by marrying the baker.

The room was as neat as Janet or my aunt. As I laid
down my pen, a moment since, to think of it, the air from
the sea came blowing in again mixed with the perfume of
the flowers; and I saw the old-fashioned furniture brightly
rubbed and polished, my aunt's inviolable chair and table
by the round green fan in the bow-w^indow, the drugget-
covered carpet, the cat, the kettle-holder, the two canaries,
the old china, the punchbowl full of dried rose leaves, the
tall press guarding all sorts of bottles and pots, and, wonder-
fully out of keeping with the rest, my dusty self upon the
sofa, taking note of everything.

Janet had gone away to get the bath ready, when my aunt,
to my great alarm, became in one moment rigid with indigna-
tion, and had hardly voice to cry out, "Janet ! Donkeys ! "

Upon which, Janet came running up the stairs as if the



tq6 DAVID COPPERFIELD.

house were in flames, darted out on a little piece of green in
fiont, and warned off two saddle-donkeys, lady-ridden, that
had presumed to set hoof upon it; while my aunt, rushing
out of the house, seized the bridle of a third animal laden
with a bestriding child, turned him, led him forth from those
sacred precincts, and boxed the ears of the unlucky urchin
in attendance who had dared to profane that hallowed
ground.

To this hour I don't know whether my aunt had any law-
ful right of way over that patch of green; but she had set-
tled it in her own mind that she had, and it was all the
same to her. The one great outrage of her life, demanding
to be constantly avenged, was the passage of a donkey over
that immaculate spot. In whatever occupation she was en-
gaged, however interesting to her the conversation in which
she was taking part, a donkey turned the current of her
ideas in a moment, and she was upon him straight. Jugs of
water and watering-pots were kept in secret places ready to
be discharged on the offending boys; sticks were laid in
ambush behind the door; sallies were made at all hours, and
incessant war prevailed. Perhaps this was an agreeable ex-
citement to the donkey-boys; or perhaps the more sagacious
of the donkeys, understanding how the case stood, delighted
with constitutional obstinacy in coming that way. I only
know that there were three alarms before the bath was
ready; and that on the occasion of the last and most des-
perate of all, I saw my aunt engage, single-handed, with a
sandy-headed lad of fifteen, and bump his sandy head
against her own gate, before he seemed to comprehend what
was the matter. These interruptions were the more ridicu-
lous to me, because she was giving me broth out of a table-
spoon at the time (having firmly persuaded herself that I
was actually starving, and must receive nourishment at first
in very small quantities), and, while my mouth was yet open
to receive the spoon, she would put it back into the basin,
cry, "Jai^et ! DonkeysJ" and go out to the assault.

The bath was a great comfort. For I began to be sen-
sible of acute pains in my limbs from lying out in the fields,
and was now so tired and low that I could hardly keep my-
self awake for five minutes together. When I had bathed,
they (I mean my aunt and Janet) enrobed me in a shirt and
pair of trowsers belonging to Mr. Dick, and tied me up in
two or three great shawls. What sort of a bundle I looked



DAVID COPPERFIELD 197

like, I don't know, but I felt a very hot one. Feeling also
very faint and drowsy, I soon lay down on the sofa again
and fell asleep.

It might have been a dream, originating in the fancy which
had occupied my mind so long, but I awoke with the im-
pression that my aunt had come and bent over me, and had
put my hair away from my face, and laid my head more
comfortably, and had then stood looking at me. The words,
" Pretty fellow," or, " Poor fellow," seemed to be in my ears,
too; but certainly there was nothing else, when I awoke, to
lead me to believe that they had been uttered by my aunt,
who sat in the bow-window gazing at the sea foam from be-
hind the green fan, which was mounted on a kind of swivel,
and turned any way.

We dined soon after I awoke, off a roast fowl and a pud-
ding; I sitting at table, not unlike a trussed bird myself,
and moving my arms with considerable difficulty. But as
my aunt had swathed me up, I made no complaint of being
inconvenienced. All this time, I was deeply anxious to
know what she was going to do with me; but she took her
dinner in profound silence, except when she occasionally
fixed her eyes on me sitting opposite, and said, " Mercy up-
on us!" which did not by any means relieve my anxiety.

The cloth being drawn, and some sherry put upon the
table (of which I had a glass), my aunt sent up for Mr. Dick
again, who joined us, and looked as wise as he could when
she requested him to attend to my story, which she elicited
from me, gradually, by a course of questions. During my
recital, she kept her eyes on Mr. Dick, who I thought would
have gone to sleep but for that, and who, whensoever he
lapsed into a smile, was checked by a frown from my aunt.

" Whatever possessed that poor unfortunate Baby, that
she must go and be married again," said my aunt, when I
had finished, "/ can't conceive."

" Perhaps she fell in love with her second husband," Mr.
Dick suggested.

*' Fell in love!" repeated my aunt. *' What do you mean ?
What business had she to do it ?"

*' Perhaps," Mr. Dick simpered, after thinking a Httle,
** she did it for pleasure."

" Pleasure, indeed," replied my aunt. *' A mighty pleas-
ure for the poor baby to fix her simple faith upon any dog
of a fellowj certain to ill-use her in some way or other. What



igS DAVID COPPERFIELD.

did she propose to do herself, I should like to know! She
had had one husband. She had seen David Copperfield out
of the world, who was always running after wax dolls from
his cradle. She had got a baby — oh, there were a pair of
babies when she gave birth to this child sitting here, that
Friday night! — and what more did she want?"

Mr. Dick secretly shook his head at me, as if he thought
there was no getting over this.

" She couldn't even have a baby like anybody else,"
said my aunt. " Where was this child's sister, Betsey Trot-
wood ! Not forthcoming. Don't tell me!"

Mr. Dick seemed quite frightened.

" That little man of a doctor, with his head on one side,"
said my aunt, *' Jellips, or whatever his name was, what was
he about ? All he could do, was to say to me, like a robin-
redbreast — as he/> — ' It's a boy.' A boy! Yah, the imbe-
cility of the whole set of 'em!"

The heartiness of the ejaculation startled Mr. Dick ex-
ceedingly; and me, too, if I am to tell the truth.

" And then, as if this was not enough, and she had not
stood sufficiently in the light of this child's sister, Betsey
Trotwood," said my aunt, " she marries a second time —
goes and marries a Murderer — or a man with a name like it
- and stands in this child's light! And the natural conse-
quence is, as anybody but a b.^by might have foreseen, that
he prowls and wanders. He's as like Cain before he was
grown up, as he can be."

Mr. Dick looked hard at me, as if to identify me in this
character.

" And then there's that woman with the Pagan name,"
said my aunt, " that Peggotty, she goes and gets married
next. Because she has not seen enough of the evil attend-
ing such things, she goes and gets married next, as the child
relates. I only hope," said my aunt, shaking her head,
'' that her husband is one of those Poker husbands, who
abound in the newspapers, and will beat her well with one."

I could not bear to hear my old nurse so decried, and
made the subject of such a wish. I told my aunt that in-
deed she was mistaken. That Peggotty was the best, the
truest, the most faithful, most devoted, and most self-deny-
ing friend and servant in the world; who had ever loved me
dearly, who had ever loved my mother dearly; who had held
my dying mother's head upon her arm, on whose face my



DAVID COPPERFIELD. 199

mother had imprinted her last grateful kiss. And the re-
membrance of them both, choking me, I broke down as I
was trying to say that her home was my home, and that all
she had was mine, and that I would have gone to her for
shelter, but for her humble station, which made me fear that
I might bring some trouble on her — I broke down, I say, as
I was trying to say so, and laid my face in my hands upon
the table.

"Wellj well," said my aunt, "the child is right to stand
by those who have stood by him — Janet ! Donkeys ! "

I thoroughly believe that but for those unfortunate don-
keys, we should have come to a good understanding ; for
my aunt had laid her hand on my shoulder, and the impulse
was upon me, thus emboldened, to embrace her and beseech
her protection. But the interruption, and the disorder she
was thrown into by the struggle outside, put an end to all
softer ideas for the present; and kept my aunt indignantly
declaiming to Mr. Dick about her determination to appeal
for redress to the laws of her country, and to bring actions
for trespass against the whole donkey proprietorship of Do-
ver, until tea-time.

After tea, we sat at the window — on the look-out, as I
imagined from my aunt's sharp expression of face, for more
invaders — until dusk, when Janet set candles, and a back-
gammon-board, on the table, and pulled down the blinds.

'' Now, Mr. Dick," said my aunt, with her grave look, and
her fore-finger up as before, " I am going to ask you another
question. Look at this child."

" David's son ?" said Mr. Dick, with an attentive, puzzled
face.

" Exactly so," returned my aunt. *' What would you do
with him, now ?"

" Do with David's son ?" said Mr. Dick.

*' Aye," replied my aunt, "with David's son.**

"Oh!" said Mr. Dick. "Yes. Do with— I should put
him to bed."

" Janet!" cried my aunt, with the same complacent triumph
that I had remarked before. " Mr. Dick sets us all right.
If the bed is ready, we'll take him up to it."

Janet reporting it to be quite ready, I was taken up to it,
kindly, but in some sort like a prisoner; my aunt going in
front and Janet bringing up the rear. The only circum-
stance which gave me any new hope, was my aunt's stopping



200 DAVID COPPERFIELD.

on the stairs to inquire about a smell of fire that was preva-
lent there; and Janet's replying that she had been making
tinder down in the kitchen, of my old shirt. But there
were no other clothes in my room than the old heap of
things I wore; and when I was left there, with a little taper
which my aunt forewarned me would burn exactly five min-
utes, I heard them lock my door on the outside. Turning?:
these things over in my mind, I deemed it possible that
my aunt, who could know nothing of me, might suspect
I had a habit of running away, and took precautions, on
that account, to have me in safe keeping.

The room was a pleasant one, at the top of the house,
overlooking the sea, on which the moon was shining bril-
liantly. After I had said my prayers, and the candle had
burnt out, I remember how I still sat looking at the moon-
light on the water, as if I could hope to read my fortune
in it, as in a bright book; or to see my mother with her
child, coming from Heaven, along that shining path, to look
upon me as she had looked when I last saw her sweet face.
I remember how the solemn feeling with which at length
I turned my eyes away, yielded to the sensation of gratitude
and rest which the sight of the white-curtained bed — and
how much more the lying down upon it, nestling in the
snow-white sheets ? — inspired. I remember how I thought
of all the solitary places under the night sky where I had
slept, and how I prayed that I never might be houseless any
more, and never might forget the houseless. I remember
how I seemed to float, then, down the melancholy glory of
that track upon the sea, away into the world of dreams.



CHAPTER XIV.

MY AUNT MAKES tJP HER MIND ABOUT ME.

On going down in the morning, I found my aunt musing
so profoundly over the breakfast-table, with her elbow on
the tray, that the contents of the urn had overflowed the
teapot and were laying the whole table-cloth under water,
when my entrance put her meditations to flight. I felt sure
that I had been the subject of her reflections, and was more
than ever anxious to know her intentions towards me. Yet
I dared not express my anxiety, lest it should give her
offense.



DAVID COPPERFIELD. toi

My eyes, however, not being so much under control as
my tongue, were attracted towards my aunt very often
during breakfast. I never could look at her but a few
moments together but I found her looking at me — in an
odd, thoughtful manner, as if I were an immense way off,
instead of being on the other side of the small round table.
When she had finished her breakfast, my aunt very deliber-
ately leaned back in her chair, knitted her brows, folded
her arms, and contemplated me at her leisure, with such a
fixedness of attention that I was quite overpowered by
embarrassment. Not having as yet finished my own break-
fast, I attempted to hide my confusion by proceeding with
it; but my knife tumbled over my fork, my fork tripped
up my knife, I chipped bits of bacon a surprising height
into the air instead of cutting them for my own eating, and
choked myself with my tea, which persisted in going the
wrong way instead of the right one, until I gave in alto-
gether, and sat blushing under my aunt's close scrutiny.

"Hallo!" said my aunt, after a long time.

I looked up, and met her sharp bright glance respectfully.

" I have written to him," said my auntv

" To—?"

" To your father-in-law," said my aunt. " I have sent
him a letter that I'll trouble him to attend to, or he and I
will fall out, I can tell him!"

" Does he know where I am, aunt ?" I inquired, alarmed.

" I have told him," said my aunt, with a nod.

" Shall I — be — given up to him ?" I faltered.

" I don't know," said my aunt. " We shall see."

" Oh! I can't think what I shall do," I exclaimed, " if I
have to go back to Mr. Murdstone!"

" I don't know anything about it," said my aunt, shaking
her head. " I can't say, I'm sure. We shall see."

My spirits sank under these words, and I became very
downcast and heavy of heart. My aunt, without appearing
to take much heed of me, put on a coarse apron with a bib,
which she took out of the press; washed up the teacups with
her own hands; and, when everything was washed and set
in the tray again, and the cloth folded and put on the top
of the whole, rang for Janet to remove it. She next swept
up the crumbs with a little broom (putting on a pair
of gloves first), until there did not appear to be one micro-
scopic speck left on the carpet; next dusted and arranged



202 DAVID COPPERFIELD.

the room, which was dusted and arranged to a hair's breadth
already. When all these tasks were performed to her satis-
faction, she took off the gloves and apron, folded them up,
put them in the particular corner of the press from which
they had been taken, brought out her work-box to her own
table in the open window, and sat down, with the green fan
between her and the light, to work.

" I wish you'd go up stairs," said my aunt, as she
threaded her needle, " and give my compliments to Mr. Dick,
and I'll be glad to know how he gets on with his Memorial."

I rose with alacrity to acquit myself of this commission.

" I suppose," said my aunt, eyeing me as narrowly as she
had eyed the needle in threading it, " you think Mr. Dick a
short name, eh ?"

** I thought it was rather a short name, yesterday," I con-
fessed.

" You are not to suppose that he hasn't got a longer
name, if he chose to use it," said my aunt, with a loftier
air. " Babley — Mr. Richard Babley — that's the gentleman's
true name."

I was going to suggest, with a modest sense of my youth
and the familiarity I had been already guilty of, that I had
better give him the full benefit of that name, when my aunt
went on to say:

" But don't you call him by it, whatever you do. He
can't bear his name. That's a peculiarity of his. Though
I don't know that it's much of a peculiarity, either; for
he has been ill-used enough by some that bear it, to have
a mortal antipathy for it, Heaven knows. Mr. Dick is his
name here, and everywhere else, now — if he ever went any-
where else, which he don't. So take care, child, you don't
call him anything else ^u^ Mr. Dick."

I promised to obey, and went up-stairs with my mes-
sage; thinking, as I went, that if Mr. Dick had been work-
ing at his Memorial long, at the same rate as I had seen
him working at it, through the open door, when I came
down, he was probably getting on very well indeed. I
found him still driving at it with a long pen, and his head
almost laid upon the paper. He was so intent upon it,
that I had ample leisure to observe the large paper kite
in the corner, the confusion of bundles of manuscript, the
number of pens and, above all, the quantity of ink (which
he seemed to have in, in half-gallon jars by the dozen), be-
fore he observed mv being present.



DAVID COPPERFIELD. 203

"Ha! Phoebus!" said Mr. Dick, laying down his pen.
'* How does the world go ? I'll tell you what," he added, in
a lower tone, " I shouldn't wish it to be mentioned, but it's
a — " here he beckoned to me, and put his lips close to my
ear — "it's a mad world. Mad as Bedlam, boy!" said Mr.
Dick, taking snuff from a round box on the table, and
laughing heartily.

Without presuming to give my opinion on this question,
I delivered my message.

" Well," said Mr. Dick, in answer, " my compliments to
her, and I — I believe I have made a start. I think I have
made a start," said Mr. Dick, passing his hand among his
gray hair, and casting anything but a confident look at his
manuscript. " You have been to school ?"

"Yes, sir,'^ I answered, "for a short time."

" Do you recollect the date," said Mr. Dick, looking earn-
estly at me, and taking up his pen to note it down, " when
King Charles the First had his head cut off ?"

I said I believed it happened in the year sixteen hundred
and forty-nine.

"Well," returned Mr. Dick, scratching his ear with his
pen and looking dubiously at me. " So the books say, but
I don't see how that can be. Because, if it was so long ago,
how could the people about him have made that mistake of
putting some of the trouble out of his head, after it was
taken off, into mi7ief'

I was very much surprised by the inquiry; but could give
no information on this point.

" It's very strange," said Mr. Dick, with a despondent look
upon his papers, and with his hand among his hair again,
" that I never can get that quite right. I never can make
that perfectly clear. But no matter, no matter !" he said
cheerfully, and rousing himself, " there's time enough. My
compliments to Miss Trotwood, I am getting on very well
indeed."

I was going away, when he directed my attention to the kite.

" What do you think of that kite ?" he said.

I answered that it was a beautiful one. I should think it
must have been as much as seven feet high.

" I made it. We'll go and fly it, you and I," said Mr.
Dick. " Do you see this ?"

He showed me that it was covered with manuscript, ver]?
closely and laboriously written; but so plainly, that as I



204 DAVID COPPERFIELD.

looked along the lines, I thought I saw some allusion to
King Charles the First's head again, in one or two places.

"There's plenty of string," said Mr. Dick, "and when it
flies high, it takes the facts a long way. That's my manner
of diffusing 'em, I don't know where they may come down.
It's according to circumstances, and the wind, and so forth;
but I take my chance of that."

His face was so very mild and pleasant, and had some-
thing so reverend in it, though it was hale and hearty, that
I was not sure but that he was having a good humored jest
with me. So I laughed, and he laughed, and we parted the
best friends possible.

"Well, child," said my aunt, when I went down stairs.
" And what of Mr. Dick, this morning ?"

I informed her that he sent his compliments, and was get-
ting on very well indeed.

" What do you think of him ?" said my aunt.

I had some shadowy idea of endeavoring to evade the ques-
tion, by replying that I thought him a very nice gentleman-
but my aunt was not to be so put off, for she laid her work
down in her lap, and said, folding her hands upon it:

" Come ! Your sister Betsey Trotwood would have told
me what she thought of any one, directly. Be as like your
sister as you can, and speak out !"

"Is he — is Mr. Dick — I ask because I don't know, aunt
—is he at all out of his mind, then ?" I stammered; for I felt
I was on dangerous ground.

" Not a morsel," said my aunt.

" Oh, indeed," I observed faintly.

" If there is anything in the world," ^said my aunt, with
great decision and force of manner, " that Mr. Dick is not,
it's that."

I had nothing better to offer, than another timid " Oh,
indeed !"

" He has been called mad," said my aunt. " I have a
selfish pleasure in saying he has been called mad, or I should
not have had the benefit of his society and advice for these
last ten years and upwards — in fact, ever since your sister,
Betsey Trotwood, disappointed me."

" So long as that ?" I said.

" And nice people they were, who had the audacity to call
him mad," pursued my aunt. " Mr. Dick is a sort of distant
connexion of mine— -it doesn't matter how; I needn't enter



DAVID COPPERFIELD. 205

into that. If it hadii't been for me, his own brother would
have shut him up for life. That's all."

I am afraid it was hypocritical in me, but seeing that my
aunt felt strongly on the subject, I tried to look as if I felt
strongly too.

" A proud fool !" said my aunt. " Because his brother was a
little eccentric — though he is not half so eccentric as a good
many people — he didn't like to have him visible about the
house,and sent him away to some private asylum-place; though
he had been left to his particular care by their deceased father,
who thought him almost a natural. And a wise man he must
have been to think so ! Mad himself, no doubt."

Again, as my aunt looked quite convinced, I endeavored
to look quite convinced also.

" So I stepped in," said my aunt, "and made him an of-
fer. I said, Your brother's sane — a great deal more sane
than you are, or ever will be, it is to be hoped. Let him
have his little income, and come and live with me. / am
not afraid of him, / am not proud, / am ready to take care
of him, and shall not ill-treat him as some people (besides
the asylum folks) have done. After a good deal of squab-
bling," said my aunt, " I got him; and he has been here
ever since. He is the most friendly and amenable creature
in existence; and as for advice! — but nobody knows what
that man's mind is, except myself."

My aunt smoothed her dress and shook her head, as if
she smoothed defiance of the whole world out of the one,
and shook it out of the other.

" He had a favorite sister," said my aunt, " a good crea-
ture, and very kind to him. But she did what they all do —
took a husband. And he did what they all do — made her
wretched. It had such an effect upon the mind of Mr.
Dick {Jhat's not madness I hope!) that, combined with his
fear of his brother, and his sense of his unkindness, it threw
him into a fever. That was before he came to me, but the
recollection of it is oppressive to him even now. Did he
say anything to you about King Charles the First, child ?"

"Yes, aunt."

"Ah!" said my aunt, rubbing her nose as if she were a
little vexed. " That's his allegorical way of expressing it.
He connects his illness with great disturbance and agitation,
naturally, and that's the figure, the simile, or whatever it's
called, which he chooses to use. And why shouldn't he, if
he thinks proper!"



206 DAVID COPPERFIELD.

I said: " Certainly, aunt."

" It's not a business-like way of speaking," said my aunt,
*' nor a worldly way. I am aware of that; and that's the
reason why I insist upon it, that there shan't be a word
about it in his Memorial."

'* Is it a Memorial about his own history that he is writ-
ing, aunt?"

" Yes, child," said my aunt, rubbing her nose again. ^* He
is memorializing the Lord Chancellor, or the Lord Some-
body or other — one of those people, at all events, who are
paid to he memorialized — about his affairs. I suppose it
will go in, one of these days. He hasn't been able to draw
it up yet, without introducing that mode of expressing him-