III.--My Aunt Provides for Me
It was on the sixth day of my flight that I reached the wide downs near Dover and set foot in the town.
I had walked every step of the way, sleeping under haystacks at night. Fortunately, it was summer weather, for I was obliged to part with coat and waistcoat to buy food. My shoes were in a woeful condition, and my hat--which had served me for a nightcap, too--was so crushed and bent that no old battered saucepan on the dunghill need have been ashamed to vie with it. My shirt and trousers, stained with heat, dew, grass, and the Kentish soil on which I had slept, might have frightened the birds from my aunt's garden as I stood at the gate. My hair had known no comb or brush since I left London. In this plight I waited to introduce myself to my formidable aunt.
As I stood there, a lady came out of the house, with a handkerchief over her cap, a pair of gardening gloves on her hands and carrying a great knife. I was sure she must be Miss Betsey from her walk, for my mother had often described the way my aunt came to the house when I was born.
"Go away!" said Miss Betsey, shaking her head. "Go along! No boys here!"
I watched her as she marched to a corner of the garden, and then, in desperation, I went softly and stood beside her.
"If you please, ma'am--if you please, aunt, I am your nephew."
"Oh, Lord!" said my aunt, and sat flat down in the garden path.
"I am David Copperfield, of Blunderstone, in Suffolk, where you came when I was born. I have been very unhappy since my mother died. I have been taught nothing and put to work not fit for me. It made me run away to you, and I have walked all the way, and have never slept in bed since I began the journey."
Here my self-support gave way all at once, and I broke into a passion of crying.