Really and truly pretty comfortable? Are you? Eh?"
At each of these inquiries Mr. Barkis shuffled nearer to her, and gave her another nudge; so that at last we were all crowded together in the left-hand corner of the cart, and I was so squeezed that I could hardly bear it.
Peggotty calling his attention to my sufferings, Mr. Barkis gave me a little more room at once, and got away by degrees. But I could not help observing that he seemed to think he had hit upon a wonderful expedient for expressing himself in a neat, agreeable, and pointed manner, without the inconvenience of inventing conversation. He manifestly chuckled over it for some time. By and by he turned to Peggotty again, and repeating, "Are you pretty comfortable though?" bore down upon us as before, until the breath was nearly edged out of my body. By and by he made another descent upon us with the same inquiry, and the same result. At length, I got up whenever I saw him coming, and standing on the foot-board, pretended to look at the prospect; after which I did very well.
He was so polite as to stop at a public-house, expressly on our account, and entertain us with broiled mutton and beer. Even when Peggotty was in the act of drinking, he was seized with one of those approaches, and almost choked her. But as we drew nearer to the end of our journey, he had more to do and less time for gallantry; and when we got on Yarmouth pavement, we were all too much shaken and jolted, I apprehend, to have any leisure for anything else.
Mr. Peggotty and Ham waited for us at the old place. They received me and Peggotty in an affectionate manner, and shook hands with Mr. Barkis, who, with his hat on the very back of his head, and a shame-faced leer upon his countenance, and pervading his very legs, presented but a vacant appearance, I thought. They each took one of Peggotty"s trunks, and we were going away, when Mr. Barkis solemnly made a sign to me with his forefinger to come under an archway.
"I say," growled Mr. Barkis, "it was all right."
I looked up into his face, and answered, with an attempt to be very profound: "Oh!"
"It didn"t come to a end there," said Mr. Barkis, nodding confidentially. "It was all right."
Again I answered, "Oh!"
"You know who was willin"," said my friend. "It was Barkis, and Barkis only."
I nodded a.s.sent.
"It"s all right," said Mr. Barkis, shaking hands; "I"m a friend of your"n. You made it all right, first. It"s all right."
In his attempts to be particularly lucid, Mr. Barkis was so extremely mysterious, that I might have stood looking in his face for an hour, and most a.s.suredly should have got as much information out of it as out of the face of a clock that had stopped, but for Peggotty"s calling me away. As we were going along, she asked me what he had said; and I told her he had said it was all right.
"Like his impudence," said Peggotty, "but I don"t mind that! Davy dear, what should you think if I was to think of being married?"
"Why--I suppose you would like me as much then, Peggotty, as you do now?" I returned, after a little consideration.
Greatly to the astonishment of the pa.s.sengers in the street, as well as of her relations going on before, the good soul was obliged to stop and embrace me on the spot, with many protestations of her unalterable love.
"Tell me what should you say, darling?" she asked again, when this was over, and we were walking on.
"If you were thinking of being married--to Mr. Barkis, Peggotty?"
"Yes," said Peggotty.
"I should think it would be a very good thing. For then you know, Peggotty, you would always have the horse and cart to bring you over to see me, and could come for nothing, and be sure of coming."
"The sense of the dear!" cried Peggotty. "What I have been thinking of, this month back! Yes, my precious; and I think I should be more independent altogether, you see; let alone my working with a better heart in my own house, than I could in anybody else"s now. I don"t know what I might be fit for, now, as a servant to a stranger. And I shall be always near my pretty"s resting-place," said Peggotty, musing, "and be able to see it when I like; and when I lie down to rest, I may be laid not far off from my darling girl!"
We neither of us said anything for a little while.
"But I wouldn"t so much as give it another thought," said Peggotty, cheerily "if my Davy was anyways against it--not if I had been asked in church thirty times three times over, and was wearing out the ring in my pocket."
"Look at me, Peggotty," I replied; "and see if I am not really glad, and don"t truly wish it!" As indeed I did, with all my heart.
"Well, my life," said Peggotty, giving me a squeeze, "I have thought of it night and day, every way I can, and I hope the right way; but I"ll think of it again, and speak to my brother about it, and in the meantime we"ll keep it to ourselves, Davy, you and me. Barkis is a good plain creature," said Peggotty, "and if I tried to do my duty by him, I think it would be my fault if I wasn"t--if I wasn"t pretty comfortable,"
said Peggotty, laughing heartily. This quotation from Mr. Barkis was so appropriate, and tickled us both so much, that we laughed again and again, and were quite in a pleasant humour when we came within view of Mr. Peggotty"s cottage.
It looked just the same, except that it may, perhaps, have shrunk a little in my eyes; and Mrs. Gummidge was waiting at the door as if she had stood there ever since. All within was the same, down to the seaweed in the blue mug in my bedroom. I went into the out-house to look about me; and the very same lobsters, crabs, and crawfish possessed by the same desire to pinch the world in general, appeared to be in the same state of conglomeration in the same old corner.
But there was no little Em"ly to be seen, so I asked Mr. Peggotty where she was.
"She"s at school, sir," said Mr. Peggotty, wiping the heat consequent on the porterage of Peggotty"s box from his forehead; "she"ll be home,"
looking at the Dutch clock, "in from twenty minutes to half-an-hour"s time. We all on us feel the loss of her, bless ye!"
Mrs. Gummidge moaned.
"Cheer up, Mawther!" cried Mr. Peggotty.
"I feel it more than anybody else," said Mrs. Gummidge; "I"m a lone lorn creetur", and she used to be a"most the only thing that didn"t go contrary with me."
Mrs. Gummidge, whimpering and shaking her head, applied herself to blowing the fire. Mr. Peggotty, looking round upon us while she was so engaged, said in a low voice, which he shaded with his hand: "The old "un!" From this I rightly conjectured that no improvement had taken place since my last visit in the state of Mrs. Gummidge"s spirits.
Now, the whole place was, or it should have been, quite as delightful a place as ever; and yet it did not impress me in the same way. I felt rather disappointed with it. Perhaps it was because little Em"ly was not at home. I knew the way by which she would come, and presently found myself strolling along the path to meet her.
A figure appeared in the distance before long, and I soon knew it to be Em"ly, who was a little creature still in stature, though she was grown.
But when she drew nearer, and I saw her blue eyes looking bluer, and her dimpled face looking brighter, and her whole self prettier and gayer, a curious feeling came over me that made me pretend not to know her, and pa.s.s by as if I were looking at something a long way off. I have done such a thing since in later life, or I am mistaken.
Little Em"ly didn"t care a bit. She saw me well enough; but instead of turning round and calling after me, ran away laughing. This obliged me to run after her, and she ran so fast that we were very near the cottage before I caught her.
"Oh, it"s you, is it?" said little Em"ly.
"Why, you knew who it was, Em"ly," said I.
"And didn"t YOU know who it was?" said Em"ly. I was going to kiss her, but she covered her cherry lips with her hands, and said she wasn"t a baby now, and ran away, laughing more than ever, into the house.
She seemed to delight in teasing me, which was a change in her I wondered at very much. The tea table was ready, and our little locker was put out in its old place, but instead of coming to sit by me, she went and bestowed her company upon that grumbling Mrs. Gummidge: and on Mr. Peggotty"s inquiring why, rumpled her hair all over her face to hide it, and could do nothing but laugh.
"A little puss, it is!" said Mr. Peggotty, patting her with his great hand.
"So sh" is! so sh" is!" cried Ham. "Mas"r Davy bor", so sh" is!" and he sat and chuckled at her for some time, in a state of mingled admiration and delight, that made his face a burning red.
Little Em"ly was spoiled by them all, in fact; and by no one more than Mr. Peggotty himself, whom she could have coaxed into anything, by only going and laying her cheek against his rough whisker. That was my opinion, at least, when I saw her do it; and I held Mr. Peggotty to be thoroughly in the right. But she was so affectionate and sweet-natured, and had such a pleasant manner of being both sly and shy at once, that she captivated me more than ever.
She was tender-hearted, too; for when, as we sat round the fire after tea, an allusion was made by Mr. Peggotty over his pipe to the loss I had sustained, the tears stood in her eyes, and she looked at me so kindly across the table, that I felt quite thankful to her.
"Ah!" said Mr. Peggotty, taking up her curls, and running them over his hand like water, "here"s another orphan, you see, sir. And here," said Mr. Peggotty, giving Ham a backhanded knock in the chest, "is another of "em, though he don"t look much like it."
"If I had you for my guardian, Mr. Peggotty," said I, shaking my head, "I don"t think I should FEEL much like it."
"Well said, Mas"r Davy bor"!" cried Ham, in an ecstasy. "Hoorah! Well said! Nor more you wouldn"t! Hor! Hor!"--Here he returned Mr. Peggotty"s back-hander, and little Em"ly got up and kissed Mr. Peggotty. "And how"s your friend, sir?" said Mr. Peggotty to me.
"Steerforth?" said I.
"That"s the name!" cried Mr. Peggotty, turning to Ham. "I knowed it was something in our way."
"You said it was Rudderford," observed Ham, laughing.