I PASS over all that happened at school, until the anniversary of mybirthday came round in March. Except that Steerforth was more to beadmired than ever, I remember nothing. He was going away at the end ofthe half-year, if not sooner, and was more spirited and independent thanbefore in my eyes, and therefore more engaging than before; but beyondthis I remember nothing. The great remembrance by which that time ismarked in my mind, seems to have swallowed up all lesser recollections,and to exist alone.

It is even difficult for me to believe that there was a gap of fulltwo months between my return to Salem House and the arrival of thatbirthday. I can only understand that the fact was so, because I know itmust have been so; otherwise I should feel convinced that there was nointerval, and that the one occasion trod upon the other's heels.

How well I recollect the kind of day it was! I smell the fog that hungabout the place; I see the hoar frost, ghostly, through it; I feel myrimy hair fall clammy on my cheek; I look along the dim perspective ofthe schoolroom, with a sputtering candle here and there to light up thefoggy morning, and the breath of the boys wreathing and smoking in theraw cold as they blow upon their fingers, and tap their feet upon thefloor. It was after breakfast, and we had been summoned in from theplayground, when Mr. Sharp entered and said:

'David Copperfield is to go into the parlour.'

I expected a hamper from Peggotty, and brightened at the order. Someof the boys about me put in their claim not to be forgotten in thedistribution of the good things, as I got out of my seat with greatalacrity.

'Don't hurry, David,' said Mr. Sharp. 'There's time enough, my boy,don't hurry.'

I might have been surprised by the feeling tone in which he spoke, if Ihad given it a thought; but I gave it none until afterwards. I hurriedaway to the parlour; and there I found Mr. Creakle, sitting at hisbreakfast with the cane and a newspaper before him, and Mrs. Creaklewith an opened letter in her hand. But no hamper.

'David Copperfield,' said Mrs. Creakle, leading me to a sofa, andsitting down beside me. 'I want to speak to you very particularly. Ihave something to tell you, my child.'

Mr. Creakle, at whom of course I looked, shook his head without lookingat me, and stopped up a sigh with a very large piece of buttered toast.

'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 learnit, 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 at the end of the vacation,' said Mrs.Creakle, after a pause, 'were they all well?' After another pause, 'Wasyour mama well?'

I trembled without distinctly knowing why, and still looked at herearnestly, making no attempt to answer.

'Because,' said she, 'I grieve to tell you that I hear this morning yourmama is very ill.'

A mist rose between Mrs. Creakle and me, and her figure seemed to movein 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 adesolate cry, and felt an orphan in the wide world.

She was very kind to me. She kept me there all day, and left me alonesometimes; and I cried, and wore myself to sleep, and awoke andcried again. When I could cry no more, I began to think; and then theoppression on my breast was heaviest, and my grief a dull pain thatthere was no ease for.

And yet my thoughts were idle; not intent on the calamity that weighedupon my heart, but idly loitering near it. I thought of our house shutup and hushed. I thought of the little baby, who, Mrs. Creakle said, hadbeen pining away for some time, and who, they believed, would die too. Ithought of my father's grave in the churchyard, by our house, and of mymother lying there beneath the tree I knew so well. I stood upon a chairwhen I was left alone, and looked into the glass to see how red my eyeswere, and how sorrowful my face. I considered, after some hours weregone, if my tears were really hard to flow now, as they seemed to be,what, in connexion with my loss, it would affect me most to thinkof when I drew near home--for I was going home to the funeral. I amsensible of having felt that a dignity attached to me among the rest ofthe boys, and that I was important in my affliction.

If ever child were stricken with sincere grief, I was. But I rememberthat this importance was a kind of satisfaction to me, when I walked inthe playground that afternoon while the boys were in school. When Isaw them glancing at me out of the windows, as they went up to theirclasses, I felt distinguished, and looked more melancholy, and walkedslower. When school was over, and they came out and spoke to me, I feltit rather good in myself not to be proud to any of them, and to takeexactly the same notice of them all, as before.

I was to go home next night; not by the mail, but by the heavynight-coach, which was called the Farmer, and was principally used bycountry-people travelling short intermediate distances upon the road. Wehad no story-telling that evening, and Traddles insisted on lending mehis pillow. I don't know what good he thought it would do me, for Ihad one of my own: but it was all he had to lend, poor fellow, except asheet of letter-paper full of skeletons; and that he gave me at parting,as a soother of my sorrows and a contribution to my peace of mind.

I left Salem House upon the morrow afternoon. I little thought then thatI left it, never to return. We travelled very slowly all night, anddid not get into Yarmouth before nine or ten o'clock in the morning. Ilooked out for Mr. Barkis, but he was not there; and instead of him afat, short-winded, merry-looking, little old man in black, with rustylittle bunches of ribbons at the knees of his breeches, black stockings,and a broad-brimmed hat, came puffing up to the coach window, and said:

'Master Copperfield?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Will you come with me, young sir, if you please,' he said, opening thedoor, 'and I shall have the pleasure of taking you home.'

I put my hand in his, wondering who he was, and we walked away to ashop in a narrow street, on which was written OMER, DRAPER, TAILOR,HABERDASHER, FUNERAL FURNISHER, &c. It was a close and stifling littleshop; full of all sorts of clothing, made and unmade, includingone window full of beaver-hats and bonnets. We went into a littleback-parlour behind the shop, where we found three young women at workon a quantity of black materials, which were heaped upon the table,and little bits and cuttings of which were littered all over the floor.There was a good fire in the room, and a breathless smell of warm blackcrape--I did not know what the smell was then, but I know now.

The three young women, who appeared to be very industrious andcomfortable, raised their heads to look at me, and then went on withtheir work. Stitch, stitch, stitch. At the same time there came froma workshop across a little yard outside the window, a regular soundof hammering that kept a kind of tune: RAT--tat-tat, RAT--tat-tat,RAT--tat-tat, without any variation.

'Well,' said my conductor to one of the three young women. 'How do youget on, Minnie?'

'We shall be ready by the trying-on time,' she replied gaily, withoutlooking up. 'Don't you be afraid, father.'

Mr. Omer took off his broad-brimmed hat, and sat down and panted. He wasso fat that he was obliged to pant some time before he could say:

'That's right.'

'Father!' said Minnie, playfully. 'What a porpoise you do grow!'

'Well, I don't know how it is, my dear,' he replied, considering aboutit. 'I am rather so.'

'You are such a comfortable man, you see,' said Minnie. 'You take thingsso easy.'

'No use taking 'em otherwise, my dear,' said Mr. Omer.

'No, indeed,' returned his daughter. 'We are all pretty gay here, thankHeaven! Ain't we, father?'

'I hope so, my dear,' said Mr. Omer. 'As I have got my breath now, Ithink I'll measure this young scholar. Would you walk into the shop,Master Copperfield?'

I preceded Mr. Omer, in compliance with his request; and after showingme a roll of cloth which he said was extra super, and too good mourningfor anything short of parents, he took my various dimensions, and putthem down in a book. While he was recording them he called my attentionto his stock in trade, and to certain fashions which he said had 'justcome up', and to certain other fashions which he said had 'just goneout'.

'And by that sort of thing we very often lose a little mint of money,'said Mr. Omer. 'But fashions are like human beings. They come in, nobodyknows when, why, or how; and they go out, nobody knows when, why, orhow. Everything is like life, in my opinion, if you look at it in thatpoint of view.'

I was too sorrowful to discuss the question, which would possibly havebeen beyond me under any circumstances; and Mr. Omer took me back intothe parlour, breathing with some difficulty on the way.

He then called down a little break-neck range of steps behind a door:'Bring up that tea and bread-and-butter!' which, after some time,during which I sat looking about me and thinking, and listening to thestitching in the room and the tune that was being hammered across theyard, appeared on a tray, and turned out to be for me.

'I have been acquainted with you,' said Mr. Omer, after watching mefor some minutes, during which I had not made much impression on thebreakfast, for the black things destroyed my appetite, 'I have beenacquainted with you a long time, my young friend.'

'Have you, sir?'

'All your life,' said Mr. Omer. 'I may say before it. I knew yourfather before you. He was five foot nine and a half, and he lays infive-and-twen-ty foot of ground.'

'RAT--tat-tat, RAT--tat-tat, RAT--tat-tat,' across the yard.

'He lays in five and twen-ty foot of ground, if he lays in a fraction,'said Mr. Omer, pleasantly. 'It was either his request or her direction,I forget which.'

'Do you know how my little brother is, sir?' I inquired.

Mr. Omer shook his head.

'RAT--tat-tat, RAT--tat-tat, RAT--tat-tat.'

'He is in his mother's arms,' said he.

'Oh, poor little fellow! Is he dead?'

'Don't mind it more than you can help,' said Mr. Omer. 'Yes. The baby'sdead.'

My wounds broke out afresh at this intelligence. I left thescarcely-tasted breakfast, and went and rested my head on another table,in a corner of the little room, which Minnie hastily cleared, lest Ishould spot the mourning that was lying there with my tears. She wasa pretty, good-natured girl, and put my hair away from my eyes with asoft, kind touch; but she was very cheerful at having nearly finishedher work and being in good time, and was so different from me!

Presently the tune left off, and a good-looking young fellow came acrossthe yard into the room. He had a hammer in his hand, and his mouth wasfull of little nails, which he was obliged to take out before he couldspeak.

'Well, Joram!' said Mr. Omer. 'How do you get on?'

'All right,' said Joram. 'Done, sir.'

Minnie coloured a little, and the other two girls smiled at one another.

'What! you were at it by candle-light last night, when I was at theclub, then? Were you?' said Mr. Omer, shutting up one eye.

'Yes,' said Joram. 'As you said we could make a little trip of it, andgo over together, if it was done, Minnie and me--and you.'

'Oh! I thought you were going to leave me out altogether,' said Mr.Omer, laughing till he coughed.

'--As you was so good as to say that,' resumed the young man, 'why Iturned to with a will, you see. Will you give me your opinion of it?'

'I will,' said Mr. Omer, rising. 'My dear'; and he stopped and turned tome: 'would you like to see your--'

'No, father,' Minnie interposed.

'I thought it might be agreeable, my dear,' said Mr. Omer. 'But perhapsyou're right.'

I can't say how I knew it was my dear, dear mother's coffin that theywent to look at. I had never heard one making; I had never seen one thatI know of.--but it came into my mind what the noise was, while it wasgoing on; and when the young man entered, I am sure I knew what he hadbeen doing.

The work being now finished, the two girls, whose names I had not heard,brushed the shreds and threads from their dresses, and went into theshop to put that to rights, and wait for customers. Minnie stayed behindto fold up what they had made, and pack it in two baskets. This she didupon her knees, humming a lively little tune the while. Joram, who I hadno doubt was her lover, came in and stole a kiss from her while she wasbusy (he didn't appear to mind me, at all), and said her father was gonefor the chaise, and he must make haste and get himself ready. Then hewent out again; and then she put her thimble and scissors in her pocket,and stuck a needle threaded with black thread neatly in the bosom of hergown, and put on her outer clothing smartly, at a little glass behindthe door, in which I saw the reflection of her pleased face.

All this I observed, sitting at the table in the corner with my headleaning on my hand, and my thoughts running on very different things.The chaise soon came round to the front of the shop, and the basketsbeing put in first, I was put in next, and those three followed. Iremember it as a kind of half chaise-cart, half pianoforte-van, paintedof a sombre colour, and drawn by a black horse with a long tail. Therewas plenty of room for us all.

I do not think I have ever experienced so strange a feeling in my life(I am wiser now, perhaps) as that of being with them, remembering howthey had been employed, and seeing them enjoy the ride. I was not angrywith them; I was more afraid of them, as if I were cast away amongcreatures with whom I had no community of nature. They were verycheerful. The old man sat in front to drive, and the two young peoplesat behind him, and whenever he spoke to them leaned forward, the one onone side of his chubby face and the other on the other, and made a greatdeal of him. They would have talked to me too, but I held back, andmoped in my corner; scared by their love-making and hilarity, thoughit was far from boisterous, and almost wondering that no judgement cameupon them for their hardness of heart.

So, when they stopped to bait the horse, and ate and drank and enjoyedthemselves, I could touch nothing that they touched, but kept my fastunbroken. So, when we reached home, I dropped out of the chaise behind,as quickly as possible, that I might not be in their company beforethose solemn windows, looking blindly on me like closed eyes oncebright. And oh, how little need I had had to think what would move me totears when I came back--seeing the window of my mother's room, and nextit that which, in the better time, was mine!

I was in Peggotty's arms before I got to the door, and she took me intothe house. Her grief burst out when she first saw me; but she controlledit soon, and spoke in whispers, and walked softly, as if the dead couldbe disturbed. She had not been in bed, I found, for a long time. Shesat up at night still, and watched. As long as her poor dear pretty wasabove the ground, she said, she would never desert her.

Mr. Murdstone took no heed of me when I went into the parlour where hewas, but sat by the fireside, weeping silently, and pondering in hiselbow-chair. Miss Murdstone, who was busy at her writing-desk, whichwas covered with letters and papers, gave me her cold finger-nails, andasked me, in an iron whisper, if I had been measured for my mourning.

I said: 'Yes.'

'And your shirts,' said Miss Murdstone; 'have you brought 'em home?'

'Yes, ma'am. I have brought home all my clothes.'

This was all the consolation that her firmness administered to me. I donot doubt that she had a choice pleasure in exhibiting what she calledher self-command, and her firmness, and her strength of mind, andher common sense, and the whole diabolical catalogue of her unamiablequalities, on such an occasion. She was particularly proud of her turnfor business; and she showed it now in reducing everything to pen andink, and being moved by nothing. All the rest of that day, and frommorning to night afterwards, she sat at that desk, scratching composedlywith a hard pen, speaking in the same imperturbable whisper toeverybody; never relaxing a muscle of her face, or softening a tone ofher voice, or appearing with an atom of her dress astray.

Her brother took a book sometimes, but never read it that I saw. Hewould open it and look at it as if he were reading, but would remain fora whole hour without turning the leaf, and then put it down and walk toand fro in the room. I used to sit with folded hands watching him, andcounting his footsteps, hour after hour. He very seldom spoke to her,and never to me. He seemed to be the only restless thing, except theclocks, in the whole motionless house.

In these days before the funeral, I saw but little of Peggotty, exceptthat, in passing up or down stairs, I always found her close to the roomwhere my mother and her baby lay, and except that she came to me everynight, and sat by my bed's head while I went to sleep. A day ortwo before the burial--I think it was a day or two before, but I amconscious of confusion in my mind about that heavy time, with nothingto mark its progress--she took me into the room. I only recollect thatunderneath some white covering on the bed, with a beautiful cleanlinessand freshness all around it, there seemed to me to lie embodied thesolemn stillness that was in the house; and that when she would haveturned the cover gently back, I cried: 'Oh no! oh no!' and held herhand.

If the funeral had been yesterday, I could not recollect it better. Thevery air of the best parlour, when I went in at the door, the brightcondition of the fire, the shining of the wine in the decanters, thepatterns of the glasses and plates, the faint sweet smell of cake, theodour of Miss Murdstone's dress, and our black clothes. Mr. Chillip isin the room, and comes to speak to me.

'And how is Master David?' he says, kindly.

I cannot tell him very well. I give him my hand, which he holds in his.

'Dear me!' says Mr. Chillip, meekly smiling, with something shining inhis eye. 'Our little friends grow up around us. They grow out of ourknowledge, ma'am?' This is to Miss Murdstone, who makes no reply.

'There is a great improvement here, ma'am?' says Mr. Chillip.

Miss Murdstone merely answers with a frown and a formal bend: Mr.Chillip, discomfited, goes into a corner, keeping me with him, and openshis mouth no more.

I remark this, because I remark everything that happens, not becauseI care about myself, or have done since I came home. And now the bellbegins to sound, and Mr. Omer and another come to make us ready. AsPeggotty was wont to tell me, long ago, the followers of my father tothe same grave were made ready in the same room.

There are Mr. Murdstone, our neighbour Mr. Grayper, Mr. Chillip, andI. When we go out to the door, the Bearers and their load are in thegarden; and they move before us down the path, and past the elms, andthrough the gate, and into the churchyard, where I have so often heardthe birds sing on a summer morning.

We stand around the grave. The day seems different to me from everyother day, and the light not of the same colour--of a sadder colour.Now there is a solemn hush, which we have brought from home with what isresting in the mould; and while we stand bareheaded, I hear the voiceof the clergyman, sounding remote in the open air, and yet distinct andplain, saying: 'I am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord!'Then I hear sobs; and, standing apart among the lookers-on, I see thatgood and faithful servant, whom of all the people upon earth I love thebest, and unto whom my childish heart is certain that the Lord will oneday say: 'Well done.'

There are many faces that I know, among the little crowd; faces that Iknew in church, when mine was always wondering there; faces that firstsaw my mother, when she came to the village in her youthful bloom. I donot mind them--I mind nothing but my grief--and yet I see and know themall; and even in the background, far away, see Minnie looking on, andher eye glancing on her sweetheart, who is near me.

It is over, and the earth is filled in, and we turn to come away. Beforeus stands our house, so pretty and unchanged, so linked in my mind withthe young idea of what is gone, that all my sorrow has been nothing tothe sorrow it calls forth. But they take me on; and Mr. Chillip talks tome; and when we get home, puts some water to my lips; and when I ask hisleave to go up to my room, dismisses me with the gentleness of a woman.

All this, I say, is yesterday's event. Events of later date have floatedfrom me to the shore where all forgotten things will reappear, but thisstands like a high rock in the ocean.

I knew that Peggotty would come to me in my room. The Sabbath stillnessof the time (the day was so like Sunday! I have forgotten that) wassuited to us both. She sat down by my side upon my little bed; andholding my hand, and sometimes putting it to her lips, and sometimessmoothing it with hers, as she might have comforted my little brother,told me, in her way, all that she had to tell concerning what hadhappened.

'She was never well,' said Peggotty, 'for a long time. She was uncertainin her mind, and not happy. When her baby was born, I thought at firstshe would get better, but she was more delicate, and sunk a little everyday. She used to like to sit alone before her baby came, and then shecried; but afterwards she used to sing to it--so soft, that I oncethought, when I heard her, it was like a voice up in the air, that wasrising away.

'I think she got to be more timid, and more frightened-like, of late;and that a hard word was like a blow to her. But she was always the sameto me. She never changed to her foolish Peggotty, didn't my sweet girl.'

Here Peggotty stopped, and softly beat upon my hand a little while.

'The last time that I saw her like her own old self, was the night whenyou came home, my dear. The day you went away, she said to me, "I nevershall see my pretty darling again. Something tells me so, that tells thetruth, I know."

'She tried to hold up after that; and many a time, when they told hershe was thoughtless and light-hearted, made believe to be so; but it wasall a bygone then. She never told her husband what she had told me--shewas afraid of saying it to anybody else--till one night, a little morethan a week before it happened, when she said to him: "My dear, I thinkI am dying."

'"It's off my mind now, Peggotty," she told me, when I laid her in herbed that night. "He will believe it more and more, poor fellow, everyday for a few days to come; and then it will be past. I am very tired.If this is sleep, sit by me while I sleep: don't leave me. God blessboth my children! God protect and keep my fatherless boy!"

'I never left her afterwards,' said Peggotty. 'She often talked to themtwo downstairs--for she loved them; she couldn't bear not to love anyonewho was about her--but when they went away from her bed-side, she alwaysturned to me, as if there was rest where Peggotty was, and never fellasleep in any other way.

'On the last night, in the evening, she kissed me, and said: "If my babyshould die too, Peggotty, please let them lay him in my arms, and buryus together." (It was done; for the poor lamb lived but a day beyondher.) "Let my dearest boy go with us to our resting-place," she said,"and tell him that his mother, when she lay here, blessed him not once,but a thousand times."'

Another silence followed this, and another gentle beating on my hand.

'It was pretty far in the night,' said Peggotty, 'when she asked me forsome drink; and when she had taken it, gave me such a patient smile, thedear!--so beautiful!

'Daybreak had come, and the sun was rising, when she said to me, howkind and considerate Mr. Copperfield had always been to her, and howhe had borne with her, and told her, when she doubted herself, thata loving heart was better and stronger than wisdom, and that he was ahappy man in hers. "Peggotty, my dear," she said then, "put me nearer toyou," for she was very weak. "Lay your good arm underneath my neck," shesaid, "and turn me to you, for your face is going far off, and I want itto be near." I put it as she asked; and oh Davy! the time had come whenmy first parting words to you were true--when she was glad to lay herpoor head on her stupid cross old Peggotty's arm--and she died like achild that had gone to sleep!'

Thus ended Peggotty's narration. From the moment of my knowing of thedeath of my mother, the idea of her as she had been of late had vanishedfrom me. I remembered her, from that instant, only as the young motherof my earliest impressions, who had been used to wind her bright curlsround and round her finger, and to dance with me at twilight in theparlour. What Peggotty had told me now, was so far from bringing me backto the later period, that it rooted the earlier image in my mind. It maybe curious, but it is true. In her death she winged her way back to hercalm untroubled youth, and cancelled all the rest.

The mother who lay in the grave, was the mother of my infancy; thelittle creature in her arms, was myself, as I had once been, hushed forever on her bosom.