I looked for Peggotty, but it was not she; neither she nor Mr. Murdstone appeared. My former acquaintance, the carrier, was at the door; the box was taken out to his cart and lifted in.
"Clara!" said Miss Murdstone, in her warning note.
"Yes, my dear Jane," returned my mother. "Good-bye, Davy. You are going for your own good. Good-bye, my child. You will come home in the holidays, and be a better boy. God bless you!"
Miss Murdstone was good enough to take me out to the cart, and to say on the way that she hoped I would repent, before I came to a bad end; and then I got into the cart, and the lazy horse walked off with it.
We had not gone half a mile when I was astonished to see Peggotty burst from a hedge and climb into the cart. Not a word did she say, but she squeezed me tight, crammed a bag of cakes into my pockets, and put a purse into my hand. After a final squeeze she got down from the cart and ran away as quickly as she had come.
My pocket-handkerchief was now so wet that the carrier proposed spreading it out upon the horse's back to dry. We did so, and I then had leisure to look at the purse. It had three bright shillings in it from Peggotty, and—more precious still—two half-crowns folded together in a bit of paper, on which was written, in my mother's hand, "For Davy. With my love."
I was so overcome by this that I asked the carrier to reach me my handkerchief again, but he said I had better let it dry first. I thought so too, and wiped my eyes on my sleeve this time.
Then the cakes came in for consideration. I offered the carrier one which he ate at a gulp, without the slightest change of expression.
"Did she make 'em?" asked the carrier, whose name, by the way, was Barkis.
"Peggotty, you mean, sir?"