by
Charles Dickens

Chapter I

I had known Mr. Peggotty’s house very well in my childhood, and I am sure I could not have been more charmed with it if it had been Aladdin’s palace, roc’s egg and all. It was an old black barge, or boat, high and dry on Yarmouth sands, with an iron funnel sticking out of it for a chimney. There was a delightful door cut in the side, and it was roofed in, and there were little windows in it. It was beautifully clean, and as tidy as possible. There were some lockers and boxes, and there was a table, and there was a Dutch clock, and there was a chest of drawers, and there was a tea-tray with a painting on it, and the tray was kept from tumbling down by a Bible, and the tray, if it had tumbled down, would have smashed a quantity of cups and saucers and a teapot that were grouped around the book. On the walls were coloured pictures of Abraham in red going to sacrifice Isaac in blue, and of Daniel in yellow being cast into a den of green lions. Over the little mantel-shelf was a picture of the “Sarah Jane” lugger, built at Sunderland with a real little wooden stem stuck on it, — a work of art combining composition with carpentry, which I had regarded in my childhood as one of the most enviable possessions the world could afford. Mr. Peggotty, as honest a seafaring man as ever breathed, dealt in lobsters, crabs, and crawfish; and a heap of those creatures, in a state of wonderful conglomeration with one another, and never leaving off pinching whatever they laid hold of, were usually to be found in a little wooden outhouse, where the pots and kettles were kept.

As in my childhood, so in these days, when I was a young man, Mr. Peggotty’s household consisted of his orphan nephew. Ham Peggotty, a young shipwright; his adopted niece, little Emily, once my small sweetheart, now a beautiful young woman; and Mrs. Gummidge.

All three had been maintained at Mr. Peggotty’s sole charge for years and years, and Mrs. Gummidge was the widow of his partner in a boat, who had died poor. She was very grateful, but she would have been more agreeable company in a small habitation if she had hit upon any other acknowledgment of the hospitality she received than constantly complaining, as she sat in the most comfortable corner by the fireside, that she was a “lone lorn creetur, and everythink went contrairy with her.”

Towards this old boat I walked one memorable night, with my former schoolfellow and present dear friend, Steerforth, — Steerforth, half a dozen years older than I, brilliant, handsome, easy, winning, whom I admired with my whole heart, for whom I entertained the most romantic feelings of fidelity and friendship. He had come down with me from London, and had entered with the greatest ardour into my scheme of visiting the old simple place, and the old simple people.

There was no moon, and as he and I walked on the dark, wintry sands, towards the old boat, the wind sighed mournfully.

“This is a wild place, Steerforth, is it not?”

“Dismal enough in the dark, and the sea has a cry in it, as if it were hungry for us. Is that the boat, where I see a light yonder?”

“That’s the boat.”

We said no more as we approached the light, but made softly for the door. I laid my hand upon the latch, and, whispering Steerforth to keep close to me, went in, and I was in the midst of the astonished family, whom I had not seen from my childhood, face to face with Mr. Peggotty, and holding out my hand to him, when Ham shouted, “Mas’r Davy! it’s Mas’r Davy!”

In a moment we were all shaking hands with one another, and asking one another how we did, and telling one another how glad we were to meet, and all talking at once. Mr. Peggotty was so overjoyed to see me, and to see my friend, that he did not know what to say or do, but kept over and over again shaking hands with me, and then with Steerforth, and then with me, and then ruffling his shaggy hair all over his head, and then laughing with such glee and triumph, that it was a treat to see him.

“Why, that you two gentl’men — gentl’men growed — should come to this here roof to-night, of all nights in my life, is such a merry-go-rounder as never happened afore, I do rightly believe. Em’ly, my darling, come here. Come here, my little witch. Theer’s Mas’r Davy’s friend, my dear! Theer’s the gentl’man as you’ve heerd on, Em’ly. He comes to see you along with Mas’r Davy, on the brightest night of your uncle’s life as ever was or will be; horroar for it!” Then he let her go, and, as she ran into her little chamber, looked round upon us, quite hot and out of breath with his uncommon satisfaction.

“If you two gentl’men — gentl’men growed now, and such gentl’men — don’t ex-cuse me for being in a state of mind, when you understand matters, I’ll arks your pardon. Em’ly, my dear! She knows I’m going to tell, and has made off. This here little Em’ly, sir,” to Steerforth, — “her as you see a blushing here just now, — this here little Em’ly of ours has been in our house, sir, what I suppose (I’m a ignorant man, but that’s my belief) no one but a little bright-eyed creetur can be in a house. She ain’t my child, I never had one; but I couldn’t love her more if she was fifty times my child. You understand; I couldn’t do it!”

“I quite understand.”

“I know you do, sir, and thank’ee. Well, sir, there was a certain person as had know’d our Em’ly from the time when her father was drownded; as had seen her constant when a babby, when a young gal, when a woman. Not much of a person to look at, he warn’t, — something o’ my own build, rough, a good deal o’ the sou’wester in him, wery salt, but, on the whole, a honest sort of a chap, too, with his art in the right place.”

I had never seen Ham grin to anything like the extent to which he sat grinning at us now.

“What does this here blessed tarpaulin go and do, but he loses that there art of his to our little Em’ly. He follers her about, he makes hisself a sort o’ servant to her, he loses in a great measure his relish for his wittles, and, in the long run, he makes it clear to me wot’s amiss.

“Well, I counsels him to speak to Em’ly. He’s big enough, but he’s bashfuller than a little un, and he says to me he doen’t like. So I speak. ‘What, him!’ says Em’ly — ‘him that I’ve knowed so intimate so many year, and like so much? O uncle, I never can have him! He’s such a good fellow!’ I gives her a kiss, and I says no more to her than, ‘My dear, you’re right to speak out, you’re to choose for yourself, you’re as free as a little bird.’ Then I aways to him, and I says, ‘I wish it could have been so, but it can’t. But you can both be as you was, and wot I say to you is, Be as you was with her, like a man.’ He says to me, a shaking of my hand, ‘I will,’ he says. And he was honourable, trew, and manful, going on for two year.

“All of a sudden, one evening, as it might be to-night, comes little Em’ly from her work, and him with her! There ain’t so much in that, you’ll say. No, sure, because he takes care on her, like a brother, arter dark, and indeed afore dark, and al all times. But this heer tarpaulin chap, he takes hold of her hand, and he cries out to me, joyful, ‘Look’ee here! This is to be my little wife!’ And she says, half bold and half shy, and half a laughing and half a crying, ‘Yes, uncle! If you please.’ If I please! Lord, as if I should do anything else! ‘If you please,’ she says, ‘I am steadier now, and I have thought better of it, and I’ll be as good a little wife as I can to him, for he’s a dear good fellow!’ Then Missis Gummidge, she claps her hands like a play, and you come in. There, the murder’s out. You come in! It took place this here present hour, and here’s the man as’ll marry her the minute she’s out of her time at the needlework.”

Ham staggered, as well he might, under the blow Mr. Peggotty dealt him, as a mark of confidence and friendship; but, feeling called upon to say something to us, he stammered: —

“She warn’t no higher than you was, Mas’r Davy, when you first come heer, when I thought what she’d grow up to be. I see her grow up, gentl’men, like a flower. I’d lay down my life for her, Mas’r Davy, — O, most content and cheerful. There ain’t a gentl’man in all the land, nor yet a sailing upon all the sea, that can love his lady more than I love her, though there’s many a common man as could say better what he meant.”

I thought it affecting to see such a sturdy fellow trembling in the strength of what he felt for the pretty little creature who had won his heart. I thought the simple confidence reposed in us by Mr. Peggotty, and by himself, was touching. I was affected by the story altogether. I was filled with pleasure, but at first with an indescribably sensitive pleasure, that a very little would have changed to pain.

Therefore, if it had depended upon me to touch the prevailing chord among them, with any skill, I should have made a poor hand of it. But it depended upon Steerforth, and he did it with such address, that in a few minutes we were all as easy as possible.

“Mr. Peggotty,” he said, “you are a thoroughly good fellow, and deserve to be as happy as you are to-night. My hand upon it. Ham, I give you joy, my boy. My hand upon that, too! Davy, stir the fire and make it a brisk one. And, Mr. Peggotty, unless you can induce your gentle niece to come back, I shall go. Any gap at your fireside on such a night — such a gap, least of all — I wouldn’t make for the wealth of the Indies.”

So Mr. Peggotty went to fetch little Em’ly. At first little Em’ly didn’t like to come, and then Ham went. Presently they brought her to the fireside, very much confused, and very shy; but she soon became more assured when she found how Steerforth spoke to her; how skilfully he avoided anything that would embarrass her; how he talked to Mr. Peggotty of boats, and ships, and tides, and fish; how delighted he was with that boat and all belonging to it; how lightly and easily he carried on, until he brought us by degrees into a charmed circle.

But he set up no monopoly of the conversation. He was silent and attentive when little Em’ly talked across the fire to me of our old childish wanderings upon the beach, to pick up shells and pebbles; he was very silent and attentive when I asked her if she recollected how I used to love her, and how we used to walk about that dim old flat, hours and hours, and how the days sported by us as if Time himself had not grown up then, but were a child like ourselves, and always at play. She sat all the evening in her old little corner by the fire, — Ham beside her. I could not satisfy myself whether it was in her little tormenting way, or in a maidenly reserve before us, that she kept quite close to the wall, and away from Ham; but I observed that she did so all the evening.

As I remember, it was almost midnight when we took our leave. We had had some biscuit and dried fish for supper, and Steerforth had produced from his pocket a flask of Hollands. We parted merrily; and as they all stood crowded round the door to light us on our road, I saw the sweet blue eyes of little Em’ly peeping after us, from behind Ham, and heard her soft voice calling to us to be careful how we went.

“A most engaging little beauty!” said Steerforth, taking my arm. “Well! it’s a quaint place, and they are quaint company, and it’s quite a new sensation to mix with them.”

“How fortunate we are, too, Steerforth, to have arrived to witness their happiness in that intended marriage! I never saw people so happy. How delightful to see it!”

“Yes, — that’s rather a chuckle-headed fellow for the girl. Isn’t he?”

I felt a shock in this cold reply. But turning quickly upon him, and seeing a laugh in his eyes, I answered: —

“Ah, Steerforth! It’s well for you to joke about the poor! But when I see how perfectly you understand them, and how you can enter into happiness like this plain fisherman’s, I know there is not a joy, or sorrow, or any emotion of such people that can be indifferent to you. And I admire and love you for it, Steerforth, twenty times the more!”

To my surprise he suddenly said, with nothing that I could see to lead to it: —

“Daisy, I wish to God I had had a judicious father these last twenty years! You know my mother has always doted on me and spoilt me. I wish with all my soul I had been better guided! I wish with all my soul I could guide myself better!”

There was a passionate dejection in his manner that quite amazed me. He was more unlike himself than I could have supposed possible.

“It would be better to be this poor Peggotty, or his lout of a nephew, than be myself, twenty times richer and twenty times wiser, and be the torment to myself that I have been in that Devil’s bark of a boat within the last half-hour.”

I was so confounded by the change in him that at first I could only regard him in silence as he walked at my side. At length I asked him to tell me what had happened to cross him so unusually.

“Tut, it’s nothing, — nothing, Davy! I must have had a nightmare, I think. What old women call the horrors have been creeping over me from head to foot. I have been afraid of myself.”

“You are afraid of nothing else, I think.”

“Perhaps not, and yet may have enough to be afraid of too. Well! so it goes by! Daisy, — for though that’s not the name your godfathers and godmothers gave you, you’re such a fresh fellow that it’s the name I best like to call you by, — and I wish, I wish, I wish you could give it to me!”

“Why, so I can, if I choose.”

“Daisy, if anything should ever happen to separate us, you must think of me at my best, old boy. Come! let us make that bargain. Think of me at my best, if circumstances should ever part us.

“You have no best to me, Steerforth, and no worst. You are always equally loved and cherished in my heart.”

I was up to go away alone next morning with the dawn, and, having dressed as quietly as I could, looked into his room. He was fast asleep, lying easily with his head upon his arm, as I had often seen him lie at school.

The time came in its season, and that was very soon, when I almost wondered that nothing troubled his repose, as I looked at him then. But he slept — let me think of him so again — as I had often seen him sleep at school; and thus, in this silent hour, I left him.

Never more, O God forgive you, Steerforth! to touch that passive hand in love and friendship. Never, never more!

Chapter II

Some months elapsed before I again found myself down in that part of the country, and approaching the old boat by night.

It was a dark evening, and rain was beginning to fall, when I came within sight of Mr. Peggotty’s house, and of the light within it shining through the window. A little floundering across the sand, which was heavy, brought me to the door, and I went in.

I was bidden to a little supper; Em’ly was to be married to Ham that day fortnight, and this was the last time I was to see her in her maiden life.

It looked very comfortable indeed. Mr. Peggotty had smoked his evening pipe, and there were preparations for supper by and by. The fire was bright, the ashes were thrown up, the locker was ready for little Em’ly in her old place. Mrs. Gummidge appeared to be fretting a little in her own corner, and consequently looked quite natural.

“You’re first of the lot, Mas’r Davy! Sit ye down, sir. It ain’t o’ no use saying welcome to you; but you’re welcome, kind and hearty.”

Here Mrs. Gummidge groaned.

“Cheer up, cheer up, Mrs. Gummidge!” said Mr. Peggotty.

“No, no, Dan’l. It ain’t o’ no use telling me to cheer up, when everythink goes contrairy with me. Nothink’s nat’ral to me but to be lone and lorn.”