Learn English through story level 7 ⭐ Subtitle ⭐ David Copperfield (Part 02)

chapter 4 I fall into disgrace if the room to which my bed was removed were a sensient thing that could give evidence I might appeal to it at this day who sleeps there now I wonder to Bear witness for me what a heavy heart I carried to it I went up there hearing the dog in the yard bark after me all the way while I climbed the stairs and looking as blank and strange upon the room as the room looked upon me sat down with my small hands crossed and thought I thought of the oddest things of the shape of the room of the cracks in the ceiling of the paper on the wall of the floors in the window glass making Ripples and dimples on the prospect of the washing stand being rickety on its three legs and having a discontented something about it which reminded me of Mrs gumbage under the influence of the old one I was crying all the time but except that I was conscious of being cold and ejected I'm sure I never thought why I cried at last in my desolation I began to consider that I was dreadfully in love with little Emily and had been torn away from her to come here where no one seemed to want me or to care about me half as much as she did this made such a very miserable piece of business of it that I rolled myself up in a corner of the counterpane and cried myself to sleep I was awakened by somebody saying here he is and uncovering my hot head my mother and peggoty had come to look for me and it was one of them who had done it Davey said my mother what's the matter I thought it very strange that she should ask me and answered nothing I turned over on my face I recollect to hide my trembling lip which answered her with greater truth Davey said my mother Davey my child I dare say no words she could have uttered would have affected me so much then as her calling me her child I hid my tears in the bed clothes and pressed her from me with my hand when she would have raised me up this is your doing Peggy you cruel thing said my mother I have no doubt at all about it how can you reconcile it to your conscience I wonder to Prejudice my own boy against me or against anybody who is dear to me what do you mean by it peggoty poor pegy lifted up her hands and eyes and only answered in a sort of paraphrase of the grace I usually repeated after dinner Lord forgive you Mrs Copperfield and for what you have said this minute may you never be truly sorry it's enough to distract me cried my mother in my honeymoon too when my most inveterate enemy might relent one would think and not envy me a little peace of mind and happiness Davey you naughty boy Peggy you savage creature oh dear me cried my mother turning from one of us to the other in her pettish willful manner what a Troublesome world this is when one has the most right to expect it to be as agreeable as possible I felt the touch of a hand that I knew was neither hers nor Peg's and slipped to my feet at the bedside it was Mr murdstone's Hand and he kept it on my arm arm as he said what's this claraa my love have you forgotten firmness my dear I am very sorry Edward said my mother I meant to be very good but I'm so uncomfortable indeed he answered that's a bad hearing so soon Clara I say it's very OD I should be made so now returned my mother pouting and it is very hard isn't it he drew her to him whispered in her ear and kissed her I knew as well when I saw my mother's head lean down upon his shoulder and her arm touch his neck I knew as well that he could mold her plant nature into any form he chose as I know now that he did it go you below my love said Mr mdstone David and I will come down together my friend turning a darkening face on peggoty when he had watched my mother out and dismissed her with a nod and a smile do you know your mistress's name she's been my mistress a long time sir answered peggoty I ought to know it that's true he answered but I thought I heard you as I came upstairs address her by a name that is not hers she has taken mine you know will you remember that Pegg with some uneasy glances at me curtsied herself out of the room without replying see I suppose that she was expected to go and had no excuse for remaining when we two were left alone he shut the door and sitting on a chair and holding me standing before him looked steadily into my eyes I felt my own attracted no less steadily to his as I recall our being opposed thus face to face I seem again to hear my heartbeat fast and high David he said making his lips thin by pressing them together if I have an obstinate horse or dog to deal with what do you think I do I don't know I beat him I had answered in a kind of breathless whisper but I felt in my silence that my breath was shorter now I make him wince and smart I say to myself I'll conquer that fellow and if it were to cost him all the blood he had I should do it what is that upon your face dirt I said he knew it was the mark of Tears as well as I but if he had asked the question 20 times each time with 20 blows I believe my baby heart would have burst before I would have told him so you have a great deal of intelligence for a little fellow he said with a grave smile that belonged to him and you understand me very well I see wash that face sir and come down with me he pointed to the washing stand which I had made out to be like Mrs gumbage and motioned me with his head to obey him directly I had little doubt then and I have less doubt now that he would have knocked me down without the least compunction if I had hesitated Clara my dear he said when I had done his bidding and he walked me into the parlor with his hand still on my arm you will not be made uncomfortable anymore I hope we shall soon improve our youthful humors God help me I might have been improved for my whole life I might have been made another creature perhaps for Life by a kind word at that season a word of encouragement an explanation of pity for my childish ignorance of Welcome Home of reassurance to me that it was home might have made me dutiful to him in my heart henceforth instead of in my hypocritical outside and might have made me respect instead of hate him I thought my mother was sorry to see me standing in the room so scared and strange and that presently when I stole to a chair she followed me with her eyes more sorrowfully still missing perhaps some freedom in my childish tread but the word was not spoken and the time for it was gone we dined alone we three together he seemed to be very fond of my mother I'm afraid I liked him none the better for that and she was very fond of him I gathered from what they said that an elder sister of his was coming to stay with them and that she was expecting that evening I'm not certain whether I found out then or afterwards that without being actively concerned in any business he had some share in or some annual charge upon the profits of a wine Merchant's house in London with which his family had been connected from his great grandfather's time and in which his sister had a similar interest but I may mention it in this place whether or no after dinner when we were sitting by the fire and I was meditating an escape to pegy without having the Hardy Hood to slip away lest it should offend the Master of the House a coach drove up to the garden gate and he went out to receive the visitor my mother followed him I was timidly following her when she turned around at the Parlor door in the Dusk and taking me in her Embrace as she had been used to do whispered me to love my new father and be obedient to him she did this hurriedly and secretly as if it were wrong but tenderly and putting out her hand behind her held mine in it it until we came near to where he was standing in the garden where she let mine go and Drew hers through his arm it was Miss mdstone who was arrived and a gloomy looking lady she was dark like her brother whom she greatly resembled in face and voice and with very heavy eyebrows nearly meeting over her large nose as if being disabled by the wrongs of her sex from wearing whiskers she had carried them to that account she brought with her two uncompromised ing hard black boxes with her initials on the lids in hard brass nails when she paid The Coachman she took her money out of a hard steel purse and she kept the purse in a very jail of a bag which hung upon her arm by a heavy chain and shut up like a bite i' had never at that time seen such a metallic lady altogether as Miss mdstone was she was brought into the paror with many tokens of welcome and there formally recognized my mother as a new and near relation then she looked at me and said is that your boy sister-in-law my mother acknowledged me generally speaking said Miss mdstone I don't like boys how do you do boy under these encouraging circumstances I replied that I was very well and that I hope she was the same with such an indifferent Grace that Miss mdstone disposed of me in two words once Mana have having uttered which with great distinctness she begged the favor of being shown to her room which became to me from that time forth a place of awe and Dread wherein the two black boxes were never seen open or known to be left unlocked and where before I peeped in once or twice when she was out numerous little steel Fetters and rivets with which Miss mdstone embellished herself when she was dressed generally hung upon the Looking Glass in formidable array as well as could make out she had come for good and had no intention of ever going again she began to help my mother next morning and was in and out of the store closet all day putting things to rights and making havoc in the old Arrangements almost the first remarkable thing I observed in Miss mdstone was her being constantly haunted by a suspicion that the servants had a man secreted somewhere on the premises under the influence of this delusion she dived into the wholeseller at the most untimely hours and scarcely ever open the door of a dark cupboard without clapping it to again in the belief that she had got him though there was nothing very airy about Miss mdstone she was a perfect Lark in point of getting up she was up and as I believe to this hour looking for that man before anybody in the house was stirring peggoty gave it as her opinion that she even slept with one eye open but I could not concur in this idea for I tried it myself after hearing the suggestion thrown out and found it couldn't be done on the very first morning after her arrival she was up and ringing her Bell at cockrow when my mother came down to breakfast and was going to make the tea Miss mdstone gave her a kind of peck on the cheek which was her nearest approach to a kiss and said now Clara my dear I come here you know to relieve you of all the trouble I can you're much too pretty and thoughtless my mother blushed but laughed and seemed not to dislike this character to have any duties imposed upon you that can be undertaken by me if you'll be so good as give me your keys my dear I'll attend to all this sort of thing in future from that time Miss mdstone kept the keys in her own little jail all day and under her pillow all night and my mother had no more to do with them than I had my mother did not suffer her authority to pass from her without a shadow of protest one night when Miss mdstone had been developing certain household plans to her brother of which he signified his approbation my mother suddenly began to cry and said she thought she might have been consulted claraa said Mr mstone sternly Clara I wonder at you oh it's very well to say you wonder Edward cried my mother and it's very well for you to talk about firmness but you wouldn't like it yourself firmness I may observe was the Grand quality on which both Mr and Miss mdstone took their stand however I might have expressed my comprehension of it at that time if I had been called upon I nevertheless did clearly comprehend in my own way that it was another name for tyranny and for a certain gloomy arrogant Devil's humor that was in them both the Creed as I should state it now was this Mr mdstone was firm nobody in his world was to be so firm as Mr mdstone nobody else in his world was to be firm at all for everybody was to be bent to his firmness Miss mdstone was an exception she might be firm but only by relationship and in an inferior and tributary degree my mother was another exception she might be firm and must be but only in bearing their firmness and firmly believing there was no other firmness upon Earth it's very hard said my mother that in my own house my own house repeated Mr mdstone claraa our own house I mean faltered my mother evidently frightened I hope you must know what I mean Edward it's very hard that in your own house I may not have a word to say about domestic matters I'm sure I managed very well before we were married there's evidence said my mother sobbing ask pegy if I didn't do very well when I wasn't interfered with Edward said Miss mdstone let there be an end of this I go tomorrow Jane mdstone said her brother be silent how dare you to insinuate that you don't know my character better than your words imply I'm sure my poor mother went on at a grievous disadvantage and With Many Tears I don't want anybody to go I should be very miserable and unhappy if anybody was to go I don't ask much I'm not unreasonable I only want to be consulted sometimes I'm very much obliged to anybody who assist me and I only want to be consulted as a mere form sometimes I thought you were pleased once with my being a little inexperienced and girlish Edward I'm sure you said so but you seem to hate me for it now you're so severe Edward said Miss mstone again let there be an end to this I go tomorrow Jane mdstone thundered Mr mdstone will you be silent how dare you miss mdstone made a jail delivery of her pocket handkerchief and held it before her eyes Clara he continued looking at my mother you surprise me you Astound me yes I had a satisfaction in the thought of Marrying an inexperienced an artless person and forming her character and infusing into it some amount of that firmness and decision of which it stood in need but when Jane mdstone is kind enough to come to my assistance in this endeavor and to assume for my sake a condition something like a housekeepers and when she meets with a base return oh pray pray Edward cried my mother don't accuse me of being ungrateful I'm sure I'm not ungrateful no one ever said I was before I have many faults but not that oh don't my dear when Jane mdstone meets I say he went on after waiting until my mother was silent with a Bas return that feeling of mine is chilled and altered don't my love say that implored my mother very piously oh don't Edward I can't bear to hear it whatever I am I'm affectionate I know I'm affectionate I wouldn't say it if it wasn't certain that I am ask peggoty I'm sure she'll tell you I'm affectionate there is no extent of mere weakness Clara said Mr mdstone in reply that can have the least weight with me you lose breath pray let us be friends said my mother I couldn't live under coldness or unkindness I'm so sorry I have a great many defects I know and it's very good of you Edward with your strength of mind to Endeavor to correct them for me Jane I don't object to anything I should be quite brokenhearted if you thought of leaving my mother was too much overcome to go on Jane mdstone said Mr mdstone to his sister any harsh words between us are I hope uncommon it is not my fault that so unusual An Occurrence has taken place tonight I was betrayed into it by another let us both try to forget it and as this he added after the magnanimous words is not a fit scene for the boy David go to bed I could hardly find the door through the tears that stood in my eyes I was so sorry for my mother's distress but I groped my way out and groped my way up to my room in the dark without even having the heart to say good night to pegy or to get a candle from her when her coming up to look for me an hour or so afterwards awoke me she said that my mother had gone to bed poorly and that Mr and Miss mdstone were sitting alone going down next morning rather earlier than usual I paused Outside The Parlor door on hearing my mother's voice she was very earnestly and humbly entreating Miss murdstone's pardon which that lady granted and a perfect reconciliation took place I never knew my mother afterwards to give an opinion on any matter without first appealing to miss mdstone or without having first ascertained by some sure means what Miss murdstone's opinion was and and I never saw miss mdstone when out of temper she was infirm that way move her hand towards her bag as if she were going to take out the keys and offer to resign them to my mother without seeing that my mother was in a terrible fright the gloomy taint that was in the merstone blood darkened the mdstone religion which was austere and wrathful I have thought since that it's assuming that character was a necessary consequence of Mr murdstone's firmness which wouldn't allow him to let anybody off from the utmost weight of the severest penalties he could find any excuse for be this as it may I well remember the tremendous visages with which we used to go to church and the changed air of the place again the dreaded Sunday comes round and I file into the old Pew first like a guarded captive brought to a condemned service again miss mystone in a black velvet gown that looks as if it had been made out of a pole follows close upon me then my mother then her husband there is no pegy now as in the old time again I listened to miss mstone mumbling the responses and emphasizing all the dread words with a cruel relish again I see her dark eyes roll round the church when she says miserable Sinners as if she were calling all the congregation names again I catch rare glimpses of my mother moving her lips timidly between the two with one of them muttering at each ear like low Thunder again I wonder with a sudden fear whether it is likely that our good old clergyman can be wrong and Mr and Miss mdstone right and that all the angels in heaven can be destroying Angels again if I move a finger or relax a muscle of my face Miss mdstone pokes me with her prayer book and makes my side ache yes and again as we walk home I note some neighbors looking at my mother and at me and Whispering again as the three go on arm in- arm and I linger behind alone I follow some of those looks and wonder if my mother's step be really not so light as I have seen it and if the gay of her beauty be really almost worried away again I wonder whether any of the neighbors call to mind as I do how we used to walk home together she and I and I wonder stupidly about that all the dreary dismal day there had been some talk on occasions of my going to a boarding school Mr and Mrs mdstone had originated it and my mother had of course agreed with them nothing however was concluded on the subject yet in the meantime I learned lessons at home shall I ever forget those lessons they were presided over nominally by my mother but really by Mr mdstone and his sister who were always present and found them a favorable occasion for giving my mother lessons in that miscalled firmness which was the bane of both our lives lives I believe I was kept at home for that purpose I had been apt enough to learn and willing enough when my mother and I had lived alone together I can faintly remember learning the alphabet at her knees to this day when I look upon the fat black letters in the primer the puzzling novelty of their shapes and the easy good nature of O and q and s seemed to present themselves again before me as they used to do but they recall no feeling of disgust or reluctance on the contrary I seem to have walked along a path of flowers as far as the crocodile book and to have been cheered by the gentleness of my mother's voice and manner all the way but these solemn lessons which succeeded those I remember as the death blow at my peace and a grievous daily drudgery and misery they were very long very numerous very hard perfectly unintelligible some of them to me and I was generally as much bewildered by them as I believe my poor mother was herself let me remember how it used to be and bring one morning back again I came into the second best parlor after breakfast with my books and an exercise book and a slate my mother is ready for me at her writing desk but not half so ready as Mr mdstone in his easy Chair by the window though he pretends to be reading a book or as Miss mdstone sitting near my mother stringing steel beads the very sight of these two has such an influence over me that I begin to feel the words I have been at infinite pains to get into my head all Sliding Away and going I don't know where I wonder where they do go by the by I hand the first book to my mother Perhaps it is a grammar perhaps a history or geography I take a last drowning look at the page as I give it into her hand and start off aloud at a racing Pace while I've got it fresh I trip over a word Mr mdstone looks up I trip over another word Miss mdstone looks up I readen tumble over half a dozen words and stop I think my mother would show me the book if she dared but she does not dare and she says softly oh Davey Davey now claraa says Mr mdstone be firm with the boy don't say oh Davey Davey that's childish he knows his lesson or he does not know it he does not know it Miss mdstone interposes awfully I'm really afraid he does not says my mother then you see claraa returns miss mdstone you should just give him the book back and make him know it yes certainly says my mother that is what I intend to do my dear Jane now Davey try once more and don't be stupid I obey the first Clause of the injunction by trying once more but I'm not so successful with the second for I am very stupid I tumble down before I get to the old place at a point where I was all right before and stopped to think but I can't think about the lesson I think of the number of yards of net in Miss murdstone's cap or of the price of Mr murdstone's dressing gown or any such ridiculous problem that I have no business with and don't want to have anything at all to do with Mr mdstone makes a movement of impatience which I've been expecting for a long time Miss mdstone does the same my mother glances submissively at them shuts the book and lays it by as an area to be worked out when my other tasks are done there is a pile of these areas very soon and it swells Like a Rolling Snowball the bigger it gets the more stupid I get the case is so hopeless and I feel that I am wallowing in such a bog of nonsense that I give up all ideas of getting out and aband myself to my fate the despairing way in which my mother and I look at each other as I blunder on is truly Melancholy but the greatest effect in these miserable lessons is when my mother thinking nobody is observing her tries to give me the cue by the motion of her lips at that instant Miss mdstone who has been lying in wait for nothing else all along says in a deep warning voice claraa my mother starts colors and smiles faintly Mr M Stone comes out of his chair and takes the book throws it at me or boxes my ears with it and turns me out of the room by the shoulders even when the lessons are done the worst is yet to happen in the shape of an appalling sum this is invented for me and delivered to me orally by Mr merstone and begins if I go into a cheesemonger shop and buy 5,000 double gluster cheeses at four P heny each present payment at which I see Miss MST secretly Overjoyed I pour over these cheeses without any result or Enlightenment until dinner time when having made a m latto of myself by getting the dirt of the Slate into the pores of my skin I have a slice of bread to help me out with the cheeses and I'm considered in disgrace for the rest of the evening it seems to me at this distance of time as if my unfortunate studies generally took this course I could have done very well if I had been without the myd stones but the influence of the Merd Stones upon me was like the fascination of two snakes on a wretched young bird even when I did get through the morning with tolerable credit there was not much gained but dinner for Miss mdstone never could endure to see me unasked and if I rashly made any show of being unemployed called her brother's attention to me by saying Clara my dear there's nothing like work give your boy an exercise which caused me to be clapped down to some new labor there there and then as to any Recreation with other children of my age I had very little of that for the gloomy Theology of the myd stones made all children out to be a swarm of little vipers though there was a child one set in the midst of the disciples and held that they contaminated one another the natural result of this treatment continued I suppose for some six months or more was to make me Sullen dull and dogged I was not made the less so by my sense of being daily more and more shut out and alienated from my mother I believe I should have been almost stupified but for one circumstance it was this my father had left a small collection of books in a little room upstairs to which I had access for it adjoined my own and which nobody else in our house ever troubled from that blessed little room rodrik random peragine pickle Humphrey clinker Tom Jones The vicer of Wakefield Don kote Gil blast and Robinson cruso came out a glorious host to keep me company they kept alive my fancy and my hope of something beyond that place and time they and the Arabian Knights and the tales of the genie and did me no harm for whatever harm was in some of them was not there for me I knew nothing of it it is astonishing to me now how I found time in the midst of my pourings and blunderings over heavier themes to read those books as I did it is cous curious to me how I could ever have consoled myself under my small troubles which were great troubles to me by impersonating my favorite characters in them as I did and by putting Mr and Miss mdstone into all the bad ones which I did too I have been Tom Jones a child's Tom Jones a harmless creature for a week together I have sustained my own idea of rodick random for a month at a stretch I verily believe I had a greedy relish for a few volumes of voyages and travel I forget what now that were on those shelves and for days and days I can remember to have gone about my region of our house armed with the centerpiece out of an old set of boot trees the perfect realization of Captain somebody of the royal British Navy in danger of being beset by Savages and resolved to sell his life at a great price the captain never lost dignity from having his ears boxed with the Latin grammar I did but the captain was a captain and a hero in this spite of all the grammars of all the languages in the world dead or alive this was my only and my Constant Comfort when I think of it the picture always rises in my mind of a summer evening the boys at play in the churchyard and I sitting on my bed reading as if for life every Barn in the neighborhood every stone in the church and every foot of the churchard had some Association of its own in my mind connected with these books and stood for some locality made famous in them I have seen Tom pipes go climbing up the church steeple I have watched strap with the napsack on his back stopping to rest himself upon the wicked gate and I know that Commodore Tran held that club with Mr Pickle in The Parlor of our little village ale housee the reader now understands as well as I do what I was when I came to that point of my youthful history to which I am now coming again one morning when I went into the parlor with my books I found my mother looking anxious miss mdstone looking firm and Mr mdstone binding something around the bottom of a Cane a lith and limber cane which he left off binding when I came in and poised and switched in the air I tell you Clara said Mr mdstone I have been often flogged myself to be sure of course said Miss mdstone certainly My Dear Jane faltered my mother meekly but but do you think it did Edward good do you think it did Edward harm Clara asked Mr mdstone Gravely that's the point said his sister to this my mother returned certainly My Dear Jane and said no more I felt apprehensive that I was personally interested in this dialogue and sought Mr murdstone's eye as it lighted on mine now David he said and and I saw that cast again as he said it you must be far more careful today than usual he gave the cane another Poise and another switch and having finished his preparation of it laid it down beside him with an impressive look and took up his book this was a good freshner to my presence of Mind as a beginning I felt the words of my lessons slipping off not one by one or line by line but by the entire page I tried to lay hold of them but they seemed if I may so express it to have put skates on and to skim away from me with a smoothness there was no checking we began badly and went on worse I had come in with an idea of distinguishing myself rather conceiving that I was very well prepared but it turned out to be quite a mistake book after book was added to the Heap of failures miss mdstone being firmly watchful for us all the time and when he came at last to the 5,000 cheeses canes he made it that day I remember my mother burst out crying Clara said Miss mdstone in her warning voice I'm not quite well my dear Jane I think said my mother I saw him wink solemnly at his sister as he rose and said taking up the cane why Jane we can hardly expect Clara to bear with perfect firmness the worry and torment that David has occas ased her today that would be stoical Clara is greatly strengthened and improved but we can hardly expect so much from her David you and I will go upstairs boy as he took me out the door my mother ran towards us miss mdstone said claraa are you a perfect fool and interfered I saw my mother stop her ears then and I heard her crying he walked me up to my room slowly and Gravely I'm certain he had a delight in that formal parade of executing Justice and when we got there suddenly twisted my head under his arm Mr merstone sir I cried to him don't pray don't beat me I've tried to learn sir but I can't learn while you and Miss merstone are by I can't indeed can't you indeed David he said we'll try that he had my head as in a visce but I twined around him somehow and stopped him for a moment entreating him not to beat me it was only for a moment that I stopped him for he cut me heavily an instant afterwards and in the same instant I caught the hand with which he held me in my mouth between my teeth and bit it through it sets my teeth on edge to think of it he beat me then as if he would have beat me to death above all the noise we made I heard them running up the stairs and crying out I heard my mother crying out and peggoty then he was gone and the door was locked outside and I was lying fevered and hot and torn and sore and raging in my puny way upon the floor how well I recollect when I became quiet what an unnatural Stillness seemed to rain through the whole house how well I remember when my smart and passion began to cool how Wicked I began to feel I sat listening for a long while but but there was not a sound I crawled up from the floor and saw my face in the glass so swollen red and ugly that it almost frightened me my stripes were sore and stiff and made me cry aresh when I moved but there were nothing to the guilt I felt it lay heavier on my breast than if I had been a most atrocious criminal I dare say it had begun to grow dark and I had shut the window I've been lying for the most part with my head upon the sill by turns crying dozing and looking listlessly out when the key was turned and Miss mdstone came in with some bread and meat and milk these she put down upon the table without a word glaring at me the while with exemplary firmness and then retired locking the door after her long after it was dark I sat there wondering whether anybody else would come when this appeared improbable for that night I undressed and went to bed and there I began to wonder fearfully what would be done to me whether it was a criminal act that I had committed whether I should be taken into custody and sent to prison whether I was at all in danger of being hanged I never shall forget the waking next morning the being cheerful and freshh for the first moment and then the being weighed down by the stale and dismal oppression of remembrance Miss mdstone reappeared before I was out of bed told me in so many words that I was free to walk in the garden for half an hour and no longer and retired leaving the door open that I might Avail myself of that permission I did so and did so every morning of my imprisonment which lasted 5 days if I could have seen my mother alone I should have gone down on my knees to her and besought her forgiveness but I saw no one miss mdstone accepted during the whole time except at evening prayers in The Parlor to which I was escorted by Miss mdstone after everybody else was placed when where I was stationed a young Outlaw all alone by myself near the door and whence I was solemnly conducted by my Jailer before anyone arose from the devotional posture I only observed that my mother was as far off from me as she could be and kept her face another way so that I never saw it and that Mr murdstone's Hand was bound up in a large linen wrapper the length of those five days I can convey no idea of to anyone they occupy the place of years in my remembrance the way in which I listened to all the incidents of the house that made themselves audible to me the ringing of bells the opening and shutting of doors the murmuring of voices the footsteps on the stairs to any laughing whistling or singing outside which seemed more dismal than anything else to me in my solitude and disgrace the uncertain pace of the hours especially at night when I would wake thinking it was morning and find that the family were not yet gone to bed and that all the length of night had Yet to Come the depressed Dreams and Nightmares I had the return of day noon afternoon evening when the boys played in the churchyard and I watched them from a distance within the room being ashamed to show myself at the window lest they should know I was a prisoner the strange sensation of never hearing myself speak the fleeting intervals of something like cheerfulness which came with eating and drinking and went away with it the setting in of rain one evening with a fresh smell and it's coming down faster and faster between me and the church until it and gathering night seemed to quench me in Gloom and fear and remorse all this appears to have gone round and round for years instead of days it is so vividly and strongly stamped on my remembrance on the last night of my restraint I was awakened by hearing my own name spoken in a whisper I started up in bed and putting out my arms in the dark said is that you peggoty there was no immediate answer but presently I heard my name again in a tone so very mysterious and awful that I think I should have gone into a fit if it had not occurred to me that it must have come through the keyhole I groped my way to the door and putting my own lips to the keyhole whispered is that you peggoty dear yes my precious Davy she replied be as soft as a mouse or the catus I understood this to mean Miss mdstone and was sensible of the urgency of the case her room being close by How's Mama dear peggoty is she very angry with me I could hear peggoty crying Softly on her side of the keyhole as I was doing on mine before she answered no not very what is going to be done with me peggoty dear do you know School near London was Peg's answer I was obliged to get her to repeat it for she spoke it the first time quite down my throat in consequence of my having forgotten to take my mouth away from the keyhole and put my ear there and though her words tickled me a good deal I didn't hear them when pegy tomorrow is that the reason why Miss mdstone took the clothes out of my drawers which she had done though I forgotten to mention it yes said pegot box shant I see Mama yes said pegy morning then pegy fitted her mouth close to the keyhole and delivered these words through it with as much feeling and earnestness as a keyhole has ever been the medium of communicating I will venture to assert shooting in each broken little sentence in a convulsive little burst of its own Davey dear if I ain't been exactly as intimate with you lately as I used to be it ain't because I don't love you just as well and more my pretty puppet it's because I thought it be for you and for someone else besides Davey my darling are you listening can you hear yes pegy I sobbed my own said peggoty with infinite compassion what I want to say is that you must never forget me for I'll never forget you and I'll take as much care of your mama Davey as ever I took of you and I won't leave her the day may come when she'll be glad to lay her poor hair on her stupid cross old Peg's arm again and I'll write to you my dear though I ain't no scholar and I'll I'll pegy fell to kissing the keyhole as she couldn't kiss me thank you dear pegy said I oh thank you thank you will you promise me one thing peggoty will you write and tell Mr peggoty and little Emily and Mrs Gage and ham that I'm not so bad as they might suppose and I send them all my love especially to little Emily will you if you please pleas peggoty the kind soul promised and we both of us kissed the keyhole with the greatest affection I patted it with my hand I recollect as if it had been her honest face and parted from that night there grew up in my breast a feeling for peggoty which I cannot very well Define she did not replace my mother no one could do that but she came into a vacancy in my heart which closed upon her and I felt towards her something I have never felt for any other human being it was a sort of comical affection too and yet if she had died I cannot think what I should have done or how I should have acted out the tragedy it would have been to me in the morning Miss mdstone appeared as usual and told me I was going to school which was not altogether such news to me as she supposed she also informed me that when I was dressed I was to come downstairs into the Parlor and have my breakfast there I found my mother very pale and WI red eyes into whose arms I ran and begged her pardon from my suffering Soul oh Davey she said that you could hurt anyone I love try to be better pray to me better I forgive you but I'm so grieved Davey that you should have such bad passions in your heart they had persuaded her that I was a wicked fellow and she was more sorry for that than for my going away I felt it sorely I tried to eat my parting breakfast but my tears dropped dropped upon my bread and butter and trickled into my tea I saw my mother look at me sometimes and then glance at the watchful Miss mdstone and then look down or Look Away Master copperfield's box there said Miss smurd Stone when Wheels were heard at the gate I looked for peggoty but it was not she neither She nor Mr mdstone appeared my former acquaintance the carrier was at the door the box was taken out to his cart and lifted in claraa said mdstone in her warning tone ready My Dear Jane returned my mother goodbye Davey you're going for your own good goodbye my child you'll come home in the holidays and be a better boy claraa Miss mdstone repeated certainly My Dear Jane replied my mother who was holding me I forgive you my dear boy God bless you claraa miss mdstone repeated Miss mdstone was good enough to take me out to the cart and to say on the way that she hoped I would repent before I came to a bad end and then I got into the cart and the lazy horse walked off with it chapter 5 I am sent away from home we might have gone about half a mile and my pocket handkerchief was quite wet through when the carrier stopped short looking out to ascertain what for I saw to my amazement peggoty burst from a hedge and climb into the cart she took me in both her arms and squeezed me to her stays until the pressure on my nose was extremely painful though I never thought of that till afterwards when I found it very tender not a single word did pegy speak releasing one of her arms she put it down in her pocket to the elbow and brought out some paper bags of cakes which she crammed into my pockets and a purse which she put into my hand but not one word did she say after another and a final squeeze with both arms she got down from the cart and ran away and my belief is and has always been without a solitary button on her gown I picked up one of several that were rolling about and treasured it as a Keepsake for a long time the carrier looked at me as if to inquire if she were coming back I shook my head and said I thought not then come up said the carrier to the lazy horse who came up accordingly having by this time cried as much as I possibly could I began to think it was of no use crying anymore especially as neither rodri random nor that captain in the Royal British Navy had ever cried that I could remember in trying situations the carrier seeing me in this resolution proposed that my pocket handkerchief should be spread upon the hores back to dry I thanked him and ascented and particularly small it looked under the those circumstances I had now Leisure to examine the purse it was a stiff leather purse with a snap and had three bright Shillings in it which pegy had evidently polished up with whitening for my greater Delight but its most precious contents were two half crowns folded together in a bit of paper on which was written in my mother's hand for Davy with my love I was so overcome by this that I asked the carrier to be so good as reach me my pocket handkerchief again but he said he thought I had better do without it and I thought I really had so I wiped my eyes on my sleeve and stopped myself for good to though in consequence of my previous emotions I was still occasionally seized with a stormy SOB after we had jogged on for some little time I asked the carrier if he was going all the way all the way there inquired the carrier there I said where's the there inquired the carrier near London I said why that horse said the carrier jerking the rain to point him out we'll be dead than pork before he got over half the ground are you only going to Yarmouth then I asked that's about it said the carrier and there I shall take you to the stage coach and the stage coach will take you to wherever it is as this was a great deal for the carrier whose name was Mr bar to say he being as I observed in a former chapter of a fmatic temperament and not at all conversational I offered him a cake as a mark of attention which he ate at one gulp exactly like an elephant and which made no more impression on his big face than it would have done on an elephants did she make him now said Mr barcis always leaning forward in his slouching way on the footboard of the cart with an arm on each knee pegy do you mean sir ah said Mr barcis her yes she makes all our pastry and does all our cooking do she though said Mr barcis he made up his mouth as if to whistle but he didn't whistle he sat looking at the horse's ears as if he saw something new there and sat so for a considerable Time by and by he said no sweet Arts I believe sweet meats did you say Mr bis for I thought he wanted something else to eat and had pointedly alluded to that description of refreshment Arts said Mr barus sweethearts no person walks with her with pegy ah he said her oh no she never had a sweetheart didn't she though said Mr barcis again he made up his mouth to whistle and again he didn't whistle but sat looking at the horse's ears so she makes said Mr bis after a long interval of reflection all the Apple pastries and dos all are cooking do she I replied that such was the fact well I'll tell you what said Mr barcis perhaps you might be writing to her I shall certainly write to her I rejoined ah he said slowly turning his eyes towards me well if you was writing to her perhaps you'd recollect to say that Mr Barkus was willing would you that barcus is willing I repeated innocently is that all the message ye yes he said considering yeah yes Baris is willing but you will be at blunderstone again tomorrow Mr barcis I said faltering a little at the idea of me being far away from it then and could give your own message so much better as he repudiated this suggestion however with a jerk of his head and once more confirmed Ed his previous request by saying with profound gravity barcas is willing that's the message I readily undertook its transmission while I was waiting for the coach in the hotel at Yarmouth that very afternoon I procured a sheet of paper and an ink and wrote a note to pegy which ran thus my dear pegy I have come here safe barcus is willing my love to Mama yours affectionately P.S he says he particularly wants you to know Baris is willing when I had taken this Commission on myself prospectively Mr barcis relapsed into perfect silence and I feeling quite worn out by all that had happened lately lay down on a sack in the cart and fell asleep I slept soundly until we got to Yarmouth which was so entirely new and strange to me in the inyard to which we drove that I at once abandoned a latent hope that I had had of meeting with some of Mr Peg's family there perhaps even with little Emily herself the coach was in the yard shining very much all over but without any horses to it as yet and it looked in that state as if nothing was more unlikely than it's ever going to London I was thinking this and wondering what would ultimately become of my box which Mr Baris had put down on the yard pavement by the pole he having driven up the yard to turn his cart and also what would ultimately become of me when a lady looked out of a bow window where some fowls and joints of meat were hanging up and said is that the little gentleman from blunderstone yes Mom I said what name inquired the lady Copperfield mom I said that won't do returned the lady nobody's dinner is paid for ear in that name is it mdstone Mom I said if you're Master mdstone said the lady why do you go and give another name first I explained to the lady how it was who then rang a bell and called out William show the coffee room upon which a waiter came running out of a kitchen on the opposite side of the yard to show it and seemed a good deal surprised when he found he was only to show it to me it was a large long room with some large maps in it I doubt if I could have felt much stranger if the maps had been real foreign countries and I Cast Away in the middle of them I felt it was taking a liberty to sit down with my cap in my hand on the corner of the chair nearest the door and when the waiter laid a cloth on purpose for me and put a set of casters on it I think I must have turned red all over with modesty he brought me some chops and vegetables and took the covers off in such a bouncing manner that I was afraid I must have given him some offense but he greatly relieved My Mind by putting a chair for me at the table and saying very affably now six foot come on I thanked him and took my seat at the board but found it extremely difficult to handle my knife and fork with anything like dexterity or to avoid splashing myself with the gravy while he was standing opposite staring so hard and making me blush in the most Dreadful manner every time I caught his eye after watching me into the second chop he said here's half a pint of Ale for you will you have it now I thanked him and said yes upon which he poured it out of a jug into a large tumbler and held it up against the light and made it looked beautiful my eye he said it seems a good deal don't it it does seem a good deal I answered with a smile for it was quite delightful to me to find him so pleasant he was a twinkling eyed pimple-faced man with his hair standing upright all over his head and as he stood with one arm a Kimbo holding up the glass to the light with the other hand he looked quite friendly there was a gentleman here yesterday he said a stout Gentleman by the name of top Sawyer perhaps you know him no I said I don't think in Brites and Gators broad brimmed hat gray coat speckled choker said the waiter no I said bashfully I haven't the pleasure he came in here said the waiter looking at the light through the tumbler ordered a glass of this ale would order it I told him not drank it and fell dead it to Old for him it ought to be drawn that's the fact I was very much shocked to hear of this Melancholy accident and said I thought I'd better have some water why you see said the waiter still looking at the light through the tumbler with one of his eyes shut up have people don't like things being ordered and left he defends them but I'll drink it if you like I'm used to it and uses everything I don't think it'll hurt me if I throw my head back and take it off quick shall I I replied that he would much oblige Me by drinking it if he thought he could do it safely but by no means otherwise when he did throw his head back and take it off quick I had a horrible fear I confess of seeing him meet the fate of the lamented Mr tops Sawyer and fall lifeless on the carpet but it didn't hurt him on the contrary I thought he seemed to be fresher for it what have we got here he said putting a fork into my dish not chops chops I said Lord bless my soul he exclaimed I didn't know there were chops why a chops the very thing to take off the bad effects of that beer ain't it lucky so he took a chop by the bone in one hand and a potato in the other and ate away with a very good appetite to my extreme satisfaction he afterwards took another chop and another potato and after that another chop and another potato when he had done he bought me a pudding and having it set before me seemed to ruminate and to become absent in his mind for some moments how is the pie he said rousing himself it's a pudding I made answer pudding he exclaimed why bless me so it is what looking at it nearer you don't mean to say it's a batter pudding yes it is indeed why a batter pudding he said taking up a tablespoon it's my favorite pudding ain't that lucky come on litn and let's see you'll get most the waiter certainly got most he entreated me more than once to come in and win but what with his tablespoon to my teaspoon his dispatch to my dispatch and his appetite to my appetite I was left far behind at the first mouthful and had no chance with him I never saw anyone enjoy a pudding so much I think and he laughed when it was all gone as if his enjoyment of it lasted still finding himself very friendly and companionable it was then that I asked for the pen and ink and paper to write to peggoty he not only brought it immediately but was good enough to look over me while I wrote the letter when I had finished it he asked me where I was going to school I said near London which was all I knew oh my eye he said looking very low-spirited I am sorry for that why I asked him oh Lord he said shaking his head that's the school where they broke the boy's ribs two ribs a little boy was I should say he was let me see how old are you about I told him between 8 and nine that's just his age he said he was 8 years and 6 months old when they broke his first rib 8 years and 8 months old when they broke his second and did for him I could not disguise from myself or from the waiter that this was an uncomfortable coincidence and inquired how it was done his answer was not cheering to my spirits for it consisted of two dismal words with whopping the blowing of the coach horn in the yard was a seasonable diversion which made me get up and hesitatingly inquire in the mingled pride and diffidence of having a purse which I took out of my pocket if there were anything to pay there's a sheet of letter paper he returned did you ever buy a sheet of letter paper I couldn't remember that I ever had it's dear he said on account of the duty threp that's the way we're taxed in this country there's nothing else except the waiter never mind the ink I lose by that what should you what should I how much ought I to what would it be right to pay the waiter if you please I stammered blushing if I hadn't a family and that family hadn't the cowp said the waiter I wouldn't take a six if I didn't support an age parent and a lovely sister here the wait to his greatly agitated I wouldn't take a farthing if I had a good place and was treated well here I should beg acceptance of a trifle instead of taking of it but I live on broken wheels and I sleep on the coals here the waiter burst into tears I was very much concerned for his misfortunes and felt that any recognition short of N9 Pence would be mere brutality and Hardness of Heart therefore I gave him one of my three bright Shillings which he received with much humility and veneration and spun up with his thumb directly afterwards to try the goodness of it was a little disconcerting to me to find when I was being helped up behind the coach that I was supposed to have eaten all the dinner without any assistance I discovered this from overhearing the lady in the bow window say to the guard take care of that child George or he'll burst and from observing that the woman's servants who were about the place came out to look and giggle at me as a young phenomenon my unfortunate friend the waiter who had quite recovered his spirits did not appear to be disturbed by this but joined in the general admiration without being at all confused if I had any doubts of him I suppose this half awakened it but I'm inclined to believe that with a simple confidence of a child and the natural Reliance of a child upon Superior years qualities I'm very sorry any children should prematurely change for worldly wisdom I had no serious mistrust of him on the whole even then I felt it rather hard I must own to be made without deserving it the subject of jokes between The Coachman and guard as to the coach drawing heavy behind on account of my sitting there and as to the greater expediency of my traveling by wagon the story of my supposed appetite getting wind among the outside passengers they were merry upon it likewise and asked me whether I was going to be paid for at school as two brothers or three and whether I was contracted for or went to upon the regular terms with other Pleasant questions but the worst of it was that I knew I should be ashamed to eat anything when an opportunity offered and that after a rather light dinner I should remain hungry all night for I had left my cakes behind at the hotel in my hurry my apprehensions were realized when we stopped for supper I couldn't muster courage to take any though I should have liked it very much but Sat by the fire and said I didn't want any anything this did not save me from more jokes either for a husky voiced gentleman with a rough face who had been eating out of a sandwich box nearly all the way except when he'd been drinking out of a bottle said I was like a b constrictor who took enough at one meal to last him a long time after which he actually brought a rash out upon himself with boiled beef we had started from Yarmouth at 3:00 in the afternoon and we were due in London about 8 next morning it it was Midsummer weather and the evening was very pleasant when we passed through a village I pictured to myself what the insides of the houses were like and what the inhabitants were about and when boys came running after us and got up behind and swung there for a little way I wondered whether their fathers were alive and whether they were happy at home I had plenty to think of therefore besides my mind running continually on the kind of place I was going to which was an awful speculation sometimes I remember I resigned myself to thoughts of home and peggoty and to endeavoring in a confused blind way to recall how I had felt and what sort of boy I used to be before I bit Mr mdstone which I couldn't satisfy myself about by any means I seem to have bitten him in such a remote Antiquity the night was not so pleasant as the evening for it got chilly and being put between two gentlemen the rough-faced one and another to prevent my tumbling off the coach I was nearly smothered by their falling asleep and completely blocking me up they squeeze me so hard sometimes that I could not help crying out oh if you please which they didn't like at all because it woke them opposite me was an elderly lady in a great fur cloak who looked in the dark more like a haystack than a lady she was wrapped up to such a degree this lady had a basket with her and she hadn't known what to do with it for a long time until she found that on account of my legs being short it could go underneath me it cramped and hurt me so that it made me feel perfectly miserable but if I moved in the least and made a glass that was in the basket rattle against something else as it was sure to do she gave me the cruelest Poke with her foot and said come don't you fidget your bones are young enough I'm sure at last the sun rose and then my companions seemed to sleep easier the difficulties under which they had labored all night and which had found utterance in the most terrific gasps and snorts are not to be conceived as the sun got higher their sleep became lighter and so they gradually one by one awoke I recollect being very much surprised by The Faint everybody made then of not having been to sleep at all and by The Uncommon indignation with which everyone repelled the charge I labor under the same kind of astonishment to this day having invariably observe that of all human weaknesses the one to which our common nature is the least disposed to confess I cannot imagine why is the weakness of having gone to sleep in a coach what an amazing Place London was to me when I saw it in the distance and how I believed all the adventures of all my favorite Heroes to be constantly enacting and reenacting there and how I vaguely made it out in my own mind to be Fuller of Wonders and wickedness than all the cities of the earth I need not stop here to relate we approached it by degrees and got in due time to the Inn in the White Chapel district for which we were bound I forget whether it was the Blue bull or the Blue Boar but I know it was the blue something unless its likeness was painted upon the back of the coach the guard's eye lighted on me as he was getting down and he said at the booking office door is there anybody here for a youngster booked in the name of mdstone from blunderstone suff to be left till called for nobody answered try Copperfield if you please sir said I looking helplessly down is there anybody here for a youngster booked in the name of mdstone from blunderstone suffk but owning to the name of Copperfield to be left till called for said the guard come is there anybody no there was nobody I looked anxiously around but the inquiry made no impression on any of the bystanders if I accept a man in Gators with one eye who suggested that they had better put a brass color around my neck and tie me up in the stable a ladder was brought and I got down after the lady who was like a Hast stack not daring to stir until her basket was removed the coach was clear of passengers by that time the luggage was very soon cleared out the horses have been taken out before the luggage and now the coach itself was wheeled and backed off by some hustlers out of the way still nobody appeared to claim the dusty youngster from blunderstone suffk solitary than Robinson cruso who had nobody to look at him and see that he was solitary I went into the booking office and By Invitation of the Clark on duty passed behind the counter and sat down on the scale at which they weighed the luggage here as I sat looking at the parcels packages and books and inhaling the smell of stables ever since associated with that morning a procession of most tremendous considerations began to March through my mind supposing nobody should ever fetch me how long would they consent to keep me there would they keep me long enough to spend seven Shillings should I sleep at night in one of those wooden bins with the other luggage and wash myself at the pump in the yard in the morning or should I be turned out every night and expected to come again to be left till called for when the office opened next day supposing there was no mistake M AK in the case and Mr mdstone had devised this plan to get rid of me what should I do if they allowed me to remain there until my seven Shillings were spent I couldn't hope to remain there when I began to starve that would obviously be inconvenient and unpleasant to the customers besides entailing on the blue whatever it was the risk of funeral expenses if I started off at once and tried to walk back home how could I ever find my way how could I ever hope to walk so far how could I make sure of anyone but pegy even if I got back if I found out the nearest proper authorities and offered myself to go for a soldier or a sailor I was such a little fellow that it was most likely they wouldn't take me in these thoughts and a hundred other such thoughts turned me burning hot and made me giddy with apprehension and dismay I was in the height of my fever when a man entered and whispered ered to the Clark who presently slanted me off the scale and pushed me over to him as if I were weighed bought delivered and paid for as I went out of the office handin hand with this new acquaintance I stole a look at him he was a gaunt sow young man with Hollow cheeks and a chin almost as black as Mr murdstone's but there the likness ended for his whiskers were shaved off and his hair instead of being glossy was Rusty Y and dry he was dressed in a suit of black clothes which were rather Rusty and dry too and rather short in the sleeves and legs and he had a white neckerchief on that was not over clean I did not and do not suppose that this neckerchief was all the linen he wore but it was all he showed or gave any hint of you're the new boy he said yes sir I said I supposed I was I didn't know I'm one of the Masters at Salem House he said I made him a bow and felt very much overed I was so ashamed to allude to a commonplace thing like my box to a scholar and a master at Salem house that we had gone some little distance from the yard before I had thehood to mention it we turned back on my humbly insinuating that it might be useful to me Hereafter and he told the Clark that the carrier had instructions to call for it at noon if you please sir I said when we had accomplished about the same distance as before is it far it's down by black Heath he said is that far sir I defently asked it's a good step he said we shall go by the stage coach it's about 6 miles I was so faint and tired that the idea of Holding Out for 6 miles more was too much for me I took heart to tell him that I had had nothing all night and that if he would allow me to buy something to eat I should be very much obliged to him he appeared surprised at this I see him stop and look at me now and after considering for a few moments said he wanted to call on an old person who lived not far off and that the best way would be for me to buy some bread or whatever I liked best that was wholesome and make my breakfast at her house where we could get some milk accordingly we looked in at a Baker's window and after I had made a series of proposals to buy everything that was billias in the shop and he had rejected them one by one we decided in favor of a nice little loaf of browned bread which cost me thre then at a grocery shop we bought an egg and a slice of streaky bacon which still left what I thought a good deal of change out of the second of the bright Shillings and made me consider London a very cheap place these Provisions laid in we went on through a great noise and uproar that confused my weary head Beyond description and over a bridge which no doubt was London Bridge indeed I think he told me so but I was half asleep until we came to the poor person's house which was a part of some arms houses as I Knew by their look and by an inscription on a stone over the gate which said they were established for 25 poor women the master at Salem House lifted the latch of one of a number of little black doors that were all alike and had each a little Diamond pained window on one side and another little Diamond pane window above and we went into the little house of one of these poor old women who was blowing a fire to make a little souran boil on seeing the master enter the old woman stopped with the Bellows on her knee and said something that I thought sounded like my Charlie but on seeing me come in too she got up and rubbing her hands made a confused sort of half curtsy can you cook this young gentleman breakfast for him if you please said the master at Salem House can I said the old woman yes can I sure how's Mrs fiton today said the master looking at another old woman in a large Chair by the fire who was such a bundle of clothes that I feel grateful to this hour for not having sat upon her by mistake well she's poorly said the first old woman it's one of her bad days if the fire was to go out through any accident I verily believe she' go out too and never come to life again as they looked at her I looked at her also although it was a warm day she seemed to think of nothing but the fire I fancied she was jealous even of the sauce pan on it and I have reason to know that she took its impressment into the service of boiling my egg and broiling my bacon in dudgeon for I saw her with my own discomforted eyes shake her fist at me once when those culinary operations were going on and no one else was looking the sun streamed in at the little window but she sat with her own back and the back of the large chair towards it screening the fire as if she was sedulously keeping it warm instead of it keeping her warm and watching it in a most distrustful manner the completion of the preparations for my breakfast by relieving the fire gave her such extreme joy that she laughed aloud and a very unmelodious laugh she had I must say I sat down to my brown loaf my egg and my rasher of bacon with a basin of milk besides and made a most delicious meal while I was yet in the full enjoyment of it the old woman of the house said to the master have you got your flute with you yes he returned have a blow at it said the old woman coaxingly do the master upon this put his hand underneath the skirts of his coat and brought out his flute in in three pieces which he screwed together and began immediately to play my impression is after many years of consideration that there never can have been anybody in the world who played worse he made the most dismal sounds I've ever heard produced by any means natural or artificial I don't know what the tunes were if there were such things in the performance at all which I doubt but the influence of the strain upon me was first to make think of all my sorrows until I could hardly keep my tears back then to take away my appetite and lastly to make me so sleepy that I couldn't keep my eyes open they begin to close again and I begin to nod as the recollection Rises fresh upon me once more the little room with its open Corner cupboard and its Square backed chairs and its angular little staircase leading to the room above and its three peacock's feathers displayed over the mantlepiece I remember wondering when I first went in what that peacock would have thought if he had known what his finery was doomed to come to Fades from before me and I nod and sleep the flute becomes inaudible the wheels of the coach are heard instead and I am on my journey the coach jolts I wake with a start and the flute has come back again and the master at Salem House is sitting with his legs crossed playing it dolefully while the old woman of the house looks on delighted she fades in her turn and he Fades and all fades and there is no flute no master no Salem House no David Copperfield no anything but heavy sleep I dreamed I thought that once while he was blowing into this dismal flute the old woman of the house who had gone nearer and nearer to him in her ecstatic admiration leaned over the back of his chair hair and gave him an affectionate squeeze around the neck which stopped his playing for a moment I was in the middle State between sleeping and waking either then or immediately afterwards for as he resumed it was a real fact that he had stopped playing I saw and heard the same old woman ask Mrs fiton if it wasn't delicious meaning the flute to which Mrs fibon replied I I yes and nodded at the fire to which I am persuaded she gave the credit of the whole performance when I seemed to have been dozing a long while the master at Salem House unscrewed his flute into the three pieces put them up as before and took me away we found the coach very near at hand and got up the roof but I was so dead sleepy that when we stopped on the road to take up somebody else they put me inside where there were no passengers and where I slept profoundly until I found the coach going at a foot Pace up a steep hill among green leaves presently it stopped and had come to its destination a short walk brought us I mean the master and me to Salem House which was enclosed with a high brick wall and looked very dull over a door in this wall was a board with Salem house upon it and through a grating in this door we were surveyed when we rang the bell by a sirly face which I found on the door being opened belonged to a stout man with a bull neck a wooden leg overhanging temples and his hair cut close all around his head the new boy said the master the man with a wooden leg eyed me all over it didn't take long for there was not much of me unlocked the gate behind us and took out the key we were going up to the house among some dark heavy trees when he called after my conductor hello we looked back and he was standing at the door of a little Lodge where he lived with a pair of boots in his hand here the Cobblers Bean he said since you've been out Mr Mel and he says he can't mend them anymore he says there ain't a bit of an original boot left and he wonders you expect it with these words he threw the boots towards Mr Mel who went back a few Paces to picked them up and looked at them very disconsolately I was afraid as we went on together I observed then for the first time that the boots he had on were a good deal the worse for wear and that his stockings were just breaking out in one place like a bud Salem House was a square brick building with wings of a bare and unfurnished appearance all about it was so very quiet that I said to Mr Mel I suppose the boys were out but he seemed surprised at my not knowing that it was holiday time that all the boys were at their several homes that Mr creal the proprietor was down by the seaside with Mrs and miss creal and that I was sent in holiday time as a punishment for my misdoing all of which she explained to me as we went along I gazed upon the school room into which she took me as the most foror and desolate place I had ever seen I see it now a long room with three long rows of desks and six of forms and bristling all round with pegs for hats and slates scrap of old copy books and exercises litter the dirty floor some silkor worm's houses made of the same materials are scattered over the desks two miserable little white mice left behind by their owner are running up and down in a fusty castle made of pasteboard and wire looking in all the corners with their red eyes for anything to eat a bird in a cage very little bigger than himself makes a mournful rattle now and then in hopping on his perch 2 Ines High or dropping from it but neither sings nor chirps there is a strange UNH wholesome smell upon the room like miled corduroys sweet apples wanting air and rotten books there could not well be more ink splashed about it if it had been ruthless from its first construction and the skies had rained snowed hailed and blown ink through the varying seasons of the Year Mr Mel having left me while he took his irreparable boots upstairs I went Softly to the upper end of the room observing all this as I crept along suddenly I Came Upon A pasteboard placard beautifully written which was lying on the desk and bore these words take care of him he bites I got upon the desk immediately apprehensive of at least a great dog underneath but though I looked all around with anxious eyes I could see nothing of him I was still engaged in peering about when Mr Mel came back and asked me what I did up there I beg your pardon sir says I if you please I'm looking for the dog dog says he what dog isn't it a dog sir isn't what a dog that's to be taken care of Sir that bites no Copperfield says he Gravely that's not a dog that's a boy my instructions are Copperfield to put this placard on your back I am sorry to make such a beginning with you but I must do it with that he took me down and tied the placard which was neatly constructed for the purpose on my shoulders like a knapsack and wherever I went afterwards I had the consolation of carrying it what I suffered from that placard nobody can imagine whether it was possible for people to see me or not I always fancied that somebody was reading it it was no relief to turn around and find nobody for wherever my back was there I imagined somebody always to be that cruel man with a wooden leg aggravated my sufferings he was in authority and if he ever saw me leaning against a tree or a wall or the house he roared out from his lodge door in a stupendous voice hello you sir you Copperfield show that badge conspicuous or I'll report you the playground was a bare graveled yard open to all the back of the house and the offices and I knew that the servants read it and the butcher read it and the baker read it that everybody in a word who came backwards and forwards to the house of a morning when I was ordered to walk there read that I was to be taken care of for I bit I recollect that I positively began to have a dread of myself as a kind of wild boy who did bite there was an old door in this playground on which the boys had a custom of carving their names it was completely covered with such inscriptions in my dread of the end of the vacation and their coming back I could not read a boy's name without inquiring in what tone and with what emphasis he would read take care of him he bites there was one boy a certain J steerforth who cut his name very deep and very often who I conceived would read it in a rather strong voice and afterwards pull my hair there was another boy one Tommy tles who I dreaded with make game of it and pretend to be dreadfully frightened of me there was a third George dle who I fancied would sing it I have looked a little shrinking creature at that door until the owners of all the names there were five and 40 of them in the school then Mr Mel said seemed to send me to Coventry by General acclamation and to cry out each in his own way take care of him he bites it was the same with the places at the desks and forms it was the same with the Groves of deserted bedsteads I peeped at on my way to and when I was in my own bed I remember dreaming night after night of being with my mother as she used to be or of going to a party at Mr Peg's or of traveling outside the stage coach or of dining again with my unfortunate friend the waiter and in all these circumstances making people scream and stare by the unhappy disclosure that I had nothing on but my little night shirt and that placard in the monotony of my life and in my constant apprehension of the reopening of the school it was such an insupportable Affliction I had long tasks every day to do with Mr Mel but I did them there being no Mr and miss mdstone here and got through them without disgrace before and after them I walked about supervised as I have mentioned by the man with a wooden leg how vividly I call to mind The Damp about the house the green cracked flag stones in the court an old leaky water butt and the discolored trunks of some of the Grim trees which seemed to have dripped more in the rain than other trees and to have blown Less in the Sun at one we dined Mr Mel and I at the upper end of a long bare dining room full of deal tables and smelling of fat then we had more tasks until tea which Mr Mel drank out of a blue teacup and I out of a tint pot all day long and until 7 or 8 in the evening Mr Mel at his own detached desk in the school room worked hard with pen ink ruler books and writing paper making out the bills as I found for last half year when he had put up his things for the night he took out his flute and blew at it until I almost thought he would gradually blow his whole being into the large hole at the top and ooze away at the keys I picture my small self in the dimly lighted rooms sitting with my head upon my hand listening listening to the doleful performance of Mr Mel and conning tomorrow's lessons I picture myself with my book shut up still listening to the doleful performance of Mr Mel and listening through it to what used to be at home and to the blowing of the Wind on Yarmouth flats and feeling very sad and solitary I picture myself going up to bed among the unused rooms and sitting on my bedside crying for a comfortable word from pegy I picture self coming downstairs in the morning and looking through a long ghastly gash of a staircase window at the school bell hanging on the top of an ouse with a weathercock above it and dreading the time when it shall ring Jay steerforth and the rest to work which is only second in my forboding apprehensions to the time when the man with the wooden leg shall unlock the Rusty Gate to give admission to the awful Mr creal I cannot think I was a very dangerous character in any of these aspects but in all of them I carried the same warning on my back Mr Mel never said much to me but he was never harsh to me I suppose we were accompany to each other without talking I forgot to mention that he would talk to himself sometimes and grin and clench his fist and grind his teeth and pull his hair in an unaccountable manner but he had these peculiarities and at first they frightened me though I soon got used to them chapter 6 I enlarge my circle of acquaintance I had led this life about a month when the man with the wooden leg began to stump about with a mop and a bucket of water from which I inferred that preparations were making to receive Mr creal and the boys I was not mistaken for the mop came into the school room before long and turned out Mr Mel and me who lived where we could and got on how we could for some days during which we were always in the way of two or three young women who had rarely shown themselves before and were so continually in the midst of dust that I sneezed almost as much as if Salem House had been a great snuffbox one day I was informed by Mr Mel that Mr creal would be home that evening in the evening after tea I heard that he was come before bedtime I was fetched by the man with the wooden leg to appear before him Mr creal part of the house was a good deal more comfortable than ours and he had a snug bit of garden that looked Pleasant after the dusty playground which was such a desert in miniature that I thought no one but a camel or a drumry could have felt at home in it it seemed to me a bold thing even to take notice that the passage looked comfortable as I went on my way trembling to Mr creel's presence which so abashed me when I was ushered into it that I hardly saw Mrs creal or Miss creal who were both there in the Parlor or anything but Mr cre a stout gentleman with a bunch of Watch chain and seals in an armchair with a tumbler and bottle beside him so said Mr creal this is the young gentleman whose teeth are to be filed turn him around the wooden-legged man turned me about so as to exhibit the placard and having afforded time for a full survey of it turned me about again with my face to Mr creal and posted himself at Mr Cal's side Mr Cal's face was fiery and his eyes were small and deep in his head he had thick veins in his forehead a little nose and a large chin he was bald on the top of his head and had some Thin wet looking hair that was just turning gray brushed across each Temple so that the two sides interlaced on his forehead but the circumstance about him which impressed me most was that he had no voice but spoke in a whisper the exertion this cost Hime or the consciousness of talking in that feeble way made his angry face so much more angry and his thick veins so much thicker when he spoke that I am not surprised on looking back at this peculiarity striking me as his chief one no said Mr creal what's the report of this boy there's nothing against him yet returned the man with a wooden leg there has been no opportunity I thought Mr creal was disappointed I thought Mrs and Miss creal at whom I now glanced for the first time and who were both thin and quiet were not disappointed come here sir said Mr creal beckoning to me come here said the man with a wooden leg repeating the gesture I have the happiness of knowing your father-in-law whispered Mr greal taking me by the ear and a worthy man he is and a man of a strong character he knows me and I know him do you know me eh said Mr creal pinching my ear with ferocious playfulness not yet sir I said flinching with pain not yet hey repeated Mr creal but you will soon hey you will soon he repeated the man with the wooden leg I afterwards found that he generally acted with his strong voice as Mr Cal's interpreter to the boys I was very much frightened and said I hoped so if he pleased I felt all this while as if my ear were blazing he pinched it so hard I tell you what I am whispered Mr creal letting it go at last with a screw at parting that brought the water into my eyes I'm a tartter a tartter said the man with a wooden leg when I say I'll do a thing I do it said Mr creal and when I say I will have a thing done I will have it done will have a thing done I will have it done repeated the man with the wooden leg I am a determined character said Mr creal that's what I am I do my duty that's what I do my flesh and blood he looked at Mrs creal as he said this when it rises against me is not my flesh and blood I disgard it has that fellow to the man with a wooden leg been here again no was the answer no said Mr creal he knows better he knows me let him keep away I say let him keep away said Mr creal striking his hand upon the table and looking at Mrs for he knows me now you have begun to know me too my young friend and you may go take him away I was very glad to be ordered away for Mrs and Miss creal were both wiping their eyes and I felt as uncomfortable for them as I did for myself but I had a petition on my mind which concerned me so nearly that I couldn't help saying though I wondered at my own courage if you please Sir Mr creal whispered ah what's this and bent his eyes upon me as if he would have burned me up with them if you please sir I faltered if I might be allowed I'm very sorry indeed sir for what I did to take this writing off before the boys come back whether Mr creal was in Earnest or whether he only did it to frighten me I don't know but he made a burst out of his chair before which I proceed precipitately retreated without waiting for the escort of the man with the wooden leg and never once stopped until I reached my own bedroom where finding I was not pursued I went to bed as it was time and lay quaking for a couple of hours next morning Mr Sharp came back Mr Sharp was the first master and Superior to Mr Mel Mr Mel took his meals with the boys but Mr Sharp dined and SED at Mr creel's table he was a limp delicate looking gentleman I thought with a good deal of nose and a way of carrying his head on one side as if it were a little too heavy for him his hair was very smooth and wavy but I was informed by the very first boy who came back that it was a wig a secondhand one he said and that Mr Sharp went out every Saturday afternoon to get it curled it was no other than Tommy trattles who gave me this piece of intelligence he he was the first boy who returned he introduced himself by informing me that I should find his name on the right hand corner of the gate over the top bolt upon that I said traddles to which he replied the same and then he asked me for a full account of myself and family it was a happy circumstance for me that tles came back first he enjoyed my placard so much that he saved me from the embarrassment of either disclosure or concealment by presenting me to to every other boy who came back great or small immediately on his arrival in this form of introduction look here here's a game happily too the great part of the boys came back low-spirited and were not so boisterous at my expense as I had expected some of them certainly did dance about me like wild Indians and the greater part could not resist the temptation of pretending that I was a dog and patting and smoothing me lest I should bite and saying lie down sir and called me touser this was naturally confusing among so many strangers and cost me some tears but on the whole it was much better than I had anticipated I was not considered as being forly received into the school however until Jay steerforth arrived before this boy who was reputed to be a great scholar and was very good-looking and at least half a dozen years my senior carried as before a magistrate he inquired under a shed in the playground into the particulars of My Punishment and was pleased to express his opinion that it was a jolly shame for which I became bound to him ever afterwards what money have you got Copperfield he said walking aside with me when he had disposed of my Affair in these terms I told him seven Shillings you had better give it to me to take care of he said at least you can if you like you needn't if you don't like I hastened to comply with his friendly suggestion and opening Peg's purse turned it upside down into his hand do you want to spend anything now he asked me no thank you I replied you can if you like you know said steerforth say the word no thank you sir I repeated perhaps you'd like to spend a couple of Shillings or so in a bottle of current wine by and by up in the bedroom said steerforth you belong to my bedroom I find it certainly had not occurred to me before but I said yes I I should like that very good said steerforth you'll be glad to spend another Shilling or so in armant cakes I dare say I said yes I should like that too and another Shilling or so in biscuits and another in Fruit eh said steerforth I say young Copperfield you're going it I smiled because he smiled but I was a little troubled in my mind too well said steerforth we must make it stretch as far as we can that's all I'll do the best in my power for you I can go out when I like and I'll smuggle the prg in with these words he put the money in his pocket and kindly told me not to make myself uneasy he would take care it should be all all right he was as good as his word if that were all right which I had a secret misgiving was nearly all wrong for I feared it was a waste of my mother's two half crowns though I had preserved the piece of paper they were wrapped in which was a precious saving when we went upstairs to bed he produced the whole seven Shillings worth and laid it out on my bed in the Moonlight saying there you are young Copperfield and a royal spread you've got I couldn't think of doing the honors of the Feast at my time of life while he was by my hand Shook at the very thought of it it I begged him to do me the favor of presiding and my request being seced by the other boys who were in that room he acceded to it and sat upon my pillow handing around the Von with perfect fairness I must say and dispensing the current wine in a little glass without a foot which was his own property as to me I sat on his left hand and the rest were grouped about us on the nearest beds and on the floor how well I recollect our are sitting there talking in Whispers or their talking and my respectfully listening I ought rather to say the Moonlight falling a little way into the room through the window painting a pale window on the floor and the greater part of us in Shadow except when steerforth dipped A Match Into A phosphorus box when he wanted to look for anything on the board and shed a blue glare over us that was gone directly a certain mysterious feeling consequent on the darkness the secreet of the Rebel and the whisper in which everything was said steals over me again and I listen to all they tell me with a vague feeling of solemnity and awe which makes me glad that they are all so near and frightens me though I faint to laugh when trattles pretends to see a ghost in the corner I heard all kinds of things about the school and all belonging to it I heard that Mr creal had not preferred his claim to being a tartar without reason that he was the sternest and most most severe of Masters that he laid about him right and left every day of his life charging in among the boys like a trooper and slashing away unmercifully that he knew nothing himself but the art of slashing being more ignorant Jay steerforth said than the lowest boy in the school that he had been a good many years ago a small hop dealer in the burough and had taken to the schooling business after being bankrupt in Hops and making a way with Mrs Cal's money with a good deal more of that sort which I wondered how they knew I heard that the man with the wooden leg whose name was tongi was an obstinate Barbarian who had forly assisted in the hot business but had come into the Scholastic line with Mr creal in consequence as was supposed among the boys of his having broken his leg in Mr Cal's service and having done a deal of dishonest work for him and knowing his Secrets I heard that with the single exception of Mr creal tongay considered the whole establishment Masters and boys as his natural enemies and that the only Delight of his life was to be sour and malicious I heard that Mr creal had a son who had not been tung's friend and who assisting in the school had once held some remonstrance with his father on an occasion when its discipline was very cruy exercised and was supposed besides to have protested against his father's usage of his mother I heard that Mr creal had turned him out of doors in consequence and that Mrs and Miss creal had been in a sad way ever since but the greatest wonder that I heard of Mr creal was there being one boy in school on whom he never ventured to lay a hand and that boy being Jay steerforth steerforth himself confirmed this when it was stated and said that he should like to begin to see him do it on being asked by a mild boy not me how he would proceed if he did begin to see him do it he dipped A Match Into His phosphorous box on purpose to shed a glare over his reply and said he would commence by knocking him down with a blow on the forehead from the seven and six spny ink bottle that was always on the mantle piece we sat in the dark for some time breathless I heard that Mr Sharp and Mr Mel were both supposed to be wretchedly paid and that when there was hot and cold meat for dinner at Mr creel's table Mr Sharp was always expected to say he preferred cold which was again corroborated by Jay steerforth the only parlor border I heard that Mr Sharp's wig didn't fit him and that he needn't be so bounceable somebody else said bumptious about it because his own red hair was very plainly to be seen behind I heard that one boy who was a coal Merchant's son came as a set off against the co Bill and was called on that account exchange or barter a name selected from the arithmetic book as expressing this arrangement I heard that the table beer was a robbery of parents and the pudding an imposition I heard that Miss creal was regarded by the school in general as being in love with steerforth and I'm sure as I sat in the dark thinking of his nice voice and his fine face and his easy Manner and his curling hair I thought it very likely I heard that Mr Mel was not a bad sort of fellow but hadn't a Sixpence to bless himself with and that there was no doubt that old Mrs Mel his mother was as poor as job I thought of my breakfast then and what had sounded like my Charlie but I was I am glad to remember as mute as a mouse about it the hearing of all this and a good deal more outlasted the banquet some time the greater part of the guests had gone to bed as soon as the eating and drinking were over and we who had remained whispering and listening half undressed at last betook ourselves to bed too good night young Copperfield said steerforth I'll take care of you you're very kind I gratefully returned I'm very much obliged to you you haven't got a sister have you said steer forth yawning no I answered that's a Pity said steerforth if you'd had one I should think she would have been a pretty timid little bright-eyed sort of girl I should have liked to know her good night young CFI good night sir I replied I thought of him very much after I went to bed and raised myself I recollect to look at him where he lay in the Moonlight with his handsome face turned up and his head reclining easily on his arm he was a person of great power in my eyes that was of course the reason of my mind running on him no veiled future dimly glanced upon him in the moon beams there was no shadowy picture of his footsteps in the garden that I dreamed of walking in all night