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Charles Dickens
Chapter 5
Charles Dickens
 
 
1       We might have gone about half a mile, and my pocket-handkerchief
2  was quite wet through, when the carrier stopped short. Looking out
3  to ascertain for what, I saw, to MY amazement, Peggotty burst from
4  a hedge and climb into the cart. She took me in both her arms, and
5  squeezed me to her stays until the pressure on my nose was
6  extremely painful, though I never thought of that till afterwards
7  when I found it very tender. Not a single word did Peggotty speak.
8  Releasing one of her arms, she put it down in her pocket to the
9  elbow, and brought out some paper bags of cakes which she crammed
10  into my pockets, and a purse which she put into my hand, but not
11  one word did she say. After another and a final squeeze with both
12  arms, she got down from the cart and ran away; and, my belief is,
13  and has always been, without a solitary button on her gown. I
14  picked up one, of several that were rolling about, and treasured it
15  as a keepsake for a long time.

16       The carrier looked at me, as if to inquire if she were coming back.
17  I shook my head, and said I thought not. 'Then come up,' said the
18  carrier to the lazy horse; who came up accordingly.

19       Having by this time cried as much as I possibly could, I began to
20  think it was of no use crying any more, especially as neither
21  Roderick Random, nor that Captain in the Royal British Navy, had
22  ever cried, that I could remember, in trying situations. The
23  carrier, seeing me in this resolution, proposed that my pocket-
24  handkerchief should be spread upon the horse's back to dry. I
25  thanked him, and assented; and particularly small it looked, under
26  those circumstances.

27       I had now leisure to examine the purse. It was a stiff leather
28  purse, with a snap, and had three bright shillings in it, which
29  Peggotty had evidently polished up with whitening, for my greater
30  delight. But its most precious contents were two half-crowns
31  folded together in a bit of paper, on which was written, in my
32  mother's hand, 'For Davy. With my love.' I was so overcome by
33  this, that I asked the carrier to be so good as to reach me my
34  pocket-handkerchief again; but he said he thought I had better do
35  without it, and I thought I really had, so I wiped my eyes on my
36  sleeve and stopped myself.

37       For good, too; though, in consequence of my previous emotions, I
38  was still occasionally seized with a stormy sob. After we had
39  jogged on for some little time, I asked the carrier if he was going
40  all the way.

41       'All the way where?' inquired the carrier.

42       'There,' I said.

43       'Where's there?' inquired the carrier.

44       'Near London,' I said.

45       'Why that horse,' said the carrier, jerking the rein to point him
46  out, 'would be deader than pork afore he got over half the ground.'

47       'Are you only going to Yarmouth then?' I asked.

48       'That's about it,' said the carrier. 'And there I shall take you
49  to the stage-cutch, and the stage-cutch that'll take you to -
50  wherever it is.'

51       As this was a great deal for the carrier (whose name was Mr.
52  Barkis) to say - he being, as I observed in a former chapter, of a
53  phlegmatic temperament, and not at all conversational - I offered
54  him a cake as a mark of attention, which he ate at one gulp,
55  exactly like an elephant, and which made no more impression on his
56  big face than it would have done on an elephant's.

57       'Did SHE make 'em, now?' said Mr. Barkis, always leaning forward,
58  in his slouching way, on the footboard of the cart with an arm on
59  each knee.

60       'Peggotty, do you mean, sir?'

61       'Ah!' said Mr. Barkis. 'Her.'

62       'Yes. She makes all our pastry, and does all our cooking.'

63       'Do she though?' said Mr. Barkis.
64  He made up his mouth as if to whistle, but he didn't whistle. He
65  sat looking at the horse's ears, as if he saw something new there;
66  and sat so, for a considerable time. By and by, he said:

67       'No sweethearts, I b'lieve?'

68       'Sweetmeats did you say, Mr. Barkis?' For I thought he wanted
69  something else to eat, and had pointedly alluded to that
70  description of refreshment.

71       'Hearts,' said Mr. Barkis. 'Sweet hearts; no person walks with
72  her!'

73       'With Peggotty?'

74       'Ah!' he said. 'Her.'

75       'Oh, no. She never had a sweetheart.'

76       'Didn't she, though!' said Mr. Barkis.

77       Again he made up his mouth to whistle, and again he didn't whistle,
78  but sat looking at the horse's ears.

79       'So she makes,' said Mr. Barkis, after a long interval of
80  reflection, 'all the apple parsties, and doos all the cooking, do
81  she?'

82       I replied that such was the fact.

83       'Well. I'll tell you what,' said Mr. Barkis. 'P'raps you might be
84  writin' to her?'

85       'I shall certainly write to her,' I rejoined.

86       'Ah!' he said, slowly turning his eyes towards me. 'Well! If you
87  was writin' to her, p'raps you'd recollect to say that Barkis was
88  willin'; would you?'

89       'That Barkis is willing,' I repeated, innocently. 'Is that all the
90  message?'

91       'Ye-es,' he said, considering. 'Ye-es. Barkis is willin'.'

92       'But you will be at Blunderstone again tomorrow, Mr. Barkis,' I
93  said, faltering a little at the idea of my being far away from it
94  then, and could give your own message so much better.'

95       As he repudiated this suggestion, however, with a jerk of his head,
96  and once more confirmed his previous request by saying, with
97  profound gravity, 'Barkis is willin'. That's the message,' I
98  readily undertook its transmission. While I was waiting for the
99  coach in the hotel at Yarmouth that very afternoon, I procured a
100  sheet of paper and an inkstand, and wrote a note to Peggotty, which
101  ran thus: 'My dear Peggotty. I have come here safe. Barkis is
102  willing. My love to mama. Yours affectionately. P.S. He says he
103  particularly wants you to know - BARKIS IS WILLING.'

104       When I had taken this commission on myself prospectively, Mr.
105  Barkis relapsed into perfect silence; and I, feeling quite worn out
106  by all that had happened lately, lay down on a sack in the cart and
107  fell asleep. I slept soundly until we got to Yarmouth; which was
108  so entirely new and strange to me in the inn-yard to which we
109  drove, that I at once abandoned a latent hope I had had of meeting
110  with some of Mr. Peggotty's family there, perhaps even with little
111  Em'ly herself.

112       The coach was in the yard, shining very much all over, but without
113  any horses to it as yet; and it looked in that state as if nothing
114  was more unlikely than its ever going to London. I was thinking
115  this, and wondering what would ultimately become of my box, which
116  Mr. Barkis had put down on the yard-pavement by the pole (he having
117  driven up the yard to turn his cart), and also what would
118  ultimately become of me, when a lady looked out of a bow-window
119  where some fowls and joints of meat were hanging up, and said:

120       'Is that the little gentleman from Blunderstone?'

121       'Yes, ma'am,' I said.

122       'What name?' inquired the lady.

123       'Copperfield, ma'am,' I said.

124       'That won't do,' returned the lady. 'Nobody's dinner is paid for
125  here, in that name.'

126       'Is it Murdstone, ma'am?' I said.

127       'If you're Master Murdstone,' said the lady, 'why do you go and
128  give another name, first?'

129       I explained to the lady how it was, who than rang a bell, and
130  called out, 'William! show the coffee-room!' upon which a waiter
131  came running out of a kitchen on the opposite side of the yard to
132  show it, and seemed a good deal surprised when he was only to show
133  it to me.

134       It was a large long room with some large maps in it. I doubt if I
135  could have felt much stranger if the maps had been real foreign
136  countries, and I cast away in the middle of them. I felt it was
137  taking a liberty to sit down, with my cap in my hand, on the corner
138  of the chair nearest the door; and when the waiter laid a cloth on
139  purpose for me, and put a set of castors on it, I think I must have
140  turned red all over with modesty.

141       He brought me some chops, and vegetables, and took the covers off
142  in such a bouncing manner that I was afraid I must have given him
143  some offence. But he greatly relieved my mind by putting a chair
144  for me at the table, and saying, very affably, 'Now, six-foot! come
145  on!'

146       I thanked him, and took my seat at the board; but found it
147  extremely difficult to handle my knife and fork with anything like
148  dexterity, or to avoid splashing myself with the gravy, while he
149  was standing opposite, staring so hard, and making me blush in the
150  most dreadful manner every time I caught his eye. After watching
151  me into the second chop, he said:

152       'There's half a pint of ale for you. Will you have it now?'

153       I thanked him and said, 'Yes.' Upon which he poured it out of a
154  jug into a large tumbler, and held it up against the light, and
155  made it look beautiful.

156       'My eye!' he said. 'It seems a good deal, don't it?'

157       'It does seem a good deal,' I answered with a smile. For it was
158  quite delightful to me, to find him so pleasant. He was a
159  twinkling-eyed, pimple-faced man, with his hair standing upright
160  all over his head; and as he stood with one arm a-kimbo, holding up
161  the glass to the light with the other hand, he looked quite
162  friendly.

163       'There was a gentleman here, yesterday,' he said - 'a stout
164  gentleman, by the name of Topsawyer - perhaps you know him?'

165       'No,' I said, 'I don't think -'

166       'In breeches and gaiters, broad-brimmed hat, grey coat, speckled
167  choker,' said the waiter.

168       'No,' I said bashfully, 'I haven't the pleasure -'

169       'He came in here,' said the waiter, looking at the light through
170  the tumbler, 'ordered a glass of this ale - WOULD order it - I told
171  him not - drank it, and fell dead. It was too old for him. It
172  oughtn't to be drawn; that's the fact.'

173       I was very much shocked to hear of this melancholy accident, and
174  said I thought I had better have some water.

175       'Why you see,' said the waiter, still looking at the light through
176  the tumbler, with one of his eyes shut up, 'our people don't like
177  things being ordered and left. It offends 'em. But I'll drink it,
178  if you like. I'm used to it, and use is everything. I don't think
179  it'll hurt me, if I throw my head back, and take it off quick.
180  Shall I?'

181       I replied that he would much oblige me by drinking it, if he
182  thought he could do it safely, but by no means otherwise. When he
183  did throw his head back, and take it off quick, I had a horrible
184  fear, I confess, of seeing him meet the fate of the lamented Mr.
185  Topsawyer, and fall lifeless on the carpet. But it didn't hurt
186  him. On the contrary, I thought he seemed the fresher for it.

187       'What have we got here?' he said, putting a fork into my dish.
188  'Not chops?'

189       'Chops,' I said.

190       'Lord bless my soul!' he exclaimed, 'I didn't know they were chops.
191  Why, a chop's the very thing to take off the bad effects of that
192  beer! Ain't it lucky?'

193       So he took a chop by the bone in one hand, and a potato in the
194  other, and ate away with a very good appetite, to my extreme
195  satisfaction. He afterwards took another chop, and another potato;
196  and after that, another chop and another potato. When we had done,
197  he brought me a pudding, and having set it before me, seemed to
198  ruminate, and to become absent in his mind for some moments.

199       'How's the pie?' he said, rousing himself.

200       'It's a pudding,' I made answer.

201       'Pudding!' he exclaimed. 'Why, bless me, so it is! What!' looking
202  at it nearer. 'You don't mean to say it's a batter-pudding!'

203       'Yes, it is indeed.'

204       'Why, a batter-pudding,' he said, taking up a table-spoon, 'is my
205  favourite pudding! Ain't that lucky? Come on, little 'un, and
206  let's see who'll get most.'

207       The waiter certainly got most. He entreated me more than once to
208  come in and win, but what with his table-spoon to my tea-spoon, his
209  dispatch to my dispatch, and his appetite to my appetite, I was
210  left far behind at the first mouthful, and had no chance with him.
211  I never saw anyone enjoy a pudding so much, I think; and he
212  laughed, when it was all gone, as if his enjoyment of it lasted
213  still.

214       Finding him so very friendly and companionable, it was then that I
215  asked for the pen and ink and paper, to write to Peggotty. He not
216  only brought it immediately, but was good enough to look over me
217  while I wrote the letter. When I had finished it, he asked me
218  where I was going to school.

219       I said, 'Near London,' which was all I knew.

220       'Oh! my eye!' he said, looking very low-spirited, 'I am sorry for
221  that.'

222       'Why?' I asked him.

223       'Oh, Lord!' he said, shaking his head, 'that's the school where
224  they broke the boy's ribs - two ribs - a little boy he was. I
225  should say he was - let me see - how old are you, about?'

226       I told him between eight and nine.

227       'That's just his age,' he said. 'He was eight years and six months
228  old when they broke his first rib; eight years and eight months old
229  when they broke his second, and did for him.'

230       I could not disguise from myself, or from the waiter, that this was
231  an uncomfortable coincidence, and inquired how it was done. His
232  answer was not cheering to my spirits, for it consisted of two
233  dismal words, 'With whopping.'

234       The blowing of the coach-horn in the yard was a seasonable
235  diversion, which made me get up and hesitatingly inquire, in the
236  mingled pride and diffidence of having a purse (which I took out of
237  my pocket), if there were anything to pay.

238       'There's a sheet of letter-paper,' he returned. 'Did you ever buy
239  a sheet of letter-paper?'

240       I could not remember that I ever had.

241       'It's dear,' he said, 'on account of the duty. Threepence. That's
242  the way we're taxed in this country. There's nothing else, except
243  the waiter. Never mind the ink. I lose by that.'

244       'What should you - what should I - how much ought I to - what would
245  it be right to pay the waiter, if you please?' I stammered,
246  blushing.

247       'If I hadn't a family, and that family hadn't the cowpock,' said
248  the waiter, 'I wouldn't take a sixpence. If I didn't support a
249  aged pairint, and a lovely sister,' - here the waiter was greatly
250  agitated - 'I wouldn't take a farthing. If I had a good place, and
251  was treated well here, I should beg acceptance of a trifle, instead
252  of taking of it. But I live on broken wittles - and I sleep on the
253  coals' - here the waiter burst into tears.

254       I was very much concerned for his misfortunes, and felt that any
255  recognition short of ninepence would be mere brutality and hardness
256  of heart. Therefore I gave him one of my three bright shillings,
257  which he received with much humility and veneration, and spun up
258  with his thumb, directly afterwards, to try the goodness of.

259       It was a little disconcerting to me, to find, when I was being
260  helped up behind the coach, that I was supposed to have eaten all
261  the dinner without any assistance. I discovered this, from
262  overhearing the lady in the bow-window say to the guard, 'Take care
263  of that child, George, or he'll burst!' and from observing that the
264  women-servants who were about the place came out to look and giggle
265  at me as a young phenomenon. My unfortunate friend the waiter, who
266  had quite recovered his spirits, did not appear to be disturbed by
267  this, but joined in the general admiration without being at all
268  confused. If I had any doubt of him, I suppose this half awakened
269  it; but I am inclined to believe that with the simple confidence of
270  a child, and the natural reliance of a child upon superior years
271  (qualities I am very sorry any children should prematurely change
272  for worldly wisdom), I had no serious mistrust of him on the whole,
273  even then.

274       I felt it rather hard, I must own, to be made, without deserving
275  it, the subject of jokes between the coachman and guard as to the
276  coach drawing heavy behind, on account of my sitting there, and as
277  to the greater expediency of my travelling by waggon. The story of
278  my supposed appetite getting wind among the outside passengers,
279  they were merry upon it likewise; and asked me whether I was going
280  to be paid for, at school, as two brothers or three, and whether I
281  was contracted for, or went upon the regular terms; with other
282  pleasant questions. But the worst of it was, that I knew I should
283  be ashamed to eat anything, when an opportunity offered, and that,
284  after a rather light dinner, I should remain hungry all night - for
285  I had left my cakes behind, at the hotel, in my hurry. My
286  apprehensions were realized. When we stopped for supper I couldn't
287  muster courage to take any, though I should have liked it very
288  much, but sat by the fire and said I didn't want anything. This
289  did not save me from more jokes, either; for a husky-voiced
290  gentleman with a rough face, who had been eating out of a
291  sandwich-box nearly all the way, except when he had been drinking
292  out of a bottle, said I was like a boa-constrictor who took enough
293  at one meal to last him a long time; after which, he actually
294  brought a rash out upon himself with boiled beef.

295       We had started from Yarmouth at three o'clock in the afternoon, and
296  we were due in London about eight next morning. It was Mid-summer
297  weather, and the evening was very pleasant. When we passed through
298  a village, I pictured to myself what the insides of the houses were
299  like, and what the inhabitants were about; and when boys came
300  running after us, and got up behind and swung there for a little
301  way, I wondered whether their fathers were alive, and whether they
302  Were happy at home. I had plenty to think of, therefore, besides
303  my mind running continually on the kind of place I was going to -
304  which was an awful speculation. Sometimes, I remember, I resigned
305  myself to thoughts of home and Peggotty; and to endeavouring, in a
306  confused blind way, to recall how I had felt, and what sort of boy
307  I used to be, before I bit Mr. Murdstone: which I couldn't satisfy
308  myself about by any means, I seemed to have bitten him in such a
309  remote antiquity.

310       The night was not so pleasant as the evening, for it got chilly;
311  and being put between two gentlemen (the rough-faced one and
312  another) to prevent my tumbling off the coach, I was nearly
313  smothered by their falling asleep, and completely blocking me up.
314  They squeezed me so hard sometimes, that I could not help crying
315  out, 'Oh! If you please!' - which they didn't like at all, because
316  it woke them. Opposite me was an elderly lady in a great fur
317  cloak, who looked in the dark more like a haystack than a lady, she
318  was wrapped up to such a degree. This lady had a basket with her,
319  and she hadn't known what to do with it, for a long time, until she
320  found that on account of my legs being short, it could go
321  underneath me. It cramped and hurt me so, that it made me
322  perfectly miserable; but if I moved in the least, and made a glass
323  that was in the basket rattle against something else (as it was
324  sure to do), she gave me the cruellest poke with her foot, and
325  said, 'Come, don't YOU fidget. YOUR bones are young enough, I'm
326  sure!'

327       At last the sun rose, and then my companions seemed to sleep
328  easier. The difficulties under which they had laboured all night,
329  and which had found utterance in the most terrific gasps and
330  snorts, are not to be conceived. As the sun got higher, their
331  sleep became lighter, and so they gradually one by one awoke. I
332  recollect being very much surprised by the feint everybody made,
333  then, of not having been to sleep at all, and by the uncommon
334  indignation with which everyone repelled the charge. I labour
335  under the same kind of astonishment to this day, having invariably
336  observed that of all human weaknesses, the one to which our common
337  nature is the least disposed to confess (I cannot imagine why) is
338  the weakness of having gone to sleep in a coach.

339       What an amazing place London was to me when I saw it in the
340  distance, and how I believed all the adventures of all my favourite
341  heroes to be constantly enacting and re-enacting there, and how I
342  vaguely made it out in my own mind to be fuller of wonders and
343  wickedness than all the cities of the earth, I need not stop here
344  to relate. We approached it by degrees, and got, in due time, to
345  the inn in the Whitechapel district, for which we were bound. I
346  forget whether it was the Blue Bull, or the Blue Boar; but I know
347  it was the Blue Something, and that its likeness was painted up on
348  the back of the coach.

349       The guard's eye lighted on me as he was getting down, and he said
350  at the booking-office door:

351       'Is there anybody here for a yoongster booked in the name of
352  Murdstone, from Bloonderstone, Sooffolk, to be left till called
353  for?'

354       Nobody answered.

355       'Try Copperfield, if you please, sir,' said I, looking helplessly
356  down.

357       'Is there anybody here for a yoongster, booked in the name of
358  Murdstone, from Bloonderstone, Sooffolk, but owning to the name of
359  Copperfield, to be left till called for?' said the guard. 'Come!
360  IS there anybody?'

361       No. There was nobody. I looked anxiously around; but the inquiry
362  made no impression on any of the bystanders, if I except a man in
363  gaiters, with one eye, who suggested that they had better put a
364  brass collar round my neck, and tie me up in the stable.

365       A ladder was brought, and I got down after the lady, who was like
366  a haystack: not daring to stir, until her basket was removed. The
367  coach was clear of passengers by that time, the luggage was very
368  soon cleared out, the horses had been taken out before the luggage,
369  and now the coach itself was wheeled and backed off by some
370  hostlers, out of the way. Still, nobody appeared, to claim the
371  dusty youngster from Blunderstone, Suffolk.

372       More solitary than Robinson Crusoe, who had nobody to look at him
373  and see that he was solitary, I went into the booking-office, and,
374  by invitation of the clerk on duty, passed behind the counter, and
375  sat down on the scale at which they weighed the luggage. Here, as
376  I sat looking at the parcels, packages, and books, and inhaling the
377  smell of stables (ever since associated with that morning), a
378  procession of most tremendous considerations began to march through
379  my mind. Supposing nobody should ever fetch me, how long would
380  they consent to keep me there? Would they keep me long enough to
381  spend seven shillings? Should I sleep at night in one of those
382  wooden bins, with the other luggage, and wash myself at the pump in
383  the yard in the morning; or should I be turned out every night, and
384  expected to come again to be left till called for, when the office
385  opened next day? Supposing there was no mistake in the case, and
386  Mr. Murdstone had devised this plan to get rid of me, what should
387  I do? If they allowed me to remain there until my seven shillings
388  were spent, I couldn't hope to remain there when I began to starve.
389  That would obviously be inconvenient and unpleasant to the
390  customers, besides entailing on the Blue Whatever-it-was, the risk
391  of funeral expenses. If I started off at once, and tried to walk
392  back home, how could I ever find my way, how could I ever hope to
393  walk so far, how could I make sure of anyone but Peggotty, even if
394  I got back? If I found out the nearest proper authorities, and
395  offered myself to go for a soldier, or a sailor, I was such a
396  little fellow that it was most likely they wouldn't take me in.
397  These thoughts, and a hundred other such thoughts, turned me
398  burning hot, and made me giddy with apprehension and dismay. I was
399  in the height of my fever when a man entered and whispered to the
400  clerk, who presently slanted me off the scale, and pushed me over
401  to him, as if I were weighed, bought, delivered, and paid for.

402       As I went out of the office, hand in hand with this new
403  acquaintance, I stole a look at him. He was a gaunt, sallow young
404  man, with hollow cheeks, and a chin almost as black as Mr.
405  Murdstone's; but there the likeness ended, for his whiskers were
406  shaved off, and his hair, instead of being glossy, was rusty and
407  dry. He was dressed in a suit of black clothes which were rather
408  rusty and dry too, and rather short in the sleeves and legs; and he
409  had a white neck-kerchief on, that was not over-clean. I did not,
410  and do not, suppose that this neck-kerchief was all the linen he
411  wore, but it was all he showed or gave any hint of.

412       'You're the new boy?' he said.
413  'Yes, sir,' I said.

414       I supposed I was. I didn't know.

415       'I'm one of the masters at Salem House,' he said.

416       I made him a bow and felt very much overawed. I was so ashamed to
417  allude to a commonplace thing like my box, to a scholar and a
418  master at Salem House, that we had gone some little distance from
419  the yard before I had the hardihood to mention it. We turned back,
420  on my humbly insinuating that it might be useful to me hereafter;
421  and he told the clerk that the carrier had instructions to call for
422  it at noon.

423       'If you please, sir,' I said, when we had accomplished about the
424  same distance as before, 'is it far?'

425       'It's down by Blackheath,' he said.

426       'Is that far, sir?' I diffidently asked.

427       'It's a good step,' he said. 'We shall go by the stage-coach.
428  It's about six miles.'

429       I was so faint and tired, that the idea of holding out for six
430  miles more, was too much for me. I took heart to tell him that I
431  had had nothing all night, and that if he would allow me to buy
432  something to eat, I should be very much obliged to him. He
433  appeared surprised at this - I see him stop and look at me now -
434  and after considering for a few moments, said he wanted to call on
435  an old person who lived not far off, and that the best way would be
436  for me to buy some bread, or whatever I liked best that was
437  wholesome, and make my breakfast at her house, where we could get
438  some milk.

439       Accordingly we looked in at a baker's window, and after I had made
440  a series of proposals to buy everything that was bilious in the
441  shop, and he had rejected them one by one, we decided in favour of
442  a nice little loaf of brown bread, which cost me threepence. Then,
443  at a grocer's shop, we bought an egg and a slice of streaky bacon;
444  which still left what I thought a good deal of change, out of the
445  second of the bright shillings, and made me consider London a very
446  cheap place. These provisions laid in, we went on through a great
447  noise and uproar that confused my weary head beyond description,
448  and over a bridge which, no doubt, was London Bridge (indeed I
449  think he told me so, but I was half asleep), until we came to the
450  poor person's house, which was a part of some alms-houses, as I
451  knew by their look, and by an inscription on a stone over the gate
452  which said they were established for twenty-five poor women.

453       The Master at Salem House lifted the latch of one of a number of
454  little black doors that were all alike, and had each a little
455  diamond-paned window on one side, and another little diamond- paned
456  window above; and we went into the little house of one of these
457  poor old women, who was blowing a fire to make a little saucepan
458  boil. On seeing the master enter, the old woman stopped with the
459  bellows on her knee, and said something that I thought sounded like
460  'My Charley!' but on seeing me come in too, she got up, and rubbing
461  her hands made a confused sort of half curtsey.

462       'Can you cook this young gentleman's breakfast for him, if you
463  please?' said the Master at Salem House.

464       'Can I?' said the old woman. 'Yes can I, sure!'

465       'How's Mrs. Fibbitson today?' said the Master, looking at another
466  old woman in a large chair by the fire, who was such a bundle of
467  clothes that I feel grateful to this hour for not having sat upon
468  her by mistake.

469       'Ah, she's poorly,' said the first old woman. 'It's one of her bad
470  days. If the fire was to go out, through any accident, I verily
471  believe she'd go out too, and never come to life again.'

472       As they looked at her, I looked at her also. Although it was a
473  warm day, she seemed to think of nothing but the fire. I fancied
474  she was jealous even of the saucepan on it; and I have reason to
475  know that she took its impressment into the service of boiling my
476  egg and broiling my bacon, in dudgeon; for I saw her, with my own
477  discomfited eyes, shake her fist at me once, when those culinary
478  operations were going on, and no one else was looking. The sun
479  streamed in at the little window, but she sat with her own back and
480  the back of the large chair towards it, screening the fire as if
481  she were sedulously keeping IT warm, instead of it keeping her
482  warm, and watching it in a most distrustful manner. The completion
483  of the preparations for my breakfast, by relieving the fire, gave
484  her such extreme joy that she laughed aloud - and a very
485  unmelodious laugh she had, I must say.

486       I sat down to my brown loaf, my egg, and my rasher of bacon, with
487  a basin of milk besides, and made a most delicious meal. While I
488  was yet in the full enjoyment of it, the old woman of the house
489  said to the Master:

490       'Have you got your flute with you?'

491       'Yes,' he returned.

492       'Have a blow at it,' said the old woman, coaxingly. 'Do!'

493       The Master, upon this, put his hand underneath the skirts of his
494  coat, and brought out his flute in three pieces, which he screwed
495  together, and began immediately to play. My impression is, after
496  many years of consideration, that there never can have been anybody
497  in the world who played worse. He made the most dismal sounds I
498  have ever heard produced by any means, natural or artificial. I
499  don't know what the tunes were - if there were such things in the
500  performance at all, which I doubt - but the influence of the strain
501  upon me was, first, to make me think of all my sorrows until I
502  could hardly keep my tears back; then to take away my appetite; and
503  lastly, to make me so sleepy that I couldn't keep my eyes open.
504  They begin to close again, and I begin to nod, as the recollection
505  rises fresh upon me. Once more the little room, with its open
506  corner cupboard, and its square-backed chairs, and its angular
507  little staircase leading to the room above, and its three peacock's
508  feathers displayed over the mantelpiece - I remember wondering when
509  I first went in, what that peacock would have thought if he had
510  known what his finery was doomed to come to - fades from before me,
511  and I nod, and sleep. The flute becomes inaudible, the wheels of
512  the coach are heard instead, and I am on my journey. The coach
513  jolts, I wake with a start, and the flute has come back again, and
514  the Master at Salem House is sitting with his legs crossed, playing
515  it dolefully, while the old woman of the house looks on delighted.
516  She fades in her turn, and he fades, and all fades, and there is no
517  flute, no Master, no Salem House, no David Copperfield, no anything
518  but heavy sleep.

519       I dreamed, I thought, that once while he was blowing into this
520  dismal flute, the old woman of the house, who had gone nearer and
521  nearer to him in her ecstatic admiration, leaned over the back of
522  his chair and gave him an affectionate squeeze round the neck,
523  which stopped his playing for a moment. I was in the middle state
524  between sleeping and waking, either then or immediately afterwards;
525  for, as he resumed - it was a real fact that he had stopped playing
526  - I saw and heard the same old woman ask Mrs. Fibbitson if it
527  wasn't delicious (meaning the flute), to which Mrs. Fibbitson
528  replied, 'Ay, ay! yes!' and nodded at the fire: to which, I am
529  persuaded, she gave the credit of the whole performance.

530       When I seemed to have been dozing a long while, the Master at Salem
531  House unscrewed his flute into the three pieces, put them up as
532  before, and took me away. We found the coach very near at hand,
533  and got upon the roof; but I was so dead sleepy, that when we
534  stopped on the road to take up somebody else, they put me inside
535  where there were no passengers, and where I slept profoundly, until
536  I found the coach going at a footpace up a steep hill among green
537  leaves. Presently, it stopped, and had come to its destination.

538       A short walk brought us - I mean the Master and me - to Salem
539  House, which was enclosed with a high brick wall, and looked very
540  dull. Over a door in this wall was a board with SALEM HousE upon
541  it; and through a grating in this door we were surveyed when we
542  rang the bell by a surly face, which I found, on the door being
543  opened, belonged to a stout man with a bull-neck, a wooden leg,
544  overhanging temples, and his hair cut close all round his head.

545       'The new boy,' said the Master.

546       The man with the wooden leg eyed me all over - it didn't take long,
547  for there was not much of me - and locked the gate behind us, and
548  took out the key. We were going up to the house, among some dark
549  heavy trees, when he called after my conductor.
550  'Hallo!'

551       We looked back, and he was standing at the door of a little lodge,
552  where he lived, with a pair of boots in his hand.

553       'Here! The cobbler's been,' he said, 'since you've been out, Mr.
554  Mell, and he says he can't mend 'em any more. He says there ain't
555  a bit of the original boot left, and he wonders you expect it.'

556       With these words he threw the boots towards Mr. Mell, who went back
557  a few paces to pick them up, and looked at them (very
558  disconsolately, I was afraid), as we went on together. I observed
559  then, for the first time, that the boots he had on were a good deal
560  the worse for wear, and that his stocking was just breaking out in
561  one place, like a bud.

562       Salem House was a square brick building with wings; of a bare and
563  unfurnished appearance. All about it was so very quiet, that I
564  said to Mr. Mell I supposed the boys were out; but he seemed
565  surprised at my not knowing that it was holiday-time. That all the
566  boys were at their several homes. That Mr. Creakle, the
567  proprietor, was down by the sea-side with Mrs. and Miss Creakle;
568  and that I was sent in holiday-time as a punishment for my
569  misdoing, all of which he explained to me as we went along.

570       I gazed upon the schoolroom into which he took me, as the most
571  forlorn and desolate place I had ever seen. I see it now. A long
572  room with three long rows of desks, and six of forms, and bristling
573  all round with pegs for hats and slates. Scraps of old copy-books
574  and exercises litter the dirty floor. Some silkworms' houses, made
575  of the same materials, are scattered over the desks. Two miserable
576  little white mice, left behind by their owner, are running up and
577  down in a fusty castle made of pasteboard and wire, looking in all
578  the corners with their red eyes for anything to eat. A bird, in a
579  cage very little bigger than himself, makes a mournful rattle now
580  and then in hopping on his perch, two inches high, or dropping from
581  it; but neither sings nor chirps. There is a strange unwholesome
582  smell upon the room, like mildewed corduroys, sweet apples wanting
583  air, and rotten books. There could not well be more ink splashed
584  about it, if it had been roofless from its first construction, and
585  the skies had rained, snowed, hailed, and blown ink through the
586  varying seasons of the year.

587       Mr. Mell having left me while he took his irreparable boots
588  upstairs, I went softly to the upper end of the room, observing all
589  this as I crept along. Suddenly I came upon a pasteboard placard,
590  beautifully written, which was lying on the desk, and bore these
591  words: 'TAKE CARE OF HIM. HE BITES.'

592       I got upon the desk immediately, apprehensive of at least a great
593  dog underneath. But, though I looked all round with anxious eyes,
594  I could see nothing of him. I was still engaged in peering about,
595  when Mr. Mell came back, and asked me what I did up there?

596       'I beg your pardon, sir,' says I, 'if you please, I'm looking for
597  the dog.'

598       'Dog?' he says. 'What dog?'

599       'Isn't it a dog, sir?'

600       'Isn't what a dog?'

601       'That's to be taken care of, sir; that bites.'

602       'No, Copperfield,' says he, gravely, 'that's not a dog. That's a
603  boy. My instructions are, Copperfield, to put this placard on your
604  back. I am sorry to make such a beginning with you, but I must do
605  it.' With that he took me down, and tied the placard, which was
606  neatly constructed for the purpose, on my shoulders like a
607  knapsack; and wherever I went, afterwards, I had the consolation of
608  carrying it.

609       What I suffered from that placard, nobody can imagine. Whether it
610  was possible for people to see me or not, I always fancied that
611  somebody was reading it. It was no relief to turn round and find
612  nobody; for wherever my back was, there I imagined somebody always
613  to be. That cruel man with the wooden leg aggravated my
614  sufferings. He was in authority; and if he ever saw me leaning
615  against a tree, or a wall, or the house, he roared out from his
616  lodge door in a stupendous voice, 'Hallo, you sir! You
617  Copperfield! Show that badge conspicuous, or I'll report you!'
618  The playground was a bare gravelled yard, open to all the back of
619  the house and the offices; and I knew that the servants read it,
620  and the butcher read it, and the baker read it; that everybody, in
621  a word, who came backwards and forwards to the house, of a morning
622  when I was ordered to walk there, read that I was to be taken care
623  of, for I bit, I recollect that I positively began to have a dread
624  of myself, as a kind of wild boy who did bite.

625       There was an old door in this playground, on which the boys had a
626  custom of carving their names. It was completely covered with such
627  inscriptions. In my dread of the end of the vacation and their
628  coming back, I could not read a boy's name, without inquiring in
629  what tone and with what emphasis HE would read, 'Take care of him.
630  He bites.' There was one boy - a certain J. Steerforth - who cut
631  his name very deep and very often, who, I conceived, would read it
632  in a rather strong voice, and afterwards pull my hair. There was
633  another boy, one Tommy Traddles, who I dreaded would make game of
634  it, and pretend to be dreadfully frightened of me. There was a
635  third, George Demple, who I fancied would sing it. I have looked,
636  a little shrinking creature, at that door, until the owners of all
637  the names - there were five-and-forty of them in the school then,
638  Mr. Mell said - seemed to send me to Coventry by general
639  acclamation, and to cry out, each in his own way, 'Take care of
640  him. He bites!'

641       It was the same with the places at the desks and forms. It was the
642  same with the groves of deserted bedsteads I peeped at, on my way
643  to, and when I was in, my own bed. I remember dreaming night after
644  night, of being with my mother as she used to be, or of going to a
645  party at Mr. Peggotty's, or of travelling outside the stage-coach,
646  or of dining again with my unfortunate friend the waiter, and in
647  all these circumstances making people scream and stare, by the
648  unhappy disclosure that I had nothing on but my little night-shirt,
649  and that placard.

650       In the monotony of my life, and in my constant apprehension of the
651  re-opening of the school, it was such an insupportable affliction!
652  I had long tasks every day to do with Mr. Mell; but I did them,
653  there being no Mr. and Miss Murdstone here, and got through them
654  without disgrace. Before, and after them, I walked about -
655  supervised, as I have mentioned, by the man with the wooden leg.
656  How vividly I call to mind the damp about the house, the green
657  cracked flagstones in the court, an old leaky water-butt, and the
658  discoloured trunks of some of the grim trees, which seemed to have
659  dripped more in the rain than other trees, and to have blown less
660  in the sun! At one we dined, Mr. Mell and I, at the upper end of
661  a long bare dining-room, full of deal tables, and smelling of fat.
662  Then, we had more tasks until tea, which Mr. Mell drank out of a
663  blue teacup, and I out of a tin pot. All day long, and until seven
664  or eight in the evening, Mr. Mell, at his own detached desk in the
665  schoolroom, worked hard with pen, ink, ruler, books, and writing-
666  paper, making out the bills (as I found) for last half-year. When
667  he had put up his things for the night he took out his flute, and
668  blew at it, until I almost thought he would gradually blow his
669  whole being into the large hole at the top, and ooze away at the
670  keys.

671       I picture my small self in the dimly-lighted rooms, sitting with my
672  head upon my hand, listening to the doleful performance of Mr.
673  Mell, and conning tomorrow's lessons. I picture myself with my
674  books shut up, still listening to the doleful performance of Mr.
675  Mell, and listening through it to what used to be at home, and to
676  the blowing of the wind on Yarmouth flats, and feeling very sad and
677  solitary. I picture myself going up to bed, among the unused
678  rooms, and sitting on my bed-side crying for a comfortable word
679  from Peggotty. I picture myself coming downstairs in the morning,
680  and looking through a long ghastly gash of a staircase window at
681  the school-bell hanging on the top of an out-house with a
682  weathercock above it; and dreading the time when it shall ring J.
683  Steerforth and the rest to work: which is only second, in my
684  foreboding apprehensions, to the time when the man with the wooden
685  leg shall unlock the rusty gate to give admission to the awful Mr.
686  Creakle. I cannot think I was a very dangerous character in any of
687  these aspects, but in all of them I carried the same warning on my
688  back.

689       Mr. Mell never said much to me, but he was never harsh to me. I
690  suppose we were company to each other, without talking. I forgot
691  to mention that he would talk to himself sometimes, and grin, and
692  clench his fist, and grind his teeth, and pull his hair in an
693  unaccountable manner. But he had these peculiarities: and at first
694  they frightened me, though I soon got used to them.

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