No More Learning

'

'Good Heavens! ' cried my mother, 'you'll drive me mad! Was ever any
poor girl so ill-used by her servants as I am! Why do I do myself
the injustice of calling myself a girl? Have I never been married,
Peggotty? '

'God knows you have, ma'am,' returned Peggotty. 'Then, how can you
dare,' said my mother--'you know I don't mean how can you dare,
Peggotty, but how can you have the heart--to make me so uncomfortable
and say such bitter things to me, when you are well aware that I
haven't, out of this place, a single friend to turn to? '

'The more's the reason,' returned Peggotty, 'for saying that it won't
do. No! That it won't do. No! No price could make it do. No! '--I thought
Peggotty would have thrown the candlestick away, she was so emphatic
with it.

'How can you be so aggravating,' said my mother, shedding more tears
than before, 'as to talk in such an unjust manner! How can you go on as
if it was all settled and arranged, Peggotty, when I tell you over
and over again, you cruel thing, that beyond the commonest civilities
nothing has passed! You talk of admiration. What am I to do? If people
are so silly as to indulge the sentiment, is it my fault? What am I to
do, I ask you? Would you wish me to shave my head and black my face, or
disfigure myself with a burn, or a scald, or something of that sort? I
dare say you would, Peggotty. I dare say you'd quite enjoy it. '

Peggotty seemed to take this aspersion very much to heart, I thought.

'And my dear boy,' cried my mother, coming to the elbow-chair in which
I was, and caressing me, 'my own little Davy! Is it to be hinted to me
that I am wanting in affection for my precious treasure, the dearest
little fellow that ever was! '

'Nobody never went and hinted no such a thing,' said Peggotty.

'You did, Peggotty! ' returned my mother. 'You know you did. What else
was it possible to infer from what you said, you unkind creature,
when you know as well as I do, that on his account only last quarter I
wouldn't buy myself a new parasol, though that old green one is frayed
the whole way up, and the fringe is perfectly mangy? You know it is,
Peggotty. You can't deny it. ' Then, turning affectionately to me, with
her cheek against mine, 'Am I a naughty mama to you, Davy? Am I a nasty,
cruel, selfish, bad mama? Say I am, my child; say "yes", dear boy, and
Peggotty will love you; and Peggotty's love is a great deal better than
mine, Davy. I don't love you at all, do I? '

At this, we all fell a-crying together. I think I was the loudest of
the party, but I am sure we were all sincere about it. I was quite
heart-broken myself, and am afraid that in the first transports of
wounded tenderness I called Peggotty a 'Beast'. That honest creature was
in deep affliction, I remember, and must have become quite buttonless
on the occasion; for a little volley of those explosives went off,
when, after having made it up with my mother, she kneeled down by the
elbow-chair, and made it up with me.

We went to bed greatly dejected. My sobs kept waking me, for a long
time; and when one very strong sob quite hoisted me up in bed, I found
my mother sitting on the coverlet, and leaning over me. I fell asleep in
her arms, after that, and slept soundly.

Whether it was the following Sunday when I saw the gentleman again,
or whether there was any greater lapse of time before he reappeared,
I cannot recall. I don't profess to be clear about dates. But there he
was, in church, and he walked home with us afterwards. He came in, too,
to look at a famous geranium we had, in the parlour-window. It did not
appear to me that he took much notice of it, but before he went he asked
my mother to give him a bit of the blossom. She begged him to choose it
for himself, but he refused to do that--I could not understand why--so
she plucked it for him, and gave it into his hand. He said he would
never, never part with it any more; and I thought he must be quite a
fool not to know that it would fall to pieces in a day or two.

Peggotty began to be less with us, of an evening, than she had always
been. My mother deferred to her very much--more than usual, it occurred
to me--and we were all three excellent friends; still we were different
from what we used to be, and were not so comfortable among ourselves.
Sometimes I fancied that Peggotty perhaps objected to my mother's
wearing all the pretty dresses she had in her drawers, or to her
going so often to visit at that neighbour's; but I couldn't, to my
satisfaction, make out how it was.

Gradually, I became used to seeing the gentleman with the black
whiskers. I liked him no better than at first, and had the same uneasy
jealousy of him; but if I had any reason for it beyond a child's
instinctive dislike, and a general idea that Peggotty and I could make
much of my mother without any help, it certainly was not THE reason that
I might have found if I had been older. No such thing came into my mind,
or near it. I could observe, in little pieces, as it were; but as to
making a net of a number of these pieces, and catching anybody in it,
that was, as yet, beyond me.

One autumn morning I was with my mother in the front garden, when Mr.
Murdstone--I knew him by that name now--came by, on horseback. He reined
up his horse to salute my mother, and said he was going to Lowestoft to
see some friends who were there with a yacht, and merrily proposed to
take me on the saddle before him if I would like the ride.

The air was so clear and pleasant, and the horse seemed to like the
idea of the ride so much himself, as he stood snorting and pawing at the
garden-gate, that I had a great desire to go. So I was sent upstairs
to Peggotty to be made spruce; and in the meantime Mr. Murdstone
dismounted, and, with his horse's bridle drawn over his arm, walked
slowly up and down on the outer side of the sweetbriar fence, while my
mother walked slowly up and down on the inner to keep him company. I
recollect Peggotty and I peeping out at them from my little window; I
recollect how closely they seemed to be examining the sweetbriar between
them, as they strolled along; and how, from being in a perfectly angelic
temper, Peggotty turned cross in a moment, and brushed my hair the wrong
way, excessively hard.

Mr. Murdstone and I were soon off, and trotting along on the green turf
by the side of the road. He held me quite easily with one arm, and I
don't think I was restless usually; but I could not make up my mind to
sit in front of him without turning my head sometimes, and looking up in
his face. He had that kind of shallow black eye--I want a better word to
express an eye that has no depth in it to be looked into--which, when
it is abstracted, seems from some peculiarity of light to be disfigured,
for a moment at a time, by a cast. Several times when I glanced at him,
I observed that appearance with a sort of awe, and wondered what he
was thinking about so closely. His hair and whiskers were blacker and
thicker, looked at so near, than even I had given them credit for being.
A squareness about the lower part of his face, and the dotted indication
of the strong black beard he shaved close every day, reminded me of
the wax-work that had travelled into our neighbourhood some half-a-year
before. This, his regular eyebrows, and the rich white, and black, and
brown, of his complexion--confound his complexion, and his memory! --made
me think him, in spite of my misgivings, a very handsome man. I have no
doubt that my poor dear mother thought him so too.

We went to an hotel by the sea, where two gentlemen were smoking cigars
in a room by themselves. Each of them was lying on at least four chairs,
and had a large rough jacket on. In a corner was a heap of coats and
boat-cloaks, and a flag, all bundled up together.

They both rolled on to their feet in an untidy sort of manner, when we
came in, and said, 'Halloa, Murdstone! We thought you were dead! '

'Not yet,' said Mr. Murdstone.

'And who's this shaver? ' said one of the gentlemen, taking hold of me.

'That's Davy,' returned Mr. Murdstone.

'Davy who? ' said the gentleman. 'Jones? '

'Copperfield,' said Mr. Murdstone.

'What! Bewitching Mrs. Copperfield's encumbrance? ' cried the gentleman.
'The pretty little widow? '

'Quinion,' said Mr. Murdstone, 'take care, if you please. Somebody's
sharp. '

'Who is? ' asked the gentleman, laughing. I looked up, quickly; being
curious to know.

'Only Brooks of Sheffield,' said Mr. Murdstone.

I was quite relieved to find that it was only Brooks of Sheffield; for,
at first, I really thought it was I.

There seemed to be something very comical in the reputation of Mr.
Brooks of Sheffield, for both the gentlemen laughed heartily when he
was mentioned, and Mr. Murdstone was a good deal amused also. After some
laughing, the gentleman whom he had called Quinion, said:

'And what is the opinion of Brooks of Sheffield, in reference to the
projected business? '

'Why, I don't know that Brooks understands much about it at present,'
replied Mr. Murdstone; 'but he is not generally favourable, I believe. '

There was more laughter at this, and Mr. Quinion said he would ring the
bell for some sherry in which to drink to Brooks. This he did; and when
the wine came, he made me have a little, with a biscuit, and, before
I drank it, stand up and say, 'Confusion to Brooks of Sheffield! ' The
toast was received with great applause, and such hearty laughter that
it made me laugh too; at which they laughed the more. In short, we quite
enjoyed ourselves.

We walked about on the cliff after that, and sat on the grass, and
looked at things through a telescope--I could make out nothing myself
when it was put to my eye, but I pretended I could--and then we came
back to the hotel to an early dinner. All the time we were out, the two
gentlemen smoked incessantly--which, I thought, if I might judge from
the smell of their rough coats, they must have been doing, ever since
the coats had first come home from the tailor's. I must not forget that
we went on board the yacht, where they all three descended into the
cabin, and were busy with some papers. I saw them quite hard at work,
when I looked down through the open skylight. They left me, during this
time, with a very nice man with a very large head of red hair and a very
small shiny hat upon it, who had got a cross-barred shirt or waistcoat
on, with 'Skylark' in capital letters across the chest. I thought it was
his name; and that as he lived on board ship and hadn't a street door
to put his name on, he put it there instead; but when I called him Mr.
Skylark, he said it meant the vessel.

I observed all day that Mr. Murdstone was graver and steadier than the
two gentlemen. They were very gay and careless. They joked freely with
one another, but seldom with him. It appeared to me that he was
more clever and cold than they were, and that they regarded him with
something of my own feeling. I remarked that, once or twice when Mr.
Quinion was talking, he looked at Mr. Murdstone sideways, as if to make
sure of his not being displeased; and that once when Mr. Passnidge (the
other gentleman) was in high spirits, he trod upon his foot, and gave
him a secret caution with his eyes, to observe Mr. Murdstone, who was
sitting stern and silent. Nor do I recollect that Mr. Murdstone laughed
at all that day, except at the Sheffield joke--and that, by the by, was
his own.

We went home early in the evening. It was a very fine evening, and my
mother and he had another stroll by the sweetbriar, while I was sent in
to get my tea. When he was gone, my mother asked me all about the day I
had had, and what they had said and done. I mentioned what they had said
about her, and she laughed, and told me they were impudent fellows who
talked nonsense--but I knew it pleased her. I knew it quite as well as
I know it now. I took the opportunity of asking if she was at all
acquainted with Mr. Brooks of Sheffield, but she answered No, only she
supposed he must be a manufacturer in the knife and fork way.

Can I say of her face--altered as I have reason to remember it, perished
as I know it is--that it is gone, when here it comes before me at this
instant, as distinct as any face that I may choose to look on in a
crowded street? Can I say of her innocent and girlish beauty, that it
faded, and was no more, when its breath falls on my cheek now, as it
fell that night? Can I say she ever changed, when my remembrance brings
her back to life, thus only; and, truer to its loving youth than I have
been, or man ever is, still holds fast what it cherished then?

I write of her just as she was when I had gone to bed after this talk,
and she came to bid me good night. She kneeled down playfully by the
side of the bed, and laying her chin upon her hands, and laughing, said:

'What was it they said, Davy? Tell me again. I can't believe it. '

'"Bewitching--"' I began.

My mother put her hands upon my lips to stop me.

'It was never bewitching,' she said, laughing. 'It never could have been
bewitching, Davy. Now I know it wasn't! '

'Yes, it was. "Bewitching Mrs. Copperfield",' I repeated stoutly. 'And,
"pretty. "'

'No, no, it was never pretty. Not pretty,' interposed my mother, laying
her fingers on my lips again.

'Yes it was. "Pretty little widow. "'

'What foolish, impudent creatures! ' cried my mother, laughing and
covering her face. 'What ridiculous men! An't they? Davy dear--'

'Well, Ma. '

'Don't tell Peggotty; she might be angry with them. I am dreadfully
angry with them myself; but I would rather Peggotty didn't know. '

I promised, of course; and we kissed one another over and over again,
and I soon fell fast asleep.

It seems to me, at this distance of time, as if it were the next day
when Peggotty broached the striking and adventurous proposition I am
about to mention; but it was probably about two months afterwards.

We were sitting as before, one evening (when my mother was out as
before), in company with the stocking and the yard-measure, and the bit
of wax, and the box with St. Paul's on the lid, and the crocodile book,
when Peggotty, after looking at me several times, and opening her mouth
as if she were going to speak, without doing it--which I thought was
merely gaping, or I should have been rather alarmed--said coaxingly:

'Master Davy, how should you like to go along with me and spend a
fortnight at my brother's at Yarmouth? Wouldn't that be a treat? '

'Is your brother an agreeable man, Peggotty? ' I inquired, provisionally.

'Oh, what an agreeable man he is! ' cried Peggotty, holding up her hands.
'Then there's the sea; and the boats and ships; and the fishermen; and
the beach; and Am to play with--'

Peggotty meant her nephew Ham, mentioned in my first chapter; but she
spoke of him as a morsel of English Grammar.

I was flushed by her summary of delights, and replied that it would
indeed be a treat, but what would my mother say?

'Why then I'll as good as bet a guinea,' said Peggotty, intent upon my
face, 'that she'll let us go. I'll ask her, if you like, as soon as ever
she comes home. There now! '

'But what's she to do while we're away? ' said I, putting my small elbows
on the table to argue the point. 'She can't live by herself. '

If Peggotty were looking for a hole, all of a sudden, in the heel of
that stocking, it must have been a very little one indeed, and not worth
darning.

'I say! Peggotty! She can't live by herself, you know. '

'Oh, bless you! ' said Peggotty, looking at me again at last. 'Don't
you know? She's going to stay for a fortnight with Mrs. Grayper. Mrs.
Grayper's going to have a lot of company. '

Oh! If that was it, I was quite ready to go. I waited, in the utmost
impatience, until my mother came home from Mrs.
Grayper's (for it was
that identical neighbour), to ascertain if we could get leave to carry
out this great idea. Without being nearly so much surprised as I had
expected, my mother entered into it readily; and it was all arranged
that night, and my board and lodging during the visit were to be paid
for.

The day soon came for our going. It was such an early day that it came
soon, even to me, who was in a fever of expectation, and half afraid
that an earthquake or a fiery mountain, or some other great convulsion
of nature, might interpose to stop the expedition. We were to go in a
carrier's cart, which departed in the morning after breakfast. I would
have given any money to have been allowed to wrap myself up over-night,
and sleep in my hat and boots.

It touches me nearly now, although I tell it lightly, to recollect how
eager I was to leave my happy home; to think how little I suspected what
I did leave for ever.

I am glad to recollect that when the carrier's cart was at the gate, and
my mother stood there kissing me, a grateful fondness for her and for
the old place I had never turned my back upon before, made me cry. I am
glad to know that my mother cried too, and that I felt her heart beat
against mine.

I am glad to recollect that when the carrier began to move, my mother
ran out at the gate, and called to him to stop, that she might kiss me
once more. I am glad to dwell upon the earnestness and love with which
she lifted up her face to mine, and did so.

As we left her standing in the road, Mr. Murdstone came up to where
she was, and seemed to expostulate with her for being so moved. I was
looking back round the awning of the cart, and wondered what business
it was of his. Peggotty, who was also looking back on the other side,
seemed anything but satisfied; as the face she brought back in the cart
denoted.

I sat looking at Peggotty for some time, in a reverie on this
supposititious case: whether, if she were employed to lose me like the
boy in the fairy tale, I should be able to track my way home again by
the buttons she would shed.



CHAPTER 3. I HAVE A CHANGE


The carrier's horse was the laziest horse in the world, I should hope,
and shuffled along, with his head down, as if he liked to keep people
waiting to whom the packages were directed. I fancied, indeed, that he
sometimes chuckled audibly over this reflection, but the carrier said
he was only troubled with a cough. The carrier had a way of keeping his
head down, like his horse, and of drooping sleepily forward as he drove,
with one of his arms on each of his knees. I say 'drove', but it struck
me that the cart would have gone to Yarmouth quite as well without him,
for the horse did all that; and as to conversation, he had no idea of it
but whistling.

Peggotty had a basket of refreshments on her knee, which would have
lasted us out handsomely, if we had been going to London by the same
conveyance. We ate a good deal, and slept a good deal. Peggotty always
went to sleep with her chin upon the handle of the basket, her hold of
which never relaxed; and I could not have believed unless I had heard
her do it, that one defenceless woman could have snored so much.

We made so many deviations up and down lanes, and were such a long time
delivering a bedstead at a public-house, and calling at other places,
that I was quite tired, and very glad, when we saw Yarmouth. It looked
rather spongy and soppy, I thought, as I carried my eye over the great
dull waste that lay across the river; and I could not help wondering, if
the world were really as round as my geography book said, how any
part of it came to be so flat. But I reflected that Yarmouth might be
situated at one of the poles; which would account for it.

As we drew a little nearer, and saw the whole adjacent prospect lying a
straight low line under the sky, I hinted to Peggotty that a mound or so
might have improved it; and also that if the land had been a little more
separated from the sea, and the town and the tide had not been quite
so much mixed up, like toast and water, it would have been nicer. But
Peggotty said, with greater emphasis than usual, that we must take
things as we found them, and that, for her part, she was proud to call
herself a Yarmouth Bloater.

When we got into the street (which was strange enough to me) and smelt
the fish, and pitch, and oakum, and tar, and saw the sailors walking
about, and the carts jingling up and down over the stones, I felt that I
had done so busy a place an injustice; and said as much to Peggotty, who
heard my expressions of delight with great complacency, and told me it
was well known (I suppose to those who had the good fortune to be born
Bloaters) that Yarmouth was, upon the whole, the finest place in the
universe.

'Here's my Am! ' screamed Peggotty, 'growed out of knowledge! '

He was waiting for us, in fact, at the public-house; and asked me how I
found myself, like an old acquaintance. I did not feel, at first, that
I knew him as well as he knew me, because he had never come to our house
since the night I was born, and naturally he had the advantage of me.
But our intimacy was much advanced by his taking me on his back to carry
me home. He was, now, a huge, strong fellow of six feet high, broad in
proportion, and round-shouldered; but with a simpering boy's face and
curly light hair that gave him quite a sheepish look. He was dressed in
a canvas jacket, and a pair of such very stiff trousers that they
would have stood quite as well alone, without any legs in them. And you
couldn't so properly have said he wore a hat, as that he was covered in
a-top, like an old building, with something pitchy.

Ham carrying me on his back and a small box of ours under his arm,
and Peggotty carrying another small box of ours, we turned down lanes
bestrewn with bits of chips and little hillocks of sand, and went
past gas-works, rope-walks, boat-builders' yards, shipwrights' yards,
ship-breakers' yards, caulkers' yards, riggers' lofts, smiths' forges,
and a great litter of such places, until we came out upon the dull waste
I had already seen at a distance; when Ham said,

'Yon's our house, Mas'r Davy! '

I looked in all directions, as far as I could stare over the wilderness,
and away at the sea, and away at the river, but no house could I make
out. There was a black barge, or some other kind of superannuated boat,
not far off, high and dry on the ground, with an iron funnel sticking
out of it for a chimney and smoking very cosily; but nothing else in the
way of a habitation that was visible to me.

'That's not it? ' said I. 'That ship-looking thing? '

'That's it, Mas'r Davy,' returned Ham.

If it had been Aladdin's palace, roc's egg and all, I suppose I could
not have been more charmed with the romantic idea of living in it. There
was a delightful door cut in the side, and it was roofed in, and there
were little windows in it; but the wonderful charm of it was, that
it was a real boat which had no doubt been upon the water hundreds of
times, and which had never been intended to be lived in, on dry land.
That was the captivation of it to me. If it had ever been meant to be
lived in, I might have thought it small, or inconvenient, or lonely; but
never having been designed for any such use, it became a perfect abode.

It was beautifully clean inside, and as tidy as possible. There was a
table, and a Dutch clock, and a chest of drawers, and on the chest of
drawers there was a tea-tray with a painting on it of a lady with a
parasol, taking a walk with a military-looking child who was trundling a
hoop. The tray was kept from tumbling down, by a bible; and the tray, if
it had tumbled down, would have smashed a quantity of cups and saucers
and a teapot that were grouped around the book. On the walls there were
some common coloured pictures, framed and glazed, of scripture subjects;
such as I have never seen since in the hands of pedlars, without seeing
the whole interior of Peggotty's brother's house again, at one view.
Abraham in red going to sacrifice Isaac in blue, and Daniel in yellow
cast into a den of green lions, were the most prominent of these. Over
the little mantelshelf, was a picture of the 'Sarah Jane' lugger, built
at Sunderland, with a real little wooden stern stuck on to it; a work of
art, combining composition with carpentry, which I considered to be one
of the most enviable possessions that the world could afford. There
were some hooks in the beams of the ceiling, the use of which I did not
divine then; and some lockers and boxes and conveniences of that sort,
which served for seats and eked out the chairs.

All this I saw in the first glance after I crossed the
threshold--child-like, according to my theory--and then Peggotty opened
a little door and showed me my bedroom. It was the completest and most
desirable bedroom ever seen--in the stern of the vessel; with a little
window, where the rudder used to go through; a little looking-glass,
just the right height for me, nailed against the wall, and framed with
oyster-shells; a little bed, which there was just room enough to get
into; and a nosegay of seaweed in a blue mug on the table. The walls
were whitewashed as white as milk, and the patchwork counterpane made my
eyes quite ache with its brightness. One thing I particularly noticed
in this delightful house, was the smell of fish; which was so searching,
that when I took out my pocket-handkerchief to wipe my nose, I found it
smelt exactly as if it had wrapped up a lobster. On my imparting this
discovery in confidence to Peggotty, she informed me that her brother
dealt in lobsters, crabs, and crawfish; and I afterwards found that a
heap of these creatures, in a state of wonderful conglomeration with one
another, and never leaving off pinching whatever they laid hold of,
were usually to be found in a little wooden outhouse where the pots and
kettles were kept.

We were welcomed by a very civil woman in a white apron, whom I had seen
curtseying at the door when I was on Ham's back, about a quarter of a
mile off. Likewise by a most beautiful little girl (or I thought her so)
with a necklace of blue beads on, who wouldn't let me kiss her when I
offered to, but ran away and hid herself. By and by, when we had dined
in a sumptuous manner off boiled dabs, melted butter, and potatoes, with
a chop for me, a hairy man with a very good-natured face came home. As
he called Peggotty 'Lass', and gave her a hearty smack on the cheek, I
had no doubt, from the general propriety of her conduct, that he was her
brother; and so he turned out--being presently introduced to me as Mr.
Peggotty, the master of the house.

'Glad to see you, sir,' said Mr. Peggotty. 'You'll find us rough, sir,
but you'll find us ready. '

I thanked him, and replied that I was sure I should be happy in such a
delightful place.

'How's your Ma, sir? ' said Mr. Peggotty. 'Did you leave her pretty
jolly? '

I gave Mr. Peggotty to understand that she was as jolly as I could wish,
and that she desired her compliments--which was a polite fiction on my
part.

'I'm much obleeged to her, I'm sure,' said Mr. Peggotty. 'Well, sir,
if you can make out here, fur a fortnut, 'long wi' her,' nodding at his
sister, 'and Ham, and little Em'ly, we shall be proud of your company. '

Having done the honours of his house in this hospitable manner, Mr.
Peggotty went out to wash himself in a kettleful of hot water, remarking
that 'cold would never get his muck off'. He soon returned, greatly
improved in appearance; but so rubicund, that I couldn't help
thinking his face had this in common with the lobsters, crabs, and
crawfish,--that it went into the hot water very black, and came out very
red.

After tea, when the door was shut and all was made snug (the nights
being cold and misty now), it seemed to me the most delicious retreat
that the imagination of man could conceive. To hear the wind getting
up out at sea, to know that the fog was creeping over the desolate flat
outside, and to look at the fire, and think that there was no house near
but this one, and this one a boat, was like enchantment. Little Em'ly
had overcome her shyness, and was sitting by my side upon the lowest and
least of the lockers, which was just large enough for us two, and just
fitted into the chimney corner. Mrs. Peggotty with the white apron, was
knitting on the opposite side of the fire. Peggotty at her needlework
was as much at home with St. Paul's and the bit of wax-candle, as if
they had never known any other roof. Ham, who had been giving me my
first lesson in all-fours, was trying to recollect a scheme of telling
fortunes with the dirty cards, and was printing off fishy impressions of
his thumb on all the cards he turned. Mr. Peggotty was smoking his pipe.
I felt it was a time for conversation and confidence.

'Mr. Peggotty! ' says I.

'Sir,' says he.

'Did you give your son the name of Ham, because you lived in a sort of
ark? '

Mr. Peggotty seemed to think it a deep idea, but answered:

'No, sir. I never giv him no name. '

'Who gave him that name, then? ' said I, putting question number two of
the catechism to Mr. Peggotty.

'Why, sir, his father giv it him,' said Mr. Peggotty.

'I thought you were his father! '

'My brother Joe was his father,' said Mr. Peggotty.

'Dead, Mr. Peggotty? ' I hinted, after a respectful pause.

'Drowndead,' said Mr. Peggotty.

I was very much surprised that Mr. Peggotty was not Ham's father, and
began to wonder whether I was mistaken about his relationship to anybody
else there. I was so curious to know, that I made up my mind to have it
out with Mr. Peggotty.

'Little Em'ly,' I said, glancing at her. 'She is your daughter, isn't
she, Mr. Peggotty? '

'No, sir. My brother-in-law, Tom, was her father. '

I couldn't help it. '--Dead, Mr. Peggotty? ' I hinted, after another
respectful silence.

'Drowndead,' said Mr. Peggotty.

I felt the difficulty of resuming the subject, but had not got to the
bottom of it yet, and must get to the bottom somehow. So I said:

'Haven't you ANY children, Mr. Peggotty? '

'No, master,' he answered with a short laugh. 'I'm a bacheldore. '

'A bachelor! ' I said, astonished. 'Why, who's that, Mr. Peggotty? '
pointing to the person in the apron who was knitting.

'That's Missis Gummidge,' said Mr. Peggotty.

'Gummidge, Mr. Peggotty? '

But at this point Peggotty--I mean my own peculiar Peggotty--made such
impressive motions to me not to ask any more questions, that I could
only sit and look at all the silent company, until it was time to go to
bed. Then, in the privacy of my own little cabin, she informed me that
Ham and Em'ly were an orphan nephew and niece, whom my host had
at different times adopted in their childhood, when they were left
destitute: and that Mrs. Gummidge was the widow of his partner in
a boat, who had died very poor. He was but a poor man himself, said
Peggotty, but as good as gold and as true as steel--those were her
similes. The only subject, she informed me, on which he ever showed a
violent temper or swore an oath, was this generosity of his; and if it
were ever referred to, by any one of them, he struck the table a heavy
blow with his right hand (had split it on one such occasion), and swore
a dreadful oath that he would be 'Gormed' if he didn't cut and run
for good, if it was ever mentioned again. It appeared, in answer to
my inquiries, that nobody had the least idea of the etymology of this
terrible verb passive to be gormed; but that they all regarded it as
constituting a most solemn imprecation.

I was very sensible of my entertainer's goodness, and listened to the
women's going to bed in another little crib like mine at the opposite
end of the boat, and to him and Ham hanging up two hammocks for
themselves on the hooks I had noticed in the roof, in a very luxurious
state of mind, enhanced by my being sleepy. As slumber gradually stole
upon me, I heard the wind howling out at sea and coming on across the
flat so fiercely, that I had a lazy apprehension of the great deep
rising in the night. But I bethought myself that I was in a boat, after
all; and that a man like Mr. Peggotty was not a bad person to have on
board if anything did happen.

Nothing happened, however, worse than morning. Almost as soon as it
shone upon the oyster-shell frame of my mirror I was out of bed, and out
with little Em'ly, picking up stones upon the beach.

'You're quite a sailor, I suppose? ' I said to Em'ly. I don't know that I
supposed anything of the kind, but I felt it an act of gallantry to
say something; and a shining sail close to us made such a pretty little
image of itself, at the moment, in her bright eye, that it came into my
head to say this.

'No,' replied Em'ly, shaking her head, 'I'm afraid of the sea. '

'Afraid! ' I said, with a becoming air of boldness, and looking very big
at the mighty ocean. 'I an't! '

'Ah! but it's cruel,' said Em'ly. 'I have seen it very cruel to some of
our men. I have seen it tear a boat as big as our house, all to pieces. '

'I hope it wasn't the boat that--'

'That father was drownded in? ' said Em'ly. 'No. Not that one, I never
see that boat. '

'Nor him? ' I asked her.

Little Em'ly shook her head. 'Not to remember! '

Here was a coincidence! I immediately went into an explanation how I had
never seen my own father; and how my mother and I had always lived
by ourselves in the happiest state imaginable, and lived so then, and
always meant to live so; and how my father's grave was in the churchyard
near our house, and shaded by a tree, beneath the boughs of which I had
walked and heard the birds sing many a pleasant morning. But there were
some differences between Em'ly's orphanhood and mine, it appeared. She
had lost her mother before her father; and where her father's grave was
no one knew, except that it was somewhere in the depths of the sea.

'Besides,' said Em'ly, as she looked about for shells and pebbles, 'your
father was a gentleman and your mother is a lady; and my father was a
fisherman and my mother was a fisherman's daughter, and my uncle Dan is
a fisherman. '

'Dan is Mr. Peggotty, is he? ' said I.

'Uncle Dan--yonder,' answered Em'ly, nodding at the boat-house.

'Yes. I mean him. He must be very good, I should think? '

'Good? ' said Em'ly. 'If I was ever to be a lady, I'd give him a sky-blue
coat with diamond buttons, nankeen trousers, a red velvet waistcoat, a
cocked hat, a large gold watch, a silver pipe, and a box of money. '

I said I had no doubt that Mr. Peggotty well deserved these treasures.
I must acknowledge that I felt it difficult to picture him quite at his
ease in the raiment proposed for him by his grateful little niece, and
that I was particularly doubtful of the policy of the cocked hat; but I
kept these sentiments to myself.

Little Em'ly had stopped and looked up at the sky in her enumeration
of these articles, as if they were a glorious vision. We went on again,
picking up shells and pebbles.

'You would like to be a lady? ' I said.

Emily looked at me, and laughed and nodded 'yes'.

'I should like it very much. We would all be gentlefolks together, then.
Me, and uncle, and Ham, and Mrs. Gummidge.