a plan had occurred to me for passing the night, which i was going to carry into execution. this was, to lie behind the wall at the back of my old school, in a corner where there used to be a haystack. i imagined it would be a kind of company to have the boys, and the bedroom where i used to tell the stories, so near me: although the boys would know nothing of my being there, and the bedroom would yield me no shelter.
i had had a hard day's work, and was pretty well jaded when i came climbing out, at last, upon the level of blackheath. it cost me some trouble to find out salem house; but i found it, and i found a haystack in the corner, and i lay down by it; having first walked round the wall, and looked up at the windows, and seen that all was dark and silent within. never shall i forget the lonely sensation of first lying down, without a roof above my head.
sleep came upon me as it came on many other outcasts, against whom house-doors were locked, and house-dogs barked, that night—and[pg 105] i dreamed of lying on my old school-bed, talking to the boys in my room; and found myself sitting upright, with steerforth's name upon my lips, looking wildly at the stars that were glistening and glimmering above me. when i remembered where i was at that untimely hour, a feeling stole upon me that made me get up, afraid of i don't know what, and walk about. but the faint glimmering of the stars, and the pale light in the sky where the day was coming, reassured me: and my eyes being very heavy, i lay down again, and slept—though with a knowledge in my sleep that it was cold—until the warm beams of the sun, and the ringing of the getting-up bell at salem house, awoke me. if i could have hoped that steerforth was there, i would have lurked about until he came out alone; but i knew he must have left long since. traddles still remained, perhaps, but it was very doubtful; and i had not sufficient confidence in his discretion or good luck, however strong my reliance was on his good-nature, to wish to trust him with my situation. so i crept away from the wall as mr creakle's boys were getting up, and struck into the long dusty track which i had first known to be the dover road when i was one of them, and when i little expected that any eyes would ever see me the wayfarer i was now, upon it.
[pg 106]
what a different sunday morning from the old sunday morning at yarmouth! in due time i heard the church-bells ringing, as i plodded on; and i met people who were going to church; and i passed a church or two where the congregation were inside, and the sound of singing came out into the sunshine, while the beadle sat and cooled himself in the shade of the porch, or stood beneath the yew-tree, with his hand to his forehead, glowering at me going by. but the peace and rest of the old sunday morning were on everything, except me. that was the difference. i felt quite wicked in my dirt and dust, with my tangled hair. but for the quiet picture i had conjured up, of my mother in her youth and beauty, weeping by the fire, and my aunt relenting to her, i hardly think i should have had courage to go on until next day. but it always went before me, and i followed.
i got, that sunday, through three-and-twenty miles on the straight road, though not very easily, for i was new to that kind of toil. i see myself, as evening closes in, coming over the bridge at rochester, footsore and tired, and eating bread that i had bought for supper. one or two little houses, with the notice, "lodgings for travellers," hanging out, had tempted me; but i was afraid of spending the few pence i had, and was even more afraid of[pg 107] the vicious looks of the trampers i had met or overtaken. i sought no shelter, therefore, but the sky; and toiling into chatham,—which, in that night's aspect, is a mere dream of chalk, and drawbridges, and mastless ships in a muddy river, roofed like noah's arks,—crept, at last, upon a sort of grass-grown battery overhanging a lane, where a sentry was walking to and fro. here i lay down, near a cannon; and, happy in the society of the sentry's footsteps, though he knew no more of my being above him than the boys at salem house had known of my lying by the wall, slept soundly until morning.
charles dickens,—"david copperfield."
"better than the gig!"
mr pecksniff's horse being regarded in the light of a sacred animal, only to be driven by him, the chief priest of that temple, or by some person distinctly nominated for the time being to that high office by himself, the two young men agreed to walk to salisbury; and so, when the time came, they set off on foot; which was, after all, a better mode of travelling than in the gig, as the weather was very cold and very dry.
better! a rare strong, hearty, healthy walk—four statute miles an hour—preferable[pg 108] to that rumbling, tumbling, jolting, shaking, scraping, creaking, villainous old gig? why, the two things will not admit of comparison. it is an insult to the walk, to set them side by side. where is an instance of a gig having ever circulated a man's blood, unless when, putting him in danger of his neck, it awakened in his veins and in his ears, and all along his spine, a tingling heat, much more peculiar than agreeable? when did a gig ever sharpen anybody's wits and energies, unless it was when the horse bolted, and, crashing madly down a steep hill with a stone wall at the bottom, his desperate circumstances suggested to the only gentleman left inside, some novel and unheard-of mode of dropping out behind? better than the gig!
the air was cold, tom; so it was, there was no denying it; but would it have been more genial in the gig? the blacksmith's fire burned very bright, and leaped up high, as though it wanted men to warm; but would it have been less tempting, looked at from the clammy cushions of a gig? the wind blew keenly, nipping the features of the hardy wight who fought his way along; blinding him with his own hair if he had enough of it, and wintry dust if he hadn't; stopped his breath as though he had been soused in a cold bath; tearing aside his wrappings-up, and[pg 109] whistling in the very marrow of his bones; but it would have done all this a hundred times more fiercely to a man in a gig, wouldn't it? a fig for gigs!
better than the gig! when were travellers by wheels and hoofs seen with such red-hot cheeks as those? when were they so good-humouredly and merrily bloused? when did their laughter ring upon the air, as they turned them round, what time the stronger gusts came sweeping up; and, facing round again as they passed by, dashed on, in such a glow of ruddy health as nothing could keep pace with, but the high spirits it engendered? better than the gig! why, here is a man in a gig coming the same way now. look at him as he passes his whip into his left hand, chafes his numbed right fingers on his granite leg, and beats those marble toes of his upon the footboard. ha, ha, ha! who would exchange this rapid hurry of the blood for yonder stagnant misery, though its pace were twenty miles for one?
better than the gig! no man in a gig could have such interest in the milestones. no man in a gig could see, or feel, or think, like merry users of their legs. how, as the wind sweeps on, upon these breezy downs, it tracks its flight in darkening ripples on the grass, and smoothest shadows on the hills![pg 110] look round and round upon this bare black plain, and see even here, upon a winter's day, how beautiful the shadows are! alas! it is the nature of their kind to be so. the loveliest things in life, tom, are but shadows; and they come and go, and change and fade away, as rapidly as these!
another mile, and then begins a fall of snow, making the crow, who skims away so close above the ground to shirk the wind, a blot of ink upon the landscape. but though it drives and drifts against them as they walk, stiffening on their skirts, and freezing in the lashes of their eyes, they wouldn't have it fall more sparingly, no, not so much as by a single flake, although they had to go a score of miles. and, lo! the towers of the old cathedral rise before them, even now! and by-and-bye they come into the sheltered streets, made strangely silent by their white carpet; and so to the inn for which they are bound; where they present such flushed and burning faces to the cold waiter, and are so brimful of vigour, that he almost feels assaulted by their presence; and, having nothing to oppose to the attack (being fresh, or rather stale, from the blazing fire in the coffee-room), is quite put out of his pale countenance.
charles dickens,—"martin chuzzlewit."
