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Charles Dickens
Chapter 58
Charles Dickens
 
 
1       One thing more, I had to do, before yielding myself to the shock of
2  these emotions. It was, to conceal what had occurred, from those
3  who were going away; and to dismiss them on their voyage in happy
4  ignorance. In this, no time was to be lost.

5       I took Mr. Micawber aside that same night, and confided to him the
6  task of standing between Mr. Peggotty and intelligence of the late
7  catastrophe. He zealously undertook to do so, and to intercept any
8  newspaper through which it might, without such precautions, reach
9  him.

10       'If it penetrates to him, sir,' said Mr. Micawber, striking himself
11  on the breast, 'it shall first pass through this body!'

12       Mr. Micawber, I must observe, in his adaptation of himself to a new
13  state of society, had acquired a bold buccaneering air, not
14  absolutely lawless, but defensive and prompt. One might have
15  supposed him a child of the wilderness, long accustomed to live out
16  of the confines of civilization, and about to return to his native
17  wilds.

18       He had provided himself, among other things, with a complete suit
19  of oilskin, and a straw hat with a very low crown, pitched or
20  caulked on the outside. In this rough clothing, with a common
21  mariner's telescope under his arm, and a shrewd trick of casting up
22  his eye at the sky as looking out for dirty weather, he was far
23  more nautical, after his manner, than Mr. Peggotty. His whole
24  family, if I may so express it, were cleared for action. I found
25  Mrs. Micawber in the closest and most uncompromising of bonnets,
26  made fast under the chin; and in a shawl which tied her up (as I
27  had been tied up, when my aunt first received me) like a bundle,
28  and was secured behind at the waist, in a strong knot. Miss
29  Micawber I found made snug for stormy weather, in the same manner;
30  with nothing superfluous about her. Master Micawber was hardly
31  visible in a Guernsey shirt, and the shaggiest suit of slops I ever
32  saw; and the children were done up, like preserved meats, in
33  impervious cases. Both Mr. Micawber and his eldest son wore their
34  sleeves loosely turned back at the wrists, as being ready to lend
35  a hand in any direction, and to 'tumble up', or sing out, 'Yeo -
36  Heave - Yeo!' on the shortest notice.

37       Thus Traddles and I found them at nightfall, assembled on the
38  wooden steps, at that time known as Hungerford Stairs, watching the
39  departure of a boat with some of their property on board. I had
40  told Traddles of the terrible event, and it had greatly shocked
41  him; but there could be no doubt of the kindness of keeping it a
42  secret, and he had come to help me in this last service. It was
43  here that I took Mr. Micawber aside, and received his promise.

44       The Micawber family were lodged in a little, dirty, tumble-down
45  public-house, which in those days was close to the stairs, and
46  whose protruding wooden rooms overhung the river. The family, as
47  emigrants, being objects of some interest in and about Hungerford,
48  attracted so many beholders, that we were glad to take refuge in
49  their room. It was one of the wooden chambers upstairs, with the
50  tide flowing underneath. My aunt and Agnes were there, busily
51  making some little extra comforts, in the way of dress, for the
52  children. Peggotty was quietly assisting, with the old insensible
53  work-box, yard-measure, and bit of wax-candle before her, that had
54  now outlived so much.

55       It was not easy to answer her inquiries; still less to whisper Mr.
56  Peggotty, when Mr. Micawber brought him in, that I had given the
57  letter, and all was well. But I did both, and made them happy. If
58  I showed any trace of what I felt, my own sorrows were sufficient
59  to account for it.

60       'And when does the ship sail, Mr. Micawber?' asked my aunt.

61       Mr. Micawber considered it necessary to prepare either my aunt or
62  his wife, by degrees, and said, sooner than he had expected
63  yesterday.

64       'The boat brought you word, I suppose?' said my aunt.

65       'It did, ma'am,' he returned.

66       'Well?' said my aunt. 'And she sails -'

67       'Madam,' he replied, 'I am informed that we must positively be on
68  board before seven tomorrow morning.'

69       'Heyday!' said my aunt, 'that's soon. Is it a sea-going fact, Mr.
70  Peggotty?'
71  ''Tis so, ma'am. She'll drop down the river with that theer tide.
72  If Mas'r Davy and my sister comes aboard at Gravesen', arternoon o'
73  next day, they'll see the last on us.'

74       'And that we shall do,' said I, 'be sure!'

75       'Until then, and until we are at sea,' observed Mr. Micawber, with
76  a glance of intelligence at me, 'Mr. Peggotty and myself will
77  constantly keep a double look-out together, on our goods and
78  chattels. Emma, my love,' said Mr. Micawber, clearing his throat
79  in his magnificent way, 'my friend Mr. Thomas Traddles is so
80  obliging as to solicit, in my ear, that he should have the
81  privilege of ordering the ingredients necessary to the composition
82  of a moderate portion of that Beverage which is peculiarly
83  associated, in our minds, with the Roast Beef of Old England. I
84  allude to - in short, Punch. Under ordinary circumstances, I
85  should scruple to entreat the indulgence of Miss Trotwood and Miss
86  Wickfield, but-'

87       'I can only say for myself,' said my aunt, 'that I will drink all
88  happiness and success to you, Mr. Micawber, with the utmost
89  pleasure.'

90       'And I too!' said Agnes, with a smile.

91       Mr. Micawber immediately descended to the bar, where he appeared to
92  be quite at home; and in due time returned with a steaming jug. I
93  could not but observe that he had been peeling the lemons with his
94  own clasp-knife, which, as became the knife of a practical settler,
95  was about a foot long; and which he wiped, not wholly without
96  ostentation, on the sleeve of his coat. Mrs. Micawber and the two
97  elder members of the family I now found to be provided with similar
98  formidable instruments, while every child had its own wooden spoon
99  attached to its body by a strong line. In a similar anticipation
100  of life afloat, and in the Bush, Mr. Micawber, instead of helping
101  Mrs. Micawber and his eldest son and daughter to punch, in
102  wine-glasses, which he might easily have done, for there was a
103  shelf-full in the room, served it out to them in a series of
104  villainous little tin pots; and I never saw him enjoy anything so
105  much as drinking out of his own particular pint pot, and putting it
106  in his pocket at the close of the evening.

107       'The luxuries of the old country,' said Mr. Micawber, with an
108  intense satisfaction in their renouncement, 'we abandon. The
109  denizens of the forest cannot, of course, expect to participate in
110  the refinements of the land of the Free.'

111       Here, a boy came in to say that Mr. Micawber was wanted downstairs.

112       'I have a presentiment,' said Mrs. Micawber, setting down her tin
113  pot, 'that it is a member of my family!'

114       'If so, my dear,' observed Mr. Micawber, with his usual suddenness
115  of warmth on that subject, 'as the member of your family - whoever
116  he, she, or it, may be - has kept us waiting for a considerable
117  period, perhaps the Member may now wait MY convenience.'

118       'Micawber,' said his wife, in a low tone, 'at such a time as
119  this -'

120       '"It is not meet,"' said Mr. Micawber, rising, '"that every nice
121  offence should bear its comment!" Emma, I stand reproved.'

122       'The loss, Micawber,' observed his wife, 'has been my family's, not
123  yours. If my family are at length sensible of the deprivation to
124  which their own conduct has, in the past, exposed them, and now
125  desire to extend the hand of fellowship, let it not be repulsed.'

126       'My dear,' he returned, 'so be it!'

127       'If not for their sakes; for mine, Micawber,' said his wife.

128       'Emma,' he returned, 'that view of the question is, at such a
129  moment, irresistible. I cannot, even now, distinctly pledge myself
130  to fall upon your family's neck; but the member of your family, who
131  is now in attendance, shall have no genial warmth frozen by me.'

132       Mr. Micawber withdrew, and was absent some little time; in the
133  course of which Mrs. Micawber was not wholly free from an
134  apprehension that words might have arisen between him and the
135  Member. At length the same boy reappeared, and presented me with
136  a note written in pencil, and headed, in a legal manner, 'Heep v.
137  Micawber'. From this document, I learned that Mr. Micawber being
138  again arrested, 'Was in a final paroxysm of despair; and that he
139  begged me to send him his knife and pint pot, by bearer, as they
140  might prove serviceable during the brief remainder of his
141  existence, in jail. He also requested, as a last act of
142  friendship, that I would see his family to the Parish Workhouse,
143  and forget that such a Being ever lived.

144       Of course I answered this note by going down with the boy to pay
145  the money, where I found Mr. Micawber sitting in a corner, looking
146  darkly at the Sheriff 's Officer who had effected the capture. On
147  his release, he embraced me with the utmost fervour; and made an
148  entry of the transaction in his pocket-book - being very
149  particular, I recollect, about a halfpenny I inadvertently omitted
150  from my statement of the total.

151       This momentous pocket-book was a timely reminder to him of another
152  transaction. On our return to the room upstairs (where he
153  accounted for his absence by saying that it had been occasioned by
154  circumstances over which he had no control), he took out of it a
155  large sheet of paper, folded small, and quite covered with long
156  sums, carefully worked. From the glimpse I had of them, I should
157  say that I never saw such sums out of a school ciphering-book.
158  These, it seemed, were calculations of compound interest on what he
159  called 'the principal amount of forty-one, ten, eleven and a half',
160  for various periods. After a careful consideration of these, and
161  an elaborate estimate of his resources, he had come to the
162  conclusion to select that sum which represented the amount with
163  compound interest to two years, fifteen calendar months, and
164  fourteen days, from that date. For this he had drawn a
165  note-of-hand with great neatness, which he handed over to Traddles
166  on the spot, a discharge of his debt in full (as between man and
167  man), with many acknowledgements.

168       'I have still a presentiment,' said Mrs. Micawber, pensively
169  shaking her head, 'that my family will appear on board, before we
170  finally depart.'

171       Mr. Micawber evidently had his presentiment on the subject too, but
172  he put it in his tin pot and swallowed it.

173       'If you have any opportunity of sending letters home, on your
174  passage, Mrs. Micawber,' said my aunt, 'you must let us hear from
175  you, you know.'

176       'My dear Miss Trotwood,' she replied, 'I shall only be too happy to
177  think that anyone expects to hear from us. I shall not fail to
178  correspond. Mr. Copperfield, I trust, as an old and familiar
179  friend, will not object to receive occasional intelligence,
180  himself, from one who knew him when the twins were yet
181  unconscious?'

182       I said that I should hope to hear, whenever she had an opportunity
183  of writing.

184       'Please Heaven, there will be many such opportunities,' said Mr.
185  Micawber. 'The ocean, in these times, is a perfect fleet of ships;
186  and we can hardly fail to encounter many, in running over. It is
187  merely crossing,' said Mr. Micawber, trifling with his eye-glass,
188  'merely crossing. The distance is quite imaginary.'

189       I think, now, how odd it was, but how wonderfully like Mr.
190  Micawber, that, when he went from London to Canterbury, he should
191  have talked as if he were going to the farthest limits of the
192  earth; and, when he went from England to Australia, as if he were
193  going for a little trip across the channel.

194       'On the voyage, I shall endeavour,' said Mr. Micawber,
195  'occasionally to spin them a yarn; and the melody of my son Wilkins
196  will, I trust, be acceptable at the galley-fire. When Mrs.
197  Micawber has her sea-legs on - an expression in which I hope there
198  is no conventional impropriety - she will give them, I dare say,
199  "Little Tafflin". Porpoises and dolphins, I believe, will be
200  frequently observed athwart our Bows; and, either on the starboard
201  or the larboard quarter, objects of interest will be continually
202  descried. In short,' said Mr. Micawber, with the old genteel air,
203  'the probability is, all will be found so exciting, alow and aloft,
204  that when the lookout, stationed in the main-top, cries Land-oh! we
205  shall be very considerably astonished!'

206       With that he flourished off the contents of his little tin pot, as
207  if he had made the voyage, and had passed a first-class examination
208  before the highest naval authorities.

209       ' What I chiefly hope, my dear Mr. Copperfield,' said Mrs.
210  Micawber, 'is, that in some branches of our family we may live
211  again in the old country. Do not frown, Micawber! I do not now
212  refer to my own family, but to our children's children. However
213  vigorous the sapling,' said Mrs. Micawber, shaking her head, 'I
214  cannot forget the parent-tree; and when our race attains to
215  eminence and fortune, I own I should wish that fortune to flow into
216  the coffers of Britannia.'

217       'My dear,' said Mr. Micawber, 'Britannia must take her chance. I
218  am bound to say that she has never done much for me, and that I
219  have no particular wish upon the subject.'

220       'Micawber,' returned Mrs. Micawber, 'there, you are wrong. You are
221  going out, Micawber, to this distant clime, to strengthen, not to
222  weaken, the connexion between yourself and Albion.'

223       'The connexion in question, my love,' rejoined Mr. Micawber, 'has
224  not laid me, I repeat, under that load of personal obligation, that
225  I am at all sensitive as to the formation of another connexion.'

226       'Micawber,' returned Mrs. Micawber. 'There, I again say, you are
227  wrong. You do not know your power, Micawber. It is that which
228  will strengthen, even in this step you are about to take, the
229  connexion between yourself and Albion.'

230       Mr. Micawber sat in his elbow-chair, with his eyebrows raised; half
231  receiving and half repudiating Mrs. Micawber's views as they were
232  stated, but very sensible of their foresight.

233       'My dear Mr. Copperfield,' said Mrs. Micawber, 'I wish Mr. Micawber
234  to feel his position. It appears to me highly important that Mr.
235  Micawber should, from the hour of his embarkation, feel his
236  position. Your old knowledge of me, my dear Mr. Copperfield, will
237  have told you that I have not the sanguine disposition of Mr.
238  Micawber. My disposition is, if I may say so, eminently practical.
239  I know that this is a long voyage. I know that it will involve
240  many privations and inconveniences. I cannot shut my eyes to those
241  facts. But I also know what Mr. Micawber is. I know the latent
242  power of Mr. Micawber. And therefore I consider it vitally
243  important that Mr. Micawber should feel his position.'

244       'My love,' he observed, 'perhaps you will allow me to remark that
245  it is barely possible that I DO feel my position at the present
246  moment.'

247       'I think not, Micawber,' she rejoined. 'Not fully. My dear Mr.
248  Copperfield, Mr. Micawber's is not a common case. Mr. Micawber is
249  going to a distant country expressly in order that he may be fully
250  understood and appreciated for the first time. I wish Mr. Micawber
251  to take his stand upon that vessel's prow, and firmly say, "This
252  country I am come to conquer! Have you honours? Have you riches?
253  Have you posts of profitable pecuniary emolument? Let them be
254  brought forward. They are mine!"'

255       Mr. Micawber, glancing at us all, seemed to think there was a good
256  deal in this idea.

257       'I wish Mr. Micawber, if I make myself understood,' said Mrs.
258  Micawber, in her argumentative tone, 'to be the Caesar of his own
259  fortunes. That, my dear Mr. Copperfield, appears to me to be his
260  true position. From the first moment of this voyage, I wish Mr.
261  Micawber to stand upon that vessel's prow and say, "Enough of
262  delay: enough of disappointment: enough of limited means. That was
263  in the old country. This is the new. Produce your reparation.
264  Bring it forward!"'

265       Mr. Micawber folded his arms in a resolute manner, as if he were
266  then stationed on the figure-head.

267       'And doing that,' said Mrs. Micawber, '- feeling his position - am
268  I not right in saying that Mr. Micawber will strengthen, and not
269  weaken, his connexion with Britain? An important public character
270  arising in that hemisphere, shall I be told that its influence will
271  not be felt at home? Can I be so weak as to imagine that Mr.
272  Micawber, wielding the rod of talent and of power in Australia,
273  will be nothing in England? I am but a woman; but I should be
274  unworthy of myself and of my papa, if I were guilty of such absurd
275  weakness.'

276       Mrs. Micawber's conviction that her arguments were unanswerable,
277  gave a moral elevation to her tone which I think I had never heard
278  in it before.

279       'And therefore it is,' said Mrs. Micawber, 'that I the more wish,
280  that, at a future period, we may live again on the parent soil.
281  Mr. Micawber may be - I cannot disguise from myself that the
282  probability is, Mr. Micawber will be - a page of History; and he
283  ought then to be represented in the country which gave him birth,
284  and did NOT give him employment!'

285       'My love,' observed Mr. Micawber, 'it is impossible for me not to
286  be touched by your affection. I am always willing to defer to your
287  good sense. What will be - will be. Heaven forbid that I should
288  grudge my native country any portion of the wealth that may be
289  accumulated by our descendants!'

290       'That's well,' said my aunt, nodding towards Mr. Peggotty, 'and I
291  drink my love to you all, and every blessing and success attend
292  you!'

293       Mr. Peggotty put down the two children he had been nursing, one on
294  each knee, to join Mr. and Mrs. Micawber in drinking to all of us
295  in return; and when he and the Micawbers cordially shook hands as
296  comrades, and his brown face brightened with a smile, I felt that
297  he would make his way, establish a good name, and be beloved, go
298  where he would.

299       Even the children were instructed, each to dip a wooden spoon into
300  Mr. Micawber's pot, and pledge us in its contents. When this was
301  done, my aunt and Agnes rose, and parted from the emigrants. It
302  was a sorrowful farewell. They were all crying; the children hung
303  about Agnes to the last; and we left poor Mrs. Micawber in a very
304  distressed condition, sobbing and weeping by a dim candle, that
305  must have made the room look, from the river, like a miserable
306  light-house.

307       I went down again next morning to see that they were away. They
308  had departed, in a boat, as early as five o'clock. It was a
309  wonderful instance to me of the gap such partings make, that
310  although my association of them with the tumble-down public-house
311  and the wooden stairs dated only from last night, both seemed
312  dreary and deserted, now that they were gone.

313       In the afternoon of the next day, my old nurse and I went down to
314  Gravesend. We found the ship in the river, surrounded by a crowd
315  of boats; a favourable wind blowing; the signal for sailing at her
316  mast-head. I hired a boat directly, and we put off to her; and
317  getting through the little vortex of confusion of which she was the
318  centre, went on board.

319       Mr. Peggotty was waiting for us on deck. He told me that Mr.
320  Micawber had just now been arrested again (and for the last time)
321  at the suit of Heep, and that, in compliance with a request I had
322  made to him, he had paid the money, which I repaid him. He then
323  took us down between decks; and there, any lingering fears I had of
324  his having heard any rumours of what had happened, were dispelled
325  by Mr. Micawber's coming out of the gloom, taking his arm with an
326  air of friendship and protection, and telling me that they had
327  scarcely been asunder for a moment, since the night before last.

328       It was such a strange scene to me, and so confined and dark, that,
329  at first, I could make out hardly anything; but, by degrees, it
330  cleared, as my eyes became more accustomed to the gloom, and I
331  seemed to stand in a picture by OSTADE. Among the great beams,
332  bulks, and ringbolts of the ship, and the emigrant-berths, and
333  chests, and bundles, and barrels, and heaps of miscellaneous
334  baggage -'lighted up, here and there, by dangling lanterns; and
335  elsewhere by the yellow daylight straying down a windsail or a
336  hatchway - were crowded groups of people, making new friendships,
337  taking leave of one another, talking, laughing, crying, eating and
338  drinking; some, already settled down into the possession of their
339  few feet of space, with their little households arranged, and tiny
340  children established on stools, or in dwarf elbow-chairs; others,
341  despairing of a resting-place, and wandering disconsolately. From
342  babies who had but a week or two of life behind them, to crooked
343  old men and women who seemed to have but a week or two of life
344  before them; and from ploughmen bodily carrying out soil of England
345  on their boots, to smiths taking away samples of its soot and smoke
346  upon their skins; every age and occupation appeared to be crammed
347  into the narrow compass of the 'tween decks.

348       As my eye glanced round this place, I thought I saw sitting, by an
349  open port, with one of the Micawber children near her, a figure
350  like Emily's; it first attracted my attention, by another figure
351  parting from it with a kiss; and as it glided calmly away through
352  the disorder, reminding me of - Agnes! But in the rapid motion and
353  confusion, and in the unsettlement of my own thoughts, I lost it
354  again; and only knew that the time was come when all visitors were
355  being warned to leave the ship; that my nurse was crying on a chest
356  beside me; and that Mrs. Gummidge, assisted by some younger
357  stooping woman in black, was busily arranging Mr. Peggotty's goods.

358       'Is there any last wured, Mas'r Davy?' said he. 'Is there any one
359  forgotten thing afore we parts?'

360       'One thing!' said I. 'Martha!'

361       He touched the younger woman I have mentioned on the shoulder, and
362  Martha stood before me.

363       'Heaven bless you, you good man!' cried I. 'You take her with
364  you!'

365       She answered for him, with a burst of tears. I could speak no more
366  at that time, but I wrung his hand; and if ever I have loved and
367  honoured any man, I loved and honoured that man in my soul.

368       The ship was clearing fast of strangers. The greatest trial that
369  I had, remained. I told him what the noble spirit that was gone,
370  had given me in charge to say at parting. It moved him deeply.
371  But when he charged me, in return, with many messages of affection
372  and regret for those deaf ears, he moved me more.

373       The time was come. I embraced him, took my weeping nurse upon my
374  arm, and hurried away. On deck, I took leave of poor Mrs.
375  Micawber. She was looking distractedly about for her family, even
376  then; and her last words to me were, that she never would desert
377  Mr. Micawber.

378       We went over the side into our boat, and lay at a little distance,
379  to see the ship wafted on her course. It was then calm, radiant
380  sunset. She lay between us, and the red light; and every taper
381  line and spar was visible against the glow. A sight at once so
382  beautiful, so mournful, and so hopeful, as the glorious ship,
383  lying, still, on the flushed water, with all the life on board her
384  crowded at the bulwarks, and there clustering, for a moment,
385  bare-headed and silent, I never saw.

386       Silent, only for a moment. As the sails rose to the wind, and the
387  ship began to move, there broke from all the boats three resounding
388  cheers, which those on board took up, and echoed back, and which
389  were echoed and re-echoed. My heart burst out when I heard the
390  sound, and beheld the waving of the hats and handkerchiefs - and
391  then I saw her!

392       Then I saw her, at her uncle's side, and trembling on his shoulder.
393  He pointed to us with an eager hand; and she saw us, and waved her
394  last good-bye to me. Aye, Emily, beautiful and drooping, cling to
395  him with the utmost trust of thy bruised heart; for he has clung to
396  thee, with all the might of his great love!

397       Surrounded by the rosy light, and standing high upon the deck,
398  apart together, she clinging to him, and he holding her, they
399  solemnly passed away. The night had fallen on the Kentish hills
400  when we were rowed ashore - and fallen darkly upon me.

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