‘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 fust know’d