had been so intimate with them in their distresses, and was
so utterly friendless without them, that the prospect of being
thrown upon some new shift for a lodging, and going once
more among unknown people, was like being that moment
turned adrift into my present life, with such a knowledge of
DAVID COPPERFIELD. 175
it ready made, as experience had given me. All the sensi-
tive feelings it wounded so cruelly, all the shame and misery
it kept alive within my breast, became more poignant as I
thought of this ; and I determined that the life was unen-
durable.
That there was no hope of escape from it, unless the es-
cape was my own act, I knew quite well. I rarely heard
from Miss Murdstone, and never from Mr. Murdstone : but
two or three parcels of made or mended clothes had come
up for me, consigned to Mr. Quinion, and in each there was
a scrap of paper to the effect that J. M. trusted D. C. was
applying himself to business, and devoting himself wholly
to his duties — not the least hint of my ever being anything
else than the common drudge into which I was fast set-
tling down.
The very next day showed me, while my mind was in the
first agitation of what it had conceived, that Mrs. Micawber
had not spoken of their going away without warrant. They
took a lodging in the house where I lived, for a week ; at
the expiration of which time they were to start for Plymouth.
Mr. Micawber himself came down to the counting-house, in
the afternoon, to tell Mr. Quinion that he must relinquish me
on the day of his departure, and to give me a high character,
which I am sure I deserved. And Mr. Quinion, calling in
Tipp the carman, who was a married man, and had a room
to let, quartered me prospectively on him — by our mutual
consent, as he had every reason to think ; for I said nothing,
though my resolution was now taken.
I passed my evenings with Mr. and Mrs. Micawber, during
the remaining term of our residence under the same roof ;
and I think we became fonder of one another as the time
went on. On the last Sunday, they invited me to dinner ;
and we had a loin of pork and apple sauce, and a pudding.
I had bought a spotted wooden horse over-night as a parting
gift to little Wilkins Micawber — that was the boy-^and a doll
for little Emma. I had also bestowed a shilling on the Or-
fling, who was about to be disbanded.
We had a very pleasant day, though we were all in a tender
state about our approaching separation.
" I shall never, Master Copperfield," said Mrs. Micawber,
" revert to the period when Mr. Micawber was in difficulties,
without thinking of you. Yqur conduct has always been of
the most delicate and obliging description. You have never
been a lodger. You have been a friend."
176 DAVID COPPERFIELD.
" My dear," said Mr, Micawber ; " Copperfield," for so he
had been accustomed to call me, of late, " has a heart to feel
for the distresses of his fellow creatures when they are behind
a cloud, and a head to plan, and a hand to in short, a
general ability to dispose of such available property as could
be made away with."
I expressed my sense of this commendation, and said I
was very sorry we were going to lose one another.
" My dear young friend/' said Mr. Micawber^ " I am older
than you ; a man of some experience in life, and — and of
some experience, in short, in difficulties generally speaking.
At present, and until something turns up (which I am, I may
say, hourly expecting), I have nothing to bestow but advice.
Still my advice is so far worth taking, that — in short, that I
have never taken it myself, and am the " — here Mr. Micaw-
ber, who had been beaming and smiling, all over his head
and face, up to the present moment, checked himself and
frowned — " the miserable wretch you behold."
" My dear Micawber !" urged his wife.
*' I say," returned Mr. Micawber, quite forgetting himself,
and smiling again, " the miserable wretch you behold. My
advice is, never do to-morrow what you can to-day. Pro-
crastination is the thief of time. Collar him."
" My poor papa's maxim," Mrs. Micawber observed.
" My dear," said Mr. Micawber, " your papa was very well
in his way, and heaven forbid that I should disparage him.
Take him for all in all, we ne'er shall — in short, make the
acquaintance, probably, of anybody else possessing at his
time of life, the same legs for gaiters, and able to read the
same description of print, without spectacles. But he ap-
plied that maxim to our marriage, my dear ; and that was so
far prematurely entered into, in consequence, that I never
recovered the expense."
Mr. Micawber looked aside, at Mrs. Micawber, and added:
" Not that I am sorry for it. Quite the contrary, my love."
After which he was grave for a minute or so.
*' My other piece of advice, Copperfield," said Mr. Micaw-
ber, " you know. Annual income twenty pounds, annual
expenditures nineteen ought and six, result happiness. An-
nual income, twenty pounds, annual expenditures twenty
pounds ought and six, result misery. The blossom is blighted,
the leaf is withered, the god of day goes down upon the
dreary scene, and — and, in short, you are forever floored.
As I am."
DAVID COPPERFIELD. 177
To make his exaiAple the more impressive, Mr. Micawber
drank a glass of punch with an air of great enjoyment and
satisfaction, and whistled the College Hornpipe.
I did not fail to assure him that I would store these pre-
cepts in my mind, though indeed I had no need to do so,
for at the time they affected me visibly. Next morning I met
the whole family at the coach-office, and saw them with a
desolate heart, take their places outside, at the back.
" Master Copperfield," said Mrs. Micawber. " God bless
you ! I never can forget all that, you know, and I never
would if I could."
" Copperfield," said Mr. Micawber, " farewell ! Every
happiness and prosperity ! If, in the progress of revolving
years, I could persuade myself that my blighted destiny had
been a warning to you, I should feel that I had not occupied
another man's place in existence altogether in vain. In case
of anything turning up (of which I am rather confident), I
shall be extremely happy if it should be in my power to im-
prove your prospects."
I think, as Mrs. Micawber sat at the back of the coach,
with the children, and I stood in the road looking wistfully
at them, a mist cleared from her eyes, and she saw what a
little creature I really was. I think so, because she beckoned
me to climb up with quite a new and motherly expression in
her face, and put her arm round my neck, and gave me just
such a kiss as she might have given to her own boy. liad
barely time to get down again before the coach started, and
I could hardly see the family for the handkerchiefs they
waved. It was gone in a minute. The Orfiing and I stood
looking vacantly at each other in the middle of the road,
and then shook hands and said good-by ; she going back, I
suppose, to Saint Luke's workhouse, as I went to begin my
weary day at Murdstone and Grinby's.
But with no intention of passing many more weary days
there. No. I had resolved to run away. — To go, by some
means or other, down into the country, to the only relation
I had in the world, and tell my story to my aunt, Miss Betsey.
I have already observed that I don't know how this des-
perate idea came into my brain. But, once there, it remained
there; and hardened into a purpose than which I have never
entertained a more determined purpose in my life. I am
far from sure that I believed there was anything hopeful in
it, but my mind was thoroughly made up that it must be car«>
ried into execution.
178 DAVID COPPERFIELD.
Again and again, and a hundred times again, since the
night when the thought had first occurred to me and ban-
ished sleep, I had gone over that old story of my poor
mother's, about my birth, which it had been one of my great
delights in the old time to hear her tell and which I knew
by heart. My aunt walked into that story, and walked out
of it, a dread and awful personage ; but there was one little
trait in her behavior which I liked to dwell on, and which
gave me some faint shadow of encouragement. I could not
forget how my mother had thought that she felt her touch
her pretty hair with no ungentle hand ; and though it might
have been altogether my mother's fancy, and might have had
no foundation whatever in fact, I made a little picture, out
of it, of my terrible aunt relenting towards the girlish beauty
that I recollected so well and loved so much, which softened
the whole narrative. It is very possible that it had been in
my mind a long time, and had gradually engendered my de-
termination.
As I did not even know where Miss Betsey lived, I wrote
a long letter to Peggotty, and asked her, incidentally, if she
remembered ; pretending that I had heard of such a lady
living at a certain place I named at random, and had a
curiosity to know if it were the same. In the course of that
letter, I told Peggotty that I had a particular occasion for
half a guinea ; and that if she could lend me that sum until
I cDuld repay it, I should be very much obliged to her, and
would tell her afterwards what I wanted it for.
Peggotty's answer soon arrived, and was, as usual, full of
affectionate devotion. She enclosed the half guinea (I was
afraid she must have had a world of trouble to get it out'of
Mr. Barkis's box), and told me that Miss Betsey lived near
Dover, but whether at Dover itself, at Hythe, Sandgate, or
Folkstone, she could not say. One of our men, however,
informing me on my asking him about these places, that
they were all close together, I deemed this enough for my
object, and resolved to set out at the end of that week.
Being a very honest little creature, and unwilling to dis-
grace the memory I was going to leave behind me at Murd-
stone and Grinby's, I considered myself bound to remain
until Saturday night; and, as I had been paid a week's wages
in advance when I first came there, not to present myself
in the counting-house at the usual hour, to receive my
stipend, Fpr this expre?;^ xeason, I had borrowed the half-
UAVID COPPERFIELD. 179
guinea, that I might not be without a fund for my travelling-
expenses. Accordingly, when the Saturday night came, and
we were all waiting in the warehouse to be paid, and 'i'ipp
the carman, who always took precedence, went in first to
draw his money, I shook Mick Walker by the hand ; asked
him when it came to his turn to be paid, to say to Mr.
Quinion that I had gone to move my box to Tipp's ; and,
bidding a last good-night to Mealy Potatoes, ran away.
My box was at my old lodging, over the water, and I had
written a direction for it on the back of one of our address
cards that we nailed on the casks : " Master David, to be
left till called for, at the Coach Office, Dover." This I had
in my pocket ready to put on the box, after I should have
got it out of the house ; and as I went towards my lodging,
I looked about me for some one who would help me to carry
it to the booking-office.
There was a long-legged young man with a very little
empty donkey-cart, standing near the Obelisk, in the Black-
friars Road, whose eye I caught as I was going by, and who
addressed me as "Sixpenn'orth of bad ha'pence," hoped
*' I should know him agin to swear to " — in allusion, I have
no doubt, to my staring at him. I stopped to assure him
that I had not done so in bad manners, but uncertain
whether he might or might not like a job.
" Wot job?" said the long-legged' young man.
" To move a box,"' I answered.
" Wot box ! ' said the long-legged young man.
I told him mine, which was down that street there, and
which I wanted him to take to the Dover coach-office for
sixpence.
'* Done with you for a tanner ! " said the long-legged young
man, and directly got upon his cart, which was nothing but
a large wooden-tray on wheels, and rattled away at such a
rate, that it was as much as I could do to keep pace with the
donkey.
There was a defiant manner about this young man, and
particularly about the way in which he chewed straw as he
spoke to me, that I did not much like ; as the bargain was
made, however, I took him up-stairs to the room I was leav-
ing, and we brought the box down, and put it on his cart.
Now, I was unwilling to put the direction-card on there,
lest any of my landlord's family should fathom what I was
doing, and detain me ; so I said to the young man that I
would be glad if he would stop for a minute, when he came
i«o DAVID COPPERFIELD.
to the dead-wall of the King's Bench prison. The words
were no sooner out of my mouth, than he rattled away as if
he, my box, the cart, and the donkey, were all equally mad;
and I was quite out of breath with running and calling after
him, when I caught him at the place appointed.
Being much flushed and excited, I tumbled my half-guinea
out of my pocket in pulling the card out> I put it in my
mouth for safety, and though my hands trembled a good
deal, had just tied the card on very much to my satisfaction,,
when I felt myself violently chuckled under the chin by the
long-legged young man, and saw my half-guinea fly out of
my mouth into his hand.
** Wot !" said the young man, seizing me by my jacket
collar, with a frightful grin. " This is a pollis case, is it ?
You're a going to bolt, are you ? Come to the polHs, you
young warmin, come to the pollis !"
" You give me my money back, if you please," said I, very
much frightened; *'and leave me alone."
"Come to the pollis !" said the young man. "You shall
prove it yourn to the pollis."
" Give me my box and money, will you," I cried, bursting
into tears.
The young man still replied: "Come to the pollis !" and
was dragging me against the donkey in a violent manner, as
if there were any aflinity between that animal and a magis-
trate, when he changed his mind, jumped into the cart, sat
upon my box, and, exclaiming that he would drive to the
pollis straight, rattled away harder than ever.
I ran after him as fast as I could, but I had no breath to
call out with, and should not have dared to call out, now,
if I had. I narrowly escaped being run over, twenty times
at least, in half a mile. Now I lost him, now I saw him,
now I lost him, now I was cut at with a whip, now shouted
at, now down in the mud, now up again, now running into
somebody's arms, now running headlong at a post. At
length, confused by fright and heat, and doubting whether
half London might not by this time be turned out for my
apprehension, I left the young man to go where he would
with my box and money; and, panting and crying, but never
stopping, faced about for Greenwich, which I had understood
was on the Dover Road: taking very little more out of the
world, towards the retreat of my aunt, Miss Betsey, than I
had brought into it, on the night when my arrival gave her
so much umbrage.
DAVID COPPERFIELD. i8i
CHAPTER XIII.
THE SEQUEL OF MY RESOLUTION.
"For anything I know, I may have had some wild idea of
running all the way to Dover, when I gave up the pursuit of
the young man with the donkey cart, and started for Green-
wich. My scattered senses were soon collected as to that
point, if I had; for I came to a stop in the Kent Road, at a
terrace with a piece of water before it, and a great foolish
image in the middle, blowing a dry shell. Here I sat down
on a door-step, quite spent and exhausted with the efforts I
had already made, and with hardly breath enough to cry for
the loss of my box and half-guinea.
It was by this time dark; I heard the clocks strike ten, as
I sat resting. But it was a summer night, fortunately, and
fine weather. When I had recovered my breath, and had
got rid of a stifling sensation in my throat, I rose up and
went on. In the midst of my distress, I had no notion of
going back. I doubt if I should have had any, though there
had been a Swiss snow-drift in the Kent Road.
But my standing possessed of only three-halfpence in the
world (and I am sure I wonder how they came to be left in
my pocket on a Saturday night) troubled me none the less
because I went on. I began to picture to myself, as a scrap
of newspaper intelligence, my being found dead in a day or
two, under some hedge; and I trudged on miserably, though
as fast as I could, until I happened to pass a little shop,
where it was written up that ladies' and gentlemen's ward-
robes were bought, and that the best price was given for
rags, bones, and kitchen-stuff. The master of this shop was
sitting at the door in his shirt sleeves, smoking; and as there
were a great many coats and pairs of trowsers dangling from
the low ceiling, and only two feeble candles burning inside
to show what they were, I fancied that he looked like a man
of revengeful disposition, who had hung all his enemies, and
was enjoying himself.
My late experience with Mr. and Mrs. Micawber suggested
to me that here might be the means of keeping off the wolf
for a little while. I went up the next by-street, took off my
waistcoat, rolled it neatly under my arm, and came back to
the shop-door. " If you please, sir," I said, " I am to sell
this for a fair price."
i82 DAVID COPPERFIELD.
Mt DoUoby — Dolloby was the name over the shop-door,
at least — took the waistcoat, stood his pipe on its head
against the door-post, went into the shop, followed by me,
snuffed the two candles with his fingers, spread the waistcoat
on the counter and looked at it there, held it up against the
light, and looked at it there, and ultimately said:
" What do you call a price, now, for this here little
weskit ?"
*' Oh ! you know best, sir," I returned, modestly.
" I can't be buyer and seller, too," said Mr. Dolloby.
" Put a price on this here little weskit."
" Would eighteen pence be " — I hinted, after some hesita-
tion.
Mr. Dolloby rolled it up again, and gave it me back. " I
should rob my family," he said, ^' if I was to offer ninepence
for it."
This was a disagreeable way of putting the business; be-
cause it imposed on me, a perfect stranger, the unpleasant-
ness of asking Mr. Dolloby to rob his family on my account.
My circumstances being so very pressing, however, I said I
would take ninepence for it, if he pleased. Mr. Dolloby, not
â– (vithout some considerable grumbling, gave ninepence. I
wished him good night, and walked out of the shop, the
richer by that sum, and the poorer by a waistcoat. But when
[ buttoned my jacket, that was not much.
Indeed, I foresaw pretty clearly that my jacket would go
next, and that I should have to make the best of my way to
Dover in a shirt and pair of trowsers, and might deem my-
$elf lucky if I got there in that trim. But my mind did not
run so much on this as might be supposed. Beyond a gen-
eral impression of the distance before me, and of the young
man with the donkey-cart having used me cruelly, I think I
had no very urgent sense of my difficulties when I once again
Bet off with my ninepence in my pocket.
A plan had occurred to me for passing the night, which I
was going to carry into execution. This was, to lie behind
the wall at the back of my old school, in a corner where
there used to be a haystack. I imagined it would be a kind
of company to have the boys, and the bed-room where I
used to tell the stories, so near me: although the boys would
know nothing of my being there, and the bed-room would
yield me no shelter.
I had had a hard day's work, and was pretty well jaded
DAVID COPPERFIELD. 183
when I came climbing out, at last, upon the level of Black-
heath. It cost me some trouble to find out Salem House;
but I found it, and I found a haystack in the corner, and
I lay down by it; having first walked round the wall, and
looked up at the windows, and seen that all was dark and
silent within. Never shall I forget the lonely sensation of
first lying down, without a roof above my head !
Sleep came upon me as it came on many other outcasts,
against whom house-doors were locked, and house-dogs
barked, that night — and I dreamed of lying on my old school
bed, talking to the boys in my room; and found myself
sitting upright, wdth Steerforth's name upon my lips, looking
wildly at the stars that were glistening and glimmering above
me. When I remembered where I was at that untimely
hour, a feeling stole upon me that made me get up, afraid
of I don't know what, and walk about. But the fainter
glimmering of the stars, and the pale light in the sky where
the day was coming, reassured me: and my eyes being very
heavy, I lay down again, and slept — though with a know-
ledge in my sleep that it was cold — until the warm beams
of the sun, and the ringing of the getting-up bell at Salem
House, awoke me. If I could have hoped that Steerforth
was there, I would have lurked about until he came out
alone; but I knew he must have left long since. Traddles
still remained, perhaps, but it was very doubtful; and I had
not sufficient confidence in his discretion or good luck, how-
ever strong my reliance was on his good-nature, to wish to
trust him with my situation. So I crept away from the wall
as Mr. Creakle's boys were getting up, and struck into the
long dusty track which I had first known to be the Dover
road when I was one of them, and when I little expected
that any eyes would ever see the wayfarer I was now, upon it.
What a different Sunday morning from the old Sunday
morning at Yarmouth ! In due time I heard the church-
bells ringing, as I plodded on; and I met people who were
going to church; and I passed a church or two where the
congregation were inside, and the sound of singing came out
into the sunshine, while the beadle sat and cooled himself in
the shade of the porch, or stood beneath the yew.-tree, with
his hand to his forehead, glowering at me going by. But the
peace and rest of the old Sunday morning were on every-
thing, except me. That was the difference. I felt quite
wicked in my dirt and dust, and with my tangled hair. But
154 DAVID COPPERFIELD.
for the quiet picture I had conjured up, of my mother in her
youth and beauty, weeping by the fire, and my aunt relent-
ing to her, I hardly think I should have had courage to go
on until next day. But it always went before me, and I fol-
lowed.
I got, that Sunday, through three-and-twenty miles on the
straight road, though not very easily, for I was ne^' to that
kind of toil. I see myself, as evening closes in, coming over
the bridge at Rochester, footsore and tired, and eating br ad
hat I had bought for supper. One or two little houses,
with the notice, " Lodgings for Travelers," hanging out, had
tempted me; but I was afraid of spending the few pence I
had, and was even more afraid of the vicious looks of the
trampers I had met or overtaken. I sought no shelter,
therefore, but the sky; and toiling into Chatham, — which,
in that night's aspect, is a mere dream of chalk, and draw-
bridges, and mastless ships in a muddy river, roofed like
Noah's arks, — crept, at last, upon a sort of grass-grown bat-
lery overhanging a lane, where a sentry was walking to and
fro. Here I lay down, near a cannon; and, happy in the
society of the sentry's footsteps, though he knew no more
of my being above him than the boys at Salem House had
known of my lying by the wall, slept soundly until morning.
Very stiff and sore of foot I was in the morning, and quite
dazed by the beating of drums and marching of troops,
which seemed to hem me in on every side when I went
down towards the long, narrow street. Feeling that I could
go but a very little way that day, if I were to reserve my
strength for getting to my journey's end, I resolved to make
the sale of my jacket its principal business. Accordingly, I
took the jacket off, that I might learn to do without it; and
carrying it under my arm, began a tour of inspection of the
various slop-shops.
It was a likely place to sell a jacket in; for the dealers
in second-hand clothes wdre numerous, and were, generally
speaking, on the look-out for customers at their shop-doors.
But as most of them had, hanging up among their stock, an
officer's coat or two, epaulets and all, I was rendered
timid by tlie costly nature of their dealings, and walked
about {o¥ a long time without offering my merchandise to
any one.
This modesty of mine directed my attention to the marine-
store shops, and such shops as Mr. Dolloby's, in preference
DAVID COPPERFIELD. 185
to the regular dealers. At last I found one that I thought
looked promising, at the corner of a dirty lane, ending in
an inclosure full of stinging nettles, against the palings of