| | |
|
| 1 | I got down to Yarmouth in the evening, and went to the inn. I knew
|
| 2 | that Peggotty's spare room - my room - was likely to have
|
| 3 | occupation enough in a little while, if that great Visitor, before
|
| 4 | whose presence all the living must give place, were not already in
|
| 5 | the house; so I betook myself to the inn, and dined there, and
|
| 6 | engaged my bed.
|
| 7 | It was ten o'clock when I went out. Many of the shops were shut,
|
| 8 | and the town was dull. When I came to Omer and Joram's, I found
|
| 9 | the shutters up, but the shop door standing open. As I could
|
| 10 | obtain a perspective view of Mr. Omer inside, smoking his pipe by
|
| 11 | the parlour door, I entered, and asked him how he was.
|
| 12 | 'Why, bless my life and soul!' said Mr. Omer, 'how do you find
|
| 13 | yourself? Take a seat. - Smoke not disagreeable, I hope?'
|
| 14 | 'By no means,' said I. 'I like it - in somebody else's pipe.'
|
| 15 | 'What, not in your own, eh?' Mr. Omer returned, laughing. 'All the
|
| 16 | better, sir. Bad habit for a young man. Take a seat. I smoke,
|
| 17 | myself, for the asthma.'
|
| 18 | Mr. Omer had made room for me, and placed a chair. He now sat down
|
| 19 | again very much out of breath, gasping at his pipe as if it
|
| 20 | contained a supply of that necessary, without which he must perish.
|
| 21 | 'I am sorry to have heard bad news of Mr. Barkis,' said I.
|
| 22 | Mr. Omer looked at me, with a steady countenance, and shook his
|
| 23 | head.
|
| 24 | 'Do you know how he is tonight?' I asked.
|
| 25 | 'The very question I should have put to you, sir,' returned Mr.
|
| 26 | Omer, 'but on account of delicacy. It's one of the drawbacks of
|
| 27 | our line of business. When a party's ill, we can't ask how the
|
| 28 | party is.'
|
| 29 | The difficulty had not occurred to me; though I had had my
|
| 30 | apprehensions too, when I went in, of hearing the old tune. On its
|
| 31 | being mentioned, I recognized it, however, and said as much.
|
| 32 | 'Yes, yes, you understand,' said Mr. Omer, nodding his head. 'We
|
| 33 | dursn't do it. Bless you, it would be a shock that the generality
|
| 34 | of parties mightn't recover, to say "Omer and Joram's compliments,
|
| 35 | and how do you find yourself this morning?" - or this afternoon -
|
| 36 | as it may be.'
|
| 37 | Mr. Omer and I nodded at each other, and Mr. Omer recruited his
|
| 38 | wind by the aid of his pipe.
|
| 39 | 'It's one of the things that cut the trade off from attentions they
|
| 40 | could often wish to show,' said Mr. Omer. 'Take myself. If I have
|
| 41 | known Barkis a year, to move to as he went by, I have known him
|
| 42 | forty years. But I can't go and say, "how is he?"'
|
| 43 | I felt it was rather hard on Mr. Omer, and I told him so.
|
| 44 | 'I'm not more self-interested, I hope, than another man,' said Mr.
|
| 45 | Omer. 'Look at me! My wind may fail me at any moment, and it
|
| 46 | ain't likely that, to my own knowledge, I'd be self-interested
|
| 47 | under such circumstances. I say it ain't likely, in a man who
|
| 48 | knows his wind will go, when it DOES go, as if a pair of bellows
|
| 49 | was cut open; and that man a grandfather,' said Mr. Omer.
|
| 50 | I said, 'Not at all.'
|
| 51 | 'It ain't that I complain of my line of business,' said Mr. Omer.
|
| 52 | 'It ain't that. Some good and some bad goes, no doubt, to all
|
| 53 | callings. What I wish is, that parties was brought up
|
| 54 | stronger-minded.'
|
| 55 | Mr. Omer, with a very complacent and amiable face, took several
|
| 56 | puffs in silence; and then said, resuming his first point:
|
| 57 | 'Accordingly we're obleeged, in ascertaining how Barkis goes on, to
|
| 58 | limit ourselves to Em'ly. She knows what our real objects are, and
|
| 59 | she don't have any more alarms or suspicions about us, than if we
|
| 60 | was so many lambs. Minnie and Joram have just stepped down to the
|
| 61 | house, in fact (she's there, after hours, helping her aunt a bit),
|
| 62 | to ask her how he is tonight; and if you was to please to wait till
|
| 63 | they come back, they'd give you full partic'lers. Will you take
|
| 64 | something? A glass of srub and water, now? I smoke on srub and
|
| 65 | water, myself,' said Mr. Omer, taking up his glass, 'because it's
|
| 66 | considered softening to the passages, by which this troublesome
|
| 67 | breath of mine gets into action. But, Lord bless you,' said Mr.
|
| 68 | Omer, huskily, 'it ain't the passages that's out of order! "Give
|
| 69 | me breath enough," said I to my daughter Minnie, "and I'll find
|
| 70 | passages, my dear."'
|
| 71 | He really had no breath to spare, and it was very alarming to see
|
| 72 | him laugh. When he was again in a condition to be talked to, I
|
| 73 | thanked him for the proffered refreshment, which I declined, as I
|
| 74 | had just had dinner; and, observing that I would wait, since he was
|
| 75 | so good as to invite me, until his daughter and his son-in-law came
|
| 76 | back, I inquired how little Emily was?
|
| 77 | 'Well, sir,' said Mr. Omer, removing his pipe, that he might rub
|
| 78 | his chin: 'I tell you truly, I shall be glad when her marriage has
|
| 79 | taken place.'
|
| 80 | 'Why so?' I inquired.
|
| 81 | 'Well, she's unsettled at present,' said Mr. Omer. 'It ain't that
|
| 82 | she's not as pretty as ever, for she's prettier - I do assure you,
|
| 83 | she is prettier. It ain't that she don't work as well as ever, for
|
| 84 | she does. She WAS worth any six, and she IS worth any six. But
|
| 85 | somehow she wants heart. If you understand,' said Mr. Omer, after
|
| 86 | rubbing his chin again, and smoking a little, 'what I mean in a
|
| 87 | general way by the expression, "A long pull, and a strong pull, and
|
| 88 | a pull altogether, my hearties, hurrah!" I should say to you, that
|
| 89 | that was - in a general way - what I miss in Em'ly.'
|
| 90 | Mr. Omer's face and manner went for so much, that I could
|
| 91 | conscientiously nod my head, as divining his meaning. My quickness
|
| 92 | of apprehension seemed to please him, and he went on:
|
| 93 | 'Now I consider this is principally on account of her being in an
|
| 94 | unsettled state, you see. We have talked it over a good deal, her
|
| 95 | uncle and myself, and her sweetheart and myself, after business;
|
| 96 | and I consider it is principally on account of her being unsettled.
|
| 97 | You must always recollect of Em'ly,' said Mr. Omer, shaking his
|
| 98 | head gently, 'that she's a most extraordinary affectionate little
|
| 99 | thing. The proverb says, "You can't make a silk purse out of a
|
| 100 | sow's ear." Well, I don't know about that. I rather think you may,
|
| 101 | if you begin early in life. She has made a home out of that old
|
| 102 | boat, sir, that stone and marble couldn't beat.'
|
| 103 | 'I am sure she has!' said I.
|
| 104 | 'To see the clinging of that pretty little thing to her uncle,'
|
| 105 | said Mr. Omer; 'to see the way she holds on to him, tighter and
|
| 106 | tighter, and closer and closer, every day, is to see a sight. Now,
|
| 107 | you know, there's a struggle going on when that's the case. Why
|
| 108 | should it be made a longer one than is needful?'
|
| 109 | I listened attentively to the good old fellow, and acquiesced, with
|
| 110 | all my heart, in what he said.
|
| 111 | 'Therefore, I mentioned to them,' said Mr. Omer, in a comfortable,
|
| 112 | easy-going tone, 'this. I said, "Now, don't consider Em'ly nailed
|
| 113 | down in point of time, at all. Make it your own time. Her
|
| 114 | services have been more valuable than was supposed; her learning
|
| 115 | has been quicker than was supposed; Omer and Joram can run their
|
| 116 | pen through what remains; and she's free when you wish. If she
|
| 117 | likes to make any little arrangement, afterwards, in the way of
|
| 118 | doing any little thing for us at home, very well. If she don't,
|
| 119 | very well still. We're no losers, anyhow." For - don't you see,'
|
| 120 | said Mr. Omer, touching me with his pipe, 'it ain't likely that a
|
| 121 | man so short of breath as myself, and a grandfather too, would go
|
| 122 | and strain points with a little bit of a blue-eyed blossom, like
|
| 123 | her?'
|
| 124 | 'Not at all, I am certain,' said I.
|
| 125 | 'Not at all! You're right!' said Mr. Omer. 'Well, sir, her cousin
|
| 126 | - you know it's a cousin she's going to be married to?'
|
| 127 | 'Oh yes,' I replied. 'I know him well.'
|
| 128 | 'Of course you do,' said Mr. Omer. 'Well, sir! Her cousin being,
|
| 129 | as it appears, in good work, and well to do, thanked me in a very
|
| 130 | manly sort of manner for this (conducting himself altogether, I
|
| 131 | must say, in a way that gives me a high opinion of him), and went
|
| 132 | and took as comfortable a little house as you or I could wish to
|
| 133 | clap eyes on. That little house is now furnished right through, as
|
| 134 | neat and complete as a doll's parlour; and but for Barkis's illness
|
| 135 | having taken this bad turn, poor fellow, they would have been man
|
| 136 | and wife - I dare say, by this time. As it is, there's a
|
| 137 | postponement.'
|
| 138 | 'And Emily, Mr. Omer?' I inquired. 'Has she become more settled?'
|
| 139 | 'Why that, you know,' he returned, rubbing his double chin again,
|
| 140 | 'can't naturally be expected. The prospect of the change and
|
| 141 | separation, and all that, is, as one may say, close to her and far
|
| 142 | away from her, both at once. Barkis's death needn't put it off
|
| 143 | much, but his lingering might. Anyway, it's an uncertain state of
|
| 144 | matters, you see.'
|
| 145 | 'I see,' said I.
|
| 146 | 'Consequently,' pursued Mr. Omer, 'Em'ly's still a little down, and
|
| 147 | a little fluttered; perhaps, upon the whole, she's more so than she
|
| 148 | was. Every day she seems to get fonder and fonder of her uncle,
|
| 149 | and more loth to part from all of us. A kind word from me brings
|
| 150 | the tears into her eyes; and if you was to see her with my daughter
|
| 151 | Minnie's little girl, you'd never forget it. Bless my heart
|
| 152 | alive!' said Mr. Omer, pondering, 'how she loves that child!'
|
| 153 | Having so favourable an opportunity, it occurred to me to ask Mr.
|
| 154 | Omer, before our conversation should be interrupted by the return
|
| 155 | of his daughter and her husband, whether he knew anything of
|
| 156 | Martha.
|
| 157 | 'Ah!' he rejoined, shaking his head, and looking very much
|
| 158 | dejected. 'No good. A sad story, sir, however you come to know
|
| 159 | it. I never thought there was harm in the girl. I wouldn't wish
|
| 160 | to mention it before my daughter Minnie - for she'd take me up
|
| 161 | directly - but I never did. None of us ever did.'
|
| 162 | Mr. Omer, hearing his daughter's footstep before I heard it,
|
| 163 | touched me with his pipe, and shut up one eye, as a caution. She
|
| 164 | and her husband came in immediately afterwards.
|
| 165 | Their report was, that Mr. Barkis was 'as bad as bad could be';
|
| 166 | that he was quite unconscious; and that Mr. Chillip had mournfully
|
| 167 | said in the kitchen, on going away just now, that the College of
|
| 168 | Physicians, the College of Surgeons, and Apothecaries' Hall, if
|
| 169 | they were all called in together, couldn't help him. He was past
|
| 170 | both Colleges, Mr. Chillip said, and the Hall could only poison
|
| 171 | him.
|
| 172 | Hearing this, and learning that Mr. Peggotty was there, I
|
| 173 | determined to go to the house at once. I bade good night to Mr.
|
| 174 | Omer, and to Mr. and Mrs. Joram; and directed my steps thither,
|
| 175 | with a solemn feeling, which made Mr. Barkis quite a new and
|
| 176 | different creature.
|
| 177 | My low tap at the door was answered by Mr. Peggotty. He was not so
|
| 178 | much surprised to see me as I had expected. I remarked this in
|
| 179 | Peggotty, too, when she came down; and I have seen it since; and I
|
| 180 | think, in the expectation of that dread surprise, all other changes
|
| 181 | and surprises dwindle into nothing.
|
| 182 | I shook hands with Mr. Peggotty, and passed into the kitchen, while
|
| 183 | he softly closed the door. Little Emily was sitting by the fire,
|
| 184 | with her hands before her face. Ham was standing near her.
|
| 185 | We spoke in whispers; listening, between whiles, for any sound in
|
| 186 | the room above. I had not thought of it on the occasion of my last
|
| 187 | visit, but how strange it was to me, now, to miss Mr. Barkis out of
|
| 188 | the kitchen!
|
| 189 | 'This is very kind of you, Mas'r Davy,' said Mr. Peggotty.
|
| 190 | 'It's oncommon kind,' said Ham.
|
| 191 | 'Em'ly, my dear,' cried Mr. Peggotty. 'See here! Here's Mas'r
|
| 192 | Davy come! What, cheer up, pretty! Not a wured to Mas'r Davy?'
|
| 193 | There was a trembling upon her, that I can see now. The coldness
|
| 194 | of her hand when I touched it, I can feel yet. Its only sign of
|
| 195 | animation was to shrink from mine; and then she glided from the
|
| 196 | chair, and creeping to the other side of her uncle, bowed herself,
|
| 197 | silently and trembling still, upon his breast.
|
| 198 | 'It's such a loving art,' said Mr. Peggotty, smoothing her rich
|
| 199 | hair with his great hard hand, 'that it can't abear the sorrer of
|
| 200 | this. It's nat'ral in young folk, Mas'r Davy, when they're new to
|
| 201 | these here trials, and timid, like my little bird, - it's nat'ral.'
|
| 202 | She clung the closer to him, but neither lifted up her face, nor
|
| 203 | spoke a word.
|
| 204 | 'It's getting late, my dear,' said Mr. Peggotty, 'and here's Ham
|
| 205 | come fur to take you home. Theer! Go along with t'other loving
|
| 206 | art! What' Em'ly? Eh, my pretty?'
|
| 207 | The sound of her voice had not reached me, but he bent his head as
|
| 208 | if he listened to her, and then said:
|
| 209 | 'Let you stay with your uncle? Why, you doen't mean to ask me
|
| 210 | that! Stay with your uncle, Moppet? When your husband that'll be
|
| 211 | so soon, is here fur to take you home? Now a person wouldn't think
|
| 212 | it, fur to see this little thing alongside a rough-weather chap
|
| 213 | like me,' said Mr. Peggotty, looking round at both of us, with
|
| 214 | infinite pride; 'but the sea ain't more salt in it than she has
|
| 215 | fondness in her for her uncle - a foolish little Em'ly!'
|
| 216 | 'Em'ly's in the right in that, Mas'r Davy!' said Ham. 'Lookee
|
| 217 | here! As Em'ly wishes of it, and as she's hurried and frightened,
|
| 218 | like, besides, I'll leave her till morning. Let me stay too!'
|
| 219 | 'No, no,' said Mr. Peggotty. 'You doen't ought - a married man
|
| 220 | like you - or what's as good - to take and hull away a day's work.
|
| 221 | And you doen't ought to watch and work both. That won't do. You
|
| 222 | go home and turn in. You ain't afeerd of Em'ly not being took good
|
| 223 | care on, I know.'
|
| 224 | Ham yielded to this persuasion, and took his hat to go. Even when
|
| 225 | he kissed her. - and I never saw him approach her, but I felt that
|
| 226 | nature had given him the soul of a gentleman - she seemed to cling
|
| 227 | closer to her uncle, even to the avoidance of her chosen husband.
|
| 228 | I shut the door after him, that it might cause no disturbance of
|
| 229 | the quiet that prevailed; and when I turned back, I found Mr.
|
| 230 | Peggotty still talking to her.
|
| 231 | 'Now, I'm a going upstairs to tell your aunt as Mas'r Davy's here,
|
| 232 | and that'll cheer her up a bit,' he said. 'Sit ye down by the
|
| 233 | fire, the while, my dear, and warm those mortal cold hands. You
|
| 234 | doen't need to be so fearsome, and take on so much. What? You'll
|
| 235 | go along with me? - Well! come along with me - come! If her uncle
|
| 236 | was turned out of house and home, and forced to lay down in a dyke,
|
| 237 | Mas'r Davy,' said Mr. Peggotty, with no less pride than before,
|
| 238 | 'it's my belief she'd go along with him, now! But there'll be
|
| 239 | someone else, soon, - someone else, soon, Em'ly!'
|
| 240 | Afterwards, when I went upstairs, as I passed the door of my little
|
| 241 | chamber, which was dark, I had an indistinct impression of her
|
| 242 | being within it, cast down upon the floor. But, whether it was
|
| 243 | really she, or whether it was a confusion of the shadows in the
|
| 244 | room, I don't know now.
|
| 245 | I had leisure to think, before the kitchen fire, of pretty little
|
| 246 | Emily's dread of death - which, added to what Mr. Omer had told me,
|
| 247 | I took to be the cause of her being so unlike herself - and I had
|
| 248 | leisure, before Peggotty came down, even to think more leniently of
|
| 249 | the weakness of it: as I sat counting the ticking of the clock, and
|
| 250 | deepening my sense of the solemn hush around me. Peggotty took me
|
| 251 | in her arms, and blessed and thanked me over and over again for
|
| 252 | being such a comfort to her (that was what she said) in her
|
| 253 | distress. She then entreated me to come upstairs, sobbing that Mr.
|
| 254 | Barkis had always liked me and admired me; that he had often talked
|
| 255 | of me, before he fell into a stupor; and that she believed, in case
|
| 256 | of his coming to himself again, he would brighten up at sight of
|
| 257 | me, if he could brighten up at any earthly thing.
|
| 258 | The probability of his ever doing so, appeared to me, when I saw
|
| 259 | him, to be very small. He was lying with his head and shoulders
|
| 260 | out of bed, in an uncomfortable attitude, half resting on the box
|
| 261 | which had cost him so much pain and trouble. I learned, that, when
|
| 262 | he was past creeping out of bed to open it, and past assuring
|
| 263 | himself of its safety by means of the divining rod I had seen him
|
| 264 | use, he had required to have it placed on the chair at the
|
| 265 | bed-side, where he had ever since embraced it, night and day. His
|
| 266 | arm lay on it now. Time and the world were slipping from beneath
|
| 267 | him, but the box was there; and the last words he had uttered were
|
| 268 | (in an explanatory tone) 'Old clothes!'
|
| 269 | 'Barkis, my dear!' said Peggotty, almost cheerfully: bending over
|
| 270 | him, while her brother and I stood at the bed's foot. 'Here's my
|
| 271 | dear boy - my dear boy, Master Davy, who brought us together,
|
| 272 | Barkis! That you sent messages by, you know! Won't you speak to
|
| 273 | Master Davy?'
|
| 274 | He was as mute and senseless as the box, from which his form
|
| 275 | derived the only expression it had.
|
| 276 | 'He's a going out with the tide,' said Mr. Peggotty to me, behind
|
| 277 | his hand.
|
| 278 | My eyes were dim and so were Mr. Peggotty's; but I repeated in a
|
| 279 | whisper, 'With the tide?'
|
| 280 | 'People can't die, along the coast,' said Mr. Peggotty, 'except
|
| 281 | when the tide's pretty nigh out. They can't be born, unless it's
|
| 282 | pretty nigh in - not properly born, till flood. He's a going out
|
| 283 | with the tide. It's ebb at half-arter three, slack water half an
|
| 284 | hour. If he lives till it turns, he'll hold his own till past the
|
| 285 | flood, and go out with the next tide.'
|
| 286 | We remained there, watching him, a long time - hours. What
|
| 287 | mysterious influence my presence had upon him in that state of his
|
| 288 | senses, I shall not pretend to say; but when he at last began to
|
| 289 | wander feebly, it is certain he was muttering about driving me to
|
| 290 | school.
|
| 291 | 'He's coming to himself,' said Peggotty.
|
| 292 | Mr. Peggotty touched me, and whispered with much awe and reverence.
|
| 293 | 'They are both a-going out fast.'
|
| 294 | 'Barkis, my dear!' said Peggotty.
|
| 295 | 'C. P. Barkis,' he cried faintly. 'No better woman anywhere!'
|
| 296 | 'Look! Here's Master Davy!' said Peggotty. For he now opened his
|
| 297 | eyes.
|
| 298 | I was on the point of asking him if he knew me, when he tried to
|
| 299 | stretch out his arm, and said to me, distinctly, with a pleasant
|
| 300 | smile:
|
| 301 | 'Barkis is willin'!'
|
| 302 | And, it being low water, he went out with the tide.
|
