‘On the commission he is, at any rate,’ said I. ‘And he writes to me here,that he will be glad to show me, in operation, the only true system of prison discipline;the only unchallengeable way of making sincere and lasting converts and penitents--which, you know,is by solitary confinement. What do you say?’
‘To the system?’ inquired Traddles, looking grave.
‘No. To my accepting the offer, and your going with me?’
‘I don’t object,’ said Traddles.
‘Then I’ll write to say so. You remember (to say nothing of our treatment) this same Creakle turning his son out of doors,I suppose, and the life he used to lead his wife and daughter?’
‘Perfectly,’ said Traddles.
‘Yet, if you’ll read his letter, you’ll find he is the tenderest of men to prisoners convicted of the whole calendar of felonies,’ said I; ‘though I can’t find that his tenderness extends to any other class of created beings.’
Traddles shrugged his shoulders, and was not at all surprised. I had not expected him to be,and was not surprised myself; or my observation of similar practical satires would have been but scanty.We arranged the time of our visit, and I wrote accordingly to Mr. Creakle that evening.
On the appointed day--I think it was the next day,but no matter--Traddles and I repaired to the prison where Mr. Creakle was powerful.It was an immense and solid building, erected at a vast expense. I could not help thinking,as we approached the gate, what an uproar would have been made in the country,if any deluded man had proposed to spend one half the money it had cost,on the erection of an industrial school for the young, or a house of refuge for the deserving old.
In an office that might have been on the ground-floor of the Tower of Babel,it was so massively constructed, we were presented to our old schoolmaster; who was one of a group,composed of two or three of the busier sort of magistrates, and some visitors they had brought.He received me, like a man who had formed my mind in bygone years,and had always loved me tenderly. On my introducing Traddles, Mr. Creakle expressed,in like manner, but in an inferior degree, that he had always been Traddles’s guide, philosopher,and friend. Our venerable instructor was a great deal older, and not improved in appearance.His face was as fiery as ever; his eyes were as small, and rather deeper set. The scanty,wet-looking grey hair, by which I remembered him, was almost gone;and the thick veins in his bald head were none the more agreeable to look at.
After some conversation among these gentlemen,from which I might have supposed that there was nothing in the world to be legitimately taken into account but the supreme comfort of prisoners,at any expense, and nothing on the wide earth to be done outside prison-doors,we began our inspection. It being then just dinner-time, we went, first into the great kitchen,where every prisoner’s dinner was in course of being set out separately (to be handed to him in his cell),with the regularity and precision of clock-work. I said aside, to Traddles,that I wondered whether it occurred to anybody,that there was a striking contrast between these plentiful repasts of choice quality,and the dinners, not to say of paupers, but of soldiers, sailors, labourers,the great bulk of the honest, working community;of whom not one man in five hundred ever dined half so well.But I learned that the ‘system’ required high living; and, in short, to dispose of the system,once for all, I found that on that head and on all others, ‘the system’ put an end to all doubts,and disposed of all anomalies. Nobody appeared to have the least idea that there was any other system, but THE system, to be considered.
As we were going through some of the magnificent passages, I inquired of Mr.Creakle and his friends what were supposed to be the main advantages of this all-governing and universally over-riding system?I found them to be the perfect isolation of prisoners--so that no one man in confinement there,knew anything about another; and the reduction of prisoners to a wholesome state of mind,leading to sincere contrition and repentance.
Now, it struck me, when we began to visit individuals in their cells,and to traverse the passages in which those cells were,and to have the manner of the going to chapel and so forth, explained to us,that there was a strong probability of the prisoners knowing a good deal about each other,and of their carrying on a pretty complete system of intercourse. This, at the time I write,has been proved, I believe, to be the case; but,as it would have been flat blasphemy against the system to have hinted such a doubt then,I looked out for the penitence as diligently as I could.
And here again, I had great misgivings. I found as prevalent a fashion in the form of the penitence,as I had left outside in the forms of the coats and waistcoats in the windows of the tailors’ shops.I found a vast amount of profession, varying very little in character:varying very little (which I thought exceedingly suspicious), even in words.I found a great many foxes, disparaging whole vineyards of inaccessible grapes;but I found very few foxes whom I would have trusted within reach of a bunch. Above all,I found that the most professing men were the greatest objects of interest; and that their conceit,their vanity, their want of excitement,and their love of deception (which many of them possessed to an almost incredible extent,as their histories showed), all prompted to these professions, and were all gratified by them.
However, I heard so repeatedly, in the course of our goings to and fro,of a certain Number Twenty Seven, who was the Favourite,and who really appeared to be a Model Prisoner,that I resolved to suspend my judgement until I should see Twenty Seven. Twenty Eight,I understood, was also a bright particular star;but it was his misfortune to have his glory a little dimmed by the extraordinary lustre of Twenty Seven.I heard so much of Twenty Seven, of his pious admonitions to everybody around him,and of the beautiful letters he constantly wrote to his mother (whom he seemed to consider in a very bad way),that I became quite impatient to see him.
I had to restrain my impatience for some time,on account of Twenty Seven being reserved for a concluding effect. But, at last,we came to the door of his cell; and Mr. Creakle, looking through a little hole in it,reported to us, in a state of the greatest admiration, that he was reading a Hymn Book.
There was such a rush of heads immediately, to see Number Twenty Seven reading his Hymn Book,that the little hole was blocked up, six or seven heads deep. To remedy this inconvenience,and give us an opportunity of conversing with Twenty Seven in all his purity, Mr.Creakle directed the door of the cell to be unlocked,and Twenty Seven to be invited out into the passage. This was done;and whom should Traddles and I then behold, to our amazement,in this converted Number Twenty Seven, but Uriah Heep!
He knew us directly; and said, as he came out--with the old writhe,--
‘How do you do, Mr. Copperfield?How do you do, Mr. Traddles?’
This recognition caused a general admiration in the party.I rather thought that everyone was struck by his not being proud, and taking notice of us.
‘Well, Twenty Seven,’ said Mr. Creakle, mournfully admiring him. ‘How do you find yourself today?’
‘I am very umble, sir!’ replied Uriah Heep.
‘You are always so, Twenty Seven,’ said Mr. Creakle.
Here, another gentleman asked, with extreme anxiety: ‘Are you quite comfortable?’
‘Yes, I thank you, sir!’ said Uriah Heep, looking in that direction. ‘Far more comfortable here, than ever I was outside.I see my follies, now, sir. That’s what makes me comfortable.’
Several gentlemen were much affected; and a third questioner, forcing himself to the front,inquired with extreme feeling: ‘How do you find the beef?’
‘Thank you, sir,’ replied Uriah, glancing in the new direction of this voice,‘it was tougher yesterday than I could wish; but it’s my duty to bear. I have committed follies,gentlemen,’ said Uriah, looking round with a meek smile,‘and I ought to bear the consequences without repining.’ A murmur,partly of gratification at Twenty Seven’s celestial state of mind,and partly of indignation against the Contractor who had given him any cause of complaint (a note of which was immediately made by Mr.Creakle), having subsided, Twenty Seven stood in the midst of us,as if he felt himself the principal object of merit in a highly meritorious museum. That we,the neophytes, might have an excess of light shining upon us all at once,orders were given to let out Twenty Eight.
I had been so much astonished already, that I only felt a kind of resigned wonder when Mr.Littimer walked forth, reading a good book!
‘Twenty Eight,’ said a gentleman in spectacles, who had not yet spoken, ‘you complained last week,my good fellow, of the cocoa. How has it been since?’
‘I thank you, sir,’ said Mr. Littimer, ‘it has been better made.If I might take the liberty of saying so, sir,I don’t think the milk which is boiled with it is quite genuine; but I am aware, sir,that there is a great adulteration of milk, in London,and that the article in a pure state is difficult to be obtained.’
It appeared to me that the gentleman in spectacles backed his Twenty Eight against Mr.Creakle’s Twenty Seven, for each of them took his own man in hand.
‘What is your state of mind, Twenty Eight?’ said the questioner in spectacles.
‘I thank you, sir,’ returned Mr. Littimer; ‘I see my follies now, sir.I am a good deal troubled when I think of the sins of my former companions, sir; but I trust they may find forgiveness.’
‘You are quite happy yourself?’ said the questioner, nodding encouragement.
‘I am much obliged to you, sir,’ returned Mr. Littimer. ‘Perfectly so.’
‘Is there anything at all on your mind now?’ said the questioner. ‘If so, mention it, Twenty Eight.’
‘Sir,’ said Mr. Littimer, without looking up, ‘if my eyes have not deceived me,there is a gentleman present who was acquainted with me in my former life.It may be profitable to that gentleman to know, sir, that I attribute my past follies,entirely to having lived a thoughtless life in the service of young men;and to having allowed myself to be led by them into weaknesses,which I had not the strength to resist. I hope that gentleman will take warning, sir,and will not be offended at my freedom. It is for his good. I am conscious of my own past follies.I hope he may repent of all the wickedness and sin to which he has been a party.’
I observed that several gentlemen were shading their eyes, each with one hand, as if they had just come into church.
‘This does you credit, Twenty Eight,’ returned the questioner. ‘I should have expected it of you. Is there anything else?’
‘Sir,’ returned Mr. Littimer, slightly lifting up his eyebrows, but not his eyes,‘there was a young woman who fell into dissolute courses, that I endeavoured to save, sir,but could not rescue. I beg that gentleman, if he has it in his power,to inform that young woman from me that I forgive her her bad conduct towards myself,and that I call her to repentance--if he will be so good.’
‘I have no doubt, Twenty Eight,’ returned the questioner,‘that the gentleman you refer to feels very strongly--as we all must--what you have so properly said. We will not detain you.’
‘I thank you, sir,’ said Mr. Littimer. ‘Gentlemen, I wish you a good day,and hoping you and your families will also see your wickedness, and amend!’
With this, Number Twenty Eight retired, after a glance between him and Uriah;as if they were not altogether unknown to each other, through some medium of communication;and a murmur went round the group, as his door shut upon him, that he was a most respectable man, and a beautiful case.
‘Now, Twenty Seven,’ said Mr. Creakle, entering on a clear stage with his man,‘is there anything that anyone can do for you?If so, mention it.’
‘I would umbly ask, sir,’ returned Uriah, with a jerk of his malevolent head, ‘for leave to write again to mother.’
‘It shall certainly be granted,’ said Mr. Creakle.
‘Thank you, sir!I am anxious about mother. I am afraid she ain’t safe.’
Somebody incautiously asked, what from?But there was a scandalized whisper of ‘Hush!’
‘Immortally safe, sir,’ returned Uriah, writhing in the direction of the voice.‘I should wish mother to be got into my state.I never should have been got into my present state if I hadn’t come here.I wish mother had come here. It would be better for everybody, if they got took up, and was brought here.’
This sentiment gave unbounded satisfaction--greater satisfaction, I think, than anything that had passed yet.
‘Before I come here,’ said Uriah, stealing a look at us,as if he would have blighted the outer world to which we belonged, if he could,‘I was given to follies; but now I am sensible of my follies. There’s a deal of sin outside.There’s a deal of sin in mother. There’s nothing but sin everywhere--except here.’
‘You are quite changed?’ said Mr. Creakle.
‘Oh dear, yes, sir!’ cried this hopeful penitent.
‘You wouldn’t relapse, if you were going out?’ asked somebody else.
‘Oh de-ar no, sir!’
‘Well!’ said Mr. Creakle, ‘this is very gratifying. You have addressed Mr. Copperfield, Twenty Seven.Do you wish to say anything further to him?’
‘You knew me, a long time before I came here and was changed, Mr. Copperfield,’ said Uriah,looking at me; and a more villainous look I never saw, even on his visage. ‘You knew me when,in spite of my follies, I was umble among them that was proud,and meek among them that was violent--you was violent to me yourself, Mr. Copperfield. Once,you struck me a blow in the face, you know.’
General commiseration. Several indignant glances directed at me.
‘But I forgive you, Mr. Copperfield,’ said Uriah,making his forgiving nature the subject of a most impious and awful parallel,which I shall not record. ‘I forgive everybody. It would ill become me to bear malice.I freely forgive you, and I hope you’ll curb your passions in future. I hope Mr. W. will repent,and Miss W., and all of that sinful lot. You’ve been visited with affliction,and I hope it may do you good; but you’d better have come here. Mr. W. had better have come here,and Miss W. too. The best wish I could give you, Mr. Copperfield, and give all of you gentlemen,is, that you could be took up and brought here. When I think of my past follies,and my present state, I am sure it would be best for you. I pity all who ain’t brought here!’
He sneaked back into his cell, amidst a little chorus of approbation;and both Traddles and I experienced a great relief when he was locked in.
It was a characteristic feature in this repentance,that I was fain to ask what these two men had done, to be there at all.That appeared to be the last thing about which they had anything to say.I addressed myself to one of the two warders, who,I suspected from certain latent indications in their faces,knew pretty well what all this stir was worth.
‘Do you know,’ said I, as we walked along the passage,‘what felony was Number Twenty Seven’s last “folly”?’
The answer was that it was a Bank case.
‘A fraud on the Bank of England?’ I asked. ‘Yes, sir. Fraud, forgery, and conspiracy. He and some others. He set the others on.It was a deep plot for a large sum. Sentence, transportation for life.Twenty Seven was the knowingest bird of the lot, and had very nearly kept himself safe;but not quite. The Bank was just able to put salt upon his tail--and only just.’
‘Do you know Twenty Eight’s offence?’
‘Twenty Eight,’ returned my informant, speaking throughout in a low tone,and looking over his shoulder as we walked along the passage,to guard himself from being overheard, in such an unlawful reference to these Immaculates,by Creakle and the rest; ‘Twenty Eight (also transportation) got a place,and robbed a young master of a matter of two hundred and fifty pounds in money and valuables,the night before they were going abroad. I particularly recollect his case, from his being took by a dwarf.’
‘A what?’
‘A little woman. I have forgot her name?’
‘Not Mowcher?’
‘That’s it!He had eluded pursuit, and was going to America in a flaxen wig, and whiskers,and such a complete disguise as never you see in all your born days; when the little woman,being in Southampton, met him walking along the street--picked him out with her sharp eye in a moment--ran betwixt his legs to upset him--and held on to him like grim Death.’
‘Excellent Miss Mowcher!’ cried I.
‘You’d have said so, if you had seen her, standing on a chair in the witness-box at the trial,as I did,’ said my friend. ‘He cut her face right open, and pounded her in the most brutal manner,when she took him; but she never loosed her hold till he was locked up. She held so tight to him,in fact, that the officers were obliged to take ‘em both together.She gave her evidence in the gamest way, and was highly complimented by the Bench,and cheered right home to her lodgings.She said in Court that she’d have took him single-handed (on account of what she knew concerning him),if he had been Samson. And it’s my belief she would!’
It was mine too, and I highly respected Miss Mowcher for it.
We had now seen all there was to see. It would have been in vain to represent to such a man as the Worshipful Mr.Creakle, that Twenty Seven and Twenty Eight were perfectly consistent and unchanged;that exactly what they were then, they had always been;that the hypocritical knaves were just the subjects to make that sort of profession in such a place;that they knew its market-value at least as well as we did,in the immediate service it would do them when they were expatriated; in a word,that it was a rotten, hollow, painfully suggestive piece of business altogether.We left them to their system and themselves, and went home wondering.
‘Perhaps it’s a good thing, Traddles,’ said I, ‘to have an unsound Hobby ridden hard; for it’s the sooner ridden to death.’
‘I hope so,’ replied Traddles.
CHAPTER 62. A LIGHT SHINES ON MY WAY
The year came round to Christmas-time, and I had been at home above two months.I had seen Agnes frequently. However loud the general voice might be in giving me encouragement,and however fervent the emotions and endeavours to which it roused me,I heard her lightest word of praise as I heard nothing else.
At least once a week, and sometimes oftener, I rode over there, and passed the evening.I usually rode back at night; for the old unhappy sense was always hovering about me now--most sorrowfully when I left her--and I was glad to be up and out,rather than wandering over the past in weary wakefulness or miserable dreams.I wore away the longest part of many wild sad nights, in those rides; reviving, as I went,the thoughts that had occupied me in my long absence.
Or, if I were to say rather that I listened to the echoes of those thoughts,I should better express the truth. They spoke to me from afar off. I had put them at a distance,and accepted my inevitable place. When I read to Agnes what I wrote; when I saw her listening face;moved her to smiles or tears; and heard her cordial voice so earnest on the shadowy events of that imaginative world in which I lived;I thought what a fate mine might have been--but only thought so,as I had thought after I was married to Dora, what I could have wished my wife to be.
My duty to Agnes, who loved me with a love, which, if I disquieted,I wronged most selfishly and poorly, and could never restore; my matured assurance that I,who had worked out my own destiny, and won what I had impetuously set my heart on,had no right to murmur, and must bear; comprised what I felt and what I had learned.But I loved her: and now it even became some consolation to me,vaguely to conceive a distant day when I might blamelessly avow it; when all this should be over;when I could say ‘Agnes, so it was when I came home; and now I am old, and I never have loved since!’
She did not once show me any change in herself. What she always had been to me, she still was; wholly unaltered.
Between my aunt and me there had been something, in this connexion, since the night of my return,which I cannot call a restraint, or an avoidance of the subject,so much as an implied understanding that we thought of it together,but did not shape our thoughts into words. When, according to our old custom,we sat before the fire at night, we often fell into this train; as naturally,and as consciously to each other, as if we had unreservedly said so.But we preserved an unbroken silence. I believed that she had read, or partly read,my thoughts that night; and that she fully comprehended why I gave mine no more distinct expression.
This Christmas-time being come, and Agnes having reposed no new confidence in me,a doubt that had several times arisen in my mind--whether she could have that perception of the true state of my breast,which restrained her with the apprehension of giving me pain--began to oppress me heavily.If that were so, my sacrifice was nothing; my plainest obligation to her unfulfilled;and every poor action I had shrunk from, I was hourly doing.I resolved to set this right beyond all doubt;--if such a barrier were between us,to break it down at once with a determined hand.
It was--what lasting reason have I to remember it!--a cold, harsh, winter day. There had been snow, some hours before; and it lay, not deep,but hard-frozen on the ground. Out at sea, beyond my window, the wind blew ruggedly from the north.I had been thinking of it, sweeping over those mountain wastes of snow in Switzerland,then inaccessible to any human foot; and had been speculating which was the lonelier,those solitary regions, or a deserted ocean.
‘Riding today, Trot?’ said my aunt, putting her head in at the door.
‘Yes,’ said I, ‘I am going over to Canterbury. It’s a good day for a ride.’
‘I hope your horse may think so too,’ said my aunt;‘but at present he is holding down his head and his ears, standing before the door there,as if he thought his stable preferable.’
My aunt, I may observe, allowed my horse on the forbidden ground,but had not at all relented towards the donkeys.
‘He will be fresh enough, presently!’ said I.
‘The ride will do his master good, at all events,’ observed my aunt,glancing at the papers on my table. ‘Ah, child, you pass a good many hours here!I never thought, when I used to read books, what work it was to write them.’
‘It’s work enough to read them, sometimes,’ I returned. ‘As to the writing, it has its own charms, aunt.’
‘Ah!I see!’ said my aunt. ‘Ambition, love of approbation, sympathy, and much more, I suppose?Well: go along with you!’
‘Do you know anything more,’ said I, standing composedly before her--she had patted me on the shoulder,and sat down in my chair--‘of that attachment of Agnes?’
She looked up in my face a little while, before replying:
‘I think I do, Trot.’
‘Are you confirmed in your impression?’ I inquired.
‘I think I am, Trot.’
She looked so steadfastly at me: with a kind of doubt, or pity, or suspense in her affection:that I summoned the stronger determination to show her a perfectly cheerful face.
‘And what is more, Trot--’ said my aunt.
‘Yes!’
‘I think Agnes is going to be married.’
‘God bless her!’ said I, cheerfully.
‘God bless her!’ said my aunt, ‘and her husband too!’
I echoed it, parted from my aunt, and went lightly downstairs, mounted, and rode away.There was greater reason than before to do what I had resolved to do.
How well I recollect the wintry ride!The frozen particles of ice, brushed from the blades of grass by the wind, and borne across my face;the hard clatter of the horse’s hoofs, beating a tune upon the ground; the stiff-tilled soil;the snowdrift, lightly eddying in the chalk-pit as the breeze ruffled it;the smoking team with the waggon of old hay, stopping to breathe on the hill-top,and shaking their bells musically; the whitened slopes and sweeps of Down-land lying against the dark sky, as if they were drawn on a huge slate!
I found Agnes alone. The little girls had gone to their own homes now,and she was alone by the fire, reading. She put down her book on seeing me come in;and having welcomed me as usual, took her work-basket and sat in one of the old-fashioned windows.
I sat beside her on the window-seat, and we talked of what I was doing, and when it would be done,and of the progress I had made since my last visit. Agnes was very cheerful;and laughingly predicted that I should soon become too famous to be talked to, on such subjects.
‘So I make the most of the present time, you see,’ said Agnes, ‘and talk to you while I may.’
As I looked at her beautiful face, observant of her work, she raised her mild clear eyes, and saw that I was looking at her.
‘You are thoughtful today, Trotwood!’
‘Agnes, shall I tell you what about?I came to tell you.’
She put aside her work, as she was used to do when we were seriously discussing anything; and gave me her whole attention.
‘My dear Agnes, do you doubt my being true to you?’
‘No!’ she answered, with a look of astonishment.
‘Do you doubt my being what I always have been to you?’
‘No!’ she answered, as before.
‘Do you remember that I tried to tell you, when I came home, what a debt of gratitude I owed you,dearest Agnes, and how fervently I felt towards you?’
‘I remember it,’ she said, gently, ‘very well.’
‘You have a secret,’ said I. ‘Let me share it, Agnes.’
She cast down her eyes, and trembled.
‘I could hardly fail to know, even if I had not heard--but from other lips than yours, Agnes,which seems strange--that there is someone upon whom you have bestowed the treasure of your love.Do not shut me out of what concerns your happiness so nearly!If you can trust me, as you say you can, and as I know you may, let me be your friend, your brother, in this matter, of all others!’
With an appealing, almost a reproachful, glance, she rose from the window;and hurrying across the room as if without knowing where, put her hands before her face,and burst into such tears as smote me to the heart.
And yet they awakened something in me, bringing promise to my heart. Without my knowing why,these tears allied themselves with the quietly sad smile which was so fixed in my remembrance,and shook me more with hope than fear or sorrow.
‘Agnes!Sister!Dearest!What have I done?’
‘Let me go away, Trotwood. I am not well. I am not myself.I will speak to you by and by--another time. I will write to you. Don’t speak to me now. Don’t!don’t!’
I sought to recollect what she had said, when I had spoken to her on that former night,of her affection needing no return. It seemed a very world that I must search through in a moment.‘Agnes, I cannot bear to see you so, and think that I have been the cause. My dearest girl,dearer to me than anything in life, if you are unhappy, let me share your unhappiness.If you are in need of help or counsel, let me try to give it to you.If you have indeed a burden on your heart, let me try to lighten it. For whom do I live now, Agnes, if it is not for you!’
‘Oh, spare me!I am not myself!Another time!’ was all I could distinguish.
Was it a selfish error that was leading me away?Or, having once a clue to hope, was there something opening to me that I had not dared to think of?
‘I must say more. I cannot let you leave me so!For Heaven’s sake, Agnes, let us not mistake each other after all these years,and all that has come and gone with them!I must speak plainly. If you have any lingering thought that I could envy the happiness you will confer;that I could not resign you to a dearer protector, of your own choosing; that I could not,from my removed place, be a contented witness of your joy; dismiss it, for I don’t deserve it!I have not suffered quite in vain. You have not taught me quite in vain.There is no alloy of self in what I feel for you.’
She was quiet now. In a little time, she turned her pale face towards me, and said in a low voice, broken here and there, but very clear:
‘I owe it to your pure friendship for me, Trotwood--which, indeed, I do not doubt--to tell you,you are mistaken. I can do no more. If I have sometimes, in the course of years,wanted help and counsel, they have come to me. If I have sometimes been unhappy,the feeling has passed away. If I have ever had a burden on my heart, it has been lightened for me.If I have any secret, it is--no new one; and is--not what you suppose. I cannot reveal it,or divide it. It has long been mine, and must remain mine.’
‘Agnes!Stay!A moment!’
She was going away, but I detained her. I clasped my arm about her waist. ‘In the course of years!’ ‘It is not a new one!’ New thoughts and hopes were whirling through my mind,and all the colours of my life were changing.
‘Dearest Agnes!Whom I so respect and honour--whom I so devotedly love!When I came here today, I thought that nothing could have wrested this confession from me.I thought I could have kept it in my bosom all our lives, till we were old. But, Agnes,if I have indeed any new-born hope that I may ever call you something more than Sister, widely different from Sister!--’
Her tears fell fast; but they were not like those she had lately shed, and I saw my hope brighten in them.