David Copperfield
and the offices; and I knew that the servants read it, and the butcher
read it, and the baker read it; that everybody, in a word, who came
backwards and forwards to the house, of a morning when I was ordered to
walk there, read that I was to be taken care of, for I bit, I recollect
that I positively began to have a dread of myself, as a kind of wild boy
who did bite.
There was an old door in this playground, on which the boys had a
custom of carving their names. It was completely covered with such
inscriptions. In my dread of the end of the vacation and their coming
back, I could not read a boy’s name, without inquiring in what tone and
with what emphasis HE would read, ‘Take care of him. He bites.’ There
was one boy--a certain J. Steerforth--who cut his name very deep and
very often, who, I conceived, would read it in a rather strong voice,
and afterwards pull my hair. There was another boy, one Tommy Traddles,
who I dreaded would make game of it, and pretend to be dreadfully
frightened of me. There was a third, George Demple, who I fancied would
sing it. I have looked, a little shrinking creature, at that door, until
the owners of all the names--there were five-and-forty of them in the
school then, Mr. Mell said--seemed to send me to Coventry by general
acclamation, and to cry out, each in his own way, ‘Take care of him. He
bites!’
It was the same with the places at the desks and forms. It was the same
with the groves of deserted bedsteads I peeped at, on my way to, and
when I was in, my own bed. I remember dreaming night after night, of
being with my mother as she used to be, or of going to a party at Mr.
Peggotty’s, or of travelling outside the stage-coach, or of dining again
with my unfortunate friend the waiter, and in all these circumstances
making people scream and stare, by the unhappy disclosure that I had
nothing on but my little night-shirt, and that placard.
In the monotony of my life, and in my constant apprehension of the
re-opening of the school, it was such an insupportable affliction! I had
long tasks every day to do with Mr. Mell; but I did them, there being
no Mr. and Miss Murdstone here, and got through them without disgrace.
Before, and after them, I walked about--supervised, as I have mentioned,
by the man with the wooden leg. How vividly I call to mind the damp
about the house, the green cracked flagstones in the court, an old leaky
water-butt, and the discoloured trunks of some of the grim trees, which
seemed to have dripped more in the rain than other trees, and to have
blown less in the sun! At one we dined, Mr. Mell and I, at the upper end
of a long bare dining-room, full of deal tables, and smelling of fat.
Then, we had more tasks until tea, which Mr. Mell drank out of a blue
teacup, and I out of a tin pot. All day long, and until seven or eight
in the evening, Mr. Mell, at his own detached desk in the schoolroom,
worked hard with pen, ink, ruler, books, and writing-paper, making out
the bills (as I found) for last half-year. When he had put up his things
for the night he took out his flute, and blew at it, until I almost
thought he would gradually blow his whole being into the large hole at
the top, and ooze away at the keys.
I picture my small self in the dimly-lighted rooms, sitting with my
head upon my hand, listening to the doleful performance of Mr. Mell,
and conning tomorrow’s lessons. I picture myself with my books shut up,
still listening to the doleful performance of Mr. Mell, and listening
through it to what used to be at home, and to the blowing of the wind
on Yarmouth flats, and feeling very sad and solitary. I picture myself
going up to bed, among the unused rooms, and sitting on my bed-side
crying for a comfortable word from Peggotty. I picture myself coming
downstairs in the morning, and looking through a long ghastly gash of a
staircase window at the school-bell hanging on the top of an out-house
with a weathercock above it; and dreading the time when it shall ring J.
Steerforth and the rest to work: which is only second, in my foreboding
apprehensions, to the time when the man with the wooden leg shall unlock
the rusty gate to give admission to the awful Mr. Creakle. I cannot
think I was a very dangerous character in any of these aspects, but in
all of them I carried the same warning on my back.
Mr. Mell never said much to me, but he was never harsh to me. I suppose
we were company to each other, without talking. I forgot to mention that
he would talk to himself sometimes, and grin, and clench his fist, and
grind his teeth, and pull his hair in an unaccountable manner. But he
had these peculiarities: and at first they frightened me, though I soon
got used to them.
CHAPTER 6. I ENLARGE MY CIRCLE OF ACQUAINTANCE
I HAD led this life about a month, when the man with the wooden leg
began to stump about with a mop and a bucket of water, from which I
inferred that preparations were making to receive Mr. Creakle and the
boys. I was not mistaken; for the mop came into the schoolroom before
long, and turned out Mr. Mell and me, who lived where we could, and got
on how we could, for some days, during which we were always in the way
of two or three young women, who had rarely shown themselves before, and
were so continually in the midst of dust that I sneezed almost as much
as if Salem House had been a great snuff-box.
One day I was informed by Mr. Mell that Mr. Creakle would be home that
evening. In the evening, after tea, I heard that he was come. Before
bedtime, I was fetched by the man with the wooden leg to appear before
him.
Mr. Creakle’s part of the house was a good deal more comfortable than
ours, and he had a snug bit of garden that looked pleasant after the
dusty playground, which was such a desert in miniature, that I thought
no one but a camel, or a dromedary, could have felt at home in it. It
seemed to me a bold thing even to take notice that the passage looked
comfortable, as I went on my way, trembling, to Mr. Creakle’s presence:
which so abashed me, when I was ushered into it, that I hardly saw
Mrs. Creakle or Miss Creakle (who were both there, in the parlour), or
anything but Mr. Creakle, a stout gentleman with a bunch of watch-chain
and seals, in an arm-chair, with a tumbler and bottle beside him.
‘So!’ said Mr. Creakle. ‘This is the young gentleman whose teeth are to
be filed! Turn him round.’
The wooden-legged man turned me about so as to exhibit the placard; and
having afforded time for a full survey of it, turned me about again,
with my face to Mr. Creakle, and posted himself at Mr. Creakle’s side.
Mr. Creakle’s face was fiery, and his eyes were small, and deep in his
head; he had thick veins in his forehead, a little nose, and a large
chin. He was bald on the top of his head; and had some thin wet-looking
hair that was just turning grey, brushed across each temple, so that
the two sides interlaced on his forehead. But the circumstance about
him which impressed me most, was, that he had no voice, but spoke in a
whisper. The exertion this cost him, or the consciousness of talking in
that feeble way, made his angry face so much more angry, and his thick
veins so much thicker, when he spoke, that I am not surprised, on
looking back, at this peculiarity striking me as his chief one. ‘Now,’
said Mr. Creakle. ‘What’s the report of this boy?’
‘There’s nothing against him yet,’ returned the man with the wooden leg.
‘There has been no opportunity.’
I thought Mr. Creakle was disappointed. I thought Mrs. and Miss Creakle
(at whom I now glanced for the first time, and who were, both, thin and
quiet) were not disappointed.
‘Come here, sir!’ said Mr. Creakle, beckoning to me.
‘Come here!’ said the man with the wooden leg, repeating the gesture.
‘I have the happiness of knowing your father-in-law,’ whispered Mr.
Creakle, taking me by the ear; ‘and a worthy man he is, and a man of
a strong character. He knows me, and I know him. Do YOU know me? Hey?’
said Mr. Creakle, pinching my ear with ferocious playfulness.
‘Not yet, sir,’ I said, flinching with the pain.
‘Not yet? Hey?’ repeated Mr. Creakle. ‘But you will soon. Hey?’
‘You will soon. Hey?’ repeated the man with the wooden leg. I afterwards
found that he generally acted, with his strong voice, as Mr. Creakle’s
interpreter to the boys.
I was very much frightened, and said, I hoped so, if he pleased. I felt,
all this while, as if my ear were blazing; he pinched it so hard.
‘I’ll tell you what I am,’ whispered Mr. Creakle, letting it go at last,
with a screw at parting that brought the water into my eyes. ‘I’m a
Tartar.’
‘A Tartar,’ said the man with the wooden leg.
‘When I say I’ll do a thing, I do it,’ said Mr. Creakle; ‘and when I say
I will have a thing done, I will have it done.’
‘--Will have a thing done, I will have it done,’ repeated the man with
the wooden leg.
‘I am a determined character,’ said Mr. Creakle. ‘That’s what I am. I
do my duty. That’s what I do. My flesh and blood’--he looked at Mrs.
Creakle as he said this--‘when it rises against me, is not my flesh
and blood. I discard it. Has that fellow’--to the man with the wooden
leg--‘been here again?’
‘No,’ was the answer.
‘No,’ said Mr. Creakle. ‘He knows better. He knows me. Let him keep
away. I say let him keep away,’ said Mr. Creakle, striking his hand upon
the table, and looking at Mrs. Creakle, ‘for he knows me. Now you have
begun to know me too, my young friend, and you may go. Take him away.’
I was very glad to be ordered away, for Mrs. and Miss Creakle were both
wiping their eyes, and I felt as uncomfortable for them as I did for
myself. But I had a petition on my mind which concerned me so nearly,
that I couldn’t help saying, though I wondered at my own courage:
‘If you please, sir--’
Mr. Creakle whispered, ‘Hah! What’s this?’ and bent his eyes upon me, as
if he would have burnt me up with them.
‘If you please, sir,’ I faltered, ‘if I might be allowed (I am very
sorry indeed, sir, for what I did) to take this writing off, before the
boys come back--’
Whether Mr. Creakle was in earnest, or whether he only did it to
frighten me, I don’t know, but he made a burst out of his chair, before
which I precipitately retreated, without waiting for the escort of the
man with the wooden leg, and never once stopped until I reached my own
bedroom, where, finding I was not pursued, I went to bed, as it was
time, and lay quaking, for a couple of hours.
Next morning Mr. Sharp came back. Mr. Sharp was the first master, and
superior to Mr. Mell. Mr. Mell took his meals with the boys, but
Mr. Sharp dined and supped at Mr. Creakle’s table. He was a limp,
delicate-looking gentleman, I thought, with a good deal of nose, and a
way of carrying his head on one side, as if it were a little too heavy
for him. His hair was very smooth and wavy; but I was informed by the
very first boy who came back that it was a wig (a second-hand one HE
said), and that Mr. Sharp went out every Saturday afternoon to get it
curled.
It was no other than Tommy Traddles who gave me this piece of
intelligence. He was the first boy who returned. He introduced himself
by informing me that I should find his name on the right-hand corner of
the gate, over the top-bolt; upon that I said, ‘Traddles?’ to which he
replied, ‘The same,’ and then he asked me for a full account of myself
and family.
It was a happy circumstance for me that Traddles came back first. He
enjoyed my placard so much, that he saved me from the embarrassment of
either disclosure or concealment, by presenting me to every other boy
who came back, great or small, immediately on his arrival, in this form
of introduction, ‘Look here! Here’s a game!’ Happily, too, the greater