I now approach an event in my life, so indelible, so awful, so bound byan infinite variety of ties to all that has preceded it, in these pages,that, from the beginning of my narrative, I have seen it growing largerand larger as I advanced, like a great tower in a plain, and throwingits fore-cast shadow even on the incidents of my childish days.

For years after it occurred, I dreamed of it often. I have started up sovividly impressed by it, that its fury has yet seemed raging in my quietroom, in the still night. I dream of it sometimes, though at lengthenedand uncertain intervals, to this hour. I have an association between itand a stormy wind, or the lightest mention of a sea-shore, as strong asany of which my mind is conscious. As plainly as I behold what happened,I will try to write it down. I do not recall it, but see it done; for ithappens again before me.

The time drawing on rapidly for the sailing of the emigrant-ship, mygood old nurse (almost broken-hearted for me, when we first met) came upto London. I was constantly with her, and her brother, and the Micawbers(they being very much together); but Emily I never saw.

One evening when the time was close at hand, I was alone with Peggottyand her brother. Our conversation turned on Ham. She described to us howtenderly he had taken leave of her, and how manfully and quietly hehad borne himself. Most of all, of late, when she believed he was mosttried. It was a subject of which the affectionate creature never tired;and our interest in hearing the many examples which she, who was so muchwith him, had to relate, was equal to hers in relating them.

MY aunt and I were at that time vacating the two cottages at Highgate; Iintending to go abroad, and she to return to her house at Dover. We hada temporary lodging in Covent Garden. As I walked home to it, after thisevening's conversation, reflecting on what had passed between Ham andmyself when I was last at Yarmouth, I wavered in the original purposeI had formed, of leaving a letter for Emily when I should take leave ofher uncle on board the ship, and thought it would be better to write toher now. She might desire, I thought, after receiving my communication,to send some parting word by me to her unhappy lover. I ought to giveher the opportunity.

I therefore sat down in my room, before going to bed, and wrote to her.I told her that I had seen him, and that he had requested me to tell herwhat I have already written in its place in these sheets. I faithfullyrepeated it. I had no need to enlarge upon it, if I had had the right.Its deep fidelity and goodness were not to be adorned by me or anyman. I left it out, to be sent round in the morning; with a line to Mr.Peggotty, requesting him to give it to her; and went to bed at daybreak.

I was weaker than I knew then; and, not falling asleep until the sunwas up, lay late, and unrefreshed, next day. I was roused by the silentpresence of my aunt at my bedside. I felt it in my sleep, as I supposewe all do feel such things.

'Trot, my dear,' she said, when I opened my eyes, 'I couldn't make up mymind to disturb you. Mr. Peggotty is here; shall he come up?'

I replied yes, and he soon appeared.

'Mas'r Davy,' he said, when we had shaken hands, 'I giv Em'ly yourletter, sir, and she writ this heer; and begged of me fur to ask youto read it, and if you see no hurt in't, to be so kind as take chargeon't.'

'Have you read it?' said I.

He nodded sorrowfully. I opened it, and read as follows:

'I have got your message. Oh, what can I write, to thank you for yourgood and blessed kindness to me!

'I have put the words close to my heart. I shall keep them till I die.They are sharp thorns, but they are such comfort. I have prayed overthem, oh, I have prayed so much. When I find what you are, and whatuncle is, I think what God must be, and can cry to him.

'Good-bye for ever. Now, my dear, my friend, good-bye for ever in thisworld. In another world, if I am forgiven, I may wake a child and cometo you. All thanks and blessings. Farewell, evermore.'

This, blotted with tears, was the letter.

'May I tell her as you doen't see no hurt in't, and as you'll be so kindas take charge on't, Mas'r Davy?' said Mr. Peggotty, when I had read it.'Unquestionably,' said I--'but I am thinking--'

'Yes, Mas'r Davy?'

'I am thinking,' said I, 'that I'll go down again to Yarmouth. There'stime, and to spare, for me to go and come back before the ship sails. Mymind is constantly running on him, in his solitude; to put this letterof her writing in his hand at this time, and to enable you to tell her,in the moment of parting, that he has got it, will be a kindness toboth of them. I solemnly accepted his commission, dear good fellow, andcannot discharge it too completely. The journey is nothing to me. I amrestless, and shall be better in motion. I'll go down tonight.'

Though he anxiously endeavoured to dissuade me, I saw that he was of mymind; and this, if I had required to be confirmed in my intention, wouldhave had the effect. He went round to the coach office, at my request,and took the box-seat for me on the mail. In the evening I started,by that conveyance, down the road I had traversed under so manyvicissitudes.

'Don't you think that,' I asked the coachman, in the first stage out ofLondon, 'a very remarkable sky? I don't remember to have seen one likeit.'

'Nor I--not equal to it,' he replied. 'That's wind, sir. There'll bemischief done at sea, I expect, before long.'

It was a murky confusion--here and there blotted with a colour like thecolour of the smoke from damp fuel--of flying clouds, tossed up intomost remarkable heaps, suggesting greater heights in the clouds thanthere were depths below them to the bottom of the deepest hollows in theearth, through which the wild moon seemed to plunge headlong, as if, ina dread disturbance of the laws of nature, she had lost her way and werefrightened. There had been a wind all day; and it was rising then, withan extraordinary great sound. In another hour it had much increased, andthe sky was more overcast, and blew hard.

But, as the night advanced, the clouds closing in and denselyover-spreading the whole sky, then very dark, it came on to blow, harderand harder. It still increased, until our horses could scarcely facethe wind. Many times, in the dark part of the night (it was then late inSeptember, when the nights were not short), the leaders turned about, orcame to a dead stop; and we were often in serious apprehension that thecoach would be blown over. Sweeping gusts of rain came up before thisstorm, like showers of steel; and, at those times, when there was anyshelter of trees or lee walls to be got, we were fain to stop, in asheer impossibility of continuing the struggle.

When the day broke, it blew harder and harder. I had been in Yarmouthwhen the seamen said it blew great guns, but I had never known the likeof this, or anything approaching to it. We came to Ipswich--very late,having had to fight every inch of ground since we were ten miles out ofLondon; and found a cluster of people in the market-place, who hadrisen from their beds in the night, fearful of falling chimneys. Some ofthese, congregating about the inn-yard while we changed horses, told usof great sheets of lead having been ripped off a high church-tower, andflung into a by-street, which they then blocked up. Others had to tellof country people, coming in from neighbouring villages, who had seengreat trees lying torn out of the earth, and whole ricks scattered aboutthe roads and fields. Still, there was no abatement in the storm, but itblew harder.

As we struggled on, nearer and nearer to the sea, from which this mightywind was blowing dead on shore, its force became more and more terrific.Long before we saw the sea, its spray was on our lips, and showeredsalt rain upon us. The water was out, over miles and miles of the flatcountry adjacent to Yarmouth; and every sheet and puddle lashed itsbanks, and had its stress of little breakers setting heavily towards us.When we came within sight of the sea, the waves on the horizon, caughtat intervals above the rolling abyss, were like glimpses of anothershore with towers and buildings. When at last we got into the town, thepeople came out to their doors, all aslant, and with streaming hair,making a wonder of the mail that had come through such a night.

I put up at the old inn, and went down to look at the sea; staggeringalong the street, which was strewn with sand and seaweed, and withflying blotches of sea-foam; afraid of falling slates and tiles; andholding by people I met, at angry corners. Coming near the beach, I saw,not only the boatmen, but half the people of the town, lurking behindbuildings; some, now and then braving the fury of the storm to lookaway to sea, and blown sheer out of their course in trying to get zigzagback.

Joining these groups, I found bewailing women whose husbands were awayin herring or oyster boats, which there was too much reason to thinkmight have foundered before they could run in anywhere for safety.Grizzled old sailors were among the people, shaking their heads, as theylooked from water to sky, and muttering to one another; ship-owners,excited and uneasy; children, huddling together, and peering into olderfaces; even stout mariners, disturbed and anxious, levelling theirglasses at the sea from behind places of shelter, as if they weresurveying an enemy.

The tremendous sea itself, when I could find sufficient pause to look atit, in the agitation of the blinding wind, the flying stones and sand,and the awful noise, confounded me. As the high watery walls camerolling in, and, at their highest, tumbled into surf, they looked as ifthe least would engulf the town. As the receding wave swept back with ahoarse roar, it seemed to scoop out deep caves in the beach, as if itspurpose were to undermine the earth. When some white-headed billowsthundered on, and dashed themselves to pieces before they reached theland, every fragment of the late whole seemed possessed by the fullmight of its wrath, rushing to be gathered to the composition of anothermonster. Undulating hills were changed to valleys, undulating valleys(with a solitary storm-bird sometimes skimming through them) were liftedup to hills; masses of water shivered and shook the beach with a boomingsound; every shape tumultuously rolled on, as soon as made, to changeits shape and place, and beat another shape and place away; the idealshore on the horizon, with its towers and buildings, rose and fell; theclouds fell fast and thick; I seemed to see a rending and upheaving ofall nature.

Not finding Ham among the people whom this memorable wind--for it isstill remembered down there, as the greatest ever known to blow uponthat coast--had brought together, I made my way to his house. It wasshut; and as no one answered to my knocking, I went, by back ways andby-lanes, to the yard where he worked. I learned, there, that he hadgone to Lowestoft, to meet some sudden exigency of ship-repairingin which his skill was required; but that he would be back tomorrowmorning, in good time.

I went back to the inn; and when I had washed and dressed, and tried tosleep, but in vain, it was five o'clock in the afternoon. I had not satfive minutes by the coffee-room fire, when the waiter, coming to stirit, as an excuse for talking, told me that two colliers had gone down,with all hands, a few miles away; and that some other ships had beenseen labouring hard in the Roads, and trying, in great distress, to keepoff shore. Mercy on them, and on all poor sailors, said he, if we hadanother night like the last!

I was very much depressed in spirits; very solitary; and felt anuneasiness in Ham's not being there, disproportionate to the occasion. Iwas seriously affected, without knowing how much, by late events; and mylong exposure to the fierce wind had confused me. There was that jumblein my thoughts and recollections, that I had lost the clear arrangementof time and distance. Thus, if I had gone out into the town, I shouldnot have been surprised, I think, to encounter someone who I knew mustbe then in London. So to speak, there was in these respects a curiousinattention in my mind. Yet it was busy, too, with all the remembrancesthe place naturally awakened; and they were particularly distinct andvivid.

In this state, the waiter's dismal intelligence about the shipsimmediately connected itself, without any effort of my volition, with myuneasiness about Ham. I was persuaded that I had an apprehension of hisreturning from Lowestoft by sea, and being lost. This grew so strongwith me, that I resolved to go back to the yard before I took my dinner,and ask the boat-builder if he thought his attempting to return by seaat all likely? If he gave me the least reason to think so, I would goover to Lowestoft and prevent it by bringing him with me.

I hastily ordered my dinner, and went back to the yard. I was none toosoon; for the boat-builder, with a lantern in his hand, was lockingthe yard-gate. He quite laughed when I asked him the question, and saidthere was no fear; no man in his senses, or out of them, would put offin such a gale of wind, least of all Ham Peggotty, who had been born toseafaring.

So sensible of this, beforehand, that I had really felt ashamed of doingwhat I was nevertheless impelled to do, I went back to the inn. Ifsuch a wind could rise, I think it was rising. The howl and roar, therattling of the doors and windows, the rumbling in the chimneys, theapparent rocking of the very house that sheltered me, and the prodigioustumult of the sea, were more fearful than in the morning. But therewas now a great darkness besides; and that invested the storm with newterrors, real and fanciful.

I could not eat, I could not sit still, I could not continue steadfastto anything. Something within me, faintly answering to the stormwithout, tossed up the depths of my memory and made a tumult in them.Yet, in all the hurry of my thoughts, wild running with the thunderingsea,--the storm, and my uneasiness regarding Ham were always in thefore-ground.

My dinner went away almost untasted, and I tried to refresh myself witha glass or two of wine. In vain. I fell into a dull slumber beforethe fire, without losing my consciousness, either of the uproar out ofdoors, or of the place in which I was. Both became overshadowed by a newand indefinable horror; and when I awoke--or rather when I shook offthe lethargy that bound me in my chair--my whole frame thrilled withobjectless and unintelligible fear.

I walked to and fro, tried to read an old gazetteer, listened to theawful noises: looked at faces, scenes, and figures in the fire.At length, the steady ticking of the undisturbed clock on the walltormented me to that degree that I resolved to go to bed.

It was reassuring, on such a night, to be told that some of theinn-servants had agreed together to sit up until morning. I went to bed,exceedingly weary and heavy; but, on my lying down, all such sensationsvanished, as if by magic, and I was broad awake, with every senserefined.

For hours I lay there, listening to the wind and water; imagining, now,that I heard shrieks out at sea; now, that I distinctly heard the firingof signal guns; and now, the fall of houses in the town. I got up,several times, and looked out; but could see nothing, except thereflection in the window-panes of the faint candle I had left burning,and of my own haggard face looking in at me from the black void.

At length, my restlessness attained to such a pitch, that I hurried onmy clothes, and went downstairs. In the large kitchen, where I dimlysaw bacon and ropes of onions hanging from the beams, the watchers wereclustered together, in various attitudes, about a table, purposely movedaway from the great chimney, and brought near the door. A pretty girl,who had her ears stopped with her apron, and her eyes upon the door,screamed when I appeared, supposing me to be a spirit; but the othershad more presence of mind, and were glad of an addition to theircompany. One man, referring to the topic they had been discussing, askedme whether I thought the souls of the collier-crews who had gone down,were out in the storm?

I remained there, I dare say, two hours. Once, I opened the yard-gate,and looked into the empty street. The sand, the sea-weed, and the flakesof foam, were driving by; and I was obliged to call for assistancebefore I could shut the gate again, and make it fast against the wind.

There was a dark gloom in my solitary chamber, when I at length returnedto it; but I was tired now, and, getting into bed again, fell--offa tower and down a precipice--into the depths of sleep. I have animpression that for a long time, though I dreamed of being elsewhere andin a variety of scenes, it was always blowing in my dream. At length,I lost that feeble hold upon reality, and was engaged with two dearfriends, but who they were I don't know, at the siege of some town in aroar of cannonading.

The thunder of the cannon was so loud and incessant, that I could nothear something I much desired to hear, until I made a great exertionand awoke. It was broad day--eight or nine o'clock; the storm raging, inlieu of the batteries; and someone knocking and calling at my door.

'What is the matter?' I cried.

'A wreck! Close by!'

I sprung out of bed, and asked, what wreck?

'A schooner, from Spain or Portugal, laden with fruit and wine. Makehaste, sir, if you want to see her! It's thought, down on the beach,she'll go to pieces every moment.'

The excited voice went clamouring along the staircase; and I wrappedmyself in my clothes as quickly as I could, and ran into the street.

Numbers of people were there before me, all running in one direction, tothe beach. I ran the same way, outstripping a good many, and soon camefacing the wild sea.

The wind might by this time have lulled a little, though not moresensibly than if the cannonading I had dreamed of, had been diminishedby the silencing of half-a-dozen guns out of hundreds. But the sea,having upon it the additional agitation of the whole night, wasinfinitely more terrific than when I had seen it last. Every appearanceit had then presented, bore the expression of being swelled; and theheight to which the breakers rose, and, looking over one another,bore one another down, and rolled in, in interminable hosts, was mostappalling. In the difficulty of hearing anything but wind and waves,and in the crowd, and the unspeakable confusion, and my first breathlessefforts to stand against the weather, I was so confused that I lookedout to sea for the wreck, and saw nothing but the foaming heads of thegreat waves. A half-dressed boatman, standing next me, pointed with hisbare arm (a tattoo'd arrow on it, pointing in the same direction) to theleft. Then, O great Heaven, I saw it, close in upon us!

One mast was broken short off, six or eight feet from the deck, and layover the side, entangled in a maze of sail and rigging; and all thatruin, as the ship rolled and beat--which she did without a moment'spause, and with a violence quite inconceivable--beat the side as if itwould stave it in. Some efforts were even then being made, to cut thisportion of the wreck away; for, as the ship, which was broadside on,turned towards us in her rolling, I plainly descried her people atwork with axes, especially one active figure with long curling hair,conspicuous among the rest. But a great cry, which was audible evenabove the wind and water, rose from the shore at this moment; the sea,sweeping over the rolling wreck, made a clean breach, and carried men,spars, casks, planks, bulwarks, heaps of such toys, into the boilingsurge.

The second mast was yet standing, with the rags of a rent sail, anda wild confusion of broken cordage flapping to and fro. The ship hadstruck once, the same boatman hoarsely said in my ear, and then liftedin and struck again. I understood him to add that she was partingamidships, and I could readily suppose so, for the rolling and beatingwere too tremendous for any human work to suffer long. As he spoke,there was another great cry of pity from the beach; four men arose withthe wreck out of the deep, clinging to the rigging of the remainingmast; uppermost, the active figure with the curling hair.

There was a bell on board; and as the ship rolled and dashed, like adesperate creature driven mad, now showing us the whole sweep of herdeck, as she turned on her beam-ends towards the shore, now nothing buther keel, as she sprung wildly over and turned towards the sea, the bellrang; and its sound, the knell of those unhappy men, was borne towardsus on the wind. Again we lost her, and again she rose. Two men weregone. The agony on the shore increased. Men groaned, and clasped theirhands; women shrieked, and turned away their faces. Some ran wildlyup and down along the beach, crying for help where no help could be. Ifound myself one of these, frantically imploring a knot of sailors whomI knew, not to let those two lost creatures perish before our eyes.

They were making out to me, in an agitated way--I don't know how,for the little I could hear I was scarcely composed enough tounderstand--that the lifeboat had been bravely manned an hour ago, andcould do nothing; and that as no man would be so desperate as to attemptto wade off with a rope, and establish a communication with the shore,there was nothing left to try; when I noticed that some new sensationmoved the people on the beach, and saw them part, and Ham come breakingthrough them to the front.

I ran to him--as well as I know, to repeat my appeal for help. But,distracted though I was, by a sight so new to me and terrible, thedetermination in his face, and his look out to sea--exactly the samelook as I remembered in connexion with the morning after Emily'sflight--awoke me to a knowledge of his danger. I held him back with botharms; and implored the men with whom I had been speaking, not to listento him, not to do murder, not to let him stir from off that sand!

Another cry arose on shore; and looking to the wreck, we saw the cruelsail, with blow on blow, beat off the lower of the two men, and fly upin triumph round the active figure left alone upon the mast.

Against such a sight, and against such determination as that of thecalmly desperate man who was already accustomed to lead half the peoplepresent, I might as hopefully have entreated the wind. 'Mas'r Davy,'he said, cheerily grasping me by both hands, 'if my time is come, 'tiscome. If 'tan't, I'll bide it. Lord above bless you, and bless all!Mates, make me ready! I'm a-going off!'

I was swept away, but not unkindly, to some distance, where the peoplearound me made me stay; urging, as I confusedly perceived, that he wasbent on going, with help or without, and that I should endanger theprecautions for his safety by troubling those with whom they rested. Idon't know what I answered, or what they rejoined; but I saw hurry onthe beach, and men running with ropes from a capstan that was there, andpenetrating into a circle of figures that hid him from me. Then, I sawhim standing alone, in a seaman's frock and trousers: a rope in hishand, or slung to his wrist: another round his body: and several of thebest men holding, at a little distance, to the latter, which he laid outhimself, slack upon the shore, at his feet.

The wreck, even to my unpractised eye, was breaking up. I saw that shewas parting in the middle, and that the life of the solitary man uponthe mast hung by a thread. Still, he clung to it. He had a singular redcap on,--not like a sailor's cap, but of a finer colour; and as the fewyielding planks between him and destruction rolled and bulged, and hisanticipative death-knell rung, he was seen by all of us to wave it. Isaw him do it now, and thought I was going distracted, when his actionbrought an old remembrance to my mind of a once dear friend.

Ham watched the sea, standing alone, with the silence of suspendedbreath behind him, and the storm before, until there was a greatretiring wave, when, with a backward glance at those who held the ropewhich was made fast round his body, he dashed in after it, and in amoment was buffeting with the water; rising with the hills, fallingwith the valleys, lost beneath the foam; then drawn again to land. Theyhauled in hastily.

He was hurt. I saw blood on his face, from where I stood; but he tookno thought of that. He seemed hurriedly to give them some directions forleaving him more free--or so I judged from the motion of his arm--andwas gone as before.

And now he made for the wreck, rising with the hills, falling with thevalleys, lost beneath the rugged foam, borne in towards the shore,borne on towards the ship, striving hard and valiantly. The distance wasnothing, but the power of the sea and wind made the strife deadly. Atlength he neared the wreck. He was so near, that with one more of hisvigorous strokes he would be clinging to it,--when a high, green, vasthill-side of water, moving on shoreward, from beyond the ship, he seemedto leap up into it with a mighty bound, and the ship was gone!

Some eddying fragments I saw in the sea, as if a mere cask had beenbroken, in running to the spot where they were hauling in. Consternationwas in every face. They drew him to my very feet--insensible--dead.He was carried to the nearest house; and, no one preventing me now, Iremained near him, busy, while every means of restoration were tried;but he had been beaten to death by the great wave, and his generousheart was stilled for ever.

As I sat beside the bed, when hope was abandoned and all was done, afisherman, who had known me when Emily and I were children, and eversince, whispered my name at the door.

'Sir,' said he, with tears starting to his weather-beaten face, which,with his trembling lips, was ashy pale, 'will you come over yonder?'

The old remembrance that had been recalled to me, was in his look. Iasked him, terror-stricken, leaning on the arm he held out to supportme:

'Has a body come ashore?'

He said, 'Yes.'

'Do I know it?' I asked then.

He answered nothing.

But he led me to the shore. And on that part of it where she and I hadlooked for shells, two children--on that part of it where some lighterfragments of the old boat, blown down last night, had been scattered bythe wind--among the ruins of the home he had wronged--I saw him lyingwith his head upon his arm, as I had often seen him lie at school.