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

something new there; and sat so, for a considerable time. By and by, he said:

“No sweethearts, I b’lieve?”

“Sweetmeats did you say, Mr. Barkis?” For I thought he wanted something else to eat, and had pointedly alluded to that description of refreshment.

“Hearts,” said Mr. Barkis. “Sweet hearts; no person walks with her!”

“With Peggotty?”

“Ah!” he said. “Her.”

“Oh, no. She never had a sweetheart.”

“Didn’t she, though!” said Mr. Barkis.

Again he made up his mouth to whistle, and again he didn’t whistle, but sat looking at the horse’s ears.

“So she makes,” said Mr. Barkis, after a long interval of reflection, “all the apple parsties, and doos all the cooking, do she?”

I replied that such was the fact.

“Well. I’ll tell you what,” said Mr. Barkis. “P’raps you might be writin’ to her?”

“I shall certainly write to her,” I rejoined.

“Ah!” he said, slowly turning his eyes towards me. “Well! If you was writin’ to her, p’raps you’d recollect to say that Barkis was willin’; would you?”

“That Barkis is willing,” I repeated, innocently. “Is that all the message?”

“Ye-es,” he said, considering. “Ye-es. Barkis is willin’.”

“But you will be at Blunderstone again tomorrow, Mr. Barkis,” I said, faltering a little at the idea of my being far away from it then, “and could give your own message so much better.”

As he repudiated this suggestion, however, with a jerk of his head, and once more confirmed his previous request by saying, with profound gravity, “Barkis is willin’. That’s the message,” I readily undertook its transmission. While I was waiting for the coach in the hotel at Yarmouth that very afternoon, I procured a sheet of paper and an inkstand, and wrote a note to Peggotty, which ran thus: “My dear Peggotty. I have come here safe. Barkis is willing. My love to mama. Yours affectionately. P.S. He says he particularly wants you to know⁠—Barkis is willing.”

When I had taken this commission on myself prospectively, Mr. Barkis relapsed into perfect silence; and I, feeling quite worn out by all that had happened lately, lay down on a sack in the cart and fell asleep. I slept soundly until we got to Yarmouth; which was so entirely new and strange to me in the inn-yard to which we drove, that I at once abandoned a latent hope I had had of meeting with some of Mr. Peggotty’s family there, perhaps even with little Em’ly herself.

The coach was in the yard, shining very much all over, but without any horses to it as yet; and it looked in that state as if nothing was more unlikely than its ever going to London. I was thinking this, and wondering what would ultimately become of my box, which Mr. Barkis had put down on the yard-pavement by the pole (he having driven up the yard to turn his cart), and also what would ultimately become of me, when a lady looked out of a bow-window where some fowls and joints of meat were hanging up, and said:

“Is that the little gentleman from Blunderstone?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said.

“What name?” inquired the lady.

“Copperfield, ma’am,” I said.

“That won’t do,” returned the lady. “Nobody’s dinner is paid for here, in that name.”

“Is it Murdstone, ma’am?” I said.

“If you’re Master Murdstone,” said the lady, “why do you go and give another name, first?”

I explained to the lady how it was, who then rang a bell, and called out, “William! show the coffee room!” upon which a waiter came running out of a kitchen on the opposite side of the yard to show it, and seemed a good deal surprised when he was only to show it to me.

It was a large long room with some large maps in it. I doubt if I could have felt much stranger if the maps had been real foreign countries, and I cast away in the middle of them. I felt it was taking a liberty to sit down, with my cap in my hand, on the corner of the chair nearest the door; and when the waiter laid a cloth on purpose for me, and put a set of castors on it, I think I must have turned red all over with modesty.

He brought me some chops, and vegetables, and took the covers off in such a bouncing manner that I was afraid I must have given him some offence. But he greatly relieved my mind by putting a chair for me at the table, and saying, very affably, “Now, six-foot! come on!”

I thanked him, and took my seat at the board; but found it extremely difficult to handle my knife and fork with anything like dexterity, or to avoid splashing myself with the gravy, while he was standing opposite, staring so hard, and making me blush in the most dreadful manner every time I caught his eye. After watching me into the second chop, he said:

“There’s half a pint of ale for you. Will you have it now?”

I thanked him and said, “Yes.” Upon which he poured it out of a jug into a large tumbler, and held it up against the light, and made it look beautiful.

“My eye!” he said. “It seems a good deal, don’t it?”

“It does seem a good deal,” I answered with a smile. For it was quite delightful to me, to find him so pleasant. He was a twinkling-eyed, pimple-faced man, with his hair standing upright all over his head; and as he stood with one arm akimbo, holding up the glass to the light with the other hand, he looked quite friendly.

“There was a gentleman here, yesterday,” he said⁠—“a stout gentleman, by the name of Topsawyer⁠—perhaps you know him?”

“No,” I said, “I don’t think⁠—”

“In breeches and gaiters, broad-brimmed hat, grey coat, speckled choker,” said the waiter.

“No,” I said bashfully, “I haven’t the pleasure⁠—”

“He came in here,” said the waiter, looking at the light through the tumbler, “ordered a glass of this ale⁠—would order it⁠—I told him not⁠—drank it, and fell dead. It was too old for him. It oughtn’t to be drawn; that’s the fact.”

I was very much shocked to hear of this melancholy