“Take Care of Him. — He Bites.”
I hurriedly climbed upon the desk, fearful of a dog underneath; but saw none.
“What are you doing there?” asked Mr. Mell.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” I replied. “If you please, I’m looking for the dog.”
“Dog? What dog?”
I pointed to the sign.
“No, Copperfield,” he said gravely. “That’s not a dog; that’s a boy. My instructions are to put this sign on your back. I’m sorry to do so, but must do it.”
With that, he took me down, and tied the placard, which was neatly constructed for the purpose, on my shoulders like a knapsack; and wherever I went, afterwards, I had the consolation of carrying it.
What I suffered nobody can imagine. Whether it was possible for people to see me or not, I always fancied that somebody was reading it. It was no relief to turn round and find nobody; for wherever my back was, there I imagined somebody always to be, until at last I positively began to have a dread of myself as the boy who did bite.
Mr. Creakle, the master of the school, was a short, thick-set man, and bald on the top of his head. He had a little nose and large chin. He had lost his voice and spoke almost in a whisper, which surprised me greatly, for his face always looked angry, and the exertion of talking made his thick veins stick out so that he looked angrier still.
When the boys began to come back I found my ordeal, on account of the sign on my back, not quite so great as I had feared; and it was chiefly on account of the first fellow to arrive, Tommy Traddles. Dear Tommy Traddles! You made a friend of a poor, lonesome, frightened boy that day, who will always be loyal to you so long as he lives.
Traddles was a jolly looking boy who laughed heartily when he first saw the card, as at a great joke; and he saved me from any further shyness by introducing me to every boy and saying gaily, “Look here! Here’s a game!” Happily, too, most of the boys came back low-spirited, and were not very boisterous at my expense. Some of them certainly did dance about me like wild Indians and could not resist patting me, lest I should bite, and saying, “Lie down, sir!” and calling me Towzer. But on the whole I got through rather easily.
I was not considered as being formally received into the school, however, until J. Steerforth arrived. Before this boy, who was reputed to be a great scholar, and was very good-looking, and at least half-a-dozen years my senior, I was carried as before a magistrate. He inquired, under a shed in the playground, into the particulars of my punishment, and was pleased to express his opinion that it was “a jolly shame”; for which I became bound to him ever afterwards.
Then Steerforth asked how much money I had; and when I told him, he suggested that it was the proper thing for a new boy to stand treat to the others. I agreed, but felt helpless; whereupon he kindly volunteered to get the things for me and smuggle them into my room. I was a little uneasy about spending my mother’s half-crowns, but didn’t dare say so. I handed them over to him and he procured the feast and laid it out on my bed, saying,
“There you are, young Copperfield, and a royal spread you’ve got!”
I couldn’t think of doing the honors of the feast, at my time of life, while he was by; my hand shook at the very thought of it. I begged him to do me the favor of presiding; and my request being seconded by the other boys he acceded to it, and sat upon my pillow, handing round the viands with perfect fairness, I must say. As to me, I sat on his left hand, and the rest were grouped about us, on the nearest beds and on the floor.
How well I recollect our sitting there, talking in whispers, or their talking, and my respectfully listening, I ought rather to say; the moonlight falling a little way into the room, through the window, painting a pale window on the floor, and the greater part of us in shadow, except when Steerforth struck a match, when he wanted to look for anything on the board, and shed a blue glare over us that was gone directly.
I heard all kinds of things about the school. I heard that Mr. Creakle was a tartar and thrashed the boys unmercifully—all except Steerforth, upon whom he didn’t dare lay his hand. I heard that Mr. Creakle was very ignorant, and that Mr. Mell, who was not a bad sort of fellow, was poorly paid. All this and much more I heard in the whispers of that moonlit room, before we finally betook ourselves to bed.
From that time on, big handsome Steerforth took me under his protection, and, for my part, I was his willing slave. I would tell him tales which I had imbibed from my early reading, while he would help me do my sums and keep the other boys from tormenting me. Why he, the fine head-boy, should have taken notice of me at all, I don’t know. But I remember I all but worshipped him with his easy swagger and lordly air.
The other boy to whom I always owed allegiance was Traddles. Poor jolly Traddles! In a tight, sky-blue suit that made his arms and legs look like German sausages, he was at once the merriest and most miserable of all boys. He was always being caned by that fierce Mr. Creakle, who made all our backs tingle, except Steerforth’s. After Traddles had got his daily caning he would cheer up somehow and get comfort by drawing skeletons all over his slate. He was always drawing these skeletons, just as he was always getting caned. And they did comfort him somehow, for presently he would begin to laugh again before his tears were dry.
He was very honorable, Traddles was, and held it as a solemn duty in the boys to stand by one another. He suffered for this on several occasions; and particularly once, when Steerforth laughed in church, and the Beadle thought it was Traddles, and took him out. I see him now, going away in custody, despised by the congregation. He never said who was the real offender, though he smarted for it next day, and was imprisoned so many hours that he came forth with a whole churchyard full of skeletons swarming all over his Latin Dictionary. But he had his reward. Steerforth said there was nothing of the sneak in Traddles, and we all felt that to be the highest praise. For my part, I could have gone through a good deal to have won such a reward.
Although Mr. Creakle’s school was not noted for scholarship, I can confess without vanity that I did make good progress. I was naturally fond of books and a great reader; and now I had the first fair chance at learning things. In this I found Mr. Mell, the quiet, gentle tutor, a constant friend to me. I shall always remember him with gratitude.
But Steerforth, I am sorry to say, did not like the tutor and took no pains to hide his poor opinion. Since many of the other boys followed Steerforth’s lead, poor Mr. Mell was not popular. Still, nothing especial came of it until one memorable day when Mr. Creakle was absent. The boys seized the chance to be uproarious, and Mr. Mell could not control them. Finally even his patience was exhausted, and he sprang to his feet and pounded his desk with a book.
“Silence!” he cried. “This noise must cease! It’s maddening! How can you treat me this way, boys?”
It was my book that he struck his desk with; and as I stood beside him, following his eye as it glanced round the room, I saw the boys all stop, some suddenly surprised, some half afraid, and some sorry perhaps.
Steerforth’s place was at the bottom of the school, at the opposite end of the long room. He was lounging with his back against the wall, and his hands in his pockets, and looked at Mr. Mell with his mouth shut up as if he were whistling, when Mr. Mell looked at him.
“Silence, Mr. Steerforth!” said Mr. Mell.
“Silence yourself,” said Steerforth, turning red. “Whom are you talking to?”
“Sit down,” said Mr. Mell.
“Sit down yourself,” said Steerforth, “and mind your business.”
There was a titter, and some applause; but Mr. Mell was so white that there was silence.
“If you think, Steerforth,” said Mr. Mell, “that you can make use of your position of favoritism here to disobey rules and insult a gentleman—”
“A what?—where is he?” said Steerforth.
Here somebody cried out, “Shame, J. Steerforth! Too bad!” It was Traddles, whom Mr. Mell instantly routed by bidding him hold his tongue.
—“To insult one who is not fortunate in life, sir, and who never gave you the least offence,” continued Mr. Mell, his lip trembling, “you commit a mean and base action. You can sit down or stand up as you please, sir. Copperfield, go on.”
“Young Copperfield,” said Steerforth, coming forward, “stop a bit. I tell you what, Mr. Mell, once for all. When you take the liberty of calling men mean and base, or anything of that sort, you are an impudent beggar. You are always a beggar, you know; but when you do that, you are an impudent beggar.”
I am not clear whether he was going to strike Mr. Mell, or Mr. Mell was going to strike him, or there was any such intention on either side. I saw a rigidity come upon the whole school as if they had been turned into stone, and found Mr. Creakle in the midst of us. Mr. Mell, with his elbows on his desk and his face in his hands, sat for some moments quite still.
“Mr. Mell,” said Mr. Creakle, shaking him by the arm; and his whisper was very audible now; “you have not forgotten yourself, I hope?”
“No, sir,” said Mr. Mell.
Mr. Creakle looked hard at him and then turned to Steerforth.
“Now, sir, will you tell me what this is about?”
Steerforth evaded the question for a little while; looking in scorn and anger on his opponent, and remaining silent. I could not help thinking what a fine-looking fellow he was, and how homely and plain Mr. Mell looked opposed to him.
“What did he mean by talking about favorites, then?” said Steerforth at length.
“Favorites?” repeated Mr. Creakle, with the veins in his forehead swelling quickly. “Who talked about favorites?”
“He did,” said Steerforth.
“And pray, what did you mean by that, sir?” demanded Mr. Creakle, turning angrily on his assistant.
“I meant, Mr. Creakle,” he returned, in a low voice, “as I said; that no pupil had a right to avail himself of his position of favoritism to degrade me.”
“To degrade you?” said Mr. Creakle. “My stars! But give me leave to ask you, Mr. What’s your name, whether, when you talk about favorites, you showed proper respect to me? To me, sir,” said Mr. Creakle, darting his head at him suddenly and drawing it back again, “the principal of this establishment and your employer.”
“It was not judicious, sir, I am willing to admit,” said Mr. Mell. “I should not have done so if I had been cool.”
Here Steerforth struck in.
“Then he said I was mean, and then he said I was base, and then I called him a beggar. If I had been cool, perhaps I shouldn’t have called him a beggar. But I did, and I am ready to take the consequences of it.”
Without considering, perhaps, whether there were any consequences to be taken, I felt quite in a glow at this gallant speech. It made an impression on the boys, too, for there was a low stir among them, though no one spoke a word.
“I am surprised, Steerforth,—although your candor does you honor,” said Mr. Creakle, “does you honor, certainly,—I am surprised, Steerforth, I must say, that you should attach such an epithet to any person employed and paid in Salem House, sir.”
Steerforth gave a short laugh.
“That’s not an answer, sir,” said Mr. Creakle, “to my remark. I expect more than that from you, Steerforth.”
If Mr. Mell looked homely in my eyes before the handsome boy, it would be quite impossible to say how homely Mr. Creakle looked.
“Let him deny it,” said Steerforth.
“Deny that he is a beggar, Steerforth?” cried Mr. Creakle. “Why, where does he go a begging?”
“If he is not a beggar himself, his near relation’s one,” said Steerforth. “It’s all the same.”
“What do you mean?”
“Since you expect me, Mr. Creakle, to justify myself,” said Steerforth, “and to say what I mean,—what I have to say is, that his mother lives on charity in an almshouse.”
Mr. Creakle turned to his assistant with a severe frown and labored politeness:
“Now you hear what this gentleman says, Mr. Mell. Have the goodness, if you please, to set him right before the assembled school.”
“He is right, sir, without correction,” returned Mr. Mell, in the midst of a dead silence; “what he has said is true.”
“Be so good then as to declare publicly, will you,” said Mr. Creakle, putting his head on one side and rolling his eyes round the school, “whether it ever came to my knowledge until this moment?”
“I believe not directly,” he returned.
“Why, you know not,” said Mr. Creakle. “Don’t you, man?”
“Sir, I think you knew my circumstances when I came here, and that a bare living wage—”
“I think, if you come to that,” said Mr. Creakle, with his veins swelling again bigger than ever, “that you’ve been in a wrong position altogether, and mistook this for a charity school. Mr. Mell, we’ll part if you please. The sooner the better.”
“There is no time,” answered Mr. Mell, rising, “like the present.”
“Sir, to you!” said Mr. Creakle.
“I take my leave of you, Mr. Creakle, and of all of you,” said Mr. Mell, glancing round the room and patting me gently on the shoulder. “James Steerforth, the best wish I can leave you is that you may come to be ashamed of what you have done to-day. At present I would prefer to see you anything rather than a friend to me or to any one in whom I feel an interest.”
Then Mr. Mell walked out with his property under his arm.
Mr. Creakle made a speech, in which he thanked Steerforth for asserting (though perhaps too warmly) the independence and respectability of Salem House; and which he wound up by shaking hands with Steerforth, while we gave three cheers,—I did not quite know what for, but I suppose for Steerforth, and so joined in them ardently, though I felt miserable. Mr. Creakle then caned Tommy Traddles for being discovered in tears instead of cheers on account of Mr. Mell’s departure: and went back to his sofa or wherever he had come from.
When he had gone there was an awkward silence. Somehow we all felt uncomfortable or ashamed. As for Steerforth, he said he was angry with Traddles and glad he had caught it.
Poor Traddles, who was relieving himself as usual with a burst of skeletons, said he didn’t care. Mr. Mell was ill-used.
“Who has ill-used him, you girl?” said Steerforth.
“Why, you have,” returned Traddles.
“What have I done?” said Steerforth.
“What have you done?” retorted Traddles.
“Hurt his feelings and lost him his situation.”
“His feelings!” repeated Steerforth, disdainfully. “His feelings will soon get the better of it, I’ll be bound. His feelings are not like yours, Miss Traddles. As to his situation,—which was a precious one, wasn’t it?—do you suppose I am not going to write home and take care that he gets some money? Polly?”
We thought this intention very noble in Steerforth, whose mother was a widow, and rich, and would do almost anything, it was said, that he asked her. We were all extremely glad to see Traddles so put down, and exalted Steerforth to the skies. But as I look back at it now, I should rather have been Traddles that day than any other boy in the room. And I think the other boys will say so too.
I pass over all that happened at school, until the anniversary of my birthday came round in March. Except that Steerforth was more to be admired than ever, I remember nothing. He was going away at the end of the half-year, if not sooner, and was more spirited and independent than ever; but beyond this I remember nothing. The great event by which that time is marked in my mind, seems to have swallowed up all lesser recollections, and to exist alone.
It was after breakfast, and we had been summoned in from the playground, when Mr. Creakle entered and said:
“David Copperfield is to go into the parlor.”
I expected a hamper from Peggotty, and brightened at the order. Some of the boys about me put in their claim not to be forgotten in the distribution of the good things, as I got out of my seat with great alacrity. But when I reached the parlor I saw no one except Mrs. Creakle, who held an open letter in her hand and looked at me gravely.
“You are too young to know how the world changes every day,” said Mrs. Creakle, “and how the people in it pass away. But we all have to learn it, David; some of us when we are young, some of us when we are old, some of us at all times of our lives.”
I looked at her earnestly.
“When you came away from home,” said Mrs. Creakle, after a pause, “were they all well?” After another pause, “Was your mamma well?”
I trembled without distinctly knowing why, and still looked at her earnestly, making no attempt to answer.
“Because,” said she, “I grieve to tell you that I hear this morning your mamma is very ill.”
A mist arose between Mrs. Creakle and me, and her figure seemed to move in it for an instant. Then I felt the burning tears run down my face, and it was steady again.
“She is very dangerously ill,” she added.
I knew all now.
“She is dead.”
There was no need to tell me so. I had already broken out into a desolate cry, and felt an orphan in the wide world.
She was very kind to me. She kept me there all day, and left me alone sometimes; and I cried and wore myself to sleep, and awoke and cried again.
The next night I left Salem House, after a tender adieu to Steerforth, Traddles, and all the rest. I little thought that I left the school never to return.
When I reached home I was in Peggotty’s arms before I got to the door, and she took me into the house. Her grief burst out when she first saw me; but she controlled it soon, and spoke in whispers, and walked softly, as if the dead could be disturbed. She had not been in bed, I found, for a long time. She sat up at night still, and watched. As long as her poor dear pretty was above the ground, she said, she would never desert her.
Mr. Murdstone took no heed of me when I went into the parlor where he was, but sat by the fireside, weeping silently, and pondering in his elbow-chair. Miss Murdstone, who was busy at her writing-desk, which was covered with letters and papers, gave me her cold finger-nails, and asked me, in an iron whisper, if I had been measured for my mourning.
I will not dwell upon the dull, sorrowful days before and after my dear mother’s funeral. The house had been cold and quiet enough before, but was now almost terrifying. And had it not been for Peggotty I do not know how I should have stood it.
But soon even she was denied me. Miss Murdstone had never liked her, and now lost no time in dismissing her from our service. The single ray of light in this gloomy time is a little visit I was allowed to make with her to Yarmouth, to our old friends, Mr. Peggotty, Ham, and Emily. The latter was much grown now, but prettier than ever, and shyer about letting me kiss her.
And Barkis, the honest carrier, after having been “willing” all this time, was hugely gratified to gain a favorable answer from Peggotty. They were married while I was there, and I was glad to leave my faithful old nurse so well provided for.
Then I returned home—no, I cannot say that word—to Mr. and Miss Murdstone.