No More Learning

Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and
six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure
twenty pounds ought and six, result misery. The blossom is blighted,
the leaf is withered, the god of day goes down upon the dreary scene,
and--and in short you are for ever floored. As I am! '

To make his example the more impressive, Mr. Micawber drank a glass of
punch with an air of great enjoyment and satisfaction, and whistled the
College Hornpipe.

I did not fail to assure him that I would store these precepts in my
mind, though indeed I had no need to do so, for, at the time, they
affected me visibly. Next morning I met the whole family at the coach
office, and saw them, with a desolate heart, take their places outside,
at the back.

'Master Copperfield,' said Mrs. Micawber, 'God bless you! I never can
forget all that, you know, and I never would if I could. '

'Copperfield,' said Mr. Micawber, 'farewell! Every happiness and
prosperity! If, in the progress of revolving years, I could persuade
myself that my blighted destiny had been a warning to you, I should feel
that I had not occupied another man's place in existence altogether in
vain. In case of anything turning up (of which I am rather confident),
I shall be extremely happy if it should be in my power to improve your
prospects. '

I think, as Mrs. Micawber sat at the back of the coach, with the
children, and I stood in the road looking wistfully at them, a mist
cleared from her eyes, and she saw what a little creature I really was.
I think so, because she beckoned to me to climb up, with quite a new and
motherly expression in her face, and put her arm round my neck, and gave
me just such a kiss as she might have given to her own boy. I had barely
time to get down again before the coach started, and I could hardly see
the family for the handkerchiefs they waved. It was gone in a minute.
The Orfling and I stood looking vacantly at each other in the middle
of the road, and then shook hands and said good-bye; she going back,
I suppose, to St. Luke's workhouse, as I went to begin my weary day at
Murdstone and Grinby's.

But with no intention of passing many more weary days there. No. I had
resolved to run away. ---To go, by some means or other, down into the
country, to the only relation I had in the world, and tell my story to
my aunt, Miss Betsey. I have already observed that I don't know how this
desperate idea came into my brain. But, once there, it remained there;
and hardened into a purpose than which I have never entertained a more
determined purpose in my life. I am far from sure that I believed there
was anything hopeful in it, but my mind was thoroughly made up that it
must be carried into execution.

Again, and again, and a hundred times again, since the night when the
thought had first occurred to me and banished sleep, I had gone over
that old story of my poor mother's about my birth, which it had been one
of my great delights in the old time to hear her tell, and which I knew
by heart. My aunt walked into that story, and walked out of it, a dread
and awful personage; but there was one little trait in her behaviour
which I liked to dwell on, and which gave me some faint shadow of
encouragement. I could not forget how my mother had thought that she
felt her touch her pretty hair with no ungentle hand; and though it
might have been altogether my mother's fancy, and might have had no
foundation whatever in fact, I made a little picture, out of it, of my
terrible aunt relenting towards the girlish beauty that I recollected so
well and loved so much, which softened the whole narrative. It is very
possible that it had been in my mind a long time, and had gradually
engendered my determination.

As I did not even know where Miss Betsey lived, I wrote a long letter
to Peggotty, and asked her, incidentally, if she remembered; pretending
that I had heard of such a lady living at a certain place I named at
random, and had a curiosity to know if it were the same. In the course
of that letter, I told Peggotty that I had a particular occasion for
half a guinea; and that if she could lend me that sum until I could
repay it, I should be very much obliged to her, and would tell her
afterwards what I had wanted it for.

Peggotty's answer soon arrived, and was, as usual, full of affectionate
devotion. She enclosed the half guinea (I was afraid she must have had
a world of trouble to get it out of Mr. Barkis's box), and told me that
Miss Betsey lived near Dover, but whether at Dover itself, at Hythe,
Sandgate, or Folkestone, she could not say. One of our men, however,
informing me on my asking him about these places, that they were all
close together, I deemed this enough for my object, and resolved to set
out at the end of that week.

Being a very honest little creature, and unwilling to disgrace the
memory I was going to leave behind me at Murdstone and Grinby's, I
considered myself bound to remain until Saturday night; and, as I had
been paid a week's wages in advance when I first came there, not to
present myself in the counting-house at the usual hour, to receive my
stipend. For this express reason, I had borrowed the half-guinea, that
I might not be without a fund for my travelling-expenses. Accordingly,
when the Saturday night came, and we were all waiting in the warehouse
to be paid, and Tipp the carman, who always took precedence, went in
first to draw his money, I shook Mick Walker by the hand; asked him,
when it came to his turn to be paid, to say to Mr. Quinion that I had
gone to move my box to Tipp's; and, bidding a last good night to Mealy
Potatoes, ran away.

My box was at my old lodging, over the water, and I had written a
direction for it on the back of one of our address cards that we nailed
on the casks: 'Master David, to be left till called for, at the Coach
Office, Dover. ' This I had in my pocket ready to put on the box, after I
should have got it out of the house; and as I went towards my lodging,
I looked about me for someone who would help me to carry it to the
booking-office.

There was a long-legged young man with a very little empty donkey-cart,
standing near the Obelisk, in the Blackfriars Road, whose eye I caught
as I was going by, and who, addressing me as 'Sixpenn'orth of bad
ha'pence,' hoped 'I should know him agin to swear to'--in allusion, I
have no doubt, to my staring at him. I stopped to assure him that I had
not done so in bad manners, but uncertain whether he might or might not
like a job.

'Wot job? ' said the long-legged young man.

'To move a box,' I answered.

'Wot box? ' said the long-legged young man.

I told him mine, which was down that street there, and which I wanted
him to take to the Dover coach office for sixpence.

'Done with you for a tanner! ' said the long-legged young man, and
directly got upon his cart, which was nothing but a large wooden tray on
wheels, and rattled away at such a rate, that it was as much as I could
do to keep pace with the donkey.

There was a defiant manner about this young man, and particularly about
the way in which he chewed straw as he spoke to me, that I did not much
like; as the bargain was made, however, I took him upstairs to the room
I was leaving, and we brought the box down, and put it on his cart.
Now, I was unwilling to put the direction-card on there, lest any of my
landlord's family should fathom what I was doing, and detain me; so
I said to the young man that I would be glad if he would stop for a
minute, when he came to the dead-wall of the King's Bench prison. The
words were no sooner out of my mouth, than he rattled away as if he, my
box, the cart, and the donkey, were all equally mad; and I was quite out
of breath with running and calling after him, when I caught him at the
place appointed.

Being much flushed and excited, I tumbled my half-guinea out of my
pocket in pulling the card out. I put it in my mouth for safety, and
though my hands trembled a good deal, had just tied the card on very
much to my satisfaction, when I felt myself violently chucked under the
chin by the long-legged young man, and saw my half-guinea fly out of my
mouth into his hand.

'Wot! ' said the young man, seizing me by my jacket collar, with a
frightful grin. 'This is a pollis case, is it? You're a-going to bolt,
are you? Come to the pollis, you young warmin, come to the pollis! '

'You give me my money back, if you please,' said I, very much
frightened; 'and leave me alone. '

'Come to the pollis! ' said the young man. 'You shall prove it yourn to
the pollis. '

'Give me my box and money, will you,' I cried, bursting into tears.

The young man still replied: 'Come to the pollis! ' and was dragging me
against the donkey in a violent manner, as if there were any affinity
between that animal and a magistrate, when he changed his mind, jumped
into the cart, sat upon my box, and, exclaiming that he would drive to
the pollis straight, rattled away harder than ever.

I ran after him as fast as I could, but I had no breath to call out
with, and should not have dared to call out, now, if I had. I narrowly
escaped being run over, twenty times at least, in half a mile. Now I
lost him, now I saw him, now I lost him, now I was cut at with a whip,
now shouted at, now down in the mud, now up again, now running into
somebody's arms, now running headlong at a post. At length, confused by
fright and heat, and doubting whether half London might not by this time
be turning out for my apprehension, I left the young man to go where
he would with my box and money; and, panting and crying, but never
stopping, faced about for Greenwich, which I had understood was on
the Dover Road: taking very little more out of the world, towards the
retreat of my aunt, Miss Betsey, than I had brought into it, on the
night when my arrival gave her so much umbrage.



CHAPTER 13. THE SEQUEL OF MY RESOLUTION


For anything I know, I may have had some wild idea of running all the
way to Dover, when I gave up the pursuit of the young man with the
donkey-cart, and started for Greenwich. My scattered senses were soon
collected as to that point, if I had; for I came to a stop in the Kent
Road, at a terrace with a piece of water before it, and a great foolish
image in the middle, blowing a dry shell. Here I sat down on a doorstep,
quite spent and exhausted with the efforts I had already made, and with
hardly breath enough to cry for the loss of my box and half-guinea.

It was by this time dark; I heard the clocks strike ten, as I sat
resting. But it was a summer night, fortunately, and fine weather. When
I had recovered my breath, and had got rid of a stifling sensation in
my throat, I rose up and went on. In the midst of my distress, I had no
notion of going back. I doubt if I should have had any, though there had
been a Swiss snow-drift in the Kent Road.

But my standing possessed of only three-halfpence in the world (and I
am sure I wonder how they came to be left in my pocket on a Saturday
night! ) troubled me none the less because I went on. I began to picture
to myself, as a scrap of newspaper intelligence, my being found dead in
a day or two, under some hedge; and I trudged on miserably, though as
fast as I could, until I happened to pass a little shop, where it was
written up that ladies' and gentlemen's wardrobes were bought, and that
the best price was given for rags, bones, and kitchen-stuff. The master
of this shop was sitting at the door in his shirt-sleeves, smoking; and
as there were a great many coats and pairs of trousers dangling from
the low ceiling, and only two feeble candles burning inside to show
what they were, I fancied that he looked like a man of a revengeful
disposition, who had hung all his enemies, and was enjoying himself.

My late experiences with Mr. and Mrs. Micawber suggested to me that here
might be a means of keeping off the wolf for a little while. I went up
the next by-street, took off my waistcoat, rolled it neatly under my
arm, and came back to the shop door.

'If you please, sir,' I said, 'I am to sell this for a fair price. '

Mr. Dolloby--Dolloby was the name over the shop door, at least--took the
waistcoat, stood his pipe on its head, against the door-post, went into
the shop, followed by me, snuffed the two candles with his fingers,
spread the waistcoat on the counter, and looked at it there, held it up
against the light, and looked at it there, and ultimately said:

'What do you call a price, now, for this here little weskit? '

'Oh! you know best, sir,' I returned modestly.

'I can't be buyer and seller too,' said Mr. Dolloby. 'Put a price on
this here little weskit. '

'Would eighteenpence be? '--I hinted, after some hesitation.

Mr. Dolloby rolled it up again, and gave it me back. 'I should rob my
family,' he said, 'if I was to offer ninepence for it. '

This was a disagreeable way of putting the business; because it imposed
upon me, a perfect stranger, the unpleasantness of asking Mr. Dolloby to
rob his family on my account. My circumstances being so very pressing,
however, I said I would take ninepence for it, if he pleased. Mr.
Dolloby, not without some grumbling, gave ninepence. I wished him good
night, and walked out of the shop the richer by that sum, and the
poorer by a waistcoat. But when I buttoned my jacket, that was not much.
Indeed, I foresaw pretty clearly that my jacket would go next, and that
I should have to make the best of my way to Dover in a shirt and a pair
of trousers, and might deem myself lucky if I got there even in that
trim. But my mind did not run so much on this as might be supposed.
Beyond a general impression of the distance before me, and of the young
man with the donkey-cart having used me cruelly, I think I had no
very urgent sense of my difficulties when I once again set off with my
ninepence in my pocket.

A plan had occurred to me for passing the night, which I was going to
carry into execution. This was, to lie behind the wall at the back of my
old school, in a corner where there used to be a haystack. I imagined
it would be a kind of company to have the boys, and the bedroom where
I used to tell the stories, so near me: although the boys would know
nothing of my being there, and the bedroom would yield me no shelter.

I had had a hard day's work, and was pretty well jaded when I came
climbing out, at last, upon the level of Blackheath. It cost me some
trouble to find out Salem House; but I found it, and I found a haystack
in the corner, and I lay down by it; having first walked round the wall,
and looked up at the windows, and seen that all was dark and silent
within. Never shall I forget the lonely sensation of first lying down,
without a roof above my head!

Sleep came upon me as it came on many other outcasts, against whom
house-doors were locked, and house-dogs barked, that night--and I
dreamed of lying on my old school-bed, talking to the boys in my room;
and found myself sitting upright, with Steerforth's name upon my lips,
looking wildly at the stars that were glistening and glimmering above
me. When I remembered where I was at that untimely hour, a feeling
stole upon me that made me get up, afraid of I don't know what, and walk
about. But the fainter glimmering of the stars, and the pale light in
the sky where the day was coming, reassured me: and my eyes being very
heavy, I lay down again and slept--though with a knowledge in my sleep
that it was cold--until the warm beams of the sun, and the ringing of
the getting-up bell at Salem House, awoke me. If I could have hoped that
Steerforth was there, I would have lurked about until he came out
alone; but I knew he must have left long since. Traddles still remained,
perhaps, but it was very doubtful; and I had not sufficient confidence
in his discretion or good luck, however strong my reliance was on his
good nature, to wish to trust him with my situation. So I crept away
from the wall as Mr. Creakle's boys were getting up, and struck into the
long dusty track which I had first known to be the Dover Road when I was
one of them, and when I little expected that any eyes would ever see me
the wayfarer I was now, upon it.

What a different Sunday morning from the old Sunday morning at Yarmouth!
In due time I heard the church-bells ringing, as I plodded on; and I met
people who were going to church; and I passed a church or two where the
congregation were inside, and the sound of singing came out into the
sunshine, while the beadle sat and cooled himself in the shade of the
porch, or stood beneath the yew-tree, with his hand to his forehead,
glowering at me going by. But the peace and rest of the old Sunday
morning were on everything, except me. That was the difference. I felt
quite wicked in my dirt and dust, with my tangled hair. 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.