CHAPTER 29 I visit Steerforth at his home again. I mentioned to Mr. Spenlow in the morning that I wanted leave of absence for a short time, and as I was not in the receipt of any salary, and consequently was not amenacious to the implacable jockings, there was no difficulty about it. I took that opportunity with my voice ticking in my throat, and my sight failing as I uttered the words, to express my hope that Mr. Spenlow was quite well, to which Mr. Spenlow replied, with no more emotion than if he had been speaking of an ordinary human being, that he was much obliged to me, and she was very well. We article-clugs, as germs of the patrician order of proctors, were treated with so much consideration that I was almost my own master at all times, as I did not care, however, to get to Highgate before one or two o'clock in the day, and as we had another little excommunication case in court the morning, which was called the office of the judge promoted by tipikings against Bullock, for his soul's correction, I passed an hour or two in attendance on it, with Mr. Spenlow, very agreeably. It arose out of a scuffle between two church wardens, one of whom was alleged to have pushed the other against a pump, the handle of which pump projecting into a schoolhouse, which the schoolhouse was under a gable of a church roof, made a punch on a ecclesiastical offense. It was an amusing case, and sent me up to Highgate on the box of the stagecoat, thinking about the commons, and what Mr. Spenlow had said about touching the commons, and bringing down the country. Mrs. Stirforth was pleased to see me, and so was Rosa Dartle. I was agreeably surprised to find that Litmer was not there, and that we were attended by a modest little parlor maid, with blue ribbons in her cap, whose eye it was much more pleasant, and much less concerning, to catch by accident than the eye of that respectable man. But what I particularly observed, before I had been half an hour in the house, was the clothes and attentive watch Mrs. Dartle kept upon me, and the lurking manner in which she seemed to compare my face with Stirforth's, and Stirforth's with mine, and to line wait for something to come out between the two. So surely, as I looked towards her, did I see that eager visage, with its gaunt black eyes and searching brow intent on mine, or passing suddenly from mine to Stirforth's, or comprehending both of us at once? In these links like scrutiny she was so far from faltering when she saw I observed it, that at such a time she only fixed her piercing look upon me with a more intense expression at still. Blameless as I was, and new that I was, in reference to any wrong she could possibly suspect me of, I shrunk before her strange eyes, quite unable to endure their hungry lust. All day she seemed to pervade the whole house. If I talked to Stirforth in his room, I heard her dress rustle in the little gallery outside. When he and I engaged in some of our old exercise on the lawn behind the house, I saw her face pass from window to window, like a wandering light, until he fixed itself in one and watched us. Then we all four went out, walking in the afternoon. She closed her thin hand on my arm, like a spring, to keep me back, while Stirforth and his mother went on out of hearing, and then spoke to me. You have been a long time, she said, without coming here. Is your profession really so engaging and interesting as to absorb your whole attention? I asked because I always want to be informed when I am ignorant. Is it really, though? I replied that I liked it well enough, but that I certainly could not claim so much for it. Oh! I'm glad to know that, because I always like to be portrayed when I'm wrong, said Rosadartle. You mean it is a little dry, perhaps? Well, I replied, perhaps it was a little dry. Oh! And that's the reason why you want relief and change, excitement, all that, said she. Ah! Very true, but isn't it a little, uh, for him? I don't mean you. A quick glance of her eye towards the spot where Stirforth was walking, with his mother leaning on his arm, showed me whom she meant, but beyond that I was quite lost. And I looked so, I have no doubt. I wanted, I don't say that it does, mind I want to know, don't it rather engross him? Don't it make him, perhaps, a little more remiss than usual in his visits to his blindly doting ear? With another quick glance at them, and such a glance at me, as seemed to look into my innermost thoughts. Miss Dartle, I return, pray, do not think. I don't, she said. Oh dear me, don't suppose that I think anything, I'm not suspicious, I only ask a question. I don't state any opinion, I want to find an opinion on what to tell me. Then, it's not so, well, I'm very glad to know it. Certainly it's not the facts, a diaper-plaxed, that I am accountable for Stirforth's having been away from home longer than usual, if he has been, which I really don't know at this moment unless I understand it from you. I have not seen him this long while until last night. No? Indeed, Miss Dartle, no. As she looked full at me, I saw her face grow sharper and paler, and the marks of the old wound lengthened out until it cut through the disfigured lip, and deep into the nether lip, and slanted down the face. There was something positively awful to me in this, and in the brightness of her eyes, as she said, looking fixedly at me. What is he doing? I repeated these words, more to myself than her, being so amazed.  And what is that man assisting him who never looks at me without an inscrutable falsehood in his eyes? If you are honorable and faithful, I don't ask you to betray your friend. I ask you only to tell me. Is anger, is hatred, is pride, is restlessness, is it some wild fantasy, is it love? What is it that is leading him? Miss Dartle, I returned. How shall I tell you, so that you will believe me, that I know of nothing is too false different from what there was when I first came here? I can't think of nothing. I firmly believe there is nothing. I hardly understand even what you mean. As she still stood looking fixedly at me, it which in our throbbing, from which I could not dissociate the idea of pain, came into the cruel mark, and lifted the corner of a lip as if with corn, or with a pity that despised its object. She put her hand upon it hurriedly, a hand so thin and delicate, that when I had seen her hold it up before the fire to shade her face, I had compared it, in my thoughts, to find porcelain, and saying in a quick, fierce, passionate way, I swear you to secrecy about this, said not a word more. Mrs. Steerforth was particularly happy in her son's society, and Steerforth was, in this occasion, particularly attentive and respectful to her. It was very interesting to me to see them together, not only on account of their mutual affection, but because of the strong personal resemblance between them, and the manner in which, what was hotty or impetuous in him, was softened by age and sex in her to a gracious dignity. I thought more than once that it was well no serious cause of division had ever come between them, or to such natures, I was rather to express it, to such shades of the same nature might have been harder to reconcile than the two extremist opposites in creation. The idea did not originate in my own discernment, I am bound to confess, but in a speech of Rosa D'Arto's. She said at dinner, Oh, but do tell me, though, somebody, because I have been thinking about it all day, and I want to know. You want to know what Rosa would tell Mrs. Steerforth? Pray, pray, Rosa, do not be mysterious. Mysterious, she cried, Oh, really, do you consider me so? Do I constantly intrude to, said Mrs. Steerforth, to speak plainly in your own natural manner? Oh, then this is not my natural manner, she rejoined. Now you must really bear with me, because I ask for information, we never know ourselves. It has become a second nature, said Mrs. Steerforth, without any displeasure, but I remember, and so must you, I think, when your manner was different, Rosa, when it was not so guarded, and was more trustful. I'm sure you were right, she returned, and so it is that bad habits grow upon one. Really, less guarded and more trustful. How can I imperceptibly have changed, I wonder? Well, that's very odd, I must study to regain my former self. I wish you would, said Mrs. Steerforth, with a smile. Oh, I really will, you know, she answered, I will learn frankness from, let me see, from James. You cannot learn frankness, Rosa, said Mrs. Steerforth, quickly, for there was always some effect of sarcasm in what Rosa Dartle said, though it was said, as this was, in the most unconscious manner in the world, in a better school. That I am sure of, she answered, with uncommon favor. If I am sure of anything, of course, you know, I am sure of that. Mrs. Steerforth appeared to me to regret having been a little net old, for she presently said in a kind tone, Well, my dear Rosa, we have not heard what it is that you want to be satisfied about. That I want to be satisfied about, she replied, with provoking coldness. Oh, it was only whether people, who are like each other in their moral constitution, is that the phrase, it's as good a phrase as another, Mrs. Steerforth. Thank you. Whether people, who are like each other in their moral constitution, are in greater danger than people not so circumcised, supposing any serious cause of variance to arise between them, are being divided angrily and deeply. I should say yes, said Steerforth. Should you, she retorted, dear me, supposing then, for instance, any unlikely thing will do for a supposition, that you and your mother were to have a serious quarrel. My dear Rosa, interposed Mrs. Steerforth, laughing good-naturedly, suggests some other supposition. James and I know our duty to each other better, I pray, heaven. Oh! said Mrs. Dartle, nodding her head thoughtfully, to be sure, that would prevent it, why, of course, you would. Exactly. Now I am glad I have been so foolish as to put the case, for it is so very good to know that your duty to each other would prevent it. Thank you very much. One other little circumstance, connected with Mrs. Dartle, I must not omit, for I had reason to remember it thereafter, when all the irremediable past was rendered plain. During the whole of this day, but especially from this period of it, Steerforth exerted himself with his utmost skill, and that was with his utmost ease to charm this singular creature into a pleasant and pleased companion. That he should succeed was no matter of surprise to me, that she should struggle against the fascinating influence of his delightful art, delightful nature, I thought it in, do not surprise me either, for I knew that she was sometimes jaundiced and perverse. I saw her features and her manners slowly change. I saw her look at him with growing admiration. I saw her try more and more faintly, but always angrily, as if she condemned the weakness in herself to resist the captivating power that he possessed, and finally I saw her sharp lens soften and her smile become quite gentle.  Whether it was because we had sat there so long, or because Steerforth was resolved not to lose advantage he agained, I do not know, but we did not remain in the dining-room more than five minutes after her departure. She is playing her harp, said Steerforth softly, at the drawing-room door, and nobody but my mother has heard her do that, I believe, these three years. He said it with a curious smile, which was gone directly, and we went into the room and found her alone. Don't get up, said Steerforth, which she had already done. My dear Rosa, don't. Be kind for once and sing us an Irish song. What do you care for your Irish song, she returned. Much said Steerforth, much more than for any other. Here's Daisy, too, love's music from his soul. Sing us an Irish song, Rosa, and let me sit and listen as I used to do. He did not touch her, or the chair from which she had risen, but set himself near the harp. I stood beside it for some little while, in a curious way, going through the motion of playing it with her right hand, but not sounding it. At length, she sat down and drew it to her with one sudden action, and played and sang. I don't know what it was in her touch or voice that made that song the most unearthly I have ever heard in my life, or can't imagine. There was something fearful in the reality of it. It was as if it had never been written or set to music, but sprung out of passion within her. Which found imperfect utterance in the low sounds of her voice, and crouched again when all was still. I was dumb when she leaned beside the harp again, playing it but not sounding it, with her right hand. A minute more, and this had roused me from my trance.  And she had struck him, and had thrown him off, with the fury of a wild cat, and had burst out of the room. What is the matter with Rosa, said Mrs. Tear-forth, coming in? She has been an angel mother, we turn his tear-forth, for a little while, and has run into the opposite extreme sense by the way of compensation. You should be careful not to irritate her, James. Her temper has been soured, remember, and not to be tried. Rosa did not come back, and no other mansion was made of her, until I went with Tear-forth into his room to say good night.  I expressed as much of my astonishment as was then capable of expression, and asked if he could guess what it was that she had taken so much amass so suddenly. Oh, Heaven knows, said Tear-forth, anything you like or nothing. I told you she took everything herself included to a grindstone and sharpened it. She is an edge tool, and requires great care in dealing with. She is always dangerous. Good night. Good night, said I, my dear Tear-forth. I shall be gone before you wake in the morning. Good night. He wasn't willing to let me go, and stood holding me out with a hand on each of my shoulders, as he had done in my own room. Daisy, he said with a smile, for though that's not the name your godfathers and godmothers gave you, it's the name I like best to call you by. And I wish, I wish, I wish you could give it to me. Why so I can if I choose, said I. Daisy, if anything should ever separate us, you must think of me at my best, old boy. Come, let us make that wagon. Think of me at my best, if circumstances should ever part us. You have no best to me, Tear-forth, to die, and no worst. You are always equally loved and cherished in my heart. So much compunction for having even wronged him, even by a shapeless thought, did I feel within me that the confession of having done so was rising to my lips. But for the reluctance I had to betray the contents of Agnes, but for the uncertainty how to approach the subject with no risk of doing so, it would have reached them before, he said. God bless you, Daisy, and good night. In my doubt, it did not reach them, and we shook hands, and we parted. I was up with the dull dawn, and having dressed as quietly as I could, looked into his room.  The time came in its season, and that was very soon, when I almost wondered that nothing troubled his repose as I looked at him. But he slept. Let me think of him so again, as I had often seen him sleep at school, and thus in the silent hour I left him. Nevermore, O God, forgive us, dear fourth, to touch that passive hand-in-love and friendship. Never, nevermore. CHAPTER 30 A LOSS I got down to Yarmuth in the evening and went to the inn. I knew that Pagati's spare room, my room, was likely to have occupation enough in a little while, if that great visitor, before whose presence all the living must give place, were not already in the house, so I betook myself to the inn and dined there, and engaged my bed. It was ten o'clock when I went out. Many of the shops were shut, and the town was dull. When I came to Omar and Joram's, I found the shutters up, but the shop-door standing open. As I could obtain a perspective view of Mr. Omar inside, smoking his pipe by the parlor door, I entered and asked him how he was. Why, bless my life in soul, said Mr. Omar. How do you find yourself? Take a seat. Smoke not disagreeable, I hope. By no means. Said I. I like it. In somebody else's pipe. What, not in your own, eh? Mr. Omar returned, laughing. All the better, sir. Bad habit for a young man. Take a seat. I smoke myself for the asma. Mr. Omar had made room for me, and a place to chair. He now sat down again very much out of breath, gasping at his pipe as if it contained a supply of that necessary, without which he must perish. I am sorry to have heard bad news of Mr. Barkas, said I. Mr. Omar looked at me, with a steady countenance, and shook his head. Do you know how he is tonight? I asked. The very question I should have put to you, sir. I learned, Mr. Omar. But on account of delicacy. It's one of the drawbacks of our line of business. When a party's ill, we can't ask how the party is. The difficulty had not occurred to me, though I had had my apprehensions, too, when I went in, of hearing the old tune. On its being mentioned, I recognized it, however, and said as much. Yes, yes, you understand, said Mr. Omar, nodding his head. He dents do it. Bless you, it would be a shock that the generality of parties might recover, to say, Am I in Jorm's compliments? And how do you find yourself this morning? All this afternoon, as it may be. Mr. Omar and I nodded at each other, and Mr. Omar recruited his wind by the aid of his pipe. It's one of the things that cut the trade off from the intentions they could often wish to show, said Mr. Omar. Take myself. If I had known Barkas a year to move to as he went by, I have known him forty years. But I can't go and say, how is he? I felt it was rather hard on Mr. Omar, and I told him so. I am not more self-interested, I hope, than another man, said Mr. Omar. Look at me! My wind may fail me at any moment, and it ain't likely that, near my knowledge, I'd be self-interested under such circumstances. I say, it ain't likely, in a man who knows his wind will go, when it does go, as if a pair of bellows was cut open, and that man a grandfather, said Mr. Omar. I said, not at all. It ain't that I complain of my life in a business, said Mr. Omar. It ain't that. Some good and some bad goes, no doubt, to all callings. What I wish is that parties was brought up strongly minded. Mr. Omar, with a very complacent and amiable face, took several puffs in silence, and then said, resuming his first point, Accordingly, we're obliged in ascertaining how bogus goes on. To them it all saves to Emily. She knows what all real objects are, and she don't have any more alarms or suspicions about us than if we were so many lambs. Many in Jorm have just stepped down to the house. In fact, though she's there after hours helping her aunt a bit, to ask her how he is tonight. And if he was pleased to wait till they come back, they'd give you full particulars. Will you take something, a glass of shrub and water, now? I smoke on shrub and water myself," said Mr. Omar, taking up his glass. Because it's considered softening to the passages by which this troublesome breath of mine gets into action. But Lord bless you," said Mr. Omar huskily. It ain't the passages as out of order. Give me breath enough, said I to my daughter Minnie, and all five passages, my dear. He really had no breath to spare, and it was very alarming to see him laugh. When he was again in a condition to be talked to, I thanked him for the proffered refreshment, which I declined, as I had just had dinner, and, observing that I would wait, since he was so good as to invite me, until his daughter and his son-in-law came back, I inquired how little Emily was. Well, sir," said Mr. Omar, removing his pipe that he might rub his chin. I tell you truly, I should be glad when her marriage was taking place. Why so, I inquired. Well, she's on settler at present, said Mr. Omar. It ain't that she's not as pretty as ever, for she's prettier. I do assure you she is prettier. It ain't that she don't work as well as ever, for she does. She was worth any six, and she is worth any six. But somehow she wants hot, if you understand, said Mr. Omar, after rubbing his chin again and smoking a little. Well, I mean in a general way by the expression, a long pull and a strong pull and a pull altogether me hardly is hurrah. I should say to you that that was, in a general way, what I miss in Emily. Mr. Omar's face and manners went for so much that I could conscientiously nod my head as divine his meaning. My quickness of apprehension seemed to please him, and he went on. Now, I consider this is principally on account of her being in an unsettled state, you see. We have talked it over a good deal, her uncle and myself and her sweetheart and myself, after business, and I consider it is principally on account of her being unsettled.  The proverb says you can't make a silk purse out of a sozear. Well, I don't know about that. I'd rather think you may, if you began early in life. She has made a home out of that old boat, sir, that stone and marble couldn't beat. I am sure she has, said I. To see the clinging of that pretty little thing to her uncle, said Mr. Omar, to see the way she holds on to him tighter and tighter and closer and closer every day is to see a sight. Now you know there's a struggle going on when that's the case. Why should it be made a longer one than it's needful? I listened attentively to the good old fellow and acquiesced with all my heart in what he said. Therefore I mentioned to them, said Mr. Omar, in a comfortable, easy-going tone. This. I said, now don't consider Emily nailed down in point of time at all. Make it your own time. Her services have been more valuable than was supposed, her cleaning has been quicker than was supposed, and my jolme can run their pen through what remains, and she's free when you wish. If she likes to make any little arrangement afterwards in the way of doing any little thing for us at home, very well. If she don't, very well still.  It ain't likely that a man so short of breath as myself and Grandfather, too, would go in straight points with a little bit of a blue-eyed blossom like her. Not at all, I am certain, said I. Not at all, you're right, said Mr. Omar. Well, sir, her cousin, you know it's a cousin she's going to be married to. Oh, yes, I replied, I know him well. Of course you do, said Mr. Omar. Well, sir, her cousin, being as it appears in good work, and well to do, thanked me in a very manly sort of manner for this, conducting himself altogether, I must say, in a way that gives me a high opinion of him, and went and took as comfortable a little house as you or I could wish to clap eyes on. That little house is now furnished right through, as neat and complete as a doll's, Father, and but for Barcus' illness having taken this bad turn, poor fellow, they would have been man and wife, I dare say, by this time. As it is, there's a postpoundment. And Emily, Mr. Omar, I inquired, has she become more settled? Why that, you know, he returned, rubbing his double chin again. Can't naturally be expected. The prospect of the change in separation and all that is, as one may say, close to her and far away from her both at once. Perhaps his death neat and put it off much, but here's lingering might. Anyway, it's an uncertain state of matter, as you say, I see, said I.  Upon the whole she's more so than she was. Every day she seems to get fonder and fonder of her uncle, and more loathe, depart from all of us. The kind word from me brings the tears into her eyes, and if it was you, to see her with my daughter, many's little girl, you'd never forget it. Bless my heart alive, said Mr. Omar, pondering. How she loves that child. Having so favourable an opportunity, it occurred to me to ask Mr. Omar, before our conversation should be interrupted by the return of his daughter and her husband, whether he knew anything of Martha. Ah! he rejoined, shaking his head and looking very much dejected. No good. A sad story, however you come to know it. I never thought there was harm in the girl. I wouldn't wish to mention it before my daughter, many, for she would take me up directly, but I never did.  She and her husband came in immediately afterwards. Their report was, that Mr. Barkas was as bad as bad could be, that he was quite unconscious, and that Mr. Chilip had mournfully said in the kitchen, on going away just now, that the College of Physicians, the College of Surgeons, and the Apothecaries Hall, if they were all called in together, couldn't help him. He was passed both colleges, Mr. Chilip said, and the hall could only poison him. Hearing this, and learning that Mr. Pagati was there, I determined to go to the house at once. I bade good-night to Mr. Omar, and to Mr. and Mrs. Joram, and directed my steps thither, with a solemn feeling, which made Mr. Barkas quite a new and different creature. My low tap at the door was answered by Mr. Pagati. He was not so much surprised to see me as I had expected. I remarked this in Pagati too, when she came down, and I have seen it since, and I think, in the expectation of that dread surprise, all other changes and surprises dwindled into nothing. I shook hands with Mr. Pagati, and passed into the kitchen while he softly closed the door. Little Emily was sitting by the fire, with her hands before her face. Ham was standing near her. We spoke in whispers, listening, between wiles, for any sound in the room above. I had not thought of it on the occasion of my last visit, but how strange it was to me, now, to miss Mr. Barkas out of the kitchen. "'This is very kind of you, Master Davy,' said Mr. Pagati. "'It's uncommon kind,' said Ham. "'Emily, my dear,' cried Mr. Pagati. "'See here, here's Master Davy come. What? Cheer up, pretty! Not a word to Master Davy.' There was a trembling upon her that I can see now, the coldness of her hand when I touched it. I can feel yet. Its only sign of animation was to shrink from mine, and then she glided from the chair, and creeping to the other side of her uncle, bowed herself silently and trembling still, upon his breast. "'It's such a loving ought,' said Mr. Pagati, smoothing her rich hair with his great, hard hand. "'That it can't abear the sore of this. It's natural in young folk, Master Davy, when they're new to these here trials and timids like my little bird. It's natural.' She clung closer to him, but neither lifted up her face, nor spoke a word. "'It's getting late, my dear,' said Mr. Pagati. "'And here's Ham, come for to take you home. There, go along with the other loving ought. "'Aww, Imli, eh, my pretty?' The sound of her voice had not reached me, but he bent his head as if he listened to her, and then said, "'That you stay with your uncle? Why, you don't mean to ask me that?  Now a person wouldn't think it, for to see this little thing alongside a rough-weather chap like me,' said Mr. Pagati, looking around at both of us with infinite pride.  "'Looky here, as Imli's wishes of it, and as she's hurried and frightened like besides I'll leave her till morning. Let me stay too.' "'No, no,' said Mr. Pagati. "'You do and ought a married man like you, or what's as good, to take and hull away a day's work. And you do and ought to watch and work both, that won't do.  Ham yielded to this persuasion and took his hat to go, even when he kissed her, and I never saw him approach her, but I felt that nature had given him the soul of a gentleman. She seemed to cling closer to her uncle, even to the avoidance of her chosen husband. I shut the door after him, that it might cause no disturbance of the quiet that prevailed. And when I turned back, I found Mr. Pagati still talking to her. "'Now I'm going upstairs to tell your aunt as Master Davy's here, and that'll cheer her up a bit,' he said. "'See ye down by the fire, the wild, my dear, and warm those mortal-called hands. Ye don't need to be so fearsome, and take on so much. What? You'll go along with me.' "'Well, come along with me. Come. If her uncle was turned out of my house and home and forced to lay down in a dark Masa Davy,' said Mr. Pagati, with no less pride than before, it's my belief she'd go along with him now. But there'll be someone else soon, someone else soon, Imli.' Afterwards, when I went upstairs, as I passed the door of my little chamber, which was dark, I had an indistinct impression of her being within it, cast down upon the floor. But whether it was really she, or whether it was a confusion of the shadows in the room, I don't know now. I had leisure to think, before the kitchen fire, of pretty little Emily's dread of death, which added to what Mr. Omer had told me. I took to be the cause of her being so unlike herself. And I had leisure before Pagati came down, even to think more leniently of the weakness of it. As I sat, counting the ticking of the clock, and deepening my sense of the solemn hush around me, Pagati took me in her arms, and blessed and thanked me over and over again for being such a comfort to her. That was what she said, in her distress. She then entreated me to come upstairs, sobbing that Mr. Barkas had always liked me and admired me, that he had often talked of me, before he fell into a stupor, and that she believed, in case of his coming to himself again, he would brighten up at the sight of me, if he could brighten up at any earthly thing. The probability of his ever doing so appeared to me, when I saw him, to be very small. He was lying with his head and shoulders out of bed, in an uncomfortable attitude half resting on the box which had cost him so much pain and trouble. I learned that, when he was past creeping out of bed to open it, and past assuring himself of its safety by means of the divining rod I had seen him use, he had required to have it placed on the chair at the bedside, where he had ever since embraced it night and day. His arm lay on it now. Time and the world were slipping from beneath him. But the box was there, and the last words he had uttered were, in an explanatory tone, Alt close! Barkas, my dear, said Pagati almost cheerfully, bending over him while her brother and I stood at the bed's foot. Here's my dear boy, my dear boy Master Davy, who brought us together, Barkas, that you sent messages by, you know. Won't you speak to Master Davy? He was as mute and senseless as the box, from which his form derived the only expression it had. He's a-going out with the tide, said Mr. Pagati to me, behind his hand. My eyes were dim, and so were Mr. Pagati's, but I repeated in a whisper with the tide. Oh, people can't die along the coast, said Mr. Pagati, except when the tide's pretty nigh out. It can't be borne unless it's pretty nigh in, or not properly borne till flood. He's going out with the tide. It's ebb at half-odd of three, slack-water half an hour. If he lives till it turns, he'll hold his own till past the flood and go out with the next tide. We remained there, watching him, a long time. Hours. What mysterious influence my presence had upon him in that state of his senses, I shall not pretend to say, but when he, at last, began to wander feebly, it is certain he was muttering about driving me to school. He is coming to himself, said Pagati. Mr. Pagati touched me, and whispered with much awe and reverence, they are both a-going out fast. Bacchus, my dear, said Pagati. Save me, Bacchus, he cried faintly. No better woman anywhere. Look, here's Master Davy, said Pagati, for he now opened his eyes. I was on the point of asking him if he knew me when he tried to stretch out his arms and said to me, distinctly, with a pleasant smile, Bacchus is willing. But it being low water, he went out with the tide. Later loss. It was not difficult for me, on Pagati's solicitation, to resolve to stay where I was, until after the remains of the poor carrier should have made their last journey to Blunderston. She had long ago bought, out of our own savings, a little piece of ground in our old churchyard near the grave of her sweet girl, as she was called my mother, and there they were to rest. In keeping Pagati company and doing all I could for her, little enough at the outmost, I was as grateful I rejoiced to think as even now I could wish myself to have been. But I'm afraid I had a supreme satisfaction of a personal and professional nature in taking charge of Mr. Bacchus's will and expounding its contents. I may claim the merit of having originated the suggestion that the will should be looked for in the box. After some search it was found in the box, at the bottom of a horse's nose-bag. Wherein, besides hay, there was discovered an old gold watch, with chain and seals, which Mr. Bacchus had worn on his wedding-day, and which had never been seen before or since. A silver tobacco-stopper, in the form of a leg. An imitation lemon, full of minute cups and saucers, which I have some idea Mr. Bacchus must have purchased to present to me when I was a child, and afterwards found himself unable to part with.  From the circumstance of the latter article having been much polished, and displaying prismatic colours on the inside, I conclude that Mr. Bacchus had some general ideas about pearls, which never resolve themselves into anything definite. For years and years Mr. Bacchus had carried this box on all his journeys every day. But it might the better escape notice. He had invented a fiction that it belonged to Mr. Blackboy, and was, to be left with, Bacchus till called for. A fable he had elaborately written on the lid, in characters now scarcely legible. He had hoarded all these years, I found, to good purpose. His property and money amounted to nearly three thousand pounds. Of this he bequeathed the interest of one thousand to Mr. Pegatey for his life. On his decease the principle to be equally divided between Pegatey, little Emily, and me, or the survivor or survivors of us, share and share alike. All the rest he died possessed of he bequeathed to Pegatey, whom he left residuity, legatey, and sole executrix of that his last will and testament. I felt myself quite a procter when I read this document aloud with all possible ceremony and set forth its provisions any number of times to those whom they concerned. I began to think there was more in the commons than I had supposed. I examined the will with the deepest attention, pronounced it perfectly formal in all respects, made a pencil mark or so in the margin, and thought it rather extraordinary that I knew so much. In this abstruse pursuit, in making an account for Pegatey of all the property into which she had come, in arranging all the affairs in an orderly manner, and in being her referee and adviser on every point to our joint delight, I passed the week before the funeral. I did not see little Emily in that interval, but they told me she was to be quietly married in a fortnight. I did not attend the funeral in character, if I may venture to say so. I mean, I was not dressed up in a black coat and a streamer to frighten the birds, but I walked over to Blunderstone early in the morning, and was in the churchyard when it came, attended only by Pegatey and her brother. The mad gentleman looked on out of my little window. Mr. Chillips' baby wagged its heavy head and rolled its goggle eyes at the clergyman over its nurse's shoulder. Mr. Omer breathed short in the background. No one else was there, and it was very quiet. We walked about the churchyard for an hour after all was over, and pulled some young leaves from the tree above my mother's grave. A dread falls on me here. A cloud is luring on the distant town towards which I retraced my solitary steps. I fear to approach it. I cannot bear to think of what did come upon that memorable night, of what must come again if I go on. It is no worse, because I write of it, if we were no better if I stopped my most unwilling hand. It is done. Nothing can undo it. Nothing can make it otherwise than as it was. My old nurse was to go to London with me next day on the business of the will. Little Emily was passing that day at Mr. Omer's. We were all to meet in the old boathouse that night. Ham would bring Emily at the usual hour. I would walk back at my leisure. The brother and sister would return as they had come and be expecting us when the day closed in at the far side. I parted from them at the Wicked Gate, where visionary strap had rested with the roddery-random knapsack in the days of yore, and instead of going straight back walked a little distance on the road to Lirstoft. Then I turned and walked back towards the armoth. I stayed to dine at a decent alehouse some mile or two from the ferry I have mentioned before, and thus the day wore away, and it was evening when I reached it. Rain was falling heavily by that time, and it was a wild night, but there was a moon behind the clouds, and it was not dark. I was soon within sight of Mr. Peckett's house, and of the light within it shining through the window.  It looked very comfortable indeed, and Mr. Peckett had smoked his evening pipe, and there were preparations for some supper by and by. The fire was bright, the ashes were thrown up, the locker was ready for little Emily in her old place. In her old place sat Peckett once more, looking, but for her dress, as if she had never left it. She had fallen back already on the society of the work-box with St. Paul's carved upon the laid, the yard-measure in the cottage, and the bit of wax-candle, and there they all were just as if they had never been disturbed. Mrs. Gummidge appeared to be fretting a little in her old corner, and consequently looked quite natural, too. "'You're first of the lark, Master Davy,' said Mr. Peckett, with a happy face. "'Don't keep in that coat, sir, if it's wet.' "'Thank you, Mr. Peckett,' said I, giving him my outer coat to hang up. "'It's quite dry.' "'Salt is,' said Mr. Peckett, feeding my shoulders, "'as a chip. Sit ye down, sir. He don't know no use saying welcome to you, but you're welcome, kind and arty.' "'Thank you, Mr. Peckett, I'm sure of that.' "'Well,' Peckett said I, giving her a kiss. "'And how are you, old woman?' "'Ha-ha!' laughed Mr. Peckett, sitting down beside us, and rubbing his hands in his sense of relief from recent trouble and in the genuine heartiness of his nature. "'There's not a woman in the world, sir, as I tell her, that need to feel more easy in her mind than her. She done her duty by the departed, and the departed nodded, and the departed done what was right by her, as she has done what was right by the departed, and—and it's all right.' Mrs. Gummidge groaned. "'Cheer up, my pretty mother,' said Mr. Peckett. He shook his head aside at us, evidently sensible of the tendency of the later currencies to recall the memory of the old one. "'Don't be down. Cheer up for your own self, funny a little bit, and see if a good deal more don't come natural.' "'Not on me, Daniel,' said Mrs. Gummidge. "'Nothing's natural to me but to be lone and lawn.' "'No, no,' said Mr. Peckett, soothing her sorrows. "'Yes, yes, Daniel,' said Mrs. Gummidge. "'I had a purse to live with them, as there's money left. Please go to contrary with me. I'd better be a riddance.' "'Why, how should I ever spend it without you?' said Mr. Peckett, with an air of serious remonstrance. "'What are you talking on? Don't I want you more now than I ever did?' "'I know Dom is never wanted before,' cried Mrs. Gummidge, with a pitiful whimper, and now I'm told so. How could I expect to be wanted being so lawn and lawn, and so contrary?' Mr. Peckett seemed very much shocked at himself for having made a speech capable of this unfeeling construction, but was prevented from replying by Peckett's pulling his sleeve and shaking her head. After looking at Mrs. Gummidge for some moment, since sore distress of mind, he glanced at the Dutch clock, rose, snuffed the candle, and put it in the window. "'There,' said Mr. Peckett, cheerily, "'there we are, Mrs. Gummidge.' Mrs. Gummidge slightly groaned. "'Light it up, according to custom. You're wondering what that's for, sir. Well, it's for our little Emily. You see, the path ain't over-light or cheerful out of dark, and when I'm here at the hour as she's at coming home, I put the light on the window. "'That,' you see,' said Mr. Peckett, bending over him with great glee, "'meet two objects.' She says, "'There's Emily. There's home,' she says. And likewise says Emily, "'Me uncle's there. For I ain't there. I never have no light shored.' "'You're a baby,' said Peckett, very fond of him for it, if she thought so.' "'Well,' returned Mr. Peckett, standing with his legs pretty wide apart, and rubbing his hands up and down them in his comfortable satisfaction, as he looked, alternately at us, and at the far. "'I don't know, but I am. Not you see to look at.' "'Not exactly,' observed Peckett. "'No, laugh, Mr. Peckett, not to look at, but to consider on, you know.' "'I don't care, bless you.' "'Now, I tell you, when I go looking and looking about that, the pretty house of our Emily's, I'm—'I'm gormed,' said Mr. Peckett, with sudden emphasis. "'There, I can't say more. And we don't feel as if the littlest things was there, almost. I take them up, and I put them down, and I touch as of them as delicate as if they were our Emily. Soldiers were their little bonnets on that. I couldn't see one of them on rough views to purpose, not for the old world. "'There's a baby for you in the form of a great sea-porcupine,' said Mr. Peckett, relieving his earnestness with a roar of laughter. Peckett and I both laughed, but not so loud. "'It's my opinion, you see,' said Mr. Peckett, with the delighted face, after some further rubbing of his legs, as this is a long of my having played with her so much, and may believe as if we were those Turks and French and Sharks and every Urartian foreigner's. Bless you, yes, and larns and wails, and I don't know what all, when she won't know either my knee. I've got to do the way of it, you know. Why, this year, candle now,' said Mr. Peckett, gleefully holding at his hand towards it. "'I know very well that after she's married and gone, I should put that candle there, just the same as now. I know very well that when I'm here at night, and where else should I live? Bless your arts, wherever fortune I come into. And she ain't here, or I ain't there. I should put the candle in the window, and sit it for the fire, pretending I'm expecting her like I'm a doing now. There's a baby for you,' said Mr. Peckett, with another roar, in the form of a sea-porcupine. Why, at the present minute, when I see the candle sparkle up, I say to myself, she's a-looking at it. The airmen is a-coming. There's a baby for you in the form of a sea-porcupine. Right for all that,' said Mr. Peckett, stopping in his roar, and smiting his hands together. For here she is!" It was only Ham. The night should have turned more wet since I came in, for we had a large sar-wester hat on slouched over his face. "'Where's Emily?' said Mr. Peckett. Ham made a motion with his head as if she were outside. Mr. Peckett took the light from the window, trimmed it, put it on the table, and was busily stirring the fire, when Ham, who had not moved, said, "'Er, Master Davy, will you come out a minute, and see what Emily and me has got to show you?' We went out. As I passed up the door, I saw to my astonishment, and fright, that he was deadly pale. He pushed me hastily into the open air, and closed the door upon us. Only upon us, too. Ham! What's the matter?' "'Master Davy!' Over his broken heart, how dreadfully he wept. I was paralysed by the sight of such grief. I don't know what I thought or what I dreaded. I could only look at him. Ham! Poor good fellow, for heaven's sake, tell me what's the matter?' "'My love, Master Davy, the bride-node with my heart. Er, that I never died for him would die for now.  That is so dear above all things, sooner than let her come to ruin and disgrace!' The face he turned up to the troubled sky, the quivering of his clasped hands, the agony of his figure, remain associated with the lonely waste in my remembrance to this hour. It is always night there, and he is the only object in the scene. "'You're a scholar,' he said hurriedly, and know what's right and best. What am I to say indoors? Am I ever to break it to him, Master Davy?' I saw the door move and instinctively tried to hold the latch on the outside to gain a moment's time. It was too late. Mr. Peckety thrust forth his faith, and never could I forget the change that came upon it when he saw us, if I were to live five hundred years. I remember a great wail and cry, and the women hanging about him, and we all standing in the room, eye with a paper in my hand which Ham had given me. Mr. Peckety with his vest torn open, his hair wild, his face and lips quite white, and blood trickling down his bosom, it had sprung from his mouth, I think, looking fixedly at me. "'Read it, sir,' he said, in a low, shivering voice. "'Slow, please. I don't know as I can understand.' In the midst of the silence of death I read thus from a blotted letter. When you who love me so much better than I ever have deserved, even when my mind was innocent, see this. I shall be far away.' "'I shall be far away,' he repeated slowly. "'Stop!' "'Emily, far away! Well, when I leave my dear home, my dear home, oh my dear home, in the morning,' the letter bore date of the previous night, it will be never to come back unless he brings me back a lady. This will be found at night, many hours after, instead of me. I have you knew how my heart is torn, if even you that I have wronged so much that never can forgive me could only know what I suffer. I am too wicked to write about myself. Oh, take comfort in thinking that I am so bad. For mercy's sake, tell Uncle that I never loved him half so dear as now. Oh, don't remember how affectionate and kind you've all been to me. Don't remember we were ever to be married. But try to think as if I died when I was little and was buried somewhere. Pray heaven that I may go away from have compassion on my Uncle. Tell him that I never loved him half so dear. Be his comfort. Love some good girl that will be what I was once to Uncle, and be true to you and worthy of you and no no shame but me. God bless all. I'll pray for all, often on my knees. If he don't bring me back a lady, and I don't pray for my own self, I'll pray for all. My parting love to Uncle. My last tears and my last thanks for Uncle. That was all. He stood, long after I had ceased to read, still looking at me. At length I ventured to take his hand, and to entreat him as well as I could to endeavour to get some command of himself. He replied, I thank you, sir, I thank you, without moving. Ham spoke to him. Mr. Peckety was so far sensible of his affliction that he rung his hand. But otherwise he remained in the same state, and no one dared to disturb him. Slowly at last he moved his eyes from my face as if he were walking from a vision, and cast them round the room. Then he said in a low voice, Who is the man? I want to know his name. Ham glanced at me, and suddenly I felt a shock that struck me back. I was a man suspected, said Mr. Peckety. Who is it?  You don't want to hear it, sir. I felt the shock again. I sank down in a chair, and tried to utter some reply, but my tongue was fettered and my sight was weak. I want to know his name, I heard said once more. For some time past Ham thought of there's been a servant about here, at times there's been a gentleman to both of them belong to one another. Mr. Peckety too fixed as before, but now, looking at him, the servant pursued Ham, as seen along with our poor girl last night. He's been in hiding about here this week or over, he's thought of gum, but he was hiding. Don't stay, Master Davy, don't! I felt Peckety's arm round my neck, but I could not have moved if the house had been about to fall upon me. A strange jay and osse was outside town this morning on the Norwich Road almost before the day broke. Ham went on. The servant went to it, and come from it, and went to it again. When he went to it again, Emily was nigh, and his mother was inside. He's the man. For the Lord's love, said Mr. Peckety, falling back, and putting out his hand, as if to keep off what he dreaded. Don't tell me his name, Steerforth! Master Davy, exclaimed Ham in a broken voice.  Mr. Peckety uttered no cry, and shed no tear, and moved no more, until he seemed to wake again all at once, and pulled down his rough coat from its peg in a corner. Bear I am with this. I'm struck up a heap, and can't do it. He said impatiently, Bear I am, and help me. Well, when somebody had done so. I can be that they're at. Ham asked him whether he was going. I'm going to seek my niece. I'm going to seek my Emily. I'm going first to stave in that there-bought-and-sink-it, where I should have drowned it him, and I'm a living soul, if I had one thought of what was in him. As he set up for me, he said wildly, holding out his clenched right hand, as he set up for me face to face, struck me down dead, but I'd have drowned it him, and thought it right. I'm going to seek my niece. Where? cried Ham, interposing himself before the door. Anywhere. I'm going to seek my niece through the world.  No one stop me.  No, no. cried Mrs. Gummidge, coming between them in a fit of crying. No, no, Daniel, not as you are now. Seek her a little while, my lone, lone Daniel, and that'll be all right, but not as you are now.  What have my contraries ever been to this? Let us speak a word about them times when we was first an orphan, and when I was two, when I was a poor widow woman, and you took me in. It'll soften your poor art, Daniel, laying ahead upon his shoulder, and you'll bear your sorrow better, for you know the promise, Daniel. As you've done it unto one of the least of these, you've done it unto me, and that can never fail under this roof that's been our shelter for so many, many years. He was quite passive now, and when I heard him crying, the impulse that had been upon me to go down upon my knees, and ask their pardon for the desolation I had caused, and curse, dear fourth, yielded to a better feeling. My ever-charged heart found the same relief, and I cried to. CHAPTER 32 What is natural in me is natural in many other men, I infer, and so I am not afraid to write that I never had love steer forth better than when the ties that bound me to him were broken. In the keen distress of the discovery of his unworthiness I thought more of all that was brilliant in him. I softened more towards all that was good in him. I did more justice to the qualities that might have made him a man of a noble nature and a great name than ever I had done in the height of my devotion to him. Only as I felt my own unconscious part in his pollution of an honest home, I believed that if I had been brought face to face with him, I could not have uttered one reproach. I should have loved him so well still, though he fascinated me no longer. I should have held in so much tenderness the memory of my affection for him, that I think I should have been as weak as a spirit-wounded child in all but the entertainment of a thought that we could ever be reunited. That thought I never had. I felt, as he had felt, that all was at an end between us. What his remembrances of me were I have never known. They were light enough perhaps and easily dismissed, but mine of him were as the remembrances of a cherished friend who was dead. Yes, dear fourth, long removed from the scenes of this poor history. My sorrow may bear involuntary witness against you at the judgment-throne, but my angry thoughts of my reproach is never will, I know. The news of what had happened soon spread through the town. In so much that as I passed along the streets next morning I overheard the people speaking of it at their doors. Many were hard upon her. Some few were hard upon him. But towards her second father and her lover there was but one sentiment. Among all kinds of people a respect for them in their distress prevailed, which was full of gentleness and delicacy. The seafaring men kept apart when those two were seen early walking with slow steps on the beach, and stood in knots talking compassionately among themselves. It was on the beach, close down by the sea, that I found them. It would have been easy to perceive that they had not slept at all last night, even if Pegaty had failed to tell me of their still sitting just as I had left them when it was broad day. They looked worn, and I thought Mr. Pegaty's head was bowed in one night more than in all the years I had known him. But they were both as grave and steady as the sea itself, men lying beneath a deep dark sky, waveless, yet with a heavy roll upon it as if it breathed in its rest, and touched on the horizon with a strip of silvery light from the unseen sun. We had a mortal of torque, sir, said Mr. Pegaty to me, when we had all three walked a little while in silence. Of what we all don't ought to do. But we see our course now. I had them to glance at Ham, then looking out to see upon the distant light. And a frightful thought came to my mind. Not that his face was angry, for it was not.  My duty here, sir, said Mr. Pegaty, is done. Am I going to see my—? He stopped, and went on in a firmer voice. Am I going to see her? That's my duty ever more. He shook his head when I asked him where he would seek her, and inquired if I were going to London to-morrow. I told him I had not gone to-day, fearing to lose the chance of being of any service to him. But that I was ready to go when he would. I'll go along with you, sir, he rejoined. If you're agreeable, to-morrow. We walked again for a while in silence. Am, he presented, resumed, he'll hold to his present work and go and live along with my sister. The old boat yonder. Would you desert the old boat, Mr. Pegaty? I gently interposed. My station-master, David, he returned, eight year no longer, and ever a boat founded since there was darkness on the face of the deep, that one's gone down. But no, sir, no. I don't mean as it should be deserted, far from that. We walked again for a while as before, until he explained, My wishes is, sir, as it shall look day and night, winter and summer, as it has always looked, since she first nodded. If ever she should come more wandering back, I wouldn't have the old place seem to cast her off, you understand, but seem to tempt her to draw nigh to it, and to peep in, maybe, like a ghost, out of the wind and rain, through the old window, at the old seat by the fire. Then, maybe, master David, seeing none but Mrs. Gummidge there, she might take heart to creep in, trembling, and might come to be laid down in her old bed, and rest her where he had, where it was once so gay. I could not speak to him in reply, though I tried. Every night, said Mr. Pegaty, as regular as the night comes, the candle must be stood in its old pane of glass, that if ever she should see it, it may seem to say, Come back, my child, come back. If ever there's a knock on, particularly a soft knock, after dark, at your aunt's door, don't you go near and eye it. Let it be her, not you, that sees my fallen child.  During this interval I glanced at Ham again, and, observing the same expression on his face, and his eyes still directed to the distant light, I touched his arm. Twice I called him by his name, in the turn in which I might have tried to rouse a sleeper, before he heeded me. When I at last inquired on what his thoughts were so bent, he replied, I must have formed me, Master Davy, I know where you're on. On the life before you, do you mean? He pointed confusedly out to sea. I, Master Davy, I don't rightly know how it is, but from over you on there seems to me to become the end of it like. Looking at me as if he were waking, but with the same determined face. What end, I asked, possessed by my former fear. I don't know, he said, thoughtfully. I was calling to mind that the beginning of it all did take place here, and then the end come. But it's gone. I said, Davy, he added, answering as I think of my look. You ain't no call to be a fear of me, but I'm kind of muddled. I don't fend to feel no matters." Which was as much as to say that he was not himself, and quite confounded. Mr. Peckety is stopping for us to join him. We did so, and said no more. The remembrance of this, in connection with my former thought, however, haunted me at intervals, even until the inexorable end came, as it is appointed time. We insensibly approached the old boat, and entered. Mrs. Gummidge, no longer moping in her special corner, was busy preparing breakfast. She took Mr. Peckety's hat, and placed his seat for him, and spoke so comfortably and softly that I hardly knew her. Daniel, my good man, said he, you must eat and drink, and keep up your strength, for without it you'll do not. Try, that's a dare-soul. And if I disturb you with my cliquetin," she meant her chattering, tell me so, Daniel, and I won't. When she had served us all, she withdrew to the window, where she seduously employed herself in repairing some shirts and other clothes, belonging to Mr. Peckety, and neatly folding and packing them in an old oil-skin bag such as sailors carry. Meanwhile she continued talking in the same quiet manner. All times and seasons, you know, Daniel, said Mrs. Gummidge, I shall be all as here, and everything will look according to your wishes. I'm a poor scholar, but I shall write to you odd times when you're away, and send my letters to Master Davy.   No, no, who, Daniel, you have turned. I shall be that. Don't you mind me? I shall have enough to do to keep her being for you." Mrs. Gummidge meant a home. Again you come back, to keep her being here for any that might have to come back, Daniel. In the fine time I shall set outside the door as I used to do. If any should come nigh they shall see the old widow woman true to him at long way off. What a change in Mrs. Gummidge in a little time! She was another woman. She was so devoted, she had such a quick perception of what it would be well to say and what it would be well to leave unsaid. She was so forgetful of herself, and so regaunful of the sorrow about her, that I held her in a sort of veneration. The work she did that day. There were many things to be bought up from the beach and stored in the outhouse, as oars, nets, sails, cordage spas, lobsters-pots, bags of ballast and the like. And there there was abundance of assistance rendered, there being not a pair of working hands on all that shore, but would have laboured hard for Mr. Peckety, and being well paid in being asked to do it, yet she persisted, all day long, in toiling under weights that she was quite unequal to, and fagging to and fro on all sorts of unnecessary errands. As to deploring her misfortunes, she appeared to have entirely lost the recollection of ever having had any. She preserved an equitable cheerfulness in the midst of her sympathy, which was not the least astonishing part of the change that had come over her. Her proulessness was out of the question. I did not even observe her voice to falter, or a tear to escape from her eyes the whole day through, until twilight, when she and I and Mr. Peckety being alone together, and he having fallen asleep in perfect exhaustion. She broke into a half-suppressed fit of sobbing and crying, and taking me to the door said, Ever bless you, Master Davy, be a friend to him, poor dear!" Then she immediately ran out of the house to wash her face, in order that she might sit quietly beside him, and be found at work there when he should awake. In short, I left her, when I went away at night, the prop and staff of Mr. Peckety's affliction, and I could not meditate enough upon the lesson that I had read in Mrs. Gummidge, and the new experience she unfolded to me. It was between nine and ten o'clock, when, strolling in a melancholy manner through the town, I stopped at Mr. Omer's door. Mr. Omer had taken it so much to heart, his daughter told me, that he had been very low and poorly all day, and had gone to bed without his pipe. "'A deceitful, bad-hearted girl,' said Mrs. Joram, "'there was no good in her ever.' "'Don't say so, I returned. You don't think so. "'What I do!' cried Mrs. Joram angrily. "'No, no,' said I. Mrs. Joram tossed her head, endeavouring to be very stern and cross, but she could not command her softer self, and began to cry. I was young to be sure, but I thought much to the better of her for this sympathy, and fancied it became her, as her virtuous wife and mother, very well indeed. "'What will she ever do?' sobbed Minnie. "'Where will she go? What will become of her?' "'Oh, how could she be so cruel to herself and to him?' I remember the time when Minnie was a young and pretty girl, and I was glad she remembered it too so feelingly. "'My little Minnie,' said Mrs. Joram, "'has only just now been got to sleep. Even in her sleep she's sobbing for Emily. All day long little Minnie has cried for her and asked me over and over again whether Emily was wicked. "'What can I say to her?'  "'The ribbons round my little Minnie's neck now. It ought not to be perhaps, but what can I do?' Emily's is so very bad, but they were fond of one another, and the child knows nothing.' Mrs. Joram was so unhappy that her husband came out to take care of her. When I brought them together I went home to Pegaty's, more melancholy myself, if possible, than I had been yet. That good creature, I mean Pegaty, all untired by her late anxieties and sleepless nights, was at her brother's, where she meant to stay till morning. An old woman who had been employed about the house for some weeks past, while Pegaty had been unable to attend to it, was the house's only other occupant besides myself. When I had no occasion for her services I sent her to bed, by no means against her will, and sat down before the kitchen-fire a little while to think about all this. I was blending it with the death-bed of the late Mr. Barkis. I was driving out with the tide towards the distance at which Ham had looked so singularly in the morning, when I was recalled for my wanderings by a knock at the door. There was a knocker upon the door, but it was not that which made of the sound. The tap was from a hand, and low down upon the door as if it were given by a child. It may be start as much as if it had been the knock of a footman to a person of distinction. I opened the door, and a first look downed to my amazement on nothing but a great umbrella that appeared to be walking about of itself. But presently I discovered underneath it, Miss Moucher. I might not have been prepared to give the little creature a very kind reception if, on her removing the umbrella, which our utmost efforts were unable to shut up, she had shown me the volatile expression of face which had made so great an impression on me at our first and last meeting. But her face, as she turned it up to mine, was so earnest, and when I relieved her of the umbrella, which would have been as an inconvenient one for the Irish giant, she wrung her little hands in such an afflictive manner that I rather inclined towards her. Miss Moucher, said I, after glancing up and down the empty street, without distinctly knowing what I expected to see besides, how do you come here? What is the matter? She motioned to me with her short right arm to shut the umbrella for her, and passing me hurriedly went into the kitchen. When I had closed the door and followed with the umbrella in my hand, I found her sitting on the corner of the fender. There was a low arn one, with two flat bars at the top to stand plates upon, in the shadow of the boiler, swaying herself backwards and forwards and chafing her hands upon her knees, like a person in pain. Quite alarmed at being the only recipient of this untimely visit and the only spectator of this portentous behavior, I exclaimed again, Pray tell me, Miss Moucher, what is the matter? Are you ill? My dear young soul, replied Miss Moucher, squeezing her hands upon her heart one over the other, I am ill here, I am very ill, to think that you should have come to this, when I might have known it, and perhaps prevented it, if I hadn't been a thoughtless fool. Again her large bonnet, very disproportionate to the figure, went backwards and forwards, in her swaying of her little body to and fro, while a most gigantic bonnet rocked in unison with it upon the wall. I am surprised I began to see you so distressed and serious, when she interrupted me. Yes, it's always so, she said, they are all surprised, these inconsiderate young people, fairly and full-grown, to see any natural feeling in a little thing like me. They make a plaything of me, use me for their amusement, throw me away when they are tired, and wonder that I feel more than a toy horse or a wooden soldier. Yes, yes, that's the way, the old way. It may be with others, I returned, but I do assure you it's not with me. Perhaps I would not be at all surprised to see you as you are now. I know so little of you. I said without consideration what I thought. What can I do? I returned the little woman, standing up, and holding out her arms to show herself. See, what I am, my father was, and my sister is, and my brother is. I've worked for sister and brother these many years, hard, Mr. Copperfield, all day. I must live, I do no harm. If there are people so unreflecting or so cruel as to make a gesture to me, what is left for me to do but to make a gesture to myself, them and everything? If I do so for the time, whose fault is that, mine? No, not Miss Moucher, as I perceived.  How much of his help or good will do you think I should ever have had, if little Moucher, who had no hand, young gentleman and the makey, of herself, addressed herself to him or the like of him because of her misfortunes, when you suppose her small voice would have been heard. Little Moucher would have as much need to live if she was the bitterest and dullest of pygmies, but she couldn't do it. No. She might whistle for her bed and butter till she died of air. Miss Moucher sat down on the fender again and took out her handkerchief and wiped her eyes. Be thankful for me, if you have a kind heart, as I think you have, she said, that while I know well what I am, I can be cheerful and endure it all. I am thankful for myself at any rate that I can find my tiny way through the world without being beholden to any one, and that in return for all that is thrown of me, in folly or vanity as I go along, I can throw bubbles back. If I don't brood over all what I want, it is the better for me and not the worse for any one. If I am a plaything for you, giants, be gentle with me, as Moucher replaced her handkerchief in her pocket, looking at me with very intent expression all the while and pursued. I saw you in the street just now. You may suppose I am not able to walk as fast as you with my short legs and short breath, and I couldn't overtake you. But I guessed where you came and came after you. I have been here before, to-day, but the good woman wasn't at home. Do you know her? I demanded. I know of her and about her, she replied, from Omer and Joram. I was there at seven o'clock this morning. Do you remember what Steerforth said to me about this unfortunate girl, that time when I saw you both at the inn? The great bonnet on Miss Moucher's head and the greater bonnet on the wall began to go backwards and forwards again when she asked this question. I remembered very well what she referred to, having had it in my thoughts many times that day. I told her so. May the father of all evil confound him, said the little woman, holding up her forefinger between me and her sparkling eyes, and ten times more confound that wicked servant. But I believed it was you who had a boyish passion for her. I, I repeated, child, child, in the name of blind ill fortune, cried Miss Moucher, wringing her hands impatiently, she went to and fro again upon the fender. Why did you praise her so and blush and look disturbed? I could not conceive for myself that I had done this. There were reasons for a reason very different from her supposition. What did I know? said Miss Moucher, taking out a handkerchief again, and giving one little stamp on the ground whenever at short infantiles she applied it to her eyes with both hands at once.  You were soft wax in his hands, I saw. Had I left the room a minute when his man told me that young innocence, so he called you, and you may call him old guilt all the days of your life, had set his heart upon her, and she was giddy and liked him. But his master was resolved that no harm should come of it, more for your sake than for hers, and that that was their business here. How could I but believe him? I saw, dearforth, soothe and please you by his praise of her. You were the first to mention her name. You owed to an old aberration of her. You were hot and cold and red and white all at once when I spoke to you of her. What could I think? What did I think? But that you were a young Libertine in everything but experience, and had fallen into hands that had experience enough and could manage you, having the fancy, for your own good. Oh! Oh! Oh! They were afraid of my finding out the truth! exclaimed Miss Mucher, getting off the fender, and trotting up and down the kitchen with her two short arms distressfully lifted up. Because I am a sharp little thing I need to be to get through the world at all. And they deceived me altogether, and I gave the poor unfortunate girl a letter, which I fully believe is with the beginning of her ever speaking to Litima, who is left behind on purpose. I stood amazed at the revelation of all this perfidy, looking at Miss Mucher as she walked up and down the kitchen until she was out of breath.  My country rounds, she added at length, brought me to Norwich, Mr. Copperfield, the night before last. What I happened to find there, about their secret way of coming and going without you, which was strange, led to my suspecting something wrong. I got into the coach from London last night as he came through Norwich, and was here this morning. Oh! late!  I sat in a chair on the other side of the hearth, lost in unhappy reflections, and looking at the far too, and sometimes at her. I must go, she said at last, rising as she spoke. It's late. You don't mistrust me? Meeting her sharp glance, which was as sharp as ever when she asked me, I could not on that short challenge answer no, quite frankly. Come, said she, accepting the offer of my hand to help her over the fender, and looking wistfully up into my face. You know you wouldn't mistrust me if I was a full-sized woman. I felt that there was much truth in this, and I felt rather ashamed of myself. You are a young man, she said, nodding. Take a word of advice, even from three foot nothing. Try not to associate bodily defects with mental, my good friend, except for a solid reason. She got over the fender now, and I had got over my suspicion. I told her that I believed she had given me a faithful account of herself, and that we have both been hapless instruments in designing hands. She thanked me, and said I was a good fellow. Now, mind, she exclaimed, turning back on her way to the door, and looking shudly at me, with her forefinger up again. I have some reason to suspect from what I have heard. My ears are always open, and I can't afford to spare what powers I have, that they are gone abroad. But if ever they return, if ever any one of them returns, while I am alive, I am more likely than another, going about as I do, to find it out soon. Whatever I know, you shall know. If ever I can do anything to serve the poor, betrayed girl, I will do it faithfully, please, heaven. And, litima, I better have a blood-hunt at his back than little magia. I placed implicit faith in this last statement, when I marked the look with which he was accompanied. Trust me no more, but trust me no less, than you would trust a full-sized woman, said the little creature, watching me appealingly on the wrist. If ever you see me again, unlike what I am now, and like what I have was when you first saw me, observe what company I am in. Call to mind that I am a very helpless and defenseless little thing. Think of me at home with my brother like myself and my sister like myself, when my day's work is done. Perhaps you won't then be very hard upon me, or surprise, if I can be distressed and serious. Good night I gave Miss Moucher my hand, with a very different opinion of her from that which I had hitherto entertained, and opened the door to let her out. It was not a trifling business to get the great umbrella up and properly balanced in her grasp, but at last I successfully accomplished this, and saw it go bobbing down the street through the rain, without the least appearance of having anybody underneath it, except when a heavier fall than usual from some overcharged water-spout sent it toppling over on one side and discovered Miss Moucher struggling violently to get it right. After making one or two sallies to her relief, which were rendered futile by the umbrellas hopping on again like an immense bird before I could reach it, I came in, went to bed, and slept till morning. In the morning I was joined by Mr. Pegaty and by my old nurse, and we went at an early hour to the coach-office, where Mrs. Gummidge and Ham were waiting to take leave of us. Masa Devi, Ham whispered, drawing me aside while Mr. Pegaty was staying his bag among the luggage, his life is quite broke up.  I'm sure you'll be a friend to him, Masa Devi. Trust me, I will indeed, said I, shaking hands with Ham earnestly. Thank ye, thank ye very kind, sir.  Money's of no use to me no more, except to live. If you can lay it out for him, I should do my work with a better art. Though as to that, sir, and he spoke very steadily and mildly, you're not to think that I shall work at all times like a man, and at the best that lays in my power. I told him I was well convinced of it, and I hinted that I hoped that time might even come when he would cease to lead the lonely life he naturally contemplated now. Oh, sir, he said, shaking his head. All that's passed and over with me, sir. No one can ever fill the place that's empty. But you'll bear in mind about the money's, there's at all time some laying by for him, reminding him of the fact that Mr. Peggertie derived a steady, though certainly a very moderate income from the bequest of his late brother-in-law. I promised to do so. We then took leave of each other. I cannot leave him even now without remembering with a pang at once his modest fortitude and his great sorrow. As to Mrs. Gummidge. If I were to endeavour to describe how she ran down the street by the side of the coach, seeing nothing but Mr. Peggertie on the roof through the tears she'd tried to express, and dashing herself against the people who were coming in the opposite direction, I should enter on a task of some difficulty.  When we got to our journey's end, our first pursuit was to look about for a little lodging for Peggertie where her brother could have a bed. We were so fortunate as to find one of a very clean and cheap description over a chandler's shop, only two streets removed from me. When we had engaged this domicile, I bought some cold meat at an eating-house, and took my fellow-traveler's home to tea, her proceeding, I regret to state, which did not meet with Mrs. Krupp's approval, but quite the contrary. I ought to observe, however, an explanation of that lady's state of mind that she was much offended by Peggertie's tucking up her widow's gown before she had been ten minutes in the place, and setting to work to dust my bedroom. This Mrs. Krupp regarded in the light of a liberty, and a liberty, she said, was a thing she never allowed. Mr. Peggertie had made a communication to me on the way to London for which I was not unprepared. It was that he purposed first seeing Mrs. Steerforth. As I felt bound to assist him in this, and also to mediate between them, with the view of sparing the mother's feelings as much as possible, I wrote to her that night. I told her, as mildly as I could, what his wrong was, and what my own share in his injury. I said, he was a man in very common life but of a most gentle and upright character, and that I ventured to express a hope that she would not refuse to see him in his heavy trouble. I mentioned two o'clock in the afternoon as the hour of the hour coming, and I sent the letter myself by the first coach in the morning. At the appointed time we stood at the door, the door of that house where I had been a few days since so happy, where my youthful confidence and warmth of heart had been yielded up so freely, which was closed against me henceforth, and was now a waste, a ruin. No litimer appeared. The pleasant face which had replaced his on the occasion of my last visit answered to our summons, and went before us to the drawing-room. Mrs. Tiaforth was seasitting there. Rosa Dartle glided as he went in from another part of the room, and stood behind her chair. I saw, directly in his mother's face, that she knew from himself what he had done. It was very pale, and all the traces of deeper emotion than my letter alone, weakened by the doubts her fondness would have raised upon it, would have been likely to create. I thought her more liking than ever I had thought her, and I felt, rather than sore, that the resemblance was not lost on my companion. She sat upright in her armchair with a stately, immovable, passionless air that it seemed as if nothing could disturb. She looked very steadfastly at Mr. Pegaty when he stood before her, and he looked quite a steadfastly at her. Rosa Dartle's keen glance comprehended all of us. For some moments not a word was spoken. She motioned to Mr. Pegaty to be seated. He said, in a low voice, I shouldn't feel it natural, ma'am, to sit down in this house. I'd soon astound. And this was succeeded by another silence which she broke of us. I know, with deep regret, what has brought you here? What do you want of me? What do you ask me to do?" He put his hat under his arm, and, feeling in his breast for Emma's letter, took it out, unfolded it, and gave it to her. Please, to read that, ma'am, that's my niece's hand. She read it, in the same stately and impassive way, untouched by its contents as far as I could see, and returned it to him. As he brings me back a lady, said Mr. Pegaty, tracing out that part with his finger, I come to know, ma'am, whether he will keep his word. No, she returned. Why not, said Mr. Pegaty? It is impossible. He would disgrace himself. You cannot fail to know that she is far below him. Raise her up, said Mr. Pegaty.  But she's not baby she is, said Mr. Pegaty. I think not, ma'am, but I'm no judge of them things. Teach her better. Since you oblige me to speak more plainly, which I am very unwilling to do, her humble connections would render such a thing impossible, if nothing else did. Hark to this, ma'am! He returned, slowly and quietly. You know what it is to love your child. So do I. If she was a hundred times my child, I couldn't love her more. You don't know what it is to lose your child. I do. All the eeps of riches in the world would be in note to me, if there was mine, to buy her back. But save her from this disgrace, since she shall never be disgraced by us. Not one of us that she's grown up among, not one of us that's lived along with her, and had her for there all in all these many years. We'll ever look upon her pretty face again. We'll be content to let her be. We'll be content to think of her fore-off, as if she was underneath another sun and sky. We'll be content to trust her, to her husband, to her little children, perhaps, and by the time when all of us shall be a liking equality for our guard. The rugged eloquence with which she spoke was not devoid of all effect. She still preserved her proud manner, but there was a touch of softness in her voice, as she answered. I justify nothing. I make no counter-accusations. But I'm sorry to repeat. It is impossible. Such a marriage would irretrievably blight my son's career and ruin his prospects. Nothing is more certain than it never can take place and never will, if there is any other compensation. I'm looking at the likeness of the face, interrupted Mr. Peckety, with a steady but a kindling eye, that has looked at me in my home at my far side in me-boat, we're not, smiling and friendly, when it was so treacherous that I go half-wild when I think of it. If the likeness of that face don't turn to burning fire at the thought of offering money to him if I child's blight and ruin, it's as bad. I don't know, being a lady, but what it's worse, she changed now in a moment. An angry flush overspread her features, and she said in an intolerant manner, grasping the arm-chair tightly with her hands. What compensation can you make to me for opening such a pit between me and my son? What is your love to mine? What is your separation to ours?" Miss Dartle softly touched her and bent down her head to whisper, but she would not hear a word. No, Rosa, not a word. Let the man listen to what I say. My son, who has been the object of my life, to whom it's every thought has been devoted, whom I have gratified from a child in every wish, from whom I have had no separate existence since his birth, to take up in a moment with a miserable girl that avoid me, to repay my confidence with systematic deception for her sake and quick me for her, to set this wretched fancy against his mother's claims upon his duty, love, respect, gratitude, claims that every day and hour of his life should have strengthened into ties that nothing could be proof against. Is this no injury? Again Rosa Dartle tried to soothe her, again ineffectually. I say, Rosa, not a word. If he can stake his all upon the lightest object, I can stake my all upon a greater purpose. Let him go where he will with the means that my love is secure to him. Does he think to reduce me by long absence? He knows his mother very little if he does. Let him put away his whim now, and he is welcome back. Let him not put her away now, and he never shall come near me, living or dying, while I can raise my hand to make a side against it, unless, being rid of her forever, he comes humbly to me and begs for my forgiveness. This is my right. This is the acknowledgment I will have, and this is the separation that there is between us. And is this, she added, looking at her visitor, with the proud intolerant air with which she had begun, no injury, while I heard and saw the mother as she said these words, I seem to hear and see the son defying them. Although I had ever seen in him of an unyielding willful spirit I saw in her all the understanding that I had now of his misdirected energy became an understanding of her character too, and a perception that it was, in its strongest springs, the same. She now observed to me aloud, resuming her former restraint, that it was useless to hear more or to say more, and that she begged to put an end to the interview. She rose with an air of dignity to leave the room, where Mr. Pegaty signified that it was needless. Don't fear me being any a hindrance to you. I have no more to say, ma'am," he remarked, as he moved towards the door. I come here with no hope, and I take away no hope. I have done what I thought should be done, but I never looked for any good to cover my standing where I do. This has been too evilised for me and mine, for me to be my right senses and expect it.  We had on our way out to cross a paved hall, with glass sides and roof over which a vine was trained. Its leaves and shoots were green then, and the day being sunny, a pair of glass doors leading to the garden were thrown open. Rosa Dartle, entering this way with a noiseless step, when we were close to them, addressed herself to me. You do well, she said, indeed, to bring this fellow here. After concentration of rage and scorn as darkened her face flashed in her jet-black eyes, I could not have thought compressible even into that face. The scar made by the hammer was, as usual in this excited state of her features, strongly marked. When the throbbing I had seen before came into it as I looked at her, she absolutely lifted her up her hand and struck it. This is a fellow, she said, to champion and bring here. Is he not? You are a true man. Miss Dartle, I returned, you are surely not so unjust as to condemn me.  She returned. Don't you know that they are both mad with their own self-will and pride? Is it my doing? I returned. Is it your doing? She retorted. Why do you bring this man here? He is a deeply injured man, Miss Dartle, I replied. You may not know it. I know that James Steerforth, she said, with her hand on her bosom, as if to prevent the storm that was raging there from being loud, has a false corrupt heart and is a traitor. But what need I know or care about this fellow and his common niece? Miss Dartle, I returned, you deepen the injury. It is sufficient already, I will only say, at parting, that you do him a great wrong. I do him no wrong, she returned.  I would have her whipped, Mr. Peckety passed on, without a word, and went out of the door. Oh, shame, Miss Dartle, shame, I said indignantly. How can you bear to trample on his undeserved affliction? I would trample on them all, she said. I would have his house pulled down. I would have her branded on the face, dressed in rags, and cast out in the streets to starve. If I had the power to sit in judgment on her, I would see it done. See it done? I would do it. I detest her. If I ever could reproach her with her infamous condition, I would go anywhere to do so. If I could hunt her to her grave, I would. If there was any word of comfort that would be a solace to her in her dying hour, and only I possessed it, I wouldn't part with it for life itself. The mere vehemence of her words can convey, I am sensible, but a weak impression of the passion by which she was possessed, and which made itself articulate in her whole figure, that her voice, instead of being raised, was lower than usual. No description I could give of her would do justice to my recollection of her, or to her entire deliverance of herself to her anger. I have seen passion in many forms, but I have never seen it in such a form as that. When I joined Mr. Pegatee, he was walking slowly and thoughtfully down the hill. He told me, as soon as I came up with him, that having now discharged his mind of what he had purposed doing in London, he meant to set out on his travels that night. I asked him where he meant to go. He only answered, I am going, sir, to see my niece. We went back to the little lodging over the Chandler's shop, and there I found an opportunity of repeating to Pegatee what he had said to me. She informed me, in return, that he had said the same to her that morning. She knew no more than I did where he was going, but she thought he had some project shaped out in his mind. I did not like to leave him under such circumstances, and we all three didined together off a beefsteak pie, which was one of the many good things for which Pegatee was famous, and which was curiously flavoured on this occasion, I recollect well, by the selenious taste of tea, coffee, butter, bacon, cheese, new loaves, firewood, candles, and walnut ketchup, continually ascending from the shop. After dinner we sat for an hour or so near the window, without talking much. And then Mr. Pegatee got up and brought his oil-skinned bag and his stout stick, and laid them on the table. He accepted, from his sister's stock of ready money, a small sum on account of his legacy. Only enough, I should have thought, to keep him for a month. He promised to communicate with me when anything befell him, and he slung his bag about him, took his hat and stick, and made his both good-bye.  If any urge should come to me, remember that the last words I left for her was, My unchanged love is with my darling child, and I forgive her. He said this solemnly, bare-headed, then putting on his hat he went down the stairs and away. We followed to the door. It was a warm, dusty evening, just the time when, in the great main thoroughfare out of which that byway turned, there was a temporary lull in the eternal tread of feet upon the pavement and a strong red sunshine. He turned alone, at the corner of our shady street, into a glow of light in which we lost him. Rarely did that hour of the evening come, rarely did I wake at night, rarely did I look up at the moon or stars or watch the falling rain or hear the wind, but I thought of his solitary figure toiling on, poor pilgrim, and recalled the words, I am going to seek her a-forum wide. If any urge should come to me, remember that the last words I left for her was, My unchanged love is with my darling child, and I forgive her. CHAPTER XXXII