No More Learning

Clara, my love, have you forgotten? --Firmness, my dear! '

'I am very sorry, Edward,' said my mother. 'I meant to be very good, but
I am so uncomfortable. '

'Indeed! ' he answered. 'That's a bad hearing, so soon, Clara. '

'I say it's very hard I should be made so now,' returned my mother,
pouting; 'and it is--very hard--isn't it? '

He drew her to him, whispered in her ear, and kissed her. I knew as
well, when I saw my mother's head lean down upon his shoulder, and her
arm touch his neck--I knew as well that he could mould her pliant nature
into any form he chose, as I know, now, that he did it.

'Go you below, my love,' said Mr. Murdstone. 'David and I will come
down, together. My friend,' turning a darkening face on Peggotty, when
he had watched my mother out, and dismissed her with a nod and a smile;
'do you know your mistress's name? '

'She has been my mistress a long time, sir,' answered Peggotty, 'I ought
to know it. ' 'That's true,' he answered. 'But I thought I heard you, as
I came upstairs, address her by a name that is not hers. She has taken
mine, you know. Will you remember that? '

Peggotty, with some uneasy glances at me, curtseyed herself out of the
room without replying; seeing, I suppose, that she was expected to go,
and had no excuse for remaining. When we two were left alone, he shut
the door, and sitting on a chair, and holding me standing before him,
looked steadily into my eyes. I felt my own attracted, no less steadily,
to his. As I recall our being opposed thus, face to face, I seem again
to hear my heart beat fast and high.

'David,' he said, making his lips thin, by pressing them together, 'if I
have an obstinate horse or dog to deal with, what do you think I do? '

'I don't know. '

'I beat him. '

I had answered in a kind of breathless whisper, but I felt, in my
silence, that my breath was shorter now.

'I make him wince, and smart. I say to myself, "I'll conquer that
fellow"; and if it were to cost him all the blood he had, I should do
it. What is that upon your face? '

'Dirt,' I said.

He knew it was the mark of tears as well as I. But if he had asked the
question twenty times, each time with twenty blows, I believe my baby
heart would have burst before I would have told him so.

'You have a good deal of intelligence for a little fellow,' he said,
with a grave smile that belonged to him, 'and you understood me very
well, I see. Wash that face, sir, and come down with me. '

He pointed to the washing-stand, which I had made out to be like Mrs.
Gummidge, and motioned me with his head to obey him directly. I had
little doubt then, and I have less doubt now, that he would have knocked
me down without the least compunction, if I had hesitated.

'Clara, my dear,' he said, when I had done his bidding, and he walked me
into the parlour, with his hand still on my arm; 'you will not be made
uncomfortable any more, I hope. We shall soon improve our youthful
humours. '

God help me, I might have been improved for my whole life, I might have
been made another creature perhaps, for life, by a kind word at that
season. A word of encouragement and explanation, of pity for my childish
ignorance, of welcome home, of reassurance to me that it was home, might
have made me dutiful to him in my heart henceforth, instead of in my
hypocritical outside, and might have made me respect instead of hate
him. I thought my mother was sorry to see me standing in the room so
scared and strange, and that, presently, when I stole to a chair, she
followed me with her eyes more sorrowfully still--missing, perhaps, some
freedom in my childish tread--but the word was not spoken, and the time
for it was gone.

We dined alone, we three together. He seemed to be very fond of my
mother--I am afraid I liked him none the better for that--and she was
very fond of him. I gathered from what they said, that an elder sister
of his was coming to stay with them, and that she was expected that
evening. I am not certain whether I found out then, or afterwards, that,
without being actively concerned in any business, he had some share in,
or some annual charge upon the profits of, a wine-merchant's house
in London, with which his family had been connected from his
great-grandfather's time, and in which his sister had a similar
interest; but I may mention it in this place, whether or no.

After dinner, when we were sitting by the fire, and I was meditating an
escape to Peggotty without having the hardihood to slip away, lest
it should offend the master of the house, a coach drove up to the
garden-gate and he went out to receive the visitor. My mother followed
him. I was timidly following her, when she turned round at the parlour
door, in the dusk, and taking me in her embrace as she had been used to
do, whispered me to love my new father and be obedient to him. She did
this hurriedly and secretly, as if it were wrong, but tenderly; and,
putting out her hand behind her, held mine in it, until we came near
to where he was standing in the garden, where she let mine go, and drew
hers through his arm.

It was Miss Murdstone who was arrived, and a gloomy-looking lady she
was; dark, like her brother, whom she greatly resembled in face and
voice; and with very heavy eyebrows, nearly meeting over her large nose,
as if, being disabled by the wrongs of her sex from wearing whiskers,
she had carried them to that account. She brought with her two
uncompromising hard black boxes, with her initials on the lids in hard
brass nails. When she paid the coachman she took her money out of a hard
steel purse, and she kept the purse in a very jail of a bag which hung
upon her arm by a heavy chain, and shut up like a bite. I had never, at
that time, seen such a metallic lady altogether as Miss Murdstone was.

She was brought into the parlour with many tokens of welcome, and there
formally recognized my mother as a new and near relation. Then she
looked at me, and said:

'Is that your boy, sister-in-law? '

My mother acknowledged me.

'Generally speaking,' said Miss Murdstone, 'I don't like boys. How d'ye
do, boy? '

Under these encouraging circumstances, I replied that I was very well,
and that I hoped she was the same; with such an indifferent grace, that
Miss Murdstone disposed of me in two words:

'Wants manner! '

Having uttered which, with great distinctness, she begged the favour of
being shown to her room, which became to me from that time forth a place
of awe and dread, wherein the two black boxes were never seen open or
known to be left unlocked, and where (for I peeped in once or twice when
she was out) numerous little steel fetters and rivets, with which Miss
Murdstone embellished herself when she was dressed, generally hung upon
the looking-glass in formidable array.

As well as I could make out, she had come for good, and had no intention
of ever going again. She began to 'help' my mother next morning, and was
in and out of the store-closet all day, putting things to rights, and
making havoc in the old arrangements. Almost the first remarkable thing
I observed in Miss Murdstone was, her being constantly haunted by
a suspicion that the servants had a man secreted somewhere on the
premises. Under the influence of this delusion, she dived into the
coal-cellar at the most untimely hours, and scarcely ever opened the
door of a dark cupboard without clapping it to again, in the belief that
she had got him.

Though there was nothing very airy about Miss Murdstone, she was a
perfect Lark in point of getting up. She was up (and, as I believe
to this hour, looking for that man) before anybody in the house was
stirring. Peggotty gave it as her opinion that she even slept with one
eye open; but I could not concur in this idea; for I tried it myself
after hearing the suggestion thrown out, and found it couldn't be done.

On the very first morning after her arrival she was up and ringing her
bell at cock-crow. When my mother came down to breakfast and was going
to make the tea, Miss Murdstone gave her a kind of peck on the cheek,
which was her nearest approach to a kiss, and said:

'Now, Clara, my dear, I am come here, you know, to relieve you of all
the trouble I can. You're much too pretty and thoughtless'--my mother
blushed but laughed, and seemed not to dislike this character--'to have
any duties imposed upon you that can be undertaken by me. If you'll be
so good as give me your keys, my dear, I'll attend to all this sort of
thing in future. '

From that time, Miss Murdstone kept the keys in her own little jail all
day, and under her pillow all night, and my mother had no more to do
with them than I had.

My mother did not suffer her authority to pass from her without a shadow
of protest. One night when Miss Murdstone had been developing certain
household plans to her brother, of which he signified his approbation,
my mother suddenly began to cry, and said she thought she might have
been consulted.

'Clara! ' said Mr. Murdstone sternly. 'Clara! I wonder at you. '

'Oh, it's very well to say you wonder, Edward! ' cried my mother, 'and
it's very well for you to talk about firmness, but you wouldn't like it
yourself. '

Firmness, I may observe, was the grand quality on which both Mr. and
Miss Murdstone took their stand. However I might have expressed
my comprehension of it at that time, if I had been called upon, I
nevertheless did clearly comprehend in my own way, that it was another
name for tyranny; and for a certain gloomy, arrogant, devil's humour,
that was in them both. The creed, as I should state it now, was this.
Mr. Murdstone was firm; nobody in his world was to be so firm as Mr.
Murdstone; nobody else in his world was to be firm at all, for everybody
was to be bent to his firmness. Miss Murdstone was an exception.
She might be firm, but only by relationship, and in an inferior and
tributary degree. My mother was another exception. She might be firm,
and must be; but only in bearing their firmness, and firmly believing
there was no other firmness upon earth.

'It's very hard,' said my mother, 'that in my own house--'

'My own house? ' repeated Mr. Murdstone. 'Clara! '

'OUR own house, I mean,' faltered my mother, evidently frightened--'I
hope you must know what I mean, Edward--it's very hard that in YOUR own
house I may not have a word to say about domestic matters. I am sure
I managed very well before we were married. There's evidence,' said my
mother, sobbing; 'ask Peggotty if I didn't do very well when I wasn't
interfered with! '

'Edward,' said Miss Murdstone, 'let there be an end of this. I go
tomorrow. '

'Jane Murdstone,' said her brother, 'be silent! How dare you to
insinuate that you don't know my character better than your words
imply? '

'I am sure,' my poor mother went on, at a grievous disadvantage, and
with many tears, 'I don't want anybody to go. I should be very
miserable and unhappy if anybody was to go. I don't ask much. I am not
unreasonable. I only want to be consulted sometimes. I am very much
obliged to anybody who assists me, and I only want to be consulted as a
mere form, sometimes. I thought you were pleased, once, with my being a
little inexperienced and girlish, Edward--I am sure you said so--but you
seem to hate me for it now, you are so severe. '

'Edward,' said Miss Murdstone, again, 'let there be an end of this. I go
tomorrow. '

'Jane Murdstone,' thundered Mr. Murdstone. 'Will you be silent? How dare
you? '

Miss Murdstone made a jail-delivery of her pocket-handkerchief, and held
it before her eyes.

'Clara,' he continued, looking at my mother, 'you surprise me! You
astound me! Yes, I had a satisfaction in the thought of marrying
an inexperienced and artless person, and forming her character, and
infusing into it some amount of that firmness and decision of which
it stood in need. But when Jane Murdstone is kind enough to come to my
assistance in this endeavour, and to assume, for my sake, a condition
something like a housekeeper's, and when she meets with a base return--'

'Oh, pray, pray, Edward,' cried my mother, 'don't accuse me of being
ungrateful. I am sure I am not ungrateful. No one ever said I was
before. I have many faults, but not that. Oh, don't, my dear! '

'When Jane Murdstone meets, I say,' he went on, after waiting until my
mother was silent, 'with a base return, that feeling of mine is chilled
and altered. '

'Don't, my love, say that! ' implored my mother very piteously.
'Oh, don't, Edward! I can't bear to hear it. Whatever I am, I am
affectionate. I know I am affectionate. I wouldn't say it, if I
wasn't sure that I am. Ask Peggotty. I am sure she'll tell you I'm
affectionate. '

'There is no extent of mere weakness, Clara,' said Mr. Murdstone in
reply, 'that can have the least weight with me. You lose breath. '

'Pray let us be friends,' said my mother, 'I couldn't live under
coldness or unkindness. I am so sorry. I have a great many defects, I
know, and it's very good of you, Edward, with your strength of mind, to
endeavour to correct them for me. Jane, I don't object to anything. I
should be quite broken-hearted if you thought of leaving--' My mother
was too much overcome to go on.

'Jane Murdstone,' said Mr. Murdstone to his sister, 'any harsh words
between us are, I hope, uncommon. It is not my fault that so unusual an
occurrence has taken place tonight. I was betrayed into it by another.
Nor is it your fault. You were betrayed into it by another. Let us both
try to forget it. And as this,' he added, after these magnanimous words,
'is not a fit scene for the boy--David, go to bed! '

I could hardly find the door, through the tears that stood in my eyes.
I was so sorry for my mother's distress; but I groped my way out, and
groped my way up to my room in the dark, without even having the heart
to say good night to Peggotty, or to get a candle from her. When her
coming up to look for me, an hour or so afterwards, awoke me, she said
that my mother had gone to bed poorly, and that Mr. and Miss Murdstone
were sitting alone.

Going down next morning rather earlier than usual, I paused outside the
parlour door, on hearing my mother's voice. She was very earnestly and
humbly entreating Miss Murdstone's pardon, which that lady granted, and
a perfect reconciliation took place. I never knew my mother afterwards
to give an opinion on any matter, without first appealing to Miss
Murdstone, or without having first ascertained by some sure means, what
Miss Murdstone's opinion was; and I never saw Miss Murdstone, when out
of temper (she was infirm that way), move her hand towards her bag as
if she were going to take out the keys and offer to resign them to my
mother, without seeing that my mother was in a terrible fright.

The gloomy taint that was in the Murdstone blood, darkened the Murdstone
religion, which was austere and wrathful. I have thought, since,
that its assuming that character was a necessary consequence of Mr.
Murdstone's firmness, which wouldn't allow him to let anybody off from
the utmost weight of the severest penalties he could find any excuse
for. Be this as it may, I well remember the tremendous visages with
which we used to go to church, and the changed air of the place. Again,
the dreaded Sunday comes round, and I file into the old pew first, like
a guarded captive brought to a condemned service. Again, Miss Murdstone,
in a black velvet gown, that looks as if it had been made out of a pall,
follows close upon me; then my mother; then her husband. There is no
Peggotty now, as in the old time. Again, I listen to Miss Murdstone
mumbling the responses, and emphasizing all the dread words with a cruel
relish. Again, I see her dark eyes roll round the church when she says
'miserable sinners', as if she were calling all the congregation names.
Again, I catch rare glimpses of my mother, moving her lips timidly
between the two, with one of them muttering at each ear like low
thunder. Again, I wonder with a sudden fear whether it is likely that
our good old clergyman can be wrong, and Mr. and Miss Murdstone right,
and that all the angels in Heaven can be destroying angels. Again, if I
move a finger or relax a muscle of my face, Miss Murdstone pokes me with
her prayer-book, and makes my side ache.

Yes, and again, as we walk home, I note some neighbours looking at my
mother and at me, and whispering. Again, as the three go on arm-in-arm,
and I linger behind alone, I follow some of those looks, and wonder if
my mother's step be really not so light as I have seen it, and if the
gaiety of her beauty be really almost worried away. Again, I wonder
whether any of the neighbours call to mind, as I do, how we used to
walk home together, she and I; and I wonder stupidly about that, all the
dreary dismal day.

There had been some talk on occasions of my going to boarding-school.
Mr. and Miss Murdstone had originated it, and my mother had of course
agreed with them. Nothing, however, was concluded on the subject yet.
In the meantime, I learnt lessons at home. Shall I ever forget those
lessons! They were presided over nominally by my mother, but really by
Mr. Murdstone and his sister, who were always present, and found them
a favourable occasion for giving my mother lessons in that miscalled
firmness, which was the bane of both our lives. I believe I was kept
at home for that purpose. I had been apt enough to learn, and willing
enough, when my mother and I had lived alone together. I can faintly
remember learning the alphabet at her knee. To this day, when I look
upon the fat black letters in the primer, the puzzling novelty of their
shapes, and the easy good-nature of O and Q and S, seem to present
themselves again before me as they used to do. But they recall no
feeling of disgust or reluctance. On the contrary, I seem to have walked
along a path of flowers as far as the crocodile-book, and to have been
cheered by the gentleness of my mother's voice and manner all the
way. But these solemn lessons which succeeded those, I remember as the
death-blow of my peace, and a grievous daily drudgery and misery. They
were very long, very numerous, very hard--perfectly unintelligible,
some of them, to me--and I was generally as much bewildered by them as I
believe my poor mother was herself.

Let me remember how it used to be, and bring one morning back again.

I come into the second-best parlour after breakfast, with my books,
and an exercise-book, and a slate. My mother is ready for me at her
writing-desk, but not half so ready as Mr. Murdstone in his easy-chair
by the window (though he pretends to be reading a book), or as Miss
Murdstone, sitting near my mother stringing steel beads. The very sight
of these two has such an influence over me, that I begin to feel the
words I have been at infinite pains to get into my head, all sliding
away, and going I don't know where. I wonder where they do go, by the
by?

I hand the first book to my mother. Perhaps it is a grammar, perhaps a
history, or geography.
I take a last drowning look at the page as I give
it into her hand, and start off aloud at a racing pace while I have
got it fresh. I trip over a word. Mr. Murdstone looks up. I trip
over another word. Miss Murdstone looks up. I redden, tumble over
half-a-dozen words, and stop. I think my mother would show me the book
if she dared, but she does not dare, and she says softly:

'Oh, Davy, Davy! '

'Now, Clara,' says Mr. Murdstone, 'be firm with the boy. Don't say, "Oh,
Davy, Davy! " That's childish. He knows his lesson, or he does not know
it. '

'He does NOT know it,' Miss Murdstone interposes awfully.

'I am really afraid he does not,' says my mother.

'Then, you see, Clara,' returns Miss Murdstone, 'you should just give
him the book back, and make him know it. '

'Yes, certainly,' says my mother; 'that is what I intend to do, my dear
Jane. Now, Davy, try once more, and don't be stupid. '

I obey the first clause of the injunction by trying once more, but am
not so successful with the second, for I am very stupid. I tumble down
before I get to the old place, at a point where I was all right before,
and stop to think. But I can't think about the lesson. I think of the
number of yards of net in Miss Murdstone's cap, or of the price of Mr.
Murdstone's dressing-gown, or any such ridiculous problem that I have
no business with, and don't want to have anything at all to do with. Mr.
Murdstone makes a movement of impatience which I have been expecting
for a long time. Miss Murdstone does the same. My mother glances
submissively at them, shuts the book, and lays it by as an arrear to be
worked out when my other tasks are done.

There is a pile of these arrears very soon, and it swells like a rolling
snowball. The bigger it gets, the more stupid I get. The case is so
hopeless, and I feel that I am wallowing in such a bog of nonsense, that
I give up all idea of getting out, and abandon myself to my fate. The
despairing way in which my mother and I look at each other, as I blunder
on, is truly melancholy. But the greatest effect in these miserable
lessons is when my mother (thinking nobody is observing her) tries
to give me the cue by the motion of her lips. At that instant, Miss
Murdstone, who has been lying in wait for nothing else all along, says
in a deep warning voice:

'Clara! '

My mother starts, colours, and smiles faintly. Mr. Murdstone comes out
of his chair, takes the book, throws it at me or boxes my ears with it,
and turns me out of the room by the shoulders.

Even when the lessons are done, the worst is yet to happen, in the shape
of an appalling sum. This is invented for me, and delivered to me orally
by Mr. Murdstone, and begins, 'If I go into a cheesemonger's shop, and
buy five thousand double-Gloucester cheeses at fourpence-halfpenny each,
present payment'--at which I see Miss Murdstone secretly overjoyed.
I pore over these cheeses without any result or enlightenment until
dinner-time, when, having made a Mulatto of myself by getting the dirt
of the slate into the pores of my skin, I have a slice of bread to help
me out with the cheeses, and am considered in disgrace for the rest of
the evening.

It seems to me, at this distance of time, as if my unfortunate studies
generally took this course. I could have done very well if I had been
without the Murdstones; but the influence of the Murdstones upon me was
like the fascination of two snakes on a wretched young bird. Even when
I did get through the morning with tolerable credit, there was not
much gained but dinner; for Miss Murdstone never could endure to see me
untasked, and if I rashly made any show of being unemployed, called her
brother's attention to me by saying, 'Clara, my dear, there's nothing
like work--give your boy an exercise'; which caused me to be clapped
down to some new labour, there and then. As to any recreation with other
children of my age, I had very little of that; for the gloomy theology
of the Murdstones made all children out to be a swarm of little vipers
(though there WAS a child once set in the midst of the Disciples), and
held that they contaminated one another.

The natural result of this treatment, continued, I suppose, for some six
months or more, was to make me sullen, dull, and dogged. I was not
made the less so by my sense of being daily more and more shut out and
alienated from my mother. I believe I should have been almost stupefied
but for one circumstance.

It was this. My father had left a small collection of books in a little
room upstairs, to which I had access (for it adjoined my own) and which
nobody else in our house ever troubled. From that blessed little room,
Roderick Random, Peregrine Pickle, Humphrey Clinker, Tom Jones, the
Vicar of Wakefield, Don Quixote, Gil Blas, and Robinson Crusoe, came
out, a glorious host, to keep me company. They kept alive my fancy, and
my hope of something beyond that place and time,--they, and the Arabian
Nights, and the Tales of the Genii,--and did me no harm; for whatever
harm was in some of them was not there for me; I knew nothing of it. It
is astonishing to me now, how I found time, in the midst of my porings
and blunderings over heavier themes, to read those books as I did. It
is curious to me how I could ever have consoled myself under my
small troubles (which were great troubles to me), by impersonating my
favourite characters in them--as I did--and by putting Mr. and Miss
Murdstone into all the bad ones--which I did too. I have been Tom Jones
(a child's Tom Jones, a harmless creature) for a week together. I have
sustained my own idea of Roderick Random for a month at a stretch, I
verily believe. I had a greedy relish for a few volumes of Voyages and
Travels--I forget what, now--that were on those shelves; and for days
and days I can remember to have gone about my region of our house,
armed with the centre-piece out of an old set of boot-trees--the perfect
realization of Captain Somebody, of the Royal British Navy, in danger of
being beset by savages, and resolved to sell his life at a great price.
The Captain never lost dignity, from having his ears boxed with the
Latin Grammar. I did; but the Captain was a Captain and a hero, in
despite of all the grammars of all the languages in the world, dead or
alive.

This was my only and my constant comfort. When I think of it, the
picture always rises in my mind, of a summer evening, the boys at play
in the churchyard, and I sitting on my bed, reading as if for life.
Every barn in the neighbourhood, every stone in the church, and every
foot of the churchyard, had some association of its own, in my mind,
connected with these books, and stood for some locality made famous in
them. I have seen Tom Pipes go climbing up the church-steeple; I have
watched Strap, with the knapsack on his back, stopping to rest himself
upon the wicket-gate; and I know that Commodore Trunnion held that club
with Mr. Pickle, in the parlour of our little village alehouse.

The reader now understands, as well as I do, what I was when I came to
that point of my youthful history to which I am now coming again.

One morning when I went into the parlour with my books, I found my
mother looking anxious, Miss Murdstone looking firm, and Mr. Murdstone
binding something round the bottom of a cane--a lithe and limber cane,
which he left off binding when I came in, and poised and switched in the
air.

'I tell you, Clara,' said Mr. Murdstone, 'I have been often flogged
myself. '

'To be sure; of course,' said Miss Murdstone.

'Certainly, my dear Jane,' faltered my mother, meekly. 'But--but do you
think it did Edward good? '

'Do you think it did Edward harm, Clara? ' asked Mr. Murdstone, gravely.

'That's the point,' said his sister.

To this my mother returned, 'Certainly, my dear Jane,' and said no more.

I felt apprehensive that I was personally interested in this dialogue,
and sought Mr. Murdstone's eye as it lighted on mine.

'Now, David,' he said--and I saw that cast again as he said it--'you
must be far more careful today than usual. ' He gave the cane another
poise, and another switch; and having finished his preparation of it,
laid it down beside him, with an impressive look, and took up his book.

This was a good freshener to my presence of mind, as a beginning. I felt
the words of my lessons slipping off, not one by one, or line by line,
but by the entire page; I tried to lay hold of them; but they seemed,
if I may so express it, to have put skates on, and to skim away from me
with a smoothness there was no checking.

We began badly, and went on worse. I had come in with an idea of
distinguishing myself rather, conceiving that I was very well prepared;
but it turned out to be quite a mistake. Book after book was added to
the heap of failures, Miss Murdstone being firmly watchful of us all the
time. And when we came at last to the five thousand cheeses (canes he
made it that day, I remember), my mother burst out crying.

'Clara! ' said Miss Murdstone, in her warning voice.

'I am not quite well, my dear Jane, I think,' said my mother.

I saw him wink, solemnly, at his sister, as he rose and said, taking up
the cane:

'Why, Jane, we can hardly expect Clara to bear, with perfect firmness,
the worry and torment that David has occasioned her today. That would be
stoical. Clara is greatly strengthened and improved, but we can hardly
expect so much from her. David, you and I will go upstairs, boy. '

As he took me out at the door, my mother ran towards us. Miss Murdstone
said, 'Clara! are you a perfect fool? ' and interfered. I saw my mother
stop her ears then, and I heard her crying.

He walked me up to my room slowly and gravely--I am certain he had a
delight in that formal parade of executing justice--and when we got
there, suddenly twisted my head under his arm.

'Mr. Murdstone! Sir! ' I cried to him. 'Don't! Pray don't beat me! I have
tried to learn, sir, but I can't learn while you and Miss Murdstone are
by. I can't indeed! '

'Can't you, indeed, David? ' he said. 'We'll try that. '

He had my head as in a vice, but I twined round him somehow, and stopped
him for a moment, entreating him not to beat me. It was only a moment
that I stopped him, for he cut me heavily an instant afterwards, and in
the same instant I caught the hand with which he held me in my mouth,
between my teeth, and bit it through. It sets my teeth on edge to think
of it.

He beat me then, as if he would have beaten me to death. Above all the
noise we made, I heard them running up the stairs, and crying out--I
heard my mother crying out--and Peggotty. Then he was gone; and the
door was locked outside; and I was lying, fevered and hot, and torn, and
sore, and raging in my puny way, upon the floor.

How well I recollect, when I became quiet, what an unnatural stillness
seemed to reign through the whole house! How well I remember, when my
smart and passion began to cool, how wicked I began to feel!

I sat listening for a long while, but there was not a sound. I crawled
up from the floor, and saw my face in the glass, so swollen, red, and
ugly that it almost frightened me. My stripes were sore and stiff, and
made me cry afresh, when I moved; but they were nothing to the guilt I
felt. It lay heavier on my breast than if I had been a most atrocious
criminal, I dare say.

It had begun to grow dark, and I had shut the window (I had been lying,
for the most part, with my head upon the sill, by turns crying, dozing,
and looking listlessly out), when the key was turned, and Miss Murdstone
came in with some bread and meat, and milk. These she put down upon the
table without a word, glaring at me the while with exemplary firmness,
and then retired, locking the door after her.

Long after it was dark I sat there, wondering whether anybody else would
come. When this appeared improbable for that night, I undressed, and
went to bed; and, there, I began to wonder fearfully what would be done
to me. Whether it was a criminal act that I had committed? Whether I
should be taken into custody, and sent to prison? Whether I was at all
in danger of being hanged?

I never shall forget the waking, next morning; the being cheerful and
fresh for the first moment, and then the being weighed down by the stale
and dismal oppression of remembrance. Miss Murdstone reappeared before
I was out of bed; told me, in so many words, that I was free to walk in
the garden for half an hour and no longer; and retired, leaving the door
open, that I might avail myself of that permission.

I did so, and did so every morning of my imprisonment, which lasted five
days. If I could have seen my mother alone, I should have gone down on
my knees to her and besought her forgiveness; but I saw no one, Miss
Murdstone excepted, during the whole time--except at evening prayers in
the parlour; to which I was escorted by Miss Murdstone after everybody
else was placed; where I was stationed, a young outlaw, all alone by
myself near the door; and whence I was solemnly conducted by my jailer,
before any one arose from the devotional posture. I only observed that
my mother was as far off from me as she could be, and kept her face
another way so that I never saw it; and that Mr. Murdstone's hand was
bound up in a large linen wrapper.

The length of those five days I can convey no idea of to any one. They
occupy the place of years in my remembrance. The way in which I listened
to all the incidents of the house that made themselves audible to me;
the ringing of bells, the opening and shutting of doors, the murmuring
of voices, the footsteps on the stairs; to any laughing, whistling, or
singing, outside, which seemed more dismal than anything else to me in
my solitude and disgrace--the uncertain pace of the hours, especially
at night, when I would wake thinking it was morning, and find that the
family were not yet gone to bed, and that all the length of night had
yet to come--the depressed dreams and nightmares I had--the return of
day, noon, afternoon, evening, when the boys played in the churchyard,
and I watched them from a distance within the room, being ashamed to
show myself at the window lest they should know I was a prisoner--the
strange sensation of never hearing myself speak--the fleeting intervals
of something like cheerfulness, which came with eating and drinking,
and went away with it--the setting in of rain one evening, with a fresh
smell, and its coming down faster and faster between me and the church,
until it and gathering night seemed to quench me in gloom, and fear, and
remorse--all this appears to have gone round and round for years instead
of days, it is so vividly and strongly stamped on my remembrance. On the
last night of my restraint, I was awakened by hearing my own name spoken
in a whisper. I started up in bed, and putting out my arms in the dark,
said:

'Is that you, Peggotty? '

There was no immediate answer, but presently I heard my name again, in a
tone so very mysterious and awful, that I think I should have gone into
a fit, if it had not occurred to me that it must have come through the
keyhole.

I groped my way to the door, and putting my own lips to the keyhole,
whispered: 'Is that you, Peggotty dear? '

'Yes, my own precious Davy,' she replied. 'Be as soft as a mouse, or the
Cat'll hear us. '

I understood this to mean Miss Murdstone, and was sensible of the
urgency of the case; her room being close by.

'How's mama, dear Peggotty? Is she very angry with me? '

I could hear Peggotty crying softly on her side of the keyhole, as I was
doing on mine, before she answered. 'No. Not very. '

'What is going to be done with me, Peggotty dear? Do you know? '

'School. Near London,' was Peggotty's answer. I was obliged to get her
to repeat it, for she spoke it the first time quite down my throat,
in consequence of my having forgotten to take my mouth away from the
keyhole and put my ear there; and though her words tickled me a good
deal, I didn't hear them.

'When, Peggotty? '

'Tomorrow. '

'Is that the reason why Miss Murdstone took the clothes out of my
drawers? ' which she had done, though I have forgotten to mention it.

'Yes,' said Peggotty. 'Box. '

'Shan't I see mama? '

'Yes,' said Peggotty. 'Morning. '

Then Peggotty fitted her mouth close to the keyhole, and delivered these
words through it with as much feeling and earnestness as a keyhole
has ever been the medium of communicating, I will venture to assert:
shooting in each broken little sentence in a convulsive little burst of
its own.

'Davy, dear. If I ain't been azackly as intimate with you. Lately, as I
used to be. It ain't because I don't love you. Just as well and more, my
pretty poppet. It's because I thought it better for you. And for someone
else besides. Davy, my darling, are you listening? Can you hear? '

'Ye-ye-ye-yes, Peggotty! ' I sobbed.

'My own! ' said Peggotty, with infinite compassion. 'What I want to say,
is. That you must never forget me. For I'll never forget you. And I'll
take as much care of your mama, Davy. As ever I took of you. And I won't
leave her. The day may come when she'll be glad to lay her poor head.
On her stupid, cross old Peggotty's arm again. And I'll write to you,
my dear. Though I ain't no scholar. And I'll--I'll--' Peggotty fell to
kissing the keyhole, as she couldn't kiss me.

'Thank you, dear Peggotty! ' said I. 'Oh, thank you! Thank you! Will you
promise me one thing, Peggotty? Will you write and tell Mr. Peggotty and
little Em'ly, and Mrs. Gummidge and Ham, that I am not so bad as they
might suppose, and that I sent 'em all my love--especially to little
Em'ly? Will you, if you please, Peggotty? '

The kind soul promised, and we both of us kissed the keyhole with the
greatest affection--I patted it with my hand, I recollect, as if it had
been her honest face--and parted. From that night there grew up in my
breast a feeling for Peggotty which I cannot very well define.