(5) CHARLES DICKENS: DAVID COPPERFIELD: CHAPTER 5: I AM SENT AWAY FROM HOME

We might have gone about half a mile, and my pocket hand-kerchief was quite wet through, when the carrier stopped short.  Looking out to ascertain for what, I saw, to my amazement, Peggotty burst from a hedge and climb into the cart.  She took me in both of 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 Peggotty 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 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 of that rolling about, and treasured it as a keepsake for a long time. 

The carrier looked at me, as if to enquire if she were coming back.  I shook my head, and said I thought not.  Then 'come up,' said he to the lazy horse, who came up accordingly.

Having by this time cried as much as possible, l  began to think it was of no use crying any more, especially as neither Roderick Random, nor that captain of Royal British Army never cried, that I could remember in trying situations.  The carrier,  seeing me in this resolution, proposed that my pocket hand-kerchief should be spread upon the horse's back to dry.  I thanked him, and assented, and particularly small it looked, under 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 Peggotty 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 to reach me my pocket hand-kerchief again; but he said he thought I had better to do without it, and I thought I really had, so I wiped my eyes on my sleeves and stopped myself.  

For good too; 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 where?' asked the carrier 

'There' 

'Where is there?'

'Near London.'

'Why that horse,' said the carrier, jerking the rein to point him out 'would be the deadly than pork afore we got over half the ground.'

'Are you only going to Yarmouth then?'

'That's about it,' said the carrier.  'And there I shall take you to the stage coach, and the stage coach that'll take you to- wherever it is' 

As this was a great deal for the carrier (whose name was Mr Barkis ) to say- he being, of phlegmatic 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, that it would have done on an elephant's.

'Did she make 'em now?'said Mr Barkis leaning forward, in his slouchy way, on the foot board of the cart with an arm on each knee.

'Peggotty, do you mean, sir?

'Ah,' said Mr Barkis.  'Her.'

'Yes. She makes all our pastry, and does all our cooking.'

'Does she though?' said Mr Barkis.

He made up his mouth as if to whistle, but he didn't whistle.  He sat looking at the horse's ear, as if he saw something new there; and sat so for a considerable time.  By and by he said:

'No sweethearts, I believe?'

'Sweetmeats, did you say Mr Barkis?'  For I thought he wanted something else to eat, and pointedly alluded to that description of refreshment.

'Hearts,' said Mr Barkis.  'Sweethearts; no person walks with her!'

'With Peggotty?'

'Ah,' he said.  'Her' 

'Oh, no. She never had a sweetheart.'

'Didn't she though!' said Mr Barkis 

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 Barkis, after a long interval of reflection, 'all the apple pastries and does all the cooking.  Does she?'

I replied that such was the fact.

'Well, I'll tell you what,' said Mr Barkis.  '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 would recollect to say that Barkis was willing; would you?'

'That Barkis is willing,' I repeated innocently.  'Is that all the message?'

'Ye-es,' he said considering.  'Ye-es. Barkis is willing.'

'But you will be at Blunderstone again tomorrow Mr Barkis,' I said faltering a little at the idea of my 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 his previous request by saying, with profound gravity, 'Barkis is willing.'  That is the message I readily undertook to transmit, while I was waiting for a coach in the hotel at Yarmouth that very afternoon.  I procured a sheet of paper and an ink-stand, and wrote a note to Peggotty, which ran thus : 'My dear Peggotty I came here safe.  Barkis is willing.  My love to mama.  Yours affectionately. P.S.  He says he particularly wants you to know- BARKIS IS WILLING.' 

When I had taken this commission on myself prospectively, Barkis 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 entirely new and new to me in the inn-yard to which we drove, that I at once abandoned a latent hope I had had of meeting with some of Mr Peggotty'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 its ever going to London.  I was thinking this, and wondering what would ultimately become of my box, which Mr Barkis 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 ma'am,' I said 

'What name?' 

'Copperfield ma'am' 

'That won't do,' returned the lady.  Nobody's dinner is paid for here, in that name.'

'Is it Murdstone, ma'am?'

'If you are Master Murdstone,' 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 the kitchen on the opposite side of the yard to show it, and seemed a good deal surprised when 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 I 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 castors 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 a such a bouncing manner that I was afraid I must have given him some offence.  But he greatly relieved my mind by putting a chair for me at the table, and saying very affable 'Now, six foot! come on!'

I thanked him and took the 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 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:

'There's half a pint of ale for your.  Will you have it now?'  I thanked him and said,'Yes' upon which he poured it out of a jug into large tumbler, and held it up against the light, and made it look 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 akimbo, 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 Topswayer - perhaps you know him?'

'No,' I said. 'I don't think.'

'In breeches and gaiters, broad brimmed hat, grey coat, Speckled choker,' said the waiter.

'No.' I said bashful 'I haven't the pleasure.'

'He came 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 was too old for him.  It ought not to be drawn; that's the fact.

I was very much shocked to hear this melancholy accident, and said I thought I had 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, 'Our people don't like things being ordered and left. It offends 'em.  But I will drink it, if you like.  I am used to it, and use is everything.  I don't think it will 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 it 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 Topswayer, and fall lifeless on the carpet.  But it didn't hurt him.  On the contrary I thought he seemed the fresher for it.

'What have we got here?' he said putting a fork into my dish.

'No chops?'

'Chops,' I said

'Lord bless my soul!' he exclaimed, I didn't know they are chops.  Why chops is 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 very good appetite, to my extreme satisfaction.  He afterwards took another chop and another potato.  When we had done, he brought me a pudding, and having set it before me, seemed to ruminate, and to become absent in his mind for some moments.

'How's the pie?' he said raising himself.

'It's pudding,' I made answer 

'Pudding!' he exclaimed.  'Why, bless me so it's! What!'  looking at it nearer.  'You don't say it's batter pudding!' 

'Yes, it is indeed.' 

'Why, a batter pudding,' he said, taking up a table spoon, 's my favourite pudding!  Ain't that lucky? come on little 'un, and let us see who we'll get most.'

The waiter certainly got most.  He entreated me more than once to come in and win, but what with his table spoon to my teaspoon, his dispatch to my dispatch, and his appetite to my appetite, I was let far behind at the first mouthful, and I 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 him so very friendly and a good companion, I asked for the pen and ink and paper to write to Peggotty.  He not only brought it immediately, but was good enough to look over me while I wrote the letter.  When I finished it, he asked me where I was going to school.

'Near London,' which was all I knew.

'Oh my eye!' he said, looking very low spirited, 'l 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 he was- let me see- how old are you about?

I told him between eight and nine.

'That's just his age,' he said. 'He was eight years and six months old when they broke his first rib; eight years and eight 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 coach horn in the yard was a seasonal diversion, which made me get up hesitating, and search my purse, with pride and confidence, if there were anything to pay.

'There's a sheet of paper,' he returned.  'Did you ever buy a sheet of paper?'

I could not remember.

'It's dear,' he said, 'on account of duty.  Three pence.  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- 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 cowpock,' said the waiter, 'I wouldn't take a sixpence.  If I didn't support an aged parent, and a lovely sister,'- here the waiter was 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 vittles - 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 nine pence would be more brutality and hardness of heart.  Therefore, I gave him one of my three 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 held up behind the coach that I was supposed to have eaten all the dinner without any assistance.  I discovered this overhearing the lady in the bow window say to the guard, 'Take care of that child, George, or he'll burst!' and from observing the women servants who were about the place came out to look at and giggle at me as a young phenomenon.  My unfortunate friend the waiter, who had quite recovered his spirits, did not appeared to be disturbed by this, but joined in general admiration without being at all confused.  If I had any doubt of him, I suppose this half awakened him; but I am inclined to believe that simple confidence of a child, and the natural reliance of a child upon superior years ( qualities I am 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 travelling 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 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 realised.  When we stopped for the 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 anything.  This did not save me from more jokes either; for a husky voiced gentleman with a tough face, who had been eating out of a sandwich box nearly all the way, except when he had been drinking out of a bottle said I was like a boa-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 three o'clock in the afternoon, and we were due in London about eight next morning.  It was midsummer weather and the evening was very pleasant.  Whether we passed through a village, I pictured to myself what the insides of 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 Peggotty; and to endeavouring, in a confused blind way, to recall how I had left, and what sort of boy I used to be, before I bit Mr Murdstone: which I couldn't satisfy myself about by any means, I seemed 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 squeezed me so hard sometimes, that I could not help crying out, 'Oh 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 like a haystack than a lady, she was wrapped up to such a degree.  The lady had a basket with her, and she didn't know 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 perfectly miserable; but it moved in the least, and made a glass that was in the basket rattle, against something else (as if was sure to do), she gave me a cruel 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 my companions seemed to sleep easier.  The difficulties under which they had laboured all night, and which had found utterance in the most terrific gasps and snores  are not to be conceived.  As the sun got higher, their sleep became lighter, and so gradually one by one they awoke.  I recollect being very much surprised by the feint every body made, then, of not having been to sleep at all, and by the uncommon indignation, with which everyone repelled the charge.  I labour under the same kind of astonishment to this day, having  invariably observed 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 favourite heroes to be constantly enacting and re-enacting 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 Whitechapel district, for which we were bound.  I forget whether it was Blue Bull, or the Blue Boar, but I know it was the Blue something, and that its likeness was painted up on 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 Murdstone, from Bloonderstone, Sooffolk, 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 Murdstone, from Bloonderstone, Sooffolk, 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 enquiry made no impression on any of the bystanders, except a man in gaiters, with one eye, who suggested that they had better place a brass collar 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 haystack: 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 had been taken out before the luggage and now the coach itself was wheeled and backed off by some hostlers, out of the way.  Still nobody appeared, to claim the dusty younger from Blunderstone, Suffolk.

More solitary than Robinson Crusoe, who had nobody to look at him and see that he was solitary, I went into the booking office, and, by invitation of clerk 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 in the case, and Mr Murdstone 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 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 Peggotty, 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 that 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 to the clerk, 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, hand in hand, with this new acquaintance, I stole a look at him.  He was a gaunt shallow young man with hollow cheeks, and a chin almost as black as Mr Murdstone's; but there the likeness ended, for his whiskers were shaved off, and his hair, instead of being glossy was rusty and dry.  He was dressed in a suit of black clothes, which were rather rusty and dry too, and were rather short in sleeves and legs; and he had a white neck- kerchief on, that was not over-clean.  I did not, and do not, suppose that this neck-kerchief 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 over awed.  I was so ashamed to allude to a common place thing like my box to a scholar and master at Salem House, that we had gone some little distance from the yard before I had the hardi-hood to mention it.  We turned back, on my humbly insinuating that it might be useful to me hereafter; and he told the clerk 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 Blackheath,' he said 

'Is that far, sir,' I was diffident. 

'It's a good step,' he said, 'We shall go by the stage coach.  'It's about six miles.'

I was so faint and tired, that the idea of holding out for six miles more, was too much for me.  I took heart to tell him 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 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 the bakers window, and after I made a series of proposals to buy everything that was bilious and he had rejected them one by one, we decided in favour of a nice little loaf of brown bread, which cost me threepence.  Then at a grocer's shop, we bought an egg and a slice of streaky bacon, which still left what I thought of a good deal of change, out of 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 alms houses as I knew by their look, and by an inscription on stone over the gate which said they were established for twenty five poor women.

The Master at Salem House lifted the latch of one of number of little black doors, that were all alike and had each a little diamond-paned window on one side and one little diamond-paned window on above; and we went into the little house of  one of these poor old women, who was blowing fire to make a little sauce-pan boil.  On seeing the Master enter the old woman stopped with the bellows on her knee, and said something that I thought sounded, 'My Charlie!' but on seeing me come in too, she got up, and rubbing her hands made a confused sort of half curtsey.

'Can you cook this young gentleman's breakfast for him, if you please,' said the Master at Salem House.

'Can I?' said the old woman, 'Yes I can, sure!'

'How's Mrs Fibbitson, today? asked 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.

'Ah, she's poorly,' said the first old woman.  'It's one of her hard days.  If the fire was to go out, through any accident, I verily believe she would 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  nothing but fire.  I fancied she was jealous even of the sauce-pan on it, and I have reason to  know that she was compelled  into the service of boiling my egg and bacon in resentment; for I saw her, with my own eyes, shake her fist at me once, when those culinary operations were going on, and no one else was cooking.  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 she were keeping it warm, instead of it keeping her warm, and watching it with distrust.  The preparation of my breakfast gave her extreme joy that she laughed aloud.

I sat down to my brown loaf, my egg, and my bacon, besides a basin of milk.  While I was at the full enjoyment of it, the old woman said to the Master:

'Have you got your flute with you?'

'Yes,' he returned.

'Have a blow at it,' she said coaxing 'Do.'

The Master,upon this, put his hand underneath the skirts of his coat, brought out his flute in three pieces, screwed it together and began to play.  It was a worse play.  There came some dismal sounds, which strained my nerves, took away my appetite, made my sorrows to surface, and made me sleepy that I couldn't keep my eyes open.  The little room with its open cupboard, it's square backed chairs, its angular staircase, leading to the room above, the three peacock feathers displayed over the mantle piece, stirred, and then faded in my eyes, and my attempt to keep it open failed, and they closed, and I slipped into sleep.  There was no flute, but the rattling of the wheels of the coach, and I was on my journey.  The coach jolts, and I woke with a start, and the flute was back again, and the Master at the Salem House was sitting cross legged, play it miserably.  The old woman looked on with delight.  Then she faded, he faded, and all faded. There was no flute, no Master, no old woman, no Salem House, no David Copperfield, no anything, but sleep, sleep and deep sleep.

I dreamt, I thought, that once he was blowing into his dismal flute, the old woman of the house, who had gone nearer and nearer to him in admiration of ecstasy, leaned over the back of his chair and gave him an affectionate squeeze round the neck, which stopped his blowing for a moment.  I was in the middle of state between wake and sleep, either then or immediately afterwards; as he resumed, he stopped playing, the same old woman asked Mrs Fibbitson if the flute was delicious and Mrs Fibbitson answered 'ay, ay! ay! yes and nodded at the fire: to which, I thought, she gave the credit of the whole performance.

While I had been sleeping, the Master at Salem House unscrewed his flute into three pieces, put them up as before, and took me away.  We found the coach very near at hand, got upon the roof; but I was so deadly 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 space up a steep hill among green hills.  Presently it stopped, and had come to its destination.

A short walk brought us- 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, when we rang the bell, we were surveyed by a surly face, through a grating in this door.  When the door was opened I found that the face belonged to a stout man, with bull neck, wooden leg, overhanging temples, and his hair cut close all round his head.

'The new boy,'said the Master 

The man with the wooden leg eyed me all over - it didn't take long, for there was not much of me-and locked the gate behind us, and took out the key.  We were going upto the house, among some dark heavy trees, when he called after my conductor.

'Hallo!'

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' been,' he said, 'since you've been out, Mr Mell, and he says he can't mend 'em any more.  He says there ain't any bit of the original boot left, and he wonders you expect it.'

With these words he threw the boots towards Mr Mell, who went a few paces to pick them up, and looked at them, as we went together.  I observed, then, for the first time, that the boots he had on were a good deal the worse for wear, and his stocking was just breaking out in one place, like a bud. 

Salem House was a square brick building with wings of a bare and unfinished appearance.  All about it was quiet that I said to Mr Mell I supposed the boys were out; but he seemed surprised at my not knowing that it was a holiday.  That all the boys were at their homes.  That Mr Creakle, the proprietor, was downside by the seaside with Mrs and Miss Creakle, that I was sent in holiday time as a punishment for my mis doing all of which he explained to me as he went along.

I gazed upon the school room into which he took me, as the most forlorn and desolate place I had ever seen.  I see it now.  A long room, with three long row of desks, and six of forms, bristle with all round with pegs for hats and slates.  Scraps of old copy-books and exercises litter the dirty floor.  Some silk-worm's houses made of the same materials are scattered over the desks.  Two miserable little mice, left behind by their owner, are running up and down in a fusty castle made of paste-board and wire, looking in all the corners with their red eyes for anything to eat. A bird, in a cage, little bigger than himself, makes a mournful rattle, now and then in hopping on his perch, two inches high, or dropping from it; but neither sings nor chirps.  There is strange unwholesome smell upon the room, like mild-wed Corduroys, sweet apples wanting air, and rotten books.  There could not well be more ink splashed about it, if it had been roof-less from its first construction, and the skies had rained, snowed, and hailed, and blow ink through varying seasons of the year.

Master Mell 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 paste-board 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 a great dog underneath.  But though I looked all round with anxious eyes, I could see nothing of him.  I was still engaged in peering about when Mr Mell came back, and asked me what I did up there. 

'I beg your pardon, sir,' said I, 'if you please, Iam looking for the dog.'

'Dog?' he said, 'What dog?'

'Isn't it, a dog, sir?'

'Isn't what 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 made 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 the placard, nobody can imagine.  Wherever it was possible for people to see me or not, I always fancied that somebody was reading it.  It was no relief to turn round and find nobody, for wherever my back was, there I imagined somebody always to be.  The cruel man with 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 roar out from his lodge door in a stupendous voice, 'Hallo! You sir, you Copperfield! Show the badge conspicuous, or I will report you!'  The playground was a bare yard with gravel 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 I was ordered to walk there, read that I was  to be taken care of, for I bite, I recollect that I positively began to have a dread of myself, as a wild boy who did bite. 

There was an old door in this play ground, 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 vacation, and their coming back, I could not read a boy's name, without enquiring 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 Tradles, who I dreaded would make a game of it, and pretend to be dreadfully frightened of me.  There was a third, George Demple, 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 forty of them in the school then, Mr Mell 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 same with the places at the desks and forms.  It was same with the groves of bed-steads 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 going to a party at Mr Peggotty's or of travelling out in stage coach, or of dining again with my unfortunate friend the waiter, and in all these circumstances making people scream and scare by the unhappy disclosure that I had nothing on but my little night shirt and that placard.

In the monotony, and the fear of re- opening of school, I had tasks every day to do with Master Mell; but I did them, there being no Mr and Miss Murdstone here, I got through them without disgrace.  In the little intervals, the man in the wooden leg supervised me constantly.  The damp house, the green cracked flag-stones in the courtyard, old leaky water-butt, and the discoloured trunks of grim trees, which dripped more in the rain, and blown less in the sun, than other trees.  We dined, Mr Mell and I, at the end of a long dining room, full of deal tables, and smelling of fat.  We had more tasks until tea.  Mr Mell drank out of a blur tea cup, and I out of a tin pot.  Until seven or eight in the evening, Mr Mell, at his own detached desk in the school, worked hard with his pen, ink, ruler, books and writing paper, making the bills ( as I found) for the 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 pictured myself in the dimly lighted room, sitting myself with my head upon my hand, listening to the miserable performance of Mr Mell, and listening through it what used to be at home, and to the blowing of the wind at Yarmouth flats, and feeling very sad and solitary.  I pictured myself going upto bed, among the unused rooms, and sitting on my bed-stead crying for a comfortable word from Peggotty.  I picture myself coming down stairs in the morning, and looking through a long ghastly gash of stair-case window at the school bell, hanging on the top of an out-house with a weather- cock above it, and dreading the time when it shall ring J. Steerforth and the rest to work: which was only second, in my foreboding apprehensions, to the man with the wooden leg shall unlock the rusty gate to give admission to the awful Mr Creakle.  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. Mell never said much to me, but he was never harsh to me.  I suppose we were company 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 first they frightened me, though I soon got used to it.

End of Chapter 5