David Copperfield, Charles Dickens [books to read for 13 year olds txt] 📗

be like inquiring what a mongrel cur might do, if it had the spirit of a tiger. He was a coward, from head to foot; and showed his dastardly nature through his sullenness and mortification, as much as at any time of his mean life.

‘Stop!’ he growled to me; and wiped his hot face with his hand. ‘Mother, hold your noise. Well! Let ‘em have that deed. Go and fetch it!’

‘Do you help her, Mr. Dick,’ said Traddles, ‘if you please.’

Proud of his commission, and understanding it, Mr. Dick accompanied her as a shepherd’s dog might accompany a sheep. But, Mrs. Heep gave him little trouble; for she not only returned with the deed, but with the box in which it was, where we found a banker’s book and some other papers that were afterwards serviceable.

‘Good!’ said Traddles, when this was brought. ‘Now, Mr. Heep, you can retire to think: particularly observing, if you please, that I declare to you, on the part of all present, that there is only one thing to be done; that it is what I have explained; and that it must be done without delay.’

Uriah, without lifting his eyes from the ground, shuffled across the room with his hand to his chin, and pausing at the door, said:

‘Copperfield, I have always hated you. You’ve always been an upstart, and you’ve always been against me.’

‘As I think I told you once before,’ said I, ‘it is you who have been, in your greed and cunning, against all the world. It may be profitable to you to reflect, in future, that there never were greed and cunning in the world yet, that did not do too much, and overreach themselves. It is as certain as death.’

‘Or as certain as they used to teach at school (the same school where I picked up so much umbleness), from nine o’clock to eleven, that labour was a curse; and from eleven o’clock to one, that it was a blessing and a cheerfulness, and a dignity, and I don’t know what all, eh?’ said he with a sneer. ‘You preach, about as consistent as they did. Won’t umbleness go down? I shouldn’t have got round my gentleman fellow-partner without it, I think. - Micawber, you old bully, I’ll pay YOU!’

Mr. Micawber, supremely defiant of him and his extended finger, and making a great deal of his chest until he had slunk out at the door, then addressed himself to me, and proffered me the satisfaction of ‘witnessing the re-establishment of mutual confidence between himself and Mrs. Micawber’. After which, he invited the company generally to the contemplation of that affecting spectacle.

‘The veil that has long been interposed between Mrs. Micawber and myself, is now withdrawn,’ said Mr. Micawber; ‘and my children and the Author of their Being can once more come in contact on equal terms.’

As we were all very grateful to him, and all desirous to show that we were, as well as the hurry and disorder of our spirits would permit, I dare say we should all have gone, but that it was necessary for Agnes to return to her father, as yet unable to bear more than the dawn of hope; and for someone else to hold Uriah in safe keeping. So, Traddles remained for the latter purpose, to be presently relieved by Mr. Dick; and Mr. Dick, my aunt, and I, went home with Mr. Micawber. As I parted hurriedly from the dear girl to whom I owed so much, and thought from what she had been saved, perhaps, that morning - her better resolution notwithstanding - I felt devoutly thankful for the miseries of my younger days which had brought me to the knowledge of Mr. Micawber.

His house was not far off; and as the street door opened into the sitting-room, and he bolted in with a precipitation quite his own, we found ourselves at once in the bosom of the family. Mr. Micawber exclaiming, ‘Emma! my life!’ rushed into Mrs. Micawber’s arms. Mrs. Micawber shrieked, and folded Mr. Micawber in her embrace. Miss Micawber, nursing the unconscious stranger of Mrs. Micawber’s last letter to me, was sensibly affected. The stranger leaped. The twins testified their joy by several inconvenient but innocent demonstrations. Master Micawber, whose disposition appeared to have been soured by early disappointment, and whose aspect had become morose, yielded to his better feelings, and blubbered.

‘Emma!’ said Mr. Micawber. ‘The cloud is past from my mind. Mutual confidence, so long preserved between us once, is restored, to know no further interruption. Now, welcome poverty!’ cried Mr. Micawber, shedding tears. ‘Welcome misery, welcome houselessness, welcome hunger, rags, tempest, and beggary! Mutual confidence will sustain us to the end!’

With these expressions, Mr. Micawber placed Mrs. Micawber in a chair, and embraced the family all round; welcoming a variety of bleak prospects, which appeared, to the best of my judgement, to be anything but welcome to them; and calling upon them to come out into Canterbury and sing a chorus, as nothing else was left for their support.

But Mrs. Micawber having, in the strength of her emotions, fainted away, the first thing to be done, even before the chorus could be considered complete, was to recover her. This my aunt and Mr. Micawber did; and then my aunt was introduced, and Mrs. Micawber recognized me.

‘Excuse me, dear Mr. Copperfield,’ said the poor lady, giving me her hand, ‘but I am not strong; and the removal of the late misunderstanding between Mr. Micawber and myself was at first too much for me.’

‘Is this all your family, ma’am?’ said my aunt.

‘There are no more at present,’ returned Mrs. Micawber.

‘Good gracious, I didn’t mean that, ma’am,’ said my aunt. ‘I mean, are all these yours?’

‘Madam,’ replied Mr. Micawber, ‘it is a true bill.’

‘And that eldest young gentleman, now,’ said my aunt, musing, ‘what has he been brought up to?’

‘It was my hope when I came here,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘to have got Wilkins into the Church: or perhaps I shall express my meaning more strictly, if I say the Choir. But there was no vacancy for a tenor in the venerable Pile for which this city is so justly eminent; and he has - in short, he has contracted a habit of singing in public-houses, rather than in sacred edifices.’

‘But he means well,’ said Mrs. Micawber, tenderly.

‘I dare say, my love,’ rejoined Mr. Micawber, ‘that he means particularly well; but I have not yet found that he carries out his meaning, in any given direction whatsoever.’

Master Micawber’s moroseness of aspect returned upon him again, and he demanded, with some temper, what he was to do? Whether he had been born a carpenter, or a coach-painter, any more than he had been born a bird? Whether he could go into the next street, and open a chemist’s shop? Whether he could rush to the next assizes, and proclaim himself a lawyer? Whether he could come out by force at the opera, and succeed by violence? Whether he could do anything, without being brought up to something?

My aunt mused a little while, and then said:

‘Mr. Micawber, I wonder you have never turned your thoughts to emigration.’

‘Madam,’ returned Mr. Micawber, ‘it was the dream of my youth, and the fallacious aspiration of my riper years.’ I am thoroughly persuaded, by the by, that he had never thought of it in his life.

‘Aye?’ said my aunt, with a glance at me. ‘Why, what a thing it would be for yourselves and your family, Mr. and Mrs. Micawber, if you were to emigrate now.’

‘Capital, madam, capital,’ urged Mr. Micawber, gloomily.

‘That is the principal, I may say the only difficulty, my dear Mr. Copperfield,’ assented his wife.

‘Capital?’ cried my aunt. ‘But you are doing us a great service - have done us a great service, I may say, for surely much will come out of the fire - and what could we do for you, that would be half so good as to find the capital?’

‘I could not receive it as a gift,’ said Mr. Micawber, full of fire and animation, ‘but if a sufficient sum could be advanced, say at five per cent interest, per annum, upon my personal liability - say my notes of hand, at twelve, eighteen, and twenty-four months, respectively, to allow time for something to turn up -‘

‘Could be? Can be and shall be, on your own terms,’ returned my aunt, ‘if you say the word. Think of this now, both of you. Here are some people David knows, going out to Australia shortly. If you decide to go, why shouldn’t you go in the same ship? You may help each other. Think of this now, Mr. and Mrs. Micawber. Take your time, and weigh it well.’

‘There is but one question, my dear ma’am, I could wish to ask,’ said Mrs. Micawber. ‘The climate, I believe, is healthy?’

‘Finest in the world!’ said my aunt.

‘Just so,’ returned Mrs. Micawber. ‘Then my question arises. Now, are the circumstances of the country such, that a man of Mr. Micawber’s abilities would have a fair chance of rising in the social scale? I will not say, at present, might he aspire to be Governor, or anything of that sort; but would there be a reasonable opening for his talents to develop themselves - that would be amply sufficient - and find their own expansion?’

‘No better opening anywhere,’ said my aunt, ‘for a man who conducts himself well, and is industrious.’

‘For a man who conducts himself well,’ repeated Mrs. Micawber, with her clearest business manner, ‘and is industrious. Precisely. It is evident to me that Australia is the legitimate sphere of action for Mr. Micawber!’

‘I entertain the conviction, my dear madam,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘that it is, under existing circumstances, the land, the only land, for myself and family; and that something of an extraordinary nature will turn up on that shore. It is no distance - comparatively speaking; and though consideration is due to the kindness of your proposal, I assure you that is a mere matter of form.’

Shall I ever forget how, in a moment, he was the most sanguine of men, looking on to fortune; or how Mrs. Micawber presently discoursed about the habits of the kangaroo! Shall I ever recall that street of Canterbury on a market-day, without recalling him, as he walked back with us; expressing, in the hardy roving manner he assumed, the unsettled habits of a temporary sojourner in the land; and looking at the bullocks, as they came by, with the eye of an Australian farmer!