Chapter: It was not difficult for me, on Peggotty's solicitation, to resolve to
stay where I was, until after the remains of the poor carrier should
have made their last journey to Blunderstone. She had long ago bought,
out of her own savings, a little piece of ground in our old churchyard
near the grave of 'her sweet girl', as she always called my mother; and
there they were to rest.

In keeping Peggotty company, and doing all I could for her (little
enough at the utmost), I was as grateful, I rejoice to think, as even
now I could wish myself to have been. But I am afraid I had a supreme
satisfaction, of a personal and professional nature, in taking charge of
Mr. Barkis's will, and expounding its contents.

I may claim the merit of having originated the suggestion that the will
should be looked for in the box. After some search, it was found in the
box, at the bottom of a horse's nose-bag; wherein (besides hay) there
was discovered an old gold watch, with chain and seals, which Mr. Barkis
had worn on his wedding-day, and which had never been seen before or
since; a silver tobacco-stopper, in the form of a leg; an imitation
lemon, full of minute cups and saucers, which I have some idea Mr.
Barkis must have purchased to present to me when I was a child, and
afterwards found himself unable to part with; eighty-seven guineas and
a half, in guineas and half-guineas; two hundred and ten pounds, in
perfectly clean Bank notes; certain receipts for Bank of England
stock; an old horseshoe, a bad shilling, a piece of camphor, and an
oyster-shell. From the circumstance of the latter article having
been much polished, and displaying prismatic colours on the inside,
I conclude that Mr. Barkis had some general ideas about pearls, which
never resolved themselves into anything definite.

For years and years, Mr. Barkis had carried this box, on all his
journeys, every day. That it might the better escape notice, he had
invented a fiction that it belonged to 'Mr. Blackboy', and was 'to be
left with Barkis till called for'; a fable he had elaborately written on
the lid, in characters now scarcely legible.

He had hoarded, all these years, I found, to good purpose. His property
in money amounted to nearly three thousand pounds. Of this he bequeathed
the interest of one thousand to Mr. Peggotty for his life; on his
decease, the principal to be equally divided between Peggotty, little
Emily, and me, or the survivor or survivors of us, share and share
alike. All the rest he died possessed of, he bequeathed to Peggotty;
whom he left residuary legatee, and sole executrix of that his last will
and testament.

I felt myself quite a proctor when I read this document aloud with all
possible ceremony, and set forth its provisions, any number of times,
to those whom they concerned. I began to think there was more in the
Commons than I had supposed. I examined the will with the deepest
attention, pronounced it perfectly formal in all respects, made a
pencil-mark or so in the margin, and thought it rather extraordinary
that I knew so much.

In this abstruse pursuit; in making an account for Peggotty, of all the
property into which she had come; in arranging all the affairs in an
orderly manner; and in being her referee and adviser on every point, to
our joint delight; I passed the week before the funeral. I did not see
little Emily in that interval, but they told me she was to be quietly
married in a fortnight.

I did not attend the funeral in character, if I may venture to say so.
I mean I was not dressed up in a black coat and a streamer, to frighten
the birds; but I walked over to Blunderstone early in the morning, and
was in the churchyard when it came, attended only by Peggotty and her
brother. The mad gentleman looked on, out of my little window; Mr.
Chillip's baby wagged its heavy head, and rolled its goggle eyes, at
the clergyman, over its nurse's shoulder; Mr. Omer breathed short in
the background; no one else was there; and it was very quiet. We walked
about the churchyard for an hour, after all was over; and pulled some
young leaves from the tree above my mother's grave.

A dread falls on me here. A cloud is lowering on the distant town,
towards which I retraced my solitary steps. I fear to approach it. I
cannot bear to think of what did come, upon that memorable night; of
what must come again, if I go on.

It is no worse, because I write of it. It would be no better, if I
stopped my most unwilling hand. It is done. Nothing can undo it; nothing
can make it otherwise than as it was.

My old nurse was to go to London with me next day, on the business of
the will. Little Emily was passing that day at Mr. Omer's. We were all
to meet in the old boathouse that night. Ham would bring Emily at the
usual hour. I would walk back at my leisure. The brother and sister
would return as they had come, and be expecting us, when the day closed
in, at the fireside.

I parted from them at the wicket-gate, where visionary Strap had rested
with Roderick Random's knapsack in the days of yore; and, instead of
going straight back, walked a little distance on the road to Lowestoft.
Then I turned, and walked back towards Yarmouth. I stayed to dine at
a decent alehouse, some mile or two from the Ferry I have mentioned
before; and thus the day wore away, and it was evening when I reached
it. Rain was falling heavily by that time, and it was a wild night; but
there was a moon behind the clouds, and it was not dark.

I was soon within sight of Mr. Peggotty's house, and of the light within
it shining through the window. A little floundering across the sand,
which was heavy, brought me to the door, and I went in.

It looked very comfortable indeed. Mr. Peggotty had smoked his evening
pipe and there were preparations for some supper by and by. The fire was
bright, the ashes were thrown up, the locker was ready for little Emily
in her old place. In her own old place sat Peggotty, once more, looking
(but for her dress) as if she had never left it. She had fallen back,
already, on the society of the work-box with St. Paul's upon the lid,
the yard-measure in the cottage, and the bit of wax-candle; and there
they all were, just as if they had never been disturbed. Mrs. Gummidge
appeared to be fretting a little, in her old corner; and consequently
looked quite natural, too.

'You're first of the lot, Mas'r Davy!' said Mr. Peggotty with a happy
face. 'Doen't keep in that coat, sir, if it's wet.'

'Thank you, Mr. Peggotty,' said I, giving him my outer coat to hang up.
'It's quite dry.'

'So 'tis!' said Mr. Peggotty, feeling my shoulders. 'As a chip! Sit ye
down, sir. It ain't o' no use saying welcome to you, but you're welcome,
kind and hearty.'

'Thank you, Mr. Peggotty, I am sure of that. Well, Peggotty!' said I,
giving her a kiss. 'And how are you, old woman?'

'Ha, ha!' laughed Mr. Peggotty, sitting down beside us, and rubbing his
hands in his sense of relief from recent trouble, and in the genuine
heartiness of his nature; 'there's not a woman in the wureld, sir--as I
tell her--that need to feel more easy in her mind than her! She done her
dooty by the departed, and the departed know'd it; and the departed
done what was right by her, as she done what was right by the
departed;--and--and--and it's all right!'

Mrs. Gummidge groaned.

'Cheer up, my pritty mawther!' said Mr. Peggotty. (But he shook his head
aside at us, evidently sensible of the tendency of the late occurrences
to recall the memory of the old one.) 'Doen't be down! Cheer up, for
your own self, on'y a little bit, and see if a good deal more doen't
come nat'ral!'

'Not to me, Dan'l,' returned Mrs. Gummidge. 'Nothink's nat'ral to me but
to be lone and lorn.'

'No, no,' said Mr. Peggotty, soothing her sorrows.

'Yes, yes, Dan'l!' said Mrs. Gummidge. 'I ain't a person to live with
them as has had money left. Things go too contrary with me. I had better
be a riddance.'

'Why, how should I ever spend it without you?' said Mr. Peggotty, with
an air of serious remonstrance. 'What are you a talking on? Doen't I
want you more now, than ever I did?'

'I know'd I was never wanted before!' cried Mrs. Gummidge, with a
pitiable whimper, 'and now I'm told so! How could I expect to be wanted,
being so lone and lorn, and so contrary!'

Mr. Peggotty seemed very much shocked at himself for having made a
speech capable of this unfeeling construction, but was prevented from
replying, by Peggotty's pulling his sleeve, and shaking her head. After
looking at Mrs. Gummidge for some moments, in sore distress of mind, he
glanced at the Dutch clock, rose, snuffed the candle, and put it in the
window.

'Theer!' said Mr. Peggotty, cheerily. 'Theer we are, Missis Gummidge!'
Mrs. Gummidge slightly groaned. 'Lighted up, accordin' to custom! You're
a wonderin' what that's fur, sir! Well, it's fur our little Em'ly. You
see, the path ain't over light or cheerful arter dark; and when I'm
here at the hour as she's a comin' home, I puts the light in the winder.
That, you see,' said Mr. Peggotty, bending over me with great glee,
'meets two objects. She says, says Em'ly, "Theer's home!" she says. And
likewise, says Em'ly, "My uncle's theer!" Fur if I ain't theer, I never
have no light showed.'

'You're a baby!' said Peggotty; very fond of him for it, if she thought
so.

'Well,' returned Mr. Peggotty, standing with his legs pretty wide apart,
and rubbing his hands up and down them in his comfortable satisfaction,
as he looked alternately at us and at the fire. 'I doen't know but I am.
Not, you see, to look at.'

'Not azackly,' observed Peggotty.

'No,' laughed Mr. Peggotty, 'not to look at, but to--to consider on, you
know. I doen't care, bless you! Now I tell you. When I go a looking and
looking about that theer pritty house of our Em'ly's, I'm--I'm Gormed,'
said Mr. Peggotty, with sudden emphasis--'theer! I can't say more--if
I doen't feel as if the littlest things was her, a'most. I takes 'em up
and I put 'em down, and I touches of 'em as delicate as if they was our
Em'ly. So 'tis with her little bonnets and that. I couldn't see one on
'em rough used a purpose--not fur the whole wureld. There's a babby fur
you, in the form of a great Sea Porkypine!' said Mr. Peggotty, relieving
his earnestness with a roar of laughter.

Peggotty and I both laughed, but not so loud.

'It's my opinion, you see,' said Mr. Peggotty, with a delighted face,
after some further rubbing of his legs, 'as this is along of my havin'
played with her so much, and made believe as we was Turks, and French,
and sharks, and every wariety of forinners--bless you, yes; and lions
and whales, and I doen't know what all!--when she warn't no higher than
my knee. I've got into the way on it, you know. Why, this here candle,
now!' said Mr. Peggotty, gleefully holding out his hand towards it,
'I know wery well that arter she's married and gone, I shall put that
candle theer, just the same as now. I know wery well that when I'm
here o' nights (and where else should I live, bless your arts, whatever
fortun' I come into!) and she ain't here or I ain't theer, I shall
put the candle in the winder, and sit afore the fire, pretending I'm
expecting of her, like I'm a doing now. THERE'S a babby for you,' said
Mr. Peggotty, with another roar, 'in the form of a Sea Porkypine! Why,
at the present minute, when I see the candle sparkle up, I says to
myself, "She's a looking at it! Em'ly's a coming!" THERE'S a babby
for you, in the form of a Sea Porkypine! Right for all that,' said Mr.
Peggotty, stopping in his roar, and smiting his hands together; 'fur
here she is!'

It was only Ham. The night should have turned more wet since I came in,
for he had a large sou'wester hat on, slouched over his face.

'Wheer's Em'ly?' said Mr. Peggotty.

Ham made a motion with his head, as if she were outside. Mr. Peggotty
took the light from the window, trimmed it, put it on the table, and was
busily stirring the fire, when Ham, who had not moved, said:

'Mas'r Davy, will you come out a minute, and see what Em'ly and me has
got to show you?'

We went out. As I passed him at the door, I saw, to my astonishment and
fright, that he was deadly pale. He pushed me hastily into the open air,
and closed the door upon us. Only upon us two.

'Ham! what's the matter?'

'Mas'r Davy!--' Oh, for his broken heart, how dreadfully he wept!

I was paralysed by the sight of such grief. I don't know what I thought,
or what I dreaded. I could only look at him.

'Ham! Poor good fellow! For Heaven's sake, tell me what's the matter!'

'My love, Mas'r Davy--the pride and hope of my art--her that I'd have
died for, and would die for now--she's gone!'

'Gone!'

'Em'ly's run away! Oh, Mas'r Davy, think HOW she's run away, when I
pray my good and gracious God to kill her (her that is so dear above all
things) sooner than let her come to ruin and disgrace!'

The face he turned up to the troubled sky, the quivering of his clasped
hands, the agony of his figure, remain associated with the lonely waste,
in my remembrance, to this hour. It is always night there, and he is the
only object in the scene.

'You're a scholar,' he said, hurriedly, 'and know what's right and
best. What am I to say, indoors? How am I ever to break it to him, Mas'r
Davy?'

I saw the door move, and instinctively tried to hold the latch on the
outside, to gain a moment's time. It was too late. Mr. Peggotty thrust
forth his face; and never could I forget the change that came upon it
when he saw us, if I were to live five hundred years.

I remember a great wail and cry, and the women hanging about him, and we
all standing in the room; I with a paper in my hand, which Ham had given
me; Mr. Peggotty, with his vest torn open, his hair wild, his face and
lips quite white, and blood trickling down his bosom (it had sprung from
his mouth, I think), looking fixedly at me.

'Read it, sir,' he said, in a low shivering voice. 'Slow, please. I
doen't know as I can understand.'

In the midst of the silence of death, I read thus, from a blotted
letter:


'"When you, who love me so much better than I ever have deserved, even
when my mind was innocent, see this, I shall be far away."'


'I shall be fur away,' he repeated slowly. 'Stop! Em'ly fur away. Well!'


'"When I leave my dear home--my dear home--oh, my dear home!--in the
morning,"'

the letter bore date on the previous night:


'"--it will be never to come back, unless he brings me back a lady. This
will be found at night, many hours after, instead of me. Oh, if you knew
how my heart is torn. If even you, that I have wronged so much, that
never can forgive me, could only know what I suffer! I am too wicked to
write about myself! Oh, take comfort in thinking that I am so bad. Oh,
for mercy's sake, tell uncle that I never loved him half so dear as
now. Oh, don't remember how affectionate and kind you have all been to
me--don't remember we were ever to be married--but try to think as if I
died when I was little, and was buried somewhere. Pray Heaven that I
am going away from, have compassion on my uncle! Tell him that I never
loved him half so dear. Be his comfort. Love some good girl that will
be what I was once to uncle, and be true to you, and worthy of you, and
know no shame but me. God bless all! I'll pray for all, often, on my
knees. If he don't bring me back a lady, and I don't pray for my own
self, I'll pray for all. My parting love to uncle. My last tears, and my
last thanks, for uncle!"'

That was all.

He stood, long after I had ceased to read, still looking at me. At
length I ventured to take his hand, and to entreat him, as well as
I could, to endeavour to get some command of himself. He replied, 'I
thankee, sir, I thankee!' without moving.

Ham spoke to him. Mr. Peggotty was so far sensible of HIS affliction,
that he wrung his hand; but, otherwise, he remained in the same state,
and no one dared to disturb him.

Slowly, at last, he moved his eyes from my face, as if he were waking
from a vision, and cast them round the room. Then he said, in a low
voice:

'Who's the man? I want to know his name.'

Ham glanced at me, and suddenly I felt a shock that struck me back.

'There's a man suspected,' said Mr. Peggotty. 'Who is it?'

'Mas'r Davy!' implored Ham. 'Go out a bit, and let me tell him what I
must. You doen't ought to hear it, sir.'

I felt the shock again. I sank down in a chair, and tried to utter some
reply; but my tongue was fettered, and my sight was weak.

'I want to know his name!' I heard said once more.

'For some time past,' Ham faltered, 'there's been a servant about here,
at odd times. There's been a gen'lm'n too. Both of 'em belonged to one
another.'

Mr. Peggotty stood fixed as before, but now looking at him.

'The servant,' pursued Ham, 'was seen along with--our poor girl--last
night. He's been in hiding about here, this week or over. He was thought
to have gone, but he was hiding. Doen't stay, Mas'r Davy, doen't!'

I felt Peggotty's arm round my neck, but I could not have moved if the
house had been about to fall upon me.

'A strange chay and hosses was outside town, this morning, on the
Norwich road, a'most afore the day broke,' Ham went on. 'The servant
went to it, and come from it, and went to it again. When he went to it
again, Em'ly was nigh him. The t'other was inside. He's the man.'

'For the Lord's love,' said Mr. Peggotty, falling back, and putting out
his hand, as if to keep off what he dreaded. 'Doen't tell me his name's
Steerforth!'

'Mas'r Davy,' exclaimed Ham, in a broken voice, 'it ain't no fault
of yourn--and I am far from laying of it to you--but his name is
Steerforth, and he's a damned villain!'

Mr. Peggotty uttered no cry, and shed no tear, and moved no more, until
he seemed to wake again, all at once, and pulled down his rough coat
from its peg in a corner.

'Bear a hand with this! I'm struck of a heap, and can't do it,' he said,
impatiently. 'Bear a hand and help me. Well!' when somebody had done so.
'Now give me that theer hat!'

Ham asked him whither he was going.

'I'm a going to seek my niece. I'm a going to seek my Em'ly. I'm a
going, first, to stave in that theer boat, and sink it where I would
have drownded him, as I'm a living soul, if I had had one thought of
what was in him! As he sat afore me,' he said, wildly, holding out his
clenched right hand, 'as he sat afore me, face to face, strike me down
dead, but I'd have drownded him, and thought it right!--I'm a going to
seek my niece.'

'Where?' cried Ham, interposing himself before the door.

'Anywhere! I'm a going to seek my niece through the wureld. I'm a going
to find my poor niece in her shame, and bring her back. No one stop me!
I tell you I'm a going to seek my niece!'

'No, no!' cried Mrs. Gummidge, coming between them, in a fit of crying.
'No, no, Dan'l, not as you are now. Seek her in a little while, my lone
lorn Dan'l, and that'll be but right! but not as you are now. Sit ye
down, and give me your forgiveness for having ever been a worrit to you,
Dan'l--what have my contraries ever been to this!--and let us speak a
word about them times when she was first an orphan, and when Ham was
too, and when I was a poor widder woman, and you took me in. It'll
soften your poor heart, Dan'l,' laying her head upon his shoulder, 'and
you'll bear your sorrow better; for you know the promise, Dan'l, "As
you have done it unto one of the least of these, you have done it unto
me",--and that can never fail under this roof, that's been our shelter
for so many, many year!'

He was quite passive now; and when I heard him crying, the impulse that
had been upon me to go down upon my knees, and ask their pardon for the
desolation I had caused, and curse Steerforth, yielded to a better
feeling. My overcharged heart found the same relief, and I cried too.

 David decides to stay in Peggotty's house until Mr. Omer comes to pick up Mr. Barkis's body. Peggotty asks David to take care of Mr. Barkis's will. They open the chest Mr. Barkis kept hidden under his bed. In it, they find a huge amount of money: 3,000 pounds, which is about U.S.$336,000 in today's money . Mr. Barkis leaves some of the money as a trust fund for Mr. Peggotty, which will be divided between Peggotty, little Emily, and David once Mr. Peggotty dies. The rest, he leaves to Peggotty. David spends the week before Mr. Barkis's funeral sorting out his possessions. He finds out that little Emily is supposed to be married two weeks from now. David attends the funeral along with Mr. Chillip and Mr. Omer. No one else is there, and the churchyard is very quiet. Peggotty plans to travel with David to London the next day to settle the final legal matters of the will. Little Emily is supposed to be spending the day at Mr. Omer's shop. Ham is supposed to bring her from Mr. Omer's shop to the old boat house where Peggotty, David, and Mr. Peggotty would meet them for the evening. David walks towards Yarmouth and eats at an inn there. He strolls towards Mr. Peggotty's house, where the lights are on inside. David finds Mr. Peggotty at home smoking his pipe. Dinner has been laid out. Peggotty is sitting waiting and doing needlework. Mr. Peggotty comments that Peggotty has done right by Mr. Barkis, and Mr. Barkis has done right by her. The dreary Mrs. Gummidge groans at this. Mr. Peggotty tells Mrs. Gummidge to cheer up. If she cheered up a bit, she might find that she likes to be cheery. Mrs. Gummidge replies that being cheerful doesn't come naturally to her, since she is so lonesome. Mr. Peggotty places a lamp in the window to signal to little Emily that he's home and waiting for her. Peggotty thinks Mr. Peggotty's a bit babyish for doing this, but she seems fond of him for it. Mr. Peggotty really dotes on Emily. But when Ham arrives, he is alone. Ham asks David to come outside to see what he and Emily have to show David. David comes outside to find Ham terribly pale. Once Ham has closed the door behind them, he starts to cry. Ham tells David that Emily has run away, that she has gone to ruin and disgrace. He begs David to tell him how to break the news to Mr. Peggotty. But just then, even though David tries to hold the door shut, Mr. Peggotty comes out. Mr. Peggotty bites his lip so badly that it bleeds. The boatman asks David to read aloud the letter that Emily left for Ham. The letter says that, by the time they read this, Emily will be far away. She says that she won't come back unless "he" brings her back a lady. Emily thanks all of them, but especially her uncle, who has been so kind. If she never comes back, Emily asks them to remember her as a child, as though she had died then and been buried. Mr. Peggotty thanks David for reading the letter and stands unmoving. Mr. Peggotty asks who the man might be. Mr. Peggotty wants to know his name. Ham looks at David, and suddenly David sits down from shock. Ham tells Mr. Peggotty that, for some time now, there has been a gentleman and a servant around Yarmouth. The night before, this servant was seen talking to little Emily. Ham begs David not to say the name, but David feels struck dumb, as though he can't move. Mr. Peggotty guesses it anyway: it's Steerforth. Ham tells David that he knows it's not David's fault, but that Steerforth is a "damned villain" . Mr. Peggotty takes his coat down from its peg on the wall. He's going to look for Emily, but first, he's going to sink Steerforth's boat. Mr. Peggotty is going to search for Emily throughout the world and bring her back to Yarmouth. Mrs. Gummidge starts up unexpectedly and tells him not to go out like that: she begs him to sit down and remember with her what it was like when he first adopted Ham and Emily and brought Mrs. Gummidge, the young widow, into his home. She tells him to soften his heart for a time before he goes searching for Emily. Mr. Peggotty sits down and starts to cry, and David follows suit.

