No More Learning

But for the
quiet picture I had conjured up, of my mother in her youth and beauty,
weeping by the fire, and my aunt relenting to her, I hardly think I
should have had the courage to go on until next day. But it always went
before me, and I followed.

I got, that Sunday, through three-and-twenty miles on the straight
road, though not very easily, for I was new to that kind of toil. I
see myself, as evening closes in, coming over the bridge at Rochester,
footsore and tired, and eating bread that I had bought for supper.
One or two little houses, with the notice, 'Lodgings for Travellers',
hanging out, had tempted me; but I was afraid of spending the few pence
I had, and was even more afraid of the vicious looks of the trampers I
had met or overtaken. I sought no shelter, therefore, but the sky; and
toiling into Chatham,--which, in that night's aspect, is a mere dream of
chalk, and drawbridges, and mastless ships in a muddy river, roofed
like Noah's arks,--crept, at last, upon a sort of grass-grown battery
overhanging a lane, where a sentry was walking to and fro. Here I
lay down, near a cannon; and, happy in the society of the sentry's
footsteps, though he knew no more of my being above him than the boys
at Salem House had known of my lying by the wall, slept soundly until
morning.

Very stiff and sore of foot I was in the morning, and quite dazed by the
beating of drums and marching of troops, which seemed to hem me in on
every side when I went down towards the long narrow street. Feeling
that I could go but a very little way that day, if I were to reserve any
strength for getting to my journey's end, I resolved to make the sale
of my jacket its principal business. Accordingly, I took the jacket off,
that I might learn to do without it; and carrying it under my arm, began
a tour of inspection of the various slop-shops.

It was a likely place to sell a jacket in; for the dealers in
second-hand clothes were numerous, and were, generally speaking, on the
look-out for customers at their shop doors. But as most of them had,
hanging up among their stock, an officer's coat or two, epaulettes and
all, I was rendered timid by the costly nature of their dealings, and
walked about for a long time without offering my merchandise to anyone.

This modesty of mine directed my attention to the marine-store shops,
and such shops as Mr. Dolloby's, in preference to the regular dealers.
At last I found one that I thought looked promising, at the corner of a
dirty lane, ending in an enclosure full of stinging-nettles, against the
palings of which some second-hand sailors' clothes, that seemed to have
overflowed the shop, were fluttering among some cots, and rusty guns,
and oilskin hats, and certain trays full of so many old rusty keys of so
many sizes that they seemed various enough to open all the doors in the
world.

Into this shop, which was low and small, and which was darkened
rather than lighted by a little window, overhung with clothes, and was
descended into by some steps, I went with a palpitating heart; which was
not relieved when an ugly old man, with the lower part of his face all
covered with a stubbly grey beard, rushed out of a dirty den behind it,
and seized me by the hair of my head. He was a dreadful old man to look
at, in a filthy flannel waistcoat, and smelling terribly of rum. His
bedstead, covered with a tumbled and ragged piece of patchwork, was in
the den he had come from, where another little window showed a prospect
of more stinging-nettles, and a lame donkey.

'Oh, what do you want? ' grinned this old man, in a fierce, monotonous
whine. 'Oh, my eyes and limbs, what do you want? Oh, my lungs and liver,
what do you want? Oh, goroo, goroo! '

I was so much dismayed by these words, and particularly by the
repetition of the last unknown one, which was a kind of rattle in his
throat, that I could make no answer; hereupon the old man, still holding
me by the hair, repeated:

'Oh, what do you want? Oh, my eyes and limbs, what do you want? Oh, my
lungs and liver, what do you want? Oh, goroo! '--which he screwed out of
himself, with an energy that made his eyes start in his head.

'I wanted to know,' I said, trembling, 'if you would buy a jacket. '

'Oh, let's see the jacket! ' cried the old man. 'Oh, my heart on fire,
show the jacket to us! Oh, my eyes and limbs, bring the jacket out! '

With that he took his trembling hands, which were like the claws of a
great bird, out of my hair; and put on a pair of spectacles, not at all
ornamental to his inflamed eyes.

'Oh, how much for the jacket? ' cried the old man, after examining it.
'Oh--goroo! --how much for the jacket? '

'Half-a-crown,' I answered, recovering myself.

'Oh, my lungs and liver,' cried the old man, 'no! Oh, my eyes, no! Oh,
my limbs, no! Eighteenpence. Goroo! '

Every time he uttered this ejaculation, his eyes seemed to be in danger
of starting out; and every sentence he spoke, he delivered in a sort
of tune, always exactly the same, and more like a gust of wind, which
begins low, mounts up high, and falls again, than any other comparison I
can find for it.

'Well,' said I, glad to have closed the bargain, 'I'll take
eighteenpence. '

'Oh, my liver! ' cried the old man, throwing the jacket on a shelf. 'Get
out of the shop! Oh, my lungs, get out of the shop! Oh, my eyes and
limbs--goroo! --don't ask for money; make it an exchange. ' I never was
so frightened in my life, before or since; but I told him humbly that
I wanted money, and that nothing else was of any use to me, but that I
would wait for it, as he desired, outside, and had no wish to hurry
him. So I went outside, and sat down in the shade in a corner. And I sat
there so many hours, that the shade became sunlight, and the sunlight
became shade again, and still I sat there waiting for the money.

There never was such another drunken madman in that line of business,
I hope. That he was well known in the neighbourhood, and enjoyed the
reputation of having sold himself to the devil, I soon understood from
the visits he received from the boys, who continually came skirmishing
about the shop, shouting that legend, and calling to him to bring out
his gold. 'You ain't poor, you know, Charley, as you pretend. Bring out
your gold. Bring out some of the gold you sold yourself to the devil
for. Come! It's in the lining of the mattress, Charley. Rip it open
and let's have some! ' This, and many offers to lend him a knife for
the purpose, exasperated him to such a degree, that the whole day was a
succession of rushes on his part, and flights on the part of the boys.
Sometimes in his rage he would take me for one of them, and come at me,
mouthing as if he were going to tear me in pieces; then, remembering
me, just in time, would dive into the shop, and lie upon his bed, as I
thought from the sound of his voice, yelling in a frantic way, to his
own windy tune, the 'Death of Nelson'; with an Oh! before every line,
and innumerable Goroos interspersed. As if this were not bad enough for
me, the boys, connecting me with the establishment, on account of the
patience and perseverance with which I sat outside, half-dressed, pelted
me, and used me very ill all day.

He made many attempts to induce me to consent to an exchange; at one
time coming out with a fishing-rod, at another with a fiddle, at another
with a cocked hat, at another with a flute. But I resisted all these
overtures, and sat there in desperation; each time asking him, with
tears in my eyes, for my money or my jacket. At last he began to pay me
in halfpence at a time; and was full two hours getting by easy stages to
a shilling.

'Oh, my eyes and limbs! ' he then cried, peeping hideously out of the
shop, after a long pause, 'will you go for twopence more? '

'I can't,' I said; 'I shall be starved. '

'Oh, my lungs and liver, will you go for threepence? '

'I would go for nothing, if I could,' I said, 'but I want the money
badly. '

'Oh, go-roo! ' (it is really impossible to express how he twisted this
ejaculation out of himself, as he peeped round the door-post at me,
showing nothing but his crafty old head); 'will you go for fourpence? '

I was so faint and weary that I closed with this offer; and taking the
money out of his claw, not without trembling, went away more hungry and
thirsty than I had ever been, a little before sunset. But at an expense
of threepence I soon refreshed myself completely; and, being in better
spirits then, limped seven miles upon my road.

My bed at night was under another haystack, where I rested comfortably,
after having washed my blistered feet in a stream, and dressed them as
well as I was able, with some cool leaves. When I took the road again
next morning, I found that it lay through a succession of hop-grounds
and orchards. It was sufficiently late in the year for the orchards
to be ruddy with ripe apples; and in a few places the hop-pickers were
already at work. I thought it all extremely beautiful, and made up
my mind to sleep among the hops that night: imagining some cheerful
companionship in the long perspectives of poles, with the graceful
leaves twining round them.

The trampers were worse than ever that day, and inspired me with a
dread that is yet quite fresh in my mind. Some of them were most
ferocious-looking ruffians, who stared at me as I went by; and stopped,
perhaps, and called after me to come back and speak to them, and when I
took to my heels, stoned me. I recollect one young fellow--a tinker, I
suppose, from his wallet and brazier--who had a woman with him, and
who faced about and stared at me thus; and then roared to me in such a
tremendous voice to come back, that I halted and looked round.

'Come here, when you're called,' said the tinker, 'or I'll rip your
young body open. '

I thought it best to go back. As I drew nearer to them, trying to
propitiate the tinker by my looks, I observed that the woman had a black
eye.

'Where are you going? ' said the tinker, gripping the bosom of my shirt
with his blackened hand.

'I am going to Dover,' I said.

'Where do you come from? ' asked the tinker, giving his hand another turn
in my shirt, to hold me more securely.

'I come from London,' I said.

'What lay are you upon? ' asked the tinker. 'Are you a prig? '

'N-no,' I said.

'Ain't you, by G--? If you make a brag of your honesty to me,' said the
tinker, 'I'll knock your brains out. '

With his disengaged hand he made a menace of striking me, and then
looked at me from head to foot.

'Have you got the price of a pint of beer about you? ' said the tinker.
'If you have, out with it, afore I take it away! '

I should certainly have produced it, but that I met the woman's look,
and saw her very slightly shake her head, and form 'No! ' with her lips.

'I am very poor,' I said, attempting to smile, 'and have got no money. '

'Why, what do you mean? ' said the tinker, looking so sternly at me, that
I almost feared he saw the money in my pocket.

'Sir! ' I stammered.

'What do you mean,' said the tinker, 'by wearing my brother's silk
handkerchief! Give it over here! ' And he had mine off my neck in a
moment, and tossed it to the woman.

The woman burst into a fit of laughter, as if she thought this a joke,
and tossed it back to me, nodded once, as slightly as before, and made
the word 'Go! ' with her lips. Before I could obey, however, the tinker
seized the handkerchief out of my hand with a roughness that threw me
away like a feather, and putting it loosely round his own neck, turned
upon the woman with an oath, and knocked her down. I never shall forget
seeing her fall backward on the hard road, and lie there with her bonnet
tumbled off, and her hair all whitened in the dust; nor, when I looked
back from a distance, seeing her sitting on the pathway, which was a
bank by the roadside, wiping the blood from her face with a corner of
her shawl, while he went on ahead.

This adventure frightened me so, that, afterwards, when I saw any of
these people coming, I turned back until I could find a hiding-place,
where I remained until they had gone out of sight; which happened so
often, that I was very seriously delayed. But under this difficulty, as
under all the other difficulties of my journey, I seemed to be sustained
and led on by my fanciful picture of my mother in her youth, before I
came into the world. It always kept me company. It was there, among
the hops, when I lay down to sleep; it was with me on my waking in the
morning; it went before me all day. I have associated it, ever since,
with the sunny street of Canterbury, dozing as it were in the hot light;
and with the sight of its old houses and gateways, and the stately,
grey Cathedral, with the rooks sailing round the towers. When I came,
at last, upon the bare, wide downs near Dover, it relieved the solitary
aspect of the scene with hope; and not until I reached that first great
aim of my journey, and actually set foot in the town itself, on the
sixth day of my flight, did it desert me. But then, strange to say,
when I stood with my ragged shoes, and my dusty, sunburnt, half-clothed
figure, in the place so long desired, it seemed to vanish like a dream,
and to leave me helpless and dispirited.

I inquired about my aunt among the boatmen first, and received various
answers. One said she lived in the South Foreland Light, and had singed
her whiskers by doing so; another, that she was made fast to the great
buoy outside the harbour, and could only be visited at half-tide; a
third, that she was locked up in Maidstone jail for child-stealing; a
fourth, that she was seen to mount a broom in the last high wind, and
make direct for Calais. The fly-drivers, among whom I inquired next,
were equally jocose and equally disrespectful; and the shopkeepers, not
liking my appearance, generally replied, without hearing what I had
to say, that they had got nothing for me. I felt more miserable and
destitute than I had done at any period of my running away. My money was
all gone, I had nothing left to dispose of; I was hungry, thirsty, and
worn out; and seemed as distant from my end as if I had remained in
London.

The morning had worn away in these inquiries, and I was sitting on
the step of an empty shop at a street corner, near the market-place,
deliberating upon wandering towards those other places which had been
mentioned, when a fly-driver, coming by with his carriage, dropped a
horsecloth. Something good-natured in the man's face, as I handed it up,
encouraged me to ask him if he could tell me where Miss Trotwood lived;
though I had asked the question so often, that it almost died upon my
lips.

'Trotwood,' said he. 'Let me see. I know the name, too. Old lady? '

'Yes,' I said, 'rather. '

'Pretty stiff in the back? ' said he, making himself upright.

'Yes,' I said. 'I should think it very likely. '

'Carries a bag? ' said he--'bag with a good deal of room in it--is
gruffish, and comes down upon you, sharp? '

My heart sank within me as I acknowledged the undoubted accuracy of this
description.

'Why then, I tell you what,' said he. 'If you go up there,' pointing
with his whip towards the heights, 'and keep right on till you come to
some houses facing the sea, I think you'll hear of her. My opinion is
she won't stand anything, so here's a penny for you. '

I accepted the gift thankfully, and bought a loaf with it. Dispatching
this refreshment by the way, I went in the direction my friend had
indicated, and walked on a good distance without coming to the houses
he had mentioned. At length I saw some before me; and approaching them,
went into a little shop (it was what we used to call a general shop,
at home), and inquired if they could have the goodness to tell me where
Miss Trotwood lived. I addressed myself to a man behind the counter,
who was weighing some rice for a young woman; but the latter, taking the
inquiry to herself, turned round quickly.

'My mistress? ' she said. 'What do you want with her, boy? '

'I want,' I replied, 'to speak to her, if you please. '

'To beg of her, you mean,' retorted the damsel.

'No,' I said, 'indeed. ' But suddenly remembering that in truth I came
for no other purpose, I held my peace in confusion, and felt my face
burn.

My aunt's handmaid, as I supposed she was from what she had said, put
her rice in a little basket and walked out of the shop; telling me that
I could follow her, if I wanted to know where Miss Trotwood lived. I
needed no second permission; though I was by this time in such a state
of consternation and agitation, that my legs shook under me. I followed
the young woman, and we soon came to a very neat little cottage with
cheerful bow-windows: in front of it, a small square gravelled court or
garden full of flowers, carefully tended, and smelling deliciously.

'This is Miss Trotwood's,' said the young woman. 'Now you know; and
that's all I have got to say. ' With which words she hurried into the
house, as if to shake off the responsibility of my appearance; and left
me standing at the garden-gate, looking disconsolately over the top of
it towards the parlour window, where a muslin curtain partly undrawn
in the middle, a large round green screen or fan fastened on to the
windowsill, a small table, and a great chair, suggested to me that my
aunt might be at that moment seated in awful state.

My shoes were by this time in a woeful condition. The soles had shed
themselves bit by bit, and the upper leathers had broken and burst until
the very shape and form of shoes had departed from them. My hat (which
had served me for a night-cap, too) was so crushed and bent, that no old
battered handleless saucepan on a dunghill need have been ashamed to vie
with it. My shirt and trousers, stained with heat, dew, grass, and
the Kentish soil on which I had slept--and torn besides--might have
frightened the birds from my aunt's garden, as I stood at the gate. My
hair had known no comb or brush since I left London. My face, neck, and
hands, from unaccustomed exposure to the air and sun, were burnt to a
berry-brown. From head to foot I was powdered almost as white with chalk
and dust, as if I had come out of a lime-kiln. In this plight, and with
a strong consciousness of it, I waited to introduce myself to, and make
my first impression on, my formidable aunt.

The unbroken stillness of the parlour window leading me to infer, after
a while, that she was not there, I lifted up my eyes to the window above
it, where I saw a florid, pleasant-looking gentleman, with a grey head,
who shut up one eye in a grotesque manner, nodded his head at me several
times, shook it at me as often, laughed, and went away.

I had been discomposed enough before; but I was so much the more
discomposed by this unexpected behaviour, that I was on the point of
slinking off, to think how I had best proceed, when there came out of
the house a lady with her handkerchief tied over her cap, and a pair
of gardening gloves on her hands, wearing a gardening pocket like a
toll-man's apron, and carrying a great knife. I knew her immediately
to be Miss Betsey, for she came stalking out of the house exactly as
my poor mother had so often described her stalking up our garden at
Blunderstone Rookery.

'Go away! ' said Miss Betsey, shaking her head, and making a distant chop
in the air with her knife. 'Go along! No boys here! '

I watched her, with my heart at my lips, as she marched to a corner of
her garden, and stooped to dig up some little root there. Then, without
a scrap of courage, but with a great deal of desperation, I went softly
in and stood beside her, touching her with my finger.

'If you please, ma'am,' I began.

She started and looked up.

'If you please, aunt. '

'EH? ' exclaimed Miss Betsey, in a tone of amazement I have never heard
approached.

'If you please, aunt, I am your nephew. '

'Oh, Lord! ' said my aunt. And sat flat down in the garden-path.

'I am David Copperfield, of Blunderstone, in Suffolk--where you came,
on the night when I was born, and saw my dear mama. I have been very
unhappy since she died. I have been slighted, and taught nothing, and
thrown upon myself, and put to work not fit for me. It made me run away
to you. I was robbed at first setting out, and have walked all the
way, and have never slept in a bed since I began the journey. ' Here
my self-support gave way all at once; and with a movement of my hands,
intended to show her my ragged state, and call it to witness that I had
suffered something, I broke into a passion of crying, which I suppose
had been pent up within me all the week.

My aunt, with every sort of expression but wonder discharged from her
countenance, sat on the gravel, staring at me, until I began to cry;
when she got up in a great hurry, collared me, and took me into the
parlour. Her first proceeding there was to unlock a tall press, bring
out several bottles, and pour some of the contents of each into my
mouth. I think they must have been taken out at random, for I am sure
I tasted aniseed water, anchovy sauce, and salad dressing.
When she had
administered these restoratives, as I was still quite hysterical, and
unable to control my sobs, she put me on the sofa, with a shawl under
my head, and the handkerchief from her own head under my feet, lest I
should sully the cover; and then, sitting herself down behind the green
fan or screen I have already mentioned, so that I could not see her
face, ejaculated at intervals, 'Mercy on us! ' letting those exclamations
off like minute guns.

After a time she rang the bell. 'Janet,' said my aunt, when her servant
came in. 'Go upstairs, give my compliments to Mr. Dick, and say I wish
to speak to him. '

Janet looked a little surprised to see me lying stiffly on the sofa (I
was afraid to move lest it should be displeasing to my aunt), but went
on her errand. My aunt, with her hands behind her, walked up and down
the room, until the gentleman who had squinted at me from the upper
window came in laughing.

'Mr. Dick,' said my aunt, 'don't be a fool, because nobody can be more
discreet than you can, when you choose. We all know that. So don't be a
fool, whatever you are. '

The gentleman was serious immediately, and looked at me, I thought, as
if he would entreat me to say nothing about the window.

'Mr. Dick,' said my aunt, 'you have heard me mention David Copperfield?
Now don't pretend not to have a memory, because you and I know better. '

'David Copperfield? ' said Mr. Dick, who did not appear to me to
remember much about it. 'David Copperfield? Oh yes, to be sure. David,
certainly. '

'Well,' said my aunt, 'this is his boy--his son. He would be as like his
father as it's possible to be, if he was not so like his mother, too. '

'His son? ' said Mr. Dick. 'David's son? Indeed! '

'Yes,' pursued my aunt, 'and he has done a pretty piece of business.
He has run away. Ah! His sister, Betsey Trotwood, never would have run
away. ' My aunt shook her head firmly, confident in the character and
behaviour of the girl who never was born.

'Oh! you think she wouldn't have run away? ' said Mr. Dick.

'Bless and save the man,' exclaimed my aunt, sharply, 'how he talks!
Don't I know she wouldn't? She would have lived with her god-mother,
and we should have been devoted to one another. Where, in the name of
wonder, should his sister, Betsey Trotwood, have run from, or to? '

'Nowhere,' said Mr. Dick.

'Well then,' returned my aunt, softened by the reply, 'how can you
pretend to be wool-gathering, Dick, when you are as sharp as a surgeon's
lancet? Now, here you see young David Copperfield, and the question I
put to you is, what shall I do with him? '

'What shall you do with him? ' said Mr. Dick, feebly, scratching his
head. 'Oh! do with him? '

'Yes,' said my aunt, with a grave look, and her forefinger held up.
'Come! I want some very sound advice. '

'Why, if I was you,' said Mr. Dick, considering, and looking vacantly
at me, 'I should--' The contemplation of me seemed to inspire him with a
sudden idea, and he added, briskly, 'I should wash him! '

'Janet,' said my aunt, turning round with a quiet triumph, which I did
not then understand, 'Mr. Dick sets us all right. Heat the bath! '

Although I was deeply interested in this dialogue, I could not help
observing my aunt, Mr. Dick, and Janet, while it was in progress, and
completing a survey I had already been engaged in making of the room.

My aunt was a tall, hard-featured lady, but by no means ill-looking.
There was an inflexibility in her face, in her voice, in her gait and
carriage, amply sufficient to account for the effect she had made upon
a gentle creature like my mother; but her features were rather handsome
than otherwise, though unbending and austere. I particularly noticed
that she had a very quick, bright eye. Her hair, which was grey, was
arranged in two plain divisions, under what I believe would be called a
mob-cap; I mean a cap, much more common then than now, with side-pieces
fastening under the chin. Her dress was of a lavender colour, and
perfectly neat; but scantily made, as if she desired to be as little
encumbered as possible. I remember that I thought it, in form, more like
a riding-habit with the superfluous skirt cut off, than anything else.
She wore at her side a gentleman's gold watch, if I might judge from its
size and make, with an appropriate chain and seals; she had some linen
at her throat not unlike a shirt-collar, and things at her wrists like
little shirt-wristbands.

Mr. Dick, as I have already said, was grey-headed, and florid: I should
have said all about him, in saying so, had not his head been curiously
bowed--not by age; it reminded me of one of Mr. Creakle's boys' heads
after a beating--and his grey eyes prominent and large, with a strange
kind of watery brightness in them that made me, in combination with his
vacant manner, his submission to my aunt, and his childish delight when
she praised him, suspect him of being a little mad; though, if he were
mad, how he came to be there puzzled me extremely. He was dressed
like any other ordinary gentleman, in a loose grey morning coat and
waistcoat, and white trousers; and had his watch in his fob, and his
money in his pockets: which he rattled as if he were very proud of it.

Janet was a pretty blooming girl, of about nineteen or twenty, and a
perfect picture of neatness. Though I made no further observation of
her at the moment, I may mention here what I did not discover until
afterwards, namely, that she was one of a series of protegees whom my
aunt had taken into her service expressly to educate in a renouncement
of mankind, and who had generally completed their abjuration by marrying
the baker.

The room was as neat as Janet or my aunt. As I laid down my pen, a
moment since, to think of it, the air from the sea came blowing
in again, mixed with the perfume of the flowers; and I saw the
old-fashioned furniture brightly rubbed and polished, my aunt's
inviolable chair and table by the round green fan in the bow-window, the
drugget-covered carpet, the cat, the kettle-holder, the two canaries,
the old china, the punchbowl full of dried rose-leaves, the tall press
guarding all sorts of bottles and pots, and, wonderfully out of keeping
with the rest, my dusty self upon the sofa, taking note of everything.

Janet had gone away to get the bath ready, when my aunt, to my great
alarm, became in one moment rigid with indignation, and had hardly voice
to cry out, 'Janet! Donkeys! '

Upon which, Janet came running up the stairs as if the house were in
flames, darted out on a little piece of green in front, and warned off
two saddle-donkeys, lady-ridden, that had presumed to set hoof upon it;
while my aunt, rushing out of the house, seized the bridle of a third
animal laden with a bestriding child, turned him, led him forth from
those sacred precincts, and boxed the ears of the unlucky urchin in
attendance who had dared to profane that hallowed ground.

To this hour I don't know whether my aunt had any lawful right of way
over that patch of green; but she had settled it in her own mind that
she had, and it was all the same to her. The one great outrage of her
life, demanding to be constantly avenged, was the passage of a donkey
over that immaculate spot. In whatever occupation she was engaged,
however interesting to her the conversation in which she was taking
part, a donkey turned the current of her ideas in a moment, and she was
upon him straight. Jugs of water, and watering-pots, were kept in secret
places ready to be discharged on the offending boys; sticks were laid
in ambush behind the door; sallies were made at all hours; and
incessant war prevailed. Perhaps this was an agreeable excitement to the
donkey-boys; or perhaps the more sagacious of the donkeys, understanding
how the case stood, delighted with constitutional obstinacy in coming
that way. I only know that there were three alarms before the bath was
ready; and that on the occasion of the last and most desperate of all,
I saw my aunt engage, single-handed, with a sandy-headed lad of fifteen,
and bump his sandy head against her own gate, before he seemed to
comprehend what was the matter. These interruptions were of the more
ridiculous to me, because she was giving me broth out of a table-spoon
at the time (having firmly persuaded herself that I was actually
starving, and must receive nourishment at first in very small
quantities), and, while my mouth was yet open to receive the spoon, she
would put it back into the basin, cry 'Janet! Donkeys! ' and go out to
the assault.

The bath was a great comfort. For I began to be sensible of acute pains
in my limbs from lying out in the fields, and was now so tired and low
that I could hardly keep myself awake for five minutes together. When I
had bathed, they (I mean my aunt and Janet) enrobed me in a shirt and a
pair of trousers belonging to Mr. Dick, and tied me up in two or three
great shawls. What sort of bundle I looked like, I don't know, but I
felt a very hot one. Feeling also very faint and drowsy, I soon lay down
on the sofa again and fell asleep.

It might have been a dream, originating in the fancy which had occupied
my mind so long, but I awoke with the impression that my aunt had come
and bent over me, and had put my hair away from my face, and laid my
head more comfortably, and had then stood looking at me. The words,
'Pretty fellow,' or 'Poor fellow,' seemed to be in my ears, too; but
certainly there was nothing else, when I awoke, to lead me to believe
that they had been uttered by my aunt, who sat in the bow-window gazing
at the sea from behind the green fan, which was mounted on a kind of
swivel, and turned any way.

We dined soon after I awoke, off a roast fowl and a pudding; I sitting
at table, not unlike a trussed bird myself, and moving my arms with
considerable difficulty. But as my aunt had swathed me up, I made no
complaint of being inconvenienced. All this time I was deeply anxious
to know what she was going to do with me; but she took her dinner in
profound silence, except when she occasionally fixed her eyes on me
sitting opposite, and said, 'Mercy upon us! ' which did not by any means
relieve my anxiety.

The cloth being drawn, and some sherry put upon the table (of which I
had a glass), my aunt sent up for Mr. Dick again, who joined us, and
looked as wise as he could when she requested him to attend to my story,
which she elicited from me, gradually, by a course of questions. During
my recital, she kept her eyes on Mr. Dick, who I thought would have gone
to sleep but for that, and who, whensoever he lapsed into a smile, was
checked by a frown from my aunt.

'Whatever possessed that poor unfortunate Baby, that she must go and be
married again,' said my aunt, when I had finished, 'I can't conceive. '

'Perhaps she fell in love with her second husband,' Mr. Dick suggested.

'Fell in love! ' repeated my aunt. 'What do you mean? What business had
she to do it? '

'Perhaps,' Mr. Dick simpered, after thinking a little, 'she did it for
pleasure. '

'Pleasure, indeed! ' replied my aunt. 'A mighty pleasure for the poor
Baby to fix her simple faith upon any dog of a fellow, certain to
ill-use her in some way or other. What did she propose to herself,
I should like to know! She had had one husband. She had seen David
Copperfield out of the world, who was always running after wax dolls
from his cradle. She had got a baby--oh, there were a pair of babies
when she gave birth to this child sitting here, that Friday night! --and
what more did she want? '

Mr. Dick secretly shook his head at me, as if he thought there was no
getting over this.

'She couldn't even have a baby like anybody else,' said my aunt. 'Where
was this child's sister, Betsey Trotwood? Not forthcoming. Don't tell
me! '

Mr. Dick seemed quite frightened.

'That little man of a doctor, with his head on one side,' said my aunt,
'Jellips, or whatever his name was, what was he about? All he could do,
was to say to me, like a robin redbreast--as he is--"It's a boy. " A boy!
Yah, the imbecility of the whole set of 'em! '

The heartiness of the ejaculation startled Mr. Dick exceedingly; and me,
too, if I am to tell the truth.

'And then, as if this was not enough, and she had not stood sufficiently
in the light of this child's sister, Betsey Trotwood,' said my aunt,
'she marries a second time--goes and marries a Murderer--or a man with
a name like it--and stands in THIS child's light! And the natural
consequence is, as anybody but a baby might have foreseen, that he
prowls and wanders. He's as like Cain before he was grown up, as he can
be. '

Mr. Dick looked hard at me, as if to identify me in this character.

'And then there's that woman with the Pagan name,' said my aunt, 'that
Peggotty, she goes and gets married next. Because she has not seen
enough of the evil attending such things, she goes and gets married
next, as the child relates. I only hope,' said my aunt, shaking her
head, 'that her husband is one of those Poker husbands who abound in the
newspapers, and will beat her well with one. '

I could not bear to hear my old nurse so decried, and made the subject
of such a wish. I told my aunt that indeed she was mistaken. That
Peggotty was the best, the truest, the most faithful, most devoted, and
most self-denying friend and servant in the world; who had ever loved
me dearly, who had ever loved my mother dearly; who had held my mother's
dying head upon her arm, on whose face my mother had imprinted her last
grateful kiss. And my remembrance of them both, choking me, I broke down
as I was trying to say that her home was my home, and that all she had
was mine, and that I would have gone to her for shelter, but for her
humble station, which made me fear that I might bring some trouble on
her--I broke down, I say, as I was trying to say so, and laid my face in
my hands upon the table.

'Well, well! ' said my aunt, 'the child is right to stand by those who
have stood by him--Janet! Donkeys! '

I thoroughly believe that but for those unfortunate donkeys, we should
have come to a good understanding; for my aunt had laid her hand on my
shoulder, and the impulse was upon me, thus emboldened, to embrace her
and beseech her protection. But the interruption, and the disorder she
was thrown into by the struggle outside, put an end to all softer ideas
for the present, and kept my aunt indignantly declaiming to Mr. Dick
about her determination to appeal for redress to the laws of her
country, and to bring actions for trespass against the whole donkey
proprietorship of Dover, until tea-time.

After tea, we sat at the window--on the look-out, as I imagined, from
my aunt's sharp expression of face, for more invaders--until dusk, when
Janet set candles, and a backgammon-board, on the table, and pulled down
the blinds.

'Now, Mr. Dick,' said my aunt, with her grave look, and her forefinger
up as before, 'I am going to ask you another question. Look at this
child. '

'David's son? ' said Mr. Dick, with an attentive, puzzled face.

'Exactly so,' returned my aunt. 'What would you do with him, now? '

'Do with David's son? ' said Mr. Dick.

'Ay,' replied my aunt, 'with David's son. '

'Oh! ' said Mr. Dick. 'Yes. Do with--I should put him to bed. '

'Janet! ' cried my aunt, with the same complacent triumph that I had
remarked before. 'Mr. Dick sets us all right. If the bed is ready, we'll
take him up to it. '

Janet reporting it to be quite ready, I was taken up to it; kindly, but
in some sort like a prisoner; my aunt going in front and Janet bringing
up the rear. The only circumstance which gave me any new hope, was my
aunt's stopping on the stairs to inquire about a smell of fire that was
prevalent there; and janet's replying that she had been making tinder
down in the kitchen, of my old shirt. But there were no other clothes in
my room than the odd heap of things I wore; and when I was left there,
with a little taper which my aunt forewarned me would burn exactly five
minutes, I heard them lock my door on the outside. Turning these things
over in my mind I deemed it possible that my aunt, who could know
nothing of me, might suspect I had a habit of running away, and took
precautions, on that account, to have me in safe keeping.

The room was a pleasant one, at the top of the house, overlooking the
sea, on which the moon was shining brilliantly. After I had said my
prayers, and the candle had burnt out, I remember how I still sat
looking at the moonlight on the water, as if I could hope to read my
fortune in it, as in a bright book; or to see my mother with her child,
coming from Heaven, along that shining path, to look upon me as she had
looked when I last saw her sweet face. I remember how the solemn feeling
with which at length I turned my eyes away, yielded to the sensation of
gratitude and rest which the sight of the white-curtained bed--and how
much more the lying softly down upon it, nestling in the snow-white
sheets! --inspired. I remember how I thought of all the solitary places
under the night sky where I had slept, and how I prayed that I never
might be houseless any more, and never might forget the houseless. I
remember how I seemed to float, then, down the melancholy glory of that
track upon the sea, away into the world of dreams.



CHAPTER 14. MY AUNT MAKES UP HER MIND ABOUT ME


On going down in the morning, I found my aunt musing so profoundly over
the breakfast table, with her elbow on the tray, that the contents of
the urn had overflowed the teapot and were laying the whole table-cloth
under water, when my entrance put her meditations to flight. I felt sure
that I had been the subject of her reflections, and was more than ever
anxious to know her intentions towards me. Yet I dared not express my
anxiety, lest it should give her offence.

My eyes, however, not being so much under control as my tongue, were
attracted towards my aunt very often during breakfast. I never could
look at her for a few moments together but I found her looking at me--in
an odd thoughtful manner, as if I were an immense way off, instead of
being on the other side of the small round table. When she had finished
her breakfast, my aunt very deliberately leaned back in her chair,
knitted her brows, folded her arms, and contemplated me at her leisure,
with such a fixedness of attention that I was quite overpowered by
embarrassment. Not having as yet finished my own breakfast, I attempted
to hide my confusion by proceeding with it; but my knife tumbled over my
fork, my fork tripped up my knife, I chipped bits of bacon a surprising
height into the air instead of cutting them for my own eating, and
choked myself with my tea, which persisted in going the wrong way
instead of the right one, until I gave in altogether, and sat blushing
under my aunt's close scrutiny.

'Hallo! ' said my aunt, after a long time.

I looked up, and met her sharp bright glance respectfully.

'I have written to him,' said my aunt.

'To--? '

'To your father-in-law,' said my aunt. 'I have sent him a letter that
I'll trouble him to attend to, or he and I will fall out, I can tell
him!