give it me. I remember one hot evening I went into the bar of a public house and said to the landlord what is your best your very best ale a glass for it was a special occasion I don't know what it may have been my birthday. Toppens Hey Penny says the landlord is the price of the genuine stunning ale. Then says I producing the money just draw me a glass of the genuine stunning if you please with a good head to it. The landlord looked at me in return over the bar from head to foot with a strange smile on his face and instead of drawing the beer looked round the screen and said something to his wife she came out from behind it with her work in her hand and joined him in surveying me here we stand all three before me now the landlord in his shirt sleeves leaning against the bar window frame his wife looking over the little half door and I in some confusion looking up at them from outside the partition they asked me a good many questions as what my name was how old I was where I lived how I was employed and how I came there to all of which that I might commit nobody I invented I am afraid appropriate answers they served me with the ale though I suspect it was not the genuine stunning and the landlord's wife opening the little half door of the bar and bending down gave me my money back and gave me a kiss that was half-admiring and half-compassionate but all womanly and good I am sure I know I do not exaggerate unconsciously and unintentionally the scantiness of my resources or the difficulties of my life I know that if a shilling were given me by mr. quinion at any time I spent it in a dinner or a tea I know that I worked from morning until night with common men and boys a shabby child I know that I lounged about the streets insufficiently and unsatisfactorily fed I know that but for the mercy of God I might easily have been for any care that was taken of me a little robber or a little vagabond yet I held some station at Mirdstone and Grinby's too besides that mr. quinion did what a careless man so occupied and dealing with a thing so anomalous could to treat me as one upon a different footing from the rest I never said to man or boy how it was that I came to be there or gave the least indication of being sorry that I was there that I suffered in secret and that I suffered exquisitely no one ever knew but I how much I suffered it is as I have said already utterly beyond my power to tell but I kept my own counsel and I did my work I knew from the first that if I could not do my work as well as any of the rest I could not hold myself above slight and contempt I soon became at least as expeditious and as skillful as either of the other boys though perfectly familiar with them my conduct and manner were different enough from theirs to place a space between us they and the men generally spoke of me as the little gent or the young suffocer a certain man named Gregory who was foreman of the Packers and another named tip who was the car man and wore a red jacket used to address me sometimes as David but I think it was mostly when we were very confidential and when I had made some efforts to entertain them over our work with some results of the old readings which were fast perishing out of my remembrance mealy potatoes up rose once and rebelled against my being so distinguished but Mick Walker settled him in no time my rescue from this kind of existence I considered quite hopeless and abandoned as such all together I am solemnly convinced that I never for one hour was reconciled to it or was otherwise than miserably unhappy but I bore it and even to Peggy partly for the love of her and partly for shame never in any letter though many passed between us revealed the truth Mr. McCarber's difficulties were in addition to the distressed state of my mind in my forlorn state I became quite attached to the family and used to walk about busy with Mrs. McCarber's calculations of ways and means and heavy with the weight of Mr. McCarber's debts on a Saturday night which was my grand treat partly because it was a great thing to walk home with six or seven shillings in my pocket looking into the shops and thinking what such a sum would buy and partly because I went home early Mrs. McCarber would make the most heart-rending confidences to me also on a Sunday morning when I mixed a portion of tea or coffee I had bought overnight in a little shaving pot and sat late at my breakfast it was nothing at all unusual for Mr. McCarber to sob violently at the beginning of one of these Saturday night conversations and sing about Jack's delight being his lovely nan towards the end of it I have known him come home to supper with a flood of tears and a declaration that nothing was now left but a jail and go to bed making a calculation of the expense of putting bow windows to the house in case anything turned up which was his favorite expression and Mrs. McCarber was just the same a curious equality of friendship originating I suppose in our respective circumstances sprung up between me and these people notwithstanding a ludicrous disparity in our years but I never allowed myself to be prevailed upon to accept any invitation to eat and drink with them out of their stock knowing that they got on badly with the butcher and baker and had often not too much for themselves until Mrs. McCarber took me into her entire confidence this she did one evening as follows master copperfield said mrs. McCarber I make no stranger of you and therefore do not hesitate to say the mr. McCarber's difficulties are coming to a crisis it made me very miserable to hear it and I looked at mrs. McCarber's red eyes with the utmost sympathy with the exception of the heel of a dutch cheese which is not adapted to the wants of a young family said mrs. McCarber there is really not a scrap of anything in the larder I was accustomed to speak of the larder when I lived with papa and mama and I used the word almost unconsciously what I mean to express is that there is nothing to eat in the house dear me I said in great concern I had two or three shillings of my weeks money in my pocket from which I presumed that it must have been on a wednesday night when we held this conversation and I hastily produced them and with heartfelt emotion begged mrs. McCarber to accept of them as alone but that lady kissing me and making me put them back in my pocket replied that she couldn't think of it no my dear master copperfield said she far be it from my thoughts but you have a discretion beyond your years and can render me another kind of service if you will and a service I will thankfully accept of I begged mrs. McCarber to name it I have parted with the plate myself said mrs. McCarber six tea two salt and a pair of sugars I have at different times borrowed money on in secret with my own hands but the twins are a great tie and to me with my recollections of papa and mama these transactions are very painful there are still a few trifles that we could part with mr. McCarber's feelings would never allow him to dispose of them and click it this was the girl from the workhouse being of a vulgar mind would take painful liberties if so much confidence was proposed in her master copperfield if I might ask you I understood mrs. McCarber now and begged her to make use of me to any extent I began to dispose of the more portable articles of property that very evening and went out on a similar expedition almost every morning before I went to Murdstone and Grinby's mr. McCarber had a few books on a little chiffon yay which he called the library and those went first I carried them one after another to a bookstore in the city road one part of which near our house was almost all bookstalls and bird shops then and sold them for whatever they would bring the keeper of this bookstore who lived in a little house behind it used to get tipsy every night and to be violently scolded by his wife every morning more than once when I went there early I had audience of him in a turn up bedstead with a cut in his forehead or a black eye bearing witness to his excesses overnight I am afraid he was quarrelsome in his drink and he with a shaking hand endeavoring to find the needful shillings in one or other of the pockets of his clothes which lay upon the floor while his wife with a baby in her arms and her shoes down at heel never left off raiding him sometimes he had lost his money and then he would ask me to call again but his wife had always got some had taken his I daresay while he was drunk and secretly completed the bargain on the stairs as we went down together at the pawnbroker's shop too I began to be very well known the principal gentleman who officiated behind the counter took a good deal of notice of me and often got me I recollect to decline a Latin noun or adjective or to conjugate a Latin verb in his ear while he transacted my business after all these occasions Mrs. McAuber made a little treat which was generally a supper and there was a peculiar relish in these meals which I well remember at last Mr. McAuber's difficulties came to a crisis and he was arrested early one morning and carried over to the king's bench prison in the burrow he told me as he went out of the house that the god of day had now gone down upon him and I really thought his heart was broken and mine too but I heard afterwards that he was seen to play a lively game at Skittles before noon on the first Sunday after he was taken there I was to go and see him and have dinner with him I was to ask my way to such a place and just short of that place I should see another place and just short of that I should see a yard which I was to cross and keep straight on until I saw a turnkey all this I did and when at last I did see a turnkey poor little fellow that I was and thought how when Roderick Random was in a debtor's prison there was a man there with nothing on him but an old rug the turnkey swam before my dim dies in my beating heart Mr. McCauber was waiting for me within the gate and we went up to his room top story but one and cried very much he solemnly conjured me I remember to take warning by his fate and to observe that if a man had 20 pounds a year for his income and spent 19 pounds 19 shillings and six pence he would be happy but that if he spent 20 pounds one he would be miserable after which he borrowed a shilling of me for Porter gave me a written order on Mrs. McCauber for the amount and put away his pocket handkerchief and cheered up we sat before a little fire with two bricks put within the rusted grate one on each side to prevent it's burning too many coals until another debtor who shared the room with Mr. McCauber came in from the bakehouse with the loin of mutton which was our joint stock repast then I was sent up to Captain Hopkins in the room overhead with Mr. McCauber's compliments and I was his young friend and would Captain Hopkins lend me a knife and fork Captain Hopkins lent me the knife and fork with his compliments to Mr. McCauber there was a very dirty lady in his little room and two wan girls his daughters with shock heads of hair I thought it was better to borrow Captain Hopkins' knife and fork than Captain Hopkins' comb the Captain himself was in the last extremity of shabbiness with large whiskers and an old old brown grate coat with no other coat below it I saw his bed rolled up in a corner and what plates and dishes and pots he had on a shelf and I divined God knows how that though the two girls with the shock heads of hair were Captain Hopkins' children the dirty lady was not married to Captain Hopkins my timid station on his threshold was not occupied more than a couple of minutes at most but I came down again with all this and my knowledge as surely as the knife and fork were in my hand there was something gypsy like and agreeable in the dinner after all I took back Captain Hopkins' knife and fork early in the afternoon and went home to comfort Mrs. McCauber with an account of my visit she fainted when she saw me return and made a little jug of egg hot afterwards to console us while we talked it over I don't know how the household furniture came to be sold for the family benefit or who sold it except that I did not sold it was however and carried away in a van except the bed a few chairs and the kitchen table with these possessions we encamped as it were in the two parlours of the emptied house in Windsor Terrace Mrs. McCauber the children the orfling and myself and lived in those rooms night and day I have no idea for how long though it seems to me for a long time at last Mrs. McCauber resolved to move into the prison where Mr. McCauber had now secured a room to himself so I took the key of the house to the landlord who was very glad to get it and the beds were sent over to the king's bench except mine for which a little room was hired outside the walls and the neighborhood of that institution very much to my satisfaction since the McCauber's and I had become too used to one another in our troubles to part the orfling was likewise accommodated with an inexpensive lodging in the same neighborhood mine was a quiet back garret with a sloping roof commanding a pleasant prospect of a timber yard and when I took possession of it with the reflection that Mr. McCauber's troubles had come to a crisis at last I thought it quite a paradise all this time I was working at Murdstone and Grinby's in the same common way and with the same common companions and with the same sense of unmerited degradation as at first but I never happily for me no doubt made a single acquaintance or spoke to any of the many boys whom I saw daily in going to the warehouse in coming from it and in prowling about the streets at mealtimes I led the same secretly unhappy life but I let it in the same lonely self-reliant manner the only changes I am conscious of are firstly that I had grown more shabby and secondly that I was now relieved of much of the weight of Mr. and Mrs. McCauber's cares for some relatives or friends had engaged to help them at their present pass and they lived more comfortably in the prison than they had lived for a long while out of it I used to breakfast with them now in virtue of some arrangement of which I have forgotten the details I forget too at what hour the gates were opened in the morning admitting of my going in but I know that I was often up at six o'clock and that my favorite lounging place in the interval was old London Bridge where I was want to sit in one of the stone recesses watching the people going by or to look over the ballast trades at the sun shining in the water and lighting up the golden flame on the top of the monument the orfling met me here sometimes to be told some astonishing fictions respecting the wharves in the tower of which I can say no more than that I hope I believed them myself in the evening I used to go back to the prison and walk up and down the parade with Mr. McCauber or play casino with Mrs. McCauber and hear reminiscences of her papa and mama whether Mr. Murdstone knew where I was I am unable to say I never told them at Murdstone and Grinby's Mr. McCauber's affairs although past their crisis were very much involved by reason of a certain deed of which I used to hear a great deal in which I suppose now to have been some former composition with his creditors though I was so far from being clear about it then that I am conscious of having confounded it with those humaniacal parchments which are held to have once upon a time obtained to a great extent in Germany at last this document appeared to be got out of the way somehow at all events it ceased to be the rock ahead it had been and Mrs. McCauber informed me that her family had decided that Mr. McCauber should apply for his release under the insolvent debtors act which would set him free she expected in about six weeks and then said Mr. McCauber who was present I have no doubt I shall please heaven begin to be beforehand with the world and to live in a perfectly new manner if in short if anything turns up by way of going in for anything that might be on the cards I call to mind that Mr. McCauber about this time composed a petition to the House of Commons praying for an alteration in the law of imprisonment for debt I set down this remembrance here because it is an instance to myself of the manner in which I fitted my old books to my altered life and made stories for myself out of the streets and out of men and women and how some main points in the character I shall unconsciously develop I suppose in writing my life were gradually forming all this while there was a club in the prison in which Mr. McCauber as a gentleman was a great authority Mr. McCauber had stated his idea of this petition to the club and the club had strongly approved of the same where for Mr. McCauber who was a thoroughly good natured man and is active a creature about everything but his own affairs has ever existed and never so happy as when he was busy about something that could never be of any profit to him set to work at the petition invented it and grossed it on an immense sheet of paper spread it out on a table and appointed a time for all the club and all within the walls if they chose to come up to his room and sign it when I heard of this approaching ceremony I was so anxious to see them all come in one after another though I knew the greater part of them already and they me that I got an hour's leave of absence from Mernstone and Grinby's and established myself in a corner for that purpose as many of the principal members of the club as could be got into the small room without filling it supported Mr. McCauber in front of the petition while my old friend Captain Hopkins who had washed himself to do honor to so solemn an occasion stationed himself close to it to read it to all who were unacquainted with its contents the door was then thrown open and the general population began to come in in a long file several waiting outside while one entered affixed his signature and went out to everybody in succession Captain Hopkins said have you read it no would you like to hear it read if he weakly showed the least disposition to hear it Captain Hopkins in a loud sonorous voice gave him every word of it the captain would have read it 20 000 times if 20 000 people would have heard him one by one I remember a certain luscious role he gave to such phrases as the people's representatives in parliament assembled your petitioners therefore humbly approach your honorable house his gracious majesty's unfortunate subjects as if the words were something real in his mouth and delicious to taste Mr. McCauber meanwhile listening with a little of an author's vanity and contemplating not severely the spikes on the opposite wall as I walked to and fro daily between south work and black friars and lounged about at mealtimes in obscure streets the stones of which may for anything I know be worn at this moment by my childish feet I wonder how many of these people were wanting in the crowd that used to come filing before me and review again to the echo of captain Hopkins's voice when my thoughts go back now to that slow agony of my youth I wonder how much of the histories I invented for such people hangs like a mist of fancy over well remembered facts when I tread the old ground I do not wonder that I seem to see and pity going on before me an innocent romantic boy making his imaginative world out of such strange experiences and sorted things end of chapter 11 read by Debra Lynn chapter 12 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 this reading by Debra Lynn David Copperfield by Charles Dickens chapter 12 liking life on my own account no better I form a great resolution in due time Mr. McCauber's petition was ripe for hearing and that gentleman was ordered to be discharged under the act to my great joy his creditors were not implacable and mrs. McCauber informed me that even the revengeful bootmaker had declared in open court that he bore him no malice but that when money was owing to him he liked to be paid he said he thought it was human nature Mr. McCauber returned to the king's bench when his case was over as some fees were to be settled and some formalities observed before he could be actually released the club received him with transport and held an harmonic meeting that evening in his honor while mrs. McCauber and I had a lamb's fry in private surrounded by the sleeping family on such an occasion I will give you master copperfield said mrs. McCauber and a little more flip for we had been having some already the memory of my papa and mama are they dead ma'am I inquired after drinking the toast in a wine glass my mama departed this life said mrs. McCauber before mr. McCauber's difficulties commenced or at least before they became pressing my papa lived to bail mr. McCauber several times and then expired regretted by a numerous circle mrs. McCauber shook her head and dropped a pious tear upon the twin who happened to be in hand as I could hardly hope for a more favorable opportunity of putting a question in which I had a near interest I said to mrs. McCauber may I ask ma'am what you and mr. McCauber intend to do now that mr. McCauber is out of his difficulties and at liberty have you settled yet my family said mrs. McCauber who always said those two words with an air though I never could discover who came under the denomination my family are of opinion that mr. McCauber should quit London and exert his talents in the country mr. McCauber is a man of great talent master copperfield I said I was sure of that of great talent repeated mrs. McCauber my family are of opinion that with a little interest something might be done for a man of his ability in the custom house the influence of my family being local it is their wish that mr. McCauber should go down to Plymouth they think it indispensable that he should be upon the spot that he may be ready I suggested exactly returned mrs. McCauber that he may be ready in case of anything turning up and do you go to ma'am the events of the day in combination with the twins if not with the flip had made mrs. McCauber hysterical and she shed tears as she replied I never will desert mr. McCauber mr. McCauber may have concealed his difficulties for me in the first instance but his sanguine temper may have led him to expect that he would overcome them the pearl necklace and bracelets which I inherited from mama have been disposed of for less than half their value and the set of coral which was the wedding gift of my papa has been actually thrown away for nothing but I never will desert mr. McCauber no cried mrs. McCauber more affected than before I never will do it it's of no use asking me I felt quite uncomfortable as if mrs. McCauber supposed I had asked her to do anything of the sort and sat looking at her in alarm mr. McCauber has his faults I did not deny that he is improvident I did not deny that he has kept me in the darkest to his resources and his liabilities both she went on looking at the wall but I never will desert mr. McCauber mrs. McCauber having now raised her voice into a perfect scream I was so frightened that I ran off to the club room and disturbed mr. McCauber and the actor presiding at a long table and leading the chorus of gip dobbing githo dobbing gip dobbing gip and githo with the tidings that mrs. McCauber was in an alarming state upon which he immediately burst into tears and came away with me with his waistcoat full of the heads and tails of shrimps of which he had been partaking Emma my angel cried mr. McCauber running into the room what is the matter I never will desert you mccauber she exclaimed my life said mr. McCauber taking her in his arms I am perfectly aware of it he is the parent of my children he is the father of my twins he is the husband of my affections cried mrs. McCauber struggling and I never will desert mr. McCauber mr. McCauber was so deeply affected by this proof of her devotion as to me I was dissolved in tears that he hung over her in a passionate manner imploring her to look up and to be calm but the more he asked mrs. McCauber to look up the more she fixed her eyes on nothing and the more he asked her to compose herself the more she wouldn't consequently mr. McCauber was soon so overcome that he mingled his tears with hers and mine until he begged me to do him the favor of taking a chair on the staircase while he got her into bed I would have taken my leave for the night but he would not hear of my doing that until the stranger's bell should ring so I sat at the staircase window until he came out with another chair and joined me how is mrs. McCauber now sir I said very low said mr. McCauber shaking his head reaction this has been a dreadful day we stand alone now everything is gone from us mr. McCauber pressed my hand and groaned and afterwards shed tears I was greatly touched and disappointed too for I had expected that we should be quite gay on this happy and long looked for occasion but mr. and mrs. McCauber were so used to their old difficulties I think that they felt quite shipwrecked when they came to consider that they were released from them all their elasticity was departed and I never saw them half so wretched as on this night in so much that when the bell rang and mr. McCauber walked with me to the lodge and parted from me there with a blessing I felt quite afraid to leave him by himself he was so profoundly miserable but through all the confusion and aloneness of spirits in which we had been so unexpectedly to me involved I plainly discerned that mr. and mrs. McCauber and their family were going away from London and that a parting between us was near at hand it was in my walk home that night and in the sleepless hours which followed when I lay in bed that the thought first occurred to me though I don't know how it came into my head which afterwards shaped itself into a settled resolution I had grown to be so accustomed to the McCaubers and had been so intimate with them in their distresses and was so utterly friendless without them that the prospect of being thrown upon some new shift for a lodging and going once more among unknown people was like being that moment turned adrift into my present life with such a knowledge of it ready made as experience had given me all the sensitive feelings that wounded so cruelly all the shame and misery it kept alive within my breast became more poignant as I thought of this and I determined that the life was unendurable that there was no hope of escape from it unless the escape was my own act I knew quite well I rarely heard from miss merge stone and never from mr. merge stone but two or three parcels of made or mended clothes had come up for me consigned to mr. quinion and in each there was a scrap of paper to the effect that jm trusted dc was applying himself to business and devoting himself wholly to his duties not the least hint of my ever being anything else than the common drudge into which I was fast settling down the very next day showed me while my mind was in the first agitation of what it had conceived that mrs. macabre had not spoken of their going away without warrant they took a lodging in the house where I lived for a week at the expiration of which time they were to start for plemeth mr. macabre himself came down to the counting house in the afternoon to tell mr. quinion that he must relinquish me on the day of his departure and to give me a high character which I am sure I deserved and mr. quinion calling in tipped the car man who was a married man and had a room to let courted me prospectively on him by our mutual consent as he had every reason to think for I said nothing though my resolution was now taken I passed my evenings with mr. and mrs. macabre during the remaining term of our residence under the same roof and I think we became fonder of one another as the time went on on the last sunday they invited me to dinner and we had a loin of pork and applesauce and a pudding I had bought a spotted wooden horse overnight as a parting gift to little wilkins macabre that was the boy and a doll for little Emma I had also bestowed a shilling on the orfling who was about to be disbanded we had a very pleasant day though we were all in a tender state about our approaching separation I shall never master copperfield said mrs. macabre revert to the period when mr. macabre was in difficulties without thinking of you your conduct has always been of the most delicate and obliging description you have never been a lodger you have been a friend my dear said mr. macabre copperfield for so he had been accustomed to call me of late has a heart to feel for the distresses of his fellow creatures when they are behind a cloud and a head to plan and a hand to in short a general ability to dispose of such available property as could be made away with I expressed my sense of this commendation and said I was very sorry we were going to lose one another my dear young friend said mr. macabre I am older than you a man of some experience in life and end of some experience in short in difficulties generally speaking at present and until something turns up which I am I may say hourly expecting I have nothing to be stole but advice still my advice is so far worth taking that in short that I have never taken it myself and I'm the here mr. macabre who had been beaming and smiling all over his head and face up to the present moment checked himself and frowned the miserable wretch you behold my dear macabre urged his wife I say returned mr. macabre quite forgetting himself and smiling again the miserable wretch you behold my advice is never do tomorrow what you can do today procrastination is the thief of time collar him my poor papa's maxim mrs. macabre observed my dear said mr. macabre your papa was very well in his way and heaven forbid that I should disparage him take him for all in all we near shall in short make the acquaintance probably of anybody else possessing at his time of life the same legs for gators and able to read the same description of print without spectacles but he applied that maxim to our marriage my dear and that was so far prematurely entered into and consequence that I never recovered the expense mr. macabre looked aside at mrs. macabre and added not that I am sorry for it quite the contrary my love after which he was grave for a minute or so my other piece of advice copperfield said mr. macabre you know annual income 20 pounds annual expenditure 19 19 and 6 result happiness annual income 20 pounds annual expenditure 20 pounds ought and 6 result misery the blossom is blighted the leaf is withered the god of day goes down upon the dreary scene and and in short you are forever floored as I am to make his example the more impressive mr. macabre drank a glass of punch with an air of great enjoyment and satisfaction and whistled to college hornpipe I did not fail to assure him that I would store these precepts in my mind though indeed I had no need to do so for at the time they affected me visibly next morning and I met the whole family at the coach office and saw them with a desolate heart take their places outside at the back master copperfield said mrs. macabre god bless you I never can forget all that you know and I never would if I could copperfield said mr. macabre farewell every happiness and prosperity if in the progress of revolving years I could persuade myself that my blighted destiny had been a warning to you I should feel that I had not occupied another man's place in existence altogether in vain in case of anything turning up of which I am rather confident I shall be extremely happy if it should be in my power to improve your prospects I think as mrs. macabre sat at the back of the coach with the children and I stood in the road looking wistfully at them a mist cleared from her eyes and she saw what a little creature I really was I think so because she beckoned to me to climb up with quite a new and motherly expression in her face and put her arm around my neck and gave me just such a kiss as she might have given to her own boy I had barely time to get down again before the coach started and I could hardly see the family for the handkerchiefs they waved it was gone in a minute the orfling and I stood looking vacantly at each other in the middle of the road and then shook hands and said goodbye she going back I suppose to st. Luke's workhouse as I went to begin my weary day and myrd stone and grimby's but with no intention of passing many more weary days there no I had resolved to run away to go by some means or other down into the country to the only relation I had in the world and tell my story to my aunt mrs. betsey I have already observed that I don't know how this desperate idea came into my brain but once there it remained there and hardened into a purpose than which I have never entertained a more determined purpose in my life I am far from sure that I believed there was anything hopeful in it but my mind was thoroughly made up that it must be carried into execution again and again and a hundred times again since the night when the thought had first occurred to me and banished sleep I had gone over that old story of my poor mothers about my birth which had had been one of my great delights in the old time to hear her tell and which I knew by heart my aunt walked into that story and walked out of it a dread and awful personage but there was one little trait in her behavior which I like to dwell on and which gave me some faint shadow of encouragement I could not forget how my mother had thought that she felt her touch her pretty hair with no ungentle hand and though it might have been altogether my mother's fancy and might have had no foundation whatever in fact I made a little picture out of it of my terrible aunt relenting towards the girlish beauty that I recollected so well and loved so much which softened the whole narrative it is very possible that it had been in my mind a long time and had gradually engendered my determination as I did not even know where Miss Betsy lived I wrote a long letter to Pegadie and asked her incidentally if she remembered pretending that I had heard of such a lady living at a certain place I named it random and had a curiosity to know if it were the same in the course of that letter I told Pegadie that I had a particular occasion for half a guinea and that if she could lend me that some until I could repay it I should be very much obliged to her and would tell her afterwards what I had wanted it for Pegadie's answers soon arrived and was as usual full of affectionate devotion she enclosed the half guinea I was afraid she must have had a world of trouble to get it out of Mr. Barker's box and told me that Miss Betsy lived near Dover but whether at Dover itself at Hive Sandgate or Folkstone she could not say one of our men however informing me on my asking him about these places that they were all close together I deemed this enough for my object and resolved to set out at the end of that week being a very honest little creature and unwilling to disgrace the memory I was going to leave behind me at Murdstone and Grinby's I considered myself bound to remain until Saturday night and as I had been paid a week's wages in advance when I first came there not to present myself in the counting house of the usual hour to receive my stipend for this express reason I had borrowed the half guinea that I might not be without a fund for my traveling expenses accordingly when the Saturday night came and we were all waiting in the warehouse to be paid and tipped the car man who always took precedence went in first to draw his money I shook Mick Walker by the hand asked him when it came to his turn to be paid to say to Mr. Quinion that I had gone to move my box to tips and bidding a last good night to mealy potatoes ran away my box was at my old lodging over the water and I had written a direction for it on the back of one of our address cards that we nailed on the cast master David to be left till called for at the coach office dover this I had in my pocket ready to put on the box after I should have got it out of the house and as I went towards my lodging I looked about me for someone who would help me to carry it to the booking office there was a long legged young man with a very little empty donkey cart standing near the obelisk in the black fryer's road whose eye I caught as I was going by and who addressing me is six penneth of bad haypents hoped I should know him again to swear to in illusion I have no doubt to my staring at him I stopped to assure him that I had not done so in bad manners but uncertain whether he might or might not like a job what job said the long legged young man to move a box I answered what box said the long legged young man I told him mine which was down that street there and which I wanted him to take to the dover coach office for six pence done with you for a tanner said the long legged young man and directly got upon his cart which was nothing but a large wooden tray on wheels and rattled away at such a rate that it was as much as I could do to keep pace with the donkey there was a defiant manner about this young man and particularly about the way in which he chewed straws he spoke to me that I did not much like as the bargain was made however I took him upstairs to the room I was leaving and we brought the box down and put it on his cart now I was unwilling to put the direction card on there lest any of my landlord's family should fathom what I was doing and detain me so I said to the young man that I would be glad if he would stop for a minute when he came to the dead wall of the king's bench prison the words were no sooner out of my mouth than he rattled away as if he my box the cart and the donkey were all equally mad and I was quite out of breath with running and calling after him when I caught him at the place appointed being much flushed and excited I tumbled my half guinea out of my pocket and pulling the card out I put it in my mouth for safety and though my hands trembled a good deal had just tied the card on very much to my satisfaction when I felt myself violently chucked under the chin by the long-legged young man and saw my half guinea fly out of my mouth into his hand what said the young man seizing me by my jacket collar with a frightful grin this is a police case is it you're going to bolt are you come to the police you young woman come to the police you give me my money back of you please said I very much frightened and leave me alone come to the police said the young man you shall prove it your into the police give me my box and money will you I cried bursting into tears the young man still replied come to the police and was dragging me against the donkey in a violent manner as if there were any affinity between that animal and a magistrate when he changed his mind jumped into the cart sat upon my box and exclaiming that he would drive to the police straight rattled away harder than ever I ran after him as fast as I could but I had no breath to call out with and should not have dared to call out now if I had I narrowly escaped being run over 20 times at least in half a mile now I lost him now I saw him now I lost him now I was cut out with a whip now shouted at now down in the mud now up again now running into some of these arms now running headlong at a post at length confused by fright and heat and doubting whether half london might not by this time be turning out for my apprehension I left the young man to go where he would with my box and money and panting and crying but never stopping faced about for Greenwich which I had understood was on the Dover Road taking very little more out of the world towards the retreat of my aunt Miss Betsy than I had brought into it on the night when my arrival gave her so much umbridge end of chapter 12