I rang the bell for something hot to drink. He would have nothing younger than ale; and while it was being brought, and being warmed at
the fire, he sat thinking. There was a fine, massive gravity in his face, I did not venture to disturb.
“When she was a child,” he said, lifting up his head soon after we were left alone, “she used to talk to me a deal about the sea, and about them coasts where the sea got to be dark blue, and to lay a shining and a shining in the sun. I thowt, odd times, as her father being drownded made her think on it so much. I doen’t know, you see, but maybe she believed—or hoped—he had drifted out to them parts, where the flowers is always a blowing, and the country bright.”
“It is likely to have been a childish fancy,” I replied.
“When she was—lost,” said Mr. Peggotty, “I know’d in my mind, as he would take her to them countries. I know’d in my mind, as he’d have told her wonders of ’em, and how she was to be a lady theer, and how he got her listen to him first, along o’sech like. When we see his mother, I know’d quite well as I was right. I went across-channel to France, and landed theer, as if I’d fell down from the sky.”
I saw the door move, and the snow drift in. I saw it move a little more, and a hand softly interpose to keep it open.
“I found out a English gentleman as was in authority,” said Mr. Peggotty, “and told him I was a going to seek my niece. He got me them papers as I wanted fur to carry me through—I doen’t rightly know how they’re called—and he would have give me money, but that I was thankful to have no need on. I thank him kind, for all he done, I’m sure! ‘I’ve wrote afore you,’ he says to me, ‘and I shall speak to many as will come that way, and many will know you, fur distant from here, when you’re a travelling alone.’ I told him, best as I was able, what my gratitoode was, and went away through France.”
“Alone, and on foot?” said I.
“Mostly a-foot,” he rejoined; “sometimes in carts along with people going to market; sometimes in empty coaches. Many mile a day a-foot, and often with some poor soldier or another, travelling to see his friends. I couldn’t talk to him,” said Mr. Peggotty, “nor he to me; but we was company for one another, too, along the dusty roads.”
I should have known that by his friendly tone.