David Copperfield: Chapters 14–19

His face was so very mild and pleasant, and had something so reverend in it, though it was hale and hearty, that I was not sure but that he was having a good-humoured jest with me.

If I could have supposed that my aunt had recounted these particulars for my especial behoof, and as a piece of confidence in me, I should have felt very much distinguished, and should have augured favourably from such a mark of her good opinion.

My aunt was a little more imperious and stern than usual, but I observed no other token of her preparing herself to receive the visitor so much dreaded by me.

He has a sullen, rebellious spirit; a violent temper; and an untoward, intractable disposition.

He has a sullen, rebellious spirit; a violent temper; and an untoward, intractable disposition.

‘It had been left to her, unconditionally, by her first husband,’ Mr. Murdstone began, when my aunt caught him up with the greatest irascibility and impatience.

The poor, benighted innocent had never seen such a man.

He worshipped her. He doted on her boy—tenderly doted on him!

My aunt took so kindly to the notion, that some ready-made clothes, which were purchased for me that afternoon, were marked ‘Trotwood Copperfield’, in her own handwriting, and in indelible marking-ink, before I put them on; and it was settled that all the other clothes which were ordered to be made for me (a complete outfit was bespoke that afternoon) should be marked in the same way.

While I advanced in friendship and intimacy with Mr. Dick, I did not go backward in the favour of his staunch friend, my aunt.

I was greatly elated by these orders; but my heart smote me for my selfishness, when I witnessed their effect on Mr. Dick, who was so low-spirited at the prospect of our separation, and played so ill in consequence, that my aunt, after giving him several admonitory raps on the knuckles with her dice-box, shut up the board, and declined to play with him any more.

When the pony-chaise stopped at the door, and my eyes were intent upon the house, I saw a cadaverous face appear at a small window on the ground floor (in a little round tower that formed one side of the house), and quickly disappear.

There was a certain richness in his complexion, which I had been long accustomed, under Peggotty’s tuition, to connect with port wine; and I fancied it was in his voice too, and referred his growing corpulency to the same cause.

She had a little basket-trifle hanging at her side, with keys in it; and she looked as staid and as discreet a housekeeper as the old house could have.

Doctor Strong looked almost as rusty, to my thinking, as the tall iron rails and gates outside the house; and almost as stiff and heavy as the great stone urns that flanked them, and were set up, on the top of the red-brick wall, at regular distances all round the court, like sublimated skittles, for Time to play at.

This was the proximate cause, I suppose, of my dreaming about him, for what appeared to me to be half the night; and dreaming, among other things, that he had launched Mr. Peggotty’s house on a piratical expedition, with a black flag at the masthead, bearing the inscription ‘Tidd’s Practice’, under which diabolical ensign he was carrying me and little Em’ly to the Spanish Main, to be drowned.

It was very gravely and decorously ordered, and on a sound system; with an appeal, in everything, to the honour and good faith of the boys, and an avowed intention to rely on their possession of those qualities unless they proved themselves unworthy of it, which worked wonders.

He had a fatherly, benignant way of showing his fondness for her, which seemed in itself to express a good man.

She appeared to me to take great care of the Doctor, and to like him very much, though I never thought her vitally interested in the Dictionary: some cumbrous fragments of which work the Doctor always carried in his pockets, and in the lining of his hat, and generally seemed to be expounding to her as they walked about.

She entreated that there might be no more searching; but it was still sought for, in a desultory way, until she was quite well, and the company took their departure.

I never could have derived anything like the pleasure from spending the money Mr. Dick had given me, that I felt in sending a gold half-guinea to Peggotty, per post, enclosed in this last letter, to discharge the sum I had borrowed of her: in which epistle, not before, I mentioned about the young man with the donkey-cart.

The notice was too short after so long a prepossession the other way.

I found on further investigation that this was so, or at least there was an agreement between him and my aunt that he should account to her for all his disbursements.

As he had no idea of deceiving her, and always desired to please her, he was thus made chary of launching into expense.

I was ingenuous and young, and I thought so.

As I was already much attached to Mr. Dick, and very solicitous for his welfare, my fears favoured this supposition; and for a long time his Wednesday hardly ever came round, without my entertaining a misgiving that he would not be on the coach-box as usual.

I found that Mrs. Heep gradually got nearer to me, and that Uriah gradually got opposite to me, and that they respectfully plied me with the choicest of the eatables on the table.

‘She is tolerably convalescent. The twins no longer derive their sustenance from Nature’s founts—in short,’ said Mr. Micawber, in one of his bursts of confidence, ‘they are weaned—and Mrs. Micawber is, at present, my travelling companion. She will be rejoiced, Copperfield, to renew her acquaintance with one who has proved himself in all respects a worthy minister at the sacred altar of friendship.’

As they abased themselves before him, Mr. Micawber took a seat, and waved his hand in his most courtly manner.

‘I have no scruple in saying, in the presence of our friends here, that I am a man who has, for some years, contended against the pressure of pecuniary difficulties.’

‘I have no scruple in saying, in the presence of our friends here, that I am a man who has, for some years, contended against the pressure of pecuniary difficulties.’

Mr. Micawber was uncommonly convivial.

He is not my private friend and public patron, as Steerforth was, but I hold him in a reverential respect.

Mr. Dick is wild with joy, and my aunt remits me a guinea by the next post.

He waylays the smaller boys to punch their unprotected heads, and calls challenges after me in the open streets.

In pursuance of my aunt’s kind scheme, I was shortly afterwards fitted out with a handsome purse of money, and a portmanteau, and tenderly dismissed upon my expedition.

As Mr. Wickfield glanced towards her, sitting at the tea table by Agnes, she seemed to me to avoid his look with such unwonted hesitation and timidity, that his attention became fixed upon her, as if something were suggested to his thoughts.

I was heavier at heart when I packed up such of my books and clothes as still remained there to be sent to Dover, than I cared to show to Uriah Heep; who was so officious to help me, that I uncharitably thought him mighty glad that I was going.

I was not aware of it myself, but I felt it necessary to uphold the institutions of my county, and to evince a familiarity with them; so I shook my head, as much as to say, ‘I believe you!’

I construed this remark into an indication of a wish that he should have my place, so I blushingly offered to resign it.