‘Don’t go, Steerforth, if you please. These are two Yarmouth boatmen—very kind, good people—who are relations of my nurse, and have come from Gravesend to see me.’
‘Aye, aye?’ said Steerforth, returning. ‘I am glad to see them. How are you both?’
There was an ease in his manner—a gay and light manner it was, but not swaggering—which I still believe to have borne a kind of enchantment with it. I still believe him, in virtue of this carriage, his animal spirits, his delightful voice, his handsome face and figure, and, for aught I know, of some inborn power of attraction besides (which I think a few people possess), to have carried a spell with him to which it was a natural weakness to yield, and which not many persons could withstand. I could not but see how pleased they were with him, and how they seemed to open their hearts to him in a moment.
‘You must let them know at home, if you please, Mr. Peggotty,’ I said, ‘when that letter is sent, that Mr. Steerforth is very kind to me, and that I don’t know what I should ever do here without him.’
‘Nonsense!’ said Steerforth, laughing. ‘You mustn’t tell them anything of the sort.’
‘And if Mr. Steerforth ever comes into Norfolk or Suffolk, Mr. Peggotty,’ I said, ‘while I am there, you may depend upon it I shall bring him to Yarmouth, if he will let me, to see your house. You never saw such a good house, Steerforth. It’s made out of a boat!’
‘Made out of a boat, is it?’ said Steerforth. ‘It’s the right sort of a house for such a thorough-built boatman.’
‘So ‘tis, sir, so ‘tis, sir,’ said Ham, grinning. ‘You’re right, young gen’l’m’n! Mas’r Davy bor’, gen’l’m’n’s right. A thorough-built boatman! Hor, hor! That’s what he is, too!’
Mr. Peggotty was no less pleased than his nephew, though his modesty forbade him to claim a personal compliment so vociferously.
‘Well, sir,’ he said, bowing and chuckling, and tucking in the ends of his neckerchief at his breast: ‘I thankee, sir, I thankee! I do my endeavours in my line of life, sir.’
‘The best of men can do no more, Mr. Peggotty,’ said Steerforth. He had got his name already.
‘I’ll pound it, it’s wot you do yourself, sir,’ said Mr. Peggotty, shaking his head, ‘and wot you do well—right well! I thankee, sir. I’m obleeged to you, sir, for your welcoming manner of me. I’m rough, sir, but I’m ready—least ways, I hope I’m ready, you unnerstand. My house ain’t much for to see, sir, but it’s hearty at your service if ever you should come along with Mas’r Davy to see it. I’m a reg’lar Dodman, I am,’ said Mr. Peggotty, by which he meant snail, and this was in allusion to his being slow to go, for he had attempted to go after every sentence, and had somehow or other come back again; ‘but I wish you both well, and I wish you happy!’
Ham echoed this sentiment, and we parted with them in the heartiest manner. I was almost tempted that evening to tell Steerforth about pretty little Em’ly, but I was too timid of mentioning her name, and too much afraid of his laughing at me. I remember that I thought a good deal, and in an uneasy sort of way, about Mr. Peggotty having said that she was getting on to be a woman; but I decided that was nonsense.
We transported the shellfish, or the ‘relish’ as Mr. Peggotty had modestly called it, up into our room unobserved, and made a great supper that evening. But Traddles couldn’t get happily out of it. He was too unfortunate even to come through a supper like anybody else. He was taken ill in the night—quite prostrate he was—in consequence of Crab; and after being drugged with black draughts and blue pills, to an extent which Demple (whose father was a doctor) said was enough to undermine a horse’s constitution, received a caning and six chapters of Greek Testament for refusing to confess.
The rest of the half-year is a jumble in my recollection of the daily strife and struggle of our lives; of the waning summer and the changing season; of the frosty mornings when we were rung out of bed, and the cold, cold smell of the dark nights when we were rung into bed again; of the evening schoolroom dimly lighted and indifferently warmed, and the morning schoolroom which was nothing but a great shivering-machine; of the alternation of boiled beef with roast beef, and boiled mutton with roast mutton; of clods of bread-and-butter, dog’s-eared lesson-books, cracked slates, tear-blotted copy-books, canings, rulerings, hair-cuttings, rainy Sundays, suet-puddings, and a dirty atmosphere of ink, surrounding all.
I well remember though, how the distant idea of the holidays, after seeming for an immense time to be a stationary speck, began to come towards us, and to grow and grow. How from counting months, we came to weeks, and then to days; and how I then began to be afraid that I should not be sent for and when I learnt from Steerforth that I had been sent for, and was certainly to go home, had dim forebodings that I might break my leg first. How the breaking-up day changed its place fast, at last, from the week after next to next week, this week, the day after tomorrow, tomorrow, today, tonight—when I was inside the Yarmouth mail, and going home.
I had many a broken sleep inside the Yarmouth mail, and many an incoherent dream of all these things. But when I awoke at intervals, the ground outside the window was not the playground of Salem House, and the sound in my ears was not the sound of Mr. Creakle giving it to Traddles, but the sound of the coachman touching up the horses.
Chapter 8.
My Holidays. Especially One Happy Afternoon
When we arrived before day at the inn where the mail stopped, which was not the inn where my friend the waiter lived, I was shown up to a nice little bedroom, with DOLPHIN painted on the door. Very cold I was, I know, notwithstanding the hot tea they had given me before a large fire downstairs; and very glad I was to turn into the Dolphin’s bed, pull the Dolphin’s blankets round my head, and go to sleep.
Mr. Barkis the carrier was to call for me in the morning at nine o’clock. I got up at eight, a little giddy from the shortness of my night’s rest, and was ready for him before the appointed time. He received me exactly as if not five minutes had elapsed since we were last together, and I had only been into the hotel to get change for sixpence, or something of that sort.
As soon as I and my box were in the cart, and the carrier seated, the lazy horse walked away with us all at his accustomed pace.
‘You look very well, Mr. Barkis,’ I said, thinking he would like to know it.
Mr. Barkis rubbed his cheek with his cuff, and then looked at his cuff as if he expected to find some of the bloom upon it; but made no other acknowledgement of the compliment.
‘I gave your message, Mr. Barkis,’ I said: ‘I wrote to Peggotty.’
‘Ah!’ said Mr. Barkis.
Mr. Barkis seemed gruff, and answered drily.
‘Wasn’t it right, Mr. Barkis?’ I asked, after a little hesitation.
‘Why, no,’ said Mr. Barkis.
‘Not the message?’
‘The message was right enough, perhaps,’ said Mr. Barkis; ‘but it come to an end there.’
Not understanding what he meant, I repeated inquisitively: ‘Came to an end, Mr. Barkis?’
‘Nothing come of it,’ he explained, looking at me sideways. ‘No answer.’
‘There was an answer expected, was there, Mr. Barkis?’ said I, opening my eyes. For this was a new light to me.
‘When a man says he’s willin’,’ said Mr. Barkis, turning his glance slowly on me again, ‘it’s as much as to say, that man’s a-waitin’ for a answer.’
‘Well, Mr. Barkis?’
‘Well,’