In due time, Mr. Micawber's petition was ripe for hearing; and thatgentleman was ordered to be discharged under the Act, to my great joy.His creditors were not implacable; and Mrs. Micawber informed me thateven the revengeful boot-maker had declared in open court that he borehim no malice, but that when money was owing to him he liked to be paid.He said he thought it was human nature.

M r Micawber returned to the King's Bench when his case was over, assome fees were to be settled, and some formalities observed, before hecould be actually released. The club received him with transport, andheld an harmonic meeting that evening in his honour; while Mrs. Micawberand I had a lamb's fry in private, surrounded by the sleeping family.

'On such an occasion I will give you, Master Copperfield,' said Mrs.Micawber, 'in a little more flip,' for we had been having some already,'the memory of my papa and mama.'

'Are they dead, ma'am?' I inquired, after drinking the toast in awine-glass.

'My mama departed this life,' said Mrs. Micawber, 'before Mr. Micawber'sdifficulties commenced, or at least before they became pressing. My papalived to bail Mr. Micawber several times, and then expired, regretted bya numerous circle.'

Mrs. Micawber shook her head, and dropped a pious tear upon the twin whohappened to be in hand.

As I could hardly hope for a more favourable opportunity of putting aquestion in which I had a near interest, I said to Mrs. Micawber:

'May I ask, ma'am, what you and Mr. Micawber intend to do, now that Mr.Micawber is out of his difficulties, and at liberty? Have you settledyet?'

'My family,' said Mrs. Micawber, who always said those two words with anair, though I never could discover who came under the denomination, 'myfamily are of opinion that Mr. Micawber should quit London, and exerthis talents in the country. Mr. Micawber is a man of great talent,Master Copperfield.'

I said I was sure of that.

'Of great talent,' repeated Mrs. Micawber. 'My family are of opinion,that, with a little interest, something might be done for a man of hisability in the Custom House. The influence of my family being local, itis their wish that Mr. Micawber should go down to Plymouth. They thinkit indispensable that he should be upon the spot.'

'That he may be ready?' I suggested.

'Exactly,' returned Mrs. Micawber. 'That he may be ready--in case ofanything turning up.'

'And do you go too, ma'am?'

The events of the day, in combination with the twins, if not with theflip, had made Mrs. Micawber hysterical, and she shed tears as shereplied:

'I never will desert Mr. Micawber. Mr. Micawber may have concealed hisdifficulties from me in the first instance, but his sanguine temper mayhave led him to expect that he would overcome them. The pearl necklaceand bracelets which I inherited from mama, have been disposed of forless than half their value; and the set of coral, which was the weddinggift of my papa, has been actually thrown away for nothing. But I neverwill desert Mr. Micawber. No!' cried Mrs. Micawber, more affected thanbefore, 'I never will do it! It's of no use asking me!'

I felt quite uncomfortable--as if Mrs. Micawber supposed I had asked herto do anything of the sort!--and sat looking at her in alarm.

'Mr. Micawber has his faults. I do not deny that he is improvident. Ido not deny that he has kept me in the dark as to his resources and hisliabilities both,' she went on, looking at the wall; 'but I never willdesert Mr. Micawber!'

Mrs. Micawber having now raised her voice into a perfect scream, Iwas so frightened that I ran off to the club-room, and disturbed Mr.Micawber in the act of presiding at a long table, and leading the chorusof

Gee up, Dobbin, Gee ho, Dobbin, Gee up, Dobbin, Gee up, and gee ho--o--o!

with the tidings that Mrs. Micawber was in an alarming state, uponwhich he immediately burst into tears, and came away with me with hiswaistcoat full of the heads and tails of shrimps, of which he had beenpartaking.

'Emma, my angel!' cried Mr. Micawber, running into the room; 'what isthe matter?'

'I never will desert you, Micawber!' she exclaimed.

'My life!' said Mr. Micawber, taking her in his arms. 'I am perfectlyaware of it.'

'He is the parent of my children! He is the father of my twins! He isthe husband of my affections,' cried Mrs. Micawber, struggling; 'and Ine--ver--will--desert Mr. Micawber!'

Mr. Micawber was so deeply affected by this proof of her devotion (asto me, I was dissolved in tears), that he hung over her in a passionatemanner, imploring her to look up, and to be calm. But the more he askedMrs. Micawber to look up, the more she fixed her eyes on nothing;and the more he asked her to compose herself, the more she wouldn't.Consequently Mr. Micawber was soon so overcome, that he mingled histears with hers and mine; until he begged me to do him the favour oftaking a chair on the staircase, while he got her into bed. I would havetaken my leave for the night, but he would not hear of my doing thatuntil the strangers' bell should ring. So I sat at the staircase window,until he came out with another chair and joined me.

'How is Mrs. Micawber now, sir?' I said.

'Very low,' said Mr. Micawber, shaking his head; 'reaction. Ah, this hasbeen a dreadful day! We stand alone now--everything is gone from us!'

Mr. Micawber pressed my hand, and groaned, and afterwards shed tears.I was greatly touched, and disappointed too, for I had expected that weshould be quite gay on this happy and long-looked-for occasion. But Mr.and Mrs. Micawber were so used to their old difficulties, I think, thatthey felt quite shipwrecked when they came to consider that they werereleased from them. All their elasticity was departed, and I never sawthem half so wretched as on this night; insomuch that when the bellrang, and Mr. Micawber walked with me to the lodge, and parted from methere with a blessing, I felt quite afraid to leave him by himself, hewas so profoundly miserable.

But through all the confusion and lowness of spirits in which we hadbeen, so unexpectedly to me, involved, I plainly discerned that Mr. andMrs. Micawber and their family were going away from London, and that aparting between us was near at hand. It was in my walk home that night,and in the sleepless hours which followed when I lay in bed, that thethought first occurred to me--though I don't know how it came into myhead--which afterwards shaped itself into a settled resolution.

I had grown to be so accustomed to the Micawbers, and had been sointimate with them in their distresses, and was so utterly friendlesswithout them, that the prospect of being thrown upon some new shift fora lodging, and going once more among unknown people, was like being thatmoment turned adrift into my present life, with such a knowledge of itready made as experience had given me. All the sensitive feelings itwounded so cruelly, all the shame and misery it kept alive within mybreast, became more poignant as I thought of this; and I determined thatthe life was unendurable.

That there was no hope of escape from it, unless the escape was my ownact, I knew quite well. I rarely heard from Miss Murdstone, and neverfrom Mr. Murdstone: but two or three parcels of made or mended clotheshad come up for me, consigned to Mr. Quinion, and in each there wasa scrap of paper to the effect that J. M. trusted D. C. was applyinghimself to business, and devoting himself wholly to his duties--not theleast hint of my ever being anything else than the common drudge intowhich I was fast settling down.

The very next day showed me, while my mind was in the first agitation ofwhat it had conceived, that Mrs. Micawber had not spoken of their goingaway without warrant. They took a lodging in the house where I lived,for a week; at the expiration of which time they were to start forPlymouth. Mr. Micawber himself came down to the counting-house, in theafternoon, to tell Mr. Quinion that he must relinquish me on the dayof his departure, and to give me a high character, which I am sure Ideserved. And Mr. Quinion, calling in Tipp the carman, who was a marriedman, and had a room to let, quartered me prospectively on him--by ourmutual consent, as he had every reason to think; for I said nothing,though my resolution was now taken.

I passed my evenings with Mr. and Mrs. Micawber, during the remainingterm of our residence under the same roof; and I think we became fonderof one another as the time went on. On the last Sunday, they invited meto dinner; and we had a loin of pork and apple sauce, and a pudding. Ihad bought a spotted wooden horse over-night as a parting gift to littleWilkins Micawber--that was the boy--and a doll for little Emma. I hadalso bestowed a shilling on the Orfling, who was about to be disbanded.

We had a very pleasant day, though we were all in a tender state aboutour approaching separation.

'I shall never, Master Copperfield,' said Mrs. Micawber, 'revert to theperiod when Mr. Micawber was in difficulties, without thinking ofyou. Your conduct has always been of the most delicate and obligingdescription. You have never been a lodger. You have been a friend.'

'My dear,' said Mr. Micawber; 'Copperfield,' for so he had beenaccustomed to call me, of late, 'has a heart to feel for the distressesof his fellow-creatures when they are behind a cloud, and a head toplan, and a hand to--in short, a general ability to dispose of suchavailable property as could be made away with.'

I expressed my sense of this commendation, and said I was very sorry wewere going to lose one another.

'My dear young friend,' said Mr. Micawber, 'I am older than you; a manof some experience in life, and--and of some experience, in short, indifficulties, generally speaking. At present, and until something turnsup (which I am, I may say, hourly expecting), I have nothing to bestowbut advice. Still my advice is so far worth taking, that--in short, thatI have never taken it myself, and am the'--here Mr. Micawber, who hadbeen beaming and smiling, all over his head and face, up to the presentmoment, checked himself and frowned--'the miserable wretch you behold.'

'My dear Micawber!' urged his wife.

'I say,' returned Mr. Micawber, quite forgetting himself, and smilingagain, 'the miserable wretch you behold. My advice is, never do tomorrowwhat you can do today. Procrastination is the thief of time. Collarhim!'

'My poor papa's maxim,' Mrs. Micawber observed.

'My dear,' said Mr. Micawber, 'your papa was very well in his way, andHeaven forbid that I should disparage him. Take him for all in all, wene'er shall--in short, make the acquaintance, probably, of anybody elsepossessing, at his time of life, the same legs for gaiters, and able toread the same description of print, without spectacles. But he appliedthat maxim to our marriage, my dear; and that was so far prematurelyentered into, in consequence, that I never recovered the expense.' Mr.Micawber looked aside at Mrs. Micawber, and added: 'Not that I am sorryfor it. Quite the contrary, my love.' After which, he was grave for aminute or so.

'My other piece of advice, Copperfield,' said Mr. Micawber, 'you know.Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen andsix, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expendituretwenty pounds ought and six, result misery. The blossom is blighted,the leaf is withered, the god of day goes down upon the dreary scene,and--and in short you are for ever floored. As I am!'

To make his example the more impressive, Mr. Micawber drank a glass ofpunch with an air of great enjoyment and satisfaction, and whistled theCollege Hornpipe.

I did not fail to assure him that I would store these precepts in mymind, though indeed I had no need to do so, for, at the time, theyaffected me visibly. Next morning I met the whole family at the coachoffice, and saw them, with a desolate heart, take their places outside,at the back.

'Master Copperfield,' said Mrs. Micawber, 'God bless you! I never canforget all that, you know, and I never would if I could.'

'Copperfield,' said Mr. Micawber, 'farewell! Every happiness andprosperity! If, in the progress of revolving years, I could persuademyself that my blighted destiny had been a warning to you, I should feelthat I had not occupied another man's place in existence altogether invain. In case of anything turning up (of which I am rather confident),I shall be extremely happy if it should be in my power to improve yourprospects.'

I think, as Mrs. Micawber sat at the back of the coach, with thechildren, and I stood in the road looking wistfully at them, a mistcleared from her eyes, and she saw what a little creature I really was.I think so, because she beckoned to me to climb up, with quite a new andmotherly expression in her face, and put her arm round my neck, and gaveme just such a kiss as she might have given to her own boy. I had barelytime to get down again before the coach started, and I could hardly seethe family for the handkerchiefs they waved. It was gone in a minute.The Orfling and I stood looking vacantly at each other in the middleof the road, and then shook hands and said good-bye; she going back,I suppose, to St. Luke's workhouse, as I went to begin my weary day atMurdstone and Grinby's.

But with no intention of passing many more weary days there. No. I hadresolved to run away.---To go, by some means or other, down into thecountry, to the only relation I had in the world, and tell my story tomy aunt, Miss Betsey. I have already observed that I don't know how thisdesperate idea came into my brain. But, once there, it remained there;and hardened into a purpose than which I have never entertained a moredetermined purpose in my life. I am far from sure that I believed therewas anything hopeful in it, but my mind was thoroughly made up that itmust be carried into execution.

Again, and again, and a hundred times again, since the night when thethought had first occurred to me and banished sleep, I had gone overthat old story of my poor mother's about my birth, which it had been oneof my great delights in the old time to hear her tell, and which I knewby heart. My aunt walked into that story, and walked out of it, a dreadand awful personage; but there was one little trait in her behaviourwhich I liked to dwell on, and which gave me some faint shadow ofencouragement. I could not forget how my mother had thought that shefelt her touch her pretty hair with no ungentle hand; and though itmight have been altogether my mother's fancy, and might have had nofoundation whatever in fact, I made a little picture, out of it, of myterrible aunt relenting towards the girlish beauty that I recollected sowell and loved so much, which softened the whole narrative. It is verypossible that it had been in my mind a long time, and had graduallyengendered my determination.

As I did not even know where Miss Betsey lived, I wrote a long letterto Peggotty, and asked her, incidentally, if she remembered; pretendingthat I had heard of such a lady living at a certain place I named atrandom, and had a curiosity to know if it were the same. In the courseof that letter, I told Peggotty that I had a particular occasion forhalf a guinea; and that if she could lend me that sum until I couldrepay it, I should be very much obliged to her, and would tell herafterwards what I had wanted it for.

Peggotty's answer soon arrived, and was, as usual, full of affectionatedevotion. She enclosed the half guinea (I was afraid she must have hada world of trouble to get it out of Mr. Barkis's box), and told me thatMiss Betsey lived near Dover, but whether at Dover itself, at Hythe,Sandgate, or Folkestone, she could not say. One of our men, however,informing me on my asking him about these places, that they were allclose together, I deemed this enough for my object, and resolved to setout at the end of that week.

Being a very honest little creature, and unwilling to disgrace thememory I was going to leave behind me at Murdstone and Grinby's, Iconsidered myself bound to remain until Saturday night; and, as I hadbeen paid a week's wages in advance when I first came there, not topresent myself in the counting-house at the usual hour, to receive mystipend. For this express reason, I had borrowed the half-guinea, thatI might not be without a fund for my travelling-expenses. Accordingly,when the Saturday night came, and we were all waiting in the warehouseto be paid, and Tipp the carman, who always took precedence, went infirst to draw his money, I shook Mick Walker by the hand; asked him,when it came to his turn to be paid, to say to Mr. Quinion that I hadgone to move my box to Tipp's; and, bidding a last good night to MealyPotatoes, ran away.

My box was at my old lodging, over the water, and I had written adirection for it on the back of one of our address cards that we nailedon the casks: 'Master David, to be left till called for, at the CoachOffice, Dover.' This I had in my pocket ready to put on the box, after Ishould have got it out of the house; and as I went towards my lodging,I looked about me for someone who would help me to carry it to thebooking-office.

There was a long-legged young man with a very little empty donkey-cart,standing near the Obelisk, in the Blackfriars Road, whose eye I caughtas I was going by, and who, addressing me as 'Sixpenn'orth of badha'pence,' hoped 'I should know him agin to swear to'--in allusion, Ihave no doubt, to my staring at him. I stopped to assure him that I hadnot done so in bad manners, but uncertain whether he might or might notlike a job.

'Wot job?' said the long-legged young man.

'To move a box,' I answered.

'Wot box?' said the long-legged young man.

I told him mine, which was down that street there, and which I wantedhim to take to the Dover coach office for sixpence.

'Done with you for a tanner!' said the long-legged young man, anddirectly got upon his cart, which was nothing but a large wooden tray onwheels, and rattled away at such a rate, that it was as much as I coulddo to keep pace with the donkey.

There was a defiant manner about this young man, and particularly aboutthe way in which he chewed straw as he spoke to me, that I did not muchlike; as the bargain was made, however, I took him upstairs to the roomI was leaving, and we brought the box down, and put it on his cart.Now, I was unwilling to put the direction-card on there, lest any of mylandlord's family should fathom what I was doing, and detain me; soI said to the young man that I would be glad if he would stop for aminute, when he came to the dead-wall of the King's Bench prison. Thewords were no sooner out of my mouth, than he rattled away as if he, mybox, the cart, and the donkey, were all equally mad; and I was quite outof breath with running and calling after him, when I caught him at theplace appointed.

Being much flushed and excited, I tumbled my half-guinea out of mypocket in pulling the card out. I put it in my mouth for safety, andthough my hands trembled a good deal, had just tied the card on verymuch to my satisfaction, when I felt myself violently chucked under thechin by the long-legged young man, and saw my half-guinea fly out of mymouth into his hand.

'Wot!' said the young man, seizing me by my jacket collar, with afrightful grin. 'This is a pollis case, is it? You're a-going to bolt,are you? Come to the pollis, you young warmin, come to the pollis!'

'You give me my money back, if you please,' said I, very muchfrightened; 'and leave me alone.'

'Come to the pollis!' said the young man. 'You shall prove it yourn tothe pollis.'

'Give me my box and money, will you,' I cried, bursting into tears.

The young man still replied: 'Come to the pollis!' and was dragging meagainst the donkey in a violent manner, as if there were any affinitybetween that animal and a magistrate, when he changed his mind, jumpedinto the cart, sat upon my box, and, exclaiming that he would drive tothe pollis straight, rattled away harder than ever.

I ran after him as fast as I could, but I had no breath to call outwith, and should not have dared to call out, now, if I had. I narrowlyescaped being run over, twenty times at least, in half a mile. Now Ilost him, now I saw him, now I lost him, now I was cut at with a whip,now shouted at, now down in the mud, now up again, now running intosomebody's arms, now running headlong at a post. At length, confused byfright and heat, and doubting whether half London might not by this timebe turning out for my apprehension, I left the young man to go wherehe would with my box and money; and, panting and crying, but neverstopping, faced about for Greenwich, which I had understood was onthe Dover Road: taking very little more out of the world, towards theretreat of my aunt, Miss Betsey, than I had brought into it, on thenight when my arrival gave her so much umbrage.