had all three walked a little while in silence, "of what we ought and. doen't ought to do. But we see our course now."
I happened to glance at Ham, then looking out to sea upon the distant light, and a frightful thought came into my mind—not that his face was angry, for it was not; I recal nothing but an expression of stern determination in it—that if ever he encountered Steerforth, he would kill him.
"My dooty here, sir," said Mr. Peggotty, "is done. I'm a going to seek my—" he stopped, and went on in a firmer voice: "I'm a going to seek her. That's my dooty evermore."
He shook his head when I asked him where he would seek her, and inquired if I were going to London to-morrow? I told him I had not gone to-day, fearing to lose the chance of being of any service to him; but that I was ready to go when he would.
"I'll go along with you, sir," he rejoined, "if you're agreeable, to-morrow."
We walked again, for a while, in silence.
"Ham," he presently resumed, "he'll hold to his 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 first 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.
