No More Learning

'

The excited voice went clamouring along the staircase; and I wrapped
myself in my clothes as quickly as I could, and ran into the street.

Numbers of people were there before me, all running in one direction, to
the beach. I ran the same way, outstripping a good many, and soon came
facing the wild sea.

The wind might by this time have lulled a little, though not more
sensibly than if the cannonading I had dreamed of, had been diminished
by the silencing of half-a-dozen guns out of hundreds. But the sea,
having upon it the additional agitation of the whole night, was
infinitely more terrific than when I had seen it last. Every appearance
it had then presented, bore the expression of being swelled; and the
height to which the breakers rose, and, looking over one another,
bore one another down, and rolled in, in interminable hosts, was most
appalling. In the difficulty of hearing anything but wind and waves,
and in the crowd, and the unspeakable confusion, and my first breathless
efforts to stand against the weather, I was so confused that I looked
out to sea for the wreck, and saw nothing but the foaming heads of the
great waves. A half-dressed boatman, standing next me, pointed with his
bare arm (a tattoo'd arrow on it, pointing in the same direction) to the
left. Then, O great Heaven, I saw it, close in upon us!

One mast was broken short off, six or eight feet from the deck, and lay
over the side, entangled in a maze of sail and rigging; and all that
ruin, as the ship rolled and beat--which she did without a moment's
pause, and with a violence quite inconceivable--beat the side as if it
would stave it in. Some efforts were even then being made, to cut this
portion of the wreck away; for, as the ship, which was broadside on,
turned towards us in her rolling, I plainly descried her people at
work with axes, especially one active figure with long curling hair,
conspicuous among the rest. But a great cry, which was audible even
above the wind and water, rose from the shore at this moment; the sea,
sweeping over the rolling wreck, made a clean breach, and carried men,
spars, casks, planks, bulwarks, heaps of such toys, into the boiling
surge.

The second mast was yet standing, with the rags of a rent sail, and
a wild confusion of broken cordage flapping to and fro. The ship had
struck once, the same boatman hoarsely said in my ear, and then lifted
in and struck again. I understood him to add that she was parting
amidships, and I could readily suppose so, for the rolling and beating
were too tremendous for any human work to suffer long. As he spoke,
there was another great cry of pity from the beach; four men arose with
the wreck out of the deep, clinging to the rigging of the remaining
mast; uppermost, the active figure with the curling hair.

There was a bell on board; and as the ship rolled and dashed, like a
desperate creature driven mad, now showing us the whole sweep of her
deck, as she turned on her beam-ends towards the shore, now nothing but
her keel, as she sprung wildly over and turned towards the sea, the bell
rang; and its sound, the knell of those unhappy men, was borne towards
us on the wind. Again we lost her, and again she rose. Two men were
gone. The agony on the shore increased. Men groaned, and clasped their
hands; women shrieked, and turned away their faces. Some ran wildly
up and down along the beach, crying for help where no help could be. I
found myself one of these, frantically imploring a knot of sailors whom
I knew, not to let those two lost creatures perish before our eyes.

They were making out to me, in an agitated way--I don't know how,
for the little I could hear I was scarcely composed enough to
understand--that the lifeboat had been bravely manned an hour ago, and
could do nothing; and that as no man would be so desperate as to attempt
to wade off with a rope, and establish a communication with the shore,
there was nothing left to try; when I noticed that some new sensation
moved the people on the beach, and saw them part, and Ham come breaking
through them to the front.

I ran to him--as well as I know, to repeat my appeal for help. But,
distracted though I was, by a sight so new to me and terrible, the
determination in his face, and his look out to sea--exactly the same
look as I remembered in connexion with the morning after Emily's
flight--awoke me to a knowledge of his danger. I held him back with both
arms; and implored the men with whom I had been speaking, not to listen
to him, not to do murder, not to let him stir from off that sand!

Another cry arose on shore; and looking to the wreck, we saw the cruel
sail, with blow on blow, beat off the lower of the two men, and fly up
in triumph round the active figure left alone upon the mast.

Against such a sight, and against such determination as that of the
calmly desperate man who was already accustomed to lead half the people
present, I might as hopefully have entreated the wind. 'Mas'r Davy,'
he said, cheerily grasping me by both hands, 'if my time is come, 'tis
come. If 'tan't, I'll bide it. Lord above bless you, and bless all!
Mates, make me ready! I'm a-going off! '

I was swept away, but not unkindly, to some distance, where the people
around me made me stay; urging, as I confusedly perceived, that he was
bent on going, with help or without, and that I should endanger the
precautions for his safety by troubling those with whom they rested. I
don't know what I answered, or what they rejoined; but I saw hurry on
the beach, and men running with ropes from a capstan that was there, and
penetrating into a circle of figures that hid him from me. Then, I saw
him standing alone, in a seaman's frock and trousers: a rope in his
hand, or slung to his wrist: another round his body: and several of the
best men holding, at a little distance, to the latter, which he laid out
himself, slack upon the shore, at his feet.

The wreck, even to my unpractised eye, was breaking up. I saw that she
was parting in the middle, and that the life of the solitary man upon
the mast hung by a thread. Still, he clung to it. He had a singular red
cap on,--not like a sailor's cap, but of a finer colour; and as the few
yielding planks between him and destruction rolled and bulged, and his
anticipative death-knell rung, he was seen by all of us to wave it. I
saw him do it now, and thought I was going distracted, when his action
brought an old remembrance to my mind of a once dear friend.

Ham watched the sea, standing alone, with the silence of suspended
breath behind him, and the storm before, until there was a great
retiring wave, when, with a backward glance at those who held the rope
which was made fast round his body, he dashed in after it, and in a
moment was buffeting with the water; rising with the hills, falling
with the valleys, lost beneath the foam; then drawn again to land. They
hauled in hastily.

He was hurt. I saw blood on his face, from where I stood; but he took
no thought of that. He seemed hurriedly to give them some directions for
leaving him more free--or so I judged from the motion of his arm--and
was gone as before.

And now he made for the wreck, rising with the hills, falling with the
valleys, lost beneath the rugged foam, borne in towards the shore,
borne on towards the ship, striving hard and valiantly. The distance was
nothing, but the power of the sea and wind made the strife deadly. At
length he neared the wreck. He was so near, that with one more of his
vigorous strokes he would be clinging to it,--when a high, green, vast
hill-side of water, moving on shoreward, from beyond the ship, he seemed
to leap up into it with a mighty bound, and the ship was gone!

Some eddying fragments I saw in the sea, as if a mere cask had been
broken, in running to the spot where they were hauling in. Consternation
was in every face. They drew him to my very feet--insensible--dead.
He was carried to the nearest house; and, no one preventing me now, I
remained near him, busy, while every means of restoration were tried;
but he had been beaten to death by the great wave, and his generous
heart was stilled for ever.

As I sat beside the bed, when hope was abandoned and all was done, a
fisherman, who had known me when Emily and I were children, and ever
since, whispered my name at the door.

'Sir,' said he, with tears starting to his weather-beaten face, which,
with his trembling lips, was ashy pale, 'will you come over yonder? '

The old remembrance that had been recalled to me, was in his look. I
asked him, terror-stricken, leaning on the arm he held out to support
me:

'Has a body come ashore? '

He said, 'Yes. '

'Do I know it? ' I asked then.

He answered nothing.

But he led me to the shore. And on that part of it where she and I had
looked for shells, two children--on that part of it where some lighter
fragments of the old boat, blown down last night, had been scattered by
the wind--among the ruins of the home he had wronged--I saw him lying
with his head upon his arm, as I had often seen him lie at school.



CHAPTER 56. THE NEW WOUND, AND THE OLD

No need, O Steerforth, to have said, when we last spoke together, in
that hour which I so little deemed to be our parting-hour--no need to
have said, 'Think of me at my best! ' I had done that ever; and could I
change now, looking on this sight!

They brought a hand-bier, and laid him on it, and covered him with a
flag, and took him up and bore him on towards the houses. All the men
who carried him had known him, and gone sailing with him, and seen him
merry and bold. They carried him through the wild roar, a hush in the
midst of all the tumult; and took him to the cottage where Death was
already.

But when they set the bier down on the threshold, they looked at one
another, and at me, and whispered. I knew why. They felt as if it were
not right to lay him down in the same quiet room.

We went into the town, and took our burden to the inn. So soon as I
could at all collect my thoughts, I sent for Joram, and begged him to
provide me a conveyance in which it could be got to London in the night.
I knew that the care of it, and the hard duty of preparing his mother to
receive it, could only rest with me; and I was anxious to discharge that
duty as faithfully as I could.

I chose the night for the journey, that there might be less curiosity
when I left the town. But, although it was nearly midnight when I came
out of the yard in a chaise, followed by what I had in charge, there
were many people waiting. At intervals, along the town, and even a
little way out upon the road, I saw more: but at length only the bleak
night and the open country were around me, and the ashes of my youthful
friendship.

Upon a mellow autumn day, about noon, when the ground was perfumed by
fallen leaves, and many more, in beautiful tints of yellow, red, and
brown, yet hung upon the trees, through which the sun was shining, I
arrived at Highgate. I walked the last mile, thinking as I went along of
what I had to do; and left the carriage that had followed me all through
the night, awaiting orders to advance.

The house, when I came up to it, looked just the same. Not a blind was
raised; no sign of life was in the dull paved court, with its covered
way leading to the disused door. The wind had quite gone down, and
nothing moved.

I had not, at first, the courage to ring at the gate; and when I did
ring, my errand seemed to me to be expressed in the very sound of the
bell. The little parlour-maid came out, with the key in her hand; and
looking earnestly at me as she unlocked the gate, said:

'I beg your pardon, sir. Are you ill? '

'I have been much agitated, and am fatigued. '

'Is anything the matter, sir? ---Mr. James? --' 'Hush! ' said I. 'Yes,
something has happened, that I have to break to Mrs. Steerforth. She is
at home? '

The girl anxiously replied that her mistress was very seldom out now,
even in a carriage; that she kept her room; that she saw no company, but
would see me. Her mistress was up, she said, and Miss Dartle was with
her. What message should she take upstairs?

Giving her a strict charge to be careful of her manner, and only to
carry in my card and say I waited, I sat down in the drawing-room (which
we had now reached) until she should come back. Its former pleasant air
of occupation was gone, and the shutters were half closed. The harp had
not been used for many and many a day. His picture, as a boy, was
there. The cabinet in which his mother had kept his letters was there. I
wondered if she ever read them now; if she would ever read them more!

The house was so still that I heard the girl's light step upstairs. On
her return, she brought a message, to the effect that Mrs. Steerforth
was an invalid and could not come down; but that if I would excuse her
being in her chamber, she would be glad to see me. In a few moments I
stood before her.

She was in his room; not in her own. I felt, of course, that she had
taken to occupy it, in remembrance of him; and that the many tokens
of his old sports and accomplishments, by which she was surrounded,
remained there, just as he had left them, for the same reason. She
murmured, however, even in her reception of me, that she was out of her
own chamber because its aspect was unsuited to her infirmity; and with
her stately look repelled the least suspicion of the truth.

At her chair, as usual, was Rosa Dartle. From the first moment of
her dark eyes resting on me, I saw she knew I was the bearer of evil
tidings. The scar sprung into view that instant. She withdrew herself
a step behind the chair, to keep her own face out of Mrs. Steerforth's
observation; and scrutinized me with a piercing gaze that never
faltered, never shrunk.

'I am sorry to observe you are in mourning, sir,' said Mrs. Steerforth.

'I am unhappily a widower,' said I.

'You are very young to know so great a loss,' she returned. 'I am
grieved to hear it. I am grieved to hear it. I hope Time will be good to
you. '

'I hope Time,' said I, looking at her, 'will be good to all of us.
Dear Mrs. Steerforth, we must all trust to that, in our heaviest
misfortunes. '

The earnestness of my manner, and the tears in my eyes, alarmed her. The
whole course of her thoughts appeared to stop, and change.

I tried to command my voice in gently saying his name, but it trembled.
She repeated it to herself, two or three times, in a low tone. Then,
addressing me, she said, with enforced calmness:

'My son is ill. '

'Very ill. '

'You have seen him? '

'I have. '

'Are you reconciled? '

I could not say Yes, I could not say No. She slightly turned her head
towards the spot where Rosa Dartle had been standing at her elbow, and
in that moment I said, by the motion of my lips, to Rosa, 'Dead! '

That Mrs. Steerforth might not be induced to look behind her, and read,
plainly written, what she was not yet prepared to know, I met her look
quickly; but I had seen Rosa Dartle throw her hands up in the air with
vehemence of despair and horror, and then clasp them on her face.

The handsome lady--so like, oh so like! --regarded me with a fixed look,
and put her hand to her forehead. I besought her to be calm, and prepare
herself to bear what I had to tell; but I should rather have entreated
her to weep, for she sat like a stone figure.

'When I was last here,' I faltered, 'Miss Dartle told me he was sailing
here and there. The night before last was a dreadful one at sea. If he
were at sea that night, and near a dangerous coast, as it is said he
was; and if the vessel that was seen should really be the ship which--'

'Rosa! ' said Mrs. Steerforth, 'come to me! '

She came, but with no sympathy or gentleness. Her eyes gleamed like fire
as she confronted his mother, and broke into a frightful laugh.

'Now,' she said, 'is your pride appeased, you madwoman? Now has he made
atonement to you--with his life! Do you hear? ---His life! '

Mrs. Steerforth, fallen back stiffly in her chair, and making no sound
but a moan, cast her eyes upon her with a wide stare.

'Aye! ' cried Rosa, smiting herself passionately on the breast, 'look at
me! Moan, and groan, and look at me! Look here! ' striking the scar, 'at
your dead child's handiwork! '

The moan the mother uttered, from time to time, went to My heart. Always
the same. Always inarticulate and stifled. Always accompanied with
an incapable motion of the head, but with no change of face. Always
proceeding from a rigid mouth and closed teeth, as if the jaw were
locked and the face frozen up in pain.

'Do you remember when he did this? ' she proceeded. 'Do you remember
when, in his inheritance of your nature, and in your pampering of his
pride and passion, he did this, and disfigured me for life? Look at me,
marked until I die with his high displeasure; and moan and groan for
what you made him! '

'Miss Dartle,' I entreated her. 'For Heaven's sake--'

'I WILL speak! ' she said, turning on me with her lightning eyes. 'Be
silent, you! Look at me, I say, proud mother of a proud, false son! Moan
for your nurture of him, moan for your corruption of him, moan for your
loss of him, moan for mine! '

She clenched her hand, and trembled through her spare, worn figure, as
if her passion were killing her by inches.

'You, resent his self-will! ' she exclaimed. 'You, injured by his haughty
temper! You, who opposed to both, when your hair was grey, the qualities
which made both when you gave him birth! YOU, who from his cradle reared
him to be what he was, and stunted what he should have been! Are you
rewarded, now, for your years of trouble? '

'Oh, Miss Dartle, shame! Oh cruel! '

'I tell you,' she returned, 'I WILL speak to her. No power on earth
should stop me, while I was standing here! Have I been silent all these
years, and shall I not speak now? I loved him better than you ever loved
him! ' turning on her fiercely. 'I could have loved him, and asked no
return. If I had been his wife, I could have been the slave of his
caprices for a word of love a year. I should have been. Who knows it
better than I? You were exacting, proud, punctilious, selfish. My love
would have been devoted--would have trod your paltry whimpering under
foot! '

With flashing eyes, she stamped upon the ground as if she actually did
it.

'Look here! ' she said, striking the scar again, with a relentless hand.
'When he grew into the better understanding of what he had done, he saw
it, and repented of it! I could sing to him, and talk to him, and show
the ardour that I felt in all he did, and attain with labour to such
knowledge as most interested him; and I attracted him. When he was
freshest and truest, he loved me. Yes, he did! Many a time, when you
were put off with a slight word, he has taken Me to his heart! '

She said it with a taunting pride in the midst of her frenzy--for it
was little less--yet with an eager remembrance of it, in which the
smouldering embers of a gentler feeling kindled for the moment.

'I descended--as I might have known I should, but that he fascinated me
with his boyish courtship--into a doll, a trifle for the occupation
of an idle hour, to be dropped, and taken up, and trifled with, as the
inconstant humour took him. When he grew weary, I grew weary. As his
fancy died out, I would no more have tried to strengthen any power I
had, than I would have married him on his being forced to take me for
his wife. We fell away from one another without a word. Perhaps you saw
it, and were not sorry. Since then, I have been a mere disfigured piece
of furniture between you both; having no eyes, no ears, no feelings,
no remembrances. Moan? Moan for what you made him; not for your love. I
tell you that the time was, when I loved him better than you ever did! '

She stood with her bright angry eyes confronting the wide stare, and the
set face; and softened no more, when the moaning was repeated, than if
the face had been a picture.

'Miss Dartle,' said I, 'if you can be so obdurate as not to feel for
this afflicted mother--'

'Who feels for me? ' she sharply retorted. 'She has sown this. Let her
moan for the harvest that she reaps today! '

'And if his faults--' I began.

'Faults! ' she cried, bursting into passionate tears. 'Who dares malign
him? He had a soul worth millions of the friends to whom he stooped! '

'No one can have loved him better, no one can hold him in dearer
remembrance than I,' I replied. 'I meant to say, if you have no
compassion for his mother; or if his faults--you have been bitter on
them--'

'It's false,' she cried, tearing her black hair; 'I loved him! '

'--if his faults cannot,' I went on, 'be banished from your remembrance,
in such an hour; look at that figure, even as one you have never seen
before, and render it some help! '

All this time, the figure was unchanged, and looked unchangeable.
Motionless, rigid, staring; moaning in the same dumb way from time to
time, with the same helpless motion of the head; but giving no other
sign of life. Miss Dartle suddenly kneeled down before it, and began to
loosen the dress.

'A curse upon you! ' she said, looking round at me, with a mingled
expression of rage and grief. 'It was in an evil hour that you ever came
here! A curse upon you! Go! '

After passing out of the room, I hurried back to ring the bell, the
sooner to alarm the servants. She had then taken the impassive figure
in her arms, and, still upon her knees, was weeping over it, kissing it,
calling to it, rocking it to and fro upon her bosom like a child, and
trying every tender means to rouse the dormant senses. No longer afraid
of leaving her, I noiselessly turned back again; and alarmed the house
as I went out.

Later in the day, I returned, and we laid him in his mother's room. She
was just the same, they told me; Miss Dartle never left her; doctors
were in attendance, many things had been tried; but she lay like a
statue, except for the low sound now and then.

I went through the dreary house, and darkened the windows. The windows
of the chamber where he lay, I darkened last. I lifted up the leaden
hand, and held it to my heart; and all the world seemed death and
silence, broken only by his mother's moaning.



CHAPTER 57. THE EMIGRANTS


One thing more, I had to do, before yielding myself to the shock of
these emotions. It was, to conceal what had occurred, from those who
were going away; and to dismiss them on their voyage in happy ignorance.
In this, no time was to be lost.

I took Mr. Micawber aside that same night, and confided to him the
task of standing between Mr. Peggotty and intelligence of the late
catastrophe. He zealously undertook to do so, and to intercept any
newspaper through which it might, without such precautions, reach him.

'If it penetrates to him, sir,' said Mr. Micawber, striking himself on
the breast, 'it shall first pass through this body! '

Mr. Micawber, I must observe, in his adaptation of himself to a new
state of society, had acquired a bold buccaneering air, not absolutely
lawless, but defensive and prompt. One might have supposed him a child
of the wilderness, long accustomed to live out of the confines of
civilization, and about to return to his native wilds.

He had provided himself, among other things, with a complete suit of
oilskin, and a straw hat with a very low crown, pitched or caulked on
the outside. In this rough clothing, with a common mariner's telescope
under his arm, and a shrewd trick of casting up his eye at the sky
as looking out for dirty weather, he was far more nautical, after his
manner, than Mr. Peggotty. His whole family, if I may so express it,
were cleared for action. I found Mrs. Micawber in the closest and most
uncompromising of bonnets, made fast under the chin; and in a shawl
which tied her up (as I had been tied up, when my aunt first received
me) like a bundle, and was secured behind at the waist, in a strong
knot. Miss Micawber I found made snug for stormy weather, in the same
manner; with nothing superfluous about her. Master Micawber was hardly
visible in a Guernsey shirt, and the shaggiest suit of slops I ever
saw; and the children were done up, like preserved meats, in impervious
cases. Both Mr. Micawber and his eldest son wore their sleeves loosely
turned back at the wrists, as being ready to lend a hand in any
direction, and to 'tumble up', or sing out, 'Yeo--Heave--Yeo! ' on the
shortest notice.

Thus Traddles and I found them at nightfall, assembled on the wooden
steps, at that time known as Hungerford Stairs, watching the departure
of a boat with some of their property on board. I had told Traddles of
the terrible event, and it had greatly shocked him; but there could be
no doubt of the kindness of keeping it a secret, and he had come to help
me in this last service. It was here that I took Mr. Micawber aside, and
received his promise.

The Micawber family were lodged in a little, dirty, tumble-down
public-house, which in those days was close to the stairs, and whose
protruding wooden rooms overhung the river. The family, as emigrants,
being objects of some interest in and about Hungerford, attracted so
many beholders, that we were glad to take refuge in their room. It was
one of the wooden chambers upstairs, with the tide flowing underneath.
My aunt and Agnes were there, busily making some little extra comforts,
in the way of dress, for the children. Peggotty was quietly assisting,
with the old insensible work-box, yard-measure, and bit of wax-candle
before her, that had now outlived so much.

It was not easy to answer her inquiries; still less to whisper Mr.
Peggotty, when Mr. Micawber brought him in, that I had given the letter,
and all was well. But I did both, and made them happy. If I showed any
trace of what I felt, my own sorrows were sufficient to account for it.

'And when does the ship sail, Mr. Micawber? ' asked my aunt.

Mr. Micawber considered it necessary to prepare either my aunt or his
wife, by degrees, and said, sooner than he had expected yesterday.

'The boat brought you word, I suppose? ' said my aunt.

'It did, ma'am,' he returned.

'Well? ' said my aunt. 'And she sails--'

'Madam,' he replied, 'I am informed that we must positively be on board
before seven tomorrow morning. '

'Heyday! ' said my aunt, 'that's soon. Is it a sea-going fact, Mr.
Peggotty? ' ''Tis so, ma'am. She'll drop down the river with that theer
tide. If Mas'r Davy and my sister comes aboard at Gravesen', arternoon
o' next day, they'll see the last on us. '

'And that we shall do,' said I, 'be sure! '

'Until then, and until we are at sea,' observed Mr. Micawber, with a
glance of intelligence at me, 'Mr. Peggotty and myself will constantly
keep a double look-out together, on our goods and chattels. Emma, my
love,' said Mr. Micawber, clearing his throat in his magnificent way,
'my friend Mr. Thomas Traddles is so obliging as to solicit, in my ear,
that he should have the privilege of ordering the ingredients necessary
to the composition of a moderate portion of that Beverage which is
peculiarly associated, in our minds, with the Roast Beef of Old England.
I allude to--in short, Punch. Under ordinary circumstances, I should
scruple to entreat the indulgence of Miss Trotwood and Miss Wickfield,
but-'

'I can only say for myself,' said my aunt, 'that I will drink all
happiness and success to you, Mr. Micawber, with the utmost pleasure. '

'And I too! ' said Agnes, with a smile.

Mr. Micawber immediately descended to the bar, where he appeared to be
quite at home; and in due time returned with a steaming jug. I could
not but observe that he had been peeling the lemons with his own
clasp-knife, which, as became the knife of a practical settler, was
about a foot long; and which he wiped, not wholly without ostentation,
on the sleeve of his coat. Mrs. Micawber and the two elder members
of the family I now found to be provided with similar formidable
instruments, while every child had its own wooden spoon attached to its
body by a strong line. In a similar anticipation of life afloat, and in
the Bush, Mr. Micawber, instead of helping Mrs. Micawber and his eldest
son and daughter to punch, in wine-glasses, which he might easily have
done, for there was a shelf-full in the room, served it out to them in a
series of villainous little tin pots; and I never saw him enjoy anything
so much as drinking out of his own particular pint pot, and putting it
in his pocket at the close of the evening.

'The luxuries of the old country,' said Mr. Micawber, with an intense
satisfaction in their renouncement, 'we abandon. The denizens of the
forest cannot, of course, expect to participate in the refinements of
the land of the Free. '

Here, a boy came in to say that Mr. Micawber was wanted downstairs.

'I have a presentiment,' said Mrs. Micawber, setting down her tin pot,
'that it is a member of my family! '

'If so, my dear,' observed Mr. Micawber, with his usual suddenness of
warmth on that subject, 'as the member of your family--whoever he, she,
or it, may be--has kept us waiting for a considerable period, perhaps
the Member may now wait MY convenience. '

'Micawber,' said his wife, in a low tone, 'at such a time as this--'

'"It is not meet,"' said Mr. Micawber, rising, '"that every nice offence
should bear its comment! " Emma, I stand reproved. '

'The loss, Micawber,' observed his wife, 'has been my family's, not
yours. If my family are at length sensible of the deprivation to which
their own conduct has, in the past, exposed them, and now desire to
extend the hand of fellowship, let it not be repulsed. '

'My dear,' he returned, 'so be it! '

'If not for their sakes; for mine, Micawber,' said his wife.

'Emma,' he returned, 'that view of the question is, at such a moment,
irresistible. I cannot, even now, distinctly pledge myself to fall
upon your family's neck; but the member of your family, who is now in
attendance, shall have no genial warmth frozen by me. '

Mr. Micawber withdrew, and was absent some little time; in the course of
which Mrs. Micawber was not wholly free from an apprehension that words
might have arisen between him and the Member. At length the same boy
reappeared, and presented me with a note written in pencil, and headed,
in a legal manner, 'Heep v. Micawber'. From this document, I learned
that Mr. Micawber being again arrested, 'Was in a final paroxysm of
despair; and that he begged me to send him his knife and pint pot, by
bearer, as they might prove serviceable during the brief remainder of
his existence, in jail. He also requested, as a last act of friendship,
that I would see his family to the Parish Workhouse, and forget that
such a Being ever lived.

Of course I answered this note by going down with the boy to pay the
money, where I found Mr. Micawber sitting in a corner, looking darkly at
the Sheriff 's Officer who had effected the capture. On his release,
he embraced me with the utmost fervour; and made an entry of the
transaction in his pocket-book--being very particular, I recollect,
about a halfpenny I inadvertently omitted from my statement of the
total.

This momentous pocket-book was a timely reminder to him of another
transaction. On our return to the room upstairs (where he accounted for
his absence by saying that it had been occasioned by circumstances over
which he had no control), he took out of it a large sheet of paper,
folded small, and quite covered with long sums, carefully worked. From
the glimpse I had of them, I should say that I never saw such sums
out of a school ciphering-book. These, it seemed, were calculations of
compound interest on what he called 'the principal amount of forty-one,
ten, eleven and a half', for various periods. After a careful
consideration of these, and an elaborate estimate of his resources,
he had come to the conclusion to select that sum which represented the
amount with compound interest to two years, fifteen calendar months, and
fourteen days, from that date. For this he had drawn a note-of-hand
with great neatness, which he handed over to Traddles on the spot,
a discharge of his debt in full (as between man and man), with many
acknowledgements.

'I have still a presentiment,' said Mrs. Micawber, pensively shaking her
head, 'that my family will appear on board, before we finally depart. '

Mr. Micawber evidently had his presentiment on the subject too, but he
put it in his tin pot and swallowed it.

'If you have any opportunity of sending letters home, on your passage,
Mrs. Micawber,' said my aunt, 'you must let us hear from you, you know. '

'My dear Miss Trotwood,' she replied, 'I shall only be too happy
to think that anyone expects to hear from us. I shall not fail to
correspond. Mr. Copperfield, I trust, as an old and familiar friend,
will not object to receive occasional intelligence, himself, from one
who knew him when the twins were yet unconscious? '

I said that I should hope to hear, whenever she had an opportunity of
writing.

'Please Heaven, there will be many such opportunities,' said Mr.
Micawber. 'The ocean, in these times, is a perfect fleet of ships; and
we can hardly fail to encounter many, in running over. It is merely
crossing,' said Mr. Micawber, trifling with his eye-glass, 'merely
crossing. The distance is quite imaginary. '

I think, now, how odd it was, but how wonderfully like Mr. Micawber,
that, when he went from London to Canterbury, he should have talked as
if he were going to the farthest limits of the earth; and, when he went
from England to Australia, as if he were going for a little trip across
the channel.

'On the voyage, I shall endeavour,' said Mr. Micawber, 'occasionally
to spin them a yarn; and the melody of my son Wilkins will, I trust,
be acceptable at the galley-fire. When Mrs. Micawber has her
sea-legs on--an expression in which I hope there is no conventional
impropriety--she will give them, I dare say, "Little Tafflin". Porpoises
and dolphins, I believe, will be frequently observed athwart our
Bows; and, either on the starboard or the larboard quarter, objects of
interest will be continually descried. In short,' said Mr. Micawber,
with the old genteel air, 'the probability is, all will be found so
exciting, alow and aloft, that when the lookout, stationed in the
main-top, cries Land-oh! we shall be very considerably astonished! '

With that he flourished off the contents of his little tin pot, as if he
had made the voyage, and had passed a first-class examination before the
highest naval authorities.

'What I chiefly hope, my dear Mr. Copperfield,' said Mrs. Micawber,
'is, that in some branches of our family we may live again in the old
country. Do not frown, Micawber! I do not now refer to my own family,
but to our children's children. However vigorous the sapling,' said Mrs.
Micawber, shaking her head, 'I cannot forget the parent-tree; and when
our race attains to eminence and fortune, I own I should wish that
fortune to flow into the coffers of Britannia. '

'My dear,' said Mr. Micawber, 'Britannia must take her chance. I am
bound to say that she has never done much for me, and that I have no
particular wish upon the subject. '

'Micawber,' returned Mrs. Micawber, 'there, you are wrong. You are going
out, Micawber, to this distant clime, to strengthen, not to weaken, the
connexion between yourself and Albion. '

'The connexion in question, my love,' rejoined Mr. Micawber, 'has not
laid me, I repeat, under that load of personal obligation, that I am at
all sensitive as to the formation of another connexion. '

'Micawber,' returned Mrs. Micawber. 'There, I again say, you are wrong.