 Chapter 48 of David Copperfield David Copperfield by Charles Dickens Chapter 48. Domestic I laboured hard at my book, without allowing it to interfere with the punctual discharge of my newspaper duties, and it came out and was very successful. I was not stunned by the praise which sounded in my ears, notwithstanding that I was keenly alive to it, and thought better of my own performance, I have little doubt than anybody else did. It has always been in my observation of human nature that a man who has any good reason to believe in himself never flourishes himself before the faces of other people in order that they may believe in him. For this reason I retained my modesty in very self-respect, and the more praise I got, the more I tried to deserve. It is not my purpose in this record, though in all other essentials it is my written memory, to pursue the history of my own fictions. They express themselves and I leave them to themselves. When I refer to them, incidentally, it is only as a part of my progress. Having some foundation for believing by this time that nature and accident had made me an author, I pursued my vocation with confidence. Without such assurance I should certainly have left it alone, and bestowed my energy on some other endeavour. I should have tried to find out what nature and accident really had made me, and to be that, and nothing else. I had been writing in the newspaper and elsewhere so prosperously that when my new success was achieved I considered myself reasonably entitled to escape from the dreary debates. One joyful night therefore I noted down the music of the parliamentary bagpipes for the last time, and I have never heard it since, though I still recognise the old drone in the newspapers without any substantial variation, except, perhaps, that there is more of it, all the live long session. I now write of the time when I had been married, I suppose, about a year and a half. After several varieties of experiment we had given up the housekeeping as a bad job, the house kept itself and we kept a page. The principal function of this retainer was to quarrel with the cook, in which respect he was a perfect Whittington, without his cat, or the remotest chance of being made Lord Mayor. He appears to me to have lived in a hail of saucepan lids. His whole existence was a scuffle. He would shriek for help on the most improper occasions, as when we had a little dinner party or a few friends in the evening, and would come tumbling out of the kitchen with iron missiles flying after him. We wanted to get rid of him, but he was very much attached to us, and wouldn't go. He was a tearful boy, and broke into such deplorable lamentations when a cessation of our connection was hinted at, that we were obliged to keep him. He had no mother, no anything in the way of a relative that I could discover, except a sister, who fled to America the moment we had taken him off her hands, and he became quartered on us, like a horrible young changeling. He had a lively perception of his own unfortunate state, and was always rubbing his eyes with the sleeve of his jacket, or stooping to blow his nose on the extreme corner of a little pocket handkerchief, which he never would take completely out of his pocket, but always economized, and secreted. This unlucky page, engaged in an evil hour, at six pounds ten per annum, was a source of continual trouble to me. I watched him as he grew, and he grew like scarlet beans, with painful apprehensions of the time when he would begin to shave, even of the days when he would be bald or gray. I saw no prospect of ever getting rid of him, and projecting myself into the future, used to think what an inconvenience he would be when he was an old man. I never expected anything less than this unfortunate manner of getting me out of my difficulty. He stole Dora's watch, which, like everything else belonging to us, had no particular place of its own, and converting it into money, spent the produce, he was always a weak-minded boy, in incessantly riding up and down between London and Uxbridge outside the coach. He was taken to Bow Street, as well as I remember, on the completion of his fifteenth journey, when four and six pence, and a second-hand fife, which he couldn't play, were found upon his person. The surprise and its consequences would have been much less disagreeable to me if he had not been penitent, but he was very penitent indeed, and in a peculiar way, not in the lump, but by instalments. For example, the day after that, on which I was obliged to appear against him, he made certain revelations, touching a hamper in the cellar, which we believed to be full of wine, but which had nothing in it except bottles and corks. We supposed he had now eased his mind, and told the worst he knew of the cook. But a day or two afterwards his conscience sustained a new twinge, and he disclosed how she had a little girl, who, early every morning, took away our bread, and also how he himself had been suborned to maintain the milkman in coals. In two or three days more I was informed by the authorities of his having led to the discovery of sirloins of beef among the kitchen stuff and sheets in the rag-bag. A little while afterwards he broke out in an entirely new direction, and confessed to a knowledge of burglarious intentions as to our premises, on the part of the pot-boy, who was immediately taken up. I got to be so ashamed of being such a victim, that I would have given him any money to hold his tongue, or would have offered a round bribe for his being permitted to run away. It was an aggravating circumstance in the case that he had no idea of this, but conceived that he was making me amends in every new discovery, not to say heaping obligations on my head. At last I ran away myself, whenever I saw an emissary of the police approaching with some new intelligence, and lived a stealthy life until he was tried and ordered to be transported. Even then he couldn't be quiet, but was always writing us letters, and wanted so much to see Dora before he went away, that Dora went to visit him, and fainted when she found herself inside the iron bars. In short, I had no peace of my life until he was expatriated, and made, as I afterwards heard, a shepherd of, up the country, somewhere. I have no geographical idea where. All this led me into some serious reflections, and presented our mistakes in a new aspect, as I could not help communicating to Dora one evening, in spite of my tenderness for her. "'My love,' said I, "'it is very painful to me to think that our want of system and management involves not only ourselves, which we have got used to, but other people. You have been silent for a long time, and now you are going to be cross,' said Dora. "'No, my dear indeed, let me explain to you what I mean. I think I don't want to know,' said Dora. "'But I want you to know my love. It's a chip down.' Dora put his nose to mine, and said, "'Buh!' to drive my seriousness away. But not succeeding ordered him into his pagoda, and sat looking at me, with her hands folded, and a most resigned little expression of countenance. "'The fact is, my dear,' I began, "'there is contagion in us. We infect everyone about us. I might have gone on in this figurative manner if Dora's face had not admonished me that she was wondering with all her might whether I was going to propose any new kind of vaccination or other medical remedy for this unwholesome state of ours. Therefore I checked myself, and made my meaning plainer. "'It is not merely my pet,' said I, that we lose money and comfort, and even temper sometimes, by not learning to be more careful, but that we incur the serious responsibility of spoiling everyone who comes into our service, or has any dealings with us. I begin to be afraid that the fault is not entirely on one side, but that these people all turn out ill, because we don't turn out very well ourselves.' "'Oh, what an accusation,' exclaimed Dora, opening her eyes wide, "'to say that you ever saw me take gold watches. Oh! my dearest,' I remonstrated, "'don't talk preposterous nonsense. Who has made the least allusion to gold watches?' "'You did,' returned Dora. "'You know you did. You said I hadn't turned out well, and compared me to him.' "'To whom?' I asked. "'To the page,' saw Dora. "'Oh, you cruel fellow, to compare your affectionate wife to a transported page? Why didn't you tell me your opinion of me before we were married? Why didn't you say you hard-hearted thing, that you were convinced I was worse than a transported page? Oh! what a dreadful opinion to have of me! Oh! my goodness! Now Dora, my love,' I returned, gently trying to remove the hankerchiefs you pressed to her eyes. This is not only very ridiculous of you, but very wrong. In the first place, it's not true.' "'You always said he was a story-teller,' saw Dora, and now you say the same of me. Oh! what shall I do? What shall I do?' "'My darling girl,' I retorted, "'I really must entreat you to be reasonable, and listen to what I did say. And do say, my dear Dora, unless we learn to do our duty to those whom we employ, they will never learn to do their duty to us. I am afraid we present opportunities to people to do wrong, that never ought to be presented. Even if we were as lax as we are, in all our arrangements by choice, which we are not, even if we liked it, and found it agreeable to be so, which we don't, I am persuaded we should have no right to go on in this way. We are positively corrupting people. We are bound to think of that. I can't help thinking of it, Dora. It is a reflection I am unable to dismiss, and it sometimes makes me very uneasy. There, dear, that's all. Come now, don't be foolish.' Dora would not allow me, for a long time, to remove the handkerchief. She sat sobbing and murmuring behind it, that if I was uneasy, why had I ever been married? Why hadn't I said, even the day before we went to church, that I knew I should be uneasy, and I would rather not? If I couldn't bear her, why didn't I send her away to her aunts at Putney, or to Julia Mills in India? Julia would be glad to see her, and would not call her a transported page. Julia never had called her anything of the sort. In short, Dora was so afflicted, and so afflicted me, by being in that condition, that I felt it was of no use repeating this kind of effort, though never so mildly, and I must take some other course. What other course was left to take, to form her mind? This was a common phrase of words, which had a fair and promising sound, and I resolved to form Dora's mind. I began immediately, when Dora was very childish, and I would have infinitely preferred to humor her. I tried to be grave, and disconcerted her, and myself, too. I talked to her on the subjects which occupied my thoughts, and I read Shakespeare to her, and fatigued her to the last degree. I accustomed myself to giving her, as it were quite casually, little scraps of useful information, or sound opinion, and she started from them when I let them off, as if they had been crackers. No matter how incidentally, or naturally, I endeavored to form my little wife's mind, I could not help seeing that she always had an instinctive perception of what I was about, and became a prey to the keenest apprehensions. In particular, it was clear to me that she thought Shakespeare a terrible fellow. The formation went on very slowly. I pressed traddles into the service without his knowledge, and whenever he came to see us, exploded my minds upon him for the edification of Dora at second hand. The amount of practical wisdom I bestowed upon traddles in this manner was immense, and of the best quality, but it had no other effect upon Dora than to depress her spirits, and make her always nervous with the dread that it would be her turn next. I found myself in the condition of a school master, a trap, a pitfall, of always playing spider to Dora's fly, and always pouncing out of my hole to her infinite disturbance. Still looking forward through this intermediate stage, to the time when there should be a perfect sympathy between Dora and me, and when I should have formed her mind to my entire satisfaction, I persevered even for months. Finding it last, however, that although I had been all this time a very porcupine or hedgehog bristling all over with determination, I had affected nothing. It began to occur to me that Dora's mind was already formed. On further consideration this appeared so likely that I abandoned my scheme, which had had a more promising appearance in words than in action, resolving henceforth to be satisfied with my child-wife, and to try to change her into nothing else by any process. I was heartily tired of being sagacious and prudent by myself, and of seeing my darling under restraint, so I bought a pretty pair of earrings for her, and a collar for Jip, and went home one day to make myself agreeable. Dora was delighted with the little presence, and kissed me joyfully, but there was a shadow between us, however slight, and I had made up my mind that it should not be there. If there must be such a shadow anywhere, I would keep it for the future in my own breast. I sat down by my wife on the sofa, and put the earrings in her ears, and then I told her that I feared we had not been quite as good company lately as we used to be, and that the fault was mine, which I sincerely felt, and which indeed it was. The truth is, Dora, my life, I said, I have been trying to be wise. And to make us wise too, said Dora timidly, haven't you, Dodie? I nodded ascent to the pretty inquiry of the raised eyebrows, and kissed the parted lips. It's of not a bit of use, said Dora, shaking her head, until the earrings rang again. You know what a little thing I am, and what I wanted you to call me from the first. If you can't do so, I am afraid you'll never like me. Are you sure you don't think, sometimes, it would have been better to have done what, my dear? For she made no effort to proceed. Nothing, Sadora. Nothing, I repeated. She put her arms round my neck, and laughed, and called herself by her favorite name of a goose, and hid her face on my shoulder in such a perfusion of curls that it was quite a task to clear them away, and see it. Don't I think it would have been better to have done nothing than to have tried to form my little wife's mind? said I, laughing at myself. Is that the question? Yes, indeed, I do. Is that what you have been trying? cried Dora. Oh, what a shocking boy! But I shall never try any more, said I, for I love her dearly, as she is. Without a story, really? inquired Dora, creeping closer to me. Why should I seek to change? said I, what has been so precious to me for so long? You never can show better than as your own natural self, my sweet Dora, and we'll try no conceited experiments, but go back to our old way, and be happy. And be happy, returned Dora, yes, all day, and you won't mind things going a tiny morsel wrong sometimes? No, no, said I, we must do the best we can. And you won't tell me any more that we make other people bad, coaxed Dora. Will you? Because you know it's so dreadfully cross. No, no, said I. It's better for me to be stupid than uncomfortable, isn't it? said Dora, better to be naturally Dora than anything else in the world. In the world, ah, Doty, it's a large place. She shook her head, turned her delighted bright eyes up to mine, kissed me, broke into a merry laugh, and sprang away to put on Jip's new collar. So ended my last attempt to make any change in Dora. I had been unhappy in trying it. I could not endure my own solitary wisdom. I could not reconcile it with her former appeal to me as my child-wife. I resolved to do what I could, in a quiet way, to improve our proceedings myself, but I foresaw that my utmost would be very little, or I must degenerate into the spider again, and be forever lying in wait. In the shadow I have mentioned, that was not to be between us any more, but was to rest wholly on my own heart, how did that fall? The old unhappy feeling pervaded my life. It was deepened, if it were changed at all, but it was as undefined as ever, and addressed me like a strain of sorrowful music faintly heard in the night. I loved my wife dearly, and I was happy, but the happiness I had vaguely anticipated once was not the happiness I enjoyed, and there was always something wanting. In fulfilment of the compact I have made with myself to reflect my mind on this paper, I again examine it closely and bring it secrets to the light. What I missed I still regarded, I always regarded, as something that had been a dream of my youthful fancy, that was incapable of realisation that I was now discovering to be so, with some natural pain, as all men did. But that it would have been better for me if my wife could have helped me more, and shared the many thoughts in which I had no partner, and that this might have been, I knew. Between these two irreconcilable conclusions, the one that what I felt was general and unavoidable, the other that it was particular to me, and might have been different, I balanced curiously, with no distinct sense of their opposition to each other. When I thought of the airy dreams of youth that are incapable of realisation, I thought of the better state preceding manhood that I had outgrown, and then the contented days with Agnes in the dear old house arose before me, like specters of the dead, that might have some renewal in another world, but never more could be reanimated here. Sometimes the speculation came into my thoughts. What might have happened, or what would have happened if Dora and I had never known each other? But she was so incorporated with my existence, that it was the idlest of all fancies, and would soon rise out of my reach and sight, like gossamer floating in the air. I always loved her, what I am describing slumbered and half awoke, and slept again in the innermost recesses of my mind. There was no evidence of it in me. I know of no influence it had in anything I said or did. I bore the weight of all our little cares, and all my projects. Dora held the pens, and we both felt that our shares were adjusted as the case required. She was truly fond of me, and proud of me, and when Agnes wrote a few earnest words in her letters to Dora, of the pride and interest with which my old friends heard of my growing reputation, and read my book as if they heard me speaking its contents, Dora read them out to me with tears of joy in her bright eyes, and said I was a dear, old, clever, famous boy. The first mistaken impulse of an undisciplined heart, those words of Mrs. Strong's were constantly recurring to me, at this time, were almost always present to my mind. I awoke with them often in the night. I remember to have even read them in dreams, and scribed upon the walls of houses, for I knew now that my own heart was undisciplined when it first loved Dora, and that if it had been disciplined it never could have felt when we were married what it had felt in its secret experience. There can be no disparity in marriage, like unsuitability of mind and purpose. Those words are remembered too. I had endeavored to adapt Dora to myself, and found it impracticable. It remained for me to adapt myself to Dora, to share with her what I could be, and to be happy, to bear on my own shoulders what I must, and to be happy still. This was the discipline to which I tried to bring my heart. When I began to think, it made my second year much happier than my first, and, what was better still, made Dora's life all sunshine. But as that year wore on, Dora was not strong. I had hoped that lighter hands than mine would help to mold her character, and that a baby smile upon her breast might change my child-wife to a woman. It was not to be. The spirit fluttered for a moment on the threshold of its little prison, and, unconscious of captivity, took wing. When I can run about again, as I used to do, Aunt, said Dora, I shall make Jip race. He is getting quite slow and lazy. I suspect, my dear, said my Aunt, quietly working by her side. He has a worse disorder than that. Age, Dora. Do you think he is old? said Dora, astonished. Oh, how strange it seems the Jip should be old. It's a complaint we are all liable to, little one. As we get on in life, said my Aunt cheerfully, I don't feel more free from it than I used to be, I assure you. But Jip, said Dora, looking at him with compassion. Even little Jip! Oh, poor fellow! I dare say he'll last a long time yet, blossom, said my Aunt, patting Dora on the cheek as she leaned out of her coach to look at Jip, who responded by standing on his hind legs and balking himself in various asthmatic attempts to scramble up by the head and shoulders. He must have a piece of flannel in his house this winter, and I shouldn't wonder if he came out quite fresh again with the flowers in the spring. Blest the little dog! exclaimed my Aunt, if he had as many lives as a cat, and was on the point of losing them all, he'd bark at me with his last breath, I believe. Dora had helped him up on the sofa, where he really was defying my Aunt to such a furious extent that he couldn't keep straight but barked himself sideways. The more my Aunt looked at him, the more he reproached her, for she had lately taken to spectacles, and for some inscrutable reason he considered the glasses personal. Dora made him lie down by her, with a good deal of persuasion, and when he was quiet drew one of his long ears through and through her hand, repeating thoughtfully, Even little Jip! Oh, poor fellow! His lungs are good enough, said my Aunt Gailey, and his dislikes are not at all feeble. He has a good many years before him, no doubt, but if you want a dog to race with a little blossom, he has lived too well for that. And I'll give you one. Thank you, Aunt. said Dora faintly. But don't, please. No, said my Aunt, taking off her spectacles. I couldn't have any other dog but Jip, said Dora. It would be so unkind to Jip. Besides, I couldn't be such friends with any other dog but Jip, because he wouldn't have known me before I was married, and wouldn't have barked at Dodie when he first came to our house. I couldn't care for any other dog but Jip, I am afraid, Aunt. To be sure, said my Aunt, patting her cheek again, you are right. You are not offended, said Dora. Are you? Why, what a sensitive pet it is, cried my Aunt, bending over her affectionately, to think that I could be offended. No, no, I didn't really think so, returned Dora. But I am a little tired, and it made me silly for a moment. I am always a silly little thing, you know, but it made me more silly to talk about Jip. He has known me in all that has happened to me. Haven't you, Jip? And I couldn't bear to spite him, because he was a little altered. Could I, Jip? Jip nestled closer to his mistress, and lazily licked her hand. You are not so old, Jip, are you, that you will leave your mistress yet? said Dora. We may keep one another company, a little longer. My pretty Dora, when she came down to dinner on the ensuing Sunday, and was so glad to see old Traddles, who always dined with us on Sunday, we thought she would be running about as she used to do, in a few days. But they said, wait a few days more, and then, wait a few days more, and still she neither ran nor walked. She looked very pretty, and was very merry, but the little feet that used to be so nimble when they danced round Jip were dull and motionless. I began to carry her downstairs every morning and upstairs every night. She would clasp me round the neck and laugh the while, as if I did it for a wager. Jip would bark and cape around us, and go on before, and look back on the landing, breathing short to see that we were coming. My aunt, the best and most cheerful of nurses, would trudge after us, a moving mass of shawls and pillows. Mr. Dick would not have relinquished his post of candle-bearer to any one alive. Traddles would be often at the bottom of the staircase, looking on and taking charge of sportive messages from Dora to the dearest girl in the world. We made quite a gay procession of it, and my child-wife was the gayest there. But sometimes, when I took her up, and felt that she was lighter in my arms, a dead blank feeling came upon me, as if I were approaching to some frozen region yet unseen that numbed my life. I avoided the recognition of this feeling by any name or by any communing with myself, until one night, when it was very strong upon me, and my aunt had left her with a parting cry of good-night little blossom. I sat down at my desk alone, and cried to think, oh, what a fatal name it was, and how the blossom withered in its bloom upon the tree. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens Chapter 49 I am involved in a mystery I received one morning by the post the following letter, dated Canterbury, and addressed to me at Doctor's Commons, which I read with some surprise. My dear sir, circumstances beyond my individual control have, for a considerable lapse of time, affected a severance of that intimacy which, in the limited opportunities conceded to me, in the midst of my professional duties, of contemplating the scenes and events of the past, tinged by the prismatic cues of memory, has ever afforded me, as it ever must continue to afford, gratifying emotions of no common description. This fact, my dear sir, combined with the distinguished elevation to which your talents have raised you, deters me from presuming to aspire to the liberty of addressing the companion of my youth by the familiar appellation of Copperfield. It is sufficient to know that the name to which I do myself the honor to refer will ever be treasured among the monuments of our house. I allude to the archives connected with our former lodgers, preserved by Mrs. Macabre, with sentiments of personal esteem amounting to affection. It is not for one situated through his original errors and a fortuitous combination of unperpicious events, as is the foundered bark, if he may be allowed to assume so maritime a denomination, who now takes up the pen to address you. It is not a repeat, for one so circumstance, to adopt the language of compliment, or of congratulation, that he leaves to abler and to purer hands. If your more important avocation should admit of your ever-tracing these imperfect characters thus far, which may be, or may not be, as circumstances arise, you will naturally inquire by what object I am influenced, then, in indicting the present missive. Allow me to say that I fully defer to the reasonable character of that inquiry and proceed to develop it, primising that it is not an object of a pecuniary nature. Without more directly referring to any latent ability that may possibly exist on my part of wielding the thunderbolt, or directing the devouring and avenging flame in any quarter, I may be permitted to observe, in passing, that my brightest visions are forever dispelled, that my peace is shattered, and my power of enjoyment destroyed, that my heart is no longer in the right place, and that I no more walk erect before my fellow man. The canker is in the flower. The cup is bitter to the brim. The worm is at his work, and will soon dispose of his victim. The sooner the better. But I will not digress. Placed in a mental position of peculiar painfulness, beyond the swaging reach even of Mrs. McAver's influence, though exercised in the tripartite character of woman, wife, and mother, it is my intention to fly from myself for a short period, and devote a respite of eight and forty hours to revisiting some metropolitan scenes of past enjoyment. Among other havens of domestic tranquility and peace of mind, my feet will naturally tend towards the king's bench prison. In stating that I shall be, DV, on the outside of the south wall of that place of incarceration on civil process, the day after tomorrow, at seven in the evening, precisely, my object in this epistolary communication is accomplished. I do not feel warranted in soliciting my former friend Mr. Copperfield, or my former friend Mr. Thomas Trattles of the Inner Temple, if that gentleman is still existent and forthcoming, to condescend to meet me, and renew, so far as may be, are past relations of the olden time. I confine myself to throwing out the observation that, at the hour and place I have indicated, may be found such a ruined vestiges as yet remain of a fallen tower, Wilkins-McCobber. P.S., it may be advisable to super add to the above, the statement that Mrs. McCobber is not in confidential possession of my intentions. I read the letter over several times, making due allowance for Mr. McCobber's lofty style of composition, and for the extraordinary relish with which he sat down and wrote long letters on all possible and impossible occasions. I still believed that something important lay hidden at the bottom of this roundabout communication. I put it down to think about it, and took it up again to read it once more, and was still pursuing it when Trattles found me in the height of my perplexity. My dear fellow said I, I never was better pleased to see you. You come to give me the benefit of your sober judgment at a most opportune time. I have received a very singular letter, Trattles, from Mr. McCobber. No, cried Trattles, you don't say so, and I have received one from Mrs. McCobber. With that, Trattles, who was flushed with walking, and whose hair, under the combined effects of exercise and excitement, stood on end as if he saw a cheerful ghost, produced his letter, and made an exchange with me. I watched him into the heart of Mr. McCobber's letter, and returned the elevation of eyebrows with which he said, wielding the thunderbolt, or directing the devouring in a vinging flame, bless me, Copperfield, and then entered onto the perusal of Mrs. McCobber's epistle. It ran thus. My best regards to Mr. Thomas Trattles, and if he should still remember one who formerly had the happiness of being well acquainted with him, may I beg a few moments of his leisure time. I assure Mr. T.T. that I would not untrue to pun his kindness, where I in any other position then don the confines of distraction. Though harrowing to myself to mention, the alienation of Mr. McCobber, formerly so domesticated, from his wife and family, is the cause of my addressing my unhappy appeal to Mr. Trattles, and soliciting his best indulgence. Mr. T. can form no adequate idea of the change in Mr. McCobber's conduct, of his wildness, of his violence. It is gradually augmented until it assumes the appearance of aberration of intellect. Scarcely a day passes I assure Mr. Trattles, and which some paroxym does not take place. Mr. T. will not require me to depict my feelings, when I inform him that I have become accustomed to hear Mr. McCobber assert that he has sold himself to the D. Mystery and secrecy have long been his principal characteristic, have long replaced unlimited confidence. The slightest provocation, even being asked if there is anything he would prefer for dinner, causes him to express a wish for a separation. Last night, I am being childishly solicited for two pints, to buy lemon-stunners, a local sweet-meat. He presented an oyster knife at the twins. I entreat Mr. Trattles to bear with me in entering into these details. Without them, Mr. T. would indeed find it difficult to form the faintest conception of my heart-rending situation. May I now venture to confide to Mr. T. the perpet of my letter? Will he now allow me to throw myself on his friendly consideration? Oh, yes, for I know his heart. The quick eye of affection is not easily blinded when of the female sex. Mr. McCobber is going to London. Though he studiously concealed his hand this morning before breakfast, in riding the direction-car in which he attached to the little brown valise of happier days, the eagle-glance of matrimonial anxiety detected, D-O-N, distinctly traced. The West End destination of the coach is the Golden Cross. Dare I fervently implore Mr. T. to see my misguided husband, and to reason with him? Dare I ask Mr. T. to endeavor to step in between Mr. McCobber and his agonized family? Oh, no, for that would be too much. If Mr. Copperfield should yet remember one unknown defame, will Mr. T. take charge of my unalterable regards and similar entreaties? In any case, he will have the benevolence to consider this communication strictly private, and on no account whatever to be alluded to, however distantly, in the presence of Mr. McCobber. If Mr. T. should ever reply to it, which I cannot but feel to be most improbable, a letter addressed to M.E., Post Office, Canterbury, will be fraught with less painful consequences than any addressed immediately to one who subscribes yourself in extreme distress. Mr. Thomas Chattel's respectful friend and supliant, Emma McCobber. What do you think of that letter, said Chattel's, casting his eyes upon me when I had read it twice? What do you think of the other, said I, for he was still reading it with knitted brows? I think that the two together, Copperfield, replied Chattel's, mean more than Mr. and Mrs. McCobber usually mean in their correspondence. But I don't know what. They are both written in good faith, I have no doubt, and without any collusion. Poor thing, he was now alluding to Mrs. McCobber's letter, and we were standing side by side comparing the two. It will be a charity to write to her at all events, and tell her that we will not fail to see Mr. McCobber. I acceded to this the more readily, because I now reproached myself with having treated her former letter rather lightly. It had set me thinking a good deal at the time, as I have mentioned in its place, but my absorption in my own affairs, my experience of the family, and my hearing nothing more, had gradually ended in my dismissing the subject. I had often thought of the McCobber's, but chiefly to wonder what pecuniary liabilities they were establishing in Canterbury, and to recall how shy Mr. McCobber was of me, when he became clerk to Uriah Heap. However, I now wrote a comforting letter to Mrs. McCobber, in our joint names, and we both signed it. As we walked into town to post it, Trattles and I held a long conference, and launched into a number of speculations which I need not repeat. We took my aunt into our councils in the afternoon, but our only decided conclusion was that we would be very punctual in keeping Mr. McCobber's appointment. Although we appeared at the stipulated place a quarter of an hour before the time, we found Mr. McCobber already there. He was standing with his arms folded over against the wall, looking at the spikes on the top, with a sentimental expression, as if they were the interlacing bowels of trees that had shaded him and his youth. When we accosted him, his manner was something more confused and something less genteel than of your. He had relinquished his legal suit of black for the purposes of this excursion, and wore the old shirt out in tights, but not quite with the old air. He gradually picked up more and more of it as we conversed with him, but his very eyeglass seemed to hang less easily, and his shirt collar, though still of the fold formidable dimensions, rather drooped. Gentlemen said Mr. McCobber, after the first salutations, you are friends in need, and friends indeed. Allow me to offer my inquiries with reference to the physical welfare of Mrs. Copperfield in Essay and Mrs. Trattles in Posse, presuming, that is to say, that my friend Mr. Trattles is not yet united to the object of his affections, for wheel and for woe. We acknowledged his politements and made suitable replies. He then directed our attention to the wall, and was beginning, I assure you, gentlemen, when I ventured to object to that ceremonious form of address, and to beg that he would speak to us in the old way. My dear Copperfield, he returned, pressing my hand, your cordiality overpowers me. This reception of a shattered fragment of the temple once called man, if I may be permitted to so express myself, bespeaks a heart that is an honor to our common nature. I was about to observe that I again behold the serene spot where some of the happiest hours of my existence fleeted by. Made so, I am sure by Mrs. McCobber, said I. I hope she is well. Thank you, returned Mr. McCobber, whose face clouded at this reference. She is but so so. And this, said Mr. McCobber, nodding his head sorrowfully, is the bench, where, for the first time in many revolving years, the overwhelming pressure of pecuniary liabilities was not proclaimed from day to day by impetunate voices declining to vacate the passage, and where there was no knocker on the door for any creditor to appeal to, where personal service of process was not required, and detainees were merely lodged at the gate. Gentlemen, said Mr. McCobber, when the shadow of that ironwork on the summit of the brick structure has been reflected on the gravel of the parade, I have seen my children thread the mazes of the intricate pattern, avoiding the dark marks. I have been familiar with every stone in the place. If I betray weakness, you will know how to excuse me. We have all gone on in life since then, Mr. McCobber, said I. Mr. Copperfield returned Mr. McCobber bitterly. When I was an inmate of that retreat, I could look at my fellow man in the face and punch his head if he offended me. My fellow man and myself are no longer on those glorious terms. Turning from the building in a downcast manner, Mr. McCobber accepted my proffered arm on one side, and the proffered arm of treadles on the other, and walked away between us. There are some landmarks observed Mr. McCobber, looking fondly back over his shoulder, on the road to the tomb, which but for the impiety of the aspiration, a man would wish never to have passed. Such is the bench in my checkered career. Oh, you were in low spirits, Mr. McCobber, said treadles. I am, sir, interposed Mr. McCobber. I hope, said treadles, it is not because you have conceived a dislike to the law, for I am a lawyer myself, you know. Mr. McCobber answered not a word. How is our friend heat, Mr. McCobber, said I, after a silence. My dear Copperfield returned Mr. McCobber, bursting into a state of much excitement and turning pale. If you ask after my employer as your friend, I am sorry for it. If you ask after him as my friend, I sardonically smile at it. In whatever capacity you ask after my employer, I beg, without offense to you, to limit my reply to this, that whatever his state of health may be, his appearance is foxy, not to stay diabolical. You will allow me, as a private individual, to climb pursuing a subject which has lashed me to the utmost verge of desperation in my professional capacity. I expressed my regret for having innocently touched upon a theme that roused him so much. May I ask, said I, without any hazard of repeating the mistake, how my old friends Mr. and Ms. Wickfield are? Ms. Wickfield, said Mr. McCobber, now turning red, is, as she always is, a pattern and a bright example. My dear Copperfield, she is the only starry spot in a miserable existence. My respect for that young lady, my admiration of her character, my devotion to her, for her love and truth and goodness. Take me, said Mr. McCobber, down a turning, for upon my soul, in my present state of mind, I am not equal to this. We wheeled him off into a narrow street, where he took out his pocket-hankerchief, and stood with his back to a wall. If I looked as gravely at him as Traddles did, he must have found our company by no means inspiring. It is my fate, said Mr. McCobber, unfanningly sobbing, but doing even that, with the shadow of the old expression of doing something genteel. It is my fate, gentlemen, that the finer feelings of our nature have become reproaches to me. My homage to Ms. Wickfield is a flight of arrows in my bosom. You had better leave me, if you pleased, to walk the earth as a vagabond. The worm will settle my business in double quick time. Without attending to this invocation, we stood by, until he put up his pocket-hankerchief, pulled up his shirt collar, and to delude any person in the neighborhood who might have been observing him, hummed a tune with his hat very much on one side. I then mentioned, not knowing what might be lost if we lost sight of him yet, that it would give me great pleasure to introduce him to my aunt, if he would ride out to Highgate, where a bed was at his service. You shall make us a glass of your own punch, Mr. McCobber, said I, and forget whatever you have on your mind, in pleasanter reminisces. Or, if confiding anything to friends will be more likely to relieve you, you shall impart it to us, Mr. McCobber, said trattles, prudently. Gentlemen, return, Mr. McCobber, do with me as you will. I am a straw upon the surface of the deep, and am tossed in all directions by the elephants. I beg your pardon, I should have said the elements. We walked on, arm in arm again, found the coach in the act of starting, and arrived at Highgate without encountering any difficulties by the way. I was very uneasy and very uncertain in my mind what to say or do for the best, so was trattles evidently. Mr. McCobber was for the most part plunged into deep gloom. He occasionally made an attempt to smarten himself and hum the fag end of a tune, but his relapses into profound melancholy were only made the more impressive by the mockery of a hat exceedingly on one side and a shirt collar pulled up to his eyes. We went to my aunt's house rather than to mine because of doors not being well. My aunt presented herself on being sent for, and welcomed Mr. McCobber with gracious cordiality. Mr. McCobber kissed her hand, retired to the window, and pulling out his pocket handkerchief had a mental wrestle with himself. Mr. Dick was at home. He was by nature so exceedingly compassionate of anyone who seemed to be ill at ease, and was so quick to find any such person out that he shook hands with Mr. McCobber at least half a dozen times in five minutes. To Mr. McCobber in his trouble, this warmth on the part of a stranger was so extremely touching that he could only say, on the occasion of each successive shake, my dear sir, you overpower me, which gratified Mr. Dick so much that he went at it again with greater vigor than before. The friendliness of this gentleman said Mr. McCobber to my aunt, if you will allow me, ma'am, to cull a figure of speech from the vocabulary of our Corsair National Sports, floors me. To a man who is struggling with a complicated burden of perplexity and disquiet, such a reception is trying, I assure you. My friend Mr. Dick, replied my aunt proudly, is not a common man. That I am convinced of, said Mr. McCobber. My dear sir, for Mr. Dick was shaking hands with him again, I am deeply sensible of your cordiality. How do you find yourself, said Mr. Dick, with an anxious look? Indifferent, my dear sir, returned Mr. McCobber, sighing. You must keep up your spirit, said Mr. Dick, and make yourself as comfortable as possible. Mr. McCobber was quite overcome by these friendly words, and by finding Mr. Dick's hand again within his own. It has been my lot, he observed, to meet in the diversified panorama of human existence with an occasional oasis, but never with one so green, so gushing as the present. At another time I should have been amused by this, but I felt that we were all constrained and uneasy, and I watched Mr. McCobber so anxiously in his vacillations between an evident disposition to reveal something, and a counter disposition to reveal nothing, that I was in a perfect fever. Traddle sitting on the edge of his chair, with his eyes wide open, and his hair more emphatically erect than ever, stared by turns at the ground and at Mr. McCobber, without so much as attempting to put in a word. My aunt, though I saw that her shrewdest observation was concentrated on her new guest, had more useful possession of her wits than either of us, for she held him in conversation and made it necessary for him to talk, whether he liked it or not. You were a very old friend of my nephews, Mr. McCobber, said my aunt. I wish I had had the pleasure of seeing you before. Madam, returned Mr. McCobber, I wish I had had the honor of knowing you at an earlier period. I was not always the rec you at present behold. I hope Mrs. McCobber and your family are well, sir, said my aunt. Mr. McCobber inclined to say, There is well, ma'am, he desperately observed after a pause, as aliens and outcasts can ever hope to be. Lord bless you, sir, exclaimed my aunt in her abrupt way. What are you talking about? The subsistence of my family, ma'am, returned Mr. McCobber, chumbles in the balance. My employer, here Mr. McCobber provokingly left off, and began to peel the lemons that had been under my direction set before him, together with all the other appliances he used in making punch. Your employer, you know, said Mr. Dick, jogging his arm as a gentle reminder. My good sir, returned Mr. McCobber, you recall me, I am obliged to you, they shook hands again. My employer, ma'am, Mr. Heap, once did me the favor to observe to me that if I were not in the receipt of the stipendary emoluments appertaining to my engagement with him, I should probably be a mount-a-bank about the country, swallowing a sword-blade, and eating the devouring element. For anything that I can perceive to the contrary, it is still probable that my children may be reduced to seek a livelihood by personal contortion, while Mrs. McCobber abets their unnatural feats by playing the barrel organ. Mr. McCobber, with a random but expressive flourish of his knife, signified that these performances might be expected to take place after he was no more, then resumed his peeling with the desperate air. My aunt leaned her elbow on the little round table that she usually kept beside her, and eyed him attentively. Notwithstanding the aversion with which I regarded the idea of entrapping him into any disclosure he was not prepared to make voluntarily, I should have taken him up at this point, but for the strange proceedings in which I saw him engaged, where of his putting the lemon peel into the kettle, the sugar into the snuffer tray, the spirit into the empty jug, and confidently attempting to pour boiling water out of a candlestick, were among the most remarkable. I saw that a crisis was at hand, and it came. He cladded all his means and implements together, rose from his chair, pulled out his pocket handkerchief, and burst into tears. My dear Copperfield said Mr. McCobber behind his handkerchief, this is an occupation of all others requiring an untroubled mind and self-respect. I cannot perform it. It is out of the question. Mr. McCobber said I, what is the matter? Pray speak out, you are among friends. Among friends, sir, repeated Mr. McCobber, and all he had reserved came breaking out of him. Good heavens, it is principal because I am among friends, that my state of mind is what it is. What is the matter, gentlemen? What is not the matter? Villainy is the matter, baseness is the matter, deception, fraud, conspiracy are the matter, and the name of the whole atrocious mass is heap. My aunt clapped her hands, and we all stirred it up as if we were possessed. The struggle is over, said Mr. McCobber, violently gesticulating with his pocket handkerchief, and barely striking out from time to time with both arms, as if he were swimming under superhuman difficulties. I will lead this life no longer. I am a wretched being cut off from everything that makes life tolerable. I have been under a taboo in that infernal scoundrel service. Give me back my wife, give me back my family, substitute McCobber for the petty wretch he walks about in the boots that present on my feet, and call upon me to swallow a sword tomorrow, and I'll do it with an appetite. I never saw a man so hot in my life. I tried to calm him that we might come to something rational, but it got hotter and hotter, and wouldn't hear a word. I'll put my hand in no man's hands, said Mr. McCobber gasping, puffing and sobbing, to that degree that he was like a man fighting with cold water, until I have blown to fragments the detestable serpent heap. I'll partake of no one's hospitality until I have moved Mount Vesuvius to eruption on the abandoned rascal heap. Refreshment underneath this roof, particularly punch, would choke me, unless I had previously choked the eyes out of the head of an interminable cheat and liar heap. I'll know nobody and say nothing, and I'll live nowhere until I have crushed to undiscoverable atoms the transcendent and immortal hippocritum purger heap. I really had some fear of Mr. McCobber's dying on the spot, the manner in which he struggled through these inarticulate sentences, and whenever he found himself getting near the name of heap, fought his way onto it, dashed at it in a feigning state, and brought it out with a vehemence little less than marvelous, was frightful. But now, when he sank into a chair, steaming, and looked at us with every possible color in his face that had no business there, and an endless procession of lumps following one another in hot haste up his throat, once they seemed to shoot into his forehead, he had the appearance of being in the last extremity. I would have gone to his assistance, but he waved me off and wouldn't hear a word. No copper field, no communication, until Miss Wickfield, a redress from wrongs inflicted by consummate scoundrel, heap. I am quite convinced he could not have uttered three words, but for the amazing energy with which this word inspired him when he felt it coming. Enviable secret, from the whole world, no exceptions. This day week, breakfast time, everybody present, including an extremely friendly gentleman, to be at the hotel at Canterbury, where Mrs. McCobber and myself, on Langzine and Chorus, and will expose intolerable ruffian heap. No more to say or listen to persuasion, go immediately, not capable, a bare society, upon the track of devoted and doomed traitor, heap. With this last repetition of the magic word that had kept him going at all, and in which he surpassed all his previous efforts, Mr. McCobber rushed out of the house, leaving us in a state of excitement, hope, and wonder, that reduced us to a condition little better than his own. But even then his passion for writing letters was too strong to be resisted, for while we were yet in the height of our excitement, hope, and wonder, the following pastoral note was brought to me from a neighbouring tavern, at which he had called to write it. Most secret and confidential. My dear sir, I beg to be allowed to convey, through you, my apologies to your excellent aunt for my late excitement. An explosion of a smoldering volcano long suppressed was the result of an internal contest more easily conceived than described. I trust I render tolerably intelligible my appointment for the morning of this day week, at the House of Public Entertainment at Canterbury, where Mrs. McCobber and myself had once the honour of uniting our voices to yours, in the well-known strain of the immortal exisman nurtured beyond the tweed. The duty done, an act of reparation performed, which can alone enabled me to contemplate my fellow mortal, I shall be known no more. I shall simply require to be deposited in that place of universal resort, where, each in his narrow cell for ever laid, the rude forefathers of the Hamlet sleep, with the plain inscription, Wilkins McCobber. Chapter 50 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. Recorded by Philip David David Copperfield by Charles Dickens Chapter 50 Mr. Pegaty's Dream Comes True By this time some months it passed since our interview on the banks of the river with Martha. I had never seen her since, but she had communicated with Mr. Pegaty on several occasions. Nothing had come of her zealous interventions, nor could I infer, from what he told me, that any clue had been obtained for a moment to Emily's fate. I confessed that I began to despair of her recovery, and gradually to sink deeper and deeper into the belief that she was dead. His conviction remained unchanged. So far as I know, and I believe his honest heart was transparent to me, he never wavered again in his solemn certainty of finding her. His patience never tired, and although I trembled for the agony it might one day be to him, to have his strong assurance shivered at a blow, there was something so religious in it, so effectingly expressive of its anchor being in the purest depths of his fine nature, that the respect and honour in which I held him were exalted every day. His was not a lazy trustfulness that hoped and did no more. He had been a man of sturdy action all his life, and he knew that in all things wherein he wanted help, he must do his own part faithfully and help himself. I have known him set out in the night on a misgiving that the light might not be by some accident in the window of the old boat, and walk to Yarmouth. I have known him on reading something in the newspaper that might apply to her, take up his stick, and go forth on a journey of three or four score miles. He made his way by seat in Naples and back, after hearing the narrative to which Miss Dardle had assisted me. All his journeys were ruggedly performed, for he was always steadfast in a purpose of saving money for Emily's sake when she should be found. In all this long pursuit I never heard him repine, I never heard him say he was fatigued or out of heart. Dora had often seen him since our marriage and was quite fond of him. I fancy his figure before me now, standing near her sofa, with his rough cap in his hand, and the blue eyes of my child wife raised with a timid wonder to his face. Sometimes of an evening about twilight when he came to talk with me, I would induce him to smoke his pipe in the garden as we slowly paced to and fro together, and then the picture of his deserted home and the comfortable air it used to have in my childish eyes of an evening when the fire was burning and the wind moaning round it came most vividly into my mind. One evening at this hour he told me that he had found Martha waiting near his lodging on the preceding night when he came out and that she had asked him not to leave London on any account until he should have seen her again. Did she tell you why I inquired? I asked her, Master Davy, he replied, but it is but few words as she ever says, and she only got my promise and so went away. Did she say when you might expect to see her again? I demanded. No, Master Davy, he returned, drawing his hand thoughtfully down his face. I asked that, too, but it was more, she said, than she could tell. As I had longed for Bourne to encourage him with hopes that hung on threads, I made no comment on this information then that I supposed he would see her soon. Such speculations as it engendered within me I kept to myself, and those were faint enough. I was walking alone in the garden one evening about a fortnight afterwards. I remember that evening well. It was the second week of Mr. MacCobber's week of suspense. There had been rain all day, and there was a damp feeling in the air. The leaves were thick upon the trees and heavy with wet, but the rain had ceased, though the sky was still dark, and the hopeful birds were singing cheerfully. As I walked to and fro in the garden, and the twilight began to close around me, their little voices were hushed, and that peculiar silence, which belongs to such an evening in the country, when the lightest trees are quite still, save for the occasional droppings from their boughs, prevailed. There was a little green perspective of trellis work and ivy at the side of our cottage, through which I could see from the garden where I was walking, into the road before the house. I happened to turn my eyes toward this place, as I was thinking of many things, and I saw a figure beyond dressed in a plain cloak. It was bending eagerly toward me and beckoning. Martha, I said, going to it. Can you come with me? she inquired in an agitated whisper. I have been to him, and he is not at home. I wrote down where he was to come, and left it on his table with my own hand. They said he would not be out long. I have tidings for him. Can you come directly? My answer was, to pass out at the gate immediately. She made a hasty gesture with her hand, as if to entreat my patience in my silence, and to turn toward London when, says her dress be tokened, she had come expeditiously on foot. I asked her if that were not our destination. On her motioning guess with the same hasty gesture as before, I stopped an empty coach that was coming by, and we got into it. When I asked her where the coachman was to drive, she answered, anywhere near Golden Square, and quick, then shrunk into a corner, with one trembling hand before her face, and the other making the former gesture as if she could not bear a voice. Now much disturbed and dazzled with the conflicting gleams of hope and dread, I looked at her for some explanation. But seeing how strongly she desired to remain quiet, and feeling that it was my own natural inclination too at such a time, I did not attempt to break the silence. We proceeded without a word being spoken. Sometimes she glanced out of the window as though she thought we were going slowly, though indeed we were going fast, but otherwise remained exactly as at first. We alighted at one of the entrances to the square she had mentioned, where I directed the coach to wait, not knowing but that we might have some occasion for it. She laid her hand on my arm and hurried me on to one of the somber streets, of which there are several in that part, where the houses were once fair dwellings in the occupation of single families, but have, and had, long degenerated into poor lodgings led off in rooms. Entering at the open door of one of these, and releasing my arm, she beckoned me to follow her up the common staircase, which was like a tributary channel to the street. The house swarmed with inmates. As we went up, doors of rooms were open and people's heads put out, and we passed other people on the stairs who were coming down. In glancing up from the outside before we entered, I had seen women and children lulling at windows over flowerpots, and we seemed to have attracted their curiosity, for these were principally the observers who looked out of their doors. It was a broad, paneled staircase, with massive balustrades of some dark wood. Cornices above the doors ornamented with carved fruit and flowers, and broad seats in the windows. But all these tokens of past grandeur were miserably decayed and dirty. Rot, damp, and age had weakened the flooring, which in many places was unsound and even unsafe. Some attempts had been made, I noticed, to infuse new blood into this dwindling frame by repairing the costly old woodwork here and there, with common deal. But it was like the marriage of a reduced old noble to a plebeian pauper, and each party to the ill-assorted union shrunk away from the other. Several of the back windows on the staircase had been darkened or wholly blocked up. In those that remained there was scarcely any glass, and, through the crumbling frames by which the bad air seemed always to come in and ever to go out, I saw through other glassless windows into other houses in a similar condition, and looked giddily down into a wretched yard, which was the common dust heap of the mansion. We proceeded to the top story of the house. Two or three times, by the way, I thought I observed in the indistinct light the skirts of a female figure going up before us. As we turned to ascend the last flight of stairs between us and the roof, we caught a full view of this figure pausing for a moment at a door. Then it turned the handle and went in. What's this? said Martha in a whisper. She's gone into my room. I don't know her. I knew her. I had recognized her with amazement for Miss Dardle. I said something to the effect that it was a lady whom I had seen before in a few words to my conductress, and had scarcely done so when we heard her voice in the room, though not from where we stood what she was saying. Martha, with an astonished look, repeated her former action and softly led me up the stairs, and then, by a little back door which seemed to have no lock and which she pushed open with a touch into a small empty garret with a low sloping roof, little better than a cupboard. Between this and the room she had called hers there was a small door of communication standing partly open. Here we stopped, breathless with our ascent, and she placed her hand lightly on my lips. I could only see, of the room beyond, that it was pretty large and that there was a bed in it, and that there were some common pictures of ships upon the walls. I could not see Miss Dardle or the person whom we had heard her address. Certainly my companion could not, for my position was the best. A dead silence prevailed for some moments. Martha kept one hand on my lips and raised the other in a listening attitude. It matters little to me her not being at home, said Rosa Dardle haughtily. I know nothing of her. It is you I come to see. Me? replied a soft voice. At the sound of it a thrill went through my frame, for it was Emily's. Yes, returned Miss Dardle, I have come to look at you. What? You are not ashamed of the face that has done so much? The resolute and unrelenting hatred of her tone, its cold stern sharpness, and its mastered rage presented her before me as if I had seen her standing in the light. I saw the flashing black eyes and the passion-waisted figure, and I saw the scar with its white track cutting through her lips, quivering and throbbing as she spoke. I have come to see, she said, James Steerforth's fancy, the girl who ran away with him, and is the town talk of the commonest people of her native place, the bold, flaunting, practiced companion of persons like James Steerforth. I want to know what such a thing is like. There was a rustle as if the unhappy girl on whom she heaped these taunts ran towards the door, and the speaker swiftly interposed herself before it. It was succeeded by a moment's pause. When Miss Dardle spoke again, it was through her set teeth and with a stamp upon the ground. Stay there, she said, or I'll proclaim you to the house and the whole street. If you try to evade me, I'll stop you if it's by the hair and raise the very stones against you. A frightened murmur was the only reply that reached my ears. A silence succeeded. I did not know what to do. Much as I desired to put an end to the interview, I felt that I had no right to present myself. That it was for Mr. Pegatey alone to see her and recover her. Would he never come? I thought impatiently. So, said Rosa Dardle with a contemptuous laugh, I see her at last why he was a poor creature to be taken by that delicate mock modesty and that hanging head. Oh, for heaven's sake, spare me, exclaimed Emily. Whoever you are, you know my pitiable story, and for heaven's sake, spare me, if you would be spared yourself. If I would be spared, returned the other fiercely, what is there in common between us, do you think? Nothing but our sex, said Emily, with a burst of tears. And that, said Rosa Dardle, is so strong a claim, preferred by one so infamous, that if I had any feelings in my breast but scorn and abhorrence of you, it would freeze up. Our sex? You are an honour to our sex. I have deserved this, said Emily, but it's dreadful. Dear, dear lady, think what I have suffered and how I am fallen. Oh, Martha, come back. Oh, home, home! Miss Dardle placed herself in a chair within view of the door, and looked downwards if Emily were crouching on the floor before her. Being now between me and the light, I could see her curled lip and her cruel eyes intently fix on one place with a greedy triumph. Listen to what I say, she said, and reserve your false arts for your dupes. Do you hope to move me by your tears? No more than you could charm me by your smiles, you purchased slave. Oh, have some mercy on me, cried Emily. Show me some compassion or I shall die mad. It would be no great penance, said Rosa Dardle, for your crimes. Do you know what you have done? Do you ever think of the home you have laid waste? Oh, is there ever night and day when I don't think of it, cried Emily. And now I could just see her on her knees, with her head thrown back, her pale face looking upward, her hands wildly clasped and held out, and her hair streaming about her. Has there ever been a single moment, waking or sleeping, when it hasn't been before me, just as it used to be in the lost days, when I turned my back upon it forever and ever? Oh, home, home! Oh, dear, dear, uncle, if you ever could have known the agony your love would cause me when I fell away from good, you would never have shown it to me so constant, much as you felt it. But you would have been angry with me at least once in my life that I might have had some comfort. I have none, none, no comfort upon earth, for all of them were always fond of me. She dropped on her face, before the imperious figure in the chair, with an imploring effort to clasp the skirt of her dress. Rosa Dardle sat looking down upon her, as inflexible as a figure of brass. Her lips were tightly compressed, as if she knew that she must keep a strong constraint upon herself. I write what I sincerely believe, or she would be tempted to strike the beautiful form with her foot. I saw her distinctly, and the whole power of her face and character seemed forced into that expression. Would he never come? The miserable vanity of these earthworms, she said, when she had so far controlled the angry heavings of her breast that she could trust herself to speak. Your home, do you imagine that I bestow a thought upon it, or suppose you could do any harm to that low place, which money would not pay for, and handsomely, your home? You were a part of the trade of your home, and you were bought and sold like any other vendible thing that people dealt in. Oh, not that, cried Emily. Say anything of me, but don't visit my disgrace and shame more than I have done on folks who are as honourable as you. Have some respect for them, as you are a lady if you have no mercy for me. I speak, she said, not daining to take any heat of this appeal, and drawing away her dress from the contamination of Emily's touch. I speak of his home, where I live. Here, she said, stretching out her hand, with her contemptuous laugh and looking down upon the prostrate girl, is a worthy cause of division between lady-mother and gentleman's son. Of grief in a house where she wouldn't have been admitted as a kitchen girl, of anger and repining and reproach, this piece of pollution picked up from the waterside to be made much of for an hour and then tossed back to her original place. No, no, cried Emily, clasping her hands together, when he first came into my way that the day had never dawned upon me, and he had met me being carried from my grave. I had been brought up as virtuous as you or any other lady, and was going to be the wife of as good a man as you or any lady in the world can ever marry. If you live in his home and know him, you know perhaps what his power with a weak-being girl might be. I don't defend myself, but I know well, and he knows well, or he will know well when he comes to die, and his mind is troubled with it, that he used all his power to deceive me, and that I believed him, trusted him, and loved him. Rosa Dardle sprang up from her seat, recoiled, and in recoiling struck at her with the face of such malignity, so darkened and disfigured by passion, that I had almost thrown myself between them. The blow which had no aim fell upon the air. As she now stood panting, looking at her with the utmost detestation that she was capable of expressing, and trembling from head to foot with rage and scorn, I thought I had never seen such a sight, and never could see such another. You love him, you, she cried with a clenched hand, quivering, as if she only wanted a weapon to stab the object of her wrath. Emily had shrunk out of my view. There was no reply. And tell that to me, she added, with your shameful lips. Why don't they whip these creatures? If I could order it to be done, I would have this girl whipped to death. And so she would. I have no doubt. I would not have trusted her with the wrack itself, while that furious look lasted. She slowly, very slowly, broke into a laugh, and pointed at Emily with her hand, as if it were a sight of shame for gods and men. She loved, she said, that carrion? And he ever cared for her? She'd tell me. Ha, ha, the liars that these traitors are. Her mockery was worse than her undisguised rage. Of the two, I would have much preferred to be the object of the latter. But when she severed it to break loose, it was only for a moment. She had chained it up again, and however it might tear within her, she subdued it to herself. I came here, you pure fountain of love, she said, to see, as I began by telling you, what such a thing as you was like. I was curious. I am satisfied. Also to tell you, that you had best seek that home of yours with all speed and hide your head among those excellent people who are expecting you, and whom your money will console. When it's all gone, you can believe and trust and love again, you know. I thought you a broken toy that had lasted its time, a worthless spangle that was tarnished and thrown away. But finding you true gold, a very lady and an ill-used innocent with a fresh heart full of love and trustfulness, which you look like, and is quite consistent with your story, I have something more to say. Attend to it. For what I say I'll do. Do you hear me, you fairy spirit? What I say I mean to do. Her rage got the better of her again for a moment, but it passed over her face like a spasm and left her smiling. Hide yourself, she pursued, if not at home, somewhere. Let it be somewhere beyond reach in some obscure life, or better still in some obscure death. I wonder if your loving heart will not break, you have found no way of helping it to be still. I have heard of such means sometimes. I believe they may be easily found. A low crying on the part of Emily interrupted her here, but she stopped and listened to it as if it were music. I am of a strange nature, perhaps, Miss Adardle went on, but I can't breathe freely in the air you breathe. I find it sickly. Therefore I will have it cleared. I will have it purified of you. If you live here tomorrow, I'll have your story and your character proclaimed on the common stare. There are decent women in the house, I am told, and it is a pity such a light as you should be among them and concealed. If, leaving here, you seek any refuge in this town and any character but your true one, which you are welcome to bear without molestation from me, the same service shall be done you, if I hear of your retreat. Being assisted by a gentleman who not long ago aspired to the favor of your hand, I am sanguine as to that. Would he never, never come? How long was I to bear this? How long could I bear it? Oh me, oh me, exclaimed the wretched Emily, in a tone that might have touched the hardest heart I should have thought. But there was no relenting in Rosa Adardle's smile. What, what shall I do? Do, returned the other, live happy in your own reflections. Consecrate your existence to the recollection of James Steerforth's tenderness. He would have made you his serving man's wife, would he not? Or to feeling grateful to the upright and deserving creature who would have taken you as his gift? Or if these proud remembrances and the consciousness of your own virtues and the honorable position to which they have raised you in the eyes of everything that wears the human shape will not sustain you, marry that good man, and be happy in his condescension? If this will not do either, die! There are doorways and dust heaps for such deaths and such despair. Find one, and take your flight to heaven. I heard a distant foot upon the stairs. I knew it. I was certain. It was his, thank God. She moved slowly from before the door when she said this, and passed out of my sight. But Mark, she added slowly and sternly, opening the other door to go away. I am resolved, for reasons that I have and hatreds that I entertain, to cast you out unless you withdraw from my reach altogether, or drop your pretty mask. This is what I had to say, and what I say I mean to do. The foot upon the stairs came nearer, nearer, and passed her as she went down, rushed into the room. Uncle! A fearful cry followed the word. I paused a moment and looked in, saw him supporting her insensible figure in his arms. He gazed for a few seconds in the face, then stooped to kiss it, oh how tenderly, and drew a handkerchief before it. Master Davy, he said, in a low tremulous voice, when it was covered, I thank my Heavenly Father as my dreams come true. I thank him heartily for having guided me in his own ways to my darling. With those words he took her up in his arms, and with the veiled face lying on his bosom, and addressed toward his own, carried her motionless and unconscious down the stairs. End of Chapter 50, recorded by Philip David in Canyon Country, California, Fall 2007. It was yet early in the morning of the following day, when as I was walking in my garden with my aunt, who took little other exercise now, being so much in attendance on my dear Dora, I was told that Mr. Peggady desired to speak with me. He came into the garden to meet me halfway, on my going towards the gate, and bared his head, as it was always his custom to do when he saw my aunt, for whom he had a high respect. I had been telling her all that had happened overnight. Without saying a word, she walked up with a cordial face, shook hands with him, and patted him on the arm. It was so expressively done that she had no need to say a word. Mr. Peggady understood her quite as well as if she had said a thousand. I'll go in now, trot, said my aunt, and look after little blossom, who will be getting up presently. Not along with my being here, mom, I hope, said Mr. Peggady. Unless my wits has gone a-bods-neezing, by which Mr. Peggady meant to say, birds nesting, this morning, tis along of me as you are going to quit us. You have something to say, my good friend, return my aunt, and will do better without me. By your leave, ma'am, return Mr. Peggady, I should take it kind, provising you don't mind my clickin' in, if you'd bide here. Would you, said my aunt, with short good nature, then I am sure I will. So she drew her arm through Mr. Peggady's, and walked with him to a leafy little summer house there was at the bottom of the garden, where she sat down on a bench, and I beside her. There was a seat for Mr. Peggady, too, but he preferred to stand, leaning his hand on the small, rustic table. As he stood, looking at his cap for a little while before beginning to speak, I could not help observing what power and force of character his sinewy hand expressed, and what a good and trusty companion it was to his honest brow and iron gray hair. I took my dear child away last night, Mr. Peggady began, as he raised his eyes to ours, to my lodging, where I have a long time been expecting of her and preparing for her. It was hours before she'd known me right, and when she did, she kneeled down at my feet, and kinder said to me, as if it was her prayers, how it all come to be. You may believe me when I heard her voice as I adhered at home so playful, and seen her humbled, as it might be in the dust our Savior wrote in with his blessed hand. I felt a wound go to my heart, in the midst of all its thankfulness. He drew his sleeve across his face, without any pretense of concealing why, and then cleared his voice. It weren't for long as I felt that, for she was found. I had only to think as she was found, and it was gone. I don't know why I do so much as mention of it now, I'm sure. I didn't have it in my mind a minute ago, to say a word about myself, but to come up so natural that I yielded to it before I was aware. You are a self-denying soul, said my aunt, and will have your reward. Mr. Peggady, with the shadows of the leaves playing a thwart to his face, made a surprised inclination of the head towards my aunt, as an acknowledgment of her good opinion. Then took up the thread he had relinquished. When my Emily took flight, he said, in stern wrath for the moment, from the house where she was made a prisoner by that there spotted snake as Mr. Davisey, and his story is true, and my God confound him. She took flight in the night. It was a dark night, with many stars as shining. She was wild. She ran along the sea-beach, believing the old boat was there, and calling out to us to turn away our faces, for she was a coming by. She heard herself a crying out, like as if it was another person, and cut herself on them sharp-pointed stones and rocks, and felt it no more than if she'd been a rock herself. Ever so first she run, and there was fire before her eyes, and roaring in her ears. Of a sudden, or so she thought, you understand, the day broke, wet and windy, and she was a lion below a heap of stones upon the shore, and a woman was speaking to her, saying, in the language of that country, what was it that had gone so much amiss? He saw everything he related. It passed before him, as he spoke, so vividly, that in the intensity of his earnestness, he presented what he described to me with greater distinctness than I can express. I can hardly believe, writing now long afterwards, but that I was actually present in these scenes. They are impressed upon me with such an astonishing air of fidelity. As Emily's eyes, which was heavy, see this woman better, said Mr. Pecadine went on. She noted she was one of them as she had often talked to you on the beach. For though she had run, as I have said, ever so fur in the night, she had often times wandered long ways, partly afoot, partly in boats and carriages, and noted all that country along the coast, miles and miles. She hadn't no children of her own, this woman, being a young wife, but she was looking to have one for long. It made my prayers go up to heaven that told be a happiness to her, and a comfort and an honor, all her life. May it love her and be dutiful to her in her old age, helpful of her at the last, an angel to her here and hereafter. I'm in, said my aunt. She had been somewhat timorous and down, said Mr. Pecadine, and had sat at first a little way off at her spinning, or such work as it was when Emily talked to the children. But Emily had took notice of her, and had gone and spoke to her, and as the young woman was partial to the children herself, they had soon made friends. So much so that when Emily went that way, she always gave Emily flowers. This was her who has now asked what it was that had gone so much amiss. Emily told her, and she took her home. She did indeed. She took her home, said Mr. Pecadine, covering his face. He was more affected by this act of kindness that I had ever seen him affected by anything since the night she went away. My aunt and I did not attempt to disturb him. It was a little cottage, you may suppose, he said presently, but she found space for Emily in it. Her husband was away at sea, and she kept it secret, and prevailed upon such neighbors as they had, there was not many near, to keep it secret too. Emily was took bad with fever, and what is very strange to me is, maybe it is not so strange to scholars, the language of that country went out of her head, and she could only speak her own that no one understood. She recollects as if she had dreamed it, that she lay there always a talk in her own tongue, always believing as the old boat was round the next pint in the bay, and begging and imploring of them to send there, and tell how she was dying, and bring back a message of forgiveness, if it was only a word. Almost the whole time she thought, now that him, as I made mention on just now, was lurking for her underneath the winter, now that him as it brought her to this was in the room, and cried to the good young woman not to give her up, and knowed at the same time that she couldn't understand, and dreaded that she must be took away. Likewise the fire was afore her eyes, and the roaring's in her ears, and there was no today, nor yesterday, nor yet tomorrow, but everything in her life has ever been, or has ever could be, and everything has never had been, and has never could be, was a crowding on her at all at once, and nothing clear nor welcome, and yet she sang and laughed about it. How long this lasted, I don't know, but then there come a sleep, and in that sleep from being a many times stronger than her own self, she fell into the weakness of the littlest child. Here he stopped as if for relief from the terrors of his own description. After being silent for a few moments, he pursued his story. It was a pleasant afternoon when she awoke, and so quiet that there weren't a sound but the rippling of that blue sea without a tide upon the shore. It was her belief at first that she was at home upon a Sunday morning, but the vine leaves as she seeeth the winter, and the hills beyond weren't home, and contradicted of her. Then come in her friend to watch alongside of her bed, and then she noticed the old boat weren't around the next point in the bay no more, but was fur off, and know'd where she was, and why, and broke out a cryin' on that good young woman's bosom, where I hope her baby's a lion now, a cheerin' of her with its pretty eyes. He could not speak of this good friend of Imley's without a flow of tears. It was in vain to try. He broke down again, endeavouring to bless her. That done my Imley good, he resumed, after such emotion as I could not behold without sharing in, and as to my aunt, she wept with all her heart. That done Imley good, and she began to mend. But the language of that country was quite gone from her, and she was forced to make signs. So she went on, getting better from day to day, slow but sure, and trying to learn the names of common things. Names that she seemed never to have heard in all her life. Till one evening come, when she was a setting at her window, looking at a little girl at play upon the beach. And of a sudden this child held out her hand and said, What would be in English? Fisherman's daughter, here's a shell. For you are to understand that they used to call her at first pretty lady, as the general way in that country is, and she had taught them to call her Fisherman's daughter instead. The child says of a sudden, Fisherman's daughter, here's a shell. Then Imley understands her, and she answers, bristing out a crying, and it all comes back. When Imley got strong again, said Mr. Pegadie, after another short interval of silence, she cast about to leave that good young creature, and get to her own country. The husband was come home then, and the two together put her aboard a small trader bound to Leghorn, and from that to France. She had a little money, but it was less than little as they would take for all they'd done. And Mama's glad on it, though they were so poor. What they'd done is laid up her near the moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where these do not break through nor steal. Master Davy, it'll outlast all the treasure in the world. Imley got to France, and took service to wait on traveling ladies at an inn in the port. There, there come one day that snake. Let him never come nigh me, I don't know what hurt I might do him. Soon as she see him, without him see in her, all her fear and wellness returned upon her, and she fled afore the very breath he drawed. She come to England, and was set ashore at Dover. I don't know, said Mr. Pegadie, for sure, when her art began to fail her. But all the way to England, she had thought to come to her dear home. Soon as she got to England, she turned her face towards it. But fear of not being forgave, fear of being painted at, fear of some of us being dead along of her, fear of many things turned her from it, kinder by force, upon the road. Uncle, uncle, she says to me, the fear of not being worthy to do what my torn and bleeding breath so long to do, was the most frightening fear of all. I turned back when my art was full of prayers that I might crawl to the old doorstep in the night, kiss it, lay my wicked face upon it, and there be found dead in the morning. She comes, said Mr. Pegadie, dropping his voice to an ostrich and whisper, to London. She is a never seen it in her life, alone, without a penny. Young, so pretty, come to London. Almost the moment she lighted here, also desolate, she found, as she believed, a friend. A decent woman has spoke to her about the needlework as she had been brought up to do, about finding plenty of it for her, about allodging for the night, and making secret incarceration concerning of me and all at home, tomorrow. When my child, he settled out, and with an energy of gratitude that shook him from head to foot, stood upon the brink of more than I can say or think on, Martha, chewed to her promise, saved her. I could not repress a cry of joy. Master Davies, said he, gripping my hand in that strong hand of his. It was you, his first made mention of her to me. I thank you, sir. She was earnest. She know of her bitter knowledge, weird to watch, and what to do. She had done it, and the Lord was above all. She come, white and hurried upon Emily in her sleep. She says to her, Rise up from worse than death, and come with me. Them belonging to the house would have stopped her, but they might as soon have stopped the sea. Stand away from me, she says. I am a ghost that calls her from beside her open grave. She told Emily she had seen me, and knowed I loved her and forgiver. She wrapped her hasty in her clothes. She took her faint and trembling on her arm. She heeded no more what they said than if she had had no ears. She walked among them with my child, minding only her, and brought her safe out in the dead of the night from that black pit of ruin. She attended on Emily, said Mr. Pegady, who had released my hand and put his own on his heaving chest. She attended to my Emily, lying wearied out and wandering betricksed wiles till late next day. Then she went in search of me. Then in search of you, Master Davy, she didn't tell Emily what she come out for. Lester Art should fail, and she should think of hiding herself. How the cruel lady knowed of her being there, I can't say. Whether him as I have spoke so much of, chance to see him going there, or whether, which is most like to my thinking, he had heard it from the woman. I don't greatly ask myself. My niece is found. All night long, said Mr. Pegady, we have been together, Emily and me, to as little considering the time as she has said, in words, through them broken-hearted tears, to as less as I have seen of her dear face has grown into a woman's at my hearth. But all night long her arms has been about my neck, and her head is laid here, and we know as full well as we can put our trust in one another ever more. He ceased to speak, and his hand upon the table rested there in perfect repose, with a resolution in it that might have conquered lions. It was a gleam of light upon me, trot, said my aunt, drawing her eyes, when I formed the resolution of being godmother to your sister, Betsy Trotwood, who disappointed me. But next to that, hardly anything would have given me greater pleasure than to be godmother to that good young creature's baby. Mr. Pegady ignored his understanding of my aunt's feelings, but could not trust himself with any verbal reference to the subject of her commendation. We all remained silent and occupied with our own reflections, my aunt drawing her eyes, and now sobbing convulsively, and now laughing and calling herself a fool, until I spoke. You have quite made up your mind, I said to Mr. Pegady, as to the future good friend, I need scarcely ask you. Quite, Master David, he returned, and told Emily, there's mighty countries far from here. Our future life lays over the sea. They will immigrate together, aunt, said I. Yes, said Mr. Pegady, with a hopeful smile. No one can't reproach my darling in Australia. We will begin a new life over there. I asked him if he had yet proposed to himself any time for going away. I was down at the docks early this morning, sir, he returned, to get information concerning of them ships. In about six weeks or two months from now, they'll be one sailing. I see her this morning, when aboard, and we shall take our passage in her. Quite alone, I asked. I, Master David, he returned. My sister, you see, she's that fond of you and your, and that accustomed to think only of her own country, that it wouldn't be hardly fair to let her go. Besides which, there's one she hasn't charged, Master David, as done ought to be forgot. Poor Ham, said I. My good sister takes care of his house, you see, ma'am, and he takes kindly to her, Mr. Pegady explained for my aunt's better information. He'll sit and talk to her, with a calm spirit, when it's like he couldn't bring himself to open his lips to another. Poor fellow, said Mr. Pegady, shaking his head. There's not so much left him, that he could spare the little as he has. And Mrs. Gummidge, said I. Well, I've had a moored of consideration, I do tell you, returned Mr. Pegady, with a perplexed look which gradually cleared, as he went on, concerning of Mrs. Gummidge. You see, when Mrs. Gummidge falls a thinking of the olden, she ain't what you may call good company. Ptwixt you and me, Master David, and you, ma'am, when Mrs. Gummidge takes to whimicking, our old country word for crying, she is liable to be considered to be, by them as didn't know the olden, peevish-like. Now, I did know the olden, said Mr. Pegady, and I knowed his merits, so I understand her. But tant entirely so, you see, with others, naturally can't be. My aunts and I both acquiesced. We're by, said Mr. Pegady, my sister might, I don't say she would, but might, find Mrs. Gummidge, give her a little trouble now and again. Therefore, taint my intentions to moor Mrs. Gummidge along with them, but to find a bein for her where she can fissureate for herself. A bein signifies, in that dialect, a home, and to fissureate is to provide. For which purpose, said Mr. Pegady, I mean to make her allowance before I go, as a lever pretty comfortable. She is the faithfulest of creatures. Taint to be expected, of course, at her time of life, and being lone and lorn, as the good old mother is to be knocked about a board ship, and in the woods and wilds of a new and fur away country. So that's what I'ma gonna do with her. He forgot nobody. He thought of everybody's claims and strivings, but his own. Imly, he continued, will keep along with me, for a child, she soar in need of peace and rest, until such time as we go is upon our voyage. She'll work at them clothes as must be made, and I hope her troubles will begin to seem longer ago than they was, when she finds herself once more by her rough but loving uncle. My aunt nodded confirmation of this hope, and imparted great satisfaction to Mr. Pegady. There's one thing further, Master Davy, said he, putting his hand in his breast pocket, and gravely taking out the little paper bundle I had seen before, which he unrolled on the table. There's these here banknotes, fifty pound and ten. To them I wish to add the money as she came away with. I've asked her about that, but not saying why, and I've added of it up. I aunt a scholar. Would you be so kind as to see how it is? He handed me, apologetically for his scholarship, a piece of paper, and observed me while I looked it over. It was quite right. Thank you, sirs, said he, taking it back. This money, if you don't see objections, Master Davy, I shall put up just before I go, in a cover directed to him, and put that up in another directed to his mother. I shall tell her, in no more words than I speak to you, what it's the price on, and that I'm gone and past receiving of it back. I told him that I thought it would be right to do so, that I was thoroughly convinced it would be, since he felt it to be right. I said that there was only one thing ferdy he proceeded with a grave smile, when he made up his little bundle again, and put it in his pocket. But there was two. I wasn't sure in my mind, when I come out this morning, as I could go and break to him of my own self, what had so thankfully happened. So I read a letter while I was out, and put it in the post office, telling of him how all was as tis, and that I should come down tomorrow to unload my mind of what little needs a doing of down there, and most like, take my farewell leave of Yarmuth. And do you wish me to go with you, said I, seeing as he left something unsaid? If you could do me that kind favor, Master Davy, he replied, I know the sight of you would cheer him up a bit. My little Dora being in good spirits, and very desirous that I should go, as I found on talking it over with her, I readily pledged myself to accompany him in accordance with his wish. Next morning, consequently, we were on the Yarmuth coach, and again traveling over the old ground. As we passed along the familiar streets at night, Mr. Pegatey, and despite of all my remonstrances carrying my bag, I glanced into Omer and Joram shop, and saw my old friend Mr. Omer there, smoking his pipe. I felt reluctant to be present when Mr. Pegatey first met his sister in Ham, and made Mr. Omer my excuse for lingering behind. How is Mr. Omer, after this long time, said I, going in? He fanned away the smoke of his pipe, that he might get a better view of me, and soon recognized me with great delight. I should get absurd to acknowledge such an honor as this visit, said he, all in my limbs are rather out of sorts, and I am willed about. With the exception of my limbs and my breath, how so ever, I am as hardy as a man can be, I am thankful to say. I congratulated him on his contented looks and his good spirits, and saw, now, that his easy chair went on wheels. It's an ingenious thing, ain't it? He inquired, following the direction of my glance, and polishing the elbow with his arm. It runs as light as a feather, and tracks as true as a male coach. Bless you, my little Minnie, my granddaughter, you know, Minnie's child. Puts her little strength against the back, gives it a shove, and away we go, as clever and merry as ever you see anything. And I tell you what, it's the most uncommon chair to smoke a pipe in. I never saw such a good old fellow to make the best of a thing, and find out the enjoyment of it is Mr. Omer. He was as radiant as if his chair, his asthma, and the failure of his limbs, were the various branches of a great invention for enhancing the luxury of a pipe. I see more of the world I can assure you, said Mr. Omer, in this chair than I ever see out of it. You'd be surprised at the number of people that looks in of a day to have a chat. You really would. There's twice as much in the newspaper, since I've taken to this chair as there used to be, as to general reading, dear me, what a lot of it I do get through. That's what I feel so strong, you know. If it had been my eyes, what should I have done? If it had been my ears, what should I have done? Being my limbs, what does it signify? Why, my limbs only made my breath shorter when I used them. And now, if I want to go out into the street, or down to the sands, I've only got to call Dick, Jorm's youngest apprentice, and away I go in my own carriage, like the Lord Mayor of London. He half suffocated himself with laughter here. Lord bless you, said Mr. Omer, resuming his pipe. A man must take the fat with the lean. That's what he must make up his mind to in this life. Jorm does a fine business. Excellent business. I am very glad to hear it, said I. I knew you would be, said Mr. Omer, and Jorm and many are like valentines. What more can a man expect? What's his limbs to that? His supreme contempt for his own limbs, as he sat smoking, was one of the pleasantest oddities I have ever encountered. And since I've took to general reading, you've took to general writing, as, sir, said Mr. Omer, surveying me admiringly. What a lovely work that was of yours. What expressions in it? I read it every word, every word, and as to feeling sleepy? Not at all. I laughingly expressed my satisfaction, but I must confess that I thought this association of ideas significant. I give you my word and honor, sir, said Mr. Omer, that when I lay that book upon the table and look at it outside, compact in three separate and individual volumes. One, two, three. I am as proud as punched to think that I once had the honor of being connected with your family. And dear me, it's a long time ago now, ain't it? Over at Blunderstone, with a pretty little party laid along with the other party, and you quite a small party then yourself. Dear, dear, I changed the subject by referring to Emily. After assuring him that I did not forget how interested he'd always been in her, and how kindly he'd always treated her, I gave him a general account of her restoration to her uncle by the aid of Martha, which I knew would please the old man. He listened with the utmost attention, and said feelingly when I had done, I'm rejoiced at it, sir. It's the best news I've heard for many a day. Dear, dear, dear. And what's going to be undertook for that unfortunate young woman, Martha, now? You touch a point that my thoughts have been dwelling on since yesterday, said I, but on which I can give you no information yet, Mr. Omer. Mr. Pagody is not alluded to it, and I have a delicacy in doing so. I am sure he has not forgotten it. He forgets nothing that is disinterested and good. Because you know, said Mr. Omer, taking himself up where he had left off, whatever is done I should wish to be a member of. Put me down for anything you may consider right, and let me know. I never could think the girl all bad, and I'm glad to find she's not. So will my daughter Minnie be. Young women are contradictory creatures in some things. Her mother was just the same as her. But their hearts are soft and kind. It's all show with Minnie about Martha. Why she should consider it necessary to make any show? I don't undertake to tell you. But it's all show, bless you. She'd do her any kindness in private. So put me down for whatever you may consider right. Will you be so good? And drop me a line where I work to forward it. Dear me, said Mr. Omer, when a man is drawing on to a time of life where the two ends of life meet, when he finds himself, however hardy he is, being wheeled about for the second time, and his speeches of go-kart, he should be over rejoiced to do a kindness if he can. He wants plenty. And I don't speak of myself particular, said Mr. Omer, because, sir, the way I look at it is, that we are all drawing on to the bottom of the hill, whatever age we are, on the count of time never standing still for a single moment. So let us always do a kindness and be over rejoiced, to be sure. He knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and put it on a ledge in the back of his chair, expressly made for its reception. There's Emily's cousin, him that she was to have been married to, said Mr. Omer, rubbing his hands feebly. As fine a fellow as there is in Yarmouth, he'll come and talk or read to me in the evening, for an hour together sometimes. That's a kindness, I should call it. All is life's a kindness. I am going to see him now, said I. Are you, said Mr. Omer, tell him I was hardy and sent my respects? Many endure them at a ball. They would be as proud to see you as I am, if they was at home. Many won't hardly go out at all, you see, on account of father, as she says. So I swore to-night that if she didn't go, I'd go to bed at six. In consequence of which, Mr. Omer shook himself in his chair with laughter at the success of his device, she and jorms at a ball. I shook hands with him and wished him good night. Half a minute, sir, said Mr. Omer, if he was to go without seeing my little elephant, you'd lose the best of sights. You never see such a sight. Many! A musical little voice answered, from somewhere upstairs, I am coming, grandfather, and a pretty little girl with long, flaxen-curling hair soon came running into the shop. This is my little elephant, sir, said Mr. Omer, fondling the child. Siamese breeds, sir. Now little elephant. The little elephant set the door of the parlor open, enabling me to see that, in these later days, it was converted into a bedroom for Mr. Omer, who could not be easily conveyed upstairs, and then hid her pretty forehead and tumbled her long hair against the back of Mr. Omer's chair. The elephant butts, you know, sir, said Mr. Omer, winking, when he goes at an object, once elephant, twice, three times. At this signal, the little elephant, with a dexterity that was next to marvelous and so small an animal, whisked the chair around with Mr. Omer in it, and rattled it off, pel-mel into the parlor, without touching the doorpost. Mr. Omer, indescribably enjoying the performance, and looking back at me on the road as if it were the triumphant issue of his life's exertions. After a stroll about the town, I went to Ham's house. Pegatee had now removed here for good, and had let her own house to the successor of Mr. Barkus in the carrying business, who had paid her very well for the goodwill, cart, and horse. I believe the very same slow horse that Mr. Barkus drove was still at work. I found them in the neat kitchen, accompanied by Mrs. Gummage, who had been fetched from the old boat by Mr. Pegatee himself. I doubt if she could have been induced to desert her post by anyone else. He had evidently told them all. Both Pegatee and Mrs. Gummage had their aprons to their eyes, and Ham had just stepped out to take a turn on the beach. He presently came home, very glad to see me, and I hoped they were all the better for my being there. We spoke with some approach to cheerfulness of Mr. Pegatee's growing rich in a new country, and of the wonders he would describe in his letters. We said nothing of Emily by name, but distantly referred to her more than once. Ham was the serenest of the party. But Pegatee told me, when she lighted me to the little chamber where the crocodile book was lying ready for me on the table, that he was always the same. She believed, she told me, crying, that he was broken-hearted, though he was as full of courage as of sweetness, and worked harder and better than any bolt-builder in any yard in all that part. There were times, she said, of an evening when he talked of their old life in the boat-house, and then he mentioned Emily as a child. But he never mentioned her as a woman. I thought I had read in his face that he would like to speak to me alone. I therefore resolved to put myself in his way next evening, as he came home from his work. Having settled this with myself, I fell asleep. That night, for the first time in all those many nights, the candle was taken out of the window. Mr. Pegatee swung in his old hammock in the old boat, and the wind murmured with the old sound round his head. All next day he was occupied in disposing of his fishing boat and tackle, and packing up and sending to London by wagon, such of his little domestic possessions as he thought would be useful to him, and imparting with the rest, or bestowing them on Mrs. Gummidge. She was with him all day. As I had a sorrowful wish to see the old place once more before it was locked up, I engaged to meet them there in the evening, but I so arranged it as that I should meet him first. It was easy to come in his way as I knew where he worked. I met him at a retired part of the sands which I knew he would cross, and turned back with him that he might have leisure to speak with me if he really wished. I had not mistaken the expression of his face. We had walked but a little way together when he said without looking at me. Master Davy, have you seen her? Only for a moment when she was in a swoon, I softly answered. We walked a little further and he said, Master Davy, shall you see her, do you think? It would be too painful to her perhaps, said I. I have thought of that, he replied. So twid, sir, so twid. But ham, said I gently, if there is anything that I could write to her for you, in case I could not tell it, if there is anything you would wish to make known to her through me, I should consider it a sacred trust. I am sure on it. I thank ye, sir, most kind. I think there is something I could wish said or wrote. What is it? We walked a little farther in silence, and then he spoke. Tenth that I forgive her. Tenth that so much. Tis more as I beg of her to forgive me for having pressed my affections upon her. Odd times I think that if I hadn't had her promise for her to marry me, sir, she was that trustful of me, in a friendly way, that she'd have told me what was struggling in her mind, and would have counseled with me, and I might have saved her. I pressed his hand. Is that all? There is yet something else, he returned, if I can say it, Master Davy. We walked on, farther than we had walked yet, before he spoke again. He was not crying when he made the pauses I shall express by lines. He was merely collecting himself to speak very plainly. I loved her, and I loved the memory of her, too deep, to be able to lead her to believe of my own self as I am a happy man. I could only be happy, by forgetting of her, and I am a fear that I couldn't hardly bear as she should be told I had done that. But if you, being so full of learning, Master Davy, could think of anything to say as might bring her to believe I wasn't greatly hurt, still loving of her, and mourning for her, anything as might bring her to believe as I was not tired of my life, and yet was hoping for her to see her without blame, where the wicked cease from troubling, and the wearier at rest. Anything as would ease her sorrowful mind, and yet not make her think as I could ever marry, or as was possible that anyone could ever be to me what she was. I should ask of you to say that, with my prayers for her, that was so dear. I pressed his manly hand again, and told him I would charge myself to do this as well as I could. I thank you, sir, he answered, to his kind of you to meet me, to his kind of you to bear him company down. Master Davy, I understand very well that my aunt will come to London before they sail, and they'll unite once more, that I am not likely to see him again. I fear to feel sure on it. We don't say so, but so it will be, and better so. The last you see on him, the very last, will you give him the lovingest duty and thanks of the orphan, as he was ever more than a father to. This I also promised faithfully. I thank you again, sir, said he, heartily shaking hands. I know where you are going. Good-bye. With a slight wave of his hand, as though to explain to me that he could not enter the old place, he turned away. As I looked after his figure, crossing the waste in the moonlight, I saw him turn his face toward a strip of silvery light upon the sea, and pass on, looking at it, until he was a shadow in the distance. The door of the boat-house stood open when I approached, and on entering I found it emptied of all its furniture, saving one of the old lockers, on which Mrs. Gummidge, with a basket on her knee, was seated, looking at Mr. Pegadie. He leaned his elbow on the rough chimney piece, and gazed upon a few expiring embers in the grate. But he raised his head, hopefully, on my coming in, and spoke in a cheery manner. Come, according to promise, to bid farewell to it, and, Master Davy, he said, taking up the candle. Bear enough now, and it. Indeed, you have made good use of the time, said I. Why, we have not been idle, sir. Mrs. Gummidge has worked like a— I don't know what Mrs. Gummidge ant worked like, said Mr. Pegadie, looking at her, at a loss for a sufficiently approving simile. Mrs. Gummidge, leaning on her basket, made no observation. There is the very locker that you used to sit on, along with Emily, said Mr. Pegadie, in a whisper. I am going to carry it away with me, last of all. And here is your old little bedroom, see, Master Davy? Almost as bleak tonight as art could wish. In truth, the wind, though it was low, had a solemn sound, and crept around the deserted house with a whispered wailing that was very mournful. Everything was gone, down to the little mirror with the oyster-shell frame. I thought of myself, flying here, when that first great change was being wrought at home. I thought of the blue-eyed child who had enchanted me. I thought of Steerforth, and a foolish, fearful fancy came upon me of his being near at hand, and liable to be met at any turn. "'Tis like to be long,' said Mr. Pegadie, in a low voice, before the boat finds new tenants. They look upon it down here, as being unfortunate now. "'Does it belong to anybody in the neighborhood?' I asked. "'To a mast-maker uptown,' said Mr. Pegadie. I'm going to give the key to him tonight.' We looked into the other little room, and came back to Mrs. Gummidge, sitting on the locker, who Mr. Pegadie, putting the light on the chimney-piece, requested to rise, that he might carry it outside the door before extinguishing the candle. "'Dannel,' said Mrs. Gummidge, suddenly deserting her basket and clinging to his arm, "'My dear Dannel, the parting words I speak in this house is, I mustn't be left behind. Don't you think of leaving me behind, Daniel? Oh, don't you ever do it!' Mr. Pegadie, taken aback, looked for Mrs. Gummidge to me, and for me to Mrs. Gummidge, as if he had been awakened from asleep. "'Don't you, dearest Daniel, don't you,' said Mrs. Gummidge, fervently. "'Take me along with you, Daniel. Take me along with you and Emily. I'll be your servant, constant and true. If there are slaves in them parts where you are going, I'll be bound to you for one and happy. But don't you leave me behind, Daniel, and that's a dearie-deer.' "'My good soul,' said Mr. Pegadie, shaking his head, you don't know what a long voyage and what a hard life it is.' "'Yes, I do, Daniel. I can guess,' cried Mrs. Gummidge, but my parting words under this roof is, I shall go into the house and die if I am not took. I can dig, Daniel. I can work. I can live hard. I can be loving and patient now. More than you think, Daniel, if only you'll try me. I wouldn't touch the allowance, not if I was dying of want, Daniel Pegadie. But I'll go with you and Emily, if you'll only let me, to the world's end. I know how tis. I know you think that I am lone and lorn, but dearie-love, tense so no more. I ain't sat here so long or watching, and a thinking of your trials, without some good being done me. Master Davies, speak to him for me. I know his ways and Emily's, and I know their sorrows, and can be a comfort to him, some odd times, and labor for him always. Daniel, dearie Daniel, let me go along with you. And Mrs. Gummidge took his hand, and kissed it with a homely pathos and affection, in a homely rapture of devotion and gratitude, that he well deserved. We brought the locker out, extinguished the candle, fastened the door on the outside, and left the old boat closed shut up, a dark speck in the cloudy night. Next day, when we were returning to London, outside the coach, Mrs. Gummidge and her basket were on the seat behind, and Mrs. Gummidge was happy.