David Copperfield’s first visit to Yarmouth is both a child’s eagerly anticipated excursion and, in retrospect, a farewell to the home he does not yet know he is leaving for good. The fortnight brings him into the close-knit household of Daniel Peggotty and gives lasting form to his childhood attachment to Emily; its scenes remain among the memories through which the adult narrator understands love, separation, and the force of place.

The Journey from Home

The visit is arranged while Clara Peggotty is staying with Mrs. Grayper, who is expecting company. David’s mother readily agrees that he can accompany Clara Peggotty to Yarmouth, and his board and lodging are arranged. The prospect fills him with impatience: he is so eager for the morning departure that he imagines a great natural upheaval might prevent it. They are to travel in a carrier’s cart after breakfast, and he would gladly have gone to bed already dressed for the journey.

The departure is more tender than the excited child expects. At the gate, his mother kisses him, and he cries; she cries too, and David feels her heart beating against his. As the cart starts, she runs after it to ask for one more kiss. The adult narrator recalls these gestures with gratitude, while recognizing the irony that David then believes he is simply going away for a visit. He does not understand what he is leaving behind. Edward Murdstone comes up to David’s mother and appears to remonstrate with her for being so moved. David looks back, puzzled by his interference, while Clara Peggotty’s expression shows her displeasure.

Arrival and the Boat-House

After a slow journey, delayed by detours and deliveries, David first finds Yarmouth low and flat beside the sea. He thinks the land and tide are unpleasantly mixed together and supposes a mound might improve the view. Clara Peggotty counters his judgment with pride in her home town. Once they enter the streets, the smells of fish, pitch, oakum, and tar, the sailors, and the carts moving over the stones revise his first impression: what seemed bleak from a distance proves busy and compelling at close quarters.

Ham Peggotty meets them at a public-house and carries David on his back. Now a broad, strong man, he still has what David describes as a boyish face. Ham and Clara Peggotty carry the small boxes as they walk past gasworks, rope-walks, boatyards, shipwrights, ship-breakers, and forges, out toward the open waste. Their destination is Daniel Peggotty’s converted boat-house. Its appeal to David lies precisely in its unlikely transformation: a real boat, once made to go on the water, has become a home on dry land.

Inside, its plain furnishings make a vivid impression. David notices the table, Dutch clock, chest of drawers, and a painted tea-tray kept from falling by a Bible. Coloured pictures of scriptural scenes hang on the walls, while a model of the Sarah Jane lugger combines a painted image with a small wooden stern. His bedroom occupies the vessel’s stern, where a little window marks the place the rudder once passed through. A shell-framed mirror, a small bed, seaweed in a blue mug, whitewashed walls, and a bright patchwork counterpane make the cramped space seem to him exceptionally desirable. Even the searching smell of fish belongs to the reality of this home: Daniel Peggotty deals in lobsters, crabs, and crawfish, kept in an outhouse with the household’s pots and kettles.

The Household and the Fortnight

Daniel Peggotty’s household receives David warmly. A civil woman in a white apron and a beautiful little girl with blue beads greet the visitors; after dinner, Daniel Peggotty arrives and welcomes David into the home. The child is especially drawn to the little girl, Emily, though she runs away when he offers to kiss her. The household’s affection and its practical, shared life make the boat-house more than an unusual dwelling: for the duration of the visit it is a place where David is welcomed and included.

The fortnight follows the household’s working rhythms. The changing tide determines when Daniel Peggotty goes out and comes home, and also affects Ham’s engagements. When Ham is free, he walks with David to see boats and ships, and sometimes takes him rowing. These ordinary excursions become inseparable from the place in David’s later recollection. He particularly associates Yarmouth with a Sunday morning on the beach: church bells ring, Emily leans on his shoulder, Ham drops stones lazily into the water, and the sun breaks through mist over the ships. The scene’s quietness contrasts with the bustle of the town and becomes a distinct, enduring childhood impression.

Parting and Lasting Memory

When the visit ends, David can bear leaving Daniel Peggotty and Mrs. Gummidge, but finds separation from Emily piercing. He walks with her arm in arm to the public-house where the carrier stops and promises to write. The two are overcome at parting; David remembers the separation as leaving an emptiness in his heart. The promise becomes one small expression of a bond formed during the visit, while the pain of leaving gives the happy fortnight its first note of loss.

The journey home also turns his attention back to his mother. Although he had thought little of home while away, as soon as the cart turns toward it he feels that it is his nest and that his mother is his comforter and friend. His eagerness to see her grows as familiar places come into view, though Clara Peggotty seems confused and tries kindly to restrain his excitement. In the adult narrator’s account, the first visit thus holds two attachments in tension: the comfort of returning to his mother and the newly discovered world of Daniel Peggotty’s family. Its remembered beach, boat-house, and parting with Emily make Yarmouth a place that persists in memory beyond the fortnight itself.