David Copperfield
of the chamber where he lay, I darkened last. I lifted up the leaden
hand, and held it to my heart; and all the world seemed death and
silence, broken only by his mother’s moaning.
CHAPTER 57. THE EMIGRANTS
One thing more, I had to do, before yielding myself to the shock of
these emotions. It was, to conceal what had occurred, from those who
were going away; and to dismiss them on their voyage in happy ignorance.
In this, no time was to be lost.
I took Mr. Micawber aside that same night, and confided to him the
task of standing between Mr. Peggotty and intelligence of the late
catastrophe. He zealously undertook to do so, and to intercept any
newspaper through which it might, without such precautions, reach him.
‘If it penetrates to him, sir,’ said Mr. Micawber, striking himself on
the breast, ‘it shall first pass through this body!’
Mr. Micawber, I must observe, in his adaptation of himself to a new
state of society, had acquired a bold buccaneering air, not absolutely
lawless, but defensive and prompt. One might have supposed him a child
of the wilderness, long accustomed to live out of the confines of
civilization, and about to return to his native wilds.
He had provided himself, among other things, with a complete suit of
oilskin, and a straw hat with a very low crown, pitched or caulked on
the outside. In this rough clothing, with a common mariner’s telescope
under his arm, and a shrewd trick of casting up his eye at the sky
as looking out for dirty weather, he was far more nautical, after his
manner, than Mr. Peggotty. His whole family, if I may so express it,
were cleared for action. I found Mrs. Micawber in the closest and most
uncompromising of bonnets, made fast under the chin; and in a shawl
which tied her up (as I had been tied up, when my aunt first received
me) like a bundle, and was secured behind at the waist, in a strong
knot. Miss Micawber I found made snug for stormy weather, in the same
manner; with nothing superfluous about her. Master Micawber was hardly
visible in a Guernsey shirt, and the shaggiest suit of slops I ever
saw; and the children were done up, like preserved meats, in impervious
cases. Both Mr. Micawber and his eldest son wore their sleeves loosely
turned back at the wrists, as being ready to lend a hand in any
direction, and to ‘tumble up’, or sing out, ‘Yeo--Heave--Yeo!’ on the
shortest notice.
Thus Traddles and I found them at nightfall, assembled on the wooden
steps, at that time known as Hungerford Stairs, watching the departure
of a boat with some of their property on board. I had told Traddles of
the terrible event, and it had greatly shocked him; but there could be
no doubt of the kindness of keeping it a secret, and he had come to help
me in this last service. It was here that I took Mr. Micawber aside, and
received his promise.
The Micawber family were lodged in a little, dirty, tumble-down
public-house, which in those days was close to the stairs, and whose
protruding wooden rooms overhung the river. The family, as emigrants,
being objects of some interest in and about Hungerford, attracted so
many beholders, that we were glad to take refuge in their room. It was
one of the wooden chambers upstairs, with the tide flowing underneath.
My aunt and Agnes were there, busily making some little extra comforts,
in the way of dress, for the children. Peggotty was quietly assisting,
with the old insensible work-box, yard-measure, and bit of wax-candle
before her, that had now outlived so much.
It was not easy to answer her inquiries; still less to whisper Mr.
Peggotty, when Mr. Micawber brought him in, that I had given the letter,
and all was well. But I did both, and made them happy. If I showed any
trace of what I felt, my own sorrows were sufficient to account for it.
‘And when does the ship sail, Mr. Micawber?’ asked my aunt.
Mr. Micawber considered it necessary to prepare either my aunt or his
wife, by degrees, and said, sooner than he had expected yesterday.
‘The boat brought you word, I suppose?’ said my aunt.
‘It did, ma’am,’ he returned.
‘Well?’ said my aunt. ‘And she sails--’
‘Madam,’ he replied, ‘I am informed that we must positively be on board
before seven tomorrow morning.’
‘Heyday!’ said my aunt, ‘that’s soon. Is it a sea-going fact, Mr.
Peggotty?’ ‘’Tis so, ma’am. She’ll drop down the river with that theer
tide. If Mas’r Davy and my sister comes aboard at Gravesen’, arternoon
o’ next day, they’ll see the last on us.’
‘And that we shall do,’ said I, ‘be sure!’
‘Until then, and until we are at sea,’ observed Mr. Micawber, with a
glance of intelligence at me, ‘Mr. Peggotty and myself will constantly
keep a double look-out together, on our goods and chattels. Emma, my
love,’ said Mr. Micawber, clearing his throat in his magnificent way,
‘my friend Mr. Thomas Traddles is so obliging as to solicit, in my ear,
that he should have the privilege of ordering the ingredients necessary
to the composition of a moderate portion of that Beverage which is
peculiarly associated, in our minds, with the Roast Beef of Old England.
I allude to--in short, Punch. Under ordinary circumstances, I should
scruple to entreat the indulgence of Miss Trotwood and Miss Wickfield,
but-’
‘I can only say for myself,’ said my aunt, ‘that I will drink all
happiness and success to you, Mr. Micawber, with the utmost pleasure.’
‘And I too!’ said Agnes, with a smile.
Mr. Micawber immediately descended to the bar, where he appeared to be
quite at home; and in due time returned with a steaming jug. I could
not but observe that he had been peeling the lemons with his own
clasp-knife, which, as became the knife of a practical settler, was
about a foot long; and which he wiped, not wholly without ostentation,
on the sleeve of his coat. Mrs. Micawber and the two elder members
of the family I now found to be provided with similar formidable
instruments, while every child had its own wooden spoon attached to its
body by a strong line. In a similar anticipation of life afloat, and in
the Bush, Mr. Micawber, instead of helping Mrs. Micawber and his eldest
son and daughter to punch, in wine-glasses, which he might easily have
done, for there was a shelf-full in the room, served it out to them in a
series of villainous little tin pots; and I never saw him enjoy anything
so much as drinking out of his own particular pint pot, and putting it
in his pocket at the close of the evening.
‘The luxuries of the old country,’ said Mr. Micawber, with an intense
satisfaction in their renouncement, ‘we abandon. The denizens of the
forest cannot, of course, expect to participate in the refinements of
the land of the Free.’
Here, a boy came in to say that Mr. Micawber was wanted downstairs.
‘I have a presentiment,’ said Mrs. Micawber, setting down her tin pot,
‘that it is a member of my family!’
‘If so, my dear,’ observed Mr. Micawber, with his usual suddenness of
warmth on that subject, ‘as the member of your family--whoever he, she,
or it, may be--has kept us waiting for a considerable period, perhaps
the Member may now wait MY convenience.’
‘Micawber,’ said his wife, in a low tone, ‘at such a time as this--’
‘“It is not meet,”’ said Mr. Micawber, rising, ‘“that every nice offence
should bear its comment!” Emma, I stand reproved.’
‘The loss, Micawber,’ observed his wife, ‘has been my family’s, not
yours. If my family are at length sensible of the deprivation to which
their own conduct has, in the past, exposed them, and now desire to
extend the hand of fellowship, let it not be repulsed.’
‘My dear,’ he returned, ‘so be it!’
‘If not for their sakes; for mine, Micawber,’ said his wife.
‘Emma,’ he returned, ‘that view of the question is, at such a moment,
irresistible. I cannot, even now, distinctly pledge myself to fall
upon your family’s neck; but the member of your family, who is now in
attendance, shall have no genial warmth frozen by me.’
Mr. Micawber withdrew, and was absent some little time; in the course of
which Mrs. Micawber was not wholly free from an apprehension that words
might have arisen between him and the Member. At length the same boy
reappeared, and presented me with a note written in pencil, and headed,
in a legal manner, ‘Heep v. Micawber’. From this document, I learned
that Mr. Micawber being again arrested, ‘Was in a final paroxysm of
despair; and that he begged me to send him his knife and pint pot, by
bearer, as they might prove serviceable during the brief remainder of
his existence, in jail. He also requested, as a last act of friendship,
that I would see his family to the Parish Workhouse, and forget that
such a Being ever lived.
Of course I answered this note by going down with the boy to pay the
money, where I found Mr. Micawber sitting in a corner, looking darkly at
the Sheriff ‘s Officer who had effected the capture. On his release,
he embraced me with the utmost fervour; and made an entry of the
transaction in his pocket-book--being very particular, I recollect,
about a halfpenny I inadvertently omitted from my statement of the
total.
This momentous pocket-book was a timely reminder to him of another
transaction. On our return to the room upstairs (where he accounted for
his absence by saying that it had been occasioned by circumstances over
which he had no control), he took out of it a large sheet of paper,
folded small, and quite covered with long sums, carefully worked. From
the glimpse I had of them, I should say that I never saw such sums
out of a school ciphering-book. These, it seemed, were calculations of
compound interest on what he called ‘the principal amount of forty-one,
ten, eleven and a half’, for various periods. After a careful
consideration of these, and an elaborate estimate of his resources,
he had come to the conclusion to select that sum which represented the
amount with compound interest to two years, fifteen calendar months, and
fourteen days, from that date. For this he had drawn a note-of-hand
with great neatness, which he handed over to Traddles on the spot,
a discharge of his debt in full (as between man and man), with many
acknowledgements.
‘I have still a presentiment,’ said Mrs. Micawber, pensively shaking her
head, ‘that my family will appear on board, before we finally depart.’
Mr. Micawber evidently had his presentiment on the subject too, but he
put it in his tin pot and swallowed it.
‘If you have any opportunity of sending letters home, on your passage,
Mrs. Micawber,’ said my aunt, ‘you must let us hear from you, you know.’
‘My dear Miss Trotwood,’ she replied, ‘I shall only be too happy
to think that anyone expects to hear from us. I shall not fail to
correspond. Mr. Copperfield, I trust, as an old and familiar friend,
will not object to receive occasional intelligence, himself, from one
who knew him when the twins were yet unconscious?’
I said that I should hope to hear, whenever she had an opportunity of
writing.
‘Please Heaven, there will be many such opportunities,’ said Mr.
Micawber. ‘The ocean, in these times, is a perfect fleet of ships; and
we can hardly fail to encounter many, in running over. It is merely
crossing,’ said Mr. Micawber, trifling with his eye-glass, ‘merely
crossing. The distance is quite imaginary.’
I think, now, how odd it was, but how wonderfully like Mr. Micawber,
that, when he went from London to Canterbury, he should have talked as
if he were going to the farthest limits of the earth; and, when he went
from England to Australia, as if he were going for a little trip across
the channel.
‘On the voyage, I shall endeavour,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘occasionally
to spin them a yarn; and the melody of my son Wilkins will, I trust,
be acceptable at the galley-fire. When Mrs. Micawber has her