David Copperfield, Charles Dickens [best historical fiction books of all time TXT] 📗

a pair of dirty shoes and gaiters in connection with my old friend the Dolphin as we passed that door), and breakfasted late in the morning. Steerforth, who was in great spirits, had been strolling about the beach before I was up, and had made acquaintance, he said, with half the boatmen in the place. Moreover, he had seen, in the distance, what he was sure must be the identical house of Mr. Peggotty, with smoke coming out of the chimney; and had had a great mind, he told me, to walk in and swear he was myself grown out of knowledge.

“When do you propose to introduce me there, Daisy?” he said. “I am at your disposal. Make your own arrangements.”

“Why, I was thinking that this evening would be a good time, Steerforth, when they are all sitting round the fire. I should like you to see it when it’s snug, it’s such a curious place.”

“So be it!” returned Steerforth. “This evening.”

“I shall not give them any notice that we are here, you know,” said I, delighted. “We must take them by surprise.”

“Oh, of course! It’s no fun,” said Steerforth, “unless we take them by surprise. Let us see the natives in their aboriginal condition.”

“Though they are that sort of people that you mentioned,” I returned.

“Aha! What! you recollect my skirmishes with Rosa, do you?” he exclaimed with a quick look. “Confound the girl, I am half afraid of her. She’s like a goblin to me. But never mind her. Now what are you going to do? You are going to see your nurse, I suppose?”

“Why, yes,” I said, “I must see Peggotty first of all.”

“Well,” replied Steerforth, looking at his watch. “Suppose I deliver you up to be cried over for a couple of hours. Is that long enough?”

I answered, laughing, that I thought we might get through it in that time, but that he must come also; for he would find that his renown had preceded him, and that he was almost as great a personage as I was.

“I’ll come anywhere you like,” said Steerforth, “or do anything you like. Tell me where to come to; and in two hours I’ll produce myself in any state you please, sentimental or comical.”

I gave him minute directions for finding the residence of Mr. Barkis, carrier to Blunderstone and elsewhere; and, on this understanding, went out alone. There was a sharp bracing air; the ground was dry; the sea was crisp and clear; the sun was diffusing abundance of light, if not much warmth; and everything was fresh and lively. I was so fresh and lively myself, in the pleasure of being there, that I could have stopped the people in the streets and shaken hands with them.

The streets looked small, of course. The streets that we have only seen as children always do, I believe, when we go back to them. But I had forgotten nothing in them, and found nothing changed, until I came to Mr. Omer’s shop. Omer and Joram was now written up, where Omer used to be; but the inscription, Draper, Tailor, Haberdasher, Funeral Furnisher, etc., remained as it was.

My footsteps seemed to tend so naturally to the shop door, after I had read these words from over the way, that I went across the road and looked in. There was a pretty woman at the back of the shop, dancing a little child in her arms, while another little fellow clung to her apron. I had no difficulty in recognizing either Minnie or Minnie’s children. The glass door of the parlour was not open; but in the workshop across the yard I could faintly hear the old tune playing, as if it had never left off.

“Is Mr. Omer at home?” said I, entering. “I should like to see him, for a moment, if he is.”

“Oh yes, sir, he is at home,” said Minnie; “the weather don’t suit his asthma out of doors. Joe, call your grandfather!”

The little fellow, who was holding her apron, gave such a lusty shout, that the sound of it made him bashful, and he buried his face in her skirts, to her great admiration. I heard a heavy puffing and blowing coming towards us, and soon Mr. Omer, shorter-winded than of yore, but not much older-looking, stood before me.

“Servant, sir,” said Mr. Omer. “What can I do for you, sir?”

“You can shake hands with me, Mr. Omer, if you please,” said I, putting out my own. “You were very good-natured to me once, when I am afraid I didn’t show that I thought so.”

“Was I though?” returned the old man. “I’m glad to hear it, but I don’t remember when. Are you sure it was me?”

“Quite.”

“I think my memory has got as short as my breath,” said Mr. Omer, looking at me and shaking his head; “for I don’t remember you.”

“Don’t you remember your coming to the coach to meet me, and my having breakfast here, and our riding out to Blunderstone together: you, and I, and Mrs. Joram, and Mr. Joram too⁠—who wasn’t her husband then?”

“Why, Lord bless my soul!” exclaimed Mr. Omer, after being thrown by his surprise into a fit of coughing, “you don’t say so! Minnie, my dear, you recollect? Dear me, yes; the party was a lady, I think?”

“My mother,” I rejoined.

“To⁠—be⁠—sure,” said Mr. Omer, touching my waistcoat with his forefinger, “and there was a little child too! There was two parties. The little party was laid along with the other party. Over at Blunderstone it was, of course. Dear me! And how have you been since?”

Very well, I thanked him, as I hoped he had been too.

“Oh! nothing to grumble at, you know,” said Mr. Omer. “I find my breath gets short, but it seldom gets longer as a man gets older. I take it as it comes, and make the most of it. That’s the best way, ain’t it?”

Mr. Omer coughed again, in consequence of laughing, and was assisted out of his fit by his daughter, who now stood close beside us, dancing her smallest child on the