Charles Dickens

“ I replied. "You may not know it."
"I know that James Steerforth," she said, with her hand on her bosom, as if to prevent the storm that was raging there, from being loud, "has a false, corrupt heart, and is a traitor. But what need I know or care about this fellow, and his common niece?"
"Miss Dartle," I returned, "you deepen the injury. It is sufficient already. I will only say, at parting, that you do him a great wrong."
"I do him no wrong," she returned. "They are a depraved worthless set. I would have her whipped!"
Mr. Peggotty passed on, without a word, and went out at the door. ”

“ I have some reason to suspect, from what I have heard—my ears are always open; I can't afford to spare what powers I have—that they are gone abroad. But if ever they return, if ever any one of them returns, while I am alive, I am more likely than another, going about as I do, to find it out soon. Whatever I know, you shall know. If ever I can do anything to serve the poor betrayed girl, I will do it faithfully, please Heaven! And Littimer had better have a bloodhound at his back, than little Mowcher! ”

“ Gummidge, if I were to endeavour to describe how she ran down the street by the side of the coach, seeing nothing but Mr. Peggotty on the roof, through the tears she tried to repress, and dashing herself against the people who were coming in the opposite direction, I should enter on a task of some difficulty. Therefore I had better leave her sitting on a baker's door-step, out of breath, with no shape at all remaining in her bonnet, and one of her shoes off, lying on the pavement at a considerable distance. ”

“ It made me start as much as if it had been the knock of a footman to a person of distinction. I opened the door; and at first looked down, to my amazement, on nothing but a great umbrella that appeared to be walking about of itself. But presently I discovered underneath it, Miss Mowcher. ”

“ My son, who has been the object of my life, to whom its every thought has been devoted, whom I have gratified from a child in every wish, from whom I have had no separate existence since his birth,—to take up in a moment with a miserable girl, and avoid me! ”

“ Nothing is more certain than that it never can take place, and never will. If there is any other compensation—"
"I am looking at the likeness of the face," interrupted Mr. Peggotty, with a steady but a kindling eye, "that has looked at me, in my home, at my fireside, in my boat—wheer not?—smiling and friendly, when it was so treacherous, that I go half wild when I think of it. If the likeness of that face don't turn to burning fire, at the thought of offering money to me for my child's blight and ruin, it's as bad. I doen't know, being a lady's, but what it's worse." ”

“ Not one of us that she's growed up among, not one of us that's lived along with her, and had her for their all in all, these many year, will ever look upon her pritty face again. We'll be content to let her be; we'll be content to think of her, far off, as if she was underneath another sun and sky; we'll be content to trust her to her husband,—to her little children p'raps,—and bide the time when all of us shall be alike in quality afore our God! ”

“ Peggotty. "I think not, ma'am; but I'm no judge of them things. Teach her better!"
Mr. Peggoty and Mrs. Steerforth
"Since you oblige me to speak more plainly, which I am very unwilling to do, her humble connexions would render such a thing impossible, if nothing else did." "Hark to this, ma'am," he returned, slowly and quietly. "You know what it is to love your child. So do I. If she was a hundred times my child, I couldn't love her more. You doen't know what it is to lose your child. I do. All the heaps of riches in the wureld would be nowt to me (if they was mine) to buy her back! ”

“ If he can stake his all upon the lightest object, I can stake my all upon a greater purpose. Let him go where he will, with the means that my love has secured to him! Does he think to reduce me by long absence? He knows his mother very little if he does. ”

“ I was young, to be sure; but I thought much the better of her for this sympathy, and fancied it became her, as a virtuous wife and mother, very well indeed.
"What will she ever do!" sobbed Minnie. "Where will she go! What will become of her! Oh, how could she be so cruel, to herself and him!"
I remembered the time when Minnie was a young and pretty girl; and I was glad that she remembered it too, so feelingly.
"My little Minnie," said Mrs. Joram, "has only just now been got to sleep. Even in her sleep she is sobbing for Em'ly. ”

“ We walked again, for a while, in silence.
"Ham," he presently resumed, "he'll hold to his present work, and go and live along with my sister. The old boat yonder—"
"Will you desert the old boat, Mr. Peggotty?" I gently interposed.
"My station, Mas'r Davy," he returned, "ain't there no longer; and if ever a boat foundered, since there was darkness on the face of the deep, that one's gone down. But no, sir, no; I doen't mean as it should be deserted. Fur from that." ”

“ Peggotty, "as reg'lar as the night comes, the candle must be stood in its old pane of glass, that if ever she should see it, it may seem to say 'Come back, my child, come back!' If ever there's a knock, Ham (partic'ler a soft knock) , arter dark, at your aunt's door, doen't you go nigh it. ”

“ I told him I was well convinced of it; and I hinted that I hoped the time might even come, when he would cease to lead the lonely life he naturally contemplated now.
"No sir," he said, shaking his head, "all that's past and over with me, sir. No one can never fill the place that's empty. But you'll bear in mind about the money, as theer's at all times some laying by for him?"
Reminding him of the fact, that Mr. Peggotty derived a steady, though certainly a very moderate income from the bequest of his late brother-inlaw, I promised to do so. ”

“ Peggotty, tracing out that part with his finger. "I come to know, ma'am, whether he will keep his wured?"
"No," she returned.
"Why not?" said Mr. Peggotty.
"It is impossible. He would disgrace himself. You cannot fail to know that she is far below him."
"Raise her up!" said Mr. Peggotty.
"She is uneducated and ignorant." ”

“ Peggotty to me, when we had all three walked a little while in silence, "of what we ought and. doen't ought to do. But we see our course now."
I happened to glance at Ham, then looking out to sea upon the distant light, and a frightful thought came into my mind—not that his face was angry, for it was not; I recal nothing but an expression of stern determination in it—that if ever he encountered Steerforth, he would kill him.
"My dooty here, sir," said Mr. Peggotty, "is done. I'm a going to seek my—" he stopped, and went on in a firmer voice: "I'm a going to seek her. ”

“ Peggotty was stowing his bag among the luggage, "his life is quite broke up. He doen't know wheer he's going; he doen't know what's afore him; he's bound upon a voyage that'll last, on and off, all the rest of his days, take my wured for 't, unless he finds what he's a seeking of. I am sure you'll be a friend to him, Mas'r Davy?"
"Trust me, I will indeed," said I, shaking hands with Ham earnestly.
"Thankee. Thankee, very kind, sir. One thing furder. I'm in good employ, you know, Mas'r Davy, and I han't no way now of spending what I gets. Money's of no use to me no more, except to live. ”

“ To set this wretched fancy, against his mother's claims upon his duty, love, respect, gratitude—claims that every day and hour of his life should have strengthened into ties that nothing could be proof against! ”

“ They make a plaything of me, use me for their amusement, throw me away when they are tired, and wonder that I feel more than a toy horse or a wooden soldier! Yes, yes, that's the way. The old way!"
"It may be, with others," I returned, "but I do assure you it is not with me. ”

“ Maybe you'll write to me too, Dan'l, odd times, and tell me how you fare to feel upon your lone lorn journies."
"You'll be a solitary woman heer, I'm afeerd!" said Mr. Peggotty.
"No, no, Dan'l," she returned, "I shan't be that. Doen't you mind me. I shall have enough to do to keep a Beein for you" (Mrs. Gummidge meant a home) , "again you come back—to keep a Beein here for any that may hap to come back, Dan'l. In the fine time, I shall set outside the door as I used to do. If any should come nigh, they shall see the old widder woman true to 'em, a long way off." ”

“ Peggotty got up, and brought his oilskin bag and his stout stick, and laid them on the table.
He accepted, from his sister's stock of ready money, a small sum on account of his legacy; barely enough, I should have thought, to keep him for a month. He promised to communicate with me, when anything befel him; and he slung his bag about him, took his hat and stick, and bade us both "Good bye!"
"All good attend you, dear old woman," he said, embracing Peggotty, "and you too, Mas'r Davy!" shaking hands with me. "I'm a going to seek her, fur and wide. ”