felt that he would make his way,
establish a good name, and be beloved, go where he would.

Even the children were instructed, each to dip a wooden spoon into Mr.
Micawber's pot, and pledge us in its contents. When this was done, my
aunt and Agnes rose, and parted from the emigrants. It was a sorrowful
farewell. They were all crying; the children hung about Agnes to the
last; and we left poor Mrs. Micawber in a very distressed condition,
sobbing and weeping by a dim candle, that must have made the room look,
from the river, like a miserable light-house.

I went down again next morning to see that they were away. They had
departed, in a boat, as early as five o'clock. It was a wonderful
instance to me of the gap such partings make, that although my
association of them with the tumble-down public-house and the wooden
stairs dated only from last night, both seemed dreary and deserted, now
that they were gone.

In the afternoon of the next day, my old nurse and I went down to
Gravesend. We found the ship in the river, surrounded by a crowd
of boats; a favourable wind blowing; the signal for sailing at her
mast-head. I hired a boat directly, and we put off to her; and getting
through the little vortex of confusion of which she was the centre, went
on board.

Mr. Peggotty was waiting for us on deck. He told me that Mr. Micawber
had just now been arrested again (and for the last time) at the suit of
Heep, and that, in compliance with a request I had made to him, he had
paid the money, which I repaid him. He then took us down between decks;
and there, any lingering fears I had of his having heard any rumours of
what had happened, were dispelled by Mr. Micawber's coming out of the
gloom, taking his arm with an air of friendship and protection, and
telling me that they had scarcely been asunder for a moment, since the
night before last.

It was such a strange scene to me, and so confined and dark, that, at
first, I could make out hardly anything; but, by degrees, it cleared, as
my eyes became more accustomed to the gloom, and I seemed to stand in
a picture by OSTADE. Among the great beams, bulks, and ringbolts of the
ship, and the emigrant-berths, and chests, and bundles, and barrels, and
heaps of miscellaneous baggage--'lighted up, here and there, by dangling
lanterns; and elsewhere by the yellow daylight straying down a windsail
or a hatchway--were crowded groups of people, making new friendships,
taking leave of one anot