No More Learning

)'

Miss Mills and her journal were my sole consolation at this period.
To see her, who had seen Dora but a little while before--to trace the
initial letter of Dora's name through her sympathetic pages--to be made
more and more miserable by her--were my only comforts. I felt as if I
had been living in a palace of cards, which had tumbled down, leaving
only Miss Mills and me among the ruins; I felt as if some grim enchanter
had drawn a magic circle round the innocent goddess of my heart, which
nothing indeed but those same strong pinions, capable of carrying so
many people over so much, would enable me to enter!



CHAPTER 39. WICKFIELD AND HEEP


My aunt, beginning, I imagine, to be made seriously uncomfortable by my
prolonged dejection, made a pretence of being anxious that I should go
to Dover, to see that all was working well at the cottage, which was
let; and to conclude an agreement, with the same tenant, for a longer
term of occupation. Janet was drafted into the service of Mrs. Strong,
where I saw her every day. She had been undecided, on leaving Dover,
whether or no to give the finishing touch to that renunciation of
mankind in which she had been educated, by marrying a pilot; but she
decided against that venture. Not so much for the sake of principle, I
believe, as because she happened not to like him.

Although it required an effort to leave Miss Mills, I fell rather
willingly into my aunt's pretence, as a means of enabling me to pass a
few tranquil hours with Agnes. I consulted the good Doctor relative
to an absence of three days; and the Doctor wishing me to take that
relaxation,--he wished me to take more; but my energy could not bear
that,--I made up my mind to go.

As to the Commons, I had no great occasion to be particular about my
duties in that quarter. To say the truth, we were getting in no very
good odour among the tip-top proctors, and were rapidly sliding down
to but a doubtful position. The business had been indifferent under Mr.
jorkins, before Mr. Spenlow's time; and although it had been quickened
by the infusion of new blood, and by the display which Mr. Spenlow made,
still it was not established on a sufficiently strong basis to bear,
without being shaken, such a blow as the sudden loss of its active
manager. It fell off very much. Mr. jorkins, notwithstanding his
reputation in the firm, was an easy-going, incapable sort of man, whose
reputation out of doors was not calculated to back it up. I was turned
over to him now, and when I saw him take his snuff and let the business
go, I regretted my aunt's thousand pounds more than ever.

But this was not the worst of it. There were a number of hangers-on and
outsiders about the Commons, who, without being proctors themselves,
dabbled in common-form business, and got it done by real proctors, who
lent their names in consideration of a share in the spoil;--and there
were a good many of these too. As our house now wanted business on any
terms, we joined this noble band; and threw out lures to the hangers-on
and outsiders, to bring their business to us. Marriage licences and
small probates were what we all looked for, and what paid us best;
and the competition for these ran very high indeed. Kidnappers and
inveiglers were planted in all the avenues of entrance to the Commons,
with instructions to do their utmost to cut off all persons in mourning,
and all gentlemen with anything bashful in their appearance, and entice
them to the offices in which their respective employers were interested;
which instructions were so well observed, that I myself, before I was
known by sight, was twice hustled into the premises of our principal
opponent. The conflicting interests of these touting gentlemen being of
a nature to irritate their feelings, personal collisions took place;
and the Commons was even scandalized by our principal inveigler (who
had formerly been in the wine trade, and afterwards in the sworn brokery
line) walking about for some days with a black eye. Any one of these
scouts used to think nothing of politely assisting an old lady in
black out of a vehicle, killing any proctor whom she inquired for,
representing his employer as the lawful successor and representative of
that proctor, and bearing the old lady off (sometimes greatly affected)
to his employer's office. Many captives were brought to me in this way.
As to marriage licences, the competition rose to such a pitch, that a
shy gentleman in want of one, had nothing to do but submit himself
to the first inveigler, or be fought for, and become the prey of the
strongest. One of our clerks, who was an outsider, used, in the height
of this contest, to sit with his hat on, that he might be ready to rush
out and swear before a surrogate any victim who was brought in. The
system of inveigling continues, I believe, to this day. The last time I
was in the Commons, a civil able-bodied person in a white apron pounced
out upon me from a doorway, and whispering the word 'Marriage-licence'
in my ear, was with great difficulty prevented from taking me up in
his arms and lifting me into a proctor's. From this digression, let me
proceed to Dover.

I found everything in a satisfactory state at the cottage; and was
enabled to gratify my aunt exceedingly by reporting that the tenant
inherited her feud, and waged incessant war against donkeys. Having
settled the little business I had to transact there, and slept there one
night, I walked on to Canterbury early in the morning. It was now
winter again; and the fresh, cold windy day, and the sweeping downland,
brightened up my hopes a little.

Coming into Canterbury, I loitered through the old streets with a sober
pleasure that calmed my spirits, and eased my heart. There were the old
signs, the old names over the shops, the old people serving in them. It
appeared so long, since I had been a schoolboy there, that I wondered
the place was so little changed, until I reflected how little I
was changed myself. Strange to say, that quiet influence which was
inseparable in my mind from Agnes, seemed to pervade even the city where
she dwelt. The venerable cathedral towers, and the old jackdaws and
rooks whose airy voices made them more retired than perfect silence
would have done; the battered gateways, one stuck full with statues,
long thrown down, and crumbled away, like the reverential pilgrims
who had gazed upon them; the still nooks, where the ivied growth of
centuries crept over gabled ends and ruined walls; the ancient houses,
the pastoral landscape of field, orchard, and garden; everywhere--on
everything--I felt the same serener air, the same calm, thoughtful,
softening spirit.

Arrived at Mr. Wickfield's house, I found, in the little lower room on
the ground floor, where Uriah Heep had been of old accustomed to sit,
Mr. Micawber plying his pen with great assiduity. He was dressed in a
legal-looking suit of black, and loomed, burly and large, in that small
office.

Mr. Micawber was extremely glad to see me, but a little confused too.
He would have conducted me immediately into the presence of Uriah, but I
declined.

'I know the house of old, you recollect,' said I, 'and will find my way
upstairs. How do you like the law, Mr. Micawber? '

'My dear Copperfield,' he replied. 'To a man possessed of the higher
imaginative powers, the objection to legal studies is the amount of
detail which they involve. Even in our professional correspondence,'
said Mr. Micawber, glancing at some letters he was writing, 'the mind is
not at liberty to soar to any exalted form of expression. Still, it is a
great pursuit. A great pursuit! '

He then told me that he had become the tenant of Uriah Heep's old house;
and that Mrs. Micawber would be delighted to receive me, once more,
under her own roof.

'It is humble,' said Mr. Micawber, '--to quote a favourite expression
of my friend Heep; but it may prove the stepping-stone to more ambitious
domiciliary accommodation. '

I asked him whether he had reason, so far, to be satisfied with his
friend Heep's treatment of him? He got up to ascertain if the door were
close shut, before he replied, in a lower voice:

'My dear Copperfield, a man who labours under the pressure of pecuniary
embarrassments, is, with the generality of people, at a disadvantage.
That disadvantage is not diminished, when that pressure necessitates the
drawing of stipendiary emoluments, before those emoluments are strictly
due and payable. All I can say is, that my friend Heep has responded
to appeals to which I need not more particularly refer, in a manner
calculated to redound equally to the honour of his head, and of his
heart. '

'I should not have supposed him to be very free with his money either,'
I observed.

'Pardon me! ' said Mr. Micawber, with an air of constraint, 'I speak of
my friend Heep as I have experience. '

'I am glad your experience is so favourable,' I returned.

'You are very obliging, my dear Copperfield,' said Mr. Micawber; and
hummed a tune.

'Do you see much of Mr. Wickfield? ' I asked, to change the subject.

'Not much,' said Mr. Micawber, slightingly. 'Mr. Wickfield is, I dare
say, a man of very excellent intentions; but he is--in short, he is
obsolete. '

'I am afraid his partner seeks to make him so,' said I.

'My dear Copperfield! ' returned Mr. Micawber, after some uneasy
evolutions on his stool, 'allow me to offer a remark! I am here, in
a capacity of confidence. I am here, in a position of trust. The
discussion of some topics, even with Mrs. Micawber herself (so long the
partner of my various vicissitudes, and a woman of a remarkable lucidity
of intellect), is, I am led to consider, incompatible with the functions
now devolving on me. I would therefore take the liberty of suggesting
that in our friendly intercourse--which I trust will never be
disturbed! --we draw a line. On one side of this line,' said Mr.
Micawber, representing it on the desk with the office ruler, 'is the
whole range of the human intellect, with a trifling exception; on
the other, IS that exception; that is to say, the affairs of Messrs
Wickfield and Heep, with all belonging and appertaining thereunto. I
trust I give no offence to the companion of my youth, in submitting this
proposition to his cooler judgement? '

Though I saw an uneasy change in Mr. Micawber, which sat tightly on
him, as if his new duties were a misfit, I felt I had no right to be
offended. My telling him so, appeared to relieve him; and he shook hands
with me.

'I am charmed, Copperfield,' said Mr. Micawber, 'let me assure you, with
Miss Wickfield. She is a very superior young lady, of very remarkable
attractions, graces, and virtues. Upon my honour,' said Mr. Micawber,
indefinitely kissing his hand and bowing with his genteelest air, 'I do
Homage to Miss Wickfield! Hem! ' 'I am glad of that, at least,' said I.

'If you had not assured us, my dear Copperfield, on the occasion of that
agreeable afternoon we had the happiness of passing with you, that D.
was your favourite letter,' said Mr. Micawber, 'I should unquestionably
have supposed that A. had been so. '

We have all some experience of a feeling, that comes over us
occasionally, of what we are saying and doing having been said and done
before, in a remote time--of our having been surrounded, dim ages ago,
by the same faces, objects, and circumstances--of our knowing perfectly
what will be said next, as if we suddenly remembered it! I never had
this mysterious impression more strongly in my life, than before he
uttered those words.

I took my leave of Mr. Micawber, for the time, charging him with my best
remembrances to all at home. As I left him, resuming his stool and his
pen, and rolling his head in his stock, to get it into easier writing
order, I clearly perceived that there was something interposed between
him and me, since he had come into his new functions, which prevented
our getting at each other as we used to do, and quite altered the
character of our intercourse.

There was no one in the quaint old drawing-room, though it presented
tokens of Mrs. Heep's whereabouts. I looked into the room still
belonging to Agnes, and saw her sitting by the fire, at a pretty
old-fashioned desk she had, writing.

My darkening the light made her look up. What a pleasure to be the cause
of that bright change in her attentive face, and the object of that
sweet regard and welcome!

'Ah, Agnes! ' said I, when we were sitting together, side by side; 'I
have missed you so much, lately! '

'Indeed? ' she replied. 'Again! And so soon? '

I shook my head.

'I don't know how it is, Agnes; I seem to want some faculty of mind that
I ought to have. You were so much in the habit of thinking for me, in
the happy old days here, and I came so naturally to you for counsel and
support, that I really think I have missed acquiring it. '

'And what is it? ' said Agnes, cheerfully.

'I don't know what to call it,' I replied. 'I think I am earnest and
persevering? '

'I am sure of it,' said Agnes.

'And patient, Agnes? ' I inquired, with a little hesitation.

'Yes,' returned Agnes, laughing. 'Pretty well. '

'And yet,' said I, 'I get so miserable and worried, and am so unsteady
and irresolute in my power of assuring myself, that I know I must
want--shall I call it--reliance, of some kind? '

'Call it so, if you will,' said Agnes.

'Well! ' I returned. 'See here! You come to London, I rely on you, and I
have an object and a course at once. I am driven out of it, I come
here, and in a moment I feel an altered person. The circumstances that
distressed me are not changed, since I came into this room; but an
influence comes over me in that short interval that alters me, oh, how
much for the better! What is it? What is your secret, Agnes? '

Her head was bent down, looking at the fire.

'It's the old story,' said I. 'Don't laugh, when I say it was always
the same in little things as it is in greater ones. My old troubles were
nonsense, and now they are serious; but whenever I have gone away from
my adopted sister--'

Agnes looked up--with such a Heavenly face! --and gave me her hand, which
I kissed.

'Whenever I have not had you, Agnes, to advise and approve in the
beginning, I have seemed to go wild, and to get into all sorts of
difficulty. When I have come to you, at last (as I have always done),
I have come to peace and happiness. I come home, now, like a tired
traveller, and find such a blessed sense of rest! '

I felt so deeply what I said, it affected me so sincerely, that my voice
failed, and I covered my face with my hand, and broke into tears. I
write the truth. Whatever contradictions and inconsistencies there were
within me, as there are within so many of us; whatever might have been
so different, and so much better; whatever I had done, in which I had
perversely wandered away from the voice of my own heart; I knew nothing
of. I only knew that I was fervently in earnest, when I felt the rest
and peace of having Agnes near me.

In her placid sisterly manner; with her beaming eyes; with her tender
voice; and with that sweet composure, which had long ago made the house
that held her quite a sacred place to me; she soon won me from this
weakness, and led me on to tell all that had happened since our last
meeting.

'And there is not another word to tell, Agnes,' said I, when I had made
an end of my confidence. 'Now, my reliance is on you. '

'But it must not be on me, Trotwood,' returned Agnes, with a pleasant
smile. 'It must be on someone else. '

'On Dora? ' said I.

'Assuredly. '

'Why, I have not mentioned, Agnes,' said I, a little embarrassed, 'that
Dora is rather difficult to--I would not, for the world, say, to rely
upon, because she is the soul of purity and truth--but rather difficult
to--I hardly know how to express it, really, Agnes. She is a timid
little thing, and easily disturbed and frightened. Some time ago, before
her father's death, when I thought it right to mention to her--but I'll
tell you, if you will bear with me, how it was. '

Accordingly, I told Agnes about my declaration of poverty, about the
cookery-book, the housekeeping accounts, and all the rest of it.

'Oh, Trotwood! ' she remonstrated, with a smile. 'Just your old headlong
way! You might have been in earnest in striving to get on in the world,
without being so very sudden with a timid, loving, inexperienced girl.
Poor Dora! '

I never heard such sweet forbearing kindness expressed in a voice,
as she expressed in making this reply. It was as if I had seen her
admiringly and tenderly embracing Dora, and tacitly reproving me, by
her considerate protection, for my hot haste in fluttering that little
heart. It was as if I had seen Dora, in all her fascinating artlessness,
caressing Agnes, and thanking her, and coaxingly appealing against me,
and loving me with all her childish innocence.

I felt so grateful to Agnes, and admired her so! I saw those two
together, in a bright perspective, such well-associated friends, each
adorning the other so much!

'What ought I to do then, Agnes? ' I inquired, after looking at the fire
a little while. 'What would it be right to do? '

'I think,' said Agnes, 'that the honourable course to take, would be to
write to those two ladies. Don't you think that any secret course is an
unworthy one? '

'Yes. If YOU think so,' said I.

'I am poorly qualified to judge of such matters,' replied Agnes, with
a modest hesitation, 'but I certainly feel--in short, I feel that your
being secret and clandestine, is not being like yourself. '

'Like myself, in the too high opinion you have of me, Agnes, I am
afraid,' said I.

'Like yourself, in the candour of your nature,' she returned; 'and
therefore I would write to those two ladies. I would relate, as plainly
and as openly as possible, all that has taken place; and I would ask
their permission to visit sometimes, at their house. Considering that
you are young, and striving for a place in life, I think it would be
well to say that you would readily abide by any conditions they might
impose upon you. I would entreat them not to dismiss your request,
without a reference to Dora; and to discuss it with her when they should
think the time suitable. I would not be too vehement,' said Agnes,
gently, 'or propose too much. I would trust to my fidelity and
perseverance--and to Dora. '

'But if they were to frighten Dora again, Agnes, by speaking to her,'
said I. 'And if Dora were to cry, and say nothing about me! '

'Is that likely? ' inquired Agnes, with the same sweet consideration in
her face.

'God bless her, she is as easily scared as a bird,' said I. 'It might
be!
Or if the two Miss Spenlows (elderly ladies of that sort are odd
characters sometimes) should not be likely persons to address in that
way! '

'I don't think, Trotwood,' returned Agnes, raising her soft eyes
to mine, 'I would consider that. Perhaps it would be better only to
consider whether it is right to do this; and, if it is, to do it. '

I had no longer any doubt on the subject. With a lightened heart, though
with a profound sense of the weighty importance of my task, I devoted
the whole afternoon to the composition of the draft of this letter; for
which great purpose, Agnes relinquished her desk to me. But first I went
downstairs to see Mr. Wickfield and Uriah Heep.

I found Uriah in possession of a new, plaster-smelling office, built out
in the garden; looking extraordinarily mean, in the midst of a quantity
of books and papers. He received me in his usual fawning way, and
pretended not to have heard of my arrival from Mr. Micawber; a
pretence I took the liberty of disbelieving. He accompanied me into Mr.
Wickfield's room, which was the shadow of its former self--having been
divested of a variety of conveniences, for the accommodation of the new
partner--and stood before the fire, warming his back, and shaving his
chin with his bony hand, while Mr. Wickfield and I exchanged greetings.

'You stay with us, Trotwood, while you remain in Canterbury? ' said Mr.
Wickfield, not without a glance at Uriah for his approval.

'Is there room for me? ' said I.

'I am sure, Master Copperfield--I should say Mister, but the other
comes so natural,' said Uriah,--'I would turn out of your old room with
pleasure, if it would be agreeable. '

'No, no,' said Mr. Wickfield. 'Why should you be inconvenienced? There's
another room. There's another room. ' 'Oh, but you know,' returned Uriah,
with a grin, 'I should really be delighted! '

To cut the matter short, I said I would have the other room or none at
all; so it was settled that I should have the other room; and, taking my
leave of the firm until dinner, I went upstairs again.

I had hoped to have no other companion than Agnes. But Mrs. Heep had
asked permission to bring herself and her knitting near the fire, in
that room; on pretence of its having an aspect more favourable for
her rheumatics, as the wind then was, than the drawing-room or
dining-parlour. Though I could almost have consigned her to the mercies
of the wind on the topmost pinnacle of the Cathedral, without remorse, I
made a virtue of necessity, and gave her a friendly salutation.

'I'm umbly thankful to you, sir,' said Mrs. Heep, in acknowledgement of
my inquiries concerning her health, 'but I'm only pretty well. I haven't
much to boast of. If I could see my Uriah well settled in life, I
couldn't expect much more I think. How do you think my Ury looking,
sir? '

I thought him looking as villainous as ever, and I replied that I saw no
change in him.

'Oh, don't you think he's changed? ' said Mrs. Heep. 'There I must umbly
beg leave to differ from you. Don't you see a thinness in him? '

'Not more than usual,' I replied.

'Don't you though! ' said Mrs. Heep. 'But you don't take notice of him
with a mother's eye! '

His mother's eye was an evil eye to the rest of the world, I thought as
it met mine, howsoever affectionate to him; and I believe she and her
son were devoted to one another. It passed me, and went on to Agnes.

'Don't YOU see a wasting and a wearing in him, Miss Wickfield? ' inquired
Mrs. Heep.

'No,' said Agnes, quietly pursuing the work on which she was engaged.
'You are too solicitous about him. He is very well. '

Mrs. Heep, with a prodigious sniff, resumed her knitting.

She never left off, or left us for a moment. I had arrived early in the
day, and we had still three or four hours before dinner; but she sat
there, plying her knitting-needles as monotonously as an hour-glass
might have poured out its sands. She sat on one side of the fire; I sat
at the desk in front of it; a little beyond me, on the other side, sat
Agnes. Whensoever, slowly pondering over my letter, I lifted up my
eyes, and meeting the thoughtful face of Agnes, saw it clear, and beam
encouragement upon me, with its own angelic expression, I was conscious
presently of the evil eye passing me, and going on to her, and coming
back to me again, and dropping furtively upon the knitting. What the
knitting was, I don't know, not being learned in that art; but it looked
like a net; and as she worked away with those Chinese chopsticks of
knitting-needles, she showed in the firelight like an ill-looking
enchantress, baulked as yet by the radiant goodness opposite, but
getting ready for a cast of her net by and by.

At dinner she maintained her watch, with the same unwinking eyes. After
dinner, her son took his turn; and when Mr. Wickfield, himself, and I
were left alone together, leered at me, and writhed until I could hardly
bear it. In the drawing-room, there was the mother knitting and watching
again. All the time that Agnes sang and played, the mother sat at the
piano. Once she asked for a particular ballad, which she said her Ury
(who was yawning in a great chair) doted on; and at intervals she looked
round at him, and reported to Agnes that he was in raptures with the
music. But she hardly ever spoke--I question if she ever did--without
making some mention of him. It was evident to me that this was the duty
assigned to her.

This lasted until bedtime. To have seen the mother and son, like two
great bats hanging over the whole house, and darkening it with their
ugly forms, made me so uncomfortable, that I would rather have remained
downstairs, knitting and all, than gone to bed. I hardly got any sleep.
Next day the knitting and watching began again, and lasted all day.

I had not an opportunity of speaking to Agnes, for ten minutes. I could
barely show her my letter. I proposed to her to walk out with me; but
Mrs. Heep repeatedly complaining that she was worse, Agnes charitably
remained within, to bear her company. Towards the twilight I went out
by myself, musing on what I ought to do, and whether I was justified
in withholding from Agnes, any longer, what Uriah Heep had told me in
London; for that began to trouble me again, very much.

I had not walked out far enough to be quite clear of the town, upon the
Ramsgate road, where there was a good path, when I was hailed, through
the dust, by somebody behind me. The shambling figure, and the scanty
great-coat, were not to be mistaken. I stopped, and Uriah Heep came up.

'Well? ' said I.

'How fast you walk! ' said he. 'My legs are pretty long, but you've given
'em quite a job. '

'Where are you going? ' said I.

'I am going with you, Master Copperfield, if you'll allow me the
pleasure of a walk with an old acquaintance. ' Saying this, with a jerk
of his body, which might have been either propitiatory or derisive, he
fell into step beside me.

'Uriah! ' said I, as civilly as I could, after a silence.

'Master Copperfield! ' said Uriah.

'To tell you the truth (at which you will not be offended), I came Out
to walk alone, because I have had so much company. '

He looked at me sideways, and said with his hardest grin, 'You mean
mother. '

'Why yes, I do,' said I.

'Ah! But you know we're so very umble,' he returned. 'And having such a
knowledge of our own umbleness, we must really take care that we're not
pushed to the wall by them as isn't umble. All stratagems are fair in
love, sir. '

Raising his great hands until they touched his chin, he rubbed them
softly, and softly chuckled; looking as like a malevolent baboon, I
thought, as anything human could look.

'You see,' he said, still hugging himself in that unpleasant way,
and shaking his head at me, 'you're quite a dangerous rival, Master
Copperfield. You always was, you know. '

'Do you set a watch upon Miss Wickfield, and make her home no home,
because of me? ' said I.

'Oh! Master Copperfield! Those are very arsh words,' he replied.

'Put my meaning into any words you like,' said I. 'You know what it is,
Uriah, as well as I do. '

'Oh no! You must put it into words,' he said. 'Oh, really! I couldn't
myself. '

'Do you suppose,' said I, constraining myself to be very temperate
and quiet with him, on account of Agnes, 'that I regard Miss Wickfield
otherwise than as a very dear sister? '

'Well, Master Copperfield,' he replied, 'you perceive I am not bound
to answer that question. You may not, you know. But then, you see, you
may! '

Anything to equal the low cunning of his visage, and of his shadowless
eyes without the ghost of an eyelash, I never saw.

'Come then! ' said I. 'For the sake of Miss Wickfield--'

'My Agnes! ' he exclaimed, with a sickly, angular contortion of himself.
'Would you be so good as call her Agnes, Master Copperfield! '

'For the sake of Agnes Wickfield--Heaven bless her! '

'Thank you for that blessing, Master Copperfield! 'he interposed.

'I will tell you what I should, under any other circumstances, as soon
have thought of telling to--Jack Ketch. '

'To who, sir? ' said Uriah, stretching out his neck, and shading his ear
with his hand.

'To the hangman,' I returned. 'The most unlikely person I could think
of,'--though his own face had suggested the allusion quite as a natural
sequence. 'I am engaged to another young lady. I hope that contents
you. '

'Upon your soul? ' said Uriah.

I was about indignantly to give my assertion the confirmation he
required, when he caught hold of my hand, and gave it a squeeze.

'Oh, Master Copperfield! ' he said. 'If you had only had the
condescension to return my confidence when I poured out the fulness of
my art, the night I put you so much out of the way by sleeping before
your sitting-room fire, I never should have doubted you. As it is, I'm
sure I'll take off mother directly, and only too appy. I know you'll
excuse the precautions of affection, won't you? What a pity, Master
Copperfield, that you didn't condescend to return my confidence! I'm
sure I gave you every opportunity. But you never have condescended to
me, as much as I could have wished. I know you have never liked me, as I
have liked you! '

All this time he was squeezing my hand with his damp fishy fingers,
while I made every effort I decently could to get it away. But I was
quite unsuccessful. He drew it under the sleeve of his mulberry-coloured
great-coat, and I walked on, almost upon compulsion, arm-in-arm with
him.

'Shall we turn? ' said Uriah, by and by wheeling me face about towards
the town, on which the early moon was now shining, silvering the distant
windows.

'Before we leave the subject, you ought to understand,' said I, breaking
a pretty long silence, 'that I believe Agnes Wickfield to be as far
above you, and as far removed from all your aspirations, as that moon
herself! '

'Peaceful! Ain't she! ' said Uriah. 'Very! Now confess, Master
Copperfield, that you haven't liked me quite as I have liked you. All
along you've thought me too umble now, I shouldn't wonder? '

'I am not fond of professions of humility,' I returned, 'or professions
of anything else. ' 'There now! ' said Uriah, looking flabby and
lead-coloured in the moonlight. 'Didn't I know it! But how little
you think of the rightful umbleness of a person in my station, Master
Copperfield! Father and me was both brought up at a foundation school
for boys; and mother, she was likewise brought up at a public, sort of
charitable, establishment. They taught us all a deal of umbleness--not
much else that I know of, from morning to night. We was to be umble to
this person, and umble to that; and to pull off our caps here, and
to make bows there; and always to know our place, and abase ourselves
before our betters. And we had such a lot of betters! Father got the
monitor-medal by being umble. So did I. Father got made a sexton by
being umble. He had the character, among the gentlefolks, of being
such a well-behaved man, that they were determined to bring him in. "Be
umble, Uriah," says father to me, "and you'll get on. It was what was
always being dinned into you and me at school; it's what goes down best.
Be umble," says father, "and you'll do! " And really it ain't done bad! '

It was the first time it had ever occurred to me, that this detestable
cant of false humility might have originated out of the Heep family. I
had seen the harvest, but had never thought of the seed.

'When I was quite a young boy,' said Uriah, 'I got to know what
umbleness did, and I took to it. I ate umble pie with an appetite. I
stopped at the umble point of my learning, and says I, "Hold hard! " When
you offered to teach me Latin, I knew better. "People like to be above
you," says father, "keep yourself down. " I am very umble to the present
moment, Master Copperfield, but I've got a little power! '

And he said all this--I knew, as I saw his face in the moonlight--that
I might understand he was resolved to recompense himself by using his
power. I had never doubted his meanness, his craft and malice; but I
fully comprehended now, for the first time, what a base, unrelenting,
and revengeful spirit, must have been engendered by this early, and this
long, suppression.

His account of himself was so far attended with an agreeable result,
that it led to his withdrawing his hand in order that he might have
another hug of himself under the chin. Once apart from him, I was
determined to keep apart; and we walked back, side by side, saying
very little more by the way. Whether his spirits were elevated by the
communication I had made to him, or by his having indulged in this
retrospect, I don't know; but they were raised by some influence. He
talked more at dinner than was usual with him; asked his mother (off
duty, from the moment of our re-entering the house) whether he was not
growing too old for a bachelor; and once looked at Agnes so, that I
would have given all I had, for leave to knock him down.

When we three males were left alone after dinner, he got into a more
adventurous state. He had taken little or no wine; and I presume it was
the mere insolence of triumph that was upon him, flushed perhaps by the
temptation my presence furnished to its exhibition.

I had observed yesterday, that he tried to entice Mr. Wickfield to
drink; and, interpreting the look which Agnes had given me as she went
out, had limited myself to one glass, and then proposed that we should
follow her. I would have done so again today; but Uriah was too quick
for me.

'We seldom see our present visitor, sir,' he said, addressing Mr.
Wickfield, sitting, such a contrast to him, at the end of the table,
'and I should propose to give him welcome in another glass or two
of wine, if you have no objections. Mr. Copperfield, your elth and
appiness! '

I was obliged to make a show of taking the hand he stretched across
to me; and then, with very different emotions, I took the hand of the
broken gentleman, his partner.

'Come, fellow-partner,' said Uriah, 'if I may take the liberty,--now,
suppose you give us something or another appropriate to Copperfield!