Escape to Dover

Mrs Micawber sat at the back of the coach together with her children.    She saw through her tears little David stood looking low-spirited at them.  She beckoned to him to climb up, put her arms round his neck and gave him such a kiss as she might have given to her own boy.  He had barely time to get down before the coach started.  It was gone in a minute.  David and Orfling stood looking vacantly at each other in the middle of the road; and then shook hands and said goodbye.

A desperate idea came into the mind of David.  It had its root in the narrative, by his mother now and then, of an incident connected with his aunt Miss Betsey Trotwood.  David was not sure whether it was true or a mere fancy of his mother.  The dreaded Miss Betsey Trotwood came into the story on the day of his birth.  The soft touch of his mother's hair by the terrible aunt lingered in his mind caused David to see her in a positive shade.  And she was the only kin he knew.  In his sleepless night after the departure of Micawbers he thought of his aunt and his seeking refuge in her.  This thought remained in him and crystalised into a resolution within a few days. 

He wrote to Peggotty for a loan of  a half guinea and also asked where Miss Betsey Trotwood lived.  He received the half guinea but about where Miss Betsey Trotwood lived she was not clear: whether it was Dover or Hythe, or Sandgate or Folkestone.  One man of Murdstones & Grinbys told him that all these places were nearby. This was enough and David decided to set off by the weekend.  As he had been paid in advance the week's wages he decided to remain full week and leave by Saturday night without taking the week's payment.

David's box was at his old lodging.  He hired a long-legged young man with a very little empty donkey-cart to carry it to the booking office.  He agreed to carry it for sixpence.  Later David understood that he was a defiant.  David's plan was to send the box to coach-office at Dover.  He had an address card in his pocket to be fixed on the box.  His plan was to fix it outside the lodging to avoid the attention of the landlord's family.  David asked the long-legged man to stop a minute when he would reach at the dead-end wall of King's Bench prison.  Before David finished his instruction, the long legged man rattled away; and David quite out of breath ran after him calling to stop the cart.  In his excitement, David's half guinea tumbled out of his pocket, while pulling his address card out.  He put it in his mouth for safety, and tied the card to the box, when the long legged man violently pushed under his chin.  David saw his half guinea fly out his mouth into long legged's hand.  Then he said that David was going to bolt. The word bolt in slang meant to run away. Then he threatened David to come to police.  David asked him to give his money and box back and leave him. The long legged man jumped into the cart and sat on David's box threatened David to come to the police and prove his case, and rattled away.  David ran after him half a mile and lost his breath, narrowly escaped being run over.  Out of fear and shame he left the man to go where he would, with his money and box.  

David started for Greenwich.  He had a bare idea that it was on Dover road.  He came to a stop in Kent road, at a terrace with a piece of water before it.  Here he sat down on a doorstep quite spent and exhausted.  In the midst of his distress he had a notion of going back.  He had only three-halfpence in his pocket and he wondered how it came to be left on a Saturday night.  He trudged on miserably and came to pass a little shop, where it was written up that Ladies' and gentlemen's wardrobes were bought.

David's experience with Mr and Mrs Micawbers had taught him how to keep the wolf away for a little while.  He went up the next by-street, took off his waist-coat, rolled it neatly under his arm, and came back to the shop door.  Mr Dollby Dollby was the name of the shop.  He offered his waist-coat for sale to Mr Dollby Dollby.  The latter took the waist-coat, examined it in the dim  candle light, spread it on the counter, held it up against the light again and asked David the price.  As David was uncertain about it he asked the seller to fix a price.  Mr Dollby Dollby told that he could not be a buyer and seller too.  Would it be eighteenpence was the question by David.  I should rob of my family if I bought it for ninepence was the answer.  David agreed to part it at that price and and the shopkeeper gave him ninepence.  David took the money and continued his journey.

In Blackheath, David could found his old school, Salem House, and behind its wall a haystack in the corner.  David walked round the wall, looked up at the windows.  All was dark and silent within.  He chose a place near haystack, and lay there, for the first time without a roof over his head.  Without much delay he fell into sleep.

 

The morning bell at Salem House awoke David.  Without much delay he was on the road to Dover.  It was Sunday and he saw people going to church.  By evening he was close to Rochester.  Here he was tempted by notices of little houses - Lodgings for Travellers.  But he was afraid of spending few pence he had.  The vicious looks of tramps also frightened him. 

Near Chatham he lay down and slept near a canon upon a grass-grown battery overhanging a lane, where a sentry was walking to and fro.  But the sentry was not aware of David's presence above him.  David was not able to walk further without having any food.  So he decided to sell his jacket.  He took his jacket off, and carrying it under his arm looked for slop-shops.  Seeing the costly nature of garments in their stock, David walked about a long time without offering his merchandise to anyone.  At last David found one, at the corner of a dirty lane, surrounded by nettles.  Second hand sailor's clothes were fluttering among other merchandise of different kinds.  A man with dirty face of stubble grey beards came forward from a den and took David by hair.  The man in filthy flannel waist-coat was smelling rum.  He asked David what he wanted.  The man cursed his own eyes and limbs; and his lungs and liver. And he cursed with an unknown word 'goroo'.  He repeated these curses several times.  Alarmed, David told that he wanted to sell his jacket.  The man examined the jacket. The bargain started and the deal was closed for eighteen pence.  But David did not received the money.  The goroo man wanted an exchange.  But David insisted that he should get the money.  David agreed to wait outside.  David went outside and sat down in a corner under a shade.  

The shade had passed and sunlight came, and it passed and again came the shade, but the money did not come.  The goroo man was very unpopular among the boys of the locality.  The skirmishes between him and the boys revealed a story: His name was Charlie.  He had plenty of gold in bags stitched to the matress of his bed. The boys believed he served the devil.  He pretended he had no money.  The boys would ask him to rip open the matress and take out the gold.  He would rush at the boys.  The boys would flee, but would make another attempt taunting him again.  These skirmishes repeated several times before David began to receive his money piecemeal.  The boys found  David sitting in front of the shop, half dressed, illused him and pelted at him.  Time to time, Charlie would come with counter offers reducing the original one, and offering a new exchange.  He was weak and weary so that he closed the deal at fourpence.

He had a refreshement of threepence.  The third day of his journey. (44 miles covered)  Sleep at night was under another haystack.  

Next morning the journey resumed.  Hop-grounds and apple orchards.  Tramps were worse than ever that day. Ferocious-looking ruffians who stared at him as he went by; and called after him if he did not stop; and stoned him when he took to his heels.  He recollected a tinker.  David understood from his wallet and bazier, that he was a tinker and his woman walked by his side.  The tinker stared him and roared at him to come back.  David halted and looked round. The tinker asked him where he was going.  David said that he was going to Dover. Then came his next question where he was coming from.  David said that he was coming from London.  He asked what lay upon him and whether he was a prig. His intention was to know whether David had any money. He threatened David to part with his money to buy a pint of beer. David would have given him the money; but the woman with her head-shake and her lips gave a big no. David said that he was very poor and had no money. The tinker looked at him so sternly, that David was certain he saw the money in his pocket.  He snatched away his handkecief, telling it belonged to his brother, and tossed it to the woman. The woman burst into a laughter and tossed it back to David and made the word 'go' with her lips.  But before David could make a start he snatched back the handkerchief, turned upon the woman and knocked her down. David ran and looked back from a distance.  The woman fell backward on the road, and lay there with her bonnet tumbled and her hair whitened with dust.  When he looked back after a run, he saw her sitting on the pathway by the road wiping the blood from her face with the corner of her shawl.

From that time onwards, David would hide somewhere, at the sight of tramps, and remain there till they passed.  He always carried the remembrance of his mother, and it remained his sole inspiration.

On the sixth day of his flight he reached Dover.  On an average he travelled thirteen miles a day.  It was too much for a young boy of around ten or eleven years.  Dusty, sunburnt and half-clad he began his efforts to find out his aunt.

First he asked the boatmen, and he received stories of various dimensions, including the one that she mounted a broom in the last high wind and went for Calais.  Calais was a French port nearest to Dover.  Fly-drivers were equally humourous. Fly means a carriage drawn by single horse which were available on hire.  The shopkeepers did not like his appearance and replied without hearing what he had to say.  David felt more destitute than ever.  The morning had worn away, and he was sitting in front of en empty shop in a street corner in the marketplace.  Thinking of other places where he could search for his aunt, a fly driver came by with his carriage, dropped a horse cloth.  David took it and handed it to him. His good natured face encouraged David to ask whether he knew of a woman named Betsey Trotwood.  He thought for a moment, and asked David whether she was an old lady.  The fly-driver described nearly characteristics of Betsey, like she was stiff in the back;  always carried a bag with a good deal of room in it; gruffish and sharp.  David's heart sank when he heard the accuracy of this description.  Then he gave David the directions to reach there, together with a warning that she would not stand up anything; and he gifted David one penny.  With the penny he bought a loaf.

Then he went to a general shop and inquired the shop-keeper, who was weighing rice to a young woman, whether he knew where Miss Trotwood lived.  The answer came from the young woman that it was her mistress.  She further asked him what he wanted to do with her.  She wanted him to follow her.

David followed her and soon reached a very neat little cottage with bow windows.  In front of it was a beautiful garden.  The woman said to David that it was the house, and went into it leaving him standing at the garden gate.  The stillness of the parlour window caused him to look at the window above it.  There was a florid, pleasant looking gentleman, who laughed at him and went away.  A lady came out of the house, with handkerchief tied over her cap, and a pair of gardening gloves on her hands, wearing a gardening apron, and carrying a great knife.

Her first words to David were 'go away.  No boys here.'

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