fterwards followed him, I hired a little room in the
neighbourhood of that institution.

Mr. Micawber was in due time released under the Insolvent Debtors' Act,
and it was decided that he should go down to Plymouth, where Mrs.
Micawber held that her family had influence.

My own mind was now made up. I had resolved to run away--to go by some
means or other down into the country, to the only relation I had in the
world, and tell my story to my aunt, Miss Betsey. I knew from Peggotty
that Miss Betsey lived near Dover, but whether at Dover itself, at
Hythe, Sandgate, or Folkstone, she could not say. One of our men,
however, informing me on my asking him about these places that they were
all close together, I deemed this enough for my object; and after seeing
the Micawbers off at the coach office, I set off.

_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 y