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Hello and welcome to Storytime for Grown Ups. I'm Faith Moore and this season we're reading David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. Each episode I'll read a few chapters from the book, pausing from time to time to give brief explanations so it's easier to follow along. It's like an audiobook with built in notes. So brew a pot of tea, find a cozy chair and settle in. It's story time. Hi everyone. Welcome back. Oh my gosh, poor Davey. Right? Okay, we've got a lot to talk about. You guys have been writing in with all kinds of great comments, so I'm going to read some. We're going to talk about talk about them. I just have one quick announcement before we get into that, which is that I have scheduled February's tea time. Tea time happens over in our online community, which is called the Drawing Room because it's where we withdraw after this podcast to keep on chatting and talking. It's a wonderful place if you're not already a member. You can scroll into the show notes and find the link to learn more about signing up for the Drawing room. But next tea time will be February 24th. That's a Tuesday at 8pm Eastern. For those of you who don't know, Tea Time is a group voice chat, kind of like a phone call where I can hear you and you can hear me and we get to chat together about the book. You can ask me anything. I've already got some great ask me anything questions that you guys are submitting over in the drawing room. So if you're not a member or if you're not a member of the landed gentry membership tier, which is the tier that you need to be a part of to join in on tea time. You can click link in the show notes and either sign up or change your membership. And I hope that we'll be able to see you and hear you there. I guess just hear you there and I will remind you again as it gets closer, in case you forget. So tea time is Tuesday, February 24th at 8pm Eastern. Other than that, all of the same reminders are still in effect. Please subscribe. Please tap the five stars. Please leave a positive review. Please tell all your friends, colleagues, family members, people you know on the street. Let's get as many people listening to this wonderful book as we can. Okay, so this is actually kind of a long chapter. We're going to be reading chapter 10 today. Last time we read chapter 9. We are going to talk a bit beforehand, so let's get right into it. Here is the recap. All right, so where we left off, Davey is back at school when on his birthday, he is called into Mr. Creakle's parlor and told that his mother has died. He's devastated. He goes home at once, where he's met by a cheerful little man named Mr. Omer, who measures Davey for his family funeral clothes. At home, Mr. Murdstone is silently weeping and Ms. Murdstone is businesslike and cold. But Peggy is there and she cares for Davey as best she can. It turns out that Davey's baby brother has died as well, and the two are going to be buried together. The funeral day comes and all their friends and neighbors are there and Mr. Chillip the Apothecary is very kind to Davy. Afterwards, Peggotty tells Davy the story. Story of how his mother died was essentially that she was worn down by her marriage to Mr. Murdstone and knew that she was dying. She died in Peggy's arms and asked to be buried with her baby. And Davey feels that it's really him in his earliest happy days that is buried alongside his mother. Okay, I'm going to read 3 comments today. The first one comes from Daniella. She says, chapter nine was so heartbreaking, I literally cried the entire time. Dickens's brilliant description made the chapter even more emotional. You feel Davey's pain and numbness throughout the chapter. Can't wait for the rest. Thank you for all your hard work. Well, thank you for listening. The hard work is a joy, so I'm so glad you're here listening. Here is the second one. It's from Sarah Kochas. I hope I'm saying that right. She writes, dickens captures grief in such an honest and visceral way. His juxtaposition of Davies overwhelming sadness with the merry family of the funeral director highlights how the grieving person felt. Feels like the world should stand still and that no one could possibly be happy in that moment. However, time marches on and this was illustrated vividly with the rat tat tat noises as well as the reference to the clock in his house being restless in the motionless house. And the last one is from Julianne. She writes, chapter nine is probably my favorite one so far. Dickens truly was a master of writing. I was so sad for poor David once he learned the horrible news and then immediately laughing at the Omer family. The bizarre comical episode is a much needed moment of levity in an otherwise heartbreaking chapter. Okay, so I agree, Julianne. Chapter nine is one of my favorite chapters in this book as well. I have a lot of favorite chapters, but this is one of them. It's almost like a little short story in and of itself. I think it's such a masterful little gem of a chapter because, like Sarah says, it's a beautiful portrayal of grief and what grief is like. But as Julianne says, it's also a kind of depiction of life in microcosm. The way that life and death are so intimately linked and life goes on even as death walks among us. And it takes from us people that we love, but the world keeps on spinning and the living keep on living. I mean, it's just beautiful. So we're going to take a look at that, how Dickens does that for us. And we'll also talk a little bit about what all this means for Davy now, because Daniela is right. This is heartbreaking for him. His mother is gone, his brother is gone. He has. Has no family left now. So what is going to happen to him? We need to know. But let's just spend some time in the world of this chapter for a second because it's so brilliant and it really shows what an astute observer of human nature Dickens is, I think. So the chapter begins with Mrs. Creel breaking the news to Davey in this really kind of infuriating, but also completely recognizable way. She doesn't see, say, what I think we would want her to say, which is something along the lines of, like, david, I have some truly terrible news. I'm so sorry, but your mother has died, right? You want her to be kind and sympathetic and motherly, but also. Get to the point, right? But instead she draws it all out, and she even makes it sound like maybe the mom is actually still alive. And then finally, she kind of circles back around to the truth. First she asks if they were all well at home and that if the mother was well. And then she says, here's a quote. I grieve to tell you that I hear this morning your ma is very ill. And then she says she is very dangerously ill, and then she is dead. I mean, that is not the most helpful way to break this news to Davey, I don't think. But I don't know about you, but I have seen people in real life, very well meaning people break the news of someone's death in pretty much exactly this way, because it's hard to be the bearer of news like that. You don't want to get to the point. You don't want to drop that bomb on someone and watch it explode. And yes, Mr. Creel is an awful, tyrannical sort of person. But Mrs. Creel actually seems like she's quite nice and she really doesn't relish having to tell this little boy that his mother is dead. So she breaks it to him in this kind of awful but really very relatable way. And then I think a lesser writer would have Davies sort of prostrate with grief on the floor and having no other thoughts but thoughts of his mother and how sad he is and all of this. And we get that Davey is clearly devastated. And Dickens gives us a picture of that throughout the whole chapter. But I absolutely love this little comment he makes about being proud of the attention that he's getting for being grief stricken. He's truly sad, but he's also very aware of the way that his sorrow makes him important among the other boys. Here's what it says. I am sensible of having felt that a dignity attached to me among the rest of the boys and that I was important in my affliction. If ever child were stricken with sincere grief, I was. But I remember that this importance was a kind of satisfaction to me when I walked in the playground that afternoon while the boys were in school. And I mean, that's very relatable, isn't it? When you've had a shock like Davey has and you're grieving and you think all sorts of things, right? Things that you wouldn't imagine someone would think in those circumstances. And Dickens, as a wonderful observer of people and human nature, he knows that. So we get this little insight into Davies awareness of himself in this situation and the way in which he's still a little boy, thinking about his place in the playground hierarchy even as he deals with the grief of this news of his mother's death. But the real brilliance of this chapter, as Julianne and Sarah point out, the real brilliance is this scene with Mr. Omer's family. So Mr. Omer is the undertaker, right? Which means that he is in charge of preparing the body for burial and getting the coffin made, but also making the funeral clothes for the mourners and all of this. So he deals with death all the time. And you might write that character as someone who is very sour and sort of serious and kind of obsessed with death and almost like a corpse himself or something. And Dickens has actually written undertakers who are much more in that vein in other books of his. But I like the Omer family even more than that other version because I think another thing that might happen if you spend all your time dealing with death is that you wouldn't much mind it. You would see death as a natural part of life and you wouldn't be overly upset by it or overly involved in the grief of any particular one of your clients. You would have a sense that death is a part of life and that life goes on. And I think that's what the Omer family and this scene with them is, is doing in the book in the first place. Now, Dickens is a master at pulling at our heartstrings and giving us these scenes of hardship and trouble and all of this. We've had lots of those already in this book so far. But he's also a master at creating these really beautiful, lively, homey family scenes. You know, if you were there with us for A Christmas Carol, you may remember the scene with Belle and her family or the party at Mr. Fezziwig's. Dickens has a way of conjuring a sort of happy, cheerful, loving family out of thin air really very quickly and without needing to give us too much background about them or make us spend much time with them. I mean, just listen to this dialogue from when Davy first arrives at Mr. Omer's shop. It says, father, said Minnie playfully, what a porpoise you do grow. Well, I don't know how it is, my dear, he replied, considering about it. I am rather so. You are such a comfortable man, you see, said Minnie. You take things so easy. No use taking him otherwise, my dear, said Mr. Omer. No, indeed, returned his daughter. We are all pretty gay here, thank heaven. Ain't we, Father? I hope so, my dear, said Mr. Omer. I mean, if Davy wasn't filled with grief over the death of his mother, and therefore we weren't filled with grief over the death of Davey's mother, this would be a delightful little scene. We'd be eager and excited to meet these characters and we might even feel like they were gonna be main characters in the story. We might really, really like them. But as it is their happiness and their lovingness and the fact that are a family, all of this is actually really jarring in the face of Davey's grief. And I think that's actually what these characters are doing here. This whole chapter is just filled with life and death. I mean, you get this family that's essentially just bursting with life, but all the while we can hear the rat tat tat coming from outside, which we later learn is the sound of Joram, who is Minnie's sweetheart. It's the sound of him making the coffin for Davey's mother. So it's life and, and it's death and that's the truth, right? Life necessitates death and death necessitates life. And that's what's going on in this chapter. And Mr. Omer even says it. He's talking about the fashions of the morning clothes. But he says fashions are like human beings. They come in, nobody knows when, why or how, and they go out. Nobody knows when, why or how. Everything is like life, in my opinion. If you look at it in that point of view. Yeah. I mean, right. Everything is like life because everything is life, even death. And so, even though for days, Davey, the death of his mother, and also, we learn later, of his baby brother, even though this death, these deaths are truly cataclysmic for Davey, in the grand scheme of things, the world goes on, life goes on. Even Davey's life will go on. And that's grief, right. It's this absolute devastation for you while the whole world goes on around you, seemingly unaware. And that's exactly how Davey feels. Here's what he says. I do not think I have ever experienced so strange a feeling in my life. I am wiser now, perhaps as that of being with them, remembering how they had been employed and seeing them enjoy the ride. I was not angry with them. I was more afraid of them, as if I were cast away among creatures with whom I had no community of nature. So this scene, this little vignette, really, of Davy in the undertaker's shop is both a really astute description of what grief feels like. The sense that the world is going on around you, but you've somehow stepped out of the flow of life and you really can't fathom why or how everything is still just going on when this terrible thing has happened. So it's that, but it's also a kind of picture of life in general. I mean, Dickens could have just left us there in Davy's head, where everything is grief and devastation. But instead, he kind of gives us this bird's eye view of the way in which death and life and family and new families, remember, Minnie and Joram are engaged, Right. So new, new families and love and grief are all mixed up together. And it's really very beautiful and poignant, I think. But let's zoom in a bit. Now, we zoomed out to look at Dickens's masterful writing and what he's doing with this chapter and the way in which he sort of zoomed out for a minute there while still keeping us very much inside of Davy's experience. But now let's zoom in and address Daniella's concerns, and I think all of our concerns for Davey and what is going to happen to him now. So, of course, with the death of Clara and the baby, Davey has no family left that wants anything to do with him. We know he has a great aunt, right? Betsy Trotwood. She showed up in the first chapter, but she wants nothing to do with him. So with the death of his mother and brother, the only family he has is gone now, and Davey is still a child. It's his birthday, which is awful, by the way, that all of this is happening on his birthday. But it's his birthday. So based on what he told us before about being eight on his way to Salem House, he should be nine at this point. And nine is not old enough to fend for yourself, really. So what will happen to him? His guardian at this point, by rights, ought to be Mr. Murdstone, right? When Mr. Murdstone married Clara, he took on the legal role of father to Davy. So he is now the one in charge of what will happen to Davy next, which doesn't really bode very well. You would think that Mr. Murdstone would just send him back to Salem House, right, and have him stay there for all his vacations and kind of wash his hands of him. But we actually get this bit of foreshadowing that makes us think that that's not what's going to happen to him. It says, I left Salem House upon the morrow afternoon. I little thought then that I left it, never to return. Okay, so he's apparently not going back to Salem House. So what is going to happen to him? We really don't know. Now, I want to point out, for all of you who disagreed with me about Mr. Murdstone's feelings for Clara, I want to point out that Mr. Murdstone actually seems pretty cut up over Clara's death. Davy says. Here's a quote. Mr. Murdstone took no heed of me when I went into the parlor where he was, but sat by the fireside, weeping silently and pondering in his elbow chair. Weeping silently implies real emotion. I mean, if his problem was like, where am I gonna live now? What am I gonna do now that my source of income and property is gone? Or something like that. He might be pondering in his easy chair, but not weeping. Weeping implies real emotion and a real connection to Klara and to the baby. So I'm not going to belabor the point. I've already said it, but I did want to just point that out. Okay, but will his grief over Klara's death make him more sympathetic to Davey. I mean, maybe. Probably not, given what we know of him, but maybe. But he's going to have to think of something to do with Davey. He's in charge of him now. I think we all know what we want to have happen, right? We want him to get to stay with Peggy. I mean, don't we just love Peggy? I mean, we've been saying this all along. I know, but. Oh, my gosh, what a great character. The loyalty she feels for Davey's mother. The way she never left her side while she was dying. And even after she died, when she was lying in the bedroom waiting for the burial. Peggy has been like a second mother to Davy. But there's a way in which she was like a mother to Clara as well. I mean, the whole scene that she narrates about Clara's death when she's telling it to Davy, it was like Clara was a child and Peggy was her mother, sitting there with her to the end. And not to belabor this point either, but it's clear that Clara truly loved Davy and was thinking about him and worrying about him as she died. She says, God bless both my children. God protect and keep my fatherless boy. The fatherless boy is of course, Davy, because the baby, if it had lived, would have had a father, Mr. Murdstone. So Clara is aware that she's leaving Davy without a father or even a father figure who cares about him the way that a father should. So she loved him, she never gave up loving him, but she just couldn't take care of him. She couldn't break free, free of Mr. Murdstone, nor did she really want to break free of him. But she also couldn't live with him either. I mean, they never actually tell us how Clara dies, like what it is that kills her. And I actually think we're meant to feel that it's grief or a sense of not being able to live this way anymore. Even as she loves Mr. Murdstone and even Jane Murdstone. Peggy says that. She says that she was the sort of person who couldn't help loving people. And she really did love the Murdstone. So even as she loved them, she couldn't live with them. And she kind of just wasted away. So just like we were saying before, she loved Davy, but she failed him as well. And we get this picture of what Davey's life could have been and the mother's life could have been too, if Mr. Copperfield Davies father had lived and Mr. Murdstone had never entered the picture. This is what Peggy says. She's telling Davey what happened to his mother. And she says the sun was rising when she said to me how kind and considerate Mr. Copper Copperfield had always been to her and how he had borne with her and told her when she doubted herself that a loving heart was better and stronger than wisdom and that he was a happy man in hers. Right. In her loving heart. Meaning he understood that she was kind of this silly, childish person. She had no wisdom. But he loved her and she loved him. She had a loving heart and that's what mattered to him. So there's this picture of the kind of strong man that we wish Mr. Murdstone would have been to Clara, and he just wasn't. And it's a really poignant and kind of sad picture of what Davy could have had if his father had lived. But of course he didn't live. And if he had lived, we wouldn't have this book. So back to Peggy. Right. I was saying that we wish, of course, that Davy could just live with Peggy, but I think it's pretty unlikely that Mr. Murdstone would let that happen. Peggy is a servant, and Mr. Murdstone has feelings about not associating with servants. And also, Peggy probably doesn't have the money to raise a child on her own. She's not married. And she is going to have to go and find another job pretty soon because I assume at least that the Murdstones aren't going to keep her around. They don't seem to like her very much. And there's a way in which we're sort of being told that her service to the family is done. Right. We get this line which is really incredibly moving. It's during the funeral and it says, then I hear sobs. And standing apart among the lookers on, I see that good and faithful servant. Servant, whom of all the people upon earth I love the best, and unto whom my childish heart is certain that the Lord will one day say, well done. And of course, this is a reference to Matthew, chapter 25, verse 21 from the Bible, where it says, well done, thou good and faithful servant. Thou hast been faithful over a few things. I will make thee ruler over many things. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord. Okay, so adult David is saying that Peggy is the good and faithful servant and that she too is deserving of God's blessing for that which is so moving. And he's also saying that Peggy is now the person on earth that he loves the best. She's all he has left really. And it's awful that he can't just stay with her and be like adopted by her. But that's not really financially plausible and it's not socially plausible. So what is going to happen to Davey now? He's not going back to school apparently. So where is he going? We don't know. But one thing we do kind of know, and this is such a beautiful and hopeful haunting image, we know that something about Davies childhood is over now with the death of his mother. The last vestiges of that lovely childhood he had at the beginning of the book, those have died as well. And he says the mother who lay in the grave was the mother of my infancy. The little creature in her arms was myself, as I had once been hushed forever on her bosom. Oh, it's just beautiful, isn't it? It's like little boy Davey died too in that moment. And whatever Devi is going to be now and is some other different version of him moving forward. So what is that version going to be? What will Mr. Murdstone do about Devi? We've got to keep reading to find out. But of course, don't forget to write to me. It's faithkmore.com Then you click on Contact. That link is also in the show notes so you can scroll down and just click it right there. Please do get in touch with all your thoughts, your questions, your comments. I love to hear from you. So please do get in touch. Alright, let's get started with chapter 10 of David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. It's story time, Chapter 10. I become neglected and am provided for. The first act of business Ms. Murdstone performed, when the day of the solemnity was over and light was freely admitted into the house, was to give Peggy a month's warning, meaning the minute the period of mourning for Davy's mother is over, Ms. Murdstone fires Peggy. She has a month left to work and then she must leave. Much as Peggy would have disliked such a service, I believe she would have retained it for my sake in preference to the best upon earth. She told me we must part and told me why, and we condoled with one another in all sincerity. Okay, so Peggy would have liked to stay so that she could have been with Davy. But the Murdstones are her employers now and she explains to Davy that as to me or my future, not a word was said or a step taken. Happy they would have been, I dare say, if they could have dismissed me at a month's warning too. I mustered courage once to ask Miss Murdstone when I was going back to school, and she answered dryly, she believed I was not going back at all. I was told nothing more. I was very anxious to know what was going to be done with me, and so was Peggotty, but neither she nor I could pick up any information on the subject. There was one change in my condition which, while it relieved me of a great deal of present uneasiness, might have made me, if I had been capable of considering it closely, yet more uncomfortable about the future. It was this. The constraint that had been put upon me was quite abandoned. I was so far from being required to keep my dull post in the parlor that on several occasions when I took my seat there, Miss Murdstone frowned to me to go away. I was so far from being warned off from Pegady's society that, provided I was not in Mr. Murdstone's, I was never sought out or inquired for. At first I was in daily dread of his taking my education in hand again, or of Miss Murdstone's devoting herself to it. But I soon began to think that such fears were groundless, and that all I had to anticipate state was neglect. I do not conceive that this discovery gave me much pain then. I was still giddy with the shock of my mother's death, and in a kind of stunned state. As to all tributary things, I can recollect indeed to have speculated at odd times on the possibility of my not being taught any more or cared for any more, and growing up to be a shabby, moody man lounging an idle life away about the village, as well as on the feasibility of my getting rid of this picture by going away somewhere like the hero in a story, to seek my fortune. But these were transient visions, daydreams I sat looking at sometimes as if they were faintly painted or written on the wall of my room, and which, as they melted away, left the wall blank again. Peggy, I said in a thoughtful whisper one evening when I was warming my hands at the kitchen fire, Mr. Murdstone likes me less than he used to. He never liked me much, Peggy, but he would rather not even see me now if he can help it. Perhaps it's his sorrow, said Peggotty, stroking my hair. I am sure, Peggotty, I am sorry, too. If I believed it was his sorrow, I should not think of it at all. But it's not that. Oh, no, it's not that. How d' you know it's not that? Said Peggotty, after a silence oh, his sorrow is another and quite a different thing. He is sorry at this moment, sitting by the fireside with Miss Murdstone. But if I was to go in, Peggotty, he would be something besides. What would he be? Said Peggotty, angry. I answered with an involuntary imitation of his dark frown. If he was only sorry, he wouldn't look at me as he does does. I am only sorry, and it makes me feel kinder. Peggy said nothing for a little while, and I warmed my hands as silent as she. Davy, she said at length, yes, Peggotty? I have tried, my dear, all ways I could think of, all the ways there are and all the ways there ain't, in short, to get a suitable service here in Blunderstone. But there's no such a thing, my love, meaning she can't find a job here in town. And what do you mean to do, Peggotty? Says I wistfully. Do you mean to go and seek your fortune? I expect I'll be forced to go to Yarmouth, replied Peggotty, and live there. You might have gone farther off, I said, brightening a little, and been as bad as lost. I shall see you sometimes, my dear old Peggotty, there you won't be quite at the other end of the world, will you? Contraryways, please God, cried Peggotty, with great animation. As long as you are here, my pet, I shall come over every week of my life to see you one day every week of my life. I felt a great weight taken off my mind by this promise. But even this was not all, for Peggotty went on to say, I'm a going, Davy, you see, to my brother's first for another fortnight's visit, just till I've had time to look about me and get to be something like myself again. Now I've been thinking that perhaps, as they don't want you here at present, you might be let to go along with me. If anything short of being in a different relation to every one about me, Peggotty excepted, could have given me a sense of pleasure at that time, it would have been this project of all others. The idea of being again surrounded by those honest faces shining welcome on me, of renewing the peacefulness of the sweet Sunday morning when the bells were ringing, the stones dropping in the water and the shadowy ships breaking through the mist, of roaming up and down with little Emily, telling her my troubles and finding charms against them in the shells and pebbles on the beach, made a calm in my heart. It was ruffled next moment to be sure by a doubt of Miss Murdstone's giving her consent. But even that was set at rest soon, for she came out to take an evening grope in the store closet while we were yet in conversation, and Peggotty, with a boldness that amazed me, broached the topic on the spot. The boy will be idle there, said Ms. Murdstone, looking into a pickle jar. An idleness is the root of all evil. But to be sure he would be idle here or anywhere, in my opinion. Peggotty had an angry answer ready, I could see, but she swallowed it for my sake and remained silent. Humph, said Ms. Murdstone, still keeping her eye on the pickles. It is of more importance than anything else. It is of paramount importance that my brother should not be disturbed or made uncomfortable. I suppose I had better say yes. I thanked her without making any demonstration of joy, lest it should induce her to withdraw her assent. Nor could I help thinking this a prudent course, since she looked at me out of the pickle jar with as great an access of sourness as if her black eyes had absorbed its contents. However, the permission was given and was never retracted, for when the month was out, Peggonty and I were ready to depart. Mr. Barkis came into the house for Peggotty's boxes. I had never known him to pass the garden gate before, but on this occasion he came into the house and he gave me a look as he shouldered the largest box and went out, which I thought had meaning in it, if meaning could ever be said to find its way into Mr. Barkis's visage. Peggotty was naturally in low spirits at leaving what had been her home so many years and where the two strong attachments of her life for my mother and myself had been formed. She had been walking in the churchyard too, very early, and she got into the cart and sat in it with her handkerchief at her eyes. So long as she remained in this condition, Mr. Barkis gave no sign of life whatever. He sat in his usual place and attitude like a great stuffed figure. But when she began to look about her and to speak to me, he nodded his head and grinned several times. I have not the least notion to whom or what he meant by it. It's a beautiful day, Mr. Barkis, I said as an act of politeness. That ain't bad, said Mr. Barkis, who generally qualified his speech and rarely committed himself. Peggotty is quite comfortable now, Mr. Barkis, I remarked, for his satisfaction. Is she, though? Said Mr. Barkis, after reflecting about it with a sagacious air. Mr. Barkis eyed her and said, are you pretty comfortable? Peggety laughed and answered in the affirmative. But really and truly, you know, are you? Growled Mr. Barkis, sliding nearer to her on the seat and nudging her with his elbow. Are you really and truly pretty comfortable, are you? Eh? At each of these inquiries Mr. Barkis shuffled nearer to her and gave her another nudge, so that at last we were all crowded together in the left hand corner of the cart, and I was so squeezed that I could hardly bear it. Peggotty calling his attention to my sufferings, Mr. Barkis gave me a little more room at once and got away by degrees. But I could not help observing that he seemed to think he had hit upon a wonderful expedient of expressing himself in a neat, agreeable, and pointed manner, without the inconvenience of inventing conversation. He manifestly chuckled over it for some time. By and by he turned to Peggotty again and repeating, are you pretty comfortable? Though bore down upon us as before, until the breath was nearly edged out of my body. By and by he made another descent upon us, with the same inquiry and the same result. At length I got up whenever I saw him coming, and standing on the foot board, pretended to look at the prospect, after which I did very well. He was so polite as to stop at a public house expressly on our account and entertain us with broiled mutton and beer. Even when Peggy was in the act of drinking, he was seized with one of those approaches and almost choked her. But as we drew nearer to the end of our journey, he had more to do and less time for gallantry. And when we got on Yarmouth Pavement, we were all too much shaken and jolted, I apprehend to have any leisure for anything else. Mr. Peggotty and Ham waited for us at the old place. They received me and Peggy in an affectionate manner and shook hands with Mr. Barkis, who with his hat on the very back of his head and a shamefaced leer upon his countenance and pervading his very legs, presented but a vacant appearance. I thought they each took one of Peggotty's trunks and we were going away, when Mr. Barkis solemnly made a sign to me with his forefinger to come under an archway. I say, growled Mr. Barkis, it was all right. I looked up into his face and answered with an attempt to be profound. Oh, it didn't come to a end there, said Mr. Barkis, nodding confidentially, it was all right. Again I answered, oh, you know who was Willing, said my friend. It was Barkis and Barkis only. I nodded assent. It's all right, said Mr. Barkis, shaking hands. I'm a friend. O yourn, you made it all right first. It's all right. In his attempts to be particularly lucid, Mr. Barkis was so extremely mysterious that I might have stood looking in his face for an hour and most assuredly should have got as much information out of it as out of the face of a clock that had stopped but for Peggy's calling me away. As we were going along she asked me what he had said, and I told her he had said it was all right. Like his impudence, said Peggotty, but I don't mind that. Davy dear, what should you think if I was to think of being married? Why, I suppose you would like me as much then, Peggotty, as you do now. I returned, after a little consideration, greatly to the astonishment of the passengers in the street, as well as of her relations going on before the good soul was obliged to stop and embrace me on the spot, with many protestations of her unalterable love. Tell me what you say, darlin', she asked again when this was over and we were walking on. If you were thinking of being married to Mr. Barkis, Peggotty. Yes, said Peggotty, I should think it would be a very good thing. For then, you know, Peggotty, you would always have the horse and cart to bring you over to see me, and could come for nothing and be sure of coming. The sense of the dear, cried Peggotty, what I have been thinking of this month back. Yes, my precious. And I think I should be more independent altogether, you see, let alone my working with a better heart in my own house than I could in anybody else's. Now I dunno what I might be fit for now as a servant to a stranger. And I shall be always near my pretty's resting place, said Peggotty, musing, and be able to see it when I like, and when I lie down to rest, I may be laid not far off from my darling girl. We neither of us said anything for a little while, but I wouldn't so much as give it another thought, said Peggotty cheerily, if my Davy was anyways against it. Not if I had been asked in church 30 times, three times over, and was wearing out the ring in my pocket. Look at me, Peggotty, I replied, and see if I am not really glad, and don't truly wish it, as indeed I did with all my heart. Well, my life, said Peggotty giving me a squeeze. I have thought of it night and day every way I can, and I hope the right way. But I'll think of it again and speak to my brother about it, and in the meantime we'll keep it to ourselves, Davy, you and me. Barkis is a good, plain creature, said Peggotty, and if I tried to do my duty by him, I think it would be my fault. If I wasn't. If I wasn't pretty comfortable, said Peggotty, laughing heartily. This quotation from Mr. Barkis was so appropriate and tickled us both so much that we laughed again and again and were quite in a pleasant humour when we came within view of Mr. Peggotty's cottage. It looked just the same, except that it may perhaps have shrunk a little in my eyes, and Mrs. Gummidge was waiting at the door as if she had stood there ever since. All within was the same, down to the seaweed in the blue mug. In my bedroom I went into the outhouse to look about me, and the very same lobsters, crabs and crawfish, possessed by the same desire to pinch the world in general, appeared to be in the same state of conglomeration in the same old corner. But there was no little em' ly to be seen, So I asked Mr. Peggotty where she was. She's at school, sir, said Mr. Peggotty, wiping the heat consequence on the portage of Peggotty's box from his forehead, meaning he's wiping the sweat from his brow which he worked up carrying the luggage. She'll be ome looking at the Dutch clock in from 20 minutes to half an hour's time. We all on us feel the loss of her. Bless ye. Mrs. Gummidge moaned. Cheer up, Mawther, cried Mr. Peggotty. I feel it more than anybody else, said Mrs. Gummidge. I'm a lone lorn creeter, and she used to be a' most the only thing that didn't go contrary with me. Mrs. Gummidge, whimpering and shaking her head, applied herself to blowing the fire. Mr. Peggotty, looking round upon us while she was so engaged, said in a low voice which he shaded with his hand, the old un. From this I rightly conjectured that no improvement had taken place since my last visit in the state of Mrs. Gummidge's spirits, spirits. Now the whole place was, or it should have been, quite as delightful a place as ever, and yet it did not impress me in the same way. I felt rather disappointed with it. Perhaps it was because little Emily was not at home. I knew the way by which she would come, and presently found myself strolling along the path to meet her. A figure appeared in the distance before long, and I soon knew it to be Emily, who was a little creature still in stature, though she was grown. But when she drew nearer, and I saw her blue eyes looking bluer and her dimpled face looking brighter, and her whole self prettier and gayer, a curious feeling came over me that made me pretend not to know her and pass by as if I were looking at something a long way off. I have done such a thing since in later life, or I am mistaken. Little Emily didn't care a bit. She saw me well enough, but instead of turning round and calling after me, ran away laughing. This obliged me to run after her, and she ran so fast that we were very near the cottage before I caught her. Oh, it's you, is it? Said little Emily. Why, you knew who it was, Emily, said I. And didn't you know who it was? Said Emily? I was going to kiss her, but she covered her cherry lips with her hands and said she wasn't a baby now, and ran away laughing more than ever into the house. She seemed to delight in teasing me, which was a change in her I wondered at very much. The tea table was ready, and our little locker was put out in its old place. But instead of coming to sit by me, she went and bestowed her company upon the grumbling Mrs. Gummitch, and on Mr. Peggotty's inquiring why rumpled her hair all over her face to hide it, and could do nothing but laugh. A little. Puss it is, said Mr. Peggotty, patting her with his great hand. So she isso she is. Cried Ham Master Davy boy. So she is. And he sat and chuckled at her for some time in a state of mingled admiration and delight that made his face a burning red. Little Emily was spoiled by them all, in fact, and by no one more than Mr. Peggotty himself, whom she could have coaxed into anything by only going and laying her cheek against his rough whisker. That was my opinion at least when I saw her do it, And I held Mr. Peggotty to be thoroughly in the right. But she was so affectionate and sweet natured and had such a pleasant manner of being both sly and shy at once, that she captivated me more than ever. She was tender hearted, too. For when, as we sat round the fire after tea, an allusion was made by Mr. Peggotty over his pipe to the loss I had sustained meaning the loss of his mother. The tears stood in her eyes, and she looked at me so kindly across the table that I felt quite thankful to her. Ah, said Mr. Peggotty, taking up her curls and running them over his hand like water. Here's another orphan, you see, sir. And here, said Mr. Peggotty, giving ham a backhanded knock on the chest, here's another of em, though I don't look much like it. If I had you for my guardian, Mr. Peggotty, said I, shaking my head, I don't think I should feel much like it. Well, said Master Dave, a boy. Cried Ham in an ecstasy. Hurrah. Well said. Nor more you wouldn't. Ha ha. Here he returned Mr. Peggotty's back hander, and little Emily got up and kissed Mr. Peggotty. And how's your friend, sir? Said Mr. Peggotty to me. Steerforth, said I. That's the name. Cried Mr. Peggotty, turning to Hamilton. I knowed it was something in our way. You said it was Rudderford, observed Ham, laughing. Well, retorted Mr. Peggotty. And you steer with a rudder, don't you? I ain't far off. How is he, sir? He was very well indeed when I came away, Mr. Peggotty. There's a friend, said Mr. Peggotty, stretching out his pipe. There's a friend. If you talk of friends, why, Lord love my heart alive, if it ain't a treat to look at em. He is very handsome, is he not? Said I, my heart warming with this praise. Handsome? Cried Mr. Peggotty. He stands up to you like. Like a. I don't know what. He don't stand up to you like. He's so bold. Yes, that's just his character, said I. He's as brave as a lion. And you can't think how Frank he is, Mr. Peggotty. And I do suppose now, said Mr. Peggotty, looking at me through the smoke of his pipe, that in the way of Book Larnin, he'd take the wind out of a' most anything. Yes, said I, delighted. He knows everything. He is astonishingly clever. There's a friend, murmured Mr. Peggotty, with a grave toss of his head. Nothing seems to cost him any trouble, said I. He knows a task if he only looks at it. He is the best cricketer you ever saw. He will give you almost as many men as you like at draughts and beat you easily. Mr. Peggotty gave his head another toss, as much as to say, of course he will. He is such a speaker I pursued that he can win anybody over, and I don't know what you'd say if you were to hear him sing, Mr. Peggotty. Mr. Peggotty gave his head another toss, as much as to say, I have no doubt of it. Then he's such a generous, fine, noble fellow, said I, quite carried away by my favorite theme, that it's hardly possible to give him as much praise as he deserves. I am sure I can never feel thankful enough for the generosity with which he has protected me. So much younger and lower in the school than himself. I was running onvery fast indeed when my eyes rested on little Em' Ly's face, which was bent forward over the table, listening with the deepest attention. Her breath held, her blue eyes sparkling like jewels and the color mantling in her cheeks. She looked so extraordinarily earnest and pretty that I stopped in a sort of wonder, and they all observed her at the same time, for as I stopped they laughed and looked at her. Emily's like me, said Peggotty, and would like to see him. Emily was confused by our all observing her and hung down her head, and her face was covered with blushes. Glancing up presently through her stray curls and seeing that we were all looking at her still, I am sure I for one could have looked at her. For hours she ran away and kept away till it was nearly bedtime. I lay down in the old little bed in the stern of the boat, and the wind came moaning on across the flat as it had done before, but I could not help fancying now that it moaned of those who were gone, and instead of thinking that the sea might rise in the night and float the boat away, I thought of the sea that had risen since I last heard those sounds and drowned my happy home. I recollect, as the wind and water began to sound fainter in my ears, putting a short clause into my prayers, petitioning that I might grow up to marry little Emily, and so, dropping lovingly asleep, the days passed pretty much as they had passed before, except it was a great exception that little Emily and I seldom wandered on the beach. Now she had tasks to learn and needlework to do, and was absent during a great part of each day. But I felt that we should not have had those old wanderings, even if it had been otherwise wild and full of childish whims. As Emily was, she was more of a little woman than I had supposed. She seemed to have got a great distance away from me in little more than a year. She liked me, but she laughed at me and tormented me and when I went to meet her, stole home another way and was laughing at the door when I came back disappointed. The best times were when she sat quietly at work in the doorway and I sat on the wooden step at her feet, reading to her. It seems to me at this hour that I have never seen such sunlight as on those bright April afternoons. That I have never seen such a sunny little figure as I used to see sitting in the doorway of the old boat. That I have never beheld such sky, such water, such glorified ships sailing away into golden air. On the very first evening after our arrival Mr. Barkis appeared in an exceedingly vacant and awkward condition and with a bundle of oranges tied up in a handkerchief. As he made no allusion of any kind to this property he was supposed to have left it behind him by accident when he went away until Ham, running after him to restore it came back with the information that it was intended for Peggotty. After that occasion, he appeared every evening at exactly the same hour and always with a little bundle to which he never alluded and which he regularly put behind the door and left there. These offerings of affection were of a most various and eccentric description. Among them, I remember a double set of pigs trotters a huge pin cushion, half a bushel or so of apples a pair of jet earrings, some Spanish onions, a box of dominoes, a canary bird in a cage and a leg of pickled pork. Mr. Barkis's wooing, as I remember it, was altogether of a peculiar kind. He very seldom said anything but would sit by the fire in much the same attitude as he sat in his cart and and stare heavily at Peggotty who was opposite one night, being, as I suppose, inspired by love he made a dart at the bit of wax candle she kept for her thread and put it in his waistcoat pocket and carried it off. After that, his great delight was to produce it when it was wanted sticking to the lining of his pocket in a partially melted state and pocketed again when it was done with. He seemed to enjoy himself very much and not to feel at all called upon to talk. Even when he took Peggotty out for a walk on the flats he had no uneasiness on that head, I believe, contenting himself with now and then asking her if she was pretty comfortable. And I remember that sometimes, after he was gone Peggotty would throw her apron over her face and laugh for half an hour. Indeed, we were all more or less amused except that miserable Mrs. Gummidge whose courtship would appear to have been of an exactly parallel nature. She was so continually reminded by these transactions of the old one. At length, when the term of my visit was nearly expired, it was given out that Peggotty and Mr. Barkis were going to make a day's holiday together, and that little Emily and I were to accompany them. I had but a broken sleep the night before in anticipation of the pleasure of a whole day with Emily. We were all astir betimes in the morning, and while we were yet at breakfast, Mr. Barkis appeared in the distance, driving a chaise cart towards the object of his affections. Peggotty was dressed, as usual in her neat and quiet mourning, but Mr. Barkis bloomed in a new blue coat, of which the tailor had given him such good measure that the cuffs would have rendered gloves unnecessary in the coldest weather, while the collar was so high that it pushed his hair up on end on the top of his head. His bright buttons, too were of the largest size, rendered complete by drab pantaloons and a buff waistcoat. I thought Mr. Barkis a phenomenon of respectability. When we were all in a bustle outside the door, I found that Mr. Peggotty was prepared with an old shoe which was to be thrown after us for luck, and which he offered to Mrs. Gummidge for that purpose. No, it had better be done by someone else, dan', l, said Mrs. Gummidge. I'm a lone Lorn Creetur myself, and everythink that reminds me of Creeturs that ain't lone, and lorn goes contrary with me. Come on, old gal, cried Mr. Peggotty. Take and heave it. No, Dan', l, returned Mrs. Gummidge, whimpering and shaking her head. If I felt less, I could do more. You don't feel like me, Dan' l thinks. Don't go contrary with you. Nor you with them. You had better do it yourself. But here Peggoty, who had been going about from one to another in a hurried way, kissing, everybody called out from the cart, in which we all were by this time, Emily and I on two little chairs side by side, that Mrs. Gummidge must do it. So Mrs. Gummidge did it, and, I am sorry to relate, cast a damp upon the festive character of our departure by immediately bursting into tears and sinking subdued into the arms of Ham. Ham with the declaration that she knowed she was a burden and had better be carried to the house at once, which I really thought was a sensible idea that Ham might have acted on. Away we went, however, on our holiday excursion and the first thing we did was to stop at a church where Mr. Barkis tied the horse to some rails and went in with Peggotty leaving little Emily and me alone in the chaise. I took that occasion to put my arm round Emily's waist and proposed that as I was going away so very soon now we should determine to be very affectionate to one another and very happy all day. Little Emily consenting and allowing me to kiss her I became desperate, informing her, I recollect, that I never could love another and that I was prepared to shed the blood of anybody who would aspire to her affections. How merry little Emily made herself about it with what a demure assumption of being immensely older and wiser than I. The fairy little woman said I was a silly boy, boy. And then laughed so charmingly that I forgot the pain of being called by that disparaging name in the pleasure of looking at her. Mr. Barkis and Peggotty were a good while in the church but came out at last and then we drove away into the country. As we were going along, Mr. Barkis turned to me and said with a wink. By the by, I should hardly have thought before that he could wink. What name was it I wrote up in the cart? Clara Peggotty, I answered. What name would it be as I should write up now if there was a tilt here? Clara Peggotty. Again I suggested. Clara Peggotty Barkis. He returned and burst into a roar of laughter that shook the chaise. In a word they were married and had gone into the church for no other purpose. Peggotty was resolved that it should be quietly done. Done. And the clerk had given her away and there had been no witnesses of the ceremony. She was a little confused when Mr. Barkis made this abrupt announcement of their union and could not hug me enough in token of her unimpaired affection. But she soon became herself again and said she was very glad it was over. We drove to a little inn in a by road where we were expected and where we had a very comfortable dinner and passed the day with great satisfaction. If Peggany had been married every day for the last 10 years she could hardly have been more at her ease about it. It made no sort of difference in her. She was just the same as ever and went out for a stroll with little Emily and me before tea while Mr. Barkis philosophically smoked his pipe and enjoyed himself, I suppose, with the contemplation of his happiness. If so, it sharpened his appetite for I distinctly Called to mind that although he had eaten a good deal of pork and greens at dinner and had finished off with a fowl or two he was obliged to have cold boiled bacon for tea and disposed of a large quantity without any emotion. I have often thought since what an odd, innocent, out of the way kind of wedding it must have been. We got into the chaise again soon after dark and drove cosily back, looking up at the stars and talking about them. I was their chief exponent and opened Mr. Barkis mind to an amazing extent. Meaning Davy told them what he knew about the stars. I told him all I knew but he would have believed anything I might have taken it into my head to impart to him for he had a profound veneration for my abilities and informed his wife in my hearing on that very occasion that I was a young Rosus by which I think he meant prodigy. Okay, so Quintus Roscius was a Roman actor. Barcas seems to be referring to him here, but mispronouncing his name. When we had exhausted the subject of the stars or rather when I had exhausted the mental faculties of Mr. Barkis, little em' Ly and I made a cloak of an old wrapper and sat under it for the rest of the journey. Ah, how I loved her. What happiness, I thought, if we were married and were going away anywhere to live among the trees and in the fields never growing older, never growing wiser, children ever rambling hand in hand through sunshine and among flowery meadows laying down our heads on moss at night in a sweet sleep of purity and peace and buried by the birds when we were dead. Some such picture with no real world in it bright with the light of our innocence and vague as the stars afar off was in my mind all the way. I am glad to think there were two such guileless hearts at Peggotty's marriage as little Emily's and mine. I am glad to think the loves and graces took such airy forms in its homely procession. Well, we came to the old boat again in good time at night and there Mr. And Mrs. Barkis bade us good bye and drove away snugly to their own home. I felt then for the first time that I had lost Peggotty. I should have gone to bed with a sore heart indeed under any other roof but that which sheltered little em' Ly's head. Mr. Peggotty and Ham knew what was in my thoughts as well as I did and were ready with some supper and their hospitable faces to drive it away. Little Emily came and sat beside me on the locker for the only time in all that visit and it was altogether a wonderful close to a wonderful day. It was a night tide and soon after we went to bed, Mr. Peggotty and Ham went out to fish. I felt very brave at being left alone in the solitary house the protector of Emily and Mrs. Gummidge and only wished that a lion or a serpent or any ill disposed monster would make an attack upon us that I might destroy him and cover myself with glory. But as nothing of the sort happened to be walking about on Yarmouth Flats that night I provided the best substitute I could by dreaming of dragons until morning. With morning came Peggotty who called to me as usual under my window as if Mr. Barkis the carrier had been from first to last a dream too. After breakfast she took me to her own home and a beautiful little home it was. Of all the movables in it I must have been impressed by a certain old bureau of some dark wood in the parlor. The tile floored kitchen was the general sitting room with a retreating top which opened, let down and became a desk within which was a large quarto edition of Foxe's Book of Martyrs. This precious volume of which I do not recollect one word I immediately discovered and immediately applied myself to and I never visited the house afterwards. But I kneeled on a chair, opened the casket where this gem was enshrined, spread my arms over the desk and fell to devouring the book afresh. I was chiefly edified, I am afraid, by the pictures which were numerous and represented all kinds of dismal horrors. But the martyrs and Peggotty's house have been inseparable in my mind ever since and are now. I took leave of Mr. Peggotty and Ham and Mrs. Gummidge and little Emily that day and passed the night at Peggotty's in a little room in the roof with the crocodile book on a shelf by the bed's head. Which was to be always mine, Peggotty said, and should always be kept for me in exactly the same state, young or old. Davy dear, as long as I am alive and have this house over my head, said Peggotty, you shall find it as if I expected you here directly minute. I shall keep it every day as I used to keep your old little room, my darling. And if you was to go to China, you might think of it as being kept just the same all the time you were away. I felt the truth and constancy of My dear old nurse, with all my heart and thanked her as well as I could. That was not very well, for she spoke to me thus with her arms round my neck in the morning. And I was going home in the morning. And I went home in the morning with herself and Mr. Barkis in the cart. They left me at the gate, not easily or lightly. And it was a strange sight to me to see the cart go on taking Peggotty away and leaving me under the old elm trees looking at the house in which there was no face to look on mine with love or liking any more. And now I fell into a state of neglect which I cannot look back upon without compassion. I fell at once into a solitary condition apart from all friendly notice, apart from the society of all other boys of my own age, apart from all companionship but my own spiritless thoughts, which seems to cast its gloom upon this paper as I write. What would I have given to have been sent to the hardest school that ever was kept to have been taught something anyhow, anywhere? No such hope dawned upon me. They disliked me, and they sullenly, sternly, steadily overlooked me. I think Mr. Murdstone's means were straitened at about this time. Meaning Mr. Murdstone didn't have much money, but it is little to the purpose. He could not bear me and in putting me from him he tried, as I believe, to put away the notion that I had any claim upon him and succeeded. I was not actively ill used, I was not beaten or starved. But the wrong that was done to me had no intervals of relenting and was done in a systematic, passionless manner. Day after day, week after week, month after month, I was coldly neglected. I wonder sometimes, when I think of it, what they would have done if I had been taken with an illness. Whether I should have lain down in my lonely room and languished through it in my usual solitary way or whether anybody would have helped me out. When Mr. And Ms. Murdstone were at home, I took my meals with them in their absence. I ate and drank by myself at all times. I lounged about the house and neighborhood quite disregarded, except that they were jealous of my making any friends, thinking perhaps that if I did, I might complain to someone. For this reason, though, Mr. Chillip often asked me to go and see him. He was a widower, having some years before that lost a little small, light haired wife whom I can just remember connecting in my own thoughts with a pale tortoiseshell cat. It was but seldom that I enjoyed the happiness of Passing an afternoon in his closet of a surgery reading some book that was new to me, with the smell of the whole pharmacopoeia coming up my nose or pounding something in a mortar under his mild directions. For the same reason added no doubt to the old dislike of her, I was seldom allowed to visit Peggotty. Faithful to her promise, she either came to see me or met me somewhere near once every week and never empty handed. But many and bitter were the disappointments I had in being refused permission to pay a visit to her at her house. Some few times. However, at long intervals I was allowed to go there. And then I found out that Mr. Barkis was something of a miser or, as Peggotty dutifully expressed it, was a little near and kept a heap of money in a box under his bed which he pretended was only full of coats and trousers. In this coffer his riches hid themselves with such a tenacious modesty that the smallest instalments could only be tempted out by artifice. So that Peggotty had to prepare a long and elaborate scheme, a very gunpowder plot, for every Saturday's expenses. All this time I was so conscious of the waste of any promise I had given and of my being utterly neglected that I should have been perfectly miserable, I have no doubt, but for the old books they were my only comfort and I was as true to them as they were to me and read them over and over I don't know how many times more. I now approach a period of my life which I can never lose the remembrance of while I remember anything and the recollection of which has often without my invocation, come before me like a ghost and haunted happier times. I had been out one day loitering somewhere in the listless, meditative manner that my way of life engendered when turning the corner of a lane near our house I came upon Mr. Murdstone walking with a gentleman. I was confused and was going by them when the gentleman cried. What, Brooks? No, Sir David Copperfield, I said. Don't tell me you are Brooks, said the gentleman. You are Brooks of Sheffield. That's your name. At these words I observed the gentleman more attentively, his laugh coming to my remembrance too. I knew him to be Mr. Quinion, whom I had gone over to Lowestoft with Mr. Murdstone to see before. It is no matter. I need not recall when. So this is one of the men that Davy met when Mr. Murdstone took him out for the day when he was still courting Davy's mother and how do you get on, and where are you being educated, Brooks? Said Mr. Quinion. He had put his hand upon my shoulder and turned me about to walk with them. I did not know what to reply and glanced dubiously at Mr. Murdstone. He is at home at present, said the latter. He is not being educated anywhere. I don't know what to do with him. He is a difficult subject. That old double look was on me for a moment, and then his eyes darkened with a frown as it turned in its aversion elsewhere. Humph, said Mr. Quinion, looking at us both, I thought, fine weather. Silence ensued, and I was considering how I could best disengage my shoulder from his hand and go away, when he said, I suppose you are a pretty sharp fellow still, eh, Brooks? Ay, he is sharp enough, said Mr. Murdstone impatiently. You had better let him go. He will not thank you for troubling him. On this hint. Mr. Quinion released me, and I made the best of my way home. Looking back as I turned into the front garden, I saw Mr. Murdstone leaning against the wicket of the churchyard and Mr. Quinion talking to him. They were both looking after me, and I felt that they were speaking of me. Mr. Quinion lay at our house that night after breakfast the next morning. I had put my chair away and was going out of the room when Mr. Murdstone called me back. He then gravely repaired to another table, where his sister sat herself at her desk. Mr. Quinion, with his hands in his pockets, stood looking out of window, and I stood looking at them all. David, said Mr. Murdstone, to the young this is a world for action, not for moping and droning in as you do, added his sister Jane Murdstone. Leave it to me, if you please. I say daemon to the young, this is a world for action, and not for moping and droning in. It is especially so for a young boy of your disposition, which requires a great deal of correcting, and to which no greater service can be done than to force it to conform to the ways of the working world, and to bend it and break it for stubbornness won't do here, said his sister. What it wants is to be crushed, and crushed it must be shall be too. He gave her a look, half in remonstrance, half in approval, and went, I suppose you know, David, that I am not rich. At any rate you know it now. You have received some considerable education already. Education is costly, and even if it were not and I could afford it I am of opinion that it would not be at all advantageous to you to be kept at school. What is before you is a fight with the world, and the sooner you begin it the better. I think it occurred to me that I had already begun it in my poor way. But it occurs to me now whether or no you have heard the counting house mentioned sometimes, said Mr. Murdstone. The counting house, sir? I repeated of Murdstone and Grinby. In the wine trade, he replied. I suppose I looked uncertain, for he went on hastily. You have heard the counting house mentioned, or the business, or the sellers, or the wharf, or something about it? I think I have heard the business mentioned, sir, I said, remembering what I vaguely knew of his and his sister's resources, but I don't know when. It does not matter when he returned. Mr. Quinion manages that business. I glanced at the latter deferentially as he stood looking out of window. Mr. Quinion suggests that it gives employment to some other boys, and that he sees no reason why it shouldn't on the same terms give employment to you. He Having, Mr. Quinion observed in a low voice, and half turning round no other prospect. Murdstone. Mr. Murdstone, with an impatient, even an angry gesture, resumed without noticing what he had said. Those terms are that you will earn enough for yourself to provide for your eating and drinking and pocket money. Your lodging, which I have arranged for, will be paid by me. So will your washing, which will be kept down to my estimate, said his sister. Your clothes will be looked after for you, too, said Mr. Murdstone, and you will not be able yet awhile to get them for yourself. So you are now going to London, David, with Mr. Quinion, to begin the world on your own account. In short, you are provided for, observed his sister, and will please to do your duty. Though I quite understood that the purpose of this announcement was to get rid of me, I have no distinct remembrance, whether it pleased or frightened me. My impression is that I was in a state of confusion about it, and oscillating between the two points, touched neither. Nor had I much time for the clearing of my thoughts, as Mr. Quinion was to go upon the morrow. Behold me on the morrow in a much worn little white hat with a black crape round it for my mother, a black jacket, and a pair of hard, stiff corduroy trousers, which Ms. Murdstone considered the best armour for the legs. In that fight with the world which was now to come off, behold me so attired, and with my little worldly all before me in a small trunk sitting a lone lorn child, as Mrs. Gummidge might have said in the post chaise that was carrying Mr. Quinion to the London coach at Yarmouth. See how our house and church are lessening in the distance, how the grave beneath the tree is blotted out by intervening objects, how the spire points upwards from my old playground no more and the sky is empty. Thank you so much for listening. I'd love to know what you thought of the chapters. Is there anything you'd like me to clarify? Did something particularly interest you? Please go to my website, faithkmoore.com click on contact and send me your questions and thoughts. Or you can click on the link in the Show Notes to contact me. I'll feature one or two of your entries at the start of the next episode. Speaking of links, don't forget to take a look at the other links in the Show Notes. You can learn more about me, check out our Merch store, or become a member of the Storytime for Grown Ups online community. Before I go, I'd like to ask a quick favor. This is an independent podcast. It's produced, recorded and marketed by me, so I need your help. Spread the word about the show by posting about it on social media or texting a link to your friends. Subscribe, tap those five stars and leave a positive review wherever you're listening. If you are able to support the show financially, there's a link in the Show Notes to make a donation. I would really, really appreciate it. Alright everyone, story time is over to be continue.