David Copperfield

Chapter 6 My family has changed (1)
Chapter 3 My family has changed (1)
I think the porter's horse is the laziest horse in the world.It bowed its head and walked slowly, as if hoping that those who were to receive the package would wait.I really fancied it would sometimes laugh like that, but the porter said he was just coughing.

The porter, like his horse, bowed his head and dozed as he drove, one arm on his knee.Though I say he's a porter, I think the car could have gotten to Yarmouth without him, because the horses actually did it all.As for talking, he didn't want to, he just whistled.

Peggotty took a basket of refreshments, which would have sufficed us for the journey, even if we had traveled to London in the same car.We ate a lot and slept a lot.Peggotty propped his chin on the handle of the basket for a moment, and fell asleep.She never put the basket down.If I hadn't heard it with my own ears, I couldn't believe how loud a defenseless woman was snoring.

We stopped many times by the side roads in some alleys, and I was very tired of taking a long time to deliver a bed frame to a small hotel, and staying in other places.So when I saw Yarmouth, I was very happy.I looked across the dreary wasteland across the river, and thought it looked dank.I couldn't help but wonder - if the world is really round like the geography textbook says, why is everything flat? But then I thought, maybe Yarmouth is on one of the poles and that's why it's like that.

Getting closer and closer to our destination, we saw that everything nearby was like a low straight line under the sky.I said to Peggotty that it might look better here if there was a hill; and that the town and the tide wouldn't mix together like toast and fire, and that might be better.Peggotty solemnly said that we should accept everything that has been done. As for her, she was proud to call herself "Yarmouth fish".

We came to the street, which also surprised me.All kinds of smells are mixed together, and there are sailors walking around, and carts ringing bells on the rocks. I feel that I have underestimated such a lively and prosperous place.When I told this to Peggotty, she seemed delighted, and said to me that everybody (I suppose those who have been lucky enough to be born Yarmouth) knows that Yarmouth is generally the most beautiful place in the world. nice place.

"Here is my Eminem!" cried Peggotty, "and too big to be recognized!"

In fact, he was waiting for us in a hotel.He asked me how I felt like an old friend. At first, I felt that I didn't know him as well as he knew me, because after I was born, he never came to our house, so he knew me naturally but I didn't know him.He put me on his back and carried me home, and our friendship grew by leaps and bounds.He was six feet tall, big, broad-shouldered, a solid man, but with a boyish smile and light curly hair that made him look like a sheep.He wore a canvas jacket, and his trousers were so stiff that they remained straight even without the legs in them.He was wearing what you might call a hat, which looked like an old house with some dark, dirty thing on top of it.

Ham carried me on his back, carrying one of our small trunks under his arm, and Peggotty carried the other.We wandered up and down the alleys of the small sandy beach strewn with splintered wood, and at last came to the dreary wasteland I had seen in the distance.Then Ham said:

"That's our house, Master Wei."

I looked around, but I couldn't see any houses.Only not far away was a black barge or some other kind of old ship lying on the ground, out of the reach of the tide.From there projected an iron funnel which served as a chimney.I don't see anything like a human habitation.

"Is that it?" I asked. "Is it that boat-like thing?"

"That is, Master Wei." Ham replied.

Even Aladdin's palace or Roc's egg in "The Arabian Nights", I think, is not as desirable as the absurd idea of ​​living on this boat.On one side of it, a very interesting little door was opened, leading directly to the roof, and there were some small windows.The most fascinating thing about this place is that it is indeed a ship that has been launched countless times, and no one has ever imagined that people who live on land can live in it.I think that's why it fascinates me.If it was originally built for people to live in, I might think it is too small and crude.But just because it wasn't made for that, it's the perfect place to live.

It's very clean inside, very tidy.There are tables, Dutch clocks, wardrobes, tea trays.The walls were covered with the usual colored pictures of Bible stories in glass frames.On the mantelpiece, there is a picture of the boat called the "Sarah Jane" built at Sandra, which seems to me a most enviable treasure.Hooks hung from beams under the ceiling, and chests and chests of the sort were used as seating to supplement the chairs.

This is what I saw at the first glance when I came in--very childish, it seemed to me--and then Peggotty opened the little door of what was to be my bedroom, the most impeccable bedroom I can remember. —It was just aft of that ship, with a little window cut across the old rudder; and on the wall, just at my height, hung a little mirror in a shell-framed frame; A cot just big enough for me to sleep on; a blue enamel cup on the table with a bunch of seaweed in it.The walls were whitewashed, and the sheets of rags glistened.There was one other thing which was particularly noticeable in this haunted little room, and that was the smell of fish. I whispered all this discovery to Peggotty, who told me that her brother Shrimp, crab and lobster business.Later, I often saw many of these things in the small wooden house outside where buckets and pots were kept.They're tangled up for fun, and once they're clamped, they never come loose.

A woman in a white apron welcomes us politely at the door.On Ham's shoulder I saw her salute respectfully a quarter of a mile away.And one of the prettiest little girls saluted as well.The little girl was wearing a necklace of blue beads, and when I tried to kiss her, she refused and ran away to hide.Then, while we were eating, a hairy but very affable man returned.He called Peggotty "Little Niu Niu," and kissed her hard on the cheek, which, from her usual politeness, I believed to be her brother.And so it was—he was introduced to me as Mr. Peggotty, the head of the family.

"It is a great pleasure to see you, Master Weiss," said Mr. Peggotty. "You may find us rude, but we are warm-hearted people."

I thanked him and said I would have a great time here.

"How is your mother, Master Wei?" asked Mr. Peggotty. "Was she happy when you went away?"

I managed to make Mr. Peggotty understand that she was as happy as I had hoped, and said she wanted me to convey my sincere regards to Mr. Peggotty--a phrase I had invented offhand.

"Thanks her very much," said Mr Peggotty. "Ha, Master Wade, if you could stay with her," he nodded to his sister, "Ham, and little Em'ly, stay here for a fortnight longer, We would be very honored.”

After this ardent gesture of his landlord's friendship, Mr. Peggotty went outside, and bathed in a tub of hot water, saying, "Hot water alone will clean my mud." Presently he entered again. It’s too red, so I can’t help but think that his face is very similar to sea prawns, crabs, and lobsters in this respect—it’s quite black before entering the hot water, and it’s red after coming out of the hot water up.

After tea, with the door shut and the slits plugged, it seemed to me the most comfortable abode conceivable to man.It was wonderful to hear the wind blowing over the sea, and to know the fog was growing outside, and to look at the fire, and to think that there was nothing here but the ship, our house.Little Em'ly had conquered her shyness, and sat with me on the lowest and smallest chest, which was just big enough for us both, and fitted just right into the corner of the chimney.Mrs Peggotty sat knitting by the fire in her apron.Peggotty was sewing.Ham, who by then had given me my first lesson in playing cards, was now trying desperately to remember a fortune-telling method with the dirty deck, and Mr. Peggotty was smoking a cigarette, and I felt it was time for a heart-to-heart talk.

"Mr Peggotty!" said I.

"Master Wei," he said.

"Did you name your son Ham because you lived on some sort of ark?"

"No, sir. I didn't name him."

"Then who took it for him?"

"Oh, sir, it's his father," said Mr Peggotty.

"I thought you were his father!"

"My brother is his father."

"Is he dead, Mr. Peggotty?" I asked, after a moment's respectful silence.

"Yes, by drowning in the sea," said Mr Peggotty.

I was amazed that Mr. Peggotty was not Ham's father.I'm starting to wonder if I've got everyone's relationships upside down here.I was so anxious to ascertain this, that I resolved to ask Mr. Peggotty for clarification.

"Little Emily," I asked, casting a glance at her, "is that your daughter, Mr. Peggotty?"

"No, sir. My brother-in-law Tom's daughter."

I couldn't help being surprised. "—dead, Mr Peggotty?" I asked, after another moment of respectful silence.

"Yes, by drowning in the sea," said Mr Peggotty.

I find it difficult to continue talking about this topic.But I didn't ask clearly, and I should have asked anyway.So I said:

"Have you no children, Mr. Peggotty?"

"Yes, sir," he said with a smile, "I'm not married yet."

"Never married!" said I, startled. "Oh, and who is she, Mr. Peggotty?" I asked, pointing to the person in the white apron who was knitting.

"That's Mrs. Gummidge," said Mr. Peggotty.

"Gummidge, Mr Peggotty?"

But then Peggotty—I mean my Peggotty—signed me to stop there, so I just sat there and watched everyone sitting there in silence until I got into bed.Only in my own little bedroom did she tell me that Ham and Emily were orphans without father and mother, and that when they were left separately they were children without food and clothing, good Peggotty Mr. adopted them.Mrs. Gummidge was the widow of a fellow-boater with whom he had died without a title.He was very poor himself, she said, but he was just and kind—she put it figuratively.She also told me that talking about his acts of kindness only made him mad.

If any of them mentioned it, he would beat the table hard with his right hand, and say a terrible curse; if it was mentioned again, he would either never return, or be punished. Damn.When I asked, I got an answer that didn't seem to know what it meant to be "cursed by God", but everyone agreed that it was the most terrible curse.

It's time to rest, and with a happy mood, I fell asleep.I got up and dressed at dawn, and went out with little Emily to collect stones by the sea.

"You're quite a sailor, aren't you? I suppose," I asked Emily.

"No," replied Emily, "I'm afraid of the sea."

"What are you afraid of?" I looked at the sea and said bravely, "I'm not afraid!"

"Ah! but the sea is cruel," said Emily. "I have seen how cruel it is to us people. I have seen it tear a ship as big as our house to pieces."

"I hope the ship isn't—"

"Not the ship in which my father was drowned?" said Emily. "No, of course not. I haven't seen that ship."

"Haven't you seen him?" I asked.

"Yes," answered little Emily.

What a coincidence.I told her right away: I had never met my father, and how my mother and I lived independently as happy a life as we could imagine, not only now but forever.I also told her: My father's grave is in the churchyard not far from my home, and it is protected by a big tree. On many pleasant mornings, I went under the tree and listened to the birds singing.It's just that this is indeed different from Emily's orphan life.She lost her mother before she lost her father, and no one knows where her father's grave is, only that he is buried deep under the sea.

"And," said Emily, as she gathered shells and stones, "your parents were good men, and mine were both fishers, and my Uncle Dan was a fisherman, too."

"Dan is Mr. Peggotty, isn't he?" I asked.

"Uncle Dan—it's over there." Emily nodded to the converted ship house.

"Yes. I mean him. He must be very good, I think."

"That's great," said Emily. "If I could be a lady, I'd give him many presents, and they're all very expensive."

I said I had no doubt that Mr Peggotty was worthy of these presents.

Little Em'ly had stopped, and was counting out the presents that were to be given him, and looking up at the sky, which seemed to be a very splendid sight.We went on again, picking up shells and stones.

"You want to be a lady?" I said.

Emily smiled and said, "Yes."

"I'd like that, because then we'd all be classy people. We'd have nothing to worry about in stormy weather--I say that not just for ourselves, but for the poor fishermen, Really, and if they're in trouble, we can help them financially."

I think the idea is right up my alley, and it seems quite possible.I applauded and appreciated this; encouraged by this, little Em'ly said shyly again:

"Do you still think you are not afraid of the sea?"

(End of this chapter)