No More Learning

'

'Martha Endell,' said Ham. 'Two or three year older than Em'ly, but was
at the school with her. '

'I never heard her name,' said I. 'I didn't mean to interrupt you. '

'For the matter o' that, Mas'r Davy,' replied Ham, 'all's told a'most
in them words, "Em'ly, Em'ly, for Christ's sake, have a woman's heart
towards me. I was once like you! " She wanted to speak to Em'ly. Em'ly
couldn't speak to her theer, for her loving uncle was come home, and
he wouldn't--no, Mas'r Davy,' said Ham, with great earnestness, 'he
couldn't, kind-natur'd, tender-hearted as he is, see them two together,
side by side, for all the treasures that's wrecked in the sea. '

I felt how true this was. I knew it, on the instant, quite as well as
Ham.

'So Em'ly writes in pencil on a bit of paper,' he pursued, 'and gives it
to her out o' winder to bring here. "Show that," she says, "to my aunt,
Mrs. Barkis, and she'll set you down by her fire, for the love of me,
till uncle is gone out, and I can come. " By and by she tells me what
I tell you, Mas'r Davy, and asks me to bring her. What can I do? She
doen't ought to know any such, but I can't deny her, when the tears is
on her face. '

He put his hand into the breast of his shaggy jacket, and took out with
great care a pretty little purse.

'And if I could deny her when the tears was on her face, Mas'r Davy,'
said Ham, tenderly adjusting it on the rough palm of his hand, 'how
could I deny her when she give me this to carry for her--knowing what
she brought it for? Such a toy as it is! ' said Ham, thoughtfully looking
on it. 'With such a little money in it, Em'ly my dear. '

I shook him warmly by the hand when he had put it away again--for that
was more satisfactory to me than saying anything--and we walked up
and down, for a minute or two, in silence. The door opened then, and
Peggotty appeared, beckoning to Ham to come in. I would have kept away,
but she came after me, entreating me to come in too. Even then, I
would have avoided the room where they all were, but for its being the
neat-tiled kitchen I have mentioned more than once. The door opening
immediately into it, I found myself among them before I considered
whither I was going.

The girl--the same I had seen upon the sands--was near the fire. She
was sitting on the ground, with her head and one arm lying on a chair.
I fancied, from the disposition of her figure, that Em'ly had but newly
risen from the chair, and that the forlorn head might perhaps have been
lying on her lap. I saw but little of the girl's face, over which her
hair fell loose and scattered, as if she had been disordering it with
her own hands; but I saw that she was young, and of a fair complexion.
Peggotty had been crying. So had little Em'ly. Not a word was spoken
when we first went in; and the Dutch clock by the dresser seemed, in the
silence, to tick twice as loud as usual. Em'ly spoke first.

'Martha wants,' she said to Ham, 'to go to London. '

'Why to London? ' returned Ham.

He stood between them, looking on the prostrate girl with a mixture of
compassion for her, and of jealousy of her holding any companionship
with her whom he loved so well, which I have always remembered
distinctly. They both spoke as if she were ill; in a soft, suppressed
tone that was plainly heard, although it hardly rose above a whisper.

'Better there than here,' said a third voice aloud--Martha's, though she
did not move. 'No one knows me there. Everybody knows me here. '

'What will she do there? ' inquired Ham.

She lifted up her head, and looked darkly round at him for a moment;
then laid it down again, and curved her right arm about her neck, as
a woman in a fever, or in an agony of pain from a shot, might twist
herself.

'She will try to do well,' said little Em'ly. 'You don't know what she
has said to us. Does he--do they--aunt? '

Peggotty shook her head compassionately.

'I'll try,' said Martha, 'if you'll help me away. I never can do worse
than I have done here. I may do better. Oh! ' with a dreadful shiver,
'take me out of these streets, where the whole town knows me from a
child! '

As Em'ly held out her hand to Ham, I saw him put in it a little canvas
bag. She took it, as if she thought it were her purse, and made a step
or two forward; but finding her mistake, came back to where he had
retired near me, and showed it to him.

'It's all yourn, Em'ly,' I could hear him say. 'I haven't nowt in all
the wureld that ain't yourn, my dear. It ain't of no delight to me,
except for you! '

The tears rose freshly in her eyes, but she turned away and went to
Martha. What she gave her, I don't know. I saw her stooping over her,
and putting money in her bosom. She whispered something, as she asked
was that enough? 'More than enough,' the other said, and took her hand
and kissed it.

Then Martha arose, and gathering her shawl about her, covering her
face with it, and weeping aloud, went slowly to the door. She stopped
a moment before going out, as if she would have uttered something or
turned back; but no word passed her lips. Making the same low, dreary,
wretched moaning in her shawl, she went away.

As the door closed, little Em'ly looked at us three in a hurried manner
and then hid her face in her hands, and fell to sobbing.

'Doen't, Em'ly! ' said Ham, tapping her gently on the shoulder. 'Doen't,
my dear! You doen't ought to cry so, pretty! '

'Oh, Ham! ' she exclaimed, still weeping pitifully, 'I am not so good a
girl as I ought to be! I know I have not the thankful heart, sometimes,
I ought to have! '

'Yes, yes, you have, I'm sure,' said Ham.

'No! no! no! ' cried little Em'ly, sobbing, and shaking her head. 'I am
not as good a girl as I ought to be. Not near! not near! ' And still she
cried, as if her heart would break.

'I try your love too much. I know I do! ' she sobbed. 'I'm often cross to
you, and changeable with you, when I ought to be far different. You are
never so to me. Why am I ever so to you, when I should think of nothing
but how to be grateful, and to make you happy! '

'You always make me so,' said Ham, 'my dear! I am happy in the sight of
you. I am happy, all day long, in the thoughts of you. '

'Ah! that's not enough! ' she cried. 'That is because you are good; not
because I am! Oh, my dear, it might have been a better fortune for
you, if you had been fond of someone else--of someone steadier and
much worthier than me, who was all bound up in you, and never vain and
changeable like me! '

'Poor little tender-heart,' said Ham, in a low voice. 'Martha has
overset her, altogether. '

'Please, aunt,' sobbed Em'ly, 'come here, and let me lay my head upon
you. Oh, I am very miserable tonight, aunt! Oh, I am not as good a girl
as I ought to be. I am not, I know! '

Peggotty had hastened to the chair before the fire. Em'ly, with her
arms around her neck, kneeled by her, looking up most earnestly into her
face.

'Oh, pray, aunt, try to help me! Ham, dear, try to help me! Mr. David,
for the sake of old times, do, please, try to help me! I want to be a
better girl than I am. I want to feel a hundred times more thankful than
I do. I want to feel more, what a blessed thing it is to be the wife of
a good man, and to lead a peaceful life. Oh me, oh me! Oh my heart, my
heart! '

She dropped her face on my old nurse's breast, and, ceasing this
supplication, which in its agony and grief was half a woman's, half a
child's, as all her manner was (being, in that, more natural, and better
suited to her beauty, as I thought, than any other manner could have
been), wept silently, while my old nurse hushed her like an infant.

She got calmer by degrees, and then we soothed her; now talking
encouragingly, and now jesting a little with her, until she began to
raise her head and speak to us. So we got on, until she was able to
smile, and then to laugh, and then to sit up, half ashamed; while
Peggotty recalled her stray ringlets, dried her eyes, and made her neat
again, lest her uncle should wonder, when she got home, why his darling
had been crying.

I saw her do, that night, what I had never seen her do before. I saw her
innocently kiss her chosen husband on the cheek, and creep close to his
bluff form as if it were her best support. When they went away together,
in the waning moonlight, and I looked after them, comparing their
departure in my mind with Martha's, I saw that she held his arm with
both her hands, and still kept close to him.



CHAPTER 23. I CORROBORATE Mr. DICK, AND CHOOSE A PROFESSION


When I awoke in the morning I thought very much of little Em'ly, and her
emotion last night, after Martha had left. I felt as if I had come into
the knowledge of those domestic weaknesses and tendernesses in a sacred
confidence, and that to disclose them, even to Steerforth, would be
wrong. I had no gentler feeling towards anyone than towards the
pretty creature who had been my playmate, and whom I have always been
persuaded, and shall always be persuaded, to my dying day, I then
devotedly loved. The repetition to any ears--even to Steerforth's--of
what she had been unable to repress when her heart lay open to me by an
accident, I felt would be a rough deed, unworthy of myself, unworthy of
the light of our pure childhood, which I always saw encircling her head.
I made a resolution, therefore, to keep it in my own breast; and there
it gave her image a new grace.

While we were at breakfast, a letter was delivered to me from my aunt.
As it contained matter on which I thought Steerforth could advise me
as well as anyone, and on which I knew I should be delighted to consult
him, I resolved to make it a subject of discussion on our journey home.
For the present we had enough to do, in taking leave of all our friends.
Mr. Barkis was far from being the last among them, in his regret at
our departure; and I believe would even have opened the box again, and
sacrificed another guinea, if it would have kept us eight-and-forty
hours in Yarmouth. Peggotty and all her family were full of grief at our
going. The whole house of Omer and Joram turned out to bid us good-bye;
and there were so many seafaring volunteers in attendance on Steerforth,
when our portmanteaux went to the coach, that if we had had the baggage
of a regiment with us, we should hardly have wanted porters to carry it.
In a word, we departed to the regret and admiration of all concerned,
and left a great many people very sorry behind US.

Do you stay long here, Littimer? ' said I, as he stood waiting to see the
coach start.

'No, sir,' he replied; 'probably not very long, sir. '

'He can hardly say, just now,' observed Steerforth, carelessly. 'He
knows what he has to do, and he'll do it. '

'That I am sure he will,' said I.

Littimer touched his hat in acknowledgement of my good opinion, and I
felt about eight years old. He touched it once more, wishing us a good
journey; and we left him standing on the pavement, as respectable a
mystery as any pyramid in Egypt.

For some little time we held no conversation, Steerforth being unusually
silent, and I being sufficiently engaged in wondering, within myself,
when I should see the old places again, and what new changes might
happen to me or them in the meanwhile. At length Steerforth, becoming
gay and talkative in a moment, as he could become anything he liked at
any moment, pulled me by the arm:

'Find a voice, David. What about that letter you were speaking of at
breakfast? '

'Oh! ' said I, taking it out of my pocket. 'It's from my aunt. '

'And what does she say, requiring consideration? '

'Why, she reminds me, Steerforth,' said I, 'that I came out on this
expedition to look about me, and to think a little. '

'Which, of course, you have done? '

'Indeed I can't say I have, particularly. To tell you the truth, I am
afraid I have forgotten it. '

'Well! look about you now, and make up for your negligence,' said
Steerforth. 'Look to the right, and you'll see a flat country, with a
good deal of marsh in it; look to the left, and you'll see the same.
Look to the front, and you'll find no difference; look to the rear,
and there it is still. ' I laughed, and replied that I saw no suitable
profession in the whole prospect; which was perhaps to be attributed to
its flatness.

'What says our aunt on the subject? ' inquired Steerforth, glancing at
the letter in my hand. 'Does she suggest anything? '

'Why, yes,' said I. 'She asks me, here, if I think I should like to be a
proctor? What do you think of it? '

'Well, I don't know,' replied Steerforth, coolly. 'You may as well do
that as anything else, I suppose? '

I could not help laughing again, at his balancing all callings and
professions so equally; and I told him so.

'What is a proctor, Steerforth? ' said I.

'Why, he is a sort of monkish attorney,' replied Steerforth. 'He is, to
some faded courts held in Doctors' Commons,--a lazy old nook near St.
Paul's Churchyard--what solicitors are to the courts of law and equity.
He is a functionary whose existence, in the natural course of things,
would have terminated about two hundred years ago. I can tell you best
what he is, by telling you what Doctors' Commons is. It's a
little out-of-the-way place, where they administer what is called
ecclesiastical law, and play all kinds of tricks with obsolete old
monsters of acts of Parliament, which three-fourths of the world know
nothing about, and the other fourth supposes to have been dug up, in
a fossil state, in the days of the Edwards. It's a place that has an
ancient monopoly in suits about people's wills and people's marriages,
and disputes among ships and boats. '

'Nonsense, Steerforth! ' I exclaimed. 'You don't mean to say that there
is any affinity between nautical matters and ecclesiastical matters? '

'I don't, indeed, my dear boy,' he returned; 'but I mean to say that
they are managed and decided by the same set of people, down in that
same Doctors' Commons. You shall go there one day, and find them
blundering through half the nautical terms in Young's Dictionary,
apropos of the "Nancy" having run down the "Sarah Jane", or Mr. Peggotty
and the Yarmouth boatmen having put off in a gale of wind with an anchor
and cable to the "Nelson" Indiaman in distress; and you shall go there
another day, and find them deep in the evidence, pro and con, respecting
a clergyman who has misbehaved himself; and you shall find the judge
in the nautical case, the advocate in the clergyman's case, or
contrariwise. They are like actors: now a man's a judge, and now he is
not a judge; now he's one thing, now he's another; now he's something
else, change and change about; but it's always a very pleasant,
profitable little affair of private theatricals, presented to an
uncommonly select audience. '

'But advocates and proctors are not one and the same? ' said I, a little
puzzled. 'Are they? '

'No,' returned Steerforth, 'the advocates are civilians--men who have
taken a doctor's degree at college--which is the first reason of my
knowing anything about it. The proctors employ the advocates. Both get
very comfortable fees, and altogether they make a mighty snug little
party. On the whole, I would recommend you to take to Doctors' Commons
kindly, David. They plume them-selves on their gentility there, I can
tell you, if that's any satisfaction. '

I made allowance for Steerforth's light way of treating the subject,
and, considering it with reference to the staid air of gravity and
antiquity which I associated with that 'lazy old nook near St. Paul's
Churchyard', did not feel indisposed towards my aunt's suggestion; which
she left to my free decision, making no scruple of telling me that it
had occurred to her, on her lately visiting her own proctor in Doctors'
Commons for the purpose of settling her will in my favour.

'That's a laudable proceeding on the part of our aunt, at all events,'
said Steerforth, when I mentioned it; 'and one deserving of all
encouragement. Daisy, my advice is that you take kindly to Doctors'
Commons. '

I quite made up my mind to do so. I then told Steerforth that my aunt
was in town awaiting me (as I found from her letter), and that she had
taken lodgings for a week at a kind of private hotel at Lincoln's Inn
Fields, where there was a stone staircase, and a convenient door in
the roof; my aunt being firmly persuaded that every house in London was
going to be burnt down every night.

We achieved the rest of our journey pleasantly, sometimes recurring to
Doctors' Commons, and anticipating the distant days when I should be a
proctor there, which Steerforth pictured in a variety of humorous and
whimsical lights, that made us both merry.
When we came to our journey's
end, he went home, engaging to call upon me next day but one; and I
drove to Lincoln's Inn Fields, where I found my aunt up, and waiting
supper.

If I had been round the world since we parted, we could hardly have been
better pleased to meet again. My aunt cried outright as she embraced me;
and said, pretending to laugh, that if my poor mother had been alive,
that silly little creature would have shed tears, she had no doubt.

'So you have left Mr. Dick behind, aunt? ' said I. 'I am sorry for that.
Ah, Janet, how do you do? '

As Janet curtsied, hoping I was well, I observed my aunt's visage
lengthen very much.

'I am sorry for it, too,' said my aunt, rubbing her nose. 'I have had
no peace of mind, Trot, since I have been here. ' Before I could ask why,
she told me.

'I am convinced,' said my aunt, laying her hand with melancholy firmness
on the table, 'that Dick's character is not a character to keep the
donkeys off. I am confident he wants strength of purpose. I ought to
have left Janet at home, instead, and then my mind might perhaps have
been at ease. If ever there was a donkey trespassing on my green,' said
my aunt, with emphasis, 'there was one this afternoon at four o'clock.
A cold feeling came over me from head to foot, and I know it was a
donkey! '

I tried to comfort her on this point, but she rejected consolation.

'It was a donkey,' said my aunt; 'and it was the one with the stumpy
tail which that Murdering sister of a woman rode, when she came to my
house. ' This had been, ever since, the only name my aunt knew for Miss
Murdstone. 'If there is any Donkey in Dover, whose audacity it is harder
to me to bear than another's, that,' said my aunt, striking the table,
'is the animal! '

Janet ventured to suggest that my aunt might be disturbing herself
unnecessarily, and that she believed the donkey in question was then
engaged in the sand-and-gravel line of business, and was not available
for purposes of trespass. But my aunt wouldn't hear of it.

Supper was comfortably served and hot, though my aunt's rooms were very
high up--whether that she might have more stone stairs for her money, or
might be nearer to the door in the roof, I don't know--and consisted of
a roast fowl, a steak, and some vegetables, to all of which I did ample
justice, and which were all excellent. But my aunt had her own ideas
concerning London provision, and ate but little.

'I suppose this unfortunate fowl was born and brought up in a cellar,'
said my aunt, 'and never took the air except on a hackney coach-stand. I
hope the steak may be beef, but I don't believe it. Nothing's genuine in
the place, in my opinion, but the dirt. '

'Don't you think the fowl may have come out of the country, aunt? ' I
hinted.

'Certainly not,' returned my aunt. 'It would be no pleasure to a London
tradesman to sell anything which was what he pretended it was. '

I did not venture to controvert this opinion, but I made a good supper,
which it greatly satisfied her to see me do. When the table was cleared,
Janet assisted her to arrange her hair, to put on her nightcap, which
was of a smarter construction than usual ('in case of fire', my aunt
said), and to fold her gown back over her knees, these being her usual
preparations for warming herself before going to bed. I then made her,
according to certain established regulations from which no deviation,
however slight, could ever be permitted, a glass of hot wine and
water, and a slice of toast cut into long thin strips. With these
accompaniments we were left alone to finish the evening, my aunt sitting
opposite to me drinking her wine and water; soaking her strips of toast
in it, one by one, before eating them; and looking benignantly on me,
from among the borders of her nightcap.

'Well, Trot,' she began, 'what do you think of the proctor plan? Or have
you not begun to think about it yet? '

'I have thought a good deal about it, my dear aunt, and I have talked a
good deal about it with Steerforth. I like it very much indeed. I like
it exceedingly. '

'Come! ' said my aunt. 'That's cheering! '

'I have only one difficulty, aunt. '

'Say what it is, Trot,' she returned.

'Why, I want to ask, aunt, as this seems, from what I understand, to
be a limited profession, whether my entrance into it would not be very
expensive? '

'It will cost,' returned my aunt, 'to article you, just a thousand
pounds. '

'Now, my dear aunt,' said I, drawing my chair nearer, 'I am uneasy in
my mind about that. It's a large sum of money. You have expended a
great deal on my education, and have always been as liberal to me in all
things as it was possible to be. You have been the soul of generosity.
Surely there are some ways in which I might begin life with hardly any
outlay, and yet begin with a good hope of getting on by resolution and
exertion. Are you sure that it would not be better to try that course?
Are you certain that you can afford to part with so much money, and that
it is right that it should be so expended? I only ask you, my second
mother, to consider. Are you certain? '

My aunt finished eating the piece of toast on which she was then
engaged, looking me full in the face all the while; and then setting
her glass on the chimney-piece, and folding her hands upon her folded
skirts, replied as follows:

'Trot, my child, if I have any object in life, it is to provide for
your being a good, a sensible, and a happy man. I am bent upon it--so is
Dick. I should like some people that I know to hear Dick's conversation
on the subject. Its sagacity is wonderful. But no one knows the
resources of that man's intellect, except myself! '

She stopped for a moment to take my hand between hers, and went on:

'It's in vain, Trot, to recall the past, unless it works some influence
upon the present. Perhaps I might have been better friends with your
poor father. Perhaps I might have been better friends with that poor
child your mother, even after your sister Betsey Trotwood disappointed
me. When you came to me, a little runaway boy, all dusty and way-worn,
perhaps I thought so. From that time until now, Trot, you have ever been
a credit to me and a pride and a pleasure. I have no other claim upon
my means; at least'--here to my surprise she hesitated, and was
confused--'no, I have no other claim upon my means--and you are my
adopted child. Only be a loving child to me in my age, and bear with my
whims and fancies; and you will do more for an old woman whose prime of
life was not so happy or conciliating as it might have been, than ever
that old woman did for you. '

It was the first time I had heard my aunt refer to her past history.
There was a magnanimity in her quiet way of doing so, and of dismissing
it, which would have exalted her in my respect and affection, if
anything could.

'All is agreed and understood between us, now, Trot,' said my aunt,
'and we need talk of this no more. Give me a kiss, and we'll go to the
Commons after breakfast tomorrow. '

We had a long chat by the fire before we went to bed. I slept in a room
on the same floor with my aunt's, and was a little disturbed in the
course of the night by her knocking at my door as often as she was
agitated by a distant sound of hackney-coaches or market-carts, and
inquiring, 'if I heard the engines? ' But towards morning she slept
better, and suffered me to do so too.

At about mid-day, we set out for the office of Messrs Spenlow and
Jorkins, in Doctors' Commons. My aunt, who had this other general
opinion in reference to London, that every man she saw was a pickpocket,
gave me her purse to carry for her, which had ten guineas in it and some
silver.

We made a pause at the toy shop in Fleet Street, to see the giants of
Saint Dunstan's strike upon the bells--we had timed our going, so as to
catch them at it, at twelve o'clock--and then went on towards Ludgate
Hill, and St. Paul's Churchyard. We were crossing to the former place,
when I found that my aunt greatly accelerated her speed, and looked
frightened. I observed, at the same time, that a lowering ill-dressed
man who had stopped and stared at us in passing, a little before, was
coming so close after us as to brush against her.

'Trot! My dear Trot! ' cried my aunt, in a terrified whisper, and
pressing my arm. 'I don't know what I am to do. '

'Don't be alarmed,' said I. 'There's nothing to be afraid of. Step into
a shop, and I'll soon get rid of this fellow. '

'No, no, child! ' she returned. 'Don't speak to him for the world. I
entreat, I order you! '

'Good Heaven, aunt! ' said I. 'He is nothing but a sturdy beggar. '

'You don't know what he is! ' replied my aunt. 'You don't know who he is!
You don't know what you say! '

We had stopped in an empty door-way, while this was passing, and he had
stopped too.

'Don't look at him! ' said my aunt, as I turned my head indignantly, 'but
get me a coach, my dear, and wait for me in St. Paul's Churchyard. '

'Wait for you? ' I replied.

'Yes,' rejoined my aunt. 'I must go alone. I must go with him. '

'With him, aunt? This man? '

'I am in my senses,' she replied, 'and I tell you I must. Get mea
coach! '

However much astonished I might be, I was sensible that I had no right
to refuse compliance with such a peremptory command. I hurried away a
few paces, and called a hackney-chariot which was passing empty. Almost
before I could let down the steps, my aunt sprang in, I don't know how,
and the man followed. She waved her hand to me to go away, so earnestly,
that, all confounded as I was, I turned from them at once. In doing so,
I heard her say to the coachman, 'Drive anywhere! Drive straight on! '
and presently the chariot passed me, going up the hill.

What Mr. Dick had told me, and what I had supposed to be a delusion of
his, now came into my mind. I could not doubt that this person was the
person of whom he had made such mysterious mention, though what the
nature of his hold upon my aunt could possibly be, I was quite unable
to imagine. After half an hour's cooling in the churchyard, I saw the
chariot coming back. The driver stopped beside me, and my aunt was
sitting in it alone.

She had not yet sufficiently recovered from her agitation to be quite
prepared for the visit we had to make. She desired me to get into the
chariot, and to tell the coachman to drive slowly up and down a little
while. She said no more, except, 'My dear child, never ask me what
it was, and don't refer to it,' until she had perfectly regained her
composure, when she told me she was quite herself now, and we might get
out. On her giving me her purse to pay the driver, I found that all the
guineas were gone, and only the loose silver remained.

Doctors' Commons was approached by a little low archway. Before we had
taken many paces down the street beyond it, the noise of the city seemed
to melt, as if by magic, into a softened distance. A few dull courts
and narrow ways brought us to the sky-lighted offices of Spenlow and
Jorkins; in the vestibule of which temple, accessible to pilgrims
without the ceremony of knocking, three or four clerks were at work as
copyists. One of these, a little dry man, sitting by himself, who wore
a stiff brown wig that looked as if it were made of gingerbread, rose to
receive my aunt, and show us into Mr. Spenlow's room.

'Mr. Spenlow's in Court, ma'am,' said the dry man; 'it's an Arches day;
but it's close by, and I'll send for him directly. '

As we were left to look about us while Mr. Spenlow was fetched, I
availed myself of the opportunity. The furniture of the room was
old-fashioned and dusty; and the green baize on the top of the
writing-table had lost all its colour, and was as withered and pale as
an old pauper. There were a great many bundles of papers on it, some
endorsed as Allegations, and some (to my surprise) as Libels, and some
as being in the Consistory Court, and some in the Arches Court, and some
in the Prerogative Court, and some in the Admiralty Court, and some in
the Delegates' Court; giving me occasion to wonder much, how many Courts
there might be in the gross, and how long it would take to understand
them all. Besides these, there were sundry immense manuscript Books
of Evidence taken on affidavit, strongly bound, and tied together in
massive sets, a set to each cause, as if every cause were a history in
ten or twenty volumes. All this looked tolerably expensive, I thought,
and gave me an agreeable notion of a proctor's business. I was casting
my eyes with increasing complacency over these and many similar objects,
when hasty footsteps were heard in the room outside, and Mr. Spenlow,
in a black gown trimmed with white fur, came hurrying in, taking off his
hat as he came.

He was a little light-haired gentleman, with undeniable boots, and the
stiffest of white cravats and shirt-collars. He was buttoned up, mighty
trim and tight, and must have taken a great deal of pains with his
whiskers, which were accurately curled. His gold watch-chain was so
massive, that a fancy came across me, that he ought to have a sinewy
golden arm, to draw it out with, like those which are put up over the
goldbeaters' shops. He was got up with such care, and was so stiff, that
he could hardly bend himself; being obliged, when he glanced at some
papers on his desk, after sitting down in his chair, to move his whole
body, from the bottom of his spine, like Punch.

I had previously been presented by my aunt, and had been courteously
received. He now said:

'And so, Mr. Copperfield, you think of entering into our profession?
I casually mentioned to Miss Trotwood, when I had the pleasure of an
interview with her the other day,'--with another inclination of his
body--Punch again--'that there was a vacancy here. Miss Trotwood was
good enough to mention that she had a nephew who was her peculiar care,
and for whom she was seeking to provide genteelly in life. That
nephew, I believe, I have now the pleasure of'--Punch again. I bowed my
acknowledgements, and said, my aunt had mentioned to me that there was
that opening, and that I believed I should like it very much. That I was
strongly inclined to like it, and had taken immediately to the proposal.
That I could not absolutely pledge myself to like it, until I knew
something more about it. That although it was little else than a matter
of form, I presumed I should have an opportunity of trying how I liked
it, before I bound myself to it irrevocably.

'Oh surely! surely! ' said Mr. Spenlow. 'We always, in this house,
propose a month--an initiatory month. I should be happy, myself, to
propose two months--three--an indefinite period, in fact--but I have a
partner. Mr. Jorkins. '

'And the premium, sir,' I returned, 'is a thousand pounds? '

'And the premium, Stamp included, is a thousand pounds,' said Mr.
Spenlow. 'As I have mentioned to Miss Trotwood, I am actuated by no
mercenary considerations; few men are less so, I believe; but Mr.
Jorkins has his opinions on these subjects, and I am bound to respect
Mr. Jorkins's opinions. Mr. Jorkins thinks a thousand pounds too little,
in short. '

'I suppose, sir,' said I, still desiring to spare my aunt, 'that it is
not the custom here, if an articled clerk were particularly useful,
and made himself a perfect master of his profession'--I could not help
blushing, this looked so like praising myself--'I suppose it is not the
custom, in the later years of his time, to allow him any--'

Mr. Spenlow, by a great effort, just lifted his head far enough out of
his cravat to shake it, and answered, anticipating the word 'salary':

'No. I will not say what consideration I might give to that point
myself, Mr. Copperfield, if I were unfettered. Mr. Jorkins is
immovable. '

I was quite dismayed by the idea of this terrible Jorkins. But I found
out afterwards that he was a mild man of a heavy temperament, whose
place in the business was to keep himself in the background, and be
constantly exhibited by name as the most obdurate and ruthless of men.
If a clerk wanted his salary raised, Mr. Jorkins wouldn't listen to such
a proposition. If a client were slow to settle his bill of costs, Mr.
Jorkins was resolved to have it paid; and however painful these things
might be (and always were) to the feelings of Mr. Spenlow, Mr. Jorkins
would have his bond. The heart and hand of the good angel Spenlow would
have been always open, but for the restraining demon Jorkins. As I have
grown older, I think I have had experience of some other houses doing
business on the principle of Spenlow and Jorkins!

It was settled that I should begin my month's probation as soon as I
pleased, and that my aunt need neither remain in town nor return at
its expiration, as the articles of agreement, of which I was to be the
subject, could easily be sent to her at home for her signature. When
we had got so far, Mr. Spenlow offered to take me into Court then and
there, and show me what sort of place it was. As I was willing enough
to know, we went out with this object, leaving my aunt behind; who would
trust herself, she said, in no such place, and who, I think, regarded
all Courts of Law as a sort of powder-mills that might blow up at any
time.

Mr. Spenlow conducted me through a paved courtyard formed of grave brick
houses, which I inferred, from the Doctors' names upon the doors, to be
the official abiding-places of the learned advocates of whom Steerforth
had told me; and into a large dull room, not unlike a chapel to my
thinking, on the left hand. The upper part of this room was fenced off
from the rest; and there, on the two sides of a raised platform of the
horse-shoe form, sitting on easy old-fashioned dining-room chairs, were
sundry gentlemen in red gowns and grey wigs, whom I found to be the
Doctors aforesaid. Blinking over a little desk like a pulpit-desk, in
the curve of the horse-shoe, was an old gentleman, whom, if I had seen
him in an aviary, I should certainly have taken for an owl, but who, I
learned, was the presiding judge. In the space within the horse-shoe,
lower than these, that is to say, on about the level of the floor, were
sundry other gentlemen, of Mr. Spenlow's rank, and dressed like him in
black gowns with white fur upon them, sitting at a long green table.
Their cravats were in general stiff, I thought, and their looks haughty;
but in this last respect I presently conceived I had done them an
injustice, for when two or three of them had to rise and answer a
question of the presiding dignitary, I never saw anything more sheepish.