 which he was free: for, knowing how assiduously she
attended on Mr. Barkis all day, I did not like to remain out late at night;
whereas Steerforth, lying at the Inn, had nothing to consult but his own humour.
Thus it came about, that I heard of his making little treats for the fishermen
at Mr. Peggotty's house of call, The Willing Mind, after I was in bed, and of
his being afloat, wrapped in fishermen's clothes, whole moonlight nights, and
coming back when the morning tide was at flood. By this time, however, I knew
that his restless nature and bold spirits delighted to find a vent in rough toil
and hard weather, as in any other means of excitement that presented itself
freshly to him; so none of his proceedings surprised me.
    Another cause of our being sometimes apart was, that I had naturally an
interest in going over to Blunderstone, and revisiting the old familiar scenes
of my childhood; while Steerforth, after being there once, had naturally no
great interest in going there again. Hence, on three or four days that I can at
once recall, we went our several ways after an early breakfast, and met again at
a late dinner. I had no idea how he employed his time in the interval, beyond a
general knowledge that he was very popular in the place, and had twenty means of
actively diverting himself where another man might not have found one.
    For my own part, my occupation in my solitary pilgrimages was to recall
every yard of the old road as I went along it, and to haunt the old spots, of
which I never tired. I haunted them, as my memory had often done, and lingered
among them as my younger thoughts had lingered when I was far away. The grave
beneath the tree, where both my parents lay - on which I had looked out, when it
was my father's only, with such curious feelings of compassion, and by which I
had stood, so desolate, when it was opened to receive my pretty mother and her
baby - the grave which Peggotty's own faithful care had ever since kept neat,
and made a garden of, I walked near, by the hour. It lay a little off the
churchyard path, in a quiet corner, not so far removed but I could read the
names upon the stone as I walked to and fro, startled by the sound of the
church-bell when it struck the hour, for it was like a departed voice to me. My
reflections at these
