 CHAPTER 54. It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold, when it is summer in the light and winter in the shade. We had our pea coats with us, and I took a bag. Of all my worldly possessions I took no more than the few necessaries that filled the bag. Where I might go, what I might do, or when I might return were questions utterly unknown to me, nor did I vex my mind with them, for it was wholly set on providence's safety. I only wondered for the passing moment, as I stopped at the door and looked back, under what altered circumstances I should next see those rooms, if ever. We loitered down to the temple stairs, and stood loitering there, as if we were not quite decided to go upon the water at all. Of course I had taken care that the boat should be ready and everything in order. After a little show of indecision, which there were none to see but the two or three amphibious creatures belonging to our temple stairs, we went on board and cast off, herbered in the bow, eye-steering. It was then about high water, half past eight. Our plan was this. The tide, beginning to run down at nine, and being with us until three, we intended still to creep on after it had turned, and row against it until dark. We should then be well in those long reaches below Gravesend, between Kent and Essex, where the river is broad and solitary, where the waterside inhabitants are very few, and where lone public houses are scattered here and there, of which we could choose one for a resting place. There we meant to lie by all night. The steamer for Hamburg and the steamer for Rotterdam would start from London at about nine on Thursday morning. We should know at what time to expect them, according to where we were, and would hail the first so that, if by any accident we were not taken aboard, we should have another chance. We knew the distinguishing marks of each vessel. The relief of being at last engaged in the execution of the purpose was so great to me that I felt it difficult to realize the condition in which I had been a few hours before. The crisp air, the sunlight, the movement on the river, and the moving river itself, the road that ran with us, seeming to sympathize with us, animate us, and encourage us on, freshened me with new hope. I felt mortified to be of so little use in the boat, but there were few better oarsmen than my two friends, and they rode with a steady stroke that was to last all day. At that time the steam traffic on the Thames was far below its present extent, and the watermen's boats were far more numerous. Of barges, sailing colliers, and coasting traders there were perhaps as many as now, but of steamships great and small, not a tithe, or a twentieth part so many. Early as it was there were plenty of scullers going here and there that morning, and plenty of barges dropping down with the tide. The navigation of the river between bridges, in an open boat, was a much easier and commoner matter in those days than it is in these, and we went ahead among many skiffs and wearies briskly. Old London Bridge was soon passed, an old billingscape market with its oyster boats and Dutchmen, and the White Tower and Traders' Gate, and we were in among the tears of shipping. Here were the leaf, Aberdeen, and Glasgow steamers, loading and unloading goods, and looking immensely high out of the water as we passed alongside. Here were colliers by the score, and score were the coal whippers, plunging off stages on deck, as counterweights to measures of coals swinging up, which were then rattled over the side into barges. Here at our moorings was to-morrow's steamer for Rotterdam, of which we took good notice, and here to-morrow's for Hamburg, under whose vowsperit we crossed. And now I, sitting in the stern, could see, with a faster beating heart, Millpond Bank and Millpond Stairs. "'Is he there?' said Herbert. "'Not yet.' "'Right. He was not to come down till he saw us. Can you see his signal?' "'Not well from here. But I think I see it.' Now I see him. Pull both. Easy, Herbert. Oars!' We touched the stairs lightly for a single moment, and he was on board, and we were off again. He had a boat-cloak with him, in a black canvas bag, and he looked as like a river pilot as my heart could have wished. "'Dear boy!' he said, putting his arm on my shoulder, as he took his seat. "'Faithful dear boy! Well done! Thank you! Thank you!' Again, among the tears of shipping, in and out, avoiding rusty chain cables, frayed hempen-horses and bobbing buoys, sinking for the moment floating broken baskets, scattering floating chips of wood and shaving, floating scum of coal, in and out, under the figurehead of the John of Sunderland, making a speech to the winds, as is done by many Johns, and the Betsy of Yarmouth, with a firm formality of bosom and her knobby eyes starting two inches out of her head, in and out, hammers going in shipbuilders' yards, saws going at timber, clashing engines going at things unknown, pumps going in leaky ships, capstans going, ships going out to sea, and unintelligible sea creatures roaring curses over the bulwarks at respondent lettermen, in and out, out at last upon the clearer river, where the ship's boys might take their fenders in, no longer fishing in troubled waters with them over the side, and where the festoon sails might fly out to the wind. At the stairs where we had taken him aboard, and ever since, I had looked warily for any token of our being suspected. I had seen none. We certainly had not been, and at that time as certainly we were not either attended or followed by any boat. If we had been waited on by any boat, I should have run in to shore and have obliged her to go on, or to make her purpose evident. But we held our own without any appearance of molestation. He had his boat cloak on him, and looked, as I have said, a natural part of the scene. It was remarkable, but perhaps the wretched life he had led accounted for it, that he was the least anxious of any of us. He was not indifferent, for he told me that he hoped to live to see his gentleman one of the best of gentlemen in a foreign country. He was not disposed to be passive or resigned, as I understood it, but he had no notion of meeting danger halfway. When it came upon him he confronted it, but it must come before he troubled himself. If you know, dear boy, he said to me, what it is to sit here alonger my dear boy and have my smoke, harder been day by day betwixt four walls, you'd envy me, but you don't know what it is. I think I know the delights of freedom, I answered. Ah, said he, shaking his head gravely, but you don't know it equal to me. You must have been under lock and key, dear boy, to know it equal to me, but I ain't a-going to be low. It occurred to me as inconsistent that, for any mastering idea, he should have endangered his freedom and even his life. But I reflected that perhaps freedom without danger was too much apart from all the habit of his existence to be to him what it would be to another man. I was not far out, since he said, after smoking a little. You see, dear boy, when I was over yonder, the other side of the world, I was always a-lookin' to this side, and it come flat to be there, for all I was a-growin' rich. But he knowed Magwitch, and Magwitch could come, and Magwitch could go, and nobody's head will be troubled about him. They ain't so easy concerning me here, dear boy. Wouldn't be least wise if they knowed where I was. If all goes well, said I, you will be perfectly free and safe again within a few hours. Well, he returned, drawing a long breath. I hope so. And think so? He dipped his hand in the water over the boat's gunnel, and said, smiling with that softened air upon him which was not new to me. I suppose I think so, dear boy. We'd be puzzled to be more quiet and easy-going than we are at present. But it's flowin' so soft and pleasant through the water, perhaps, as makes me think it. I was a-thinkin' through my smoke just then. That we can no more see to the bottom of the next few hours than we can see to the bottom of this river what I catch his hold of. Nor yet we can't no more hold their tide than I can hold this. And it's run through my fingers and gone, you see, holding up his dripping hand. But for your face I should think you were a little despondent, said I. Not a bit on it, dear boy. It comes a-flowin' on so quiet, and of that there ripplin' at the boat's head makin' a sort of a Sunday tune. Maybe I'm growin' a trifle old, besides. He put his pipe back in his mouth with an undisturbed expression of face, and sat as composed and contented as if we were already out of England. Yet he was as submissive to a word of advice as if he had been in constant terror. For, when we ran ashore to get some bottles of beer into the boat, and he was stepping out, I hinted that I thought he would be safest where he was, and he said, Do you, dear boy? And quietly sat down again. The air felt cold upon the river, but it was a bright day, and the sunshine was very cheering. The tide ran strong. I took care to lose none of it, and our steady stroke carried us on thoroughly well. By imperceptible degrees, as the tide ran out, we lost more and more of the nearer woods and hills, and dropped lower and lower between the muddy banks. But the tide was yet with us when we were off Gravesend. As our charge was wrapped in his cloak, I purposely passed within a boat or two's length of the floating custom house, and so out to catch the stream, alongside of two emigrant ships, and under the boughs of a large transport with troops on the forecastle, looking down at us. And soon the tide began to slacken, and the craft lying at anchor to swing, and presently they had all swung round, and the ships that were taking advantage of the new tide to get up to the pool, began to crowd upon us in a fleet, and we kept under the shore, as much out of the strength of the tide now as we could, standing carefully off from low shallows and mud-banks. Our oarsmen were so fresh, by dint of having occasionally let her drive with the tide for a minute or two, that a quarter of an hour's rest proved full as much as they wanted. We got ashore among some slippery stones while we ate and drank what we had with us, and looked about. It was like my own marsh country, flat and monotonous, and with a dim horizon, while the winding river turned and turned, and the great floating buoys upon it turned and turned, and everything else seemed stranded and still. For now the last of the fleet of ships was round the last low point we had headed, and the last green barge, straw laden, with a brown sail, had followed, and some ballast-lighters, shaped like a child's first rude imitation of a boat, lay low in the mud, and a little squat shoal lighthouse on open piles stood crippled in the mud on stilts and crutches, and slimy stakes stuck out of the mud, and slimy stones stuck out of the mud, and red landmarks and tide marks stuck out of the mud, and an old landing-stage and an old roofless building slipped into the mud, and all about us was stagnation and mud. We pushed off again, and made what way we could. It was much harder work now, but Herbert and Star Top persevered, and rode and rode and rode, until the sun went down. By that time the river had lifted us a little, so that we could see above the bank. There was the red sun, on the low level of the shore, in a purple haze, vast deepening into black, and there was the solitary flat marsh, and far away there were the rising grounds between which, and us, there seemed to be no life, save here and there in the foreground of melancholic gull. As the night was fast falling, and as the moon, being past the full, would not rise early, we held a little council, a short one, for clearly our course was to lie by at the first lonely tavern we could find. So they plied their oars once more, and I looked out for anything like a house. Thus we held on, speaking little, for four or five dull miles. It was very cold, and a collier coming by us, with her gallivire smoking and flaring, looked like a comfortable home. The night was as dark by this time as it would be until morning, and what light we had seemed to come more from the river than the sky, as the oars in their dipping struck at a few reflected stars. At this dismal time we were evidently all possessed by the idea that we were followed. As the tide made, it flapped heavily at irregular intervals against the shore, and whenever such a sound came, one or other of us was sure to start and look in that direction. Here and there the set of the current had worn down the bank into a little creek, and we were all suspicious of such places and eyed them nervously. Sometimes, what was that ripple, one of us would say in a low voice, or another, is that a boat yonder? And afterwards we would fall into a dead silence, and I would sit impatiently, thinking with what an unusual amount of noise the oars worked in the thowels. At length we described a light and a roof, and presently afterwards ran alongside a little causeway made of stones that had been picked up hard by. Using the rest in the boat, I stepped ashore and found the light to be in the window of a public house. It was a dirty place enough, and I dare say not unknown to smuggling adventurers, but there was a good fire in the kitchen, and there were eggs and bacon to eat, and various liquors to drink. Also there were two double-bedded rooms. Such as they were, the landlord said. No other company was in the house than the landlord, his wife, and a grizzled male creature, the jack of the little causeway, who was as slimy and smeary as if he had been a low-water mark, too. With this assistant I went down to the boat again, and we all came ashore and brought out the oars, and rudder, and boat-hook, and all else, and hauled her up for the night. We made a very good meal by the kitchen fire, and then a portion in the bedrooms. We ordered and start-top were to occupy one, I and our charge the other. We found the air as carefully excluded from both, as if air were fatal to life, and there were more dirty clothes and bamboxes under the beds than I should have thought they'd family possessed. But we considered ourselves well off, notwithstanding, for a more solitary place we could not have found. While we were comforting ourselves by the fire after our meal, the jack, who was sitting in a corner, and who had a bloated pair of shoes on, which he had exhibited while we were eating our eggs and bacon, as interesting relics that he had taken a few days ago from the feet of a drowned seaman wash ashore, asked me if we had seen a four-ord galley going up with a tide. When I told him no, he said she must have gone down then, and yet she took up, too, when she left there. They must have thought better on it for some reason or other, said the jack, and gone down. A four-ord galley, did you say? said I. A four, said the jack, and two sitters. Did they come ashore here? They put in with a stone two-gallon jar for some beer. I'd have been glad to pison the beer myself, said the jack, or put some ratland-physic in it. Why? I know why, said the jack. He spoke in a slushy voice as if much mud had washed into his throat. He thinks, said the landlord, a weakly meditative man with a pale eye, who seemed to rely greatly on his jack. He thinks there was what there wasn't. I knows what I thinks, observed the jack. You think's customs us, jack, said the landlord. I do, said the jack. Then you're wrong, jack. Am I? In the infinite meaning of his reply and his boundless confidence in his views, the jack took one of his bloated shoes off, looked into it, walked a few stones out of it on the kitchen floor, and put it on again. He did this with the air of a jack who was so right that he could afford to do anything. Why, what do you make out that they done with their buttons, then, jack? Asked the landlord, vacillating weakly. Done with their buttons, returned the jack, chucked him overboard, swattered him, sewed him to come up small salad. Done with their buttons. Don't be cheeky, jack! Remonstrated the landlord in a melancholy and pathetic way. A customs officer knows what to do with his buttons, said the jack, repeating the obnoxious word with the greatest contempt. When they come betwixt him in his own light, a four and two sitters don't go hanging and hovering, up with one tide and down with another, and both with and against another, without their being customous at the bottom of it. Saying which he went out in disdain and the landlord, having no one to reply upon, found it impracticable to pursue the subject. The dialogue made us all uneasy, and me very uneasy. The dismal wind was muttering round the house. The tide was flapping at the shore, and I had a feeling that we were caged and threatened. A four-ord galley hovering about in so unusual a way as to attract this notice was an ugly circumstance that I could not get rid of. When I had induced Provost to go up to bed, I went outside with my two companions, star-top by this time knew the state of the case, and held another counsel. Whether we should remain at the house until near the steamer's time, which would be about one in the afternoon, or whether we should put off early in the morning, was the question we discussed. On the whole we deemed it the better course to lie where we were, until within an hour or so of the steamer's time, and then to get out in our track and drift easily with the tide. Having settled to do this, we returned into the house and went to bed. I lay down with the greater part of my clothes on and slept well for a few hours. When I awoke the wind had risen and the sign of the house, the ship, was creaking and banging about with noises that startled me. Rising softly for my charge lay fast asleep, I looked out of the window. It commanded the causeway where we had hauled up our boat, and as my eyes adapted themselves to the light of the clouded moon, I saw two men looking into her. They passed by under the window, looking at nothing else, and they did not go down to the landing-place which I could discern to be empty, but struck across the marsh in the direction of the nor. My first impulse was to call up Herbert and show him the two men going away, but reflecting, before I got into his room, which was at the back of the house and adjoined mine, that he and the star-top had had a harder day than I, and were fatigued, I forbore. Going back to my window I could see the two men moving over the marsh. In that light, however, I soon lost them, and, feeling very cold, lay down to think of the matter, and fell asleep again. We were up early. As we walked to and fro all four together, before breakfast, I deemed it right to recount what I had seen. When our charge was the least anxious of the party, it was very likely that the men belonged to the custom house, he said quietly, and that they had no thought of us. I tried to persuade myself that it was so, as indeed it might easily be. However, I proposed that he and I should walk away together to a distant point we could see, and that the boat should take us aboard there, or as near there as might prove feasible, at about noon. This being considered a good precaution, soon after breakfast he and I set forth, without saying anything at the tavern. He smoked his pipe as we went along, and sometimes stopped to clap me on the shoulder. One would have supposed that it was I who was in danger, not he, and that he was reassuring me. We spoke very little. As we approached the point, I begged him to remain in a sheltered place, while I went on to reconnoiter, for it was towards it that the men had passed in the night. He complied, and I went on alone. There was no boat off the point, nor any boat drawn up anywhere near it, nor were there any signs of the men having embarked there. But to be sure, the tide was high, and there might have been some footprints under water. When he looked out from his shelter in the distance and saw that I waved my hat to him to come up, he rejoined me, and there we waited, sometimes lying on the bank wrapped in our coats, and sometimes moving about to warm ourselves, until we saw our boat coming round. We got aboard easily and rode out into the track of the steamer. By that time it wanted but ten minutes of one o'clock, and we began to look out for her smoke. But it was half past one before we saw her smoke, and soon afterwards we saw behind it the smoke of another steamer. As they were coming on at full speed we got the two bags ready, and took that opportunity of saying good-bye to Herbert and Star Top. We had all shaken hands cordially, and neither Herbert's eyes nor mine were quite dry, when I saw a four-oared galley shoot out from under the bank but a little way ahead of us, and row out into the same track. A stretch of shore had been as yet between us and the steamer smoke by reason of the bend and wind of the river, but now she was visible coming head-on. I called to Herbert and Star Top to keep before the tide, that she might see us lying by for her, and I had jurid provost to sit quite still, wrapped in his cloak. He answered cheerily, Trust to me, dear boy, and sat like a statue. Meantime the galley, which was very skillfully handled, had crossed us, let us come up with her and fall on the long side. Leaving just room enough for the play of the oars, she kept alongside, drifting when we drifted, and pulling a stroke or two when we pulled. Of the two sitters one held the rudder lines and looked at us attentively, as did all the rowers. The other sitter was wrapped up, much as probis was, and seemed to shrink and whisper some instruction to the steerer as he looked at us. Not a word was spoken in either boat. Star Top could make out after a few minutes which steamer was first, and gave me the word, Hamburg, in a low voice as we sat face to face. She was nearing us very fast, and the beating of her paddles grew louder and louder. I felt as if her shadow were absolutely upon us when the galley hailed us. I answered, You have a return transport there, said the man who held the lines. That's the man, wrapped in the cloak. His name is Abel Magwitch, otherwise probis. I apprehend that man and call upon him to surrender, and you to assist. At the same moment, without giving any audible direction to his crew, he ran the galley abroad of us. They had pulled one sudden stroke ahead, had got their oars in, had run a thwart us, and were holding on to our gunnel before we knew what they were doing. This caused great confusion on board the steamer, and I heard them calling to us, and heard the order given to stop the paddles, and heard them stop but felt her driving down upon us irresistibly. In the same moment I saw the steersman of the galley lay his hand on his prisoner's shoulder, and saw that both boats were swinging round with the force of the tide, and saw that all hands on board the steamer were running forward quite frantically. Still in the same moment I saw the prisoner start up, lean across his captor, and pull the cloak from the neck of the shrinking sitter in the galley. Still in the same moment I saw that the face disclosed was the face of the other convict of long ago. Still in the same moment I saw the face tilt backward with a white terror on it that I shall never forget, and heard a great cry on board the steamer, and a loud splash in the water, and felt the boat sink from under me. It was but for an instant that I seemed to struggle with a thousand millwears and a thousand flashes of light. That instant passed I was taken on board the galley. Board was there, and start-top was there, but our boat was gone, and the two convicts were gone. What were the cries aboard the steamer, and the furious blowing off of her steam, and her driving on, and our driving on? I could not at first distinguish sky from water, or shore from shore, but the crew of the galley righted her with great speed, and pulling certain swift, strong strokes ahead, lay upon their oars every man looking sanally and eagerly at the water to resturn. Presently a dark object was seen in it bearing towards us on the tide. No man spoke, but the steersman held up his hand, and all softly backed water, and kept the boat straight and true before it. As it came nearer I saw it to be Magwitch swimming, but not swimming freely. He was taken on board, and instantly manacled at the wrists and ankles. The galley was kept steady, and the silent, eager look-out at the water was resumed. But the Rotterdam steamer now came up, and apparently not understanding what had happened came on at speed. By the time she had been hailed and stopped, both steamers were drifting away from us, and we were rising and falling in a troubled wake of water. The look-out was kept, long after all was still again, and the two steamers were gone, but everybody knew that it was hopeless now. At length we gave it up, and pulled under the shore towards the tavern we had lately left, where we were received with no little surprise. Here I was able to get some comforts for Magwitch, provis no longer, who had received some very severe injury in the chest and a deep cut in the head. He told me that he believed himself to have gone under the keel of the steamer, and to have been struck on the head in rising. The injury to his chest, which rendered his breathing extremely painful, he thought he had received against the side of the galley. He added that he did not pretend to say what he might or might not have done to Coppison, but that, in the moment of his laying his hand on his cloak to identify him, that villain had staggered up and staggered back, and they have both gone overboard together, when the sudden wrenching of him, Magwitch, out of our boat, and the endeavor of his captor to keep him in it, had capsized us. He told me in a whisper that they had gone down fiercely locked in each other's arms, and that there had been a struggle under water, and that he had disengaged himself, struck out, and swum away. I never had any reason to doubt the exact truth of what he thus told me. The officer who steered the galley gave the same account of their going overboard. When I asked this officer's permission to change the prisoner's wet clothes by purchasing any spare garments I could get at the public house, he gave it readily, merely observing that he must take charge of everything his prisoner had about him. So the pocket-book, which had once been in my hands, passed into the officers. He further gave me leave to accompany the prisoner to London, but declined to accord that grace to my two friends. The jack at the ship was instructed where the drowned man had gone down, and undertook to search for the body in the places where it was likely us to come ashore. His interest in its recovery seemed to me to be much heightened when he heard that it had stockings on. Probably it took about a dozen drowned men to fit him out completely, and that may have been the reason why the different articles of his dress were in various stages of decay. We remained at the public house until the tide turned, and then Magwitch was carried down to the galley and put on board. Herbert and Star Top were to get to London by land as soon as they could. We had a doleful parting, and when I took my place by Magwitch's side, I felt that that was my place henceforth while he lived. For now my repugnance to him had all melted away, and in the hunted, wounded, shackled creature who held my hand in his, I only saw a man who had meant to be my benefactor, and who had felt affectionately, gratefully, and generously towards me with great constancy through a series of years. I only saw in him a much better man than I had been to Joe. His breathing became more difficult and painful as the night drew on, and often he could not repress a groan. I tried to rest him on the arm I could use, in any easy position, but it was dreadful to think that I could not be sorry at heart for his being badly hurt, since it was unquestionably best that he should die. That there were, still living, people enough who were able and willing to identify him I could not doubt. That he would be leniently treated I could not hope. He who had been presented in the worst light at his trial, who had since broken prison and been tried again, who had returned from transportation under a life sentence, and who had occasioned the death of the man who was the cause of his arrest. As we returned toward the setting sun, we had yesterday left behind us, and as the stream of our hopes seemed all running back, I told him how grieved I was to think that he had come home for my sake. Dear boy, he answered, I'm quite content to take my chance. I've seen my boy, and he can be a gentleman without me. No. I had thought about that, while we had been there side by side. No. Apart from any inclinations of my own I understood Wemmick's hint now. I foresaw that, being convicted, his possessions would be forfeited to the crown. Looky here, dear boy, said he. His best as a gentleman should not be known to belong to me now. Only come to see me, as if you come by chance a longer Wemmick. Sit where I can see you when I am swore to, for the last of many times, and I don't ask no more. I will never stir from your side, said I, when I am suffered to be near you. Please, God, I will be as true to you as you have been to me. I felt his hand tremble as it held mine, and he turned his face away as he lay in the bottom of the boat, and I heard that old sound in his throat, soften now, like all the rest of him. It was a good thing that he had touched this point, for he had put into my mind what I might not otherwise have thought of, until too late, that he never knew how his hopes of enriching me had perished. He was taken to the police court next day, and would have been immediately committed for trial, but that it was necessary to send down for an old officer of the prison ship, from which he had once escaped, to speak to his identity. Nobody doubted it, but Compison, who had meant to depose to it, was tumbling on the tides dead, and it happened that there was not at that time any prison officer in London who could give the required evidence. I had gone direct to Mr. Jaggers at his private house, on my arrival overnight, to retain his assistance, and Mr. Jaggers on the prisoner's behalf would admit nothing. It was the sole resource, for he told me that the case must be over in five minutes when the witness was there, and that no power on earth could prevent its going against us. I imparted to Mr. Jaggers my design of keeping him in ignorance of the fate of his wealth. Mr. Jaggers was quarrelous and angry with me for having let it slip through my fingers, and said we must memorialize by and by, and try at all events for some of it. But he did not conceal from me that, although there might be many cases in which the forfeiture could not be exacted, there were no circumstances in this case to make it one of them. I understood that very well. I was not related to the outlaw, or connected with him by any recognizable tie. He had put his hand to no writing or settlement in my favor before his apprehension, and do so now would be idle. I had no claim, and I finally resolved, and ever afterwards abided by the resolution, that my heart should never be sickened with a hopeless task of attempting to establish one. There appeared to be reason for supposing that the drowned informer had hoped for a reward out of this forfeiture, and had obtained some accurate knowledge of Magwitch's affairs. When his body was found, many miles from the scene of his death, and so horribly disfigured that he was only recognizable by the contents of his pockets, notes were still legible, folded in a case he carried. Among these were the name of a backing house in New South Wales, where a sum of money was, and the designation of certain lands of considerable value. Both these heads of information were in a list that Magwitch, while in prison, gave to Mr. Jaggers, of the possessions he supposed I should inherit. His ignorance, poor fellow, at last served him. He never mistrusted but that my inheritance was quite safe with Mr. Jaggers' aid. After three days' delay, during which the crown prosecution stood over for the production of the witness from the prison ship, the witness came and completed the easy case. He was committed to take his trial at the next sessions, which would come on in a month. It was at this dark time of my life that Herbert returned home one evening a good deal cast down and said, My dear Handel, I fear I shall soon have to leave you. His partner, having prepared me for that, I was less surprised than he thought. We shall lose a fine opportunity if I put off going to Cairo, and I am very much afraid I must go, Handel, when you most need me. Herbert, I shall always need you, because I shall always love you, but my need is no greater now than at another time. You will be so lonely. I have not leisure to think of that, said I. You know that I am always with him to the full extent of the time allowed, and that I should be with him all day long if I could. And when I come away from him, you know that my thoughts are with him. The dreadful condition to which he was brought was so appalling to both of us that we could not refer to it in plainer words. My dear fellow, said Herbert, let the near prospect of our separation, for it is very near, be my justification for troubling you about yourself. Have you thought of your future? No, for I have been afraid to think of any future. But yours cannot be dismissed. Indeed, my dear, dear Handel, it must not be dismissed. I wish you would enter on it now, as far as a few friendly words go, with me. I will, said I. In this branch-house of ours, Handel, we must have a— I saw that his delicacy was avoiding the right word, so I said, A clerk. A clerk. And I hope it is not unlikely that he may expand, as a clerk of your acquaintance has expanded, into a partner. Now, Handel, in short, my dear boy, will you come to me? There was something charmingly cordial and engaging in the manner in which, after saying, Now, Handel, as if it were the grave beginning of a portentous business, Exordium, he had suddenly given up that tone, stretched out his honest hand, and spoken like a schoolboy. Clara and I have talked about it again and again, Herbert pursued, and the dear little thing begged me, only this evening, with tears in her eyes, to say to you that, if you will live with us when we come together, she will do her best to make you happy, and to convince her husband's friend that he is her friend too. We should get on so well, Handel. I thanked her heartily, and I thanked him heartily, but said I could not yet make sure of joining him, as he so kindly offered. Firstly, my mind was too preoccupied to be able to take in the subject clearly. Secondly, yes. Suddenly there was a vague something, lingering in my thoughts that will come out very near the end of this slight narrative. But if you thought, Herbert, that you could, without doing any injury to your business, leave the question open for a little while. For any while, cried Herbert, six months, a year. Not so long as that, said I, two or three months at most. Herbert was highly delighted when we shook hands on this arrangement, and said he could now take courage to tell me that he believed he must go away at the end of the week. And Clara, said I, the dear little thing, returned Herbert, holds dutifully to her father as long as he lasts, but he won't last long. Mrs. Wimple confides to me that he is certainly going. Not to say an unfeeling thing, said I. He cannot do better than go. I am afraid that must be admitted, said Herbert, and then I shall come back for the dear little thing, and the dear little thing and I will walk quietly into the nearest church. Remember, the blessed darling comes of no family, my dear handle, and never looked into the red book, and hasn't a notion about her grandpa. What a fortune for the son of my mother! On the Saturday in that same week I took my leave of Herbert, full of bright hope, but sad and sorry to leave me, as he sat on one of the seaport mail-couches. I went into a coffee-house to write a little note to Clara, telling her he had gone off, sending his love to her over and over again, and then went to my lonely home. If it deserved the name, for it was now no home to me, and I had no home anywhere. On the stairs I encountered Wemmick, who was coming down, after an unsuccessful application of his knuckles to my door. I had not seen him alone since the disastrous issue of the attempted flight, and he had come, in his private and personal capacity, to say a few words of explanation in reference to that failure. The late Compson, said Wemmick, had by little and little got at the bottom of half of the regular business now transacted, and it was from the talk of some of his people in trouble, some of his people being always in trouble, that I heard what I did. I kept my ears open, seeming to have them shut, until I heard that he was absent, and I thought that would be the best time for making the attempt. I can only suppose now that it was a part of his policy, as a very clever man, habitually to deceive his own instruments. You don't blame me, I hope, Mr. Pip. I am sure I try to serve you with all my heart. I am as sure of that, Wemmick, as you can be, and I thank you most earnestly for all your interest and friendship. Thank you. Thank you very much. It's a bad job. said Wemmick, scratching his head. And I assure you I haven't been so cut up for a long time. What I look at is the sacrifice of so much portable property. Dear me! What I think of Wemmick is the poor owner of the property. Yes, to be sure, said Wemmick. Of course there can be no objection to your being sorry for him, and I'd put down a five-pound note myself to get him out of it. But what I look at is this. The late coppison have him been beforehand with him in intelligence of his return, and being so determined to bring him to book, I do not think he could have been saved. Whereas the portable property certainly could have been saved. That's the difference between the property and the owner, don't you see? I invited Wemmick to come upstairs and refresh himself with a glass of grog before walking to Walworth. He accepted the invitation. While he was drinking his moderate allowance, he said, with nothing to lead up to it, and after having appeared rather fidgety, What do you think of my meaning to take a holiday on Monday, Mr. Pip? Why I suppose you have not done such a thing these twelve months. These twelve years, more likely, said Wemmick. Yes, I'm going to take a holiday. More than that, I'm going to take a walk. More than that, I'm going to ask you to take a walk with me. I was about to excuse myself as being but a bad companion just then, when Wemmick anticipated me. I know your engagements, said he, and I know you were out of sorts, Mr. Pip. But if you could oblige me, I should take it as a kindness. It ain't a long walk, and it's an early one. Say it might occupy you, including breakfast on the walk, from eight to twelve. Couldn't you stretch a point and manage it? He had done so much for me at various times that this was very little to do for him. I said I could manage it, would manage it, and he was so very much pleased by my acquiescence that I was pleased too. At his particular request I appointed to call for him at the castle, at half-past date on Monday morning, and so we parted for the time. Punctual to my appointment I rang at the castle gate on the Monday morning, and was received by Wemmick himself, who struck me as looking tighter than usual, and having a sleeker hat on. Within there were two glasses of rum and milk prepared, and two biscuits. The aged must have been stirring with the lark, for, glancing into the perspective of his bedroom, I observed that his bed was empty. When we had fortified ourselves with the rum and milk and biscuits, and were going out for the walk with that training preparation on us, I was considerably surprised to see Wemmick take up a fishing-rod and put it over his shoulder. Why, we are not going fishing, said I. No, replied Wemmick, but I like to walk with one. I thought this odd, however I said nothing, and we set off. We went towards Caberville Green, and when we were thereabouts Wemmick said suddenly, Hello, here's a church! There was nothing very surprising in that, but again I was rather surprised when he said, as if he were animated by a brilliant idea, Let's go in! We went in, Wemmick leaving his fishing-rod on the porch, and looked all round. In the meantime Wemmick was diving into his coat-pockets, and getting something out of paper there. Hello, said he, Here's a couple of pair of gloves! Let's put them on. As the gloves were white kid gloves, and as the post office was widened to its utmost extent, I now began to have my strong suspicions. They were strengthened into certainty when I beheld the aged enter out a side door, escorting a lady. Hello, said Wemmick, Here's Miss Skiffins, Let's have a wedding! That discreet damsel was attired as usual, except that she was now engaged in substituting for her green kid gloves a pair of white. The aged was likewise occupied in preparing a similar sacrifice for the altar of Hyman. The old gentleman, however, experienced so much difficulty in getting his gloves on that Wemmick found it necessary to put him with his back against a pillar, and then to get behind the pillar himself and pull away at them, while I, for my part, held the old gentleman round the waist that he might present equal and safe resistance. By dint of this ingenious scheme his gloves were got on due perfection. The clerk and clergyman then appearing we were ranged in order at those fatal rails. True to his notion of seeming to do it all without preparation, I heard Wemmick say to himself as he took something out of his waistcoat pocket before the service began, Hello, Here's a ring! I acted in the capacity of backer, or best man, to the bridegroom, while a little limp pew-opener in the soft bonnet like a baby's made a faint of being the bosom friend of Miss Skiffins. The responsibility of giving the lady away devolved upon the aged, which led to the clergyman's being unintentionally scandalized, and it happened thus. When he said, Who giveth this woman to be married to this man? The old gentleman, not in the least knowing what point of the ceremony we had arrived at, stood most amably beaming at the ten commandments, upon which the clergyman said again, Who giveth this woman to be married to this man? The old gentleman, being still in a state of most estimable unconsciousness, the bridegroom cried out in his accustomed voice, Now, aged P., you know, who giveth? To which the aged replied with great bristness, before saying that he gave, All right, John, all right, my boy! And the clergyman came to so gloomy a pause upon it that I had doubts for the moment whether we should get completely married that day. It was completely done, however, and when we were going out of church, Wemmick took the cover off the font, and put his white gloves in it, and put the cover on again. Mrs. Wemmick, more heedful of the future, put her white gloves in her pocket and assumed her green. Now, Mr. Pip, said Wemmick, triumphantly shouldering the fishing-rod as we came out. Let me ask you whether anybody would suppose this to be a wedding-party. Breakfast had been ordered at a pleasant little tavern, a mile or so away upon the rising ground beyond the green, and there was a bagatelle board in the room, in case we should desire to unbend our minds after the solemnity. It was pleasant to observe that Mrs. Wemmick no longer unwound Wemmick's arm when it adapted itself to her figure, but sat in a hide-back chair against the wall, like a violin cello in its case, and submitted to be embraced as that melodious instrument might have done. We had an excellent breakfast, and when any one declined anything on table, Wemmick said, Provided by contract, you know, don't be afraid of it. I drank to the new couple, drank to the aged, drank to the castle, saluted the bride at parting, and made myself as agreeable as I could. Wemmick came down to the door with me, and I again shook hands with him, and wished him joy. Thinky! said Wemmick, rubbing his hands. She's such a manager of fouls. You have no idea. You shall have some eggs, and judge for yourself. I say, Mr. Pip, calling me back and speaking low. This is altogether a wall with sentiment, please. I understand, not to be mentioned in little Britain, said I. Wemmick nodded. After what you let out the other day, Mr. Jaggers may as well not know of it. He might think my brain was softening, or something of the kind. CHAPTER 56 He lay in prison very ill, during the whole interval between his committal for trial and the coming round of the sessions. He had broken two ribs, they had wounded one of his lungs, and he breathed with great pain and difficulty, which increased daily. It was a consequence of his hurt that he spoke so low as to be scarcely audible. Therefore he spoke very little. But he was ever ready to listen to me, and it became the first duty of my life to say to him, and read to him, what I knew he ought to hear. Being far too ill to remain in the common prison, he was removed, after the first day or so, into the infirmary. This gave me opportunities of being with him that I could not otherwise have had. And but for his illness, he would have been put in irons, for he was regarded as a determined prison-breaker, and I knew not what else. Though I saw him every day it was for only a short time, hence the regularly recurring spaces of our separation were long enough to record on his face any slight changes that occurred in his physical state. I do not recollect that I once saw any change in it for the better. He wasted, and became slowly weaker and worse, day by day, from the day when the prison door closed upon him. The kind of submission or resignation that he showed was that of a man who was tired out. I sometimes derived an impression, from his manner or from a whispered word or two, which escaped him, that he pondered over the question whether he might have been a better man under better circumstances. But he never justified himself by a hint tending that way, or tried to bend the past out of its eternal shape. It happened on two or three occasions in my presence that his desperate reputation was alluded to by one or other other people in attendance on him. A smile crossed his face, then, and he turned his eyes on me with a trustful look, as if he were confident that I had seen some small redeeming touch in him, even so long ago as when I was a little child. As to all the rest he was humble and contrite, and I never knew him complain. When the sessions came round, Mr. Jaggers caused an application to be made for the postponement of his trial until the following sessions. It was obviously made with the assurance that he could not live so long, and was refused. The trial came on at once, and when he was put to the bar he was seated in a chair. No objection was made to my getting close to the dock, on the outside of it, and holding the hand that he stretched forth to me. The trial was very short and very clear. Such things as could be said for him were said, how he had taken to industrious habits, and had thriven lawfully and reputably. But nothing could unsay the fact that he had returned, and was there in the presence of the judge and jury. It was impossible to try him for that, and do otherwise than find him guilty. At that time it was the custom, as I learned from my terrible experience of that sessions, to devote a concluding day to the passing of sentences, and to make a finishing effect with the sentence of death. But for the indelible picture that my remembrance now holds before me, I could scarcely believe, even as I write these words, that I saw two and thirty men and women put before the judge to receive that sentence together. Foremost among the two and thirty was he, seated, that he might get breath enough to keep life in him. The whole scene starts out again in the vivid colors of the moment, down to the drops of April rain on the windows of the court, glittering in the rays of April sun. Pinned in the dock, as I again stood outside it at the corner with his hand in mine, were the two and thirty men and women, some defiant, some stricken with terror, some sobbing and weeping, some covering their faces, some staring gloomily about. There had been shrieks from among the women convicts, but they had been stilled, and a hush had succeeded. The sheriffs with their great chains and nose-gays, other civic gougas and monsters, criers, ushers, a great gallery full of people, a large theatrical audience, looked on as the two and thirty and the judge were solemnly confronted. When the judge addressed them, among the wretched creatures before him, whom he must single out for special address, was one who almost from his infancy had been an offender against the laws, who, after repeated imprisonments and punishments, had been at length sentenced to exile for a term of years, and who, under circumstances of great violence and daring, had made his escape and been re-sentenced to exile for life. That miserable man would seem for a time to have become convinced of his errors, when far removed from the scenes of his old offenses, and to have lived a peaceable and honest life. But in a fatal moment, yielding to those propensities and passions, the indulgence of which had so long rendered him a scourge to society, he acquitted his haven of rest and repentance, and had come back to the country where he was proscribed. Being here presently denounced, he had for a time succeeded in evading the officers of justice, but being at length seized while in the act of flight, he had resisted them, and had, he best knew whether by express design or in the blindness of his hardy-hood, caused the death of his denouncer, to whom his whole career was known. The appointed punishment for his return to the land that had cast him out, being death, and his case being this aggravated case, he must prepare himself to die. The sun was striking in at the great windows of the court, through the glittering drops of rain upon the glass, and it made a broad shaft of light between the two and thirty and the judge, linking both together, and perhaps reminding some among the audience how both were passing on, with absolute equality, to the greater judgment that knoweth all things, and cannot air. Rising for a moment, a distinct speck of face in this way of light, the prisoner said, My Lord, I have received my sentence of death from the Almighty, but I bow to yours. And sat down again. There was some hushing, and the judge went on with what he had to say to the rest. Then they were all formally doomed, and some of them were supported out, and some of them sauntered out with a haggard look of bravery, and a few nodded to the gallery, and two or three shook hands, and others went out chewing the fragments of herb they had taken from the sweet herbs lying about. He went last of all, because of having to be helped from his chair, and to go very slowly, and he held my hand while all the others were removed, and while the audience got up, putting their dresses right as they might at church or elsewhere, and pointed down at this criminal or at that, and most of all at him and me. I earnestly hoped and prayed that he might die before the recorder's report was made, but in the dread of his lingering on I began that night to write out a petition to the Home Secretary of State, setting forth my knowledge of him, and how it was that he had come back for my sake. I wrote it as fervently and pathetically as I could, and when I had finished it and sent it in, I wrote out other petitions to such men in authority as I hoped were the most merciful, and drew up one to the crown itself. For several days and nights after he was sentenced I took no rest except when I fell asleep in my chair, and was wholly absorbed in those appeals, and after I had sent them in I could not keep away from the places where they were, but felt as if they were more hopeful and less desperate when I was near them. In this unreasonable restlessness and pain of mind I would roam the streets of an evening, wandering by those offices and houses where I had left the petitions. To the present hour, the weary western streets of London on a cold, dusty spring night, with their ranges of stern shut-up mansions, and their long rows of lamps, are melancholy to me from this association. The daily visits I could make him were shortened now, and he was more strictly kept. Seeing or fancying that I was suspected of an intention of carrying poison to him, I asked to be searched before I sat down at his bedside, and told the officer who was always there that I was willing to do anything that would assure him of the singleness of my designs. But he was hard with him or with me. There was duty to be done, and it was done, but not harshly. The officer always gave me the assurance that he was worse, and some other sick prisoners in the room, and some other prisoners who attended on them as sick nurses, malefactors but not incapable of kindness, God be thanked, always joined in the same report. As the days went on I noticed more and more that he would lie placidly looking at the white ceiling with an absence of light in his face until some word of mine brightened it for an instant, and that it would subside again. Sometimes he was almost or quite unable to speak, and then he would answer me with slight pressures on my hand, and I grew to understand his meaning very well. The number of the days had risen to ten when I saw a greater change in him than I had seen yet. His eyes were turned towards the door and lighted up as I entered. "'Dear boy,' he said, as I sat down by his bed, I thought you was late, but I knowed you couldn't be that.' "'It is just the time,' said I. I waited for it at the gate.' "'You always wait, said the gate. Don't you, dear boy?' "'Yes, not to lose a moment of the time.' "'Thank you, dear boy. Thank you. God bless you. You have never deserted me, dear boy.' I pressed his hand in silence, for I could not forget that I had once meant to desert him. "'And what's the best of all?' he said. "'You've been more comfortable alonger me, since I was under a dark cloud than when the sun shone. That's best of all.' He lay on his back, breathing with great difficulty. Do what he would, and love me, though he did. The light left his face ever and again, and a film came over the placid look at the white ceiling. "'Are you in much pain today?' "'I don't complain of none, dear boy.' "'You never do complain,' he had spoken his last words. He smiled, and I understood his touch to mean that he wished to lift my hand and lay it on his breast. I laid it there, and he smiled again, and put both his hands upon it. The allotted time ran out, while we were thus, but looking round I found the governor of the prison standing near me, and he whispered, "'You didn't go yet.' I thanked him gratefully, and asked, "'Might I speak to him, if he can hear me?' The governor stepped aside and beckoned the officer away. The change, though it was made without noise, drew back the film from the placid look at the white ceiling, and he looked most affectionately at me. "'Dear Magwitch, I must tell you now at last. You understand what I say?' "'A gentle pressure on my hand.' "'You had a child once, whom you loved and lost.' A stronger pressure on my hand.' She lived and found powerful friends. She is living now. She is a lady and very beautiful. And I love her.' With a last faint effort, which would have been powerless but for my yielding to it and assisting it, he raised my hand to his lips. Then he gently let it sink upon his breast again, with his own hands lying on it. The placid look at the white ceiling came back and passed away, and his head dropped quietly on his breast. Mindful, then, of what we had read together, I thought of the two men who went up into the temple to pray, and I knew there were no better words that I could say beside his bed, then. "'Oh, Lord, be merciful to him, a sinner!' End of chapter 57 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 57 Now that I was left wholly to myself, I gave notice of my intention to quit the chambers in the temple as soon as my tenancy could legally determine, and in the meanwhile to underlet them. At once I put bills up in the windows, for I was in debt and had scarcely any money, and began to be seriously alarmed by the state of my affairs. I ought rather to write that I should have been alarmed if I had had energy and concentration enough to help me to the clear perception of any truth beyond the fact that I was falling very ill. The late stress upon me had enabled me to put off illness, but not to put it away. I knew that it was coming on me now, and I knew very little else, and was even careless as to that. For a day or two I lay on the sofa or on the floor, anywhere, according as I happened to sink down, with a heavy head and aching limbs, and no purpose and no power. Then there came one night which appeared of great duration, which teamed with anxiety and horror, and when in the morning I tried to sit up in my bed and think of it, I found I could not do so. Whether I really had been down and guarding court in the dead of the night, groping about for the boat that I supposed to be there, whether I had two or three times come to myself on the staircase with great terror, not knowing how I had got out of bed, whether I had found myself lighting the lamp, possessed by the idea that he was coming up the stairs, and that the lights were blown out, whether I had been inexpressibly harassed by the distracted talking, laughing, and groaning of someone, and had half suspected those sounds to be of my own making, whether there had been a closed iron furnace in a dark corner of the room, and a voice had called out over and over again that Miss Havisham was consuming within it. These were things that I tried to settle with myself and get into some order as I lay that morning on my bed, but the vapor of a lime kiln would come between me and them, disordering them all, and it was through the vapor at last that I saw two men looking at me. What do you want? I asked, starting. I don't know you. Well, sir, returned one of them, bending down and touching me on the shoulder. This is a matter that you'll soon arrange, I dare say, but you're arrested. What is the debt? Hundred and twenty-three pound fifteen, six jewelers account, I think. What is to be done? You had better come to my house, said the man. I keep a very nice house. I made some attempt to get up and dress myself, when I next attended to them they were standing a little off from the bed, looking at me. I still lay there. You see my state, said I. I would come with you if I could, but indeed I'm quite unable. If you take me from here I think I shall die by the way. Perhaps they replied, or argued the point, or tried to encourage me to believe that I was better than I thought, for as much as they hang in my memory by only this one slender thread I don't know what they did, except that they forebore to remove me. That I had a fever and was avoided, that I suffered greatly, that I often lost my reason, that the time seemed interminable, that I confounded impossible existences with my own identity, that I was a brick in the house wall, and yet in treating to be released from the giddy place where the builders had set me, that I was a steel beam of a vast engine clashing and whirling over a gulf, and yet that I implored in my own person to have the engine stopped, and my part in it hammered off, that I passed through these phases of disease I know of my own remembrance, and did in some sort know at the time. That I sometimes struggled with real people in the belief that they were murderers, and that I would all at once comprehend that they meant to do me good, and would then sink exhausted in their arms, and suffer them to lay me down, I also knew at the time. But above all, I knew that there was a constant tendency in all these people, who, when I was very ill, would present all kinds of extraordinary transformations of the human face, and would be much dilated in size. Above all, I say, I knew that there was an extraordinary tendency in all these people, sooner or later, to settle down into the likeness of Joe. After I had turned the worst point of my illness, I began to notice that while all its other features changed, this one consistent feature did not change. Whoever came about me, still settled down into Joe. I opened my eyes in the night, and I saw, in the great chair at the bedside, Joe. I opened my eyes in the day, and sitting on the window-seat, smoking his pipe in the shaded open window, still I saw Joe. I asked for a cooling drink, and the dear hand that gave it me was Joe's. I sank back on my pillow after drinking, and the face that looked so hopefully and tenderly upon me was the face of Joe. At last one day I took courage and said, Is it Joe? And the dear old home-voice answered, Which it are, old chap. Oh, Joe, you break my heart. Don't look angry at me, Joe. Strike me, Joe. Tell me of my ingratitude. Don't be so good to me. Where Joe had actually laid his head down on the pillow at my side and put his arm round my neck in his joy that I knew him. Which, dear old Pip, old chap, said Joe, You and me was ever-frenched. And when you're well enough to go out for a ride, what larks! After which Joe withdrew to the window, and stood with his back towards me, wiping his eyes, and as my extreme weakness prevented me from getting up and going to him, I lay there, penitently, whispering, Oh, God bless him. Oh, God bless this gentle Christian man. Joe's eyes were red when I next found him beside me, but I was holding his hand, and we both fell happy. How long, dear Joe? Which you mean to say, Pip? How long has your illness lasted, dear old chap? Yes, Joe. It's the end of May, Pip. Tomorrow is the first of June. And have you been here all that time, dear Joe? Pretty nigh, old chap. For, as I says to Biddy, when the news of your being ill were brought by letter, which it were brought by the post, and being formally single, he is now married, though underpaid, for a deal of walking and shoe-leather. But wealth were not an object on his part, and marriage were the great wish of his heart. It is so delightful to hear you, Joe. But I interrupt you in what you said to Biddy. Which it were, said Joe, that how you might be amongst strangers, and that how you and me having been ever friends, a visit at such a moment might not prove unacceptable, bubble. And Biddy, her word were, go to him without loss of time. Said Joe, summing up with his judicial air, were the word of Biddy. Go to him, Biddy, say, without loss of time. In short, I shouldn't greatly deceive you, Joe added after a little grave reflection, if I represented to you that the word of that young woman were without a minute's loss of time. There Joe cut himself short, and informed me that I was to be talked to in great moderation, and that I was to take a little nourishment at stated frequent times, whether I felt inclined for it or not, and that I was to submit myself to all his orders. So I kissed his hand in lay quiet, while he proceeded to indict a note to Biddy with my love in it. Evidently Biddy had taught Joe to write, As I lay in bed looking at him, it made me in my weak state cry again with pleasure to see the pride with which he set about his letter. My bed-stead, divested of its curtains, had been removed, with me upon it into the sitting-room, as the arriest and largest, and the carpet-heaven taken away, and the room kept always fresh and wholesome night and day. At my own writing-table, pushed into a corner encumbered with little bottles, Joe now sat down to his great work, first choosing a pen from the pen-tray as if it were a chest of large tools, and tucking up his sleeves as if you were going to wheel the crow-bar or sledge-hammer. It was necessary for Joe to hold on heavily to the table with his left elbow, and get his right leg well out behind him before he could begin, and when he did begin he made every down-stroke so slowly, that it might have been six feet long, while at every up-stroke I could hear his pens spluttering extensively. He had a curious idea that the ink-stand was on the side of him where it was not, and constantly dipped his pen into space, and seemed quite satisfied with the result. Occasionally he was tripped up by some orthographical stumbling block, but on the whole he got on very well indeed, and when he had signed his name and had removed a finishing blot from the paper to the crown of his head with his two forefingers, he got up and hovered about the table, trying the effect of his performance from various points of view, as it lay there, with unbounded satisfaction. Not to make Joe uneasy by talking too much, even if I had been able to talk much, I deferred asking him about Miss Havisham until next day. He shook his head when I then asked him if she had recovered. Is she dead, Joe? Why, you see, old chup! said Joe, in a tone of remonstrance, and by way of getting at it by degrees. I wouldn't go so far as to say that, for that's a deal to say, but she ain't living, Joe. That's nire where it is, said Joe. She ain't livin'. Did she linger long, Joe? Artie, you was took ill, pretty much about what you might call, if you was put to it, a week, said Joe, still determined on my account to come at everything by degrees. Dear Joe, have you heard what becomes of her property? Well, old chap, said Joe, it do appear that she had settled the most of it, which I mean to say, tied it up, on Miss Estella. But she had rode out a cottage-shell in her own hand a day or two before the accident, leavin' a cool four thousand to Mr. Matthew Pocket. And why, do you suppose, above all things, Pip, she left that cool four thousand unto him? Because of Pip's account of him, the said Matthew, I am told by Biddy that ere the writing, said Joe, repeating the legal term, as if it did him infinite good. Account of him, the said Matthew, and a cool four thousand, Pip! I never discovered from whom Joe derived the conventional temperature of the four thousand pounds. But it appeared to make the sum of money more to him, and he had a manifest relish in insisting on its being cool. This account gave me great joy, as it perfected the only good thing I had done. I asked Joe whether he had heard if any of the other relations had any legacies. Miss Sarah, said Joe, she have twenty-five pound perennium furred by pills, on account of being bilious. Miss Georgiana, she have twenty pound down. Misses, what's the name of them while beasts with humps, old chap? Camels, said I, wondering why he could possibly want to know. Joe nodded. Misses Camels, by which I presently understood he met Camilla, she have five pound furred by rush-lights to put her in spirits when she wake up in the night. The accuracy of these recitals was sufficiently obvious to me to give me great confidence in Joe's information. And now, said Joe, you ain't that strong yet, old chap, that you can take him more nor one additional shovelful to-day. Old Orlick, he's been a bustin' open a dwellin' house. Who's, said I? Not, I grant you, but what his manners is given to blusterous, said Joe, apologetically. Still, on Englishman's house is his castle, and castles must not be busted except when done in wartime. And once some ever the failings on his part he were a corn and seedsman in his heart. Is it Pumblechook's house that it's been broken into, then? That's it, Pip, said Joe, and they took his till, and they took his cash-box, and they drank his wine, and they partook of his widdles, and they slapped his face, and they pulled his nose, and they tied him up to his bed-post, and they gave him a dozen, and they stuffed his mouth full of flowering annuals to prevent his crying out. But he know'd Orlick, and Orlick's in the county jail. By these approaches we arrived at unrestricted conversation. I was slow to gain strength, but I did slowly and surely become less weak, and Joe stayed with me, and I fancied I was little Pip again. For the tenderness of Joe was so beautifully proportioned to my need, that I was like a child in his hands. He would sit and talk to me in the old confidence, and with the old simplicity, and in the old unassertive protecting way, so that I would half-believe that all my life, since the days of the old kitchen, was one of the mental troubles of the fever that was gone. He did everything for me except the household work, for which he had engaged a very decent woman, after paying off the laundress on his first arrival. Which I do assure you, Pip, he would often say, in explanation of that liberty, I found her a tap in the spare bed, like a cask of beer, and drawn off the feathers in a bucket for sale, which you would have tapped your next, and drawed it off with you a layin' on it, and was then a carrying away the coals gradually in the soup-terrene and vegetable dishes, and the wine and spirits in your Wellington boots. We looked forward to the day when I should go out for a ride, as we had once looked forward to the day of my apprenticeship, and when the day came, and an open carriage was got into the lane, Joe wrapped me up, took me in his arms, carried me down to it, and put me in, as if I were still the small helpless creature to whom he had so abundantly given the wealth of his great nature. And Joe got in beside me, and we drove away together into the country, where the rich summer growth was already on the trees and on the grass, and sweet summer scents filled all the air. The day happened to be Sunday, and when I looked on the loveliness around me, and thought how it had grown and changed, and how the little wildflowers had been forming, and the voices of the birds had been strengthening, by day and by night, under the sun and under the stars, while poor eye lay burning and tossing on my bed. The mere remembrance of having burned and tossed there came like a check upon my peace. But when I heard the Sunday bells, and looked around a little more upon the outspread beauty, I felt that I was not nearly thankful enough, that I was too weak yet to be even that. And I laid my head on Joe's shoulder, as I had laid it long ago when he had taken me to the fair, or where not, and it was too much for my young senses. More composure came to me after a while, and we talked as we used to talk, lying on the grass at the old battery. There was no change whatever in Joe. Exactly what he had been in my eyes then. He was in my eyes still, just as simply faithful, and as simply right. When we got back again, and he lifted me out and carried me, so easily, across the court and up the stairs, I thought of that eventful Christmas day when he had carried me over the marshes. We had not yet made any allusion to my change of fortune, nor did I know how much of my late history he was acquainted with. I was so doubtful of myself now, and put so much trust in him, that I could not satisfy myself whether I ought to refer to it when he did not. Have you heard, Joe? I asked him that evening, upon further consideration, as he smoked his pipe at the window. Who my patron was? I heard, returned Joe, as it were not Miss Havisham, old chap. Did you hear who it was, Joe? Well, I heard as it were a person what sent the person what give you the banknotes at the Jolly Bargeman, Pip. So it was. Astonishing, said Joe in the placidest way. Did you hear that he was dead, Joe? I presently asked, with increasing diffidence. Which? Him has sent the banknotes, Pip? Yes. I think, said Joe, after meditating a long time, and looking rather evasively at the window-seat, as I did hear tell that how he were something or other in a general way in that direction. Did you hear anything of his circumstances, Joe? Not particular, Pip. But if you would like to hear, Joe? I was beginning when Joe got up and came to my sofa. Looky here, old chap, said Joe, bending over me. Ever the best of friends, ain't us, Pip? I was ashamed to answer him. Very good, then, said Joe, as if I had answered. That's all right. That's agreed upon. Then why go into subjects, old chap, which as betwixt to such must be forever unnecessary? Their subjects enough to as betwixt to such without unnecessary ones. Lord, to think of your poor sister and her rampages, and don't you remember, Tickler? I do indeed, Joe. Looky here, old chap, said Joe. I'd done what I could to keep you and Tickler in usunders, but my power was not always fully equal to my inclinations. For when your poor sister had a mind to drop into you, it were not so much, said Joe in his favorite argumentative way, that she dropped into me, too, if I put myself in opposition to her, but that she dropped into you always heavier for it. I noticed that. It ain't a grab at a man's whisker, nor yet a shake or two of a man, to which your sister was quite welcome, that it put a man off from getting a little child out of punishment. But when that little child has dropped into heavier for that grab a whisker or shaken, then that man naturally up and says to himself, where is the good as you are at doing? I grant you I see the harm, said the man. But I don't see the good. I call upon you, sir, therefore, to point out the good. The man says, I observed as Joe waited for me to speak. The man says, Joe ascended. Is he right, that man? Dear Joe, he is always right. Well, old chap, said Joe, then abide by your words. If he's always right, which in general he's more likely wrong, he's right when he says this, supposing ever you kept any little matter to yourself when you was a little child, you kept it mostly because you knowed as J. Gargery's power to part you and Tickler and Sunder's were not fully equal to his inclinations. Therefore I think no more of it as betwixt to such, and do not let us pass remarks upon unnecessary subjects. Biddy give herself a deal of trouble with me before I left, for I am almost awful, dull, as I should view it in this light, and viewing it in this light, as I should so put it, both of which, said Joe, quite charmed with this logical arrangement, being done, now this to you a true friend, say, namely, you mustn't go overdoing on it, but you must have your supper and your wine and water, and you must be put betwixt the sheets. The delicacy with which Joe dismissed this theme, and the sweet tact and kindness with which Biddy, who with her woman's wit had found me out so soon, had prepared him for it, made a deep impression on my mind. But whether Joe knew how poor I was, and how my great expectations had all dissolved, like our own Marsh mists before the sun, I could not understand. Another thing in Joe that I could not understand when it first began to develop itself, but which I soon arrived at, a sorrowful comprehension of, was this. As I became stronger and better, Joe became a little less easy with me. In my weakness and entire dependence on him, the dear fellow had fallen into the old tone, and call me by the old names, the dear old pip old chap, that now were music in my ears. I too had fallen into the old ways, only happy and thankful that he let me. But imperceptibly, though I held by them fast, Joe's hold upon them began to slacken, and whereas I wondered at this, at first, I soon began to understand that the cause of it was in me, and that the fault of it was all mine. Had I given Joe no reason to doubt my constancy, and to think that in prosperity I should grow cold to him and cast him off? Had I given Joe's innocent heart no cause to feel instinctively that as I got stronger his hold upon me would be weaker, and that he had better loosen it in time and let me go before I plucked myself away? It was on the third or fourth occasion of my going out walking in the temple gardens, leading on Joe's arm, that I saw this change in him very plainly. We had been sitting in the bright warm sunlight, looking at the river, and I chanced to say as we got up, See, Joe, I can walk quite strongly. Now you shall see me walk back by myself. Which do not overdo it, Pip, said Joe, but I shall be happy for to see you able, sir. The last word graded on me. But how could I remonstrate? I walked no further than the gate of the gardens, and then pretended to be weaker than I was, and asked Joe for his arm. Joe gave it me, but was thoughtful. I for my part was thoughtful, too, for how best to check this growing change in Joe was a great perplexity to my remorseful thoughts. That I was ashamed to tell him exactly how I was placed and what I had come down to. I do not seek to conceal. But I hope my reluctance was not quite an unworthy one. He would want to help me out of his little savings I knew, and I knew that he ought not to help me, and that I must not suffer him to do it. It was a thoughtful evening with both of us. But before we went to bed I had resolved that I would wait over to-morrow, to-morrow being Sunday, and would begin my new course with the new week. On Monday morning I would speak to Joe about this change. I would lay aside this last vestige of reserve. I would tell him what I had in my thoughts that, secondly, not yet arrived at, and why I had not decided to go out to Herbert, and then the change would be conquered forever. As I cleared, Joe cleared, and it seemed as though he had sympathetically arrived at a resolution, too. We had a quiet day on the Sunday, and we rode out into the country, and then walked in the fields. I feel thankful that I have been ill, Joe, I said. Dear old Pip, old Chet, you're almost come round, sir. It has been a memorable time for me, Joe. Likewise for myself, sir, Joe returned. We have had a time together, Joe, that I can never forget. There were days once I know that I did for a while forget, but I never shall forget these. Pip, said Joe, appearing a little hurried and troubled, there has been larks, and, dear sir, what has been betwixt us have been. At night, when I had gone to bed, Joe came into my room as he had done all through my recovery. He asked me if I felt sure that I was as well as in the morning. Yes, dear Joe, quiet. And are always getting stronger, old Chet? Yes, dear Joe, steadily. Joe padded the coverlet on my shoulder with his great good hand, and said, in what I thought a husky voice, Good night! When I got up in the morning, refreshed and stronger yet, I was full of my resolution to tell Joe all without delay. I would tell him before breakfast, I would dress at once, and go to his room and surprise him, for it was the first day I had been up early. I went to his room, and he was not there. Not only was he not there, but his box was gone. I hurried then to the breakfast table, and on it found a letter. These were its brief contents. Not wishful to intrude, I have departured for you or well again, dear Pip, and will do better without J.O. P.S., ever the best of friends. Enclosed in the letter was a receipt for the debt and costs on which I had been arrested. Down to that moment I had vainly supposed that my creditor had withdrawn, or suspended proceedings until I should be quite recovered. I had never dreamed of Joe's having paid the money, but Joe had paid it, and the receipt was in his name. What remained for me now, but to follow him to the dear old forge, and there to have out my disclosure to him, and my penitent remonstrance with him, and there to relieve my mind and heart of that reserved secondly, which had begun as a vague something lingering in my thoughts, and informed into a settled purpose. The purpose was that I would go to Biddy, that I would show her how humbled and repentant I came back, that I would tell her how I had lost all I once hoped for, that I would remind her of our old confidences in my first unhappy time. Then I would say to her, Biddy, I think you once liked me very well, when my errant heart, even while it strayed away from you, was quieter and better with you than it ever has been since. If you can like me only half as well once more, if you can take me with all my faults and disappointments on my head, if you can receive me like a forgiven child, and indeed I am as sorry, Biddy, and have as much need of a hushing voice in a soothing hand, I hope I am a little worthier of you than I was. Not much, but a little. And, Biddy, it shall rest with you to say whether I shall work at the forge with Joe, or whether I shall try for any different occupation down in this country, or whether we shall go away to a distant place where an opportunity awaits me, which I set aside, when it was offered, until I knew your answer. And now, dear Biddy, if you can tell me that you will go through the world with me, you will surely make it a better world for me, and me a better man for it, and I will try hard to make it a better world for you. Such was my purpose. After three days more of recovery, I went down to the old place to put it in execution, and how I