 11 At the appointed time I return to Miss Havishams and my hesitating ring at the gate brought out Estella. She locked it after admitting me, as she had done before, and again preceded me into the dark passage where her candle stood. She took no notice of me until she had the candle in her hand. When she looked over her shoulder, superciliously saying, You were to come this way to-day, and took me to quite another part of the house. The passage was a long one, and seemed to pervade the whole square basement of the manor house. We traversed but one side of the square, however, and at the end of it she stopped and put her candle down and opened a door. Here the daylight reappeared, and I found myself in a small paved courtyard, the opposite side of which was formed by a detached dwelling-house that looked as if it had once belonged to the manager or head clerk of the extinct brewery. There was a clock in the outer wall of this house, like the clock in Miss Havisham's room, and like Miss Havisham's watch, it had stopped at twenty minutes to nine. We went in the door which stood open and into a gloomy room with a low ceiling on the ground floor at the back. There was some company in the room, and Estella said to me as she joined it, You are to go and stand there, boy, till you are wanted. There, seeing the window, I crossed to it and stood there, in a very uncomfortable state of mind looking out. It opened to the ground and looked into a most miserable corner of the neglected garden upon a rank ruin of cabbage stalks and one box-tree that had been clipped round long ago like a pudding and had a new growth at the top of it, out of shape and of a different color, as if that part of the pudding had stuck to the saucepan and got burnt. This was my homely thought as I contemplated the box-tree. There had been some light snow overnight, and it lay nowhere else to my knowledge, but it had not quite melted from the cold shadow of this bit of garden, and the wind caught it up in little eddies and threw it at the window, as if it pelted me for coming there. I divined that my coming had stopped conversation in the room, and that its other occupants were looking at me. I could see nothing of the room except the shining of the fire in the window glass, but I stiffened in all my joints with the consciousness that I was under close inspection. There were three ladies in the room and one gentleman. Before I had been standing at the window five minutes, they somehow conveyed to me that they were all toadies and humbugs, but that each of them pretended not to know that the others were toadies and humbugs, because the admission that he or she did know it would have made him or her out to be a toadie and humbug. They all had a listless and dreary air of waiting somebody's pleasure, and the most talkative of the ladies had to speak quite rigidly to repress a yawn. This lady, whose name was Camilla, very much reminded me of my sister, with the difference that she was older, and, as I found out when I caught sight of her, of a blunter cast of features. Indeed, when I knew her better I began to think it was a mercy she had any features at all, so very blank and high was the dead wall of her face. Paul to her soul, said this lady, with an abruptness of manner quite my sister's. Nobody's enemy but his own. It would be much more commendable to be somebody else's enemy, said the gentleman, far more natural. Cousin Raymond, observed another lady, we are to love our neighbor. Sarah pocket, returned Cousin Raymond, if a man is not his own neighbor, who is? Miss pocket laughed, and Camilla laughed and said, checking a yawn, the idea. But I thought they seemed to think it rather a good idea, too. The other lady, who had not spoken yet, said gravely and emphatically, very true. Poor soul, Camilla presently went on. I knew they had all been looking at me in the meantime. He is so very strange. Would anyone believe that when Tom's wife died he actually could not be induced to see the importance of the children's having the deepest of trimmings in their mourning? Good Lord, says he, Camilla, what can it signify so long as the poor bereaved little things are in black? So like Matthew, the idea. Good points in him, good points in him, said Cousin Raymond. Heaven forbid I should deny good points in him, but he never had, and he never will have any sense of the proprieties. You know I was obliged, said Camilla. I was obliged to be firm. I said, it will not do for the credit of the family. I told him that, without deep trimmings, the family was disgraced. I cried about it from breakfast till dinner. I injured my digestion, and at last he flung out in his violent way and said with a D, then do as you like. Thank goodness it will always be a consolation to me to know that I instantly went out in a pouring rain and bought the things. He paid for them, did he not? asked Estella. It's not the question, my dear child, who paid for them, returned Camilla. I bought them, and I shall often think of that with peace when I wake up in the night. The ringing of a distant bell, combined with the echoing of some cry or call along the passage by which I had come, interrupted the conversation and caused Estella to say to me, Now, boy, on my turning round they all looked at me with the utmost contempt, and as I went out I heard Sarah Pockett say, Well, I am sure, what next? and Camilla add with indignation, Was there ever such a fancy the idea? As we were going with our candle along the dark passage, Estella stopped all of a sudden and facing round, sad in her taunting manner, with her face quite close to mine. Well, Miss, I answered, almost falling over her and checking myself. She stood looking at me, and of course I stood looking at her. Am I pretty? Yes, I think you are very pretty. Am I insulting? Not so much so as you were last time, said I. Not so much so? No. She fired when she asked the last question and she slapped my face with such force as she had when I answered it. Now, said she, You little coarse monster, what do you think of me now? I shall not tell you. Because you are going to tell upstairs, is that it? No, said I. That's not it. Why don't you cry again, you little wretch? Because I'll never cry for you again, said I, which was, I suppose, as false a declaration as ever was made, for I was inwardly crying for her then, and I know what I know of the pain she cost me afterwards. We went on our way upstairs after this episode, and as we were going up we met a gentleman groping his way down. Home have we here? asked the gentleman, stopping and looking at me. A boy, said Estella. He was a burly man of an exceedingly dark complexion with an exceedingly large head and a corresponding large hand. He took my chin in his large hand and turned up my face to have a look at me by the light of the candle. He was prematurely bald on the top of his head and had bushy black eyebrows that wouldn't lie down, but stood up bristling. His eyes were set very deep in his head and were disagreeably sharp and suspicious. He had a large watch-chain and strong black dots where his beard and whiskers would have been if he had let them. It was nothing to me, and I could have had no foresight then that he ever would be anything to me. But it happened that I had this opportunity of observing him well. Boy of the neighborhood, hey? said he. Yes, sir, said I. How do you come here? Miss Havisham sent for me, sir, I explained. Well, behave yourself. I have a pretty large experience of boys on your pad set of fellows. Now mind, said he, biting the side of his great forefinger as he frowned at me, you behave yourself. With these words he released me, which I was glad of for his hand-smelt of scented soap, and went his way downstairs. I wondered whether he could be a doctor. But no, I thought he couldn't be a doctor, or he would have a quieter and more persuasive manner. There was not much time to consider the subject, for we were soon in Miss Havisham's room, where she and everything else were just as I had left them. Miss Havisham left me standing near the door, and I stood there until Miss Havisham cast her eyes upon me from the dressing-table. So, she said, without being startled or surprised, the days have worn away, have they? Yes, ma'am, today is there, there, there. With the impatient movement of her fingers, I don't want to know. Are you ready to play? I was obliged to answer in some confusion. I don't think I am, ma'am. Not at cards again! She demanded, with a searching look. Yes, ma'am, I could do that, if I was wanted. Since this house strikes you old and grave boy, said Miss Havisham impatiently, and you are unwilling to play, are you willing to work? I could answer this inquiry with a better heart than I had been able to find for the other question, and I said I was quite willing. Then go into that opposite room, said she, pointing at the door behind me with her withered hand, and wait there till I come. I crossed the staircase landing, and entered the room she indicated. From that room, too, the daylight was completely excluded, and it had an airless smell that was oppressive. A fire had been lately kindled in the damp, old-fashioned grate, and it was more disposed to go out than to burn up, and the reluctant smoke which hung in the room seemed colder than the clearer air, like her own marsh mist. Certain wintry branches of candles on the high chimney-piece faintly lighted the chamber, or it would be more expressive to say faintly troubled its darkness. It was spacious, and I dare say had once been handsome, but every discernible thing in it was covered with dust and mold and dropping to pieces. The most prominent object was a long table with a tablecloth spread on it, as if a feast had been in preparation when the house and the clocks all stopped together. And a pern or centerpiece of some kind was in the middle of this cloth. It was so heavily overhung with cobwebs that its form was quite indistinguishable, and as I looked along the yellow expanse out of which I remember it seeming to grow, like a black fungus, I saw speckled-legged spiders with blotchy bodies running home to it and running out from it, as if some circumstances of the greatest public importance had just transpired in the spider community. I heard the mice, too, rattling behind the panels, as if the same occurrence were important to their interests. But the black beetles took no notice of the agitation, and groped about the hearth in a ponderous, elderly way, as if they were short-sighted and hard of hearing, and not on terms with one another. These crawling things had fascinated my attention, and I was watching them from a distance when Miss Havasham laid a hand upon my shoulder. On her other hand she had a crutch-headed stick on which she leaned, and she looked like the witch of the place. "'This,' said she, pointing to the long table with her stick, "'is where I will be laid when I am dead. They shall come and look at me here.' With some vague misgiving that she might get upon the table then and there, and die at once, the complete realization of the ghastly waxwork at the fair, I shrank under her touch. "'What do you think that is?' she asked me, again pointing with her stick. "'That, where those cobwebs are?' "'I can't guess what it is, ma'am. "'It's a great cake, a bright cake. Mine!' She looked all round the room in a glaring manner, and then said, leaning on me while her hand twitched my shoulder, "'Come, come, come. Walk me. Walk me!' I made out from this that the work I had to do was to walk Miss Havasham round and round the room. Accordingly I started at once, and she leaned upon my shoulder, and we went away at a pace that might have been an imitation, founded on my first impulse under that roof, of Mr. Pumblechook's Shezkart. She was not physically strong, and after a little time said, "'Slower!' Still we went at an impatient, fitful speed, and as we went she twitched the hand upon my shoulder and worked her mouth, and led me to believe that we were going fast because her thoughts went fast. After a while she said, "'Call Estela!' So I went out on the landing and roared that name as I had done on the previous occasion. When her light appeared I returned to Miss Havasham, and we started away again round and round the room. If only Estela had come to be a spectator of our proceedings I should have felt sufficiently discontented, but as she brought with her the three ladies and the gentleman whom I had seen below I didn't know what to do. In my politeness I would have stopped, but Miss Havasham twitched my shoulder and we posted on, with a shame-faced consciousness on my part that they would think it was all my doing. "'Dear Miss Havasham,' said Miss Sarah Pocket, "'how will you look?' "'I do not,' returned Miss Havasham. "'I am yellow skin and bone.' Camilla brightened when Miss Pocket met with this rebuff, and she murmured as she plaintively contemplated Miss Havasham, "'Portious soul! Certainly not to be expected to look well, poor thing! The idea!' "'And how are you?' said Miss Havasham to Camilla. As we were close to Camilla then I would have stopped as a matter of course. Only Miss Havasham wouldn't stop. We swept on, and I felt that I was highly obnoxious to Camilla. "'Thank you, Miss Havasham,' she returned, "'I am as well as can be expected.' "'Why, what's the matter with you?' asked Miss Havasham, with exceeding sharpness. "'Nothing worth mentioning,' replied Camilla. "'I don't wish to make a display of my feelings, but I have habitually thought of you more in the night than I'm quite equal to.' "'Then don't think of me,' retorted Miss Havasham. "'Very easily said,' remarked Camilla, amiably repressing a sob, while a hitch came into her upper lip and her tears overflowed. "'Ramen, do you witness what ginger and salvolatile I'm obliged to take in the night? Raymond, do you witness what nervous jerkings I have in my legs? Chokings and nervous jerkings, however, are nothing new to me when I think with anxiety of those I love. If I could be less affectionate and sensitive, I should have a better digestion and iron set of nerves. I am sure I wish it could be so. But as to not thinking of you in the night—the idea—hear a burst of tears.' The Raymond referred to, I understood to be the gentleman present, and him I understood to be Mr. Camilla. He came to the rescue at this point, and said in a consolatory and complementary voice, "'Camilla, my dear, it is well known that your family feelings are gradually undermining you, to the extent of making one of your legs shorter than the other. I am not aware,' observed the grave-lady, whose voice I had heard, but once, that to think of any person is to make a great claim upon that person, my dear.' Miss Sarah Pocket, whom I now saw to be a little dry, brown, corrugated old woman, with a small face that might have been made of wallet-shells, and a large mouth like a cat's, without the whiskers, supported this position by saying, "'No, indeed, my dear, hen!' "'Thinking is easy enough,' said the grave-lady. "'What is easier, you know?' Ascented Miss Sarah Pocket. "'Oh, yes, yes!' cried Camilla, whose fermenting feelings appeared to rise from her legs to her bosom. "'It's all very true. It's a weakness to be so affectionate, but I can't help it. No doubt my health would be much better if it were otherwise. Still I wouldn't change my disposition if I could. It's the cause of much suffering, but it's a consolation to know I possess it when I wake up in the night.' Here another burst of feeling. Miss Havisham and I had never stopped all this time, and kept going round and round the room, now brushing against the skirts of the visitors, now giving them the whole length of the dismal chamber. "'There's Matthew,' said Camilla. "'Never mixing with any natural ties, never coming here to see how Miss Havisham is. I have taken to the sofa with my staleys cut, and have lain their hours insensible with my head over the side, and my hair all down, and my feet I don't know where.' Much higher than your head, my love,' said Mr. Camilla. "'I have gone off into that state hours and hours on account of Matthew's strange and inexplicable conduct, and nobody has thanked me.' "'Really, I must say, I should think not,' interposed the grave-lady.' "'You see, my dear,' added Miss Sarah-Pocket, a blamely vicious personage, the question to put to yourself is, "'Who do you expect to thank you, my love?' "'Without expecting any thanks or anything of the sort,' resumed Camilla, "'I have remained in that state hours and hours, and Raymond is a witness of the extent to which I have choked, and what they totaled in efficacy of ginger has been, and I have been heard at the Piano Forte tuners across the street, where the poor mistaken children have even supposed it to be pigeons cooing at a distance. "'And now to be told!' Here Camilla put her hand to her throat, and began to be quite chemical as to the formation of new combinations there. When this same Matthew was mentioned, Miss Havisham stopped me and herself, and stood looking at the speaker. This change had a great influence in bringing Camilla's chemistry to a sudden end. "'Matthew will come and see me at last,' said Miss Havisham sternly. "'When I am laid on that table, that will be his place there,' striking the table with her stick, "'at my head, and yours will be there, and your husband's there, and Sarah-Pocket's there, and Georgiana's there. "'Now you all know where to take your stations when you come to feast upon me. And now go!' At the mention of each name she had struck the table with her stick in a new place. She now said, "'Walk me, walk me,' and we went on again. "'I suppose there's nothing to be done,' exclaimed Camilla, but comply and depart. "'There's something to have seen the object of one's love and duty for even a shorter time. I shall think of it with a melancholy satisfaction when I wake up in the night. I wish Matthew could have that comfort, but he sets it at defiance. I am determined not to make a display of my feelings, but it's very hard to be told one wants to feast on one's relations, as if one was a giant, and to be told to go, the bear idea.' After Camilla interposing, as Mrs. Camilla laid her hands upon her heaving bosom, that lady assumed an unnatural fortitude of manner which I suppose to be expressive of an intention to drop and choke when out of view, and kissing her hand to Miss Havasham was escorted forth. Sarah-Pocket and Georgiana contended who shall remain last, but Sarah was too knowing to be outdone, and ambled round Georgiana with that artful slipperiness that the latter was obliged to take precedence. Sarah-Pocket then made her separate effect of departing with, "'Bless you, Miss Havasham, dear!' and with a smile of forgiving pity on her walnut-shell countenance for the weaknesses of the rest. While Estella was away lighting them down, Miss Havasham still walked with her hand on my shoulder, but more and more slowly. At last she stopped before the fire and said, after muttering and looking at it some seconds, "'This is my birthday, peep!' I was going to wish her many happy returns when she lifted her stick. "'I don't suffer it to be spoken of. I don't suffer those who were here just now, or anyone, to speak of it. They come here all the day, but they dare not refer to it. Of course I made no further effort to refer to it. On this day of the year, long before you were born, this heap of decay, stabbing with her crutched stick at the pile of cobwebs on the table, but not touching it, was brought here. It and I have worn away together. The mice have gnawed at it, and sharper teeth than teeth of mice have gnawed at me.' She held the head of her stick against her heart as she stood looking at the table. She and her once-white dress all yellow and withered. The once-white cloth all yellow and withered. Everything around in a state to crumble under a touch. "'When the ruin is complete,' said she, with a ghastly look, and when they lay me dead in my bride's dress on the bride's table, which shall be done, and which will be the finished curse upon him, so much the better if it is done on this day.' She stood looking at the table as if she stood looking at her own figure lying there. I remained quiet. Estella returned, and she too remained quiet. It seemed to me that we continued thus for a long time. In the heavy air of the room, and the heavy darkness that brooded in its remote corners, I even had an alarming fancy that Estella and I might presently begin to decay. At length, not coming out of her distraught state by degrees, but in an instant, Miss Abisham said, "'Let me see you two pay cards. Why have you not begun?' With that we returned to her room and sat down as before. I was beggared as before, and again as before Miss Abisham watched us all the time, directing my attention to Estella's beauty, and made me notice it the more by trying her jewels on Estella's breast and hair. Estella, for her part, likewise treated me as before, except that she did not condescend to speak. When we had played some half-dozen games, a day was appointed for my return, and I was taken down into the yard to be fed in the former dog-like manner. There too I was again left to wander about as I liked. It is not much to the purpose whether a gate in that garden wall which I had scrambled up to peep over on the last occasion was, on that last occasion, open or shut. Enough that I saw no gate then, and that I saw one now. As it stood open, and as I knew that Estella had let the visitors out, for she had returned with the keys in her hand, I strolled into the garden and strolled all over it. It was quite a wilderness, and there were old melon frames and cucumber frames in it, which seemed in their decline to have produced a spontaneous growth of weak attempts at pieces of old hats and boots, would now and then a weedy offshoot into the likeness of a battered saucepan. When I had exhausted the garden, and a greenhouse with nothing in it but a fallen-down grapevine and some bottles, I found myself in the dismal corner upon which I had looked out of the window. After questioning for a moment that the house was now empty, I looked in at another window and found myself, to my great surprise, exchanging a broad stare with a pale young gentleman with red eyelids and light hair. This pale young gentleman quickly disappeared and reappeared beside me. He had been in his books when I had found myself staring at him, and I now saw that he was inky. Hello! said he, young fellow. Hello! being a general observation, which I had usually observed to be best answered by itself, I said, hello! politely omitting young fellow. Who let you in? said he. Miss Estella? Who gave you leave to prowl about? Miss Estella? Come and fight! said the pale young gentleman. What could I do but follow him? I have often asked myself the question since, but what else could I do? His manner was so final, and I was so astonished that I followed where he led as if I had been under a spell. Stop a minute, though! He said, wheeling round before we had gone many paces. I ought to give you a reason for fighting, too. There it is! In a most irritating manner he instantly slapped his hands against one another, daintily flung one of his legs up behind him, pulled my hair, slapped his hands again, dipped his head and butted it into my stomach. The bull-like proceedings last mentioned, besides that it was unquestionably to be regarded in the light of a liberty, was particularly disagreeable just after bread and meat. I therefore hid out at him and was going to hid out again when he said, Aha! would you! And began dancing backwards and forwards in a manner quite unparalleled within my limited experience. Laws of the game, said he. Here he skipped from his left leg on to his right. Regular rules. Here he skipped from his right leg on to his left. Come to the ground and go through the preliminaries. Here he dodged backwards and forwards and did all sorts of things while I looked helplessly at him. I was secretly afraid of him when I saw him so dexterous, but I felt morally and physically convinced that his light-head of hair could have had no business in the pit of my stomach, and that I had a right to consider it irrelevant when so obtruded all my attention. Therefore I followed him without a word to a retired nook of the garden formed by the junction of two walls and screened by some rubbish. On his asking me if I was satisfied with the ground and all my replying yes, he begged my leave to absent himself for a moment and quickly returned with a bottle of water and a sponge dipped in vinegar. Available for both, he said, placing these against the wall, and then fell to pulling off not only his jacket and waistcoat, but his shirt too, in a manner at once light-hearted, business-like, and blood-thirsty. Although he did not look very healthy, having pimples on his face and a breaking out at his mouth, these dreadful preparations quite appalled me. I judged him to be about my own age, but he was much taller, and he had a way of spinning himself about that was full of appearance. For the rest he was a young gentleman in a gray suit, when not denuded for battle, with his elbows, knees, wrists, and heels considerably in advance of the rest of him as to development. My heart failed me when I saw him squaring at me with every demonstration of mechanical nicety, and eyeing my anatomy as if he were minutely choosing his bone. I never had been so surprised in my life, as I was when I let out the first blow, and saw him lying on his back, looking up at me with a bloody nose and his face exceedingly foreshortened. But he was on his feet directly, and after sponging himself with a great show of dexterity began squaring again. The second greatest surprise I have ever had in my life was seeing him on his back again, looking up at me out of a black eye. His spirit inspired me with great respect. He seemed to have no strength, and he never once hit me hard, and he was always knocked down, but he would be up again in a moment sponging himself or drinking out of the water bottle, with the greatest satisfaction in seconding himself according to form, and then came at me with an air and a show that made me believe he really was going to do for me at last. He got heavily bruised, for I am sorry to record that the more I hit him, the harder I hit him, but he came up again, and again, and again, until at last he got a bad fall with the back of his head against the wall. Even after that crisis in our affairs, he got up and turned round and round confusedly a few times, not knowing where I was, but finally went on his knees to his sponge and threw it up, at the same time panting out, �That means you have won!� He seemed so brave and innocent, that although I had not proposed the contest, I felt but a gloomy satisfaction in my victory. Indeed I go so far as to hope that I regarded myself while dressing as a species of savage young wolf or other wild beast. However I got dressed, darkly wiping my sanguinary face at intervals, and I said, �Can I help you?� And he said, �No, thank ye� And I said, �Good afternoon� And he said, �Same to you� When I got into the courtyard I found Estella waiting with the keys, but she neither asked me where I had been nor why I kept her waiting, and there was a bright flush upon her face, as though something had happened to delight her. Instead of going straight to the gate, too, she stepped back into the passage and beckoned me, �Come here. You may kiss me, if you like� I kissed her cheek as she turned it to me. I think I would have gone through a great deal to kiss her cheek, but I felt that the kiss was given to the coarse common-boy as a piece of money might have been, and that it was worth nothing. What with the birthday visitors, and what with the cards, and what with the fight, my stay had lasted so long that when I neared home the light on the spit of sand off the point on the marshes was gleaming against the black night sky, and Joe�s furnace was flinging a path of fire across the road. CHAPTER XII My mind grew very uneasy on the subject of the pale young gentleman. The more I thought of the fight, and recalled the pale young gentleman on his back in various stages of puffy and incrimson countenance, the more certain it appeared that something would be done to me. I felt that the pale young gentleman�s blood was on my head, and that the law would avenge it. But, without having any definite idea of the penalties I had incurred, it was clear to me that village boys could not go stalking about the country, ravaging the houses of gentle folks, and pitching into the studious youth of England, without laying themselves open to severe punishment. For some days I even kept close at home, and looked out at the kitchen door with the greatest caution and trepidation, before going on an errand, lest the officers of the county jail should pounce upon me. The pale young gentleman�s nose had stained my trousers, and I tried to wash out that evidence of my guilt in the dead of night. I had cut my knuckles against the pale young gentleman�s teeth, and I twisted my imagination into a thousand tangles, as I devised incredible ways of accounting for that damnatory circumstance when I should be hailed before the judges. When the day came round for my return to the scene of the deed of violence, my terrors reached their height. Whether myrmidons of justice, specially sent down from London, would be lying in ambush behind the gate, whether Ms. Havisham, preferring to take personal vengeance for an outrage done to her house, might rise in those grave-clothes of hers, draw a pistol, and shoot me dead, whether suborned boys, a numerous band of mercenaries, might be engaged to fall upon me in the brewery, and cuff me until I was no more. It was high testimony to my confidence in the spirit of the pale young gentleman that I never imagined him accessory to these retaliations. They always came into my mind as the acts of injudicious relatives of his, goaded on by the state of his visage and an indignant sympathy with the family features. However, going to Ms. Havisham's I must, and go I did. And behold! Nothing came of the late struggle. It was not alluded to in any way, and no pale young gentleman was to be discovered on the premises. I found the same gate open, and I explored the garden, and even looked in at the windows of the detached house, but my view was suddenly stopped by the closed shutters within, and all was lifeless. Only in the corner where the combat had taken place could I detect any evidence of the young gentleman's existence. There were traces of his gore in that spot, and I covered them with garden mold from the eye of man. On the broad landing between Ms. Havisham's own room, and that other room in which the long table was laid out, I saw a garden chair, a light chair on wheels that you pushed from behind. It had been placed there since my last visit, and I entered that same day on a regular occupation of pushing Ms. Havisham in this chair. When she was tired of walking with her hand upon my shoulder, round her own room, and across the landing, and round the other room. Over and over and over again we would make these journeys, and sometimes they would last as long as three hours at a stretch. I insensibly fall into a general mention of these journeys as numerous, because it was at once settled that I should return every alternate day at noon for these purposes, and because I am now going to sum up a period of at least eight or ten months. As we began to be more used to one another, Ms. Havisham talked more to me, and asked me such questions as what I had learnt, and what was I going to be. I told her I was going to be apprenticed to Joe, I believed, and I enlarged upon my knowing nothing and wanting to know everything, in the hope that she might offer some help towards that desirable end. But she did not, on the contrary, she seemed to prefer my being ignorant. Neither did she ever give me any money, or anything but my daily dinner, nor ever stipulate that I should be paid for my services. Estella was always about, and always let me in and out, but never told me I might kiss her again. Sometimes she would coldly tolerate me, sometimes she would condescend to me, sometimes she would be quite familiar with me, sometimes she would tell me energetically that she hated me. Ms. Havisham would often ask me in a whisper, or when we were alone, Does she grow prettier and prettier, Pip? And when I said yes, for indeed she did, would seem to enjoy it greedily. Also, when we played at cards, Ms. Havisham would look on, with a miserly relish of Estella's moods, whatever they were. And sometimes, when her moods were so many and so contradictory of one another that I was puzzled what to say or do, Ms. Havisham would embrace her with lavish fondness, murmuring something in her ear that sounded like Break their hearts my pride in hope, break their hearts and have no mercy. There was a song Joe used to hum fragments of at the forge, of which the burden was Old Clem. This was not a very ceremonious way of rendering homage to a patron saint, but I believe Old Clem stood in that relation towards Smith's. It was a song that imitated the measure of beating upon iron, and was a mere lyrical excuse for the introduction of Old Clem's respected name. Thus you were to hammer boys around, Old Clem, with a thump and a sound, Old Clem, beat it out, beat it out, Old Clem, with a click for the stout, Old Clem, blow the fire, blow the fire, Old Clem, roaring drier, soaring higher, Old Clem, one day soon after the appearance of the chair, Miss Havisham suddenly saying to me, with the impatient movements of her fingers, There, there, there, sing! I was surprised into crooning this diddy as I pushed her over the floor. It happened so to catch her fancy that she took it up in a low brooding voice as if she were singing in her sleep. After that it became customary with us to have it as we moved about, and Estella would often join in, though the whole strain was so subdued, even when there were three of us that it made less noise in the grim old house than the lightest breath of wind. What could I become with these surroundings? How could my character fail to be influenced by them? Is it to be wondered at if my thoughts were dazed, as my eyes were, when I came out into the natural light from the misty yellow rooms? Perhaps I might have told Joe about the pale young gentleman if I had not previously been betrayed into those enormous inventions to which I had confessed. Under the circumstances I felt that Joe could hardly fail to discern in the pale young gentleman an appropriate passenger to be put into the black velvet coach. Therefore I said nothing of him. Besides that shrinking from having Miss Havisham and Estella discussed, which had come upon me in the beginning, grew much more potent as time went on. I reposed complete confidence in no one but Biddy. But I told poor Biddy everything. Why it came natural to me to do so, and why Biddy had a deep concern in everything I told her, I did not know then, though I think I know now. Meanwhile, counsels went on in the kitchen at home, fraught with almost insupportable aggravation to my exaggerated spirit. That ass, pumble-chook, used often to come over of a night for the purpose of discussing my prospects with my sister. And I really do believe, to this hour with less penitence than I ought to feel, that if these hens could have taken a linchpin out of his shears-cart, they would have done it. The miserable man was a man of that confined stolidity of mind that he could not discuss my prospects without having me before him. As it were to operate upon, and he would drag me up from my stool, usually by the collar, when I was quiet in a corner, and putting me before the fire as if I were going to be cooked, would begin by saying, Now, mum, here is this boy. Here is this boy which you have brought up by hand. Hold up your head, boy, and be forever grateful unto them which so did do. Now, mum, with respections to this boy. And then he would rumple my hair the wrong way, which from my earliest remembrance, as already hinted, I have in my soul denied the right of any fellow creature to do, and would hold me before him by this sleeve, a spectacle of imbecility only to be equal by himself. Then he and my sister would pair off in such nonsensical speculations about Miss Havisham, and about what she would do with me and for me, that I used to want, quite painfully, to burst into spiteful tears, fly it, pumble-chook, and pummel him all over. In these dialogues my sister spoke to me as if she were morally wrenching one of my teeth out at every reference, while pumble-chook himself, self-constituted my patron, would sit supervising me with a depreciatory eye, like the architect of my fortunes who thought himself engaged on a very unremunerative job. In these discussions Joe bore no part, but he was often talked at, while they were in progress, by reason of Mrs. Joe's perceiving that he was not favourable to my being taken from the forge. I was fully old enough now to be apprenticed to Joe, and when Joe sat with a poker on his knees thoughtfully raking out the ashes between the lower bars, my sister would so distinctly construe that innocent action into opposition on his part that she would dive at him, take the poker out of his hands, shake him, and put it away. There was a most irritating end to every one of these debates. All in a moment, with nothing to lead up to it, my sister would stop herself in a yawn, and catching sight of me as if it were incidentally, would swoop upon me with, Come, there's enough of you! You get along to bed! You've given trouble enough for one night, I hope! And as if I had besought them as a favour to bother my life out! We went on in this way for a long time, and it seemed likely that we should continue to go on in this way for a long time, when one day Miss Havisham stopped short as she and I were walking, she leaning on my shoulder, and said with some displeasure, You are growing tall, Pip! I thought it best to hint, through the medium of a meditative look, that this might be occasioned by circumstances over which I had no control. She said no more at the time, but she presently stopped and looked at me again, and presently again, and after that looked frowning and moody. On the next day of my attendance, when our usual exercise was over, and I had landed her at her dressing-table, she stayed me with a movement of her impatient fingers. Tell me the name again of that blacksmith of yours! So gargoyle, ma'am, meaning the master you were to be apprenticed to? Yes, Miss Havisham. You had better be apprenticed at once. Would gargoyle come here with you, and bring your indentures, do you think? I signified that I had no doubt he would take it as an honour to be asked. Then let him come. At any particular time, Miss Havisham? There, there, I know nothing about times. Let him come soon, and come along with you. When I got home at night, and delivered this message for Joe, my sister went on the rampage in a more alarming degree than at any previous period. She asked me and Joe whether we suppose she was doormats under our feet, and how we dared to use her so, and what company we graciously thought she was fit for. When she had exhausted a torrent of such inquiries, she threw a candlestick at Joe, burst into a loud sobbing, got out the dustpan, which was always a very bad sign, put on her coarse apron, and began cleaning up to a terrible extent. Not satisfied with the dry cleaning, she took to a pail and scrubbing brush, and cleaned us out of house and home so that we stood shivering in the backyard. It was ten o'clock at night before we ventured to creep in again, and then she asked Joe why he hadn't married a niggra slave at once. Joe offered no answer, poor fellow, but stood feeling his whisker and looking dejectedly at me as if he thought it really might have been a better speculation. CHAPTER XIII It was a trial to my feelings on the next day but one, to see Joe arraying himself in his Sunday clothes to accompany me to Miss Habisham's. However, as he thought his court suit necessary to the occasion, it was not for me to tell him that he looked far better in his working dress, the rather, because I knew he made himself so dreadfully uncomfortable, entirely on my account, and that it was for me he pulled up his shirt collar so very high behind that it made the hair on the crown of his head stand up like a tuft of feathers. At breakfast time my sister declared her intention of going to town with us, and being left at Uncle Pumblechook's, and called for, when we had done with our fine ladies, a way of putting the case, from which Joe appeared inclined to auger the worst. The forge was shut up for the day, and Joe inscribed in chalk upon the door, as it was his custom to do on the very rare occasions when he was not at work, the monosyllable H-O-U-T. Accompanied by a sketch of an arrow supposed to be flying in the direction he had taken. We walked to town, my sister leading the way in a very large beaver bonnet, and carrying a basket like the great seal of England implated straw, a pair of patterns, a spare shawl, and an umbrella, though it was a fine bright day. I am not quite clear whether these articles were carried penitentially or ostentatiously, but I rather think they were displayed as articles of property, much as Cleopatra or any other sovereign lady on the rampage might exhibit her wealth in a pageant or procession. When we came to Pumblechook's my sister bounced in and left us. As it was almost noon, Joe and I held straight on to Miss Havisham's house. Estella opened the gate as usual, and the moment she appeared, Joe took his hat off and stood weighing it by the brim in both his hands, as if he had some urgent reason in his mind for being particular to half a quarter of an ounce. Estella took no notice of either of us, but led us the way that I knew so well. I followed next to her, and Joe came last. When I looked back at Joe in the long passage he was still weighing his hat with the greatest care, and was coming after us in long strides on the tips of his toes. Estella told me we were both to go in, so I took Joe by the coat-cuff and conducted him into Miss Havisham's presence. She was seated at her dressing-table, and looked round at us immediately. Oh! said she to Joe, you are the husband of the sister of this boy? I could hardly have imagined dear old Joe looking so unlike himself, or so like some extraordinary bird, standing as he did, speechless, with his tuft of feathers ruffled, and his mouth open as if he wanted to worm. You are the husband, repeated Miss Havisham, of the sister of this boy? It was very aggravating, but throughout the interview Joe persisted in addressing me instead of Miss Havisham. Which I mean to say, Pip, Joe now observed in a manner that was at once expressive of forcible argumentation, strict confidence, and great politeness. As I up and married your sister, and I were at the time what you might call, if you were anyways inclined, a single man. Well, said Miss Havisham, and you have reared the boy with the intention of taking him for your apprentice. Is that so, Mr. Gaggery? You know, Pip, replied Joe, as you and me were ever friends, and it were look forward to betwixt us, as being calculated to lead to larks. Not but what Pip, if you ever had made objections to the business, such as its being open to black and soot, and such like. Not but what they would have had been attended to, don't you see? Has the boy, said Miss Havisham, ever made any objection? Does he like the trade? Which it is well-beknown to yourself, Pip, returned Joe, strengthening his former mixture of argumentation, confidence, and politeness. That it were the wish of your own heart. I saw the idea suddenly break upon him that he would adapt his epitaph to the occasion before he went on to say, And there weren't no objection on your part, and Pip it were the great wish of your heart. It was quite in vain for me to endeavor to make him sensible that he ought to speak to Miss Havisham. The more I made faces and gestures to him to do it, the more confidential, argumentative, and polite he persisted in being to me. Have you brought his indentures with you? Asked Miss Havisham. Well, Pip, you know, replied Joe, as if that were a little unreasonable, you yourself seem he put them in my hat, and therefore you know as they are here, with which he took them out and gave them, not to Miss Havisham, but to me. I'm afraid I was ashamed of the dear good fellow. I know I was ashamed of him. When I saw that Estella stood at the back of Miss Havisham's chair and that her eyes laughed mischievously, I took the indentures out of his hand and gave them to Miss Havisham. You expected, said Miss Havisham, as she looked them over, no premium with the boy. Joe, I remonstrated, for he made no reply at all. Why don't you answer? Pip, returned Joe, cutting me short as if he were hurt, which I mean to say that were not a question requiring an answer betwixt yourself and me, and which you know the answer to be full well, no. You know it to be no, Pip, and wherefore should I say it? Miss Havisham glanced at him as if she understood what he really was better than I had thought possible, seeing what he was there, and took up a little bag from the table beside her. Pip has earned a premium here, she said, and here it is. There are five-inch-twenty guineas in this bag. Say it to your master, Pip. As if he were absolutely out of his mind with the wonder awakened in him by her strange figure and the strange room, Joe, even at this pass, persisted in addressing me. "'This is very liberal on your part, Pip,' said Joe, and it is as such received and grateful welcome, though never looked for, far nor near, nor know-wheres. And now, old chap,' said Joe, conveying to me a sensation, first of burning and then of freezing, for I felt as if that familiar expression were applied to Miss Havisham. "'And now, old chap, may we do our duty. May you and me do our duty, both on us, by one and another, and by them which are liberal present, have conveyed to be for the satisfaction of mind of them as never.' Here Joe showed that he felt he had fallen into frightful difficulties, until he triumphantly rescued himself with the words, and from myself be it. These words had had such a round and convincing sound for him that he said them twice. "'Good-bye, Pip,' said Miss Havisham. "'Let them out, Istela.' "'Am I to come again, Miss Havisham?' I asked. "'No. Gargary is your master now. Gargary, one word.' Thus calling him back as I went out of the door, I heard her say to Joe in a distinct emphatic voice, "'The boy has been a good boy here, and that is his reward. Of course, as an honest man you will expect no other, and no more.' How Joe got out of the room I have never been able to determine, but I know that when he did get out he was steadily proceeding upstairs instead of coming down, and was deaf to all remonstrances until I went after him and laid hold of him. In another minute we were outside the gate, and it was locked, and Istela was gone. When we stood in the daylight alone again Joe backed up against a wall and said to me, "'Astonishing!' And there he remained so long saying, Astonishing at intervals so often that I began to think his senses were never coming back. At length he prolonged his remark into, "'Pip, I do assure you this is astonishing!' And so by degrees became conversational and able to walk away. I have reason to think that Joe's intellects were brightened by the encounter they had passed through, and that on our way to Pumblechooks he invented a subtle and deep design. My reason is to be found in what took place in Mr. Pumblechook's parlor where, on our presenting ourselves, my sister sat in conference with that detested seedsman. "'Well,' cried my sister, addressing us both at once, "'and what's happened to you? I wonder you condescend to come back to such poor society as this. I'm sure I do.' "'Miss Havishan,' said Joe, with a fixed look at me, like an effort of remembrance, "'made it very particular that we should give her—were it compliments or respects, Pip?' "'Complements,' I said. Which that were my own belief,' answered Joe. "'Her compliments to Mrs. J. Gargery. Much good they'll do me,' observed my sister, but rather gratified, too. And wishing,' pursued Joe, with another fixed look at me, like another effort of remembrance, that the state of Miss Havishan's elf was such as would have allowed—were it Pip?' "'Of her having the pleasure,' I added.' "'Of Lady's Company,' said Joe, and drew a long breath.' "'Well,' cried my sister, with a mollified glance at Mr. Pumblechook, she might have had the politeness to send that message at first, but it's better late than never. And what did she give young Rantapole here?' "'She give him,' said Joe. Nothing.' Mrs. Joe was going to break out, but Joe went on. "'What she give,' said Joe, she give to his friends. And by his friends were her explanation. I mean into the hands of his sister Mrs. J. Gargery. Them were her words, Mrs. J. Gargery. She may have known—' added Joe, with an appearance of reflection—whether it were Joe or George.' My sister looked at Pumblechook, who smoothed the elbows of his wooden arm-chair, and nodded at her and at the fire, as if he had known all about it beforehand. "'And how much have you got?' asked my sister, laughing. "'Positively laughing.' "'What would present companies say to ten pound?' demanded Joe. "'They'd say,' returned my sister curtly, "'pretty well. Not too much, but pretty well.' "'It's more than that, then,' said Joe. That fearful impostor Pumblechook immediately nodded and said as he rubbed the arms of his chair. "'It's more than that, mom.' "'Why, you don't mean to say?' began my sister. "'Yes, I do, mom,' said Pumblechook. "'But wait a bit. Go on, Joseph. Good in you. Go on.' "'What would present companies say,' proceeded Joe, to twenty pound. "'Handsome would be the word,' returned my sister. "'Well, then,' said Joe, "'it's more than twenty pound. But abject hypocrite Pumblechook nodded again, and said with a patronizing laugh, "'It's more than that, mom. Good again. Follow her up, Joseph.' "'Then to make an end of it,' said Joe, delightedly handing the bag to my sister, "'it's five and twenty pound.' "'It's five and twenty pound, mom,' echoed that basest of swindlers Pumblechook rising to shake hands with her. "'And it's no more than your merits,' as I said when my opinion was asked. "'I'd wish you a joy of the money.' If the villain had stopped here, his case would have been sufficiently awful, but he blackened his guilt by proceeding to take me into custody, with a right of patronage that left all his formal criminality far behind. "'Now you'll see, Joseph and wife,' said Pumblechook, as he took me by the arm above the elbow, "'I am one of them that always go right through with what they've begun. This boy must be bound out of hand. That's my way, bound out of hand.' "'Goodness knows, Uncle Pumblechook,' said my sister, grasping the money. "'We're deeply beholden to you.' "'Never mind me, mom,' returned that diabolical corn-chandler. "'A pleasure's a pleasure all the world over. But this boy, you know, we must have him bound. I said I'd see to it, to tell you the truth.' The justices were sitting in the town hall near at hand, and we at once went over to have me bound to Prentice to Joe in the magisterial presence. I say we went over, but I was pushed over by Pumblechook, exactly as if I had that moment picked a pocket or fired a rick. Indeed it was the general impression in court that I had been taken red-handed, for as Pumblechook shoved me before him through the crowd, I heard some people say, "'What's he done?' and others, "'He's a youngin, too, but looks bad, don't he?' One person of mild and benevolent aspect even gave me a tract ornamented with a wood-cut of a malevolent young man fitted up with a perfect sausage-shop of fetters and entitled, "'To be read in my cell.'" The hall was a queer place, I thought, with higher pews in it than a church, and with people hanging over the pews looking on, and with mighty justices, one with a powdered head, leaning back in chairs with folded arms, or taking snuff, or going to sleep, or writing, or reading the newspapers, and with some shining black portraits on the walls, which my unartistic eye regarded as a composition of hard-bake and sticking plaster. Here in a corner my indentures were duly signed and attested, and I was bound, Mr. Pumblechook holdin' me all the while as if we had looked in on our way to the scaffold to have those little preliminaries disposed of. When we had come out again, and had got rid of the boys who had been put into great spirits by the expectation of seeing me publicly tortured, and who were much disappointed to find that my friends were merely rallying round me, we went back to Pumblechook's, and there my sister became so excited by the twenty-five gennies that nothing would serve her but we must have a dinner out of that windfall at the Blue Boar, and that Pumblechook must go over in his sheds-cart, and bring the Hubble's and Mr. Wapsle. It was agreed to be done, and a most melancholy day I passed, for it inscrutably appeared to stand to reason in the minds of the whole company that I was an excrecised on the entertainment. And to make it worse, they all asked me from time to time, in short, whenever they had nothing else to do, why I didn't enjoy myself. And what could I possibly do then but say I was enjoying myself when I wasn't? However, they were grown up and had their own way, and they made the most of it. That swindling Pumblechook, exalted into the beneficent contriver of the whole occasion, actually took the top of the table, and, when he addressed them on the subject of my being bound, and had finishedly congratulated them on my being liable to imprisonment if I played at cards, drank strong liquors, kept late hours or bent company, or indulged in other vagaries which the form of my indentures appeared to contemplate as next to inevitable, he placed me standing on a chair beside him to illustrate his remarks. My only other remembrances of the great festival are that they wouldn't let me go to sleep, but whenever they saw me dropping off, woke me up and told me to enjoy myself. That rather late in the evening Mr. Wopsle gave us Collins Ode, and threw his bloodstained sword in Thunderdown, with such effect that a waiter came in and said, the commercials underneath sent up their compliments, and it wasn't the tumbler's arms. When they were all in excellent spirits on the road home, and sang, O Lady Fair, Mr. Wopsle taking the base, and asserting with a tremendously strong voice, in reply to the inquisitive boar who leads that piece of music in a most impertinent manner, by wanting to know all about everybody's private affairs, that he was the man with his white locks flowing, and that he was upon the whole the weakest pilgrim going. Finally, I remember that when I got into my little bedroom, I was truly wretched, and had a strong conviction on me that I should never like Joe's trade. I had liked it once, but once was not now. CHAPTER 14 It is a most miserable thing to feel ashamed of home. There may be black ingratitude in the thing, and the punishment may be retributive and well deserved, but that it is a miserable thing I can testify. Home had never been a very pleasant place to me because of my sister's temper. But Joe had sanctified it, and I had believed in it. I had believed in the best parlor as a most elegant saloon. I had believed in the front door, as a mysterious portal of the Temple of State, whose solemn opening was attended with a sacrifice of roast fowls. I had believed in the kitchen as a chaste, though not magnificent apartment. I had believed in the forge as the glowing road to manhood and independence. Within a single year all this was changed. Now it was all coarse and common, and I would not have had Miss Havasham and Estela see it on any account. How much of my ungracious condition of mine may have been my own fault. How much Miss Havasham's, how much my sister's, is now of no moment to me or to anyone. The change was made in me. The thing was done. Well or ill done, excusably or inexcusably, it was done. Once it had seemed to me that when I should at last roll up my shirt sleeves and go into the forge, Joe's Prentice, I should be distinguished and happy. Now the reality was in my hold, I only felt that I was dusty with the dust of small coal, and that I had a weight upon my daily remembrance to which the anvil was a feather. There have been occasions in my later life, I suppose, as in most lives, when I have felt for a time as if a thick curtain had fallen on all its interest and romance, to shut me out from anything save dull endurance any more. Never has that curtain dropped so heavy and blank as when my way in life lay stretched out straight before me through the newly entered road of apprenticeship to Joe. I remember that at a later period of my time I used to stand about the churchyard on Sunday evenings when night was falling, comparing my own perspective with the windy marsh view, and making out some likeness between them by thinking how flat and low both were, and how on both there came an unknown way and a dark mist and then the sea. I was quite as dejected on the first working day of my apprenticeship, as in that after-time, but I am glad to know that I never breathed a murmur to Joe while my indentures lasted. It is about the only thing I am glad to know of myself in that connection. For though it includes what I proceed to add, all the merit of what I proceed to add was Joe's. It was not because I was faithful, but because Joe was faithful, that I never ran away and went for a soldier or a sailor. It was not because I had a strong sense of the virtue of industry, but because Joe had a strong sense of the virtue of industry, that I worked with tolerable zeal against the grain. It is not possible to know how far the influence of any amiable, honest-hearted, duty-doing man flies out into the world, but it is very possible to know how it is touched oneself in going by, and I know right well that any good that intermixed itself with my apprenticeship came of plain, contented Joe, and not of restlessly aspiring discontented me. What I wanted, who can say? How can I say, when I never knew? What I dreaded was that in some unlucky hour I, being at my grimest and commonest, should lift up my eyes and see Estella looking in at one of the wooden windows of the forge. I was haunted by the fear that she would, sooner or later, find me out with a black face and hands, doing the courses part of my work, and would exult over me and despise me. Often after dark, when I was pulling the bellows for Joe and we were singing old Clem, and when the thought how we used to sing it at Miss Havishams would seem to show me Estella's face and the fire, with her pretty hair fluttering in the wind and her eyes scorning me. Often at such a time I would look towards those panels of black night in the wall, which the wooden windows then were, and would fancy that I saw her just drawing her face away, and would believe that she had come at last. After that, when we went into supper, the place and the meal would have a more homely look than ever, and I would feel more ashamed of home than ever in my own ungracious breast. CHAPTER XV OF GREAT EXPECTATIONS This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This recording has been Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens CHAPTER XV As I was getting too big for Mr. Wopsle's great aunt's room, my education under that preposterous female terminated. Not however until Bitty had imparted to me everything she knew from the little catalog of prices to a comic song she had once bought for a half penny. Although the only coherent part of the latter piece of literature were the opening lines, when I went to Lundin Townsors, Tu-ru-lu-ru, Tu-ru-lu-ru-ru, wasn't I done very Brownsors, Tu-ru-lu-ru, Tu-ru-lu-ru. Still in my desire to be wiser, I got this composition by heart with the utmost gravity, nor do I recollect that I questioned its merit, except that I thought, as I still do, the amount of Tu-ru-lu somewhat in excess of the poetry. In my hunger for information I made proposals to Mr. Wopsle to bestow some intellectual crumbs upon me, with which he kindly complied. As it turned out, however, that he only wanted me for a dramatic lay figure to be contradicted and embraced and wept over and bullied and clutched and stabbed and knocked about in a variety of ways, I soon declined that course of instruction, though not until Mr. Wopsle and his poetic fury had severely mauled me. Whatever I acquired, I tried to impart to Joe. This statement sounds so well that I cannot in my conscience let it pass unexplained. I wanted to make Joe less ignorant and common, that he might be worthier of my society, and less open to Estella's reproach. The old battery out on the marshes was our place of study, and a broken slate and a short piece of slate pencil were our educational implements, to which Joe always added a pipe of tobacco. I never knew Joe to remember anything from one Sunday to another, or to acquire, under my tuition, any piece of information, whatever. Yet he would smoke his pipe at the battery with a far more sagacious air than anywhere else, even with a learned air, as if he considered himself to be advancing immensely. Dear fellow, I hope he did. It was pleasant and quiet, out there with the sails on the river passing beyond the earthwork, and sometimes when the tide was low, looking as if they belonged to sunken ships that were still sailing on at the bottom of the water. Whenever I watched the vessel standing out to sea with their white sails spread, I somehow thought of Miss Havisham and Estella, and whenever the light struck a slant far off upon a cloud or sail, or Green Hill's side or waterline, it was just the same. Miss Havisham and Estella, and the strange house, and the strange life appeared to have something to do with everything that was picturesque. One Sunday when Joe, greatly enjoying his pipe, had so plumed himself on being most awful dull that I had given him up for the day, I lay on the earthwork for some time with my chin on my hand, describing traces of Miss Havisham and Estella all over the prospect, in the sky and in the water, until at last I resolved to mention a thought concerning them that had been much in my head. Joe, said I, Don't you think I ought to make Miss Havisham a visit? Well, Pip, returned Joe, slowly considering. What for? What for, Joe? What has any visit made for? There is some visits, perhaps, said Joe, as for ever remains open to the question, Pip. But in regard to visiting Miss Havisham, she might think you wanted something, expected something of her. Don't you think I might say that I did not, Joe? You might, old chap, said Joe, and she might credit it. Similarly, she might not. Joe felt, as I did, that he had made a point there, and he pulled hard at his pipe to keep himself from weakening it by repetition. Yes, see, Pip, Joe pursued, as soon as he was past that danger, Miss Havisham done the handsome thing by you. She called me back to say to me, as that were all. Yes, Joe, I heard her. All! Joe repeated very emphatically. Yes, Joe, I tell you, I heard her. Which I mean to say, Pip, it might be that her meaning were, make an end on it, as you was, me to the north and you to the south, keep in sunders. I had thought of that, too, and it was very far from comforting to me to find that he had thought of it, for it seemed to render it more probable. But, Joe! Yes, old chap? Here I am, getting on in the first year of my time, and since the day of my being bound I have never thanked Miss Havisham, or asked after her, or shown the time of my life, or the time of being bound I have never thanked Miss Havisham, or asked after her, or shown that I remember her. That's true, Pip, and unless she was to turn her out a set of shoes all four round, and which I mean to say, as even a set of shoes all four round might not be acceptable as a present, in a total wakency of hoofs. I don't mean that sort of remembrance, Joe. I don't mean a present. But Joe had got the idea of a present in his head, and must harp upon it. Or even, said he, if he was helped to knocking her up a new chain for the front door, or say a gross or two of shark-headed screws for a general use, or some light fancy article, such as a toasting-fork when she took her muffins, or a grid-iron when she took a sprout or such like. I don't mean any present at all, Joe. I interposed. Well, said Joe, still harping on it, though I had particularly pressed it. If I was yourself, Pip, I wouldn't. No, I would not, for what's a door chain when she's got one always up? And shark-headers is open to misrepresentations. And if it was a toasting-fork, you'd go into brass and do yourself no credit. And the uncommonest workman can't show himself uncommon in a grid-iron. For a grid-iron is a grid-iron. Said Joe, steadfastly impressing it upon me, as if he were endeavouring to rouse me from a fixed delusion. And you may haim at what you like, but a grid-iron it will come out, either by your leave or against your leave. And you can't help yourself. My dear Joe, I cried in desperation, taking hold of his coat. Don't go on in that way. I never thought of making Miss Havisham any present. No, Pip, Joe assented, as if he had been contending for that all along. And what I say to you is, you're right, Pip. Yes, Joe, but what I wanted to say was that as we are rather slack just now, if you would give me a half-holiday tomorrow, I think I would go uptown and make a call on Miss Havisham. Which her name, said Joe gravely, ain't a stavisham, Pip, unless she has been rechristened. I know, Joe, I know it was a slip of mine. What do you think of it, Joe? In brief Joe thought that if I thought well of it he thought well of it, but he was particular in stipulating that if I were not received with cordiality, or if I were not encouraged to repeat my visit, as a visit which had no ulterior object but was simply one of gratitude for a favour received, then this experimental trip should have no successor. By these conditions I promised to abide. Now Joe kept a journeyman at weekly wages whose name was Orlik. He pretended that his Christian name was Dolj, a clear impossibility, but he was a fellow of that obstinate disposition that I believe him to have been the prey of no delusion in this particular, but willfully to have imposed that name upon the village as an affront to its understanding. He was a broad-shouldered, loose-limbed, swarthy fellow of great strength, never in a hurry, and always slouching. He never even seemed to come to his work on purpose, but would slouch in as if by mere accident, and when he went to the jolly bargeman to eat his dinner, or went away at night, he would slouch out, like Cain or the wandering Jew, as if he had no idea where he was going and no intention of ever coming back. He lodged at a sluice-keeper's out on the marshes, and on working days would come slouching from his hermitage, with his hands in his pockets and his dinner loosely tied in a bundle round his neck and dangling on his back. On Sundays he mostly lay all day on the sluice-gates, or stood against ricks and barns. He always slouched, locomotively, with his eyes on the ground, and when accosted or otherwise required to raise them, he looked up in a half-resentful, half-puzzle way, as though the only thought he ever had was that it was rather an odd and injurious fact that he should never be thinking. This morose journeyman had no liking for me. When I was very small and timid, he gave me to understand that the devil lived in a black corner of the forge, and that he knew the fiend very well, also that it was necessary to make up the fire, once in seven years, with a live boy, and that I might consider myself fuel. When I became Joe's apprentice Orlick was perhaps confirmed in some suspicion that I should displace him, albeit he liked me still less. Not that he ever said anything, or did anything, openly importing hostility, I only noticed that he always beat his sparks in my direction, and that whenever I sang old Clem, he came in out of time. Dolege Orlick was at work in present next day, when I reminded Joe of my half-holiday. He said nothing at the moment, for he and Joe had just got a piece of hot iron between them, and I was at the bellows. But by and by he said, leaning on his hammer, Now, master, sure you're not going to favor only one of us, if young Pip has a half-holiday, do as much for old Orlick. I suppose he was about five and twenty, but he usually spoke of himself as an ancient person. Why, what'll you do with a half-holiday, if you get it? Said Joe. What'll I do with it? What'll he do with it? I'll do as much with it as him. Said Orlick. As to Pip, he's going uptown. Said Joe. Well, then, as to old Orlick, he's a-going uptown. Retorted that worthy. Two can go uptown, taint only one what can go uptown. Don't lose your temper, said Joe. Shall, if I like, growled Orlick, summon their uptowning. Now, master, come! No favoring in this shop. Be a man! The master refusing to entertain the subject until the journeyman was in a better temper, Orlick plunged at the furnace, drew out a red-hot bar, made at me with it as if he was going to run it through my body, whisked it round my head, laid it on the anvil, hammered it out, as if it were I, I thought, and the sparks were my spurting blood, and finally said when he had hammered himself hot and the iron cold, and he again leaned on his hammer, Now, master! Are you all right now? Demanded Joe. Ah! I am all right, said gruff old Orlick. Then as in general you stick to your work as well as most men, said Joe, let it be a half-holiday for all. My sister had been standing silent in the yard, within hearing she was a most unscrupulous spy and listener, and she instantly looked in at one of the windows. Like you, you fool! said she to Joe, giving holidays to great idle hulkers like that. You are a rich man upon my life to waste wages in that way. I wish I was his master. You'd be everybody's master if you durst, retorted Orlick with an ill-favoured grin. Let her alone, said Joe. I'd be a match for all noodles and all rogues, returned my sister, starting to work herself into a mighty rage. And I couldn't be a match for the noodles without being a match for your master, who's the dunder-heading king of the noodles. And I couldn't be a match for the rogues without being a match for you, who are the blackest-looking and the worst rogue between this and France, now. You're a foul shrew, mother gargery, growled the journeyman. If that makes a judge of rogues, you ought to be a gooden. Let her alone, will you? said Joe. What did you say? cried my sister, beginning to scream. What did you say? What did that fellow Orlick say to me, Pip? What did he call me, with my husband standing by? Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Each of these exclamations was a shriek, and I must remark of my sister what is equally true of all the violent women I have ever seen, that passion was no excuse for her, because it is undeniable that instead of lapsing into passion, she consciously and deliberately took extraordinary pains to force herself into it, and became blindly furious by regular stages. What was the name he gave me before the baseman who swore to defend me? Oh! Hold me! Oh! Ah! growled the journeyman between his teeth. I'd hold you, if you was my wife. I'd hold you under the pump and choke it out of you. I'd tell y'all let her alone, said Joe. Oh! To hear him! cried my sister, with a clap of her hands and a scream together, which was her next stage. To hear the names he's giving me! That Orlick, in my own house, me, a married woman, with my husband standing by! Oh! Oh! Hear my sister, after a fit of clappings and screamings, beat her hands upon her bosom and upon her knees, and threw her cap off, and pulled her hair down, which was the last stages on her road to frenzy. Being by this time a perfect fury and a complete success, she made a dash at the door which I had, fortunately, locked. What could the wretched Joe do now, after his disregarded parenthetical interruptions, but stand up to his journeyman and ask him what he meant by interfering betwixt himself and Mrs. Joe, and further whether he was man enough to come on? Old Orlick felt that the situation admitted of nothing less than coming on, and was on his defense straight way, so, without so much as pulling off their singed and burnt aprons, they went at one another like two giants. But if any man in that neighborhood could stand up along against Joe, I never saw the man. Orlick, as if he had been of no more account than the pale young gentleman, was very soon among the cold dust, and in no hurry to come out of it. Then Joe unlocked the door and picked up my sister, who had dropped insensible at the window, but who had seen the fight first, I think, and who was carried into the house and laid down, and who was recommended to revive, and would do nothing but struggle and clench her hands in Joe's hair. Then came that singular calm and silence which succeed all uproars, and then, with the vague sensation which I have always connected with such a lull, namely that it was Sunday and somebody was dead, I went upstairs to dress myself. When I came down again I found Joe and Orlick sweeping up, without any other traces of discomposure than a slit in one of Orlick's nostrils which was neither expressive nor ornamental. A pot of beer had appeared from the jolly bargeman, and they were sharing it by turns in a peaceable manner. The lull had a sedative and philosophical influence on Joe, who followed me out into the road to say, as a parting observation that might do me good, on the rampage, Pip, and off the rampage, Pip, such is life. With what absurd emotions, for we think the feelings that are very serious in a man quite comical in a boy, I found myself again going to Miss Havisham's, matters little here. Nor how I passed and repass the gate many times before I could make up my mind to ring, nor how I debated whether I should go away without ringing, nor how I should undoubtedly have gone, if my time had bid my own, to come back. Miss Sarah Pocket came to the gate. No Estella. How, then, you here again, said Miss Pocket, what do you want? When I said that I only came to see how Miss Havisham was, Sarah evidently deliberated whether or no she should send me about my business. But unwilling to hazard the responsibility, she let me in, and presently brought the sharp message that I was to come up. Everything was unchanged, and Miss Havisham was alone. Well, said she, fixing her eyes upon me, I hope you want nothing. You'll get nothing. No, indeed, Miss Havisham, I only wanted you to know that I am doing very well in my apprenticeship, and have always much obliged to you. There, there, with the old restless fingers, come now and then, come on your birthday. I—she cried suddenly, turning herself and her chair towards me. You were looking round for Estella, hey? I had been looking round, in fact, for Estella, and I stammered that I hoped she was well. Abroad, said Miss Havisham, educating for a lady, far out of reach, prettier than ever, admired by all who see her. Do you feel that you have lost her? There was such a malignant enjoyment in her utterance of the last words, and she broke into such a disagreeable laugh that I was at a loss what to say. She spared me the trouble of considering, by dismissing me. When the gate was closed upon me by Sarah of the walnut-shelled countenance, I felt more than ever dissatisfied with my home and with my trade and with everything, and that was all I took by that motion. As I was loitering along the high street, looking in disconsolently at the shop windows, and thinking what I would buy if I were a gentleman, who should come out of the book-shop at Mr. Wopsle. Mr. Wopsle had in his hand the affecting tragedy of George Barnwell, in which he had that moment invested sixpence, with the view of heaping every word on it on the head of Pumblechook, with whom he was going to drink tea. No sooner did he see me than he appeared to consider that a special providence had put apprentice in his way to be read at, and he laid hold of me, and insisted on my accompanying him to the Pumblechookian parlor. As I knew it would be miserable at home, and as the nights were dark and the way was dreary, and almost any companionship on the road was better than none, I made no great resistance. Consequently we turned into Pumblechooks just as the street and the shops were lighting up. As I never assisted at any other representation of George Barnwell, I don't know how long it may usually take, but I know very well that it took until half-past nine o'clock that night, and that when Mr. Wopsle got into Newgate I thought he never would go to the scaffold he became so much slower than at any former period of his disgraceful career. I thought of the little too much that he should complain of being cut short in his flower after all, as if he had not been running to seed leaf after leaf ever since his course began. This however was a mere question of length and worrisomeness. What stung me was the identification of the whole affair with my unoffending self. When Barnwell began to go wrong, I declared that I felt positively apologetic. Pumblechooks indignant stares so taxed me with it. Barnwell, too, took pains to present me in the worst light. At once ferocious and maudlin I was made to murder my uncle with no extenuating circumstances whatever. Millwood put me down in argument, on every occasion, it became sheer monomania in my master's daughter to care a button for me, and all I can say for my gasping and procrastinating conduct on the fatal morning is that it was worthy of the general feebleness of my character. Even after I was happily hanged and Wopsle had closed the book, Pumblechooks sat staring at me and shaking his head and saying, Take warning, boy, take warning! As if it were a well-known fact that I contemplated murdering a near relation, provided I could only induce one to have the weakness to become my benefactor. It was a very dark night when it was all over, and when I set out with Mr. Wopsle on the walk home. In town we found a heavy mist out, and it fell wet and thick. The termpike lamp was a blur, quite out of the lamp's usual place, apparently, and its rays looked solid substance on the fog. We were noticing this, and saying how that the mist rose with a change of wind from a certain quarter of our marshes when we came upon a man slouching under the lee of the termpike house. Hello, we said, stopping. Orlick there? Ah, he answered slouching out. I was standing by a minute on the chance of company. You are late, I remarked. Orlick not unnaturally answered, well, and you're late. We have been, said Mr. Wopsle, exalted with his late performance, we have been indulging Mr. Orlick in an intellectual evening. Old Orlick growled, as if he had nothing to say about that, and we all went on together. I asked him presently whether he had been spending his half-holiday up and down town. Yes, said he, all of it. I come in behind yourself. I didn't see you, but I must have been pretty close behind you, by and by the guns is going again. At the hulks, said I, Hi, there's some of the birds flown from the cages. The guns have been going since dark about. You'll hear one presently. In effect we had not walked many yards further when the well- remembered boom came towards us, deafened by the mist, and heavily rolled away along the low grounds by the river, as if it were pursuing and threatening the fugitives. A good night for cutting off in, said Orlick. We'd be puzzled how to bring down a jailbird on the wing tonight. The subject was a suggestive one to me, and I thought about it in silence. Mr. Wopsle, as the ill-requited uncle of the evening's tragedy, felt meditating aloud in his garden at Camberwell. Orlick, with his hands in his pockets, slouched heavily at my side. It was very dark, very wet, very muddy, and so we splashed along. Now and then the sound of the signal cannon broke upon us again, and again rolled silkily along the course of the river. I kept myself to myself, and my thoughts. Mr. Wopsle died amiably at Camberwell, an exceedingly game on Bosworth Field, and in the greatest agonies at Glastonbury. Orlick sometimes growled, Beat it out, beat it out, old Clem, with a clink for the stout, old Clem. I thought he had been drinking, but he was not drunk. Thus we came to the village, the way by which we approached it took us past the three-jelly bargemen, which we were surprised to find, it being eleven o'clock, in a state of commotion, with the door wide open, and unwanted lights that had been hastily caught up and put down, scattered about. Mr. Wopsle dropped in to ask what was the matter, surmising that a convict had been taken, but came running out in a great hurry. There's something wrong, said he, without stopping. Up at your place, Pip! Run all! What is it? I asked, keeping up with him. So did Orlick at my side. I can't quite understand. The house seems to have been violently entered when Joe Gargery was out. Made by convicts, somebody has been attacked and hurt. We were running too fast to admit of more being said, and we made no stop until we got into our kitchen. It was full of people. The whole village was there, or in the yard, and there was a surgeon, and there was Joe, and there were a group of women all on the floor in the midst of the kitchen. The unemployed bystanders drew back when they saw me, and so I became aware of my sister, lying without sense or movement on the bareboards where she had been knocked down by a tremendous blow in the back of the head, dealt by some unknown hand when her face was turned towards the fire, destined never to be on the rampage again, while she was the wife of Joe. End of chapter 16 of Great Expectations This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This recording is by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens Chapter 16 With my head full of George Barnwell, I was at first disposed to believe that I must have had some hand in the attack upon my sister, or at all events that as her near-relation, popularly known to be under obligations to her, I was a more legitimate object of suspicion than anyone else. But when, in the clearer light of the next morning, I began to reconsider the matter, and to hear it discussed around me on all sides, I took another view of the case, which was more reasonable. Joe had been at the three jolly bargemen smoking his pipe from a quarter after eight o'clock to a quarter before ten. While he was there, my sister had been seen standing at the kitchen door, and had exchanged good night with a farm laborer going home. The man could not be more particular as to the time at which he saw her, he got into dense confusion when he tried to be, than that it must have been before nine. When Joe went home at five minutes before ten, he found her struck down on the floor and promptly called in assistance. The fire had not then burnt unusually low, nor was the snuff of the candle very long. The candle, however, had been blown out. Nothing had been taken away from any part of the house, neither beyond the blowing out of the candle which stood on the table between the door and my sister, and was behind her when she stood facing the fire and was struck. Was there any disarrangement of the kitchen, accepting such as she herself had made, in falling and bleeding? There was one remarkable piece of evidence on the spot. She had been struck with something blunt and heavy on the head and spine. After the blows were dealt something heavy had been thrown down at her with considerable violence as she lay on her face, and on the ground beside her, when Joe picked her up, was a convict's leg iron which had been filed asunder. Now Joe, examining this iron with a smith's eye, declared it to have been filed asunder some time ago. The hue and cry going off to the hulks and people coming thence to examine the iron, Joe's opinion was corroborated. They did not undertake to say when it had left the prison ships to which it undoubtedly at once belonged, but they claimed to know for certain that that particular manacle had not been warmed by either of the two convicts who had escaped last night. Further, one of those two was already retaken and had not freed himself of his iron. Seeing what I knew, I set up an inference of my own here. I believed the iron to be my convict's iron, the iron I had seen and heard him filing at, on the marshes, but my mind did not accuse him of having put it to its latest use, for I believe one of two other persons to have become possessed of it and to have turned it to this cruel account—either Orlik or the strange man who had shown me the file. Now as to Orlik he had gone to town exactly as he told us when we picked him up at the turnpike. He had been seen about town all the evening, he had been in diverse companies in several public houses, and he had come back with myself in Mr. Wopsle. There was nothing against him, save the quarrel, and my sister had quarreled with him, and with everybody else about her, ten thousand times. As to the strange man, if he had come back for his two banknotes, there could have been no dispute about them, because my sister was fully prepared to restore them. Besides there had been no altercation, the assailant had come in so silently and suddenly that she had been felled before she could look round. It was horrible to think that I had provided the weapon, however undesignedly, but I could hardly think otherwise. I suffered unspeakable trouble while I considered and reconsidered whether I should at last dissolve that spell of my childhood and tell Joe all the story. For months afterwards I every day settled the question finally in the negative, and reopened and re-argued it next morning. The contention came after all to this. The secret was such an old one now, had so grown into me and become a part of myself that I could not tear it away. In addition to the dread that, having led up to so much mischief, it would be now more likely than ever to alienate Joe from me if he believed it, I had a further restraining dread that he would not believe it, but would assort it with the fabulous dogs and veal-cutlets as a monstrous invention. However I tempered with myself, of course, for was I not wavering between right and wrong when the thing is always done, and resolve to make a full disclosure if I should see any such new occasion as a new chance of helping in the discovery of the assailant. The constables and the bow-street men from London, for this happened in the days of the extinct red waist-coated police, were about the house for a week or two, and did pretty much what I have heard and read of like authorities doing in other such cases. They took up several obviously wrong people, and they ran their heads very hard against wrong ideas, and persisted in trying to fit the circumstances to the ideas, instead of trying to extract ideas from the circumstances. Also they stood about the door of the jolly bargeman, with knowing and reserved looks that filled the whole neighborhood with admiration, and they had a mysterious manner of taking their drink that was almost as good as taking the culprit. But not quite, for they never did it. Long after these constitutional powers had dispersed, my sister lay very ill in bed. Her sight was disturbed, so that she saw objects multiplied, and grasped at visionary teacups and wine-glasses instead of the realities. Her hearing was greatly impaired, her memory also, and her speech was unintelligible. When at last she came round so far as to be helped downstairs, it was still necessary to keep my slate always by her that she might indicate in writing what she could not indicate in speech. As she was, very bad handwriting apart, a more than indifferent speller, and as Joe was a more than indifferent reader, extraordinary complications arose between them which I was always called in to solve. The administration of mutton, instead of medicine, the substitution of tea for Joe, and the baker for bacon, were among the mildest of my own mistakes. However, her temper was greatly improved, and she was patient. A tremulous uncertainty of the action of all her limbs soon became a part of a regular state, and afterwards, at intervals of two or three months, she would often put her hands to her head, and would then remain for about a week at a time in some gloomy aberration of mind. We were at a loss to find a suitable attendant for her, until a circumstance happened conveniently to relieve us. Dr. Wopsle's great aunt conquered a confirmed habit of living into which she had fallen, and Biddy became a part of our establishment. It may have been about a month after my sister's reappearance in the kitchen when Biddy came to us with a small speckled box containing the whole of her worldly effects, and became a blessing to the household. Above all, she was a blessing to Joe, for the dear old fellow was sadly cut up by the constant contemplation of the wreck of his wife, and had been accustomed, while attending on her of an evening, to turn to me every now and then and say, with his blue eyes moistened. Such a fine figure of a woman as she once were, Pip! Biddy instantly taking the cleverest charge of her as though she had studied her from infancy, Joe became able in some sort to appreciate the greater quiet of his life, and to get down to the jollied bargeman now and then for a change that did him good. It was characteristic of the police-people that they had all, more or less suspected poor Joe, though he never knew it, and that they had to a man concurred in regarding him as one of the deepest spirits they had ever encountered. Biddy's first triumph in her new office was to solve a difficulty that had completely vanquished me. I had tried hard at it, but it made nothing of it. Thus it was. Then and again and again my sister had traced upon the slate a character that looked like a curious tea, and then with utmost eagerness I called our attention to it as something she particularly wanted. I had in vain tried everything producible that began with a tea, from tar to toast and tub. At length it had come into my head that the sign looked like a hammer, and on my lustily calling that word in my sister's ear she had begun to hammer on the table and had expressed a qualified assent. Thereupon I had brought in all our hammers, one after another, but without avail. Then I bethought me of a crutch, the shape being much the same, and I borrowed one in the village and displayed it to my sister with considerable confidence, but she shook her head to that extent when she was shown it that we were terrified lest in her weak and shattered state she should dislocate her neck. When my sister found that Biddy was very quick to understand her, this mysterious sign reappeared on the slate. Biddy looked thoughtfully at it, heard my explanation, looked thoughtfully at my sister, looked thoughtfully at Joe, who was always represented on the slate by his initial letter, and ran into the forge followed by Joe and me. Why, of course! cried Biddy, with an exultant face. Don't you see? It's him! Coyolik without a doubt. She had lost his name, and could only signify him by his hammer. We told him why we wanted him to come into the kitchen and he slowly laid down his hammer, wiped his brow with his arm, took another wipe at it with his apron, and came slouching out with a curious loose vagabond bend in the knees that strongly distinguished him. I confessed that I expected to see my sister denounce him, and that I was disappointed by the different result. She manifested the greatest anxiety to be on good terms with him, was evidently much pleased by his being at length produced, and motion that she would have him given something to drink. She watched his countenance as if she were particularly wishful to be assured that he took kindly to his reception. She showed every possible desire to conciliate him, and there was an air of humble propitiation in all she did, such as I have seen pervade the bearing of a child towards a hard master. After that day