more than once during this life of david's with his child-wife he had seen mr. peggotty. the brave old man had searched europe for little em'ly in vain; then he had come back to london, feeling somehow that some day she would stray there. he used to walk the streets by night, looking at every face he passed. in the room where he lived he kept a candle always lighted and one of her dresses hanging on a chair for her.
after dora's death david joined in the search, and at length they did find poor little em'ly. steerforth had treated her cruelly and finally deserted her, and she had crept back to london heartbroken and repentant, hoping for nothing but to die within sight of those who had loved her so.
but nothing had dimmed mr. peggotty's love. wretched as she was, he caught her in his arms, held her to his breast as he had done so often when she was a child, and told her she was still his own little em'ly, just as she had always been.
she was ill, but he nursed her back to health. then he went to yarmouth to fetch mrs. gummidge, and they and the little em'ly that had been found took passage for australia, where they might forget the dark past and find happiness in a new life.[pg 125]
but before they sailed fate had brought to naught the villainous plot that had been woven by uriah heep about agnes and her father. and the one whom they had most to thank for this was mr. micawber.
heep had met mr. micawber once, when the latter, as usual, was in money difficulties, and, thinking to make a tool of him, had hired him for his clerk. little by little heep had then got the other into his debt, till mr. micawber saw no prospect before him but the debtors' prison.
threatening him with this, heep tried to compel him to do various bits of dirty and dishonest work, at which the other's soul revolted until at length he made up his mind to expose his employer. so, pretending obedience, mr. micawber wormed himself into all of the sneaking heep's affairs, found out the evidence of his guilt, and finally taking all the books and papers from the office safe, sent for david and his friend tommy traddles and told them all he had discovered. they found it was by forgery that heep had got agnes's father into his power in the first place, and that among others whom he had robbed was david's aunt, miss betsy trotwood, whose fortune he had stolen.
david and tommy traddles sent for miss betsy and for agnes and her father, and they faced uriah all together. he tried to brazen it out, but when he saw the empty safe he knew that all was[pg 126] known. they told him the only way he could save himself from prison was by giving back the business to agnes's father, just as it had been years before, when david had lived there, and by restoring to miss betsy trotwood every cent he had robbed her of. this he did with no very good grace and with an especial curse for david, whom he seemed to blame for it all.
in reward for mr. micawber's good services, miss betsy and agnes's father paid off all his debts and gave him money enough to take him and his family to australia. they sailed in the same vessel that carried mr. peggotty and little em'ly.
before it sailed little em'ly had written a letter to ham, whose promised wife she had been before she ran away with steerforth, begging his forgiveness, and this letter she had asked david to give him after they had gone. accordingly one day he went to yarmouth to do this.
that night a terrible storm arose. the wind was so strong that it uprooted trees and threw down chimneys and rolled waves mountain high on the sand where stood the old deserted house-boat of the peggottys. next morning david was awakened with the news that a spanish ship had gone ashore and was fast going to pieces, and he ran to the beach, where all the town was gathered.
he could see the doomed vessel plainly where the surf broke over her. her masts had snapped short off and at every wave she rolled and beat the[pg 127] sand as if she would pound herself to fragments. several figures were clinging to the broken masts, and one by one the waves beat them off, and they went down for ever.
at length but one was left, and he held on so long that a shout of encouragement went up from the throng. at this ham, the bravest and strongest of all the hardy boatmen there, tied a rope about his waist and plunged into the sea to try to save him. but it was not to be. the same huge wave that dashed the vessel to pieces threw the rescuer back on the sand, dead. the body of the man he had tried to save was washed ashore, too, and it was that of james steerforth, who had so wronged little em'ly!
so poor, great-souled ham died, honest and faithful to the last, giving his life for the man who had injured him. and so, too, james steerforth met his fate on the very spot where he had done such evil, for his corpse was found among the fragments of the old peggotty house-boat, which the tempest tore down that night.
after this david went abroad and stayed three years. he lived in switzerland, and wrote novels that were printed in london and made him famous there.
and now, alone, he had time to think of all that made up his past. he thought of dora, his child-wife, and sorrowed for her, and of the peggottys and little em'ly; but most of all he found himself[pg 128] thinking of agnes, who, throughout his youth, had seemed like his guiding star.
so one day he went back to england and told her, and asked her if she would marry him. and with her sweet face on his breast she whispered that she had loved him all her life!
david and agnes lived long and happily, and their children had three guardians who loved them all—miss betsy trotwood, david's old nurse, peggotty, and white-haired mr. dick, who taught them to fly kites and thought them the greatest children in the world. tommy traddles, when he had become a famous lawyer, often visited them, and once, too, mr. peggotty, older, but still hale and strong, came back from australia to tell them how he had prospered and grown rich, and had always his little em'ly beside him, and how mr. micawber had ceased to owe everybody money and had become a magistrate, and many other things.
david had one thing, however, to tell mr. peggotty, and that was of a certain prisoner he had seen in one of the country's greatest prisons, sentenced for life for an attempt to rob the bank of england, and whose name was—uriah heep.
