s present work, and go and
live along with my sister. The old boat yonder--'

'Will you desert the old boat, Mr. Peggotty?' I gently interposed.

'My station, Mas'r Davy,' he returned, 'ain't there no longer; and if
ever a boat foundered, since there was darkness on the face of the deep,
that one's gone down. But no, sir, no; I doen't mean as it should be
deserted. Fur from that.'

We walked again for a while, as before, until he explained:

'My wishes is, sir, as it shall look, day and night, winter and summer,
as it has always looked, since she fust know'd it. If ever she should
come a wandering back, I wouldn't have the old place seem to cast her
off, you understand, but seem to tempt her to draw nigher to 't, and to
peep in, maybe, like a ghost, out of the wind and rain, through the old
winder, at the old seat by the fire. Then, maybe, Mas'r Davy, seein'
none but Missis Gummidge there, she might take heart to creep in,
trembling; and might come to be laid down in her old bed, and rest her
weary head where it was once so gay.'

I could not speak to him in reply, though I tried.

'Every night,' said Mr. Peggotty, 'as reg'lar as the night comes, the
candle must be stood in its old pane of glass, that if ever she should
see it, it may seem to say "Come back, my child, come back!" If ever
there's a knock, Ham (partic'ler a soft knock), arter dark, at your
aunt's door, doen't you go nigh it. Let it be her--not you--that sees my
fallen child!'

He walked a little in front of us, and kept before us for some minutes.
During this interval, I glanced at Ham again, and observing the same
expression on his face, and his eyes still directed to the distant
light, I touched his arm.

Twice I called him by his name, in the tone in which I might have tried
to rouse a sleeper, before he heeded me. When I at last inquired on what
his thoughts were so bent, he replied:

'On what's afore me, Mas'r Davy; and over yon.' 'On the life before you,
do you mean?' He had pointed confusedly out to sea.

'Ay, Mas'r Davy. I doen't rightly know how 'tis, but from over yon there
seemed to me to come--the end of it like,' looking at me as if he were
waking, but with the same determined face.

'What end?' I asked, possessed by my former fear.

'I doen't know,'he said, thoughtfully; 'I was calling to mind that the
beginning of it all did take place here--and then the end come. But it's
gone! Mas'r Davy,' he added; answering, as I think, my