(3) CHARLES DICKENS: DAVID COPPERFIELD: CHAPTER 3: I HAVE A CHANCE

The horse was lazy, and shuffled along with his head down.  Like his horse, the carrier had a way of keeping his head down, and drooping  forward, with one of his arm on each of his knees.  The cart would have gone to Yarmouth without the carrier; no talk by him, only whistling. 

Peggotty had enough food and drink in her basket.  We ate a lot and slept a lot.  Peggotty went to sleep with her chin upon the handle of the basket, her hold of which was never relaxed even in her snore.  Up and down the lanes we went, stopped at a public house, and at other places, that I was quite tired, and when we reached Yarmouth I was very glad.  It looked rather damp and muddy, the great dull waste lay accross the coast.  I coud not help wondering, if the world was really round as my geography book said, how many part of it came to be flat.  But I reflected Yarmouth might be at one of the poles; so it was flat.

As we drew near,  the landscape was clear to me, and I suggested Peggotty some improvements in the landscape.  She told me emphatically that we must take as we see them, and that she was proud to call herself a Yarmouth bloater. 

( Bloater= cold smoked herring) 

We got into the street which smelt fish and pitch, and oakum, (Oakum = thread made of jute fibres) and tar, and saw the sailors walking about, and the carts jingling up and down over the stones, felt that I did so busy a place an injustice, and said so much to Peggotty, who took my expression of delight with great complacency and told me that it was well known that Yarmouth was the finest place in the world.

'Here's my Am!' screamed Peggotty, 'growed out of my knowledge'

He was waiting for us, in fact at the public house and asked me how I found myself, like an old acquaintance.  I did not feel, at first, that I knew him well as he knew me, because he had never come to our house since the night I was born.  But our intimacy was much advanced by his taking me on his back to carry me home.  He was, now, a huge, strong fellow of six feet high, broad in proportion and round shouldered, but with a simpering boy's face and curly light hair that gave him quite a sheepish look.  He was dressed in a canvas jacket, and a pair of such very very stiff trousers that they would have stood quite as well alone, without any legs in them and he covered his head with something pitchy.  Ham carrying me on his back and a small box of ours under his arm and Peggotty carrying another small box of ours, we turned down lanes strewn with bits of chips, and little hillocks of sands, and went past gas works, rope walks, boat builders yards, ship wrights yards, ship breakers yards, caulkers yards, riggers lofts and smiths' forges and a great litter of such places until we came out upon the dull waste I had already seen at a distance, when Ham said,

'Yon's our house, Mas'r Davy!' (3)

I looked in all directions as far as I could stare over the wilderness, and away at the sea, and away at the river, but no house could I make out.  There was a black barge, or some other kind of abandoned boat, not far off, high and dry on the ground, with an iron funnel sticking out of it for a chimney and smoking very cosily, but nothing else in the way of habitation that was visible to me.

'That's not it? That ship looking thing?'

'That's it, Mas'r Davy,' returned Ham. 

If it had been Aladdin's palace, roc's egg and all, I suppose I could not have been more charmed with the romantic idea of living in it.  There was a delightful door cut in the side, and it was roofed in, and there were little windows in it, the wonderful charm of it was, that it was real boat. It was not intended for human habitation, but it became a perfect abode.

Inside, it was clean and tidy.  There was a table and Dutch clock, and a chest of drawers, and on it was a tea - tray, with a painting on it of a lady with parasol, taking a walk with a military - looking child who was playing with a hoop.  The tray was kept from tumbling down, by a Bible; and the tray if it had tumbled down, would have smashed a quantity of cups and saucers and a tea pot that were grouped around the book.  On the walls there were some common coloured pictures, framed and glazed, of scriptures subject; such as I have never seen since in the hands of peddlers, without seeing the whole interior of Peggotty's brother's house again at one view.  Abraham in red going to sacrifice Isac in blue, and Daniel in yellow cast into a den of green lions, were the most prominent of these.  Over the mantle shelf was a picture of the 'Sarah Jane' lugger ( name of a boat) built at Sunderland, with a real little wooden stern stuck on to it, a work of art in carpentry, and I considered it a valuable possession.  There were some hooks in the beams of the ceiling, and some lockers and conveniences of that sort.

When I crossed the threshold, Peggotty opened a small door and showed me my bed room.  It was in the stern of the vessel, with a little window, where the rudder used to go through; a little looking glass, just the right height for me, nailed against the wall and framed with oyster shells; a little bed, which occupied almost of the room; and a nosegay of see weed in a blue mug on the table.  The walls were whitewashed and bright.  The house always smelt of fish, and when I took out my handkerchief to wipe my nose, it had the smell of lobster.  When I revealed this discovery to Peggotty in confidence she told me that her brother was a trader in lobsters, crabs and crawfish, and I later saw a heap of these creatures clinging to eachother and never leaving the heap, in the little wooden house where the pots and kettles were kept.

We were welcomed by a very civil woman in a white apron whom I had seen curtsy at the door when I was on Ham's back, about a quarter of a mile off.  Likewise, a beautiful little girl with a necklace of blue beads on, who wouldn't let me kiss her, when I offered to, but ran away and hid herself.  By and by we had dined in a sumptuous manner off boiled dabs, melted butter and potatoes with a chop for me.  A hairy man with a very good natured face came home.  As he called Peggotty a 'lass' and gave her a hearty smack on her cheek, I had no doubt, from the general propriety of her conduct, that he was her brother, and so he turned out to - being presently introduced to me as Mr Peggotty, the master of the house. 

'Glad to see you, sir,' said Mr Peggotty.  'You'll find us rough, sir, but you 'll find us ready!'

I thanked him and replied that I am happy in such a delightful place.

'How's your Ma, sir? said Mr Peggotty. 'Did you leave her pretty jolly?'

I told him that she was jolly and that she conveyed her compliments - but it was a polite fiction.

'I'm much obliged to her, I'm sure,' said Mr Peggotty. 'Well, sir, if you can make out here, for a fortnight, along with her,' nodding at his sister and  Ham and Emily, we shall be proud of your company.

Having said this Mr Peggotty went to wash himself with a kettle of hot water.  He soon returned greatly improved in appearance, but so rubicund, that I couldn't help thinking his face had this in common with lobsters, crab and crawfish - that it went into the hot water very black and came out very red.

After tea, when the door was shut and all was made warm and comfortable it seemed to me the most delicious treat that man could conceive.  To hear the wind getting out up at sea, to know that fog was creeping over the desolate flat outside, and to look at the fire, and think that there was no house near, but this one, and this one a boat, was an enchantment.  Little Emily had overcome her shyness, and was sitting by my side upon the lowest and least of lockers, which was large enough for us two, and just fitted into the chimney corner, Peggotty with white apron, was knitting on the opposite side of the fire;  Peggotty at her needle work was as much at home with St.Paul's and the bit of wax candle, as they had never known any other roof.  Ham had been giving me my first lessons in All Fours ( a card game), was trying to recollect a scheme of telling fortunes with dirty cards, and was printing fishy impressions of thumb on all the cards he turned.  Mr Peggotty was smoking a pipe.  I felt it was time for conversation and confidence. 

'Mr Peggotty.' says I 

'Sir,' says he 

'Did you give your son the name of Ham, because you lived in a sort of ark?' Mr Peggotty seemed to think it a deep idea, but answered. 'No, sir, I never gave him name.'

'Who gave his name, then,' said I 

'Why, sir, his father gave it him,' said Mr Peggotty

'I thought you were his father!'

'My brother Joe was his father,'said Mr Peggotty 

'Dead, Mr Peggotty?' I hinted after a respectful pause. 

'Drowndead,' said Mr Peggotty.

I was very much surprised that Mr Peggotty was not Ham's father, and began to wonder whether I was mistaken about his relationship to anybody else there.  I was curious to know, that I made up my mind to have it out with Mr Peggotty.

'Little Emily,' said l glancing at her, she's your daughter, isn't she Mr Peggotty?'

'No, sir, My brother-inlaw, Tom, was her father.  I couldn't help it.  'Dead, Mr Peggotty?' l hinted after respectful silence.

'Drowndead,' said Peggotty.

I felt the difficulty of resuming the subject, but had not got the bottom of it yet, and must get to the bottom somehow.  So I said, 'Have you any children, Mr Peggotty?'

'No,master,' he answered with a short laugh. 'I am a bachelor.'

'A bachelor!' l said astonished.  'Why who's that Mr Peggotty?' pointing to the person who was knitting.  'That's Missis Gummidge,' said Mr Peggotty.

'Gummidge, Mr Peggotty?'

But at this point my own Peggotty made such impressive motions to me not to ask any more questions, that I could sit and look at, all the silent company, until it was time to go to bed.  Then in the privacy of of my own little cabin she informed me that Ham and Emily were an orphan nephew and niece whom Mr Peggotty at different times adopted in their childhood, when they were left destitute, and that Mrs Gummidge was the widow of his partner in a boat, who had died very poor.  Mr Peggotty was, but a poor man himself, said Peggotty, but as good as gold and as true as steel - those were her similes.  The only subject, she informed me, on which he ever showed a violent temper was this generosity of his, and if it were ever refered to by any one of them.

Though l was sleepy l listened women going to another little crib like mine at the opposite end of the boat, and Peggotty and Ham hanging up two hammocks for themselves in hooks in the roof.  As the slumber gradually stole upon me, I heard the wind howling out at sea and coming on across the flat so fiercely that I had a lazy expression of great deep rising on my right.  But the thought, that I was in a boat and a man like Mr Peggotty was in it, was a relief to me.

Nothing happened, however, worse than morning.  Almost as soon as it shone up on the oyster shell frame of the mirror, I was out of bed and out with little Emily picking up stones on the beach.

'You're quite a sailor, I suppose?' I said to Emily.  I don't know that I supposed anything of the kind, but I felt it an act of gallantry to say something; and a shining sail close to us made such a pretty little image of itself, at the moment, in her bright eye, that it came into my head to say this.

'No,' replied Emily shaking her head, 'I'm afraid of the sea.'

'Afraid!' I said, with a becoming of air of boldness, and looking very big at the mighty ocean.

'Ah!, but it's cruel,' said Emily.  'I have seen it very cruel to some of our men.  I have seen it tear a boat as big as our all to pieces.'

'I hope it was n't the boat that-' 

'That father was drowned in?' said Emily.   'No, not that one, I never see that boat.' 

'Nor him?'I asked her. 

Little Emily shook her head.  'Not to remember.'

Here was a coincidence!  I immediately went into an explanation how I had never seen my father; and how my mother and I had always lived by ourselves in the happiest state imaginable, and lived so then, and always meant to live so; and how my father's grave was in the churchyard, near our house, and shaded by a tree beneath the boughs of which I had walked and heard the birds sing many a pleasant morning.  But there were some differences between Emily's orphanhood and mine.  She had lost her mother before her father; and where her father's grave was no one knew, except that it were somewhere in the depth of the sea. 

'Besides,' said Emily, as she looked about for shells and pebbles 'Your father was a gentleman and your mother is a lady; and my father was a fisherman and my mother was a fisherman's daughter, and my uncle Dan is a fisherman.'

'Dan is Mr Peggotty, is he?' said I 

'Uncle Dan, yonder,' answered Emily nodding at the boat house.

'Yes, I mean him, he must be very good, I should think?' 

'Good,' said Emily.  'If ever I was to be a lady I would give him a sky- blue coat with diamond namkeen trousers, a red velvet waistcoat, a cocked hat, a large gold watch, a silver pipe, and a box of money.'

I said that I have no doubt that Mr Peggotty well deserved these treasures.  I felt it difficult to picture him quite at his ease in the clothing proposed for him by his grateful little niece, and that I was particularly doubtful of the policy of the cocked hat; but I kept these sentiments to myself.

Little Emily had stopped and looked at the sky in her enumeration of these articles, if they were glorious vision.  We went on again, picking up shells and pebbles.

'You would like to be a lady?' I said 

Emily looked at me, and laughed and nodded 'yes'.

'I should like it very much.  We would all be gentle folk together, then.  Me, and uncle and Ham, and Mrs Gummidge.  We wouldn't mind then when there comes stormy weather - Not for our own sake, I mean. We would for the poor fisherman's, to be sure, and we'd help 'em with money when they come to any hurt.'  This seemed to me to be a very satisfactory and therefore not at all improbable picture.  I expressed my pleasure in the contemplation of it, and little Emily was emboldened to say shyly 

'Don't you think you are afraid of sea, now?' 

It was quite enough to reassure me, but I had no doubt if I had seen moderately large wave came tumbling in, I should have taken to my heels, with an awful recollection of her drowned relations.  However I said, 'No' and I added, 'you don't seem to be either, though you say you are,' - for she was walking much too near the brink of a sort of old jetty or wooden causeway we had strolled upon, and I was afraid of her falling over.

'I'm not afraid in this way,' said Emily. 'But I wake when it blows, and tremble to think of uncle Dan and Ham and believe I hear 'em crying out for help.  That's why I should like so much to be a lady.  But I am not afraid in this way.  Not a bit.  Look here!'

She started from my side, and ran along a jagged timber, which protruded from the place we stood upon, and overhang the deep water at some height, without the least defence.  I was so impressed that if I were a draughtsman, I could draw it from here, accurately as it was that day, and little Emily springing forward to her destruction with a look that I have never forgotten, directed far out to sea.

The light, bold, fluttering little figure turned back and came safe to me, and I soon laughed at my fears, and at the cry I had uttered; fruitless in any case, for there was no one near.  But there have been times since, in my manhood, many times there have been, when I have thought, it is possible, among the possibilities of hidden things, that in the sudden rash of the child and her wild look so far off, there was any merciful attraction of her into danger, any tempting her towards him permitted on the part of her dead father, that her life might have a chance of ending that day? 

There has been a time since when I have wondered whether, if life before her could revealed to me at a glance, and so revealed as that a child could fully comprehend it, and if her preservation could have depended on a motion of my hand, I ought to have held it up to save her. 

We strolled a long way, and picked up curious things, and put some stranded starfish back into water- I do not know whether they enjoyed our service - and then made our way home to Mr Peggotty's dwelling.  We stopped under the lee of the lobster outhouse to exchange an innocent kiss and went into breakfast glowing with health and pleasure.

'Like two mavishes,' Mr Peggotty said.  I knew this meant in our local dialect, like two young thrush, and received it as a compliment.

Ofcourse, I was in love with little Emily.  I am sure I loved that baby quite as truly, quite as tenderly, with greater purity and more disinterest.  I am sure my fancy raised up something round that blue eyed little angel.  If she had a little pair of wings and flown away in a sunny afternoon I should have regarded it ethereal.

Mr Peggotty went occassionally to a public house called The Willing Mind.  On those days Mrs Gummidge would look at the Dutch clock between eight and nine and say that she knew already by the morning that Mr Peggotty would go there that day.  She would be in a low state on that day and burst into tears in the forenoon, when the fire smoked, and would utter, 'I am a lone torn creature.'  Peggotty would say, 'It would soon leave off, and besides, it is not more disagreeable to you than to us.'  Mrs Gummidge would say, 'I feel it more.'

It was a very cold day, with cutting blasts of wind.  Mrs Gummidge's peculiar corner by the fireside was warm and comfortable.  Still she was constantly complaining of cold, and a creepy sensation on her back.  With tears in her eyes she said, 'I am a lone creature.'  

'It's very cold,' said Peggotty, 'everybody must feel it so.'

'I feel it more than other people,' said Mrs Gummidge.

At dinner; the fish were small and bony and the potatoes were little burnt.  We all acknowledged this; but Mrs Gummidge felt more of it and started shedding tears.

When Mr Peggotty came home about nine o'clock, Mrs Gummidge was knitting in her corner in a very wretched and miserable condition.  Peggotty had been working cheerfully.  Ham had been patching up a great pair of water boats; and I with little Emily by my side, had been reading to them.  Mrs Gummidge had never made any remark other than a forlorn sigh, and had never raised her eyes since tea.

'Well, mates,' said Peggotty taking his seat, 'and how are you?'

We all said something, or looked something, to welcome him, except Mrs Gummidge, who only shook her head over her knitting.

'What's amiss, said Mr Peggotty with a deep clap of hands 

'Cheer up, old mawther!' ( Peggotty meant old girl) Mrs Gummidge did not appear to be able to cheer up.  She took out an old black silk handkerchief and wiped her eyes; but instead of putting it in her pocket, kept it out, and wipe them again, and still kept it out for use.

'What's amiss, dame, said Mr Peggotty. 

'Nothing, you have come from The Willing Mind, Dan 'l' ? 

'Why, yes, I have took a short spell at The Willing Mind tonight,' said Mr Peggotty' 

'I'm sorry I should drive you there,' said Mrs Gummidge 

'Drive! I don't want no driving,' returned Peggotty with an honest laugh.  'I only go too ready.' 

'Very ready,' said Mrs Gummidge, shaking her head, and wiping her eyes.  'Yes, yes very ready.  I am sorry it should be along of me that you're so ready' 

'Along o you! It an't along o you,' said Mr Peggotty

'Don't ye believe a bit on it.' 

'Yes, yes it is,' cried Mrs Gummidge.  'I know what I am.  I know I am a lone, lone creature, and not only that every thinks go contrary with me, but that I go contrary with everybody.  Yes, yes.  I feel more than other people do, and I show it more.  It's my misfortune.' 

At this Peggotty entreated her to cheer up.

'I an't what I could wish myself to be,' said Mrs Gummidge.  'I am far from it.  I know what I am.  My troubles has made me contrary.  I feel my troubles, and they make me contrary.  I wish I didn't feel 'em, but I do.  I wish I could be hardened to them, bu I an't.  I make the house uncomfortable.  I don't wonder at it.  I have made your sister so all day, and so master Davy.' 

Here I was suddenly melted, and roared out, 'No you haven't Mrs Gummidge,' in great mental distress.

'It's far from right that I should do it,' said Mrs Gummidge.  'It an't a fair return.  I had better go into the house and die.  I am a lone lorn creeture and had much better not to make myself contrary here.  Let me go contrary in my parish.  I would better go into the house, and die and be a riddance.

Mrs Gummidge retired with these words to her bed.  When she was gone, Mr Peggotty who had not exhibited a trace of any feeling, but profound sympathy, looked down upon us, and nodding his head with a lively expression of that sentiment still animating his face, said in a whisper, 'She has been thinking of the old one.'

I did not understand what the old one meant, but Peggotty seeing me to bed explained to me that it was late Mr Gummidge.  Sometime after he was in his hammock that night, I heard him myself repeat to Ham 'Poor thing! She has been thinking of the old one.'  

The scene was repeated a few times during the remainder of my stay.  

So the fortnight slipped away, varied by nothing but the variation of tide, which altered Mr Peggotty's going out and coming in, and altered Ham's engagement also.  When Ham was unemployed he took us to the boats and ships, and once or twice he took us for a row.  In my memory always remained these childhood association of Yarmouth; Sunday morning on the beach, the bell ringing for church, little Emily leaning on my shoulders, Ham lazily dropping stones into the water, and the sun, away at sea, just breaking through the heavy mist, and the emerging shadows of ships.

At last came the day for going home.  I could bear the parting from Mr Peggotty and Mrs Gummidge, but the agony of leaving little Emily was piercing.  We went arm in arm to the public house where the carrier was up, and I promised, on the road to write her, which I redeemed later.

The void created a thorn in my heart, and remained there for long.

Now, all the time I had been on my visit, I had been ungrateful to my home, and had thought little or nothing about it.  This thought left me sinking my spirit.  My house was my nest and my mother was my friend and comfort.

As we drew near the home, I was excited to get there, and run into her arm.  But Peggotty instead of sharing my feelings, tried to check them, though kind, but looked confused and out of sorts.

The Rookery came, on a cold grey afternoon, with a dull sky, and threatening rain.

The door opened, and I looked, half laughing and half crying in my pleasant agitation, for my mother.  It was not she but a strange servant.

'Why, Peggotty!' I said disappointed, 'Isn't she come home?'

'Yes, yes Master Davy,' said she 'She's home.  'Wait a bit, Master Davy, and I'll tell you something.'

Between her agitation and her natural awkwardness in getting out of the cart, Peggotty was making a most extraordinary festoon of herself, but I felt too strange and blank to tell her so.  When she had got down, she took me by hand; led me, wondering into the kitchen; and shut the door.

'Peggotty!' said I, quite frightened.  'What's the matter?'

'Nothing's the matter, bless you, Master Davy dear!' she answered lively and full of energy.  

'Something's the matter, I am sure. Where's mama?'

'Where's mama?' repeated Peggotty.

'Yes, why hasn't she come out to the gate, and what have we come in here for? Oh Peggotty'. My eyes were full, and I felt I were going to tumble down.

'Bless the precious boy!' cried Peggotty taking hold of me. 

'What's it? Speak my pet!' 

'Not dead too! oh, she's not dead, Peggotty?'

Peggotty cried out No! with an astonishing volume of voice, and then sat down and began to pant, and said I had given her a turn.

I gave her a hug to take away the turn, or to give her another turn, in the right direction, and then stood before her, looking at her in anxious enquiry.

'You see, dear, I should have told you before now,' said Peggotty, 'but I hadn't an opportunity, I aught to have made it, perhaps, but I couldn't azackly' - that was always her substitute for exactly 

'Go on Peggotty,' said I more frightened than before. 

'Master Davy,' said Peggotty, untying her bonnet with shaking hand and speaking breathlessly.  'What do you think? You have got a pa!'

I trembled and turned white.  Something- I don't know what or how, connected with the grave in the churchyard, and the raising of the dead, seemed to strike me like an unwholesome wind. 

'A new one,' said Peggotty 

'A new one?' I repeated.

Peggotty gave a gasp, as if she were swallowing something hard, and putting out her hand she said, 'Come and see him.'

'I don't want to see him.'

-'And your mama,' said Peggotty 

I ceased to draw back, and went straight to best parlour, where she left me.  On one side of the fire, sat my mother, on the other Mr Murdstone.  My mother dropped her work, and arose hurriedly, but timidly, I thought 

'Now Clara, my dear,' said Mr Murdstone.  'Recollect! Control yourself, always control yourself, Davy boy, how do you do?'

I gave him my hand.  After a moment of suspense, I went and kissed my mother: She kissed me, patted me gently on my shoulder, and sat down again to her work.  I could not look at her, I could not look at him, I knew quite well he was looking at us both; and I turned and looked out there, at some shrubs that were dropping their head in the cold. 

As soon as I could creep away, I crept upstairs.  My old dear bedroom was changed, and I was to lie a long way off. I rambled downstairs to find anything that was like itself, so altered it all seemed; and roamed into the yard.  I very soon started back from there, for the empty dog kennel was filled up with a great dog - a deep mouthed and black haired like him - and he was very angry at the sight of me, sprang out to get me.

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