Great Expectations

Charles Dickens

1861
Contents
Chapter I 6

Chapter II 14

Chapter III 27

Chapter IV 35

Chapter V 48

Chapter VI 64

Chapter VII 67

Chapter VIII 83

Chapter IX 102

Chapter X 113

Chapter XI 123

Chapter XII 144

Chapter XIII 152

Chapter XIV 164

Chapter XV 167

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Chapter XVI 184

Chapter XVII 191

Chapter XVIII 204

Chapter XIX 225

Chapter XX 247

Chapter XXI 260

Chapter XXII 268

Chapter XXIII 288

Chapter XXIV 300

Chapter XXV 310

Chapter XXVI 321

Chapter XXVII 332

Chapter XXVIII 344

Chapter XXIX 353

Chapter XXX 372

Chapter XXXI 385

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Chapter XXXII 394

Chapter XXXIII 403

Chapter XXXIV 414

Chapter XXXV 423

Chapter XXXVI 435

Chapter XXXVII 446

Chapter XXXVIII 457

Chapter XXXIX 477

Chapter XL 495

Chapter XLI 515

Chapter XLII 524

Chapter XLIII 535

Chapter XLIV 544

Chapter XLV 556

Chapter XLVI 568

Chapter XLVII 579

4
Chapter XLVIII 589

Chapter XLIX 600

Chapter L 614

Chapter LI 621

Chapter LII 633

Chapter LIII 641

Chapter LIV 660

Chapter LV 681

Chapter LVI 693

Chapter LVII 701

Chapter LVIII 720

Chapter LIX 732

5
Chapter I
My father’s family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name
Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing
longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and
came to be called Pip.
I give Pirrip as my father’s family name, on the authority of
his tombstone and my sister,—Mrs. Joe Gargery, who mar-
ried the blacksmith. As I never saw my father or my mother,
and never saw any likeness of either of them (for their days
were long before the days of photographs), my first fancies
regarding what they were like were unreasonably derived
from their tombstones. The shape of the letters on my fa-
ther’s, gave me an odd idea that he was a square, stout, dark
man, with curly black hair. From the character and turn of
the inscription, “Also Georgiana Wife of the Above,” I drew a
childish conclusion that my mother was freckled and sickly.
To five little stone lozenges, each about a foot and a half long,
which were arranged in a neat row beside their grave, and
were sacred to the memory of five little brothers of mine,—
who gave up trying to get a living, exceedingly early in that
universal struggle,—I am indebted for a belief I religiously
entertained that they had all been born on their backs with
their hands in their trousers-pockets, and had never taken
them out in this state of existence.
Ours was the marsh country, down by the river, within, as
the river wound, twenty miles of the sea. My first most

6
vivid and broad impression of the identity of things seems
to me to have been gained on a memorable raw afternoon
towards evening. At such a time I found out for certain that
this bleak place overgrown with nettles was the churchyard;
and that Philip Pirrip, late of this parish, and also Georgiana
wife of the above, were dead and buried; and that Alexander,
Bartholomew, Abraham, Tobias, and Roger, infant children
of the aforesaid, were also dead and buried; and that the
dark flat wilderness beyond the churchyard, intersected with
dikes and mounds and gates, with scattered cattle feeding
on it, was the marshes; and that the low leaden line beyond
was the river; and that the distant savage lair from which
the wind was rushing was the sea; and that the small bundle
of shivers growing afraid of it all and beginning to cry, was
Pip.
“Hold your noise!” cried a terrible voice, as a man started up
from among the graves at the side of the church porch. “Keep
still, you little devil, or I’ll cut your throat!”
A fearful man, all in coarse gray, with a great iron on his
leg. A man with no hat, and with broken shoes, and with
an old rag tied round his head. A man who had been soaked
in water, and smothered in mud, and lamed by stones, and
cut by flints, and stung by nettles, and torn by briars; who
limped, and shivered, and glared, and growled; and whose
teeth chattered in his head as he seized me by the chin.
“Oh! Don’t cut my throat, sir,” I pleaded in terror. “Pray don’t
do it, sir.”

7
“Tell us your name!” said the man. “Quick!”
“Pip, sir.”
“Once more,” said the man, staring at me. “Give it mouth!”
“Pip. Pip, sir.”
“Show us where you live,” said the man. “Pint out the place!”
I pointed to where our village lay, on the flat in-shore among
the alder-trees and pollards, a mile or more from the church.
The man, after looking at me for a moment, turned me upside
down, and emptied my pockets. There was nothing in them
but a piece of bread. When the church came to itself,—for he
was so sudden and strong that he made it go head over heels
before me, and I saw the steeple under my feet,—when the
church came to itself, I say, I was seated on a high tombstone,
trembling while he ate the bread ravenously.
“You young dog,” said the man, licking his lips, “what fat
cheeks you ha’ got.”
I believe they were fat, though I was at that time undersized
for my years, and not strong.
“Darn me if I couldn’t eat em,” said the man, with a threaten-
ing shake of his head, “and if I han’t half a mind to’t!”
I earnestly expressed my hope that he wouldn’t, and held
tighter to the tombstone on which he had put me; partly, to
keep myself upon it; partly, to keep myself from crying.

8
“Now lookee here!” said the man. “Where’s your mother?”
“There, sir!” said I.
He started, made a short run, and stopped and looked over
his shoulder.
“There, sir!” I timidly explained. “Also Georgiana. That’s my
mother.”
“Oh!” said he, coming back. “And is that your father alonger
your mother?”
“Yes, sir,” said I; “him too; late of this parish.”
“Ha!” he muttered then, considering. “Who d’ye live with,—
supposin’ you’re kindly let to live, which I han’t made up my
mind about?”
“My sister, sir,—Mrs. Joe Gargery,—wife of Joe Gargery, the
blacksmith, sir.”
“Blacksmith, eh?” said he. And looked down at his leg.
After darkly looking at his leg and me several times, he came
closer to my tombstone, took me by both arms, and tilted me
back as far as he could hold me; so that his eyes looked most
powerfully down into mine, and mine looked most helplessly
up into his.
“Now lookee here,” he said, “the question being whether
you’re to be let to live. You know what a file is?”
“Yes, sir.”

9
“And you know what wittles is?”
“Yes, sir.”
After each question he tilted me over a little more, so as to
give me a greater sense of helplessness and danger.
“You get me a file.” He tilted me again. “And you get me
wittles.” He tilted me again. “You bring ’em both to me.” He
tilted me again. “Or I’ll have your heart and liver out.” He
tilted me again.
I was dreadfully frightened, and so giddy that I clung to him
with both hands, and said, “If you would kindly please to let
me keep upright, sir, perhaps I shouldn’t be sick, and perhaps
I could attend more.”
He gave me a most tremendous dip and roll, so that the
church jumped over its own weathercock. Then, he held me
by the arms, in an upright position on the top of the stone,
and went on in these fearful terms:—
“You bring me, to-morrow morning early, that file and them
wittles. You bring the lot to me, at that old Battery over yon-
der. You do it, and you never dare to say a word or dare to
make a sign concerning your having seen such a person as
me, or any person sumever, and you shall be let to live. You
fail, or you go from my words in any partickler, no matter
how small it is, and your heart and your liver shall be tore
out, roasted, and ate. Now, I ain’t alone, as you may think I
am. There’s a young man hid with me, in comparison with
which young man I am a Angel. That young man hears the

10
words I speak. That young man has a secret way pecooliar to
himself, of getting at a boy, and at his heart, and at his liver.
It is in wain for a boy to attempt to hide himself from that
young man. A boy may lock his door, may be warm in bed,
may tuck himself up, may draw the clothes over his head,
may think himself comfortable and safe, but that young man
will softly creep and creep his way to him and tear him open.
I am a keeping that young man from harming of you at the
present moment, with great difficulty. I find it wery hard to
hold that young man off of your inside. Now, what do you
say?”
I said that I would get him the file, and I would get him what
broken bits of food I could, and I would come to him at the
Battery, early in the morning.
“Say Lord strike you dead if you don’t!” said the man.
I said so, and he took me down.
“Now,” he pursued, “you remember what you’ve undertook,
and you remember that young man, and you get home!”
“Goo-good night, sir,” I faltered.
“Much of that!” said he, glancing about him over the cold
wet flat. “I wish I was a frog. Or a eel!”
At the same time, he hugged his shuddering body in both
his arms,—clasping himself, as if to hold himself together,—
and limped towards the low church wall. As I saw him go,
picking his way among the nettles, and among the brambles

11
that bound the green mounds, he looked in my young eyes as
if he were eluding the hands of the dead people, stretching up
cautiously out of their graves, to get a twist upon his ankle
and pull him in.
When he came to the low church wall, he got over it, like
a man whose legs were numbed and stiff, and then turned
round to look for me. When I saw him turning, I set my
face towards home, and made the best use of my legs. But
presently I looked over my shoulder, and saw him going on
again towards the river, still hugging himself in both arms,
and picking his way with his sore feet among the great stones
dropped into the marshes here and there, for stepping-places
when the rains were heavy or the tide was in.
The marshes were just a long black horizontal line then, as
I stopped to look after him; and the river was just another
horizontal line, not nearly so broad nor yet so black; and the
sky was just a row of long angry red lines and dense black
lines intermixed. On the edge of the river I could faintly make
out the only two black things in all the prospect that seemed
to be standing upright; one of these was the beacon by which
the sailors steered,—like an unhooped cask upon a pole,—an
ugly thing when you were near it; the other, a gibbet, with
some chains hanging to it which had once held a pirate. The
man was limping on towards this latter, as if he were the
pirate come to life, and come down, and going back to hook
himself up again. It gave me a terrible turn when I thought
so; and as I saw the cattle lifting their heads to gaze after
him, I wondered whether they thought so too. I looked all

12
round for the horrible young man, and could see no signs of
him. But now I was frightened again, and ran home without
stopping.

13
Chapter II
My sister, Mrs. Joe Gargery, was more than twenty years
older than I, and had established a great reputation with her-
self and the neighbors because she had brought me up “by
hand.” Having at that time to find out for myself what the
expression meant, and knowing her to have a hard and heavy
hand, and to be much in the habit of laying it upon her hus-
band as well as upon me, I supposed that Joe Gargery and I
were both brought up by hand.
She was not a good-looking woman, my sister; and I had
a general impression that she must have made Joe Gargery
marry her by hand. Joe was a fair man, with curls of flaxen
hair on each side of his smooth face, and with eyes of such a
very undecided blue that they seemed to have somehow got
mixed with their own whites. He was a mild, good-natured,
sweet-tempered, easy-going, foolish, dear fellow,—a sort of
Hercules in strength, and also in weakness.
My sister, Mrs. Joe, with black hair and eyes, had such a
prevailing redness of skin that I sometimes used to wonder
whether it was possible she washed herself with a nutmeg-
grater instead of soap. She was tall and bony, and almost
always wore a coarse apron, fastened over her figure behind
with two loops, and having a square impregnable bib in front,
that was stuck full of pins and needles. She made it a pow-
erful merit in herself, and a strong reproach against Joe, that
she wore this apron so much. Though I really see no reason

14
why she should have worn it at all; or why, if she did wear it
at all, she should not have taken it off, every day of her life.
Joe’s forge adjoined our house, which was a wooden house,
as many of the dwellings in our country were,—most of them,
at that time. When I ran home from the churchyard, the forge
was shut up, and Joe was sitting alone in the kitchen. Joe and
I being fellow-sufferers, and having confidences as such, Joe
imparted a confidence to me, the moment I raised the latch
of the door and peeped in at him opposite to it, sitting in the
chimney corner.
“Mrs. Joe has been out a dozen times, looking for you, Pip.
And she’s out now, making it a baker’s dozen.”
“Is she?”
“Yes, Pip,” said Joe; “and what’s worse, she’s got Tickler with
her.”
At this dismal intelligence, I twisted the only button on my
waistcoat round and round, and looked in great depression at
the fire. Tickler was a wax-ended piece of cane, worn smooth
by collision with my tickled frame.
“She sot down,” said Joe, “and she got up, and she made a grab
at Tickler, and she Ram-paged out. That’s what she did,” said
Joe, slowly clearing the fire between the lower bars with the
poker, and looking at it; “she Ram-paged out, Pip.”
“Has she been gone long, Joe?” I always treated him as a
larger species of child, and as no more than my equal.

15
“Well,” said Joe, glancing up at the Dutch clock, “she’s been
on the Ram-page, this last spell, about five minutes, Pip. She’s
a coming! Get behind the door, old chap, and have the jack-
towel betwixt you.”
I took the advice. My sister, Mrs. Joe, throwing the door
wide open, and finding an obstruction behind it, immediately
divined the cause, and applied Tickler to its further investi-
gation. She concluded by throwing me—I often served as a
connubial missile—at Joe, who, glad to get hold of me on any
terms, passed me on into the chimney and quietly fenced me
up there with his great leg.
“Where have you been, you young monkey?” said Mrs. Joe,
stamping her foot. “Tell me directly what you’ve been doing
to wear me away with fret and fright and worrit, or I’d have
you out of that corner if you was fifty Pips, and he was five
hundred Gargerys.”
“I have only been to the churchyard,” said I, from my stool,
crying and rubbing myself.
“Churchyard!” repeated my sister. “If it warn’t for me you’d
have been to the churchyard long ago, and stayed there. Who
brought you up by hand?”
“You did,” said I.
“And why did I do it, I should like to know?” exclaimed my
sister.
I whimpered, “I don’t know.”

16
“I don’t!” said my sister. “I’d never do it again! I know that. I
may truly say I’ve never had this apron of mine off since born
you were. It’s bad enough to be a blacksmith’s wife (and him
a Gargery) without being your mother.”
My thoughts strayed from that question as I looked disconso-
lately at the fire. For the fugitive out on the marshes with the
ironed leg, the mysterious young man, the file, the food, and
the dreadful pledge I was under to commit a larceny on those
sheltering premises, rose before me in the avenging coals.
“Hah!” said Mrs. Joe, restoring Tickler to his station.
“Churchyard, indeed! You may well say churchyard, you
two.” One of us, by the by, had not said it at all. “You’ll drive
me to the churchyard betwixt you, one of these days, and O,
a pr-r-recious pair you’d be without me!”
As she applied herself to set the tea-things, Joe peeped
down at me over his leg, as if he were mentally casting
me and himself up, and calculating what kind of pair we
practically should make, under the grievous circumstances
foreshadowed. After that, he sat feeling his right-side flaxen
curls and whisker, and following Mrs. Joe about with his
blue eyes, as his manner always was at squally times.
My sister had a trenchant way of cutting our bread and butter
for us, that never varied. First, with her left hand she jammed
the loaf hard and fast against her bib,—where it sometimes
got a pin into it, and sometimes a needle, which we after-
wards got into our mouths. Then she took some butter (not
too much) on a knife and spread it on the loaf, in an apothe-

17
cary kind of way, as if she were making a plaster,—using both
sides of the knife with a slapping dexterity, and trimming
and moulding the butter off round the crust. Then, she gave
the knife a final smart wipe on the edge of the plaster, and
then sawed a very thick round off the loaf: which she finally,
before separating from the loaf, hewed into two halves, of
which Joe got one, and I the other.
On the present occasion, though I was hungry, I dared not
eat my slice. I felt that I must have something in reserve for
my dreadful acquaintance, and his ally the still more dreadful
young man. I knew Mrs. Joe’s housekeeping to be of the
strictest kind, and that my larcenous researches might find
nothing available in the safe. Therefore I resolved to put my
hunk of bread and butter down the leg of my trousers.
The effort of resolution necessary to the achievement of this
purpose I found to be quite awful. It was as if I had to make up
my mind to leap from the top of a high house, or plunge into
a great depth of water. And it was made the more difficult by
the unconscious Joe. In our already-mentioned freemasonry
as fellow-sufferers, and in his good-natured companionship
with me, it was our evening habit to compare the way we
bit through our slices, by silently holding them up to each
other’s admiration now and then,—which stimulated us to
new exertions. To-night, Joe several times invited me, by the
display of his fast diminishing slice, to enter upon our usual
friendly competition; but he found me, each time, with my
yellow mug of tea on one knee, and my untouched bread and
butter on the other. At last, I desperately considered that

18
the thing I contemplated must be done, and that it had best
be done in the least improbable manner consistent with the
circumstances. I took advantage of a moment when Joe had
just looked at me, and got my bread and butter down my leg.
Joe was evidently made uncomfortable by what he supposed
to be my loss of appetite, and took a thoughtful bite out of
his slice, which he didn’t seem to enjoy. He turned it about
in his mouth much longer than usual, pondering over it a
good deal, and after all gulped it down like a pill. He was
about to take another bite, and had just got his head on one
side for a good purchase on it, when his eye fell on me, and
he saw that my bread and butter was gone.
The wonder and consternation with which Joe stopped on
the threshold of his bite and stared at me, were too evident
to escape my sister’s observation.
“What’s the matter now?” said she, smartly, as she put down
her cup.
“I say, you know!” muttered Joe, shaking his head at me in
very serious remonstrance. “Pip, old chap! You’ll do yourself
a mischief. It’ll stick somewhere. You can’t have chawed it,
Pip.”
“What’s the matter now?” repeated my sister, more sharply
than before.
“If you can cough any trifle on it up, Pip, I’d recommend you
to do it,” said Joe, all aghast. “Manners is manners, but still
your elth’s your elth.”

19
By this time, my sister was quite desperate, so she pounced
on Joe, and, taking him by the two whiskers, knocked his
head for a little while against the wall behind him, while I sat
in the corner, looking guiltily on.
“Now, perhaps you’ll mention what’s the matter,” said my
sister, out of breath, “you staring great stuck pig.”
Joe looked at her in a helpless way, then took a helpless bite,
and looked at me again.
“You know, Pip,” said Joe, solemnly, with his last bite in his
cheek, and speaking in a confidential voice, as if we two were
quite alone, “you and me is always friends, and I’d be the
last to tell upon you, any time. But such a—” he moved his
chair and looked about the floor between us, and then again
at me—“such a most oncommon Bolt as that!”
“Been bolting his food, has he?” cried my sister.
“You know, old chap,” said Joe, looking at me, and not at Mrs.
Joe, with his bite still in his cheek, “I Bolted, myself, when
I was your age—frequent—and as a boy I’ve been among a
many Bolters; but I never see your Bolting equal yet, Pip,
and it’s a mercy you ain’t Bolted dead.”
My sister made a dive at me, and fished me up by the hair,
saying nothing more than the awful words, “You come along
and be dosed.”
Some medical beast had revived Tar-water in those days as a
fine medicine, and Mrs. Joe always kept a supply of it in the

20
cupboard; having a belief in its virtues correspondent to its
nastiness. At the best of times, so much of this elixir was ad-
ministered to me as a choice restorative, that I was conscious
of going about, smelling like a new fence. On this particu-
lar evening the urgency of my case demanded a pint of this
mixture, which was poured down my throat, for my greater
comfort, while Mrs. Joe held my head under her arm, as a
boot would be held in a bootjack. Joe got off with half a pint;
but was made to swallow that (much to his disturbance, as
he sat slowly munching and meditating before the fire), “be-
cause he had had a turn.” Judging from myself, I should say
he certainly had a turn afterwards, if he had had none before.
Conscience is a dreadful thing when it accuses man or boy;
but when, in the case of a boy, that secret burden co-operates
with another secret burden down the leg of his trousers, it is
(as I can testify) a great punishment. The guilty knowledge
that I was going to rob Mrs. Joe—I never thought I was going
to rob Joe, for I never thought of any of the housekeeping
property as his—united to the necessity of always keeping
one hand on my bread and butter as I sat, or when I was or-
dered about the kitchen on any small errand, almost drove
me out of my mind. Then, as the marsh winds made the fire
glow and flare, I thought I heard the voice outside, of the man
with the iron on his leg who had sworn me to secrecy, declar-
ing that he couldn’t and wouldn’t starve until to-morrow, but
must be fed now. At other times, I thought, What if the young
man who was with so much difficulty restrained from im-
bruing his hands in me should yield to a constitutional im-

21
patience, or should mistake the time, and should think him-
self accredited to my heart and liver to-night, instead of to-
morrow! If ever anybody’s hair stood on end with terror,
mine must have done so then. But, perhaps, nobody’s ever
did?
It was Christmas Eve, and I had to stir the pudding for next
day, with a copper-stick, from seven to eight by the Dutch
clock. I tried it with the load upon my leg (and that made me
think afresh of the man with the load on his leg), and found
the tendency of exercise to bring the bread and butter out at
my ankle, quite unmanageable. Happily I slipped away, and
deposited that part of my conscience in my garret bedroom.
“Hark!” said I, when I had done my stirring, and was taking
a final warm in the chimney corner before being sent up to
bed; “was that great guns, Joe?”
“Ah!” said Joe. “There’s another conwict off.”
“What does that mean, Joe?” said I.
Mrs. Joe, who always took explanations upon herself, said,
snappishly, “Escaped. Escaped.” Administering the definition
like Tar-water.
While Mrs. Joe sat with her head bending over her needle-
work, I put my mouth into the forms of saying to Joe, “What’s
a convict?” Joe put his mouth into the forms of returning
such a highly elaborate answer, that I could make out noth-
ing of it but the single word “Pip.”

22
“There was a conwict off last night,” said Joe, aloud, “after
sunset-gun. And they fired warning of him. And now it ap-
pears they’re firing warning of another.”
“Who’s firing?” said I.
“Drat that boy,” interposed my sister, frowning at me over her
work, “what a questioner he is. Ask no questions, and you’ll
be told no lies.”
It was not very polite to herself, I thought, to imply that I
should be told lies by her even if I did ask questions. But she
never was polite unless there was company.
At this point Joe greatly augmented my curiosity by taking
the utmost pains to open his mouth very wide, and to put it
into the form of a word that looked to me like “sulks.” There-
fore, I naturally pointed to Mrs. Joe, and put my mouth into
the form of saying, “her?” But Joe wouldn’t hear of that, at
all, and again opened his mouth very wide, and shook the
form of a most emphatic word out of it. But I could make
nothing of the word.
“Mrs. Joe,” said I, as a last resort, “I should like to know—if
you wouldn’t much mind—where the firing comes from?”
“Lord bless the boy!” exclaimed my sister, as if she didn’t
quite mean that but rather the contrary. “From the Hulks!”
“Oh-h!” said I, looking at Joe. “Hulks!”
Joe gave a reproachful cough, as much as to say, “Well, I told
you so.”

23
“And please, what’s Hulks?” said I.
“That’s the way with this boy!” exclaimed my sister, pointing
me out with her needle and thread, and shaking her head at
me. “Answer him one question, and he’ll ask you a dozen
directly. Hulks are prison-ships, right ‘cross th’ meshes.” We
always used that name for marshes, in our country.
“I wonder who’s put into prison-ships, and why they’re put
there?” said I, in a general way, and with quiet desperation.
It was too much for Mrs. Joe, who immediately rose. “I tell
you what, young fellow,” said she, “I didn’t bring you up by
hand to badger people’s lives out. It would be blame to me
and not praise, if I had. People are put in the Hulks because
they murder, and because they rob, and forge, and do all sorts
of bad; and they always begin by asking questions. Now, you
get along to bed!”
I was never allowed a candle to light me to bed, and, as I
went upstairs in the dark, with my head tingling,—from Mrs.
Joe’s thimble having played the tambourine upon it, to ac-
company her last words,—I felt fearfully sensible of the great
convenience that the hulks were handy for me. I was clearly
on my way there. I had begun by asking questions, and I was
going to rob Mrs. Joe.
Since that time, which is far enough away now, I have often
thought that few people know what secrecy there is in the
young under terror. No matter how unreasonable the terror,
so that it be terror. I was in mortal terror of the young man

24
who wanted my heart and liver; I was in mortal terror of
my interlocutor with the iron leg; I was in mortal terror of
myself, from whom an awful promise had been extracted; I
had no hope of deliverance through my all-powerful sister,
who repulsed me at every turn; I am afraid to think of what I
might have done on requirement, in the secrecy of my terror.
If I slept at all that night, it was only to imagine myself drift-
ing down the river on a strong spring-tide, to the Hulks; a
ghostly pirate calling out to me through a speaking-trumpet,
as I passed the gibbet-station, that I had better come ashore
and be hanged there at once, and not put it off. I was afraid
to sleep, even if I had been inclined, for I knew that at the
first faint dawn of morning I must rob the pantry. There was
no doing it in the night, for there was no getting a light by
easy friction then; to have got one I must have struck it out
of flint and steel, and have made a noise like the very pirate
himself rattling his chains.
As soon as the great black velvet pall outside my little win-
dow was shot with gray, I got up and went downstairs; every
board upon the way, and every crack in every board calling
after me, “Stop thief!” and “Get up, Mrs. Joe!” In the pantry,
which was far more abundantly supplied than usual, owing
to the season, I was very much alarmed by a hare hanging up
by the heels, whom I rather thought I caught, when my back
was half turned, winking. I had no time for verification, no
time for selection, no time for anything, for I had no time to
spare. I stole some bread, some rind of cheese, about half a
jar of mincemeat (which I tied up in my pocket-handkerchief

25
with my last night’s slice), some brandy from a stone bot-
tle (which I decanted into a glass bottle I had secretly used
for making that intoxicating fluid, Spanish-liquorice-water,
up in my room: diluting the stone bottle from a jug in the
kitchen cupboard), a meat bone with very little on it, and a
beautiful round compact pork pie. I was nearly going away
without the pie, but I was tempted to mount upon a shelf, to
look what it was that was put away so carefully in a covered
earthenware dish in a corner, and I found it was the pie, and I
took it in the hope that it was not intended for early use, and
would not be missed for some time.
There was a door in the kitchen, communicating with the
forge; I unlocked and unbolted that door, and got a file from
among Joe’s tools. Then I put the fastenings as I had found
them, opened the door at which I had entered when I ran
home last night, shut it, and ran for the misty marshes.

26
Chapter III
It was a rimy morning, and very damp. I had seen the damp
lying on the outside of my little window, as if some goblin
had been crying there all night, and using the window for a
pocket-handkerchief. Now, I saw the damp lying on the bare
hedges and spare grass, like a coarser sort of spiders’ webs;
hanging itself from twig to twig and blade to blade. On every
rail and gate, wet lay clammy, and the marsh mist was so
thick, that the wooden finger on the post directing people to
our village—a direction which they never accepted, for they
never came there—was invisible to me until I was quite close
under it. Then, as I looked up at it, while it dripped, it seemed
to my oppressed conscience like a phantom devoting me to
the Hulks.
The mist was heavier yet when I got out upon the marshes, so
that instead of my running at everything, everything seemed
to run at me. This was very disagreeable to a guilty mind.
The gates and dikes and banks came bursting at me through
the mist, as if they cried as plainly as could be, “A boy with
somebody else’s pork pie! Stop him!” The cattle came upon
me with like suddenness, staring out of their eyes, and steam-
ing out of their nostrils, “Halloa, young thief!” One black ox,
with a white cravat on,—who even had to my awakened con-
science something of a clerical air,—fixed me so obstinately
with his eyes, and moved his blunt head round in such an
accusatory manner as I moved round, that I blubbered out to
him, “I couldn’t help it, sir! It wasn’t for myself I took it!”

27
Upon which he put down his head, blew a cloud of smoke
out of his nose, and vanished with a kick-up of his hind-legs
and a flourish of his tail.
All this time, I was getting on towards the river; but however
fast I went, I couldn’t warm my feet, to which the damp cold
seemed riveted, as the iron was riveted to the leg of the man
I was running to meet. I knew my way to the Battery, pretty
straight, for I had been down there on a Sunday with Joe,
and Joe, sitting on an old gun, had told me that when I was
’prentice to him, regularly bound, we would have such Larks
there! However, in the confusion of the mist, I found myself
at last too far to the right, and consequently had to try back
along the river-side, on the bank of loose stones above the
mud and the stakes that staked the tide out. Making my way
along here with all despatch, I had just crossed a ditch which
I knew to be very near the Battery, and had just scrambled
up the mound beyond the ditch, when I saw the man sitting
before me. His back was towards me, and he had his arms
folded, and was nodding forward, heavy with sleep.
I thought he would be more glad if I came upon him with
his breakfast, in that unexpected manner, so I went forward
softly and touched him on the shoulder. He instantly jumped
up, and it was not the same man, but another man!
And yet this man was dressed in coarse gray, too, and had
a great iron on his leg, and was lame, and hoarse, and cold,
and was everything that the other man was; except that he
had not the same face, and had a flat broad-brimmed low-

28
crowned felt hat on. All this I saw in a moment, for I had
only a moment to see it in: he swore an oath at me, made
a hit at me,—it was a round weak blow that missed me and
almost knocked himself down, for it made him stumble,—and
then he ran into the mist, stumbling twice as he went, and I
lost him.
“It’s the young man!” I thought, feeling my heart shoot as I
identified him. I dare say I should have felt a pain in my liver,
too, if I had known where it was.
I was soon at the Battery after that, and there was the right
man,—hugging himself and limping to and fro, as if he had
never all night left off hugging and limping,—waiting for me.
He was awfully cold, to be sure. I half expected to see him
drop down before my face and die of deadly cold. His eyes
looked so awfully hungry too, that when I handed him the
file and he laid it down on the grass, it occurred to me he
would have tried to eat it, if he had not seen my bundle. He
did not turn me upside down this time to get at what I had,
but left me right side upwards while I opened the bundle and
emptied my pockets.
“What’s in the bottle, boy?” said he.
“Brandy,” said I.
He was already handing mincemeat down his throat in the
most curious manner,—more like a man who was putting it
away somewhere in a violent hurry, than a man who was
eating it,—but he left off to take some of the liquor. He shiv-

29
ered all the while so violently, that it was quite as much as
he could do to keep the neck of the bottle between his teeth,
without biting it off.
“I think you have got the ague,” said I.
“I’m much of your opinion, boy,” said he.
“It’s bad about here,” I told him. “You’ve been lying out on
the meshes, and they’re dreadful aguish. Rheumatic too.”
“I’ll eat my breakfast afore they’re the death of me,” said he.
“I’d do that, if I was going to be strung up to that there gal-
lows as there is over there, directly afterwards. I’ll beat the
shivers so far, I’ll bet you.”
He was gobbling mincemeat, meatbone, bread, cheese, and
pork pie, all at once: staring distrustfully while he did so at
the mist all round us, and often stopping—even stopping his
jaws—to listen. Some real or fancied sound, some clink upon
the river or breathing of beast upon the marsh, now gave him
a start, and he said, suddenly,—
“You’re not a deceiving imp? You brought no one with you?”
“No, sir! No!”
“Nor giv’ no one the office to follow you?”
“No!”
“Well,” said he, “I believe you. You’d be but a fierce young
hound indeed, if at your time of life you could help to hunt a

30
wretched warmint hunted as near death and dunghill as this
poor wretched warmint is!”
Something clicked in his throat as if he had works in him like
a clock, and was going to strike. And he smeared his ragged
rough sleeve over his eyes.
Pitying his desolation, and watching him as he gradually set-
tled down upon the pie, I made bold to say, “I am glad you
enjoy it.”
“Did you speak?”
“I said I was glad you enjoyed it.”
“Thankee, my boy. I do.”
I had often watched a large dog of ours eating his food; and
I now noticed a decided similarity between the dog’s way of
eating, and the man’s. The man took strong sharp sudden
bites, just like the dog. He swallowed, or rather snapped up,
every mouthful, too soon and too fast; and he looked side-
ways here and there while he ate, as if he thought there was
danger in every direction of somebody’s coming to take the
pie away. He was altogether too unsettled in his mind over
it, to appreciate it comfortably I thought, or to have anybody
to dine with him, without making a chop with his jaws at the
visitor. In all of which particulars he was very like the dog.
“I am afraid you won’t leave any of it for him,” said I, timidly;
after a silence during which I had hesitated as to the polite-
ness of making the remark. “There’s no more to be got where

31
that came from.” It was the certainty of this fact that impelled
me to offer the hint.
“Leave any for him? Who’s him?” said my friend, stopping
in his crunching of pie-crust.
“The young man. That you spoke of. That was hid with you.”
“Oh ah!” he returned, with something like a gruff laugh.
“Him? Yes, yes! He don’t want no wittles.”
“I thought he looked as if he did,” said I.
The man stopped eating, and regarded me with the keenest
scrutiny and the greatest surprise.
“Looked? When?”
“Just now.”
“Where?”
“Yonder,” said I, pointing; “over there, where I found him nod-
ding asleep, and thought it was you.”
He held me by the collar and stared at me so, that I began to
think his first idea about cutting my throat had revived.
“Dressed like you, you know, only with a hat,” I explained,
trembling; “and—and”—I was very anxious to put this
delicately—“and with—the same reason for wanting to
borrow a file. Didn’t you hear the cannon last night?”
“Then there was firing!” he said to himself.

32
“I wonder you shouldn’t have been sure of that,” I returned,
“for we heard it up at home, and that’s farther away, and we
were shut in besides.”
“Why, see now!” said he. “When a man’s alone on these flats,
with a light head and a light stomach, perishing of cold and
want, he hears nothin’ all night, but guns firing, and voices
calling. Hears? He sees the soldiers, with their red coats
lighted up by the torches carried afore, closing in round him.
Hears his number called, hears himself challenged, hears the
rattle of the muskets, hears the orders ‘Make ready! Present!
Cover him steady, men!’ and is laid hands on—and there’s
nothin’! Why, if I see one pursuing party last night—coming
up in order, Damn ’em, with their tramp, tramp—I see a hun-
dred. And as to firing! Why, I see the mist shake with the
cannon, arter it was broad day,—But this man”; he had said
all the rest, as if he had forgotten my being there; “did you
notice anything in him?”
“He had a badly bruised face,” said I, recalling what I hardly
knew I knew.
“Not here?” exclaimed the man, striking his left cheek mer-
cilessly, with the flat of his hand.
“Yes, there!”
“Where is he?” He crammed what little food was left, into
the breast of his gray jacket. “Show me the way he went. I’ll
pull him down, like a bloodhound. Curse this iron on my sore
leg! Give us hold of the file, boy.”

33
I indicated in what direction the mist had shrouded the
other man, and he looked up at it for an instant. But he was
down on the rank wet grass, filing at his iron like a madman,
and not minding me or minding his own leg, which had an
old chafe upon it and was bloody, but which he handled as
roughly as if it had no more feeling in it than the file. I was
very much afraid of him again, now that he had worked
himself into this fierce hurry, and I was likewise very much
afraid of keeping away from home any longer. I told him I
must go, but he took no notice, so I thought the best thing I
could do was to slip off. The last I saw of him, his head was
bent over his knee and he was working hard at his fetter,
muttering impatient imprecations at it and at his leg. The
last I heard of him, I stopped in the mist to listen, and the
file was still going.

34
Chapter IV
I fully expected to find a Constable in the kitchen, waiting
to take me up. But not only was there no Constable there,
but no discovery had yet been made of the robbery. Mrs. Joe
was prodigiously busy in getting the house ready for the fes-
tivities of the day, and Joe had been put upon the kitchen
doorstep to keep him out of the dust-pan,—an article into
which his destiny always led him, sooner or later, when my
sister was vigorously reaping the floors of her establishment.
“And where the deuce ha’ you been?” was Mrs. Joe’s Christ-
mas salutation, when I and my conscience showed ourselves.
I said I had been down to hear the Carols. “Ah! well!” ob-
served Mrs. Joe. “You might ha’ done worse.” Not a doubt of
that I thought.
“Perhaps if I warn’t a blacksmith’s wife, and (what’s the same
thing) a slave with her apron never off, I should have been to
hear the Carols,” said Mrs. Joe. “I’m rather partial to Carols,
myself, and that’s the best of reasons for my never hearing
any.”
Joe, who had ventured into the kitchen after me as the dust-
pan had retired before us, drew the back of his hand across
his nose with a conciliatory air, when Mrs. Joe darted a look
at him, and, when her eyes were withdrawn, secretly crossed
his two forefingers, and exhibited them to me, as our token
that Mrs. Joe was in a cross temper. This was so much her

35
normal state, that Joe and I would often, for weeks together,
be, as to our fingers, like monumental Crusaders as to their
legs.
We were to have a superb dinner, consisting of a leg of pickled
pork and greens, and a pair of roast stuffed fowls. A hand-
some mince-pie had been made yesterday morning (which
accounted for the mincemeat not being missed), and the pud-
ding was already on the boil. These extensive arrangements
occasioned us to be cut off unceremoniously in respect of
breakfast; “for I ain’t,” said Mrs. Joe,—“I ain’t a going to have
no formal cramming and busting and washing up now, with
what I’ve got before me, I promise you!”
So, we had our slices served out, as if we were two thousand
troops on a forced march instead of a man and boy at home;
and we took gulps of milk and water, with apologetic coun-
tenances, from a jug on the dresser. In the meantime, Mrs.
Joe put clean white curtains up, and tacked a new flowered
flounce across the wide chimney to replace the old one, and
uncovered the little state parlor across the passage, which
was never uncovered at any other time, but passed the rest
of the year in a cool haze of silver paper, which even extended
to the four little white crockery poodles on the mantel-shelf,
each with a black nose and a basket of flowers in his mouth,
and each the counterpart of the other. Mrs. Joe was a very
clean housekeeper, but had an exquisite art of making her
cleanliness more uncomfortable and unacceptable than dirt
itself. Cleanliness is next to Godliness, and some people do
the same by their religion.

36
My sister, having so much to do, was going to church
vicariously, that is to say, Joe and I were going. In his
working-clothes, Joe was a well-knit characteristic-looking
blacksmith; in his holiday clothes, he was more like a scare-
crow in good circumstances, than anything else. Nothing
that he wore then fitted him or seemed to belong to him; and
everything that he wore then grazed him. On the present
festive occasion he emerged from his room, when the blithe
bells were going, the picture of misery, in a full suit of
Sunday penitentials. As to me, I think my sister must have
had some general idea that I was a young offender whom
an Accoucheur Policeman had taken up (on my birthday)
and delivered over to her, to be dealt with according to the
outraged majesty of the law. I was always treated as if I
had insisted on being born in opposition to the dictates of
reason, religion, and morality, and against the dissuading
arguments of my best friends. Even when I was taken to
have a new suit of clothes, the tailor had orders to make
them like a kind of Reformatory, and on no account to let
me have the free use of my limbs.
Joe and I going to church, therefore, must have been a mov-
ing spectacle for compassionate minds. Yet, what I suffered
outside was nothing to what I underwent within. The ter-
rors that had assailed me whenever Mrs. Joe had gone near
the pantry, or out of the room, were only to be equalled by
the remorse with which my mind dwelt on what my hands
had done. Under the weight of my wicked secret, I pondered
whether the Church would be powerful enough to shield me

37
from the vengeance of the terrible young man, if I divulged to
that establishment. I conceived the idea that the time when
the banns were read and when the clergyman said, “Ye are
now to declare it!” would be the time for me to rise and pro-
pose a private conference in the vestry. I am far from being
sure that I might not have astonished our small congrega-
tion by resorting to this extreme measure, but for its being
Christmas Day and no Sunday.
Mr. Wopsle, the clerk at church, was to dine with us; and
Mr. Hubble the wheelwright and Mrs. Hubble; and Uncle
Pumblechook (Joe’s uncle, but Mrs. Joe appropriated him),
who was a well-to-do cornchandler in the nearest town, and
drove his own chaise-cart. The dinner hour was half-past
one. When Joe and I got home, we found the table laid, and
Mrs. Joe dressed, and the dinner dressing, and the front door
unlocked (it never was at any other time) for the company to
enter by, and everything most splendid. And still, not a word
of the robbery.
The time came, without bringing with it any relief to my
feelings, and the company came. Mr. Wopsle, united to a
Roman nose and a large shining bald forehead, had a deep
voice which he was uncommonly proud of; indeed it was un-
derstood among his acquaintance that if you could only give
him his head, he would read the clergyman into fits; he him-
self confessed that if the Church was “thrown open,” meaning
to competition, he would not despair of making his mark in
it. The Church not being “thrown open,” he was, as I have
said, our clerk. But he punished the Amens tremendously;

38
and when he gave out the psalm,—always giving the whole
verse,—he looked all round the congregation first, as much as
to say, “You have heard my friend overhead; oblige me with
your opinion of this style!”
I opened the door to the company,—making believe that it
was a habit of ours to open that door,—and I opened it first
to Mr. Wopsle, next to Mr. and Mrs. Hubble, and last of all
to Uncle Pumblechook. N.B. I was not allowed to call him
uncle, under the severest penalties.
“Mrs. Joe,” said Uncle Pumblechook, a large hard-breathing
middle-aged slow man, with a mouth like a fish, dull staring
eyes, and sandy hair standing upright on his head, so that
he looked as if he had just been all but choked, and had that
moment come to, “I have brought you as the compliments
of the season—I have brought you, Mum, a bottle of sherry
wine—and I have brought you, Mum, a bottle of port wine.”
Every Christmas Day he presented himself, as a profound
novelty, with exactly the same words, and carrying the two
bottles like dumb-bells. Every Christmas Day, Mrs. Joe
replied, as she now replied, “O, Un—cle Pum-ble—chook!
This is kind!” Every Christmas Day, he retorted, as he now
retorted, “It’s no more than your merits. And now are you
all bobbish, and how’s Sixpennorth of halfpence?” meaning
me.
We dined on these occasions in the kitchen, and adjourned,
for the nuts and oranges and apples to the parlor; which was
a change very like Joe’s change from his working-clothes to

39
his Sunday dress. My sister was uncommonly lively on the
present occasion, and indeed was generally more gracious in
the society of Mrs. Hubble than in other company. I remem-
ber Mrs. Hubble as a little curly sharp-edged person in sky-
blue, who held a conventionally juvenile position, because
she had married Mr. Hubble,—I don’t know at what remote
period,—when she was much younger than he. I remember
Mr Hubble as a tough, high-shouldered, stooping old man,
of a sawdusty fragrance, with his legs extraordinarily wide
apart: so that in my short days I always saw some miles of
open country between them when I met him coming up the
lane.
Among this good company I should have felt myself, even if
I hadn’t robbed the pantry, in a false position. Not because
I was squeezed in at an acute angle of the tablecloth, with
the table in my chest, and the Pumblechookian elbow in my
eye, nor because I was not allowed to speak (I didn’t want to
speak), nor because I was regaled with the scaly tips of the
drumsticks of the fowls, and with those obscure corners of
pork of which the pig, when living, had had the least reason
to be vain. No; I should not have minded that, if they would
only have left me alone. But they wouldn’t leave me alone.
They seemed to think the opportunity lost, if they failed to
point the conversation at me, every now and then, and stick
the point into me. I might have been an unfortunate little bull
in a Spanish arena, I got so smartingly touched up by these
moral goads.
It began the moment we sat down to dinner. Mr. Wopsle said

40
grace with theatrical declamation,—as it now appears to me,
something like a religious cross of the Ghost in Hamlet with
Richard the Third,—and ended with the very proper aspira-
tion that we might be truly grateful. Upon which my sister
fixed me with her eye, and said, in a low reproachful voice,
“Do you hear that? Be grateful.”
“Especially,” said Mr. Pumblechook, “be grateful, boy, to
them which brought you up by hand.”
Mrs. Hubble shook her head, and contemplating me with a
mournful presentiment that I should come to no good, asked,
“Why is it that the young are never grateful?” This moral
mystery seemed too much for the company until Mr. Hubble
tersely solved it by saying, “Naterally wicious.” Everybody
then murmured “True!” and looked at me in a particularly
unpleasant and personal manner.
Joe’s station and influence were something feebler (if possi-
ble) when there was company than when there was none. But
he always aided and comforted me when he could, in some
way of his own, and he always did so at dinner-time by giv-
ing me gravy, if there were any. There being plenty of gravy
to-day, Joe spooned into my plate, at this point, about half a
pint.
A little later on in the dinner, Mr. Wopsle reviewed the ser-
mon with some severity, and intimated—in the usual hypo-
thetical case of the Church being “thrown open”—what kind
of sermon he would have given them. After favoring them
with some heads of that discourse, he remarked that he con-

41
sidered the subject of the day’s homily, ill chosen; which was
the less excusable, he added, when there were so many sub-
jects “going about.”
“True again,” said Uncle Pumblechook. “You’ve hit it, sir!
Plenty of subjects going about, for them that know how
to put salt upon their tails. That’s what’s wanted. A man
needn’t go far to find a subject, if he’s ready with his
salt-box.” Mr. Pumblechook added, after a short interval of
reflection, “Look at Pork alone. There’s a subject! If you
want a subject, look at Pork!”
“True, sir. Many a moral for the young,” returned Mr. Wop-
sle,—and I knew he was going to lug me in, before he said it;
“might be deduced from that text.”
(“You listen to this,” said my sister to me, in a severe paren-
thesis.)
Joe gave me some more gravy.
“Swine,” pursued Mr. Wopsle, in his deepest voice, and
pointing his fork at my blushes, as if he were mentioning
my Christian name,—“swine were the companions of the
prodigal. The gluttony of Swine is put before us, as an
example to the young.” (I thought this pretty well in him
who had been praising up the pork for being so plump and
juicy.) “What is detestable in a pig is more detestable in a
boy.”
“Or girl,” suggested Mr. Hubble.

42
“Of course, or girl, Mr. Hubble,” assented Mr. Wopsle, rather
irritably, “but there is no girl present.”
“Besides,” said Mr. Pumblechook, turning sharp on me,
“think what you’ve got to be grateful for. If you’d been born
a Squeaker—”
“He was, if ever a child was,” said my sister, most emphati-
cally.
Joe gave me some more gravy.
“Well, but I mean a four-footed Squeaker,” said Mr. Pumble-
chook. “If you had been born such, would you have been
here now? Not you—”
“Unless in that form,” said Mr. Wopsle, nodding towards the
dish.
“But I don’t mean in that form, sir,” returned Mr. Pumble-
chook, who had an objection to being interrupted; “I mean,
enjoying himself with his elders and betters, and improv-
ing himself with their conversation, and rolling in the lap
of luxury. Would he have been doing that? No, he wouldn’t.
And what would have been your destination?” turning on
me again. “You would have been disposed of for so many
shillings according to the market price of the article, and
Dunstable the butcher would have come up to you as you lay
in your straw, and he would have whipped you under his left
arm, and with his right he would have tucked up his frock
to get a penknife from out of his waistcoat-pocket, and he
would have shed your blood and had your life. No bringing

43
up by hand then. Not a bit of it!”
Joe offered me more gravy, which I was afraid to take.
“He was a world of trouble to you, ma’am,” said Mrs. Hubble,
commiserating my sister.
“Trouble?” echoed my sister; “trouble?” and then entered
on a fearful catalogue of all the illnesses I had been guilty
of, and all the acts of sleeplessness I had committed, and all
the high places I had tumbled from, and all the low places
I had tumbled into, and all the injuries I had done myself,
and all the times she had wished me in my grave, and I had
contumaciously refused to go there.
I think the Romans must have aggravated one another very
much, with their noses. Perhaps, they became the restless
people they were, in consequence. Anyhow, Mr. Wopsle’s
Roman nose so aggravated me, during the recital of my
misdemeanours, that I should have liked to pull it until he
howled. But, all I had endured up to this time was nothing
in comparison with the awful feelings that took possession
of me when the pause was broken which ensued upon my
sister’s recital, and in which pause everybody had looked
at me (as I felt painfully conscious) with indignation and
abhorrence.
“Yet,” said Mr. Pumblechook, leading the company gently
back to the theme from which they had strayed, “Pork—
regarded as biled—is rich, too; ain’t it?”
“Have a little brandy, uncle,” said my sister.

44
O Heavens, it had come at last! He would find it was weak,
he would say it was weak, and I was lost! I held tight to the
leg of the table under the cloth, with both hands, and awaited
my fate.
My sister went for the stone bottle, came back with the stone
bottle, and poured his brandy out: no one else taking any.
The wretched man trifled with his glass,—took it up, looked
at it through the light, put it down,—prolonged my misery.
All this time Mrs. Joe and Joe were briskly clearing the table
for the pie and pudding.
I couldn’t keep my eyes off him. Always holding tight by the
leg of the table with my hands and feet, I saw the miserable
creature finger his glass playfully, take it up, smile, throw his
head back, and drink the brandy off. Instantly afterwards, the
company were seized with unspeakable consternation, ow-
ing to his springing to his feet, turning round several times
in an appalling spasmodic whooping-cough dance, and rush-
ing out at the door; he then became visible through the win-
dow, violently plunging and expectorating, making the most
hideous faces, and apparently out of his mind.
I held on tight, while Mrs. Joe and Joe ran to him. I didn’t
know how I had done it, but I had no doubt I had murdered
him somehow. In my dreadful situation, it was a relief when
he was brought back, and surveying the company all round
as if they had disagreed with him, sank down into his chair
with the one significant gasp, “Tar!”
I had filled up the bottle from the tar-water jug. I knew he

45
would be worse by and by. I moved the table, like a Medium
of the present day, by the vigor of my unseen hold upon it.
“Tar!” cried my sister, in amazement. “Why, how ever could
Tar come there?”
But, Uncle Pumblechook, who was omnipotent in that
kitchen, wouldn’t hear the word, wouldn’t hear of the
subject, imperiously waved it all away with his hand, and
asked for hot gin and water. My sister, who had begun to
be alarmingly meditative, had to employ herself actively in
getting the gin, the hot water, the sugar, and the lemon-peel,
and mixing them. For the time being at least, I was saved. I
still held on to the leg of the table, but clutched it now with
the fervor of gratitude.
By degrees, I became calm enough to release my grasp and
partake of pudding. Mr. Pumblechook partook of pudding.
All partook of pudding. The course terminated, and Mr. Pum-
blechook had begun to beam under the genial influence of gin
and water. I began to think I should get over the day, when
my sister said to Joe, “Clean plates,—cold.”
I clutched the leg of the table again immediately, and pressed
it to my bosom as if it had been the companion of my youth
and friend of my soul. I foresaw what was coming, and I felt
that this time I really was gone.
“You must taste,” said my sister, addressing the guests with
her best grace—“you must taste, to finish with, such a delight-
ful and delicious present of Uncle Pumblechook’s!”

46
Must they! Let them not hope to taste it!
“You must know,” said my sister, rising, “it’s a pie; a savory
pork pie.”
The company murmured their compliments. Uncle
Pumblechook, sensible of having deserved well of his
fellow-creatures, said,—quite vivaciously, all things consid-
ered,—“Well, Mrs. Joe, we’ll do our best endeavors; let us
have a cut at this same pie.”
My sister went out to get it. I heard her steps proceed to
the pantry. I saw Mr. Pumblechook balance his knife. I saw
reawakening appetite in the Roman nostrils of Mr. Wopsle. I
heard Mr. Hubble remark that “a bit of savory pork pie would
lay atop of anything you could mention, and do no harm,”
and I heard Joe say, “You shall have some, Pip.” I have never
been absolutely certain whether I uttered a shrill yell of ter-
ror, merely in spirit, or in the bodily hearing of the company.
I felt that I could bear no more, and that I must run away. I
released the leg of the table, and ran for my life.
But I ran no farther than the house door, for there I ran head-
foremost into a party of soldiers with their muskets, one of
whom held out a pair of handcuffs to me, saying, “Here you
are, look sharp, come on!”

47
Chapter V
The apparition of a file of soldiers ringing down the but-ends
of their loaded muskets on our door-step, caused the dinner-
party to rise from table in confusion, and caused Mrs. Joe re-
entering the kitchen empty-handed, to stop short and stare,
in her wondering lament of “Gracious goodness gracious me,
what’s gone—with the—pie!”
The sergeant and I were in the kitchen when Mrs. Joe stood
staring; at which crisis I partially recovered the use of my
senses. It was the sergeant who had spoken to me, and he
was now looking round at the company, with his handcuffs
invitingly extended towards them in his right hand, and his
left on my shoulder.
“Excuse me, ladies and gentleman,” said the sergeant, “but
as I have mentioned at the door to this smart young shaver,”
(which he hadn’t), “I am on a chase in the name of the king,
and I want the blacksmith.”
“And pray what might you want with him?” retorted my
sister, quick to resent his being wanted at all.
“Missis,” returned the gallant sergeant, “speaking for myself,
I should reply, the honor and pleasure of his fine wife’s ac-
quaintance; speaking for the king, I answer, a little job done.”
This was received as rather neat in the sergeant; insomuch
that Mr. Pumblechook cried audibly, “Good again!”

48
“You see, blacksmith,” said the sergeant, who had by this time
picked out Joe with his eye, “we have had an accident with
these, and I find the lock of one of ’em goes wrong, and the
coupling don’t act pretty. As they are wanted for immediate
service, will you throw your eye over them?”
Joe threw his eye over them, and pronounced that the job
would necessitate the lighting of his forge fire, and would
take nearer two hours than one. “Will it? Then will you
set about it at once, blacksmith?” said the off-hand sergeant,
“as it’s on his Majesty’s service. And if my men can bear a
hand anywhere, they’ll make themselves useful.” With that,
he called to his men, who came trooping into the kitchen one
after another, and piled their arms in a corner. And then they
stood about, as soldiers do; now, with their hands loosely
clasped before them; now, resting a knee or a shoulder; now,
easing a belt or a pouch; now, opening the door to spit stiffly
over their high stocks, out into the yard.
All these things I saw without then knowing that I saw them,
for I was in an agony of apprehension. But beginning to per-
ceive that the handcuffs were not for me, and that the mil-
itary had so far got the better of the pie as to put it in the
background, I collected a little more of my scattered wits.
“Would you give me the time?” said the sergeant, addressing
himself to Mr. Pumblechook, as to a man whose appreciative
powers justified the inference that he was equal to the time.
“It’s just gone half past two.”

49
“That’s not so bad,” said the sergeant, reflecting; “even if I was
forced to halt here nigh two hours, that’ll do. How far might
you call yourselves from the marshes, hereabouts? Not above
a mile, I reckon?”
“Just a mile,” said Mrs. Joe.
“That’ll do. We begin to close in upon ’em about dusk. A little
before dusk, my orders are. That’ll do.”
“Convicts, sergeant?” asked Mr. Wopsle, in a matter-of-
course way.
“Ay!” returned the sergeant, “two. They’re pretty well known
to be out on the marshes still, and they won’t try to get clear
of ’em before dusk. Anybody here seen anything of any such
game?”
Everybody, myself excepted, said no, with confidence. No-
body thought of me.
“Well!” said the sergeant, “they’ll find themselves trapped in
a circle, I expect, sooner than they count on. Now, black-
smith! If you’re ready, his Majesty the King is.”
Joe had got his coat and waistcoat and cravat off, and his
leather apron on, and passed into the forge. One of the sol-
diers opened its wooden windows, another lighted the fire,
another turned to at the bellows, the rest stood round the
blaze, which was soon roaring. Then Joe began to hammer
and clink, hammer and clink, and we all looked on.
The interest of the impending pursuit not only absorbed the

50
general attention, but even made my sister liberal. She drew
a pitcher of beer from the cask for the soldiers, and invited
the sergeant to take a glass of brandy. But Mr. Pumblechook
said, sharply, “Give him wine, Mum. I’ll engage there’s no
tar in that:” so, the sergeant thanked him and said that as he
preferred his drink without tar, he would take wine, if it was
equally convenient. When it was given him, he drank his
Majesty’s health and compliments of the season, and took it
all at a mouthful and smacked his lips.
“Good stuff, eh, sergeant?” said Mr. Pumblechook.
“I’ll tell you something,” returned the sergeant; “I suspect that
stuff’s of your providing.”
Mr. Pumblechook, with a fat sort of laugh, said, “Ay, ay?
Why?”
“Because,” returned the sergeant, clapping him on the shoul-
der, “you’re a man that knows what’s what.”
“D’ye think so?” said Mr. Pumblechook, with his former
laugh. “Have another glass!”
“With you. Hob and nob,” returned the sergeant. “The top
of mine to the foot of yours,—the foot of yours to the top of
mine,—Ring once, ring twice,—the best tune on the Musical
Glasses! Your health. May you live a thousand years, and
never be a worse judge of the right sort than you are at the
present moment of your life!”
The sergeant tossed off his glass again and seemed quite

51
ready for another glass. I noticed that Mr. Pumblechook in
his hospitality appeared to forget that he had made a present
of the wine, but took the bottle from Mrs. Joe and had all
the credit of handing it about in a gush of joviality. Even I
got some. And he was so very free of the wine that he even
called for the other bottle, and handed that about with the
same liberality, when the first was gone.
As I watched them while they all stood clustering about the
forge, enjoying themselves so much, I thought what terrible
good sauce for a dinner my fugitive friend on the marshes
was. They had not enjoyed themselves a quarter so much, be-
fore the entertainment was brightened with the excitement
he furnished. And now, when they were all in lively anticipa-
tion of “the two villains” being taken, and when the bellows
seemed to roar for the fugitives, the fire to flare for them,
the smoke to hurry away in pursuit of them, Joe to hammer
and clink for them, and all the murky shadows on the wall to
shake at them in menace as the blaze rose and sank, and the
red-hot sparks dropped and died, the pale afternoon outside
almost seemed in my pitying young fancy to have turned pale
on their account, poor wretches.
At last, Joe’s job was done, and the ringing and roaring
stopped. As Joe got on his coat, he mustered courage to
propose that some of us should go down with the soldiers
and see what came of the hunt. Mr. Pumblechook and Mr.
Hubble declined, on the plea of a pipe and ladies’ society;
but Mr. Wopsle said he would go, if Joe would. Joe said he
was agreeable, and would take me, if Mrs. Joe approved. We

52
never should have got leave to go, I am sure, but for Mrs.
Joe’s curiosity to know all about it and how it ended. As it
was, she merely stipulated, “If you bring the boy back with
his head blown to bits by a musket, don’t look to me to put
it together again.”
The sergeant took a polite leave of the ladies, and parted from
Mr. Pumblechook as from a comrade; though I doubt if he
were quite as fully sensible of that gentleman’s merits under
arid conditions, as when something moist was going. His
men resumed their muskets and fell in. Mr. Wopsle, Joe, and
I, received strict charge to keep in the rear, and to speak no
word after we reached the marshes. When we were all out in
the raw air and were steadily moving towards our business,
I treasonably whispered to Joe, “I hope, Joe, we shan’t find
them.” and Joe whispered to me, “I’d give a shilling if they
had cut and run, Pip.”
We were joined by no stragglers from the village, for the
weather was cold and threatening, the way dreary, the foot-
ing bad, darkness coming on, and the people had good fires
in-doors and were keeping the day. A few faces hurried to
glowing windows and looked after us, but none came out.
We passed the finger-post, and held straight on to the church-
yard. There we were stopped a few minutes by a signal from
the sergeant’s hand, while two or three of his men dispersed
themselves among the graves, and also examined the porch.
They came in again without finding anything, and then we
struck out on the open marshes, through the gate at the side
of the churchyard. A bitter sleet came rattling against us here

53
on the east wind, and Joe took me on his back.
Now that we were out upon the dismal wilderness where
they little thought I had been within eight or nine hours and
had seen both men hiding, I considered for the first time, with
great dread, if we should come upon them, would my partic-
ular convict suppose that it was I who had brought the sol-
diers there? He had asked me if I was a deceiving imp, and
he had said I should be a fierce young hound if I joined the
hunt against him. Would he believe that I was both imp and
hound in treacherous earnest, and had betrayed him?
It was of no use asking myself this question now. There I
was, on Joe’s back, and there was Joe beneath me, charging
at the ditches like a hunter, and stimulating Mr. Wopsle not
to tumble on his Roman nose, and to keep up with us. The
soldiers were in front of us, extending into a pretty wide line
with an interval between man and man. We were taking the
course I had begun with, and from which I had diverged in
the mist. Either the mist was not out again yet, or the wind
had dispelled it. Under the low red glare of sunset, the bea-
con, and the gibbet, and the mound of the Battery, and the
opposite shore of the river, were plain, though all of a wa-
tery lead color.
With my heart thumping like a blacksmith at Joe’s broad
shoulder, I looked all about for any sign of the convicts. I
could see none, I could hear none. Mr. Wopsle had greatly
alarmed me more than once, by his blowing and hard breath-
ing; but I knew the sounds by this time, and could dissociate

54
them from the object of pursuit. I got a dreadful start, when
I thought I heard the file still going; but it was only a sheep-
bell. The sheep stopped in their eating and looked timidly at
us; and the cattle, their heads turned from the wind and sleet,
stared angrily as if they held us responsible for both annoy-
ances; but, except these things, and the shudder of the dying
day in every blade of grass, there was no break in the bleak
stillness of the marshes.
The soldiers were moving on in the direction of the old Bat-
tery, and we were moving on a little way behind them, when,
all of a sudden, we all stopped. For there had reached us on
the wings of the wind and rain, a long shout. It was repeated.
It was at a distance towards the east, but it was long and loud.
Nay, there seemed to be two or more shouts raised together,—
if one might judge from a confusion in the sound.
To this effect the sergeant and the nearest men were speak-
ing under their breath, when Joe and I came up. After another
moment’s listening, Joe (who was a good judge) agreed, and
Mr. Wopsle (who was a bad judge) agreed. The sergeant,
a decisive man, ordered that the sound should not be an-
swered, but that the course should be changed, and that his
men should make towards it “at the double.” So we slanted
to the right (where the East was), and Joe pounded away so
wonderfully, that I had to hold on tight to keep my seat.
It was a run indeed now, and what Joe called, in the only two
words he spoke all the time, “a Winder.” Down banks and up
banks, and over gates, and splashing into dikes, and breaking

55
among coarse rushes: no man cared where he went. As we
came nearer to the shouting, it became more and more ap-
parent that it was made by more than one voice. Sometimes,
it seemed to stop altogether, and then the soldiers stopped.
When it broke out again, the soldiers made for it at a greater
rate than ever, and we after them. After a while, we had so
run it down, that we could hear one voice calling “Murder!”
and another voice, “Convicts! Runaways! Guard! This way
for the runaway convicts!” Then both voices would seem to
be stifled in a struggle, and then would break out again. And
when it had come to this, the soldiers ran like deer, and Joe
too.
The sergeant ran in first, when we had run the noise quite
down, and two of his men ran in close upon him. Their pieces
were cocked and levelled when we all ran in.
“Here are both men!” panted the sergeant, struggling at the
bottom of a ditch. “Surrender, you two! and confound you
for two wild beasts! Come asunder!”
Water was splashing, and mud was flying, and oaths were
being sworn, and blows were being struck, when some more
men went down into the ditch to help the sergeant, and
dragged out, separately, my convict and the other one. Both
were bleeding and panting and execrating and struggling;
but of course I knew them both directly.
“Mind!” said my convict, wiping blood from his face with
his ragged sleeves, and shaking torn hair from his fingers: “I
took him! I give him up to you! Mind that!”

56
“It’s not much to be particular about,” said the sergeant; “it’ll
do you small good, my man, being in the same plight yourself.
Handcuffs there!”
“I don’t expect it to do me any good. I don’t want it to do me
more good than it does now,” said my convict, with a greedy
laugh. “I took him. He knows it. That’s enough for me.”
The other convict was livid to look at, and, in addition to
the old bruised left side of his face, seemed to be bruised and
torn all over. He could not so much as get his breath to speak,
until they were both separately handcuffed, but leaned upon
a soldier to keep himself from falling.
“Take notice, guard,—he tried to murder me,” were his first
words.
“Tried to murder him?” said my convict, disdainfully. “Try,
and not do it? I took him, and giv’ him up; that’s what I
done. I not only prevented him getting off the marshes, but
I dragged him here,—dragged him this far on his way back.
He’s a gentleman, if you please, this villain. Now, the Hulks
has got its gentleman again, through me. Murder him?
Worth my while, too, to murder him, when I could do worse
and drag him back!”
The other one still gasped, “He tried—he tried-to—murder me.
Bear—bear witness.”
“Lookee here!” said my convict to the sergeant. “Single-
handed I got clear of the prison-ship; I made a dash and I done
it. I could ha’ got clear of these death-cold flats likewise—look

57
at my leg: you won’t find much iron on it—if I hadn’t made
the discovery that he was here. Let him go free? Let him
profit by the means as I found out? Let him make a tool of
me afresh and again? Once more? No, no, no. If I had died
at the bottom there,” and he made an emphatic swing at the
ditch with his manacled hands, “I’d have held to him with
that grip, that you should have been safe to find him in my
hold.”
The other fugitive, who was evidently in extreme horror of
his companion, repeated, “He tried to murder me. I should
have been a dead man if you had not come up.”
“He lies!” said my convict, with fierce energy. “He’s a liar
born, and he’ll die a liar. Look at his face; ain’t it written
there? Let him turn those eyes of his on me. I defy him to do
it.”
The other, with an effort at a scornful smile, which could not,
however, collect the nervous working of his mouth into any
set expression, looked at the soldiers, and looked about at
the marshes and at the sky, but certainly did not look at the
speaker.
“Do you see him?” pursued my convict. “Do you see what
a villain he is? Do you see those grovelling and wandering
eyes? That’s how he looked when we were tried together. He
never looked at me.”
The other, always working and working his dry lips and turn-
ing his eyes restlessly about him far and near, did at last turn

58
them for a moment on the speaker, with the words, “You are
not much to look at,” and with a half-taunting glance at the
bound hands. At that point, my convict became so frantically
exasperated, that he would have rushed upon him but for the
interposition of the soldiers. “Didn’t I tell you,” said the other
convict then, “that he would murder me, if he could?” And
any one could see that he shook with fear, and that there
broke out upon his lips curious white flakes, like thin snow.
“Enough of this parley,” said the sergeant. “Light those
torches.”
As one of the soldiers, who carried a basket in lieu of a gun,
went down on his knee to open it, my convict looked round
him for the first time, and saw me. I had alighted from Joe’s
back on the brink of the ditch when we came up, and had
not moved since. I looked at him eagerly when he looked at
me, and slightly moved my hands and shook my head. I had
been waiting for him to see me that I might try to assure him
of my innocence. It was not at all expressed to me that he
even comprehended my intention, for he gave me a look that
I did not understand, and it all passed in a moment. But if he
had looked at me for an hour or for a day, I could not have
remembered his face ever afterwards, as having been more
attentive.
The soldier with the basket soon got a light, and lighted three
or four torches, and took one himself and distributed the oth-
ers. It had been almost dark before, but now it seemed quite
dark, and soon afterwards very dark. Before we departed

59
from that spot, four soldiers standing in a ring, fired twice
into the air. Presently we saw other torches kindled at some
distance behind us, and others on the marshes on the oppo-
site bank of the river. “All right,” said the sergeant. “March.”
We had not gone far when three cannon were fired ahead
of us with a sound that seemed to burst something inside
my ear. “You are expected on board,” said the sergeant to
my convict; “they know you are coming. Don’t straggle, my
man. Close up here.”
The two were kept apart, and each walked surrounded by a
separate guard. I had hold of Joe’s hand now, and Joe carried
one of the torches. Mr. Wopsle had been for going back, but
Joe was resolved to see it out, so we went on with the party.
There was a reasonably good path now, mostly on the edge of
the river, with a divergence here and there where a dike came,
with a miniature windmill on it and a muddy sluice-gate.
When I looked round, I could see the other lights coming
in after us. The torches we carried dropped great blotches of
fire upon the track, and I could see those, too, lying smoking
and flaring. I could see nothing else but black darkness. Our
lights warmed the air about us with their pitchy blaze, and
the two prisoners seemed rather to like that, as they limped
along in the midst of the muskets. We could not go fast, be-
cause of their lameness; and they were so spent, that two or
three times we had to halt while they rested.
After an hour or so of this travelling, we came to a rough
wooden hut and a landing-place. There was a guard in the

60
hut, and they challenged, and the sergeant answered. Then,
we went into the hut, where there was a smell of tobacco
and whitewash, and a bright fire, and a lamp, and a stand of
muskets, and a drum, and a low wooden bedstead, like an
overgrown mangle without the machinery, capable of hold-
ing about a dozen soldiers all at once. Three or four soldiers
who lay upon it in their great-coats were not much interested
in us, but just lifted their heads and took a sleepy stare, and
then lay down again. The sergeant made some kind of re-
port, and some entry in a book, and then the convict whom
I call the other convict was drafted off with his guard, to go
on board first.
My convict never looked at me, except that once. While we
stood in the hut, he stood before the fire looking thought-
fully at it, or putting up his feet by turns upon the hob, and
looking thoughtfully at them as if he pitied them for their
recent adventures. Suddenly, he turned to the sergeant, and
remarked,—
“I wish to say something respecting this escape. It may pre-
vent some persons laying under suspicion alonger me.”
“You can say what you like,” returned the sergeant, standing
coolly looking at him with his arms folded, “but you have
no call to say it here. You’ll have opportunity enough to say
about it, and hear about it, before it’s done with, you know.”
“I know, but this is another pint, a separate matter. A man
can’t starve; at least I can’t. I took some wittles, up at the
willage over yonder,—where the church stands a’most out on

61
the marshes.”
“You mean stole,” said the sergeant.
“And I’ll tell you where from. From the blacksmith’s.”
“Halloa!” said the sergeant, staring at Joe.
“Halloa, Pip!” said Joe, staring at me.
“It was some broken wittles—that’s what it was—and a dram
of liquor, and a pie.”
“Have you happened to miss such an article as a pie, black-
smith?” asked the sergeant, confidentially.
“My wife did, at the very moment when you came in. Don’t
you know, Pip?”
“So,” said my convict, turning his eyes on Joe in a moody
manner, and without the least glance at me,—“so you’re the
blacksmith, are you? Than I’m sorry to say, I’ve eat your pie.”
“God knows you’re welcome to it,—so far as it was ever mine,”
returned Joe, with a saving remembrance of Mrs. Joe. “We
don’t know what you have done, but we wouldn’t have you
starved to death for it, poor miserable fellow-creatur.—Would
us, Pip?”
The something that I had noticed before, clicked in the man’s
throat again, and he turned his back. The boat had returned,
and his guard were ready, so we followed him to the landing-
place made of rough stakes and stones, and saw him put into
the boat, which was rowed by a crew of convicts like himself.

62
No one seemed surprised to see him, or interested in seeing
him, or glad to see him, or sorry to see him, or spoke a word,
except that somebody in the boat growled as if to dogs, “Give
way, you!” which was the signal for the dip of the oars. By
the light of the torches, we saw the black Hulk lying out a
little way from the mud of the shore, like a wicked Noah’s
ark. Cribbed and barred and moored by massive rusty chains,
the prison-ship seemed in my young eyes to be ironed like
the prisoners. We saw the boat go alongside, and we saw
him taken up the side and disappear. Then, the ends of the
torches were flung hissing into the water, and went out, as if
it were all over with him.

63
Chapter VI
My state of mind regarding the pilfering from which I had
been so unexpectedly exonerated did not impel me to frank
disclosure; but I hope it had some dregs of good at the bottom
of it.
I do not recall that I felt any tenderness of conscience in ref-
erence to Mrs. Joe, when the fear of being found out was
lifted off me. But I loved Joe,—perhaps for no better reason
in those early days than because the dear fellow let me love
him,—and, as to him, my inner self was not so easily com-
posed. It was much upon my mind (particularly when I first
saw him looking about for his file) that I ought to tell Joe
the whole truth. Yet I did not, and for the reason that I mis-
trusted that if I did, he would think me worse than I was. The
fear of losing Joe’s confidence, and of thenceforth sitting in
the chimney corner at night staring drearily at my forever
lost companion and friend, tied up my tongue. I morbidly
represented to myself that if Joe knew it, I never afterwards
could see him at the fireside feeling his fair whisker, without
thinking that he was meditating on it. That, if Joe knew it, I
never afterwards could see him glance, however casually, at
yesterday’s meat or pudding when it came on to-day’s table,
without thinking that he was debating whether I had been in
the pantry. That, if Joe knew it, and at any subsequent period
of our joint domestic life remarked that his beer was flat or
thick, the conviction that he suspected tar in it, would bring
a rush of blood to my face. In a word, I was too cowardly

64
to do what I knew to be right, as I had been too cowardly to
avoid doing what I knew to be wrong. I had had no inter-
course with the world at that time, and I imitated none of its
many inhabitants who act in this manner. Quite an untaught
genius, I made the discovery of the line of action for myself.
As I was sleepy before we were far away from the prison-
ship, Joe took me on his back again and carried me home. He
must have had a tiresome journey of it, for Mr. Wopsle, being
knocked up, was in such a very bad temper that if the Church
had been thrown open, he would probably have excommuni-
cated the whole expedition, beginning with Joe and myself.
In his lay capacity, he persisted in sitting down in the damp
to such an insane extent, that when his coat was taken off
to be dried at the kitchen fire, the circumstantial evidence on
his trousers would have hanged him, if it had been a capital
offence.
By that time, I was staggering on the kitchen floor like a little
drunkard, through having been newly set upon my feet, and
through having been fast asleep, and through waking in the
heat and lights and noise of tongues. As I came to myself
(with the aid of a heavy thump between the shoulders, and
the restorative exclamation “Yah! Was there ever such a boy
as this!” from my sister,) I found Joe telling them about the
convict’s confession, and all the visitors suggesting different
ways by which he had got into the pantry. Mr. Pumblechook
made out, after carefully surveying the premises, that he had
first got upon the roof of the forge, and had then got upon the
roof of the house, and had then let himself down the kitchen

65
chimney by a rope made of his bedding cut into strips; and
as Mr. Pumblechook was very positive and drove his own
chaise-cart—over everybody—it was agreed that it must be
so. Mr. Wopsle, indeed, wildly cried out, “No!” with the
feeble malice of a tired man; but, as he had no theory, and no
coat on, he was unanimously set at naught,—not to mention
his smoking hard behind, as he stood with his back to the
kitchen fire to draw the damp out: which was not calculated
to inspire confidence.
This was all I heard that night before my sister clutched me,
as a slumberous offence to the company’s eyesight, and as-
sisted me up to bed with such a strong hand that I seemed
to have fifty boots on, and to be dangling them all against
the edges of the stairs. My state of mind, as I have described
it, began before I was up in the morning, and lasted long af-
ter the subject had died out, and had ceased to be mentioned
saving on exceptional occasions.

66
Chapter VII
At the time when I stood in the churchyard reading the fam-
ily tombstones, I had just enough learning to be able to spell
them out. My construction even of their simple meaning was
not very correct, for I read “wife of the Above” as a compli-
mentary reference to my father’s exaltation to a better world;
and if any one of my deceased relations had been referred to
as “Below,” I have no doubt I should have formed the worst
opinions of that member of the family. Neither were my
notions of the theological positions to which my Catechism
bound me, at all accurate; for, I have a lively remembrance
that I supposed my declaration that I was to “walk in the
same all the days of my life,” laid me under an obligation al-
ways to go through the village from our house in one partic-
ular direction, and never to vary it by turning down by the
wheelwright’s or up by the mill.
When I was old enough, I was to be apprenticed to Joe, and
until I could assume that dignity I was not to be what Mrs. Joe
called “Pompeyed,” or (as I render it) pampered. Therefore, I
was not only odd-boy about the forge, but if any neighbor
happened to want an extra boy to frighten birds, or pick up
stones, or do any such job, I was favored with the employ-
ment. In order, however, that our superior position might
not be compromised thereby, a money-box was kept on the
kitchen mantel-shelf, into which it was publicly made known
that all my earnings were dropped. I have an impression that
they were to be contributed eventually towards the liquida-

67
tion of the National Debt, but I know I had no hope of any
personal participation in the treasure.
Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt kept an evening school in the vil-
lage; that is to say, she was a ridiculous old woman of limited
means and unlimited infirmity, who used to go to sleep from
six to seven every evening, in the society of youth who paid
two pence per week each, for the improving opportunity of
seeing her do it. She rented a small cottage, and Mr. Wopsle
had the room upstairs, where we students used to overhear
him reading aloud in a most dignified and terrific manner,
and occasionally bumping on the ceiling. There was a fic-
tion that Mr. Wopsle “examined” the scholars once a quar-
ter. What he did on those occasions was to turn up his cuffs,
stick up his hair, and give us Mark Antony’s oration over the
body of Caesar. This was always followed by Collins’s Ode
on the Passions, wherein I particularly venerated Mr. Wop-
sle as Revenge throwing his blood-stained sword in thunder
down, and taking the War-denouncing trumpet with a with-
ering look. It was not with me then, as it was in later life,
when I fell into the society of the Passions, and compared
them with Collins and Wopsle, rather to the disadvantage of
both gentlemen.
Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt, besides keeping this Educational
Institution, kept in the same room—a little general shop. She
had no idea what stock she had, or what the price of any-
thing in it was; but there was a little greasy memorandum-
book kept in a drawer, which served as a Catalogue of Prices,
and by this oracle Biddy arranged all the shop transactions.

68
Biddy was Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt’s granddaughter; I con-
fess myself quite unequal to the working out of the problem,
what relation she was to Mr. Wopsle. She was an orphan like
myself; like me, too, had been brought up by hand. She was
most noticeable, I thought, in respect of her extremities; for,
her hair always wanted brushing, her hands always wanted
washing, and her shoes always wanted mending and pulling
up at heel. This description must be received with a week-
day limitation. On Sundays, she went to church elaborated.
Much of my unassisted self, and more by the help of Biddy
than of Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt, I struggled through the al-
phabet as if it had been a bramble-bush; getting considerably
worried and scratched by every letter. After that I fell among
those thieves, the nine figures, who seemed every evening to
do something new to disguise themselves and baffle recogni-
tion. But, at last I began, in a purblind groping way, to read,
write, and cipher, on the very smallest scale.
One night I was sitting in the chimney corner with my slate,
expending great efforts on the production of a letter to Joe.
I think it must have been a full year after our hunt upon the
marshes, for it was a long time after, and it was winter and
a hard frost. With an alphabet on the hearth at my feet for
reference, I contrived in an hour or two to print and smear
this epistle:—
There was no indispensable necessity for my communicating
with Joe by letter, inasmuch as he sat beside me and we were
alone. But I delivered this written communication (slate and

69
all) with my own hand, and Joe received it as a miracle of
erudition.
“I say, Pip, old chap!” cried Joe, opening his blue eyes wide,
“what a scholar you are! An’t you?”
“I should like to be,” said I, glancing at the slate as he held it;
with a misgiving that the writing was rather hilly.
“Why, here’s a J,” said Joe, “and a O equal to anythink! Here’s
a J and a O, Pip, and a J-O, Joe.”
I had never heard Joe read aloud to any greater extent than
this monosyllable, and I had observed at church last Sunday,
when I accidentally held our Prayer-Book upside down, that
it seemed to suit his convenience quite as well as if it had
been all right. Wishing to embrace the present occasion of
finding out whether in teaching Joe, I should have to begin
quite at the beginning, I said, “Ah! But read the rest, Jo.”
“The rest, eh, Pip?” said Joe, looking at it with a slow, search-
ing eye, “One, two, three. Why, here’s three Js, and three Os,
and three J-O, Joes in it, Pip!”
I leaned over Joe, and, with the aid of my forefinger read him
the whole letter.
“Astonishing!” said Joe, when I had finished. “You ARE a
scholar.”
“How do you spell Gargery, Joe?” I asked him, with a modest
patronage.

70
“I don’t spell it at all,” said Joe.
“But supposing you did?”
“It can’t be supposed,” said Joe. “Tho’ I’m uncommon fond of
reading, too.”
“Are you, Joe?”
“On-common. Give me,” said Joe, “a good book, or a good
newspaper, and sit me down afore a good fire, and I ask no
better. Lord!” he continued, after rubbing his knees a little,
“when you do come to a J and a O, and says you, ‘Here, at
last, is a J-O, Joe,’ how interesting reading is!”
I derived from this, that Joe’s education, like Steam, was yet
in its infancy. Pursuing the subject, I inquired,—
“Didn’t you ever go to school, Joe, when you were as little as
me?”
“No, Pip.”
“Why didn’t you ever go to school, Joe, when you were as
little as me?”
“Well, Pip,” said Joe, taking up the poker, and settling himself
to his usual occupation when he was thoughtful, of slowly
raking the fire between the lower bars; “I’ll tell you. My fa-
ther, Pip, he were given to drink, and when he were over-
took with drink, he hammered away at my mother, most on-
merciful. It were a’most the only hammering he did, indeed,
’xcepting at myself. And he hammered at me with a wigor

71
only to be equalled by the wigor with which he didn’t ham-
mer at his anwil.—You’re a listening and understanding, Pip?”
“Yes, Joe.”
“’Consequence, my mother and me we ran away from my fa-
ther several times; and then my mother she’d go out to work,
and she’d say, “Joe,” she’d say, “now, please God, you shall
have some schooling, child,” and she’d put me to school. But
my father were that good in his hart that he couldn’t abear to
be without us. So, he’d come with a most tremenjous crowd
and make such a row at the doors of the houses where we
was, that they used to be obligated to have no more to do
with us and to give us up to him. And then he took us home
and hammered us. Which, you see, Pip,” said Joe, pausing in
his meditative raking of the fire, and looking at me, “were a
drawback on my learning.”
“Certainly, poor Joe!”
“Though mind you, Pip,” said Joe, with a judicial touch or two
of the poker on the top bar, “rendering unto all their doo, and
maintaining equal justice betwixt man and man, my father
were that good in his hart, don’t you see?”
I didn’t see; but I didn’t say so.
“Well!” Joe pursued, “somebody must keep the pot a biling,
Pip, or the pot won’t bile, don’t you know?”
I saw that, and said so.
“’Consequence, my father didn’t make objections to my go-

72
ing to work; so I went to work at my present calling, which
were his too, if he would have followed it, and I worked tol-
erable hard, I assure you, Pip. In time I were able to keep
him, and I kep him till he went off in a purple leptic fit. And
it were my intentions to have had put upon his tombstone
that, Whatsume’er the failings on his part, Remember reader
he were that good in his heart.”
Joe recited this couplet with such manifest pride and careful
perspicuity, that I asked him if he had made it himself.
“I made it,” said Joe, “my own self. I made it in a moment. It
was like striking out a horseshoe complete, in a single blow.
I never was so much surprised in all my life,—couldn’t credit
my own ed,—to tell you the truth, hardly believed it were
my own ed. As I was saying, Pip, it were my intentions to
have had it cut over him; but poetry costs money, cut it how
you will, small or large, and it were not done. Not to men-
tion bearers, all the money that could be spared were wanted
for my mother. She were in poor elth, and quite broke. She
weren’t long of following, poor soul, and her share of peace
come round at last.”
Joe’s blue eyes turned a little watery; he rubbed first one of
them, and then the other, in a most uncongenial and uncom-
fortable manner, with the round knob on the top of the poker.
“It were but lonesome then,” said Joe, “living here alone, and
I got acquainted with your sister. Now, Pip,”—Joe looked
firmly at me as if he knew I was not going to agree with
him;—“your sister is a fine figure of a woman.”

73
I could not help looking at the fire, in an obvious state of
doubt.
“Whatever family opinions, or whatever the world’s opin-
ions, on that subject may be, Pip, your sister is,” Joe tapped
the top bar with the poker after every word following, “a-
fine-figure—of—a—woman!”
I could think of nothing better to say than “I am glad you
think so, Joe.”
“So am I,” returned Joe, catching me up. “I am glad I think so,
Pip. A little redness or a little matter of Bone, here or there,
what does it signify to Me?”
I sagaciously observed, if it didn’t signify to him, to whom
did it signify?
“Certainly!” assented Joe. “That’s it. You’re right, old chap!
When I got acquainted with your sister, it were the talk how
she was bringing you up by hand. Very kind of her too, all the
folks said, and I said, along with all the folks. As to you,” Joe
pursued with a countenance expressive of seeing something
very nasty indeed, “if you could have been aware how small
and flabby and mean you was, dear me, you’d have formed
the most contemptible opinion of yourself!”
Not exactly relishing this, I said, “Never mind me, Joe.”
“But I did mind you, Pip,” he returned with tender simplicity.
“When I offered to your sister to keep company, and to be
asked in church at such times as she was willing and ready

74
to come to the forge, I said to her, ‘And bring the poor little
child. God bless the poor little child,’ I said to your sister,
’there’s room for him at the forge!”’
I broke out crying and begging pardon, and hugged Joe round
the neck: who dropped the poker to hug me, and to say, “Ever
the best of friends; an’t us, Pip? Don’t cry, old chap!”
When this little interruption was over, Joe resumed:—
“Well, you see, Pip, and here we are! That’s about where it
lights; here we are! Now, when you take me in hand in my
learning, Pip (and I tell you beforehand I am awful dull, most
awful dull), Mrs. Joe mustn’t see too much of what we’re up
to. It must be done, as I may say, on the sly. And why on the
sly? I’ll tell you why, Pip.”
He had taken up the poker again; without which, I doubt if
he could have proceeded in his demonstration.
“Your sister is given to government.”
“Given to government, Joe?” I was startled, for I had some
shadowy idea (and I am afraid I must add, hope) that Joe had
divorced her in a favor of the Lords of the Admiralty, or Trea-
sury.
“Given to government,” said Joe. “Which I meantersay the
government of you and myself.”
“Oh!”
“And she an’t over partial to having scholars on the premises,”

75
Joe continued, “and in partickler would not be over partial to
my being a scholar, for fear as I might rise. Like a sort of
rebel, don’t you see?”
I was going to retort with an inquiry, and had got as far as
“Why—” when Joe stopped me.
“Stay a bit. I know what you’re a going to say, Pip; stay a
bit! I don’t deny that your sister comes the Mo-gul over us,
now and again. I don’t deny that she do throw us back-falls,
and that she do drop down upon us heavy. At such times as
when your sister is on the Ram-page, Pip,” Joe sank his voice
to a whisper and glanced at the door, “candor compels fur to
admit that she is a Buster.”
Joe pronounced this word, as if it began with at least twelve
capital Bs.
“Why don’t I rise? That were your observation when I broke
it off, Pip?”
“Yes, Joe.”
“Well,” said Joe, passing the poker into his left hand, that he
might feel his whisker; and I had no hope of him whenever he
took to that placid occupation; “your sister’s a master-mind.
A master-mind.”
“What’s that?” I asked, in some hope of bringing him to a
stand. But Joe was readier with his definition than I had ex-
pected, and completely stopped me by arguing circularly, and
answering with a fixed look, “Her.”

76
“And I ain’t a master-mind,” Joe resumed, when he had un-
fixed his look, and got back to his whisker. “And last of all,
Pip,—and this I want to say very serious to you, old chap,—I
see so much in my poor mother, of a woman drudging and
slaving and breaking her honest hart and never getting no
peace in her mortal days, that I’m dead afeerd of going wrong
in the way of not doing what’s right by a woman, and I’d fur
rather of the two go wrong the t’other way, and be a little ill-
conwenienced myself. I wish it was only me that got put out,
Pip; I wish there warn’t no Tickler for you, old chap; I wish I
could take it all on myself; but this is the up-and-down-and-
straight on it, Pip, and I hope you’ll overlook shortcomings.”
Young as I was, I believe that I dated a new admiration of Joe
from that night. We were equals afterwards, as we had been
before; but, afterwards at quiet times when I sat looking at
Joe and thinking about him, I had a new sensation of feeling
conscious that I was looking up to Joe in my heart.
“However,” said Joe, rising to replenish the fire; “here’s the
Dutch-clock a working himself up to being equal to strike
Eight of ‘em, and she’s not come home yet! I hope Uncle
Pumblechook’s mare mayn’t have set a forefoot on a piece o’
ice, and gone down.”
Mrs. Joe made occasional trips with Uncle Pumblechook on
market-days, to assist him in buying such household stuffs
and goods as required a woman’s judgment; Uncle Pumble-
chook being a bachelor and reposing no confidences in his
domestic servant. This was market-day, and Mrs. Joe was

77
out on one of these expeditions.
Joe made the fire and swept the hearth, and then we went
to the door to listen for the chaise-cart. It was a dry cold
night, and the wind blew keenly, and the frost was white and
hard. A man would die to-night of lying out on the marshes, I
thought. And then I looked at the stars, and considered how
awful it would be for a man to turn his face up to them as
he froze to death, and see no help or pity in all the glittering
multitude.
“Here comes the mare,” said Joe, “ringing like a peal of bells!”
The sound of her iron shoes upon the hard road was quite
musical, as she came along at a much brisker trot than usual.
We got a chair out, ready for Mrs. Joe’s alighting, and stirred
up the fire that they might see a bright window, and took
a final survey of the kitchen that nothing might be out of
its place. When we had completed these preparations, they
drove up, wrapped to the eyes. Mrs. Joe was soon landed, and
Uncle Pumblechook was soon down too, covering the mare
with a cloth, and we were soon all in the kitchen, carrying so
much cold air in with us that it seemed to drive all the heat
out of the fire.
“Now,” said Mrs. Joe, unwrapping herself with haste and ex-
citement, and throwing her bonnet back on her shoulders
where it hung by the strings, “if this boy ain’t grateful this
night, he never will be!”
I looked as grateful as any boy possibly could, who was

78
wholly uninformed why he ought to assume that expression.
“It’s only to be hoped,” said my sister, “that he won’t be Pom-
peyed. But I have my fears.”
“She ain’t in that line, Mum,” said Mr. Pumblechook. “She
knows better.”
She? I looked at Joe, making the motion with my lips and
eyebrows, “She?” Joe looked at me, making the motion with
his lips and eyebrows, “She?” My sister catching him in the
act, he drew the back of his hand across his nose with his
usual conciliatory air on such occasions, and looked at her.
“Well?” said my sister, in her snappish way. “What are you
staring at? Is the house afire?”
“—Which some individual,” Joe politely hinted, “mentioned—
she.”
“And she is a she, I suppose?” said my sister. “Unless you call
Miss Havisham a he. And I doubt if even you’ll go so far as
that.”
“Miss Havisham, up town?” said Joe.
“Is there any Miss Havisham down town?” returned my sis-
ter.
“She wants this boy to go and play there. And of course he’s
going. And he had better play there,” said my sister, shaking
her head at me as an encouragement to be extremely light
and sportive, “or I’ll work him.”

79
I had heard of Miss Havisham up town,—everybody for
miles round had heard of Miss Havisham up town,—as an
immensely rich and grim lady who lived in a large and
dismal house barricaded against robbers, and who led a life
of seclusion.
“Well to be sure!” said Joe, astounded. “I wonder how she
come to know Pip!”
“Noodle!” cried my sister. “Who said she knew him?”
“—Which some individual,” Joe again politely hinted, “men-
tioned that she wanted him to go and play there.”
“And couldn’t she ask Uncle Pumblechook if he knew of a
boy to go and play there? Isn’t it just barely possible that
Uncle Pumblechook may be a tenant of hers, and that he
may sometimes—we won’t say quarterly or half-yearly, for
that would be requiring too much of you—but sometimes—
go there to pay his rent? And couldn’t she then ask Uncle
Pumblechook if he knew of a boy to go and play there? And
couldn’t Uncle Pumblechook, being always considerate and
thoughtful for us—though you may not think it, Joseph,” in a
tone of the deepest reproach, as if he were the most callous of
nephews, “then mention this boy, standing Prancing here”—
which I solemnly declare I was not doing—“that I have for
ever been a willing slave to?”
“Good again!” cried Uncle Pumblechook. “Well put! Prettily
pointed! Good indeed! Now Joseph, you know the case.”
“No, Joseph,” said my sister, still in a reproachful manner,

80
while Joe apologetically drew the back of his hand across
and across his nose, “you do not yet—though you may not
think it—know the case. You may consider that you do, but
you do not, Joseph. For you do not know that Uncle Pum-
blechook, being sensible that for anything we can tell, this
boy’s fortune may be made by his going to Miss Havisham’s,
has offered to take him into town to-night in his own chaise-
cart, and to keep him to-night, and to take him with his own
hands to Miss Havisham’s to-morrow morning. And Lor-a-
mussy me!” cried my sister, casting off her bonnet in sudden
desperation, “here I stand talking to mere Mooncalfs, with
Uncle Pumblechook waiting, and the mare catching cold at
the door, and the boy grimed with crock and dirt from the
hair of his head to the sole of his foot!”
With that, she pounced upon me, like an eagle on a lamb,
and my face was squeezed into wooden bowls in sinks, and
my head was put under taps of water-butts, and I was soaped,
and kneaded, and towelled, and thumped, and harrowed, and
rasped, until I really was quite beside myself. (I may here
remark that I suppose myself to be better acquainted than
any living authority, with the ridgy effect of a wedding-ring,
passing unsympathetically over the human countenance.)
When my ablutions were completed, I was put into clean
linen of the stiffest character, like a young penitent into sack-
cloth, and was trussed up in my tightest and fearfullest suit.
I was then delivered over to Mr. Pumblechook, who formally
received me as if he were the Sheriff, and who let off upon
me the speech that I knew he had been dying to make all

81
along: “Boy, be forever grateful to all friends, but especially
unto them which brought you up by hand!”
“Good-bye, Joe!”
“God bless you, Pip, old chap!”
I had never parted from him before, and what with my feel-
ings and what with soapsuds, I could at first see no stars from
the chaise-cart. But they twinkled out one by one, without
throwing any light on the questions why on earth I was going
to play at Miss Havisham’s, and what on earth I was expected
to play at.

82
Chapter VIII
Mr. Pumblechook’s premises in the High Street of the market
town, were of a peppercorny and farinaceous character, as
the premises of a cornchandler and seedsman should be. It
appeared to me that he must be a very happy man indeed,
to have so many little drawers in his shop; and I wondered
when I peeped into one or two on the lower tiers, and saw
the tied-up brown paper packets inside, whether the flower-
seeds and bulbs ever wanted of a fine day to break out of
those jails, and bloom.
It was in the early morning after my arrival that I enter-
tained this speculation. On the previous night, I had been
sent straight to bed in an attic with a sloping roof, which was
so low in the corner where the bedstead was, that I calculated
the tiles as being within a foot of my eyebrows. In the same
early morning, I discovered a singular affinity between seeds
and corduroys. Mr. Pumblechook wore corduroys, and so
did his shopman; and somehow, there was a general air and
flavor about the corduroys, so much in the nature of seeds,
and a general air and flavor about the seeds, so much in the
nature of corduroys, that I hardly knew which was which.
The same opportunity served me for noticing that Mr. Pum-
blechook appeared to conduct his business by looking across
the street at the saddler, who appeared to transact his busi-
ness by keeping his eye on the coachmaker, who appeared
to get on in life by putting his hands in his pockets and con-
templating the baker, who in his turn folded his arms and

83
stared at the grocer, who stood at his door and yawned at the
chemist. The watchmaker, always poring over a little desk
with a magnifying-glass at his eye, and always inspected by
a group of smock-frocks poring over him through the glass
of his shop-window, seemed to be about the only person in
the High Street whose trade engaged his attention.
Mr. Pumblechook and I breakfasted at eight o’clock in the
parlor behind the shop, while the shopman took his mug
of tea and hunch of bread and butter on a sack of peas in
the front premises. I considered Mr. Pumblechook wretched
company. Besides being possessed by my sister’s idea that
a mortifying and penitential character ought to be imparted
to my diet,—besides giving me as much crumb as possible in
combination with as little butter, and putting such a quantity
of warm water into my milk that it would have been more
candid to have left the milk out altogether,—his conversation
consisted of nothing but arithmetic. On my politely bidding
him Good morning, he said, pompously, “Seven times nine,
boy?” And how should I be able to answer, dodged in that
way, in a strange place, on an empty stomach! I was hungry,
but before I had swallowed a morsel, he began a running sum
that lasted all through the breakfast. “Seven?” “And four?”
“And eight?” “And six?” “And two?” “And ten?” And so on.
And after each figure was disposed of, it was as much as I
could do to get a bite or a sup, before the next came; while
he sat at his ease guessing nothing, and eating bacon and hot
roll, in (if I may be allowed the expression) a gorging and
gormandizing manner.

84
For such reasons, I was very glad when ten o’clock came and
we started for Miss Havisham’s; though I was not at all at
my ease regarding the manner in which I should acquit my-
self under that lady’s roof. Within a quarter of an hour we
came to Miss Havisham’s house, which was of old brick, and
dismal, and had a great many iron bars to it. Some of the
windows had been walled up; of those that remained, all the
lower were rustily barred. There was a courtyard in front,
and that was barred; so we had to wait, after ringing the bell,
until some one should come to open it. While we waited at
the gate, I peeped in (even then Mr. Pumblechook said, “And
fourteen?” but I pretended not to hear him), and saw that at
the side of the house there was a large brewery. No brewing
was going on in it, and none seemed to have gone on for a
long long time.
A window was raised, and a clear voice demanded “What
name?” To which my conductor replied, “Pumblechook.” The
voice returned, “Quite right,” and the window was shut again,
and a young lady came across the court-yard, with keys in her
hand.
“This,” said Mr. Pumblechook, “is Pip.”
“This is Pip, is it?” returned the young lady, who was very
pretty and seemed very proud; “come in, Pip.”
Mr. Pumblechook was coming in also, when she stopped him
with the gate.
“Oh!” she said. “Did you wish to see Miss Havisham?”

85
“If Miss Havisham wished to see me,” returned Mr. Pumble-
chook, discomfited.
“Ah!” said the girl; “but you see she don’t.”
She said it so finally, and in such an undiscussible way, that
Mr. Pumblechook, though in a condition of ruffled dignity,
could not protest. But he eyed me severely,—as if I had done
anything to him!—and departed with the words reproachfully
delivered: “Boy! Let your behavior here be a credit unto them
which brought you up by hand!” I was not free from appre-
hension that he would come back to propound through the
gate, “And sixteen?” But he didn’t.
My young conductress locked the gate, and we went across
the courtyard. It was paved and clean, but grass was growing
in every crevice. The brewery buildings had a little lane of
communication with it, and the wooden gates of that lane
stood open, and all the brewery beyond stood open, away to
the high enclosing wall; and all was empty and disused. The
cold wind seemed to blow colder there than outside the gate;
and it made a shrill noise in howling in and out at the open
sides of the brewery, like the noise of wind in the rigging of
a ship at sea.
She saw me looking at it, and she said, “You could drink with-
out hurt all the strong beer that’s brewed there now, boy.”
“I should think I could, miss,” said I, in a shy way.
“Better not try to brew beer there now, or it would turn out
sour, boy; don’t you think so?”

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“It looks like it, miss.”
“Not that anybody means to try,” she added, “for that’s all
done with, and the place will stand as idle as it is till it falls.
As to strong beer, there’s enough of it in the cellars already,
to drown the Manor House.”
“Is that the name of this house, miss?”
“One of its names, boy.”
“It has more than one, then, miss?”
“One more. Its other name was Satis; which is Greek, or
Latin, or Hebrew, or all three—or all one to me—for enough.”
“Enough House,” said I; “that’s a curious name, miss.”
“Yes,” she replied; “but it meant more than it said. It meant,
when it was given, that whoever had this house could want
nothing else. They must have been easily satisfied in those
days, I should think. But don’t loiter, boy.”
Though she called me “boy” so often, and with a carelessness
that was far from complimentary, she was of about my own
age. She seemed much older than I, of course, being a girl,
and beautiful and self-possessed; and she was as scornful of
me as if she had been one-and-twenty, and a queen.
We went into the house by a side door, the great front en-
trance had two chains across it outside,—and the first thing
I noticed was, that the passages were all dark, and that she
had left a candle burning there. She took it up, and we went

87
through more passages and up a staircase, and still it was all
dark, and only the candle lighted us.
At last we came to the door of a room, and she said, “Go in.”
I answered, more in shyness than politeness, “After you,
miss.”
To this she returned: “Don’t be ridiculous, boy; I am not go-
ing in.” And scornfully walked away, and—what was worse—
took the candle with her.
This was very uncomfortable, and I was half afraid. How-
ever, the only thing to be done being to knock at the door, I
knocked, and was told from within to enter. I entered, there-
fore, and found myself in a pretty large room, well lighted
with wax candles. No glimpse of daylight was to be seen in
it. It was a dressing-room, as I supposed from the furniture,
though much of it was of forms and uses then quite unknown
to me. But prominent in it was a draped table with a gilded
looking-glass, and that I made out at first sight to be a fine
lady’s dressing-table.
Whether I should have made out this object so soon if there
had been no fine lady sitting at it, I cannot say. In an arm-
chair, with an elbow resting on the table and her head leaning
on that hand, sat the strangest lady I have ever seen, or shall
ever see.
She was dressed in rich materials,—satins, and lace, and
silks,—all of white. Her shoes were white. And she had
a long white veil dependent from her hair, and she had

88
bridal flowers in her hair, but her hair was white. Some
bright jewels sparkled on her neck and on her hands, and
some other jewels lay sparkling on the table. Dresses, less
splendid than the dress she wore, and half-packed trunks,
were scattered about. She had not quite finished dressing,
for she had but one shoe on,—the other was on the table
near her hand,—her veil was but half arranged, her watch
and chain were not put on, and some lace for her bosom lay
with those trinkets, and with her handkerchief, and gloves,
and some flowers, and a Prayer-Book all confusedly heaped
about the looking-glass.
It was not in the first few moments that I saw all these
things, though I saw more of them in the first moments than
might be supposed. But I saw that everything within my
view which ought to be white, had been white long ago, and
had lost its lustre and was faded and yellow. I saw that the
bride within the bridal dress had withered like the dress, and
like the flowers, and had no brightness left but the brightness
of her sunken eyes. I saw that the dress had been put upon
the rounded figure of a young woman, and that the figure
upon which it now hung loose had shrunk to skin and bone.
Once, I had been taken to see some ghastly waxwork at the
Fair, representing I know not what impossible personage
lying in state. Once, I had been taken to one of our old
marsh churches to see a skeleton in the ashes of a rich dress
that had been dug out of a vault under the church pavement.
Now, waxwork and skeleton seemed to have dark eyes that
moved and looked at me. I should have cried out, if I could.

89
“Who is it?” said the lady at the table.
“Pip, ma’am.”
“Pip?”
“Mr. Pumblechook’s boy, ma’am. Come—to play.”
“Come nearer; let me look at you. Come close.”
It was when I stood before her, avoiding her eyes, that I took
note of the surrounding objects in detail, and saw that her
watch had stopped at twenty minutes to nine, and that a clock
in the room had stopped at twenty minutes to nine.
“Look at me,” said Miss Havisham. “You are not afraid of a
woman who has never seen the sun since you were born?”
I regret to state that I was not afraid of telling the enormous
lie comprehended in the answer “No.”
“Do you know what I touch here?” she said, laying her hands,
one upon the other, on her left side.
“Yes, ma’am.” (It made me think of the young man.)
“What do I touch?”
“Your heart.”
“Broken!”
She uttered the word with an eager look, and with strong
emphasis, and with a weird smile that had a kind of boast in

90
it. Afterwards she kept her hands there for a little while, and
slowly took them away as if they were heavy.
“I am tired,” said Miss Havisham. “I want diversion, and I
have done with men and women. Play.”
I think it will be conceded by my most disputatious reader,
that she could hardly have directed an unfortunate boy to do
anything in the wide world more difficult to be done under
the circumstances.
“I sometimes have sick fancies,” she went on, “and I have a
sick fancy that I want to see some play. There, there!” with an
impatient movement of the fingers of her right hand; “play,
play, play!”
For a moment, with the fear of my sister’s working me before
my eyes, I had a desperate idea of starting round the room
in the assumed character of Mr. Pumblechook’s chaise-cart.
But I felt myself so unequal to the performance that I gave
it up, and stood looking at Miss Havisham in what I suppose
she took for a dogged manner, inasmuch as she said, when
we had taken a good look at each other,—
“Are you sullen and obstinate?”
“No, ma’am, I am very sorry for you, and very sorry I can’t
play just now. If you complain of me I shall get into trouble
with my sister, so I would do it if I could; but it’s so new here,
and so strange, and so fine,—and melancholy—.” I stopped,
fearing I might say too much, or had already said it, and we
took another look at each other.

91
Before she spoke again, she turned her eyes from me, and
looked at the dress she wore, and at the dressing-table, and
finally at herself in the looking-glass.
“So new to him,” she muttered, “so old to me; so strange to
him, so familiar to me; so melancholy to both of us! Call
Estella.”
As she was still looking at the reflection of herself, I thought
she was still talking to herself, and kept quiet.
“Call Estella,” she repeated, flashing a look at me. “You can
do that. Call Estella. At the door.”
To stand in the dark in a mysterious passage of an unknown
house, bawling Estella to a scornful young lady neither visi-
ble nor responsive, and feeling it a dreadful liberty so to roar
out her name, was almost as bad as playing to order. But she
answered at last, and her light came along the dark passage
like a star.
Miss Havisham beckoned her to come close, and took up a
jewel from the table, and tried its effect upon her fair young
bosom and against her pretty brown hair. “Your own, one
day, my dear, and you will use it well. Let me see you play
cards with this boy.”
“With this boy? Why, he is a common laboring boy!”
I thought I overheard Miss Havisham answer,—only it
seemed so unlikely,—“Well? You can break his heart.”
“What do you play, boy?” asked Estella of myself, with the

92
greatest disdain.
“Nothing but beggar my neighbor, miss.”
“Beggar him,” said Miss Havisham to Estella. So we sat down
to cards.
It was then I began to understand that everything in the room
had stopped, like the watch and the clock, a long time ago.
I noticed that Miss Havisham put down the jewel exactly on
the spot from which she had taken it up. As Estella dealt the
cards, I glanced at the dressing-table again, and saw that the
shoe upon it, once white, now yellow, had never been worn.
I glanced down at the foot from which the shoe was absent,
and saw that the silk stocking on it, once white, now yellow,
had been trodden ragged. Without this arrest of everything,
this standing still of all the pale decayed objects, not even
the withered bridal dress on the collapsed form could have
looked so like grave-clothes, or the long veil so like a shroud.
So she sat, corpse-like, as we played at cards; the frillings
and trimmings on her bridal dress, looking like earthy paper.
I knew nothing then of the discoveries that are occasionally
made of bodies buried in ancient times, which fall to pow-
der in the moment of being distinctly seen; but, I have often
thought since, that she must have looked as if the admission
of the natural light of day would have struck her to dust.
“He calls the knaves Jacks, this boy!” said Estella with dis-
dain, before our first game was out. “And what coarse hands
he has! And what thick boots!”

93
I had never thought of being ashamed of my hands before;
but I began to consider them a very indifferent pair. Her con-
tempt for me was so strong, that it became infectious, and I
caught it.
She won the game, and I dealt. I misdealt, as was only natural,
when I knew she was lying in wait for me to do wrong; and
she denounced me for a stupid, clumsy laboring-boy.
“You say nothing of her,” remarked Miss Havisham to me, as
she looked on. “She says many hard things of you, but you
say nothing of her. What do you think of her?”
“I don’t like to say,” I stammered.
“Tell me in my ear,” said Miss Havisham, bending down.
“I think she is very proud,” I replied, in a whisper.
“Anything else?”
“I think she is very pretty.”
“Anything else?”
“I think she is very insulting.” (She was looking at me then
with a look of supreme aversion.)
“Anything else?”
“I think I should like to go home.”
“And never see her again, though she is so pretty?”

94
“I am not sure that I shouldn’t like to see her again, but I
should like to go home now.”
“You shall go soon,” said Miss Havisham, aloud. “Play the
game out.”
Saving for the one weird smile at first, I should have felt
almost sure that Miss Havisham’s face could not smile. It
had dropped into a watchful and brooding expression,—most
likely when all the things about her had become transfixed,—
and it looked as if nothing could ever lift it up again. Her
chest had dropped, so that she stooped; and her voice had
dropped, so that she spoke low, and with a dead lull upon
her; altogether, she had the appearance of having dropped
body and soul, within and without, under the weight of a
crushing blow.
I played the game to an end with Estella, and she beggared
me. She threw the cards down on the table when she had
won them all, as if she despised them for having been won of
me.
“When shall I have you here again?” said Miss Havisham.
“Let me think.”
I was beginning to remind her that to-day was Wednesday,
when she checked me with her former impatient movement
of the fingers of her right hand.
“There, there! I know nothing of days of the week; I know
nothing of weeks of the year. Come again after six days. You
hear?”

95
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Estella, take him down. Let him have something to eat, and
let him roam and look about him while he eats. Go, Pip.”
I followed the candle down, as I had followed the candle up,
and she stood it in the place where we had found it. Until
she opened the side entrance, I had fancied, without thinking
about it, that it must necessarily be night-time. The rush of
the daylight quite confounded me, and made me feel as if I
had been in the candlelight of the strange room many hours.
“You are to wait here, you boy,” said Estella; and disappeared
and closed the door.
I took the opportunity of being alone in the courtyard to look
at my coarse hands and my common boots. My opinion of
those accessories was not favorable. They had never troubled
me before, but they troubled me now, as vulgar appendages.
I determined to ask Joe why he had ever taught me to call
those picture-cards Jacks, which ought to be called knaves. I
wished Joe had been rather more genteelly brought up, and
then I should have been so too.
She came back, with some bread and meat and a little mug
of beer. She put the mug down on the stones of the yard,
and gave me the bread and meat without looking at me, as
insolently as if I were a dog in disgrace. I was so humiliated,
hurt, spurned, offended, angry, sorry,—I cannot hit upon the
right name for the smart—God knows what its name was,—
that tears started to my eyes. The moment they sprang there,

96
the girl looked at me with a quick delight in having been
the cause of them. This gave me power to keep them back
and to look at her: so, she gave a contemptuous toss—but
with a sense, I thought, of having made too sure that I was
so wounded—and left me.
But when she was gone, I looked about me for a place to hide
my face in, and got behind one of the gates in the brewery-
lane, and leaned my sleeve against the wall there, and leaned
my forehead on it and cried. As I cried, I kicked the wall, and
took a hard twist at my hair; so bitter were my feelings, and
so sharp was the smart without a name, that needed coun-
teraction.
My sister’s bringing up had made me sensitive. In the lit-
tle world in which children have their existence whosoever
brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so
finely felt as injustice. It may be only small injustice that the
child can be exposed to; but the child is small, and its world is
small, and its rocking-horse stands as many hands high, ac-
cording to scale, as a big-boned Irish hunter. Within myself,
I had sustained, from my babyhood, a perpetual conflict with
injustice. I had known, from the time when I could speak,
that my sister, in her capricious and violent coercion, was
unjust to me. I had cherished a profound conviction that her
bringing me up by hand gave her no right to bring me up
by jerks. Through all my punishments, disgraces, fasts, and
vigils, and other penitential performances, I had nursed this
assurance; and to my communing so much with it, in a soli-
tary and unprotected way, I in great part refer the fact that I

97
was morally timid and very sensitive.
I got rid of my injured feelings for the time by kicking them
into the brewery wall, and twisting them out of my hair, and
then I smoothed my face with my sleeve, and came from be-
hind the gate. The bread and meat were acceptable, and the
beer was warming and tingling, and I was soon in spirits to
look about me.
To be sure, it was a deserted place, down to the pigeon-house
in the brewery-yard, which had been blown crooked on its
pole by some high wind, and would have made the pigeons
think themselves at sea, if there had been any pigeons there
to be rocked by it. But there were no pigeons in the dove-cot,
no horses in the stable, no pigs in the sty, no malt in the store-
house, no smells of grains and beer in the copper or the vat.
All the uses and scents of the brewery might have evaporated
with its last reek of smoke. In a by-yard, there was a wilder-
ness of empty casks, which had a certain sour remembrance
of better days lingering about them; but it was too sour to be
accepted as a sample of the beer that was gone,—and in this
respect I remember those recluses as being like most others.
Behind the furthest end of the brewery, was a rank garden
with an old wall; not so high but that I could struggle up and
hold on long enough to look over it, and see that the rank gar-
den was the garden of the house, and that it was overgrown
with tangled weeds, but that there was a track upon the green
and yellow paths, as if some one sometimes walked there, and
that Estella was walking away from me even then. But she

98
seemed to be everywhere. For when I yielded to the tempta-
tion presented by the casks, and began to walk on them, I saw
her walking on them at the end of the yard of casks. She had
her back towards me, and held her pretty brown hair spread
out in her two hands, and never looked round, and passed
out of my view directly. So, in the brewery itself,—by which
I mean the large paved lofty place in which they used to make
the beer, and where the brewing utensils still were. When I
first went into it, and, rather oppressed by its gloom, stood
near the door looking about me, I saw her pass among the
extinguished fires, and ascend some light iron stairs, and go
out by a gallery high overhead, as if she were going out into
the sky.
It was in this place, and at this moment, that a strange thing
happened to my fancy. I thought it a strange thing then,
and I thought it a stranger thing long afterwards. I turned
my eyes—a little dimmed by looking up at the frosty light—
towards a great wooden beam in a low nook of the building
near me on my right hand, and I saw a figure hanging there
by the neck. A figure all in yellow white, with but one shoe
to the feet; and it hung so, that I could see that the faded
trimmings of the dress were like earthy paper, and that the
face was Miss Havisham’s, with a movement going over the
whole countenance as if she were trying to call to me. In the
terror of seeing the figure, and in the terror of being certain
that it had not been there a moment before, I at first ran from
it, and then ran towards it. And my terror was greatest of all
when I found no figure there.

99
Nothing less than the frosty light of the cheerful sky, the sight
of people passing beyond the bars of the court-yard gate, and
the reviving influence of the rest of the bread and meat and
beer, would have brought me round. Even with those aids, I
might not have come to myself as soon as I did, but that I saw
Estella approaching with the keys, to let me out. She would
have some fair reason for looking down upon me, I thought,
if she saw me frightened; and she would have no fair reason.
She gave me a triumphant glance in passing me, as if she
rejoiced that my hands were so coarse and my boots were so
thick, and she opened the gate, and stood holding it. I was
passing out without looking at her, when she touched me
with a taunting hand.
“Why don’t you cry?”
“Because I don’t want to.”
“You do,” said she. “You have been crying till you are half
blind, and you are near crying again now.”
She laughed contemptuously, pushed me out, and locked the
gate upon me. I went straight to Mr. Pumblechook’s, and
was immensely relieved to find him not at home. So, leaving
word with the shopman on what day I was wanted at Miss
Havisham’s again, I set off on the four-mile walk to our forge;
pondering, as I went along, on all I had seen, and deeply re-
volving that I was a common laboring-boy; that my hands
were coarse; that my boots were thick; that I had fallen into
a despicable habit of calling knaves Jacks; that I was much

100
more ignorant than I had considered myself last night, and
generally that I was in a low-lived bad way.

101
Chapter IX
When I reached home, my sister was very curious to know
all about Miss Havisham’s, and asked a number of questions.
And I soon found myself getting heavily bumped from behind
in the nape of the neck and the small of the back, and hav-
ing my face ignominiously shoved against the kitchen wall,
because I did not answer those questions at sufficient length.
If a dread of not being understood be hidden in the breasts
of other young people to anything like the extent to which
it used to be hidden in mine,—which I consider probable, as
I have no particular reason to suspect myself of having been
a monstrosity,—it is the key to many reservations. I felt con-
vinced that if I described Miss Havisham’s as my eyes had
seen it, I should not be understood. Not only that, but I
felt convinced that Miss Havisham too would not be under-
stood; and although she was perfectly incomprehensible to
me, I entertained an impression that there would be some-
thing coarse and treacherous in my dragging her as she really
was (to say nothing of Miss Estella) before the contemplation
of Mrs. Joe. Consequently, I said as little as I could, and had
my face shoved against the kitchen wall.
The worst of it was that that bullying old Pumblechook,
preyed upon by a devouring curiosity to be informed of all
I had seen and heard, came gaping over in his chaise-cart at
tea-time, to have the details divulged to him. And the mere
sight of the torment, with his fishy eyes and mouth open, his

102
sandy hair inquisitively on end, and his waistcoat heaving
with windy arithmetic, made me vicious in my reticence.
“Well, boy,” Uncle Pumblechook began, as soon as he was
seated in the chair of honor by the fire. “How did you get on
up town?”
I answered, “Pretty well, sir,” and my sister shook her fist at
me.
“Pretty well?” Mr. Pumblechook repeated. “Pretty well is no
answer. Tell us what you mean by pretty well, boy?”
Whitewash on the forehead hardens the brain into a state of
obstinacy perhaps. Anyhow, with whitewash from the wall
on my forehead, my obstinacy was adamantine. I reflected
for some time, and then answered as if I had discovered a
new idea, “I mean pretty well.”
My sister with an exclamation of impatience was going to fly
at me,—I had no shadow of defence, for Joe was busy in the
forge,—when Mr. Pumblechook interposed with “No! Don’t
lose your temper. Leave this lad to me, ma’am; leave this lad
to me.” Mr. Pumblechook then turned me towards him, as if
he were going to cut my hair, and said,—
“First (to get our thoughts in order): Forty-three pence?”
I calculated the consequences of replying “Four Hundred
Pound,” and finding them against me, went as near the an-
swer as I could—which was somewhere about eightpence off.
Mr. Pumblechook then put me through my pence-table from

103
“twelve pence make one shilling,” up to “forty pence make
three and fourpence,” and then triumphantly demanded, as if
he had done for me, “Now! How much is forty-three pence?”
To which I replied, after a long interval of reflection, “I don’t
know.” And I was so aggravated that I almost doubt if I did
know.
Mr. Pumblechook worked his head like a screw to screw it
out of me, and said, “Is forty-three pence seven and sixpence
three fardens, for instance?”
“Yes!” said I. And although my sister instantly boxed my ears,
it was highly gratifying to me to see that the answer spoilt
his joke, and brought him to a dead stop.
“Boy! What like is Miss Havisham?” Mr. Pumblechook be-
gan again when he had recovered; folding his arms tight on
his chest and applying the screw.
“Very tall and dark,” I told him.
“Is she, uncle?” asked my sister.
Mr. Pumblechook winked assent; from which I at once in-
ferred that he had never seen Miss Havisham, for she was
nothing of the kind.
“Good!” said Mr. Pumblechook conceitedly. (“This is the
way to have him! We are beginning to hold our own, I think,
Mum?”)
“I am sure, uncle,” returned Mrs. Joe, “I wish you had him
always; you know so well how to deal with him.”

104
“Now, boy! What was she a doing of, when you went in to-
day?” asked Mr. Pumblechook.
“She was sitting,” I answered, “in a black velvet coach.”
Mr. Pumblechook and Mrs. Joe stared at one another—as
they well might—and both repeated, “In a black velvet
coach?”
“Yes,” said I. “And Miss Estella—that’s her niece, I think—
handed her in cake and wine at the coach-window, on a gold
plate. And we all had cake and wine on gold plates. And I
got up behind the coach to eat mine, because she told me to.”
“Was anybody else there?” asked Mr. Pumblechook.
“Four dogs,” said I.
“Large or small?”
“Immense,” said I. “And they fought for veal-cutlets out of a
silver basket.”
Mr. Pumblechook and Mrs. Joe stared at one another again,
in utter amazement. I was perfectly frantic,—a reckless wit-
ness under the torture,—and would have told them anything.
“Where was this coach, in the name of gracious?” asked my
sister.
“In Miss Havisham’s room.” They stared again. “But there
weren’t any horses to it.” I added this saving clause, in the
moment of rejecting four richly caparisoned coursers which
I had had wild thoughts of harnessing.

105
“Can this be possible, uncle?” asked Mrs. Joe. “What can the
boy mean?”
“I’ll tell you, Mum,” said Mr. Pumblechook. “My opinion is,
it’s a sedan-chair. She’s flighty, you know,—very flighty,—
quite flighty enough to pass her days in a sedan-chair.”
“Did you ever see her in it, uncle?” asked Mrs. Joe.
“How could I,” he returned, forced to the admission, “when I
never see her in my life? Never clapped eyes upon her!”
“Goodness, uncle! And yet you have spoken to her?”
“Why, don’t you know,” said Mr. Pumblechook, testily, “that
when I have been there, I have been took up to the outside of
her door, and the door has stood ajar, and she has spoke to me
that way. Don’t say you don’t know that, Mum. Howsever,
the boy went there to play. What did you play at, boy?”
“We played with flags,” I said. (I beg to observe that I think of
myself with amazement, when I recall the lies I told on this
occasion.)
“Flags!” echoed my sister.
“Yes,” said I. “Estella waved a blue flag, and I waved a red one,
and Miss Havisham waved one sprinkled all over with little
gold stars, out at the coach-window. And then we all waved
our swords and hurrahed.”
“Swords!” repeated my sister. “Where did you get swords
from?”

106
“Out of a cupboard,” said I. “And I saw pistols in it,—and
jam,—and pills. And there was no daylight in the room, but
it was all lighted up with candles.”
“That’s true, Mum,” said Mr. Pumblechook, with a grave nod.
“That’s the state of the case, for that much I’ve seen myself.”
And then they both stared at me, and I, with an obtrusive
show of artlessness on my countenance, stared at them, and
plaited the right leg of my trousers with my right hand.
If they had asked me any more questions, I should undoubt-
edly have betrayed myself, for I was even then on the point of
mentioning that there was a balloon in the yard, and should
have hazarded the statement but for my invention being di-
vided between that phenomenon and a bear in the brewery.
They were so much occupied, however, in discussing the mar-
vels I had already presented for their consideration, that I es-
caped. The subject still held them when Joe came in from his
work to have a cup of tea. To whom my sister, more for the
relief of her own mind than for the gratification of his, related
my pretended experiences.
Now, when I saw Joe open his blue eyes and roll them all
round the kitchen in helpless amazement, I was overtaken by
penitence; but only as regarded him,—not in the least as re-
garded the other two. Towards Joe, and Joe only, I considered
myself a young monster, while they sat debating what re-
sults would come to me from Miss Havisham’s acquaintance
and favor. They had no doubt that Miss Havisham would
“do something” for me; their doubts related to the form that

107
something would take. My sister stood out for “property.”
Mr. Pumblechook was in favor of a handsome premium for
binding me apprentice to some genteel trade,—say, the corn
and seed trade, for instance. Joe fell into the deepest disgrace
with both, for offering the bright suggestion that I might only
be presented with one of the dogs who had fought for the
veal-cutlets. “If a fool’s head can’t express better opinions
than that,” said my sister, “and you have got any work to do,
you had better go and do it.” So he went.
After Mr. Pumblechook had driven off, and when my sister
was washing up, I stole into the forge to Joe, and remained
by him until he had done for the night. Then I said, “Before
the fire goes out, Joe, I should like to tell you something.”
“Should you, Pip?” said Joe, drawing his shoeing-stool near
the forge. “Then tell us. What is it, Pip?”
“Joe,” said I, taking hold of his rolled-up shirt sleeve, and
twisting it between my finger and thumb, “you remember all
that about Miss Havisham’s?”
“Remember?” said Joe. “I believe you! Wonderful!”
“It’s a terrible thing, Joe; it ain’t true.”
“What are you telling of, Pip?” cried Joe, falling back in the
greatest amazement. “You don’t mean to say it’s—”
“Yes I do; it’s lies, Joe.”
“But not all of it? Why sure you don’t mean to say, Pip, that
there was no black welwet co—eh?” For, I stood shaking my

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head. “But at least there was dogs, Pip? Come, Pip,” said Joe,
persuasively, “if there warn’t no weal-cutlets, at least there
was dogs?”
“No, Joe.”
“A dog?” said Joe. “A puppy? Come?”
“No, Joe, there was nothing at all of the kind.”
As I fixed my eyes hopelessly on Joe, Joe contemplated me
in dismay. “Pip, old chap! This won’t do, old fellow! I say!
Where do you expect to go to?”
“It’s terrible, Joe; ain’t it?”
“Terrible?” cried Joe. “Awful! What possessed you?”
“I don’t know what possessed me, Joe,” I replied, letting his
shirt sleeve go, and sitting down in the ashes at his feet, hang-
ing my head; “but I wish you hadn’t taught me to call Knaves
at cards Jacks; and I wish my boots weren’t so thick nor my
hands so coarse.”
And then I told Joe that I felt very miserable, and that I hadn’t
been able to explain myself to Mrs. Joe and Pumblechook,
who were so rude to me, and that there had been a beautiful
young lady at Miss Havisham’s who was dreadfully proud,
and that she had said I was common, and that I knew I was
common, and that I wished I was not common, and that the
lies had come of it somehow, though I didn’t know how.
This was a case of metaphysics, at least as difficult for Joe to

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deal with as for me. But Joe took the case altogether out of
the region of metaphysics, and by that means vanquished it.
“There’s one thing you may be sure of, Pip,” said Joe, after
some rumination, “namely, that lies is lies. Howsever they
come, they didn’t ought to come, and they come from the
father of lies, and work round to the same. Don’t you tell
no more of ’em, Pip. That ain’t the way to get out of being
common, old chap. And as to being common, I don’t make
it out at all clear. You are oncommon in some things. You’re
oncommon small. Likewise you’re a oncommon scholar.”
“No, I am ignorant and backward, Joe.”
“Why, see what a letter you wrote last night! Wrote in print
even! I’ve seen letters—Ah! and from gentlefolks!—that I’ll
swear weren’t wrote in print,” said Joe.
“I have learnt next to nothing, Joe. You think much of me.
It’s only that.”
“Well, Pip,” said Joe, “be it so or be it son’t, you must be a
common scholar afore you can be a oncommon one, I should
hope! The king upon his throne, with his crown upon his
ed, can’t sit and write his acts of Parliament in print, without
having begun, when he were a unpromoted Prince, with the
alphabet.—Ah!” added Joe, with a shake of the head that was
full of meaning, “and begun at A too, and worked his way
to Z. And I know what that is to do, though I can’t say I’ve
exactly done it.”
There was some hope in this piece of wisdom, and it rather

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encouraged me.
“Whether common ones as to callings and earnings,” pursued
Joe, reflectively, “mightn’t be the better of continuing for to
keep company with common ones, instead of going out to
play with oncommon ones,—which reminds me to hope that
there were a flag, perhaps?”
“No, Joe.”
“(I’m sorry there weren’t a flag, Pip). Whether that might be
or mightn’t be, is a thing as can’t be looked into now, without
putting your sister on the Rampage; and that’s a thing not to
be thought of as being done intentional. Lookee here, Pip, at
what is said to you by a true friend. Which this to you the true
friend say. If you can’t get to be oncommon through going
straight, you’ll never get to do it through going crooked. So
don’t tell no more on ’em, Pip, and live well and die happy.”
“You are not angry with me, Joe?”
“No, old chap. But bearing in mind that them were which I
meantersay of a stunning and outdacious sort,—alluding to
them which bordered on weal-cutlets and dog-fighting,—a
sincere well-wisher would adwise, Pip, their being dropped
into your meditations, when you go upstairs to bed. That’s
all, old chap, and don’t never do it no more.”
When I got up to my little room and said my prayers, I did
not forget Joe’s recommendation, and yet my young mind
was in that disturbed and unthankful state, that I thought
long after I laid me down, how common Estella would con-

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sider Joe, a mere blacksmith; how thick his boots, and how
coarse his hands. I thought how Joe and my sister were then
sitting in the kitchen, and how I had come up to bed from the
kitchen, and how Miss Havisham and Estella never sat in a
kitchen, but were far above the level of such common doings.
I fell asleep recalling what I “used to do” when I was at Miss
Havisham’s; as though I had been there weeks or months, in-
stead of hours; and as though it were quite an old subject of
remembrance, instead of one that had arisen only that day.
That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes
in me. But it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected
day struck out of it, and think how different its course would
have been. Pause you who read this, and think for a moment
of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that
would never have bound you, but for the formation of the
first link on one memorable day.

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Chapter X
The felicitous idea occurred to me a morning or two later
when I woke, that the best step I could take towards making
myself uncommon was to get out of Biddy everything she
knew. In pursuance of this luminous conception I mentioned
to Biddy when I went to Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt’s at night,
that I had a particular reason for wishing to get on in life,
and that I should feel very much obliged to her if she would
impart all her learning to me. Biddy, who was the most oblig-
ing of girls, immediately said she would, and indeed began to
carry out her promise within five minutes.
The Educational scheme or Course established by Mr.
Wopsle’s great-aunt may be resolved into the following
synopsis. The pupils ate apples and put straws down one
another’s backs, until Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt collected her
energies, and made an indiscriminate totter at them with a
birch-rod. After receiving the charge with every mark of
derision, the pupils formed in line and buzzingly passed a
ragged book from hand to hand. The book had an alphabet
in it, some figures and tables, and a little spelling,—that is
to say, it had had once. As soon as this volume began to
circulate, Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt fell into a state of coma,
arising either from sleep or a rheumatic paroxysm. The
pupils then entered among themselves upon a competitive
examination on the subject of Boots, with the view of
ascertaining who could tread the hardest upon whose toes.
This mental exercise lasted until Biddy made a rush at them

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and distributed three defaced Bibles (shaped as if they had
been unskilfully cut off the chump end of something), more
illegibly printed at the best than any curiosities of literature
I have since met with, speckled all over with ironmould,
and having various specimens of the insect world smashed
between their leaves. This part of the Course was usually
lightened by several single combats between Biddy and
refractory students. When the fights were over, Biddy gave
out the number of a page, and then we all read aloud what
we could,—or what we couldn’t—in a frightful chorus; Biddy
leading with a high, shrill, monotonous voice, and none of
us having the least notion of, or reverence for, what we were
reading about. When this horrible din had lasted a certain
time, it mechanically awoke Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt, who
staggered at a boy fortuitously, and pulled his ears. This was
understood to terminate the Course for the evening, and we
emerged into the air with shrieks of intellectual victory. It
is fair to remark that there was no prohibition against any
pupil’s entertaining himself with a slate or even with the
ink (when there was any), but that it was not easy to pursue
that branch of study in the winter season, on account of the
little general shop in which the classes were holden—and
which was also Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt’s sitting-room
and bedchamber—being but faintly illuminated through the
agency of one low-spirited dip-candle and no snuffers.
It appeared to me that it would take time to become uncom-
mon, under these circumstances: nevertheless, I resolved to
try it, and that very evening Biddy entered on our special

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agreement, by imparting some information from her little
catalogue of Prices, under the head of moist sugar, and lend-
ing me, to copy at home, a large old English D which she had
imitated from the heading of some newspaper, and which I
supposed, until she told me what it was, to be a design for a
buckle.
Of course there was a public-house in the village, and of
course Joe liked sometimes to smoke his pipe there. I had
received strict orders from my sister to call for him at
the Three Jolly Bargemen, that evening, on my way from
school, and bring him home at my peril. To the Three Jolly
Bargemen, therefore, I directed my steps.
There was a bar at the Jolly Bargemen, with some alarmingly
long chalk scores in it on the wall at the side of the door,
which seemed to me to be never paid off. They had been
there ever since I could remember, and had grown more than
I had. But there was a quantity of chalk about our country,
and perhaps the people neglected no opportunity of turning
it to account.
It being Saturday night, I found the landlord looking rather
grimly at these records; but as my business was with Joe and
not with him, I merely wished him good evening, and passed
into the common room at the end of the passage, where there
was a bright large kitchen fire, and where Joe was smoking
his pipe in company with Mr. Wopsle and a stranger. Joe
greeted me as usual with “Halloa, Pip, old chap!” and the
moment he said that, the stranger turned his head and looked

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at me.
He was a secret-looking man whom I had never seen before.
His head was all on one side, and one of his eyes was half shut
up, as if he were taking aim at something with an invisible
gun. He had a pipe in his mouth, and he took it out, and,
after slowly blowing all his smoke away and looking hard at
me all the time, nodded. So, I nodded, and then he nodded
again, and made room on the settle beside him that I might
sit down there.
But as I was used to sit beside Joe whenever I entered that
place of resort, I said “No, thank you, sir,” and fell into the
space Joe made for me on the opposite settle. The strange
man, after glancing at Joe, and seeing that his attention was
otherwise engaged, nodded to me again when I had taken my
seat, and then rubbed his leg—in a very odd way, as it struck
me.
“You was saying,” said the strange man, turning to Joe, “that
you was a blacksmith.”
“Yes. I said it, you know,” said Joe.
“What’ll you drink, Mr.—? You didn’t mention your name,
by the bye.”
Joe mentioned it now, and the strange man called him by it.
“What’ll you drink, Mr. Gargery? At my expense? To top up
with?”
“Well,” said Joe, “to tell you the truth, I ain’t much in the habit

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of drinking at anybody’s expense but my own.”
“Habit? No,” returned the stranger, “but once and away,
and on a Saturday night too. Come! Put a name to it, Mr.
Gargery.”
“I wouldn’t wish to be stiff company,” said Joe. “Rum.”
“Rum,” repeated the stranger. “And will the other gentleman
originate a sentiment.”
“Rum,” said Mr. Wopsle.
“Three Rums!” cried the stranger, calling to the landlord.
“Glasses round!”
“This other gentleman,” observed Joe, by way of introducing
Mr. Wopsle, “is a gentleman that you would like to hear give
it out. Our clerk at church.”
“Aha!” said the stranger, quickly, and cocking his eye at me.
“The lonely church, right out on the marshes, with graves
round it!”
“That’s it,” said Joe.
The stranger, with a comfortable kind of grunt over his pipe,
put his legs up on the settle that he had to himself. He wore a
flapping broad-brimmed traveller’s hat, and under it a hand-
kerchief tied over his head in the manner of a cap: so that he
showed no hair. As he looked at the fire, I thought I saw a
cunning expression, followed by a half-laugh, come into his
face.

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“I am not acquainted with this country, gentlemen, but it
seems a solitary country towards the river.”
“Most marshes is solitary,” said Joe.
“No doubt, no doubt. Do you find any gypsies, now, or
tramps, or vagrants of any sort, out there?”
“No,” said Joe; “none but a runaway convict now and then.
And we don’t find them, easy. Eh, Mr. Wopsle?”
Mr. Wopsle, with a majestic remembrance of old discomfi-
ture, assented; but not warmly.
“Seems you have been out after such?” asked the stranger.
“Once,” returned Joe. “Not that we wanted to take them, you
understand; we went out as lookers on; me, and Mr. Wopsle,
and Pip. Didn’t us, Pip?”
“Yes, Joe.”
The stranger looked at me again,—still cocking his eye, as if
he were expressly taking aim at me with his invisible gun,—
and said, “He’s a likely young parcel of bones that. What is
it you call him?”
“Pip,” said Joe.
“Christened Pip?”
“No, not christened Pip.”
“Surname Pip?”

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“No,” said Joe, “it’s a kind of family name what he gave him-
self when a infant, and is called by.”
“Son of yours?”
“Well,” said Joe, meditatively, not, of course, that it could be
in anywise necessary to consider about it, but because it was
the way at the Jolly Bargemen to seem to consider deeply
about everything that was discussed over pipes,—“well—no.
No, he ain’t.”
“Nevvy?” said the strange man.
“Well,” said Joe, with the same appearance of profound
cogitation, “he is not—no, not to deceive you, he is not—my
nevvy.”
“What the Blue Blazes is he?” asked the stranger. Which
appeared to me to be an inquiry of unnecessary strength.
Mr. Wopsle struck in upon that; as one who knew all
about relationships, having professional occasion to bear in
mind what female relations a man might not marry; and
expounded the ties between me and Joe. Having his hand
in, Mr. Wopsle finished off with a most terrifically snarling
passage from Richard the Third, and seemed to think he had
done quite enough to account for it when he added, “—as the
poet says.”
And here I may remark that when Mr. Wopsle referred to me,
he considered it a necessary part of such reference to rumple
my hair and poke it into my eyes. I cannot conceive why

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everybody of his standing who visited at our house should
always have put me through the same inflammatory process
under similar circumstances. Yet I do not call to mind that
I was ever in my earlier youth the subject of remark in our
social family circle, but some large-handed person took some
such ophthalmic steps to patronize me.
All this while, the strange man looked at nobody but me, and
looked at me as if he were determined to have a shot at me
at last, and bring me down. But he said nothing after offer-
ing his Blue Blazes observation, until the glasses of rum and
water were brought; and then he made his shot, and a most
extraordinary shot it was.
It was not a verbal remark, but a proceeding in dumb-show,
and was pointedly addressed to me. He stirred his rum and
water pointedly at me, and he tasted his rum and water point-
edly at me. And he stirred it and he tasted it; not with a spoon
that was brought to him, but with a file.
He did this so that nobody but I saw the file; and when he
had done it he wiped the file and put it in a breast-pocket. I
knew it to be Joe’s file, and I knew that he knew my convict,
the moment I saw the instrument. I sat gazing at him, spell-
bound. But he now reclined on his settle, taking very little
notice of me, and talking principally about turnips.
There was a delicious sense of cleaning-up and making a
quiet pause before going on in life afresh, in our village on
Saturday nights, which stimulated Joe to dare to stay out
half an hour longer on Saturdays than at other times. The

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half-hour and the rum and water running out together, Joe
got up to go, and took me by the hand.
“Stop half a moment, Mr. Gargery,” said the strange man. “I
think I’ve got a bright new shilling somewhere in my pocket,
and if I have, the boy shall have it.”
He looked it out from a handful of small change, folded it in
some crumpled paper, and gave it to me. “Yours!” said he.
“Mind! Your own.”
I thanked him, staring at him far beyond the bounds of good
manners, and holding tight to Joe. He gave Joe good-night,
and he gave Mr. Wopsle good-night (who went out with us),
and he gave me only a look with his aiming eye,—no, not a
look, for he shut it up, but wonders may be done with an eye
by hiding it.
On the way home, if I had been in a humor for talking, the
talk must have been all on my side, for Mr. Wopsle parted
from us at the door of the Jolly Bargemen, and Joe went all
the way home with his mouth wide open, to rinse the rum out
with as much air as possible. But I was in a manner stupefied
by this turning up of my old misdeed and old acquaintance,
and could think of nothing else.
My sister was not in a very bad temper when we presented
ourselves in the kitchen, and Joe was encouraged by that un-
usual circumstance to tell her about the bright shilling. “A
bad un, I’ll be bound,” said Mrs. Joe triumphantly, “or he
wouldn’t have given it to the boy! Let’s look at it.”

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I took it out of the paper, and it proved to be a good one. “But
what’s this?” said Mrs. Joe, throwing down the shilling and
catching up the paper. “Two One-Pound notes?”
Nothing less than two fat sweltering one-pound notes that
seemed to have been on terms of the warmest intimacy with
all the cattle-markets in the county. Joe caught up his hat
again, and ran with them to the Jolly Bargemen to restore
them to their owner. While he was gone, I sat down on my
usual stool and looked vacantly at my sister, feeling pretty
sure that the man would not be there.
Presently, Joe came back, saying that the man was gone, but
that he, Joe, had left word at the Three Jolly Bargemen con-
cerning the notes. Then my sister sealed them up in a piece
of paper, and put them under some dried rose-leaves in an
ornamental teapot on the top of a press in the state parlor.
There they remained, a nightmare to me, many and many a
night and day.
I had sadly broken sleep when I got to bed, through thinking
of the strange man taking aim at me with his invisible gun,
and of the guiltily coarse and common thing it was, to be
on secret terms of conspiracy with convicts,—a feature in my
low career that I had previously forgotten. I was haunted by
the file too. A dread possessed me that when I least expected
it, the file would reappear. I coaxed myself to sleep by think-
ing of Miss Havisham’s, next Wednesday; and in my sleep I
saw the file coming at me out of a door, without seeing who
held it, and I screamed myself awake.

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Chapter XI
At the appointed time I returned to Miss Havisham’s, and my
hesitating ring at the gate brought out Estella. She locked it
after admitting me, as she had done before, and again pre-
ceded 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 are to come this way to-day,” and took me to quite an-
other 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 day-
light reappeared, and I found myself in a small paved court-
yard, 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 at 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”, being the window, I crossed to it, and
stood “there,” in a very uncomfortable state of mind, looking

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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. Be-
fore I had been standing at the window five minutes, they
somehow conveyed to me that they were all toadies and hum-
bugs, 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 toady 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

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quite rigidly to repress a yawn. This lady, whose name was
Camilla, very much reminded me of my sister, with the differ-
ence that she was older, and (as I found 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.
“Poor dear soul!” said this lady, with an abruptness of man-
ner 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 mean time), “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 to 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!”

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“Good points in him, good points in him,” said Cousin Ray-
mond; “Heaven forbid I should deny good points in him; but
he never had, and he never will have, any sense of the pro-
prieties.”
“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 dis-
graced. 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,” re-
turned 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, in-
terrupted 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
Pocket say, “Well I am sure! What next!” and Camilla add,
with indignation, “Was there ever such a fancy! The i-de-a!”
As we were going with our candle along the dark passage,
Estella stopped all of a sudden, and, facing round, said in her
taunting manner, with her face quite close to mine,—

126
“Well?”
“Well, miss?” I answered, almost falling over her and check-
ing 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

127
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.
“Whom 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 pre-
maturely 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. He 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.

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“Well! Behave yourself. I have a pretty large experience of
boys, and you’re a bad set of fellows. Now mind!” said he,
biting the side of his great forefinger as he frowned at me,
“you behave yourself!”
With those words, he released me—which I was glad of, for
his hand smelt of scented soap—and went his way down-
stairs. 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. Estella 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. To-day 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

129
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 in-
dicated. 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 our own marsh mist. Certain win-
try 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 mould, 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. An epergne or
centre-piece of some kind was in the middle of this cloth;
it was so heavily overhung with cobwebs that its form was
quite undistinguishable; and, as I looked along the yellow
expanse out of which I remember its seeming to grow, like a
black fungus, I saw speckle-legged spiders with blotchy bod-

130
ies running home to it, and running out from it, as if some cir-
cumstances of the greatest public importance had just tran-
spired 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 an-
other.
These crawling things had fascinated my attention, and I was
watching them from a distance, when Miss Havisham laid a
hand upon my shoulder. In 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 bride-cake. Mine!”
She looked all round the room in a glaring manner, and then

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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 Havisham 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 imita-
tion (founded on my first impulse under that roof) of Mr.
Pumblechook’s chaise-cart.
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 Estella!” 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 Havisham, and we started away
again round and round the room.
If only Estella 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 Havisham 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 Havisham,” said Miss Sarah Pocket. “How well
you look!”

132
“I do not,” returned Miss Havisham. “I am yellow skin and
bone.”
Camilla brightened when Miss Pocket met with this rebuff;
and she murmured, as she plaintively contemplated Miss
Havisham, “Poor dear soul! Certainly not to be expected to
look well, poor thing. The idea!”
“And how are you?” said Miss Havisham to Camilla. As we
were close to Camilla then, I would have stopped as a matter
of course, only Miss Havisham wouldn’t stop. We swept on,
and I felt that I was highly obnoxious to Camilla.
“Thank you, Miss Havisham,” she returned, “I am as well as
can be expected.”
“Why, what’s the matter with you?” asked Miss Havisham,
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 am quite equal to.”
“Then don’t think of me,” retorted Miss Havisham.
“Very easily said!” remarked Camilla, amiably repressing a
sob, while a hitch came into her upper lip, and her tears over-
flowed. “Raymond is a witness what ginger and sal volatile I
am obliged to take in the night. Raymond is a 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

133
sensitive, I should have a better digestion and an 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!” Here, 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 compli-
mentary 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 walnut-shells, and a large mouth like a cat’s
without the whiskers, supported this position by saying, “No,
indeed, my dear. Hem!”
“Thinking is easy enough,” said the grave lady.
“What is easier, you know?” assented Miss Sarah Pocket.
“Oh, yes, yes!” cried Camilla, whose fermenting feelings ap-
peared 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 was 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 posses it,
when I wake up in the night.” Here another burst of feeling.

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Miss Havisham and I had never stopped all this time, but 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 staylace cut, and have
lain there 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 blandly vi-
cious personage), “the question to put to yourself is, who did
you expect to thank you, my love?”
“Without expecting any thanks, or anything of the sort,” re-
sumed 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 the total inefficacy of ginger has been, and
I have been heard at the piano-forte tuner’s 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

135
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 chem-
istry 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. It’s something to have seen the ob-
ject of one’s love and duty for even so short a 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 bare idea!”
Mr. Camilla interposing, as Mrs. Camilla laid her hand upon
her heaving bosom, that lady assumed an unnatural fortitude

136
of manner which I supposed to be expressive of an intention
to drop and choke when out of view, and kissing her hand to
Miss Havisham, was escorted forth. Sarah Pocket and Geor-
giana contended who should 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 Havisham 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 Havisham
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, Pip.”
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 any one to speak of it. They come
here on 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 cob-
webs 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.”

137
She held the head of her stick against her heart as she stood
looking at the table; she in 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 con-
tinued thus for a long time. In the heavy air of the room,
and the heavy darkness that brooded in its remoter 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 Havisham said, “Let me see you two
play cards; why have you not begun?” With that, we re-
turned to her room, and sat down as before; I was beggared,
as before; and again, as before, Miss Havisham watched us all
the time, directed 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

138
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 occa-
sion 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 spon-
taneous growth of weak attempts at pieces of old hats and
boots, with 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 grape-vine and some bottles,
I found myself in the dismal corner upon which I had looked
out of the window. Never 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 reap-
peared beside me. He had been at his books when I had found
myself staring at him, and I now saw that he was inky.
“Halloa!” said he, “young fellow!”

139
Halloa being a general observation which I had usually ob-
served to be best answered by itself, I said, “Halloa!” 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 fight-
ing, 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 proceeding 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 there-
fore hit out at him and was going to hit out again, when he
said, “Aha! Would you?” and began dancing backwards and
forwards in a manner quite unparalleled within my limited
experience.

140
“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 ob-
truded on 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 on 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 bloodthirsty.
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 spin-
ning 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 consid-
erably in advance of the rest of him as to development.

141
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
have 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 fore-shortened.
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 al-
ways 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

142
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 thankee,” 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 had 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 a black night-sky, and Joe’s
furnace was flinging a path of fire across the road.

143
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 incrimsoned countenance, the more certain it ap-
peared 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. 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 gentlefolks and pitching into the studious youth of Eng-
land, 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 evi-
dence 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 haled 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 Miss
Havisham, preferring to take personal vengeance for an out-

144
rage 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, go to Miss 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 discov-
ered on the premises. I found the same gate open, and I ex-
plored 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-mould from
the eye of man.
On the broad landing between Miss 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
Miss Havisham in this chair (when she was tired of walking
with her hand upon my shoulder) round her own room, and

145
across the landing, and round the other room. Over and over
and over again, we would make these journeys, and some-
times 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, Miss Havisham
talked more to me, and asked me such questions as what had
I learnt and what was I going to be? I told her I was go-
ing 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 desir-
able 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. Miss Hav-
isham 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 greed-
ily. Also, when we played at cards Miss Havisham would
look on, with a miserly relish of Estella’s moods, whatever

146
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, Miss Havisham would embrace her with lavish
fondness, murmuring something in her ear that sounded like
“Break their hearts my pride and 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 cere-
monious way of rendering homage to a patron saint, but I be-
lieve Old Clem stood in that relation towards smiths. 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 re-
spected name. Thus, you were to hammer boys round—Old
Clem! With a thump and a sound—Old Clem! Beat it out,
beat it out—Old Clem! With a clink for the stout—Old Clem!
Blow the fire, blow the fire—Old Clem! Roaring dryer, soar-
ing higher—Old Clem! One day soon after the appearance of
the chair, Miss Havisham suddenly saying to me, with the im-
patient movement of her fingers, “There, there, there! Sing!”
I was surprised into crooning this ditty 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

147
my character fail to be influenced by them? Is it to be won-
dered 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 gentle-
man, if I had not previously been betrayed into those enor-
mous inventions to which I had confessed. Under the cir-
cumstances, 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 Es-
tella 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 every-
thing. 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, councils went on in the kitchen at home, fraught
with almost insupportable aggravation to my exasperated
spirit. That ass, Pumblechook, 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 hands could have taken a
linchpin out of his chaise-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) where I was quiet
in a corner, and, putting me before the fire as if I were going

148
to be cooked, would begin by saying, “Now, Mum, here is
this boy! Here is this boy which you 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 the sleeve,—a spectacle of
imbecility only to be equalled 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 at Pumblechook,
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 Pumblechook 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 per-
ceiving that he was not favorable to my being taken from the
forge. I was fully old enough now to be apprenticed to Joe;
and when Joe sat with the 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 irri-

149
tating 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 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!” As if I had besought them as a favor 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.”
“Joe Gargery, ma’am.”
“Meaning the master you were to be apprenticed to?”

150
“Yes, Miss Havisham.”
“You had better be apprenticed at once. Would Gargery come
here with you, and bring your indentures, do you think?”
I signified that I had no doubt he would take it as an honor
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 supposed she was door-mats 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 a 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 back-yard. 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 Negress 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.

151
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 Havisham’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 au-
gur 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 HOUT, 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 in plaited Straw, a pair of pattens, 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 os-
tentatiously; but I rather think they were displayed as arti-
cles of property,—much as Cleopatra or any other sovereign

152
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 quar-
ter 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 a worm.
“You are the husband,” repeated Miss Havisham, “of the sister
of this boy?”

153
It was very aggravating; but, throughout the interview, Joe
persisted in addressing Me instead of Miss Havisham.
“Which I meantersay, Pip,” Joe now observed in a manner
that was at once expressive of forcible argumentation, strict
confidence, and great politeness, “as I hup and married your
sister, and I were at the time what you might call (if you was
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. Gargery?”
“You know, Pip,” replied Joe, “as you and me were ever
friends, and it were looked for’ard to betwixt us, as being
calc’lated to lead to larks. Not but what, Pip, if you had ever
made objections to the business,—such as its being open to
black and sut, or such-like,—not but what they would have
been attended to, don’t you see?”
“Has the boy,” said Miss Havisham, “ever made any objec-
tion? Does he like the trade?”
“Which it is well beknown to yourself, Pip,” returned Joe,
strengthening his former mixture of argumentation, confi-
dence, and politeness, “that it were the wish of your own
hart.” (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 hart!”
It was quite in vain for me to endeavor to make him sensible

154
that he ought to speak to Miss Havisham. The more I made
faces and gestures to him to do it, the more confidential, ar-
gumentative, 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 un-
reasonable, “you yourself see me put ’em in my ’at, and there-
fore you know as they are here.” With which he took them
out, and gave them, not to Miss Havisham, but to me. I am
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 mis-
chievously. 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 meantersay that were not a question requiring a
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.

155
“Pip has earned a premium here,” she said, “and here it is.
There are five-and-twenty guineas in this bag. Give 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 wery liberal on your part, Pip,” said Joe, “and it is
as such received and grateful welcome, though never looked
for, far nor near, nor nowheres. 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 your liberal present—have-conweyed—
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 far be it!” These words had such a round and
convincing sound for him that he said them twice.
“Good-bye, Pip!” said Miss Havisham. “Let them out, Es-
tella.”
“Am I to come again, Miss Havisham?” I asked.
“No. Gargery is your master now. Gargery! 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

156
man, you will expect no other and no more.”
How Joe got out of the room, I have never been able to de-
termine; 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 Estella was gone. When we stood in the day-
light 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 as-TON-ishing!” 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 Pumblechook’s he invented a subtle and deep design.
My reason is to be found in what took place in Mr. Pumble-
chook’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 am sure I do!”
“Miss Havisham,” said Joe, with a fixed look at me, like an
effort of remembrance, “made it wery partick’ler that we
should give her—were it compliments or respects, Pip?”
“Compliments,” I said.

157
“Which that were my own belief,” answered Joe; “her com-
pliments 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
Havisham’s elth were sitch as would have—allowed, were it,
Pip?”
“Of her having the pleasure,” I added.
“Of ladies’ company,” said Joe. And drew a long breath.
“Well!” cried my sister, with a mollified glance at Mr. Pum-
blechook. “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 Rantipole here?”
“She giv’ him,” said Joe, “nothing.”
Mrs. Joe was going to break out, but Joe went on.
“What she giv’,” said Joe, “she giv’ 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 mayn’t have know’d,” added Joe, with an ap-
pearance of reflection, “whether it were Joe, or Jorge.”
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.

158
“And how much have you got?” asked my sister, laughing.
Positively laughing!
“What would present company 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, Mum.”
“Why, you don’t mean to say—” began my sister.
“Yes I do, Mum,” said Pumblechook; “but wait a bit. Go on,
Joseph. Good in you! Go on!”
“What would present company say,” proceeded Joe, “to
twenty pound?”
“Handsome would be the word,” returned my sister.
“Well, then,” said Joe, “It’s more than twenty pound.”
That abject hypocrite, Pumblechook, nodded again, and said,
with a patronizing laugh, “It’s more than that, Mum. 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.”

159
“It’s five-and-twenty pound, Mum,” 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), and I wish you joy of the money!”
If the villain had stopped here, his case would have been suf-
ficiently awful, but he blackened his guilt by proceeding to
take me into custody, with a right of patronage that left all
his former criminality far behind.
“Now you 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, Mum,” returned that diabolical cornchan-
dler. “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 apprentice 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

160
heard some people say, “What’s he done?” and others, “He’s
a young ’un, too, but looks bad, don’t he?” One person of
mild and benevolent aspect even gave me a tract ornamented
with a woodcut 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
hardbake and sticking-plaster. Here, in a corner my inden-
tures were duly signed and attested, and I was “bound”; Mr.
Pumblechook holding 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 see-
ing 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 guineas, 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 chaise-cart,
and bring the Hubbles and Mr. Wopsle.

161
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 excrescence on the en-
tertainment. 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 fiendishly
congratulated them on my being liable to imprisonment if I
played at cards, drank strong liquors, kept late hours or bad
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’s ode,
and threw his bloodstained sword in thunder down, with
such effect, that a waiter came in and said, “The Commer-
cials underneath sent up their compliments, and it wasn’t the
Tumblers’ Arms.” That, they were all in excellent spirits on
the road home, and sang, O Lady Fair! Mr. Wopsle taking the
bass, and asserting with a tremendously strong voice (in re-

162
ply to the inquisitive bore who leads that piece of music in a
most impertinent manner, by wanting to know all about ev-
erybody’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.

163
Chapter XIV
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 miser-
able 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 ele-
gant saloon; I had believed in the front door, as a mysterious
portal of the Temple of State whose solemn opening was at-
tended 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 in-
dependence. Within a single year all this was changed. Now
it was all coarse and common, and I would not have had Miss
Havisham and Estella see it on any account.
How much of my ungracious condition of mind may have
been my own fault, how much Miss Havisham’s, how much
my sister’s, is now of no moment to me or to any one. 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

164
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 ro-
mance, 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 tol-
erable 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 has touched one’s self in going by, and I know right

165
well that any good that intermixed itself with my appren-
ticeship 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, be-
ing at my grimiest 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
coarsest part of my work, and would exult over me and de-
spise 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 Havisham’s would seem to
show me Estella’s face in the fire, with her pretty hair flut-
tering 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 in to 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.

166
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 Biddy had imparted to me everything
she knew, from the little catalogue 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 Lunnon town sirs,
Too rul loo rul
Too rul loo rul
Wasn't I done very brown sirs?
Too rul loo rul
Too rul loo rul

—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 Too
rul somewhat in excess of the poetry. In my hunger for infor-
mation, I made proposals to Mr. Wopsle to bestow some intel-
lectual 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 in his poetic fury had severely

167
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 un-
explained. I wanted to make Joe less ignorant and common,
that he might be worthier of my society and less open to Es-
tella’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 vessels standing out to sea with their white sails
spread, I somehow thought of Miss Havisham and Estella;
and whenever the light struck aslant, afar off, upon a cloud or
sail or green hillside or water-line, 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

168
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, descrying 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 is any visit made for?”
“There is some wisits p’r’aps,” said Joe, “as for ever remains
open to the question, Pip. But in regard to wisiting Miss Hav-
isham. 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. Sim-
ilarly she mightn’t.”
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 repe-
tition.
“You see, Pip,” Joe pursued, as soon as he was past that dan-
ger, “Miss Havisham done the handsome thing by you. When
Miss Havisham done the handsome thing by you, she called
me back to say to me as that were all.”

169
“Yes, Joe. I heard her.”
“ALL,” Joe repeated, very emphatically.
“Yes, Joe. I tell you, I heard her.”
“Which I meantersay, Pip, it might be that her meaning
were,—Make a 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 am I, getting on in the first year of my time, and, since
the day of my being bound, I have never thanked Miss Hav-
isham, or asked after her, or shown that I remember her.”
“That’s true, Pip; and unless you was to turn her out a set of
shoes all four round,—and which I meantersay as even a set
of shoes all four round might not be acceptable as a present,
in a total wacancy 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 you was helped to knocking
her up a new chain for the front door,—or say a gross or two
of shark-headed screws for general use,—or some light fancy

170
article, such as a toasting-fork when she took her muffins,—
or a gridiron when she took a sprat or such like—”
“I don’t mean any present at all, Joe,” I interposed.
“Well,” said Joe, still harping on it as though I had particu-
larly 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 oncommonest workman can’t show himself
oncommon in a gridiron,—for a gridiron IS a gridiron,” said
Joe, steadfastly impressing it upon me, as if he were endeav-
ouring to rouse me from a fixed delusion, “and you may haim
at what you like, but a gridiron it will come out, either by
your leave or again 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 are 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
to-morrow, I think I would go uptown and make a call on
Miss Est—Havisham.”
“Which her name,” said Joe, gravely, “ain’t Estavisham, Pip,
unless she have been rechris’ened.”

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“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 re-
peat my visit as a visit which had no ulterior object but was
simply one of gratitude for a favor received, then this exper-
imental trip should have no successor. By these conditions I
promised to abide.
Now, Joe kept a journeyman at weekly wages whose name
was Orlick. He pretended that his Christian name was
Dolge,—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 wilfully to have
imposed that name upon the village as an affront to its
understanding. He was a broadshouldered 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 Bargemen 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

172
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-puzzled 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 my-
self fuel. When I became Joe’s ’prentice, Orlick was perhaps
confirmed in some suspicion that I should displace him; how-
beit, 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.
Dolge Orlick was at work and present, next day, when I re-
minded Joe of my half-holiday. He said nothing at the mo-
ment, 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 a 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.

173
“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 up town,” said Joe.
“Well then, as to Old Orlick, he’s a going up town,” retorted
that worthy. “Two can go up town. Tain’t only one wot can
go up town.
“Don’t lose your temper,” said Joe.
“Shall if I like,” growled Orlick. “Some and their uptowning!
Now, master! Come. No favoring in this shop. Be a man!”
The master refusing to entertain the subject until the jour-
neyman was in a better temper, Orlick plunged at the furnace,
drew out a red-hot bar, made at me with it as if he were 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 spirting 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 hear-
ing,—she was a most unscrupulous spy and listener,—and she

174
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-favored grin.
(“Let her alone,” said Joe.)
“I’d be a match for all noodles and all rogues,” returned my
sister, beginning 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-headed king of the noo-
dles. 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 journey-
man. “If that makes a judge of rogues, you ought to be a
good’un.”
(“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!” 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,

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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 base man
who swore to defend me? Oh! Hold me! Oh!”
“Ah-h-h!” 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 tell you, 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!” Here 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 were
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 noth-
ing less than coming on, and was on his defence straightway;
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 uplong against Joe, I

176
never saw the man. Orlick, as if he had been of no more ac-
count than the pale young gentleman, was very soon among
the coal-dust, and in no hurry to come out of it. Then Joe un-
locked 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 noth-
ing but struggle and clench her hands in Joe’s hair. Then,
came that singular calm and silence which succeed all up-
roars; and then, with the vague sensation which I have al-
ways 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 or-
namental. A pot of beer had appeared from the Jolly Barge-
men, and they were sharing it by turns in a peaceable man-
ner. 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 repassed 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 undoubt-
edly have gone, if my time had been my own, to come back.

177
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 responsi-
bility, 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 am always
much obliged to you.”
“There, there!” with the old restless fingers. “Come now and
then; come on your birthday.—Ay!” she cried suddenly, turn-
ing herself and her chair towards me, “You are looking round
for Estella? Hey?”
I had been looking round,—in fact, for Estella,—and I stam-
mered 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

178
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 con-
sidering, by dismissing me. When the gate was closed upon
me by Sarah of the walnut-shell 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 disconso-
lately at the shop windows, and thinking what I would buy
if I were a gentleman, who should come out of the bookshop
but 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 of
it on the head of Pumblechook, with whom he was going to
drink tea. No sooner did he see me, than he appeared to con-
sider that a special Providence had put a ’prentice in his way
to be read at; and he laid hold of me, and insisted on my ac-
companying 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; conse-
quently, we turned into Pumblechook’s 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

179
it a 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 wearisomeness. What
stung me, was the identification of the whole affair with my
unoffending self. When Barnwell began to go wrong, I de-
clare that I felt positively apologetic, Pumblechook’s indig-
nant stare so taxed me with it. Wopsle, 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 circum-
stances 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 charac-
ter. Even after I was happily hanged and Wopsle had closed
the book, Pumblechook 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. Beyond town,
we found a heavy mist out, and it fell wet and thick. The
turnpike 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

180
we came upon a man, slouching under the lee of the turnpike
house.
“Halloa!” 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 per-
formance,—“we have been indulging, Mr. Orlick, in an intel-
lectual 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 the by,
the guns is going again.”
“At the Hulks?” said I.
“Ay! 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, deadened by the
mist, and heavily rolled away along the low grounds by the
river, as if it were pursuing and threatening the fugitives.

181
“A good night for cutting off in,” said Orlick. “We’d be puzzled
how to bring down a jail-bird on the wing, to-night.”
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, fell to 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 sulk-
ily along the course of the river. I kept myself to myself
and my thoughts. Mr. Wopsle died amiably at Camberwell,
and exceedingly game on Bosworth Field, and in the great-
est 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 ap-
proached it took us past the Three Jolly Bargemen, which we
were surprised to find—it being eleven o’clock—in a state of
commotion, with the door wide open, and unwonted 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

182
my side.
“I can’t quite understand. The house seems to have been vio-
lently entered when Joe Gargery was out. Supposed by con-
victs. 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 bare boards where she had been knocked
down by a tremendous blow on 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.

183
Chapter XVI
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 any one else. But when, in the clearer
light of 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 confu-
sion 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 a 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, excepting such as she herself

184
had made, in falling and bleeding. But, there was one remark-
able 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 con-
vict’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 exam-
ine the iron, Joe’s opinion was corroborated. They did not
undertake to say when it had left the prison-ships to which
it undoubtedly had once belonged; but they claimed to know
for certain that that particular manacle had not been worn by
either of the two convicts who had escaped last night. Fur-
ther, one of those two was already retaken, and had not freed
himself of his iron.
Knowing 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
believed one of two other persons to have become possessed
of it, and to have turned it to this cruel account. Either Orlick,
or the strange man who had shown me the file.
Now, as to Orlick; 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 divers companies

185
in several public-houses, and he had come back with myself
and Mr. Wopsle. There was nothing against him, save the
quarrel; and my sister had quarrelled with him, and with ev-
erybody else about her, ten thousand times. As to the strange
man; if he had come back for his two bank-notes there could
have been no dispute about them, because my sister was fully
prepared to restore them. Besides, there had been no alterca-
tion; 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, how-
ever undesignedly, but I could hardly think otherwise. I suf-
fered unspeakable trouble while I considered and reconsid-
ered whether I should at last dissolve that spell of my child-
hood and tell Joe all the story. For months afterwards, I every
day settled the question finally in the negative, and reopened
and reargued 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 fab-
ulous dogs and veal-cutlets as a monstrous invention. How-
ever, I temporized with myself, of course—for, was I not wa-
vering between right and wrong, when the thing is always
done?—and resolved 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.

186
The Constables and the Bow Street men from London—for,
this happened in the days of the extinct red-waistcoated
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
Bargemen, 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 sis-
ter lay very ill in bed. Her sight was disturbed, so that she
saw objects multiplied, and grasped at visionary teacups and
wineglasses instead of the realities; her hearing was greatly
impaired; her memory also; and her speech was unintelligi-
ble. 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 in-
dicate in speech. As she was (very bad handwriting apart) a
more than indifferent speller, and as Joe was a more than in-
different reader, extraordinary complications arose between
them which I was always called in to solve. The administra-
tion of mutton instead of medicine, the substitution of Tea
for Joe, and the baker for bacon, were among the mildest of

187
my own mistakes.
However, her temper was greatly improved, and she was pa-
tient. A tremulous uncertainty of the action of all her limbs
soon became a part of her 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. Mr. 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 reappear-
ance 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 Jolly Bargemen 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.

188
Biddy’s first triumph in her new office, was to solve a diffi-
culty that had completely vanquished me. I had tried hard at
it, but had made nothing of it. Thus it was:—
Again and again and again, my sister had traced upon the
slate, a character that looked like a curious T, and then with
the utmost eagerness had called our attention to it as some-
thing she particularly wanted. I had in vain tried everything
producible that began with a T, 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 ham-
mers, one after another, but without avail. Then I bethought
me of a crutch, the shape being much the same, and I bor-
rowed one in the village, and displayed it to my sister with
considerable confidence. But she shook her head to that ex-
tent 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 un-
derstand 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!”
Orlick, without a doubt! She had lost his name, and could

189
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 confess that I expected to see my sister denounce him, and
that I was disappointed by the different result. She mani-
fested the greatest anxiety to be on good terms with him,
was evidently much pleased by his being at length produced,
and motioned that she would have him given something to
drink. She watched his countenance as if she were particu-
larly wishful to be assured that he took kindly to his recep-
tion, 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, a day rarely passed without her draw-
ing the hammer on her slate, and without Orlick’s slouching
in and standing doggedly before her, as if he knew no more
than I did what to make of it.

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Chapter XVII
I now fell into a regular routine of apprenticeship life, which
was varied beyond the limits of the village and the marshes,
by no more remarkable circumstance than the arrival of my
birthday and my paying another visit to Miss Havisham. I
found Miss Sarah Pocket still on duty at the gate; I found Miss
Havisham just as I had left her, and she spoke of Estella in the
very same way, if not in the very same words. The interview
lasted but a few minutes, and she gave me a guinea when I
was going, and told me to come again on my next birthday.
I may mention at once that this became an annual custom. I
tried to decline taking the guinea on the first occasion, but
with no better effect than causing her to ask me very angrily,
if I expected more? Then, and after that, I took it.
So unchanging was the dull old house, the yellow light in
the darkened room, the faded spectre in the chair by the
dressing-table glass, that I felt as if the stopping of the clocks
had stopped Time in that mysterious place, and, while I
and everything else outside it grew older, it stood still.
Daylight never entered the house as to my thoughts and
remembrances of it, any more than as to the actual fact. It
bewildered me, and under its influence I continued at heart
to hate my trade and to be ashamed of home.
Imperceptibly I became conscious of a change in Biddy, how-
ever. Her shoes came up at the heel, her hair grew bright and
neat, her hands were always clean. She was not beautiful,—

191
she was common, and could not be like Estella,—but she was
pleasant and wholesome and sweet-tempered. She had not
been with us more than a year (I remember her being newly
out of mourning at the time it struck me), when I observed
to myself one evening that she had curiously thoughtful and
attentive eyes; eyes that were very pretty and very good.
It came of my lifting up my own eyes from a task I was poring
at—writing some passages from a book, to improve myself in
two ways at once by a sort of stratagem—and seeing Biddy
observant of what I was about. I laid down my pen, and Biddy
stopped in her needlework without laying it down.
“Biddy,” said I, “how do you manage it? Either I am very
stupid, or you are very clever.”
“What is it that I manage? I don’t know,” returned Biddy,
smiling.
She managed our whole domestic life, and wonderfully too;
but I did not mean that, though that made what I did mean
more surprising.
“How do you manage, Biddy,” said I, “to learn everything that
I learn, and always to keep up with me?” I was beginning
to be rather vain of my knowledge, for I spent my birthday
guineas on it, and set aside the greater part of my pocket-
money for similar investment; though I have no doubt, now,
that the little I knew was extremely dear at the price.
“I might as well ask you,” said Biddy, “how you manage?”

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“No; because when I come in from the forge of a night, any
one can see me turning to at it. But you never turn to at it,
Biddy.”
“I suppose I must catch it like a cough,” said Biddy, quietly;
and went on with her sewing.
Pursuing my idea as I leaned back in my wooden chair, and
looked at Biddy sewing away with her head on one side, I
began to think her rather an extraordinary girl. For I called
to mind now, that she was equally accomplished in the terms
of our trade, and the names of our different sorts of work, and
our various tools. In short, whatever I knew, Biddy knew.
Theoretically, she was already as good a blacksmith as I, or
better.
“You are one of those, Biddy,” said I, “who make the most of
every chance. You never had a chance before you came here,
and see how improved you are!”
Biddy looked at me for an instant, and went on with her
sewing. “I was your first teacher though; wasn’t I?” said she,
as she sewed.
“Biddy!” I exclaimed, in amazement. “Why, you are crying!”
“No I am not,” said Biddy, looking up and laughing. “What
put that in your head?”
What could have put it in my head but the glistening of a
tear as it dropped on her work? I sat silent, recalling what a
drudge she had been until Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt success-

193
fully overcame that bad habit of living, so highly desirable
to be got rid of by some people. I recalled the hopeless cir-
cumstances by which she had been surrounded in the miser-
able little shop and the miserable little noisy evening school,
with that miserable old bundle of incompetence always to be
dragged and shouldered. I reflected that even in those unto-
ward times there must have been latent in Biddy what was
now developing, for, in my first uneasiness and discontent I
had turned to her for help, as a matter of course. Biddy sat
quietly sewing, shedding no more tears, and while I looked at
her and thought about it all, it occurred to me that perhaps I
had not been sufficiently grateful to Biddy. I might have been
too reserved, and should have patronized her more (though
I did not use that precise word in my meditations) with my
confidence.
“Yes, Biddy,” I observed, when I had done turning it over,
“you were my first teacher, and that at a time when we little
thought of ever being together like this, in this kitchen.”
“Ah, poor thing!” replied Biddy. It was like her self-
forgetfulness to transfer the remark to my sister, and to get
up and be busy about her, making her more comfortable;
“that’s sadly true!”
“Well!” said I, “we must talk together a little more, as we used
to do. And I must consult you a little more, as I used to do.
Let us have a quiet walk on the marshes next Sunday, Biddy,
and a long chat.”
My sister was never left alone now; but Joe more than read-

194
ily undertook the care of her on that Sunday afternoon, and
Biddy and I went out together. It was summer-time, and
lovely weather. When we had passed the village and the
church and the churchyard, and were out on the marshes and
began to see the sails of the ships as they sailed on, I began
to combine Miss Havisham and Estella with the prospect, in
my usual way. When we came to the river-side and sat down
on the bank, with the water rippling at our feet, making it
all more quiet than it would have been without that sound, I
resolved that it was a good time and place for the admission
of Biddy into my inner confidence.
“Biddy,” said I, after binding her to secrecy, “I want to be a
gentleman.”
“O, I wouldn’t, if I was you!” she returned. “I don’t think it
would answer.”
“Biddy,” said I, with some severity, “I have particular reasons
for wanting to be a gentleman.”
“You know best, Pip; but don’t you think you are happier as
you are?”
“Biddy,” I exclaimed, impatiently, “I am not at all happy as I
am. I am disgusted with my calling and with my life. I have
never taken to either, since I was bound. Don’t be absurd.”
“Was I absurd?” said Biddy, quietly raising her eyebrows; “I
am sorry for that; I didn’t mean to be. I only want you to do
well, and to be comfortable.”

195
“Well, then, understand once for all that I never shall or can
be comfortable—or anything but miserable—there, Biddy!—
unless I can lead a very different sort of life from the life I
lead now.”
“That’s a pity!” said Biddy, shaking her head with a sorrowful
air.
Now, I too had so often thought it a pity, that, in the singular
kind of quarrel with myself which I was always carrying on, I
was half inclined to shed tears of vexation and distress when
Biddy gave utterance to her sentiment and my own. I told
her she was right, and I knew it was much to be regretted,
but still it was not to be helped.
“If I could have settled down,” I said to Biddy, plucking up
the short grass within reach, much as I had once upon a time
pulled my feelings out of my hair and kicked them into the
brewery wall,—“if I could have settled down and been but half
as fond of the forge as I was when I was little, I know it would
have been much better for me. You and I and Joe would have
wanted nothing then, and Joe and I would perhaps have gone
partners when I was out of my time, and I might even have
grown up to keep company with you, and we might have sat
on this very bank on a fine Sunday, quite different people. I
should have been good enough for you; shouldn’t I, Biddy?”
Biddy sighed as she looked at the ships sailing on, and re-
turned for answer, “Yes; I am not over-particular.” It scarcely
sounded flattering, but I knew she meant well.

196
“Instead of that,” said I, plucking up more grass and chewing
a blade or two, “see how I am going on. Dissatisfied, and un-
comfortable, and—what would it signify to me, being coarse
and common, if nobody had told me so!”
Biddy turned her face suddenly towards mine, and looked
far more attentively at me than she had looked at the sailing
ships.
“It was neither a very true nor a very polite thing to say,” she
remarked, directing her eyes to the ships again. “Who said
it?”
I was disconcerted, for I had broken away without quite
seeing where I was going to. It was not to be shuffled off
now, however, and I answered, “The beautiful young lady
at Miss Havisham’s, and she’s more beautiful than anybody
ever was, and I admire her dreadfully, and I want to be
a gentleman on her account.” Having made this lunatic
confession, I began to throw my torn-up grass into the river,
as if I had some thoughts of following it.
“Do you want to be a gentleman, to spite her or to gain her
over?” Biddy quietly asked me, after a pause.
“I don’t know,” I moodily answered.
“Because, if it is to spite her,” Biddy pursued, “I should think—
but you know best—that might be better and more indepen-
dently done by caring nothing for her words. And if it is to
gain her over, I should think—but you know best—she was
not worth gaining over.”

197
Exactly what I myself had thought, many times. Exactly what
was perfectly manifest to me at the moment. But how could I,
a poor dazed village lad, avoid that wonderful inconsistency
into which the best and wisest of men fall every day?
“It may be all quite true,” said I to Biddy, “but I admire her
dreadfully.”
In short, I turned over on my face when I came to that, and
got a good grasp on the hair on each side of my head, and
wrenched it well. All the while knowing the madness of my
heart to be so very mad and misplaced, that I was quite con-
scious it would have served my face right, if I had lifted it up
by my hair, and knocked it against the pebbles as a punish-
ment for belonging to such an idiot.
Biddy was the wisest of girls, and she tried to reason no
more with me. She put her hand, which was a comfortable
hand though roughened by work, upon my hands, one af-
ter another, and gently took them out of my hair. Then she
softly patted my shoulder in a soothing way, while with my
face upon my sleeve I cried a little,—exactly as I had done
in the brewery yard,—and felt vaguely convinced that I was
very much ill-used by somebody, or by everybody; I can’t say
which.
“I am glad of one thing,” said Biddy, “and that is, that you have
felt you could give me your confidence, Pip. And I am glad of
another thing, and that is, that of course you know you may
depend upon my keeping it and always so far deserving it.
If your first teacher (dear! such a poor one, and so much in

198
need of being taught herself!) had been your teacher at the
present time, she thinks she knows what lesson she would
set. But it would be a hard one to learn, and you have got
beyond her, and it’s of no use now.” So, with a quiet sigh
for me, Biddy rose from the bank, and said, with a fresh and
pleasant change of voice, “Shall we walk a little farther, or go
home?”
“Biddy,” I cried, getting up, putting my arm round her neck,
and giving her a kiss, “I shall always tell you everything.”
“Till you’re a gentleman,” said Biddy.
“You know I never shall be, so that’s always. Not that I have
any occasion to tell you anything, for you know everything
I know,—as I told you at home the other night.”
“Ah!” said Biddy, quite in a whisper, as she looked away
at the ships. And then repeated, with her former pleasant
change, “shall we walk a little farther, or go home?”
I said to Biddy we would walk a little farther, and we did
so, and the summer afternoon toned down into the summer
evening, and it was very beautiful. I began to consider
whether I was not more naturally and wholesomely situated,
after all, in these circumstances, than playing beggar my
neighbor by candle-light in the room with the stopped
clocks, and being despised by Estella. I thought it would be
very good for me if I could get her out of my head, with all
the rest of those remembrances and fancies, and could go to
work determined to relish what I had to do, and stick to it,

199
and make the best of it. I asked myself the question whether
I did not surely know that if Estella were beside me at that
moment instead of Biddy, she would make me miserable? I
was obliged to admit that I did know it for a certainty, and I
said to myself, “Pip, what a fool you are!”
We talked a good deal as we walked, and all that Biddy said
seemed right. Biddy was never insulting, or capricious, or
Biddy to-day and somebody else to-morrow; she would have
derived only pain, and no pleasure, from giving me pain; she
would far rather have wounded her own breast than mine.
How could it be, then, that I did not like her much the better
of the two?
“Biddy,” said I, when we were walking homeward, “I wish
you could put me right.”
“I wish I could!” said Biddy.
“If I could only get myself to fall in love with you,—you don’t
mind my speaking so openly to such an old acquaintance?”
“Oh dear, not at all!” said Biddy. “Don’t mind me.”
“If I could only get myself to do it, that would be the thing
for me.”
“But you never will, you see,” said Biddy.
It did not appear quite so unlikely to me that evening, as it
would have done if we had discussed it a few hours before.
I therefore observed I was not quite sure of that. But Biddy
said she was, and she said it decisively. In my heart I believed

200
her to be right; and yet I took it rather ill, too, that she should
be so positive on the point.
When we came near the churchyard, we had to cross an
embankment, and get over a stile near a sluice-gate. There
started up, from the gate, or from the rushes, or from the
ooze (which was quite in his stagnant way), Old Orlick.
“Halloa!” he growled, “where are you two going?”
“Where should we be going, but home?”
“Well, then,” said he, “I’m jiggered if I don’t see you home!”
This penalty of being jiggered was a favorite supposititious
case of his. He attached no definite meaning to the word that
I am aware of, but used it, like his own pretended Christian
name, to affront mankind, and convey an idea of something
savagely damaging. When I was younger, I had had a general
belief that if he had jiggered me personally, he would have
done it with a sharp and twisted hook.
Biddy was much against his going with us, and said to me in
a whisper, “Don’t let him come; I don’t like him.” As I did not
like him either, I took the liberty of saying that we thanked
him, but we didn’t want seeing home. He received that piece
of information with a yell of laughter, and dropped back, but
came slouching after us at a little distance.
Curious to know whether Biddy suspected him of having had
a hand in that murderous attack of which my sister had never
been able to give any account, I asked her why she did not

201
like him.
“Oh!” she replied, glancing over her shoulder as he slouched
after us, “because I—I am afraid he likes me.”
“Did he ever tell you he liked you?” I asked indignantly.
“No,” said Biddy, glancing over her shoulder again, “he never
told me so; but he dances at me, whenever he can catch my
eye.”
However novel and peculiar this testimony of attachment, I
did not doubt the accuracy of the interpretation. I was very
hot indeed upon Old Orlick’s daring to admire her; as hot as
if it were an outrage on myself.
“But it makes no difference to you, you know,” said Biddy,
calmly.
“No, Biddy, it makes no difference to me; only I don’t like it;
I don’t approve of it.”
“Nor I neither,” said Biddy. “Though that makes no difference
to you.”
“Exactly,” said I; “but I must tell you I should have no opinion
of you, Biddy, if he danced at you with your own consent.”
I kept an eye on Orlick after that night, and, whenever cir-
cumstances were favorable to his dancing at Biddy, got be-
fore him to obscure that demonstration. He had struck root
in Joe’s establishment, by reason of my sister’s sudden fancy
for him, or I should have tried to get him dismissed. He quite

202
understood and reciprocated my good intentions, as I had
reason to know thereafter.
And now, because my mind was not confused enough
before, I complicated its confusion fifty thousand-fold, by
having states and seasons when I was clear that Biddy was
immeasurably better than Estella, and that the plain honest
working life to which I was born had nothing in it to be
ashamed of, but offered me sufficient means of self-respect
and happiness. At those times, I would decide conclusively
that my disaffection to dear old Joe and the forge was gone,
and that I was growing up in a fair way to be partners with
Joe and to keep company with Biddy,—when all in a moment
some confounding remembrance of the Havisham days
would fall upon me like a destructive missile, and scatter my
wits again. Scattered wits take a long time picking up; and
often before I had got them well together, they would be
dispersed in all directions by one stray thought, that perhaps
after all Miss Havisham was going to make my fortune when
my time was out.
If my time had run out, it would have left me still at the height
of my perplexities, I dare say. It never did run out, however,
but was brought to a premature end, as I proceed to relate.

203
Chapter XVIII
It was in the fourth year of my apprenticeship to Joe, and it
was a Saturday night. There was a group assembled round
the fire at the Three Jolly Bargemen, attentive to Mr. Wopsle
as he read the newspaper aloud. Of that group I was one.
A highly popular murder had been committed, and Mr. Wop-
sle was imbrued in blood to the eyebrows. He gloated over
every abhorrent adjective in the description, and identified
himself with every witness at the Inquest. He faintly moaned,
“I am done for,” as the victim, and he barbarously bellowed,
“I’ll serve you out,” as the murderer. He gave the medical tes-
timony, in pointed imitation of our local practitioner; and he
piped and shook, as the aged turnpike-keeper who had heard
blows, to an extent so very paralytic as to suggest a doubt re-
garding the mental competency of that witness. The coroner,
in Mr. Wopsle’s hands, became Timon of Athens; the bea-
dle, Coriolanus. He enjoyed himself thoroughly, and we all
enjoyed ourselves, and were delightfully comfortable. In this
cosey state of mind we came to the verdict Wilful Murder.
Then, and not sooner, I became aware of a strange gentleman
leaning over the back of the settle opposite me, looking on.
There was an expression of contempt on his face, and he bit
the side of a great forefinger as he watched the group of faces.
“Well!” said the stranger to Mr. Wopsle, when the reading
was done, “you have settled it all to your own satisfaction, I
have no doubt?”

204
Everybody started and looked up, as if it were the murderer.
He looked at everybody coldly and sarcastically.
“Guilty, of course?” said he. “Out with it. Come!”
“Sir,” returned Mr. Wopsle, “without having the honor of
your acquaintance, I do say Guilty.” Upon this we all took
courage to unite in a confirmatory murmur.
“I know you do,” said the stranger; “I knew you would. I told
you so. But now I’ll ask you a question. Do you know, or do
you not know, that the law of England supposes every man
to be innocent, until he is proved—proved—to be guilty?”
“Sir,” Mr. Wopsle began to reply, “as an Englishman myself,
I—”
“Come!” said the stranger, biting his forefinger at him.
“Don’t evade the question. Either you know it, or you don’t
know it. Which is it to be?”
He stood with his head on one side and himself on one side, in
a bullying, interrogative manner, and he threw his forefinger
at Mr. Wopsle,—as it were to mark him out—before biting it
again.
“Now!” said he. “Do you know it, or don’t you know it?”
“Certainly I know it,” replied Mr. Wopsle.
“Certainly you know it. Then why didn’t you say so at first?
Now, I’ll ask you another question,”—taking possession of Mr.
Wopsle, as if he had a right to him,—“do you know that none

205
of these witnesses have yet been cross-examined?”
Mr. Wopsle was beginning, “I can only say—” when the
stranger stopped him.
“What? You won’t answer the question, yes or no? Now, I’ll
try you again.” Throwing his finger at him again. “Attend to
me. Are you aware, or are you not aware, that none of these
witnesses have yet been cross-examined? Come, I only want
one word from you. Yes, or no?”
Mr. Wopsle hesitated, and we all began to conceive rather a
poor opinion of him.
“Come!” said the stranger, “I’ll help you. You don’t deserve
help, but I’ll help you. Look at that paper you hold in your
hand. What is it?”
“What is it?” repeated Mr. Wopsle, eyeing it, much at a loss.
“Is it,” pursued the stranger in his most sarcastic and suspi-
cious manner, “the printed paper you have just been reading
from?”
“Undoubtedly.”
“Undoubtedly. Now, turn to that paper, and tell me whether it
distinctly states that the prisoner expressly said that his legal
advisers instructed him altogether to reserve his defence?”
“I read that just now,” Mr. Wopsle pleaded.
“Never mind what you read just now, sir; I don’t ask you what
you read just now. You may read the Lord’s Prayer back-

206
wards, if you like,—and, perhaps, have done it before to-day.
Turn to the paper. No, no, no my friend; not to the top of the
column; you know better than that; to the bottom, to the bot-
tom.” (We all began to think Mr. Wopsle full of subterfuge.)
“Well? Have you found it?”
“Here it is,” said Mr. Wopsle.
“Now, follow that passage with your eye, and tell me whether
it distinctly states that the prisoner expressly said that he was
instructed by his legal advisers wholly to reserve his defence?
Come! Do you make that of it?”
Mr. Wopsle answered, “Those are not the exact words.”
“Not the exact words!” repeated the gentleman bitterly. “Is
that the exact substance?”
“Yes,” said Mr. Wopsle.
“Yes,” repeated the stranger, looking round at the rest of the
company with his right hand extended towards the witness,
Wopsle. “And now I ask you what you say to the conscience
of that man who, with that passage before his eyes, can lay
his head upon his pillow after having pronounced a fellow-
creature guilty, unheard?”
We all began to suspect that Mr. Wopsle was not the man we
had thought him, and that he was beginning to be found out.
“And that same man, remember,” pursued the gentleman,
throwing his finger at Mr. Wopsle heavily,—“that same man
might be summoned as a juryman upon this very trial, and,

207
having thus deeply committed himself, might return to the
bosom of his family and lay his head upon his pillow, after
deliberately swearing that he would well and truly try the
issue joined between Our Sovereign Lord the King and the
prisoner at the bar, and would a true verdict give according
to the evidence, so help him God!”
We were all deeply persuaded that the unfortunate Wopsle
had gone too far, and had better stop in his reckless career
while there was yet time.
The strange gentleman, with an air of authority not to be dis-
puted, and with a manner expressive of knowing something
secret about every one of us that would effectually do for each
individual if he chose to disclose it, left the back of the set-
tle, and came into the space between the two settles, in front
of the fire, where he remained standing, his left hand in his
pocket, and he biting the forefinger of his right.
“From information I have received,” said he, looking round
at us as we all quailed before him, “I have reason to believe
there is a blacksmith among you, by name Joseph—or Joe—
Gargery. Which is the man?”
“Here is the man,” said Joe.
The strange gentleman beckoned him out of his place, and
Joe went.
“You have an apprentice,” pursued the stranger, “commonly
known as Pip? Is he here?”

208
“I am here!” I cried.
The stranger did not recognize me, but I recognized him as
the gentleman I had met on the stairs, on the occasion of my
second visit to Miss Havisham. I had known him the moment
I saw him looking over the settle, and now that I stood con-
fronting him with his hand upon my shoulder, I checked off
again in detail his large head, his dark complexion, his deep-
set eyes, his bushy black eyebrows, his large watch-chain, his
strong black dots of beard and whisker, and even the smell of
scented soap on his great hand.
“I wish to have a private conference with you two,” said he,
when he had surveyed me at his leisure. “It will take a little
time. Perhaps we had better go to your place of residence.
I prefer not to anticipate my communication here; you will
impart as much or as little of it as you please to your friends
afterwards; I have nothing to do with that.”
Amidst a wondering silence, we three walked out of the Jolly
Bargemen, and in a wondering silence walked home. While
going along, the strange gentleman occasionally looked at
me, and occasionally bit the side of his finger. As we neared
home, Joe vaguely acknowledging the occasion as an impres-
sive and ceremonious one, went on ahead to open the front
door. Our conference was held in the state parlor, which was
feebly lighted by one candle.
It began with the strange gentleman’s sitting down at the ta-
ble, drawing the candle to him, and looking over some entries
in his pocket-book. He then put up the pocket-book and set

209
the candle a little aside, after peering round it into the dark-
ness at Joe and me, to ascertain which was which.
“My name,” he said, “is Jaggers, and I am a lawyer in London.
I am pretty well known. I have unusual business to transact
with you, and I commence by explaining that it is not of my
originating. If my advice had been asked, I should not have
been here. It was not asked, and you see me here. What I
have to do as the confidential agent of another, I do. No less,
no more.”
Finding that he could not see us very well from where he sat,
he got up, and threw one leg over the back of a chair and
leaned upon it; thus having one foot on the seat of the chair,
and one foot on the ground.
“Now, Joseph Gargery, I am the bearer of an offer to relieve
you of this young fellow your apprentice. You would not ob-
ject to cancel his indentures at his request and for his good?
You would want nothing for so doing?”
“Lord forbid that I should want anything for not standing in
Pip’s way,” said Joe, staring.
“Lord forbidding is pious, but not to the purpose,” returned
Mr. Jaggers. “The question is, Would you want anything? Do
you want anything?”
“The answer is,” returned Joe, sternly, “No.”
I thought Mr. Jaggers glanced at Joe, as if he considered him a
fool for his disinterestedness. But I was too much bewildered

210
between breathless curiosity and surprise, to be sure of it.
“Very well,” said Mr. Jaggers. “Recollect the admission you
have made, and don’t try to go from it presently.”
“Who’s a going to try?” retorted Joe.
“I don’t say anybody is. Do you keep a dog?”
“Yes, I do keep a dog.”
“Bear in mind then, that Brag is a good dog, but Holdfast is
a better. Bear that in mind, will you?” repeated Mr. Jaggers,
shutting his eyes and nodding his head at Joe, as if he were
forgiving him something. “Now, I return to this young fellow.
And the communication I have got to make is, that he has
great expectations.”
Joe and I gasped, and looked at one another.
“I am instructed to communicate to him,” said Mr. Jaggers,
throwing his finger at me sideways, “that he will come into
a handsome property. Further, that it is the desire of the
present possessor of that property, that he be immediately
removed from his present sphere of life and from this place,
and be brought up as a gentleman,—in a word, as a young
fellow of great expectations.”
My dream was out; my wild fancy was surpassed by sober
reality; Miss Havisham was going to make my fortune on a
grand scale.
“Now, Mr. Pip,” pursued the lawyer, “I address the rest of

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what I have to say, to you. You are to understand, first, that
it is the request of the person from whom I take my instruc-
tions that you always bear the name of Pip. You will have no
objection, I dare say, to your great expectations being encum-
bered with that easy condition. But if you have any objection,
this is the time to mention it.”
My heart was beating so fast, and there was such a singing
in my ears, that I could scarcely stammer I had no objection.
“I should think not! Now you are to understand, secondly,
Mr. Pip, that the name of the person who is your liberal bene-
factor remains a profound secret, until the person chooses to
reveal it. I am empowered to mention that it is the intention
of the person to reveal it at first hand by word of mouth to
yourself. When or where that intention may be carried out, I
cannot say; no one can say. It may be years hence. Now, you
are distinctly to understand that you are most positively pro-
hibited from making any inquiry on this head, or any allusion
or reference, however distant, to any individual whomsoever
as the individual, in all the communications you may have
with me. If you have a suspicion in your own breast, keep
that suspicion in your own breast. It is not the least to the
purpose what the reasons of this prohibition are; they may
be the strongest and gravest reasons, or they may be mere
whim. This is not for you to inquire into. The condition is
laid down. Your acceptance of it, and your observance of it
as binding, is the only remaining condition that I am charged
with, by the person from whom I take my instructions, and
for whom I am not otherwise responsible. That person is the

212
person from whom you derive your expectations, and the se-
cret is solely held by that person and by me. Again, not a
very difficult condition with which to encumber such a rise
in fortune; but if you have any objection to it, this is the time
to mention it. Speak out.”
Once more, I stammered with difficulty that I had no objec-
tion.
“I should think not! Now, Mr. Pip, I have done with stipu-
lations.” Though he called me Mr. Pip, and began rather to
make up to me, he still could not get rid of a certain air of bul-
lying suspicion; and even now he occasionally shut his eyes
and threw his finger at me while he spoke, as much as to ex-
press that he knew all kinds of things to my disparagement,
if he only chose to mention them. “We come next, to mere
details of arrangement. You must know that, although I have
used the term ‘expectations’ more than once, you are not en-
dowed with expectations only. There is already lodged in my
hands a sum of money amply sufficient for your suitable ed-
ucation and maintenance. You will please consider me your
guardian. Oh!” for I was going to thank him, “I tell you at
once, I am paid for my services, or I shouldn’t render them.
It is considered that you must be better educated, in accor-
dance with your altered position, and that you will be alive
to the importance and necessity of at once entering on that
advantage.”
I said I had always longed for it.
“Never mind what you have always longed for, Mr. Pip,” he

213
retorted; “keep to the record. If you long for it now, that’s
enough. Am I answered that you are ready to be placed at
once under some proper tutor? Is that it?”
I stammered yes, that was it.
“Good. Now, your inclinations are to be consulted. I don’t
think that wise, mind, but it’s my trust. Have you ever heard
of any tutor whom you would prefer to another?”
I had never heard of any tutor but Biddy and Mr. Wopsle’s
great-aunt; so, I replied in the negative.
“There is a certain tutor, of whom I have some knowledge,
who I think might suit the purpose,” said Mr. Jaggers. “I don’t
recommend him, observe; because I never recommend any-
body. The gentleman I speak of is one Mr. Matthew Pocket.”
Ah! I caught at the name directly. Miss Havisham’s relation.
The Matthew whom Mr. and Mrs. Camilla had spoken of.
The Matthew whose place was to be at Miss Havisham’s head,
when she lay dead, in her bride’s dress on the bride’s table.
“You know the name?” said Mr. Jaggers, looking shrewdly
at me, and then shutting up his eyes while he waited for my
answer.
My answer was, that I had heard of the name.
“Oh!” said he. “You have heard of the name. But the question
is, what do you say of it?”
I said, or tried to say, that I was much obliged to him for his

214
recommendation—
“No, my young friend!” he interrupted, shaking his great
head very slowly. “Recollect yourself!”
Not recollecting myself, I began again that I was much
obliged to him for his recommendation—
“No, my young friend,” he interrupted, shaking his head and
frowning and smiling both at once,—“no, no, no; it’s very
well done, but it won’t do; you are too young to fix me with
it. Recommendation is not the word, Mr. Pip. Try another.”
Correcting myself, I said that I was much obliged to him for
his mention of Mr. Matthew Pocket—
“That’s more like it!” cried Mr. Jaggers.—And (I added), I
would gladly try that gentleman.
“Good. You had better try him in his own house. The way
shall be prepared for you, and you can see his son first, who
is in London. When will you come to London?”
I said (glancing at Joe, who stood looking on, motionless),
that I supposed I could come directly.
“First,” said Mr. Jaggers, “you should have some new clothes
to come in, and they should not be working-clothes. Say this
day week. You’ll want some money. Shall I leave you twenty
guineas?”
He produced a long purse, with the greatest coolness, and
counted them out on the table and pushed them over to me.

215
This was the first time he had taken his leg from the chair.
He sat astride of the chair when he had pushed the money
over, and sat swinging his purse and eyeing Joe.
“Well, Joseph Gargery? You look dumbfoundered?”
“I am!” said Joe, in a very decided manner.
“It was understood that you wanted nothing for yourself, re-
member?”
“It were understood,” said Joe. “And it are understood. And
it ever will be similar according.”
“But what,” said Mr. Jaggers, swinging his purse,—“what if it
was in my instructions to make you a present, as compensa-
tion?”
“As compensation what for?” Joe demanded.
“For the loss of his services.”
Joe laid his hand upon my shoulder with the touch of a
woman. I have often thought him since, like the steam-
hammer that can crush a man or pat an egg-shell, in his
combination of strength with gentleness. “Pip is that hearty
welcome,” said Joe, “to go free with his services, to honor
and fortun’, as no words can tell him. But if you think as
Money can make compensation to me for the loss of the
little child—what come to the forge—and ever the best of
friends!—”
O dear good Joe, whom I was so ready to leave and so un-

216
thankful to, I see you again, with your muscular blacksmith’s
arm before your eyes, and your broad chest heaving, and
your voice dying away. O dear good faithful tender Joe, I feel
the loving tremble of your hand upon my arm, as solemnly
this day as if it had been the rustle of an angel’s wing!
But I encouraged Joe at the time. I was lost in the mazes
of my future fortunes, and could not retrace the by-paths we
had trodden together. I begged Joe to be comforted, for (as he
said) we had ever been the best of friends, and (as I said) we
ever would be so. Joe scooped his eyes with his disengaged
wrist, as if he were bent on gouging himself, but said not
another word.
Mr. Jaggers had looked on at this, as one who recognized
in Joe the village idiot, and in me his keeper. When it was
over, he said, weighing in his hand the purse he had ceased
to swing:—
“Now, Joseph Gargery, I warn you this is your last chance.
No half measures with me. If you mean to take a present that
I have it in charge to make you, speak out, and you shall have
it. If on the contrary you mean to say—” Here, to his great
amazement, he was stopped by Joe’s suddenly working round
him with every demonstration of a fell pugilistic purpose.
“Which I meantersay,” cried Joe, “that if you come into my
place bull-baiting and badgering me, come out! Which I
meantersay as sech if you’re a man, come on! Which I
meantersay that what I say, I meantersay and stand or fall
by!”

217
I drew Joe away, and he immediately became placable; merely
stating to me, in an obliging manner and as a polite expostu-
latory notice to any one whom it might happen to concern,
that he were not a going to be bull-baited and badgered in his
own place. Mr. Jaggers had risen when Joe demonstrated,
and had backed near the door. Without evincing any incli-
nation to come in again, he there delivered his valedictory
remarks. They were these.
“Well, Mr. Pip, I think the sooner you leave here—as you
are to be a gentleman—the better. Let it stand for this day
week, and you shall receive my printed address in the mean-
time. You can take a hackney-coach at the stage-coach office
in London, and come straight to me. Understand, that I ex-
press no opinion, one way or other, on the trust I undertake.
I am paid for undertaking it, and I do so. Now, understand
that, finally. Understand that!”
He was throwing his finger at both of us, and I think would
have gone on, but for his seeming to think Joe dangerous,
and going off.
Something came into my head which induced me to run after
him, as he was going down to the Jolly Bargemen, where he
had left a hired carriage.
“I beg your pardon, Mr. Jaggers.”
“Halloa!” said he, facing round, “what’s the matter?”
“I wish to be quite right, Mr. Jaggers, and to keep to your
directions; so I thought I had better ask. Would there be any

218
objection to my taking leave of any one I know, about here,
before I go away?”
“No,” said he, looking as if he hardly understood me.
“I don’t mean in the village only, but up town?”
“No,” said he. “No objection.”
I thanked him and ran home again, and there I found that
Joe had already locked the front door and vacated the state
parlor, and was seated by the kitchen fire with a hand on each
knee, gazing intently at the burning coals. I too sat down
before the fire and gazed at the coals, and nothing was said
for a long time.
My sister was in her cushioned chair in her corner, and Biddy
sat at her needle-work before the fire, and Joe sat next Biddy,
and I sat next Joe in the corner opposite my sister. The more I
looked into the glowing coals, the more incapable I became of
looking at Joe; the longer the silence lasted, the more unable
I felt to speak.
At length I got out, “Joe, have you told Biddy?”
“No, Pip,” returned Joe, still looking at the fire, and holding
his knees tight, as if he had private information that they
intended to make off somewhere, “which I left it to yourself,
Pip.”
“I would rather you told, Joe.”
“Pip’s a gentleman of fortun’ then,” said Joe, “and God bless

219
him in it!”
Biddy dropped her work, and looked at me. Joe held his
knees and looked at me. I looked at both of them. After a
pause, they both heartily congratulated me; but there was a
certain touch of sadness in their congratulations that I rather
resented.
I took it upon myself to impress Biddy (and through Biddy,
Joe) with the grave obligation I considered my friends under,
to know nothing and say nothing about the maker of my for-
tune. It would all come out in good time, I observed, and in
the meanwhile nothing was to be said, save that I had come
into great expectations from a mysterious patron. Biddy nod-
ded her head thoughtfully at the fire as she took up her work
again, and said she would be very particular; and Joe, still
detaining his knees, said, “Ay, ay, I’ll be ekervally partickler,
Pip;” and then they congratulated me again, and went on to
express so much wonder at the notion of my being a gentle-
man that I didn’t half like it.
Infinite pains were then taken by Biddy to convey to my sis-
ter some idea of what had happened. To the best of my be-
lief, those efforts entirely failed. She laughed and nodded her
head a great many times, and even repeated after Biddy, the
words “Pip” and “Property.” But I doubt if they had more
meaning in them than an election cry, and I cannot suggest
a darker picture of her state of mind.
I never could have believed it without experience, but as Joe
and Biddy became more at their cheerful ease again, I became

220
quite gloomy. Dissatisfied with my fortune, of course I could
not be; but it is possible that I may have been, without quite
knowing it, dissatisfied with myself.
Any how, I sat with my elbow on my knee and my face upon
my hand, looking into the fire, as those two talked about my
going away, and about what they should do without me, and
all that. And whenever I caught one of them looking at me,
though never so pleasantly (and they often looked at me,—
particularly Biddy), I felt offended: as if they were expressing
some mistrust of me. Though Heaven knows they never did
by word or sign.
At those times I would get up and look out at the door; for
our kitchen door opened at once upon the night, and stood
open on summer evenings to air the room. The very stars to
which I then raised my eyes, I am afraid I took to be but poor
and humble stars for glittering on the rustic objects among
which I had passed my life.
“Saturday night,” said I, when we sat at our supper of bread
and cheese and beer. “Five more days, and then the day be-
fore the day! They’ll soon go.”
“Yes, Pip,” observed Joe, whose voice sounded hollow in his
beer-mug. “They’ll soon go.”
“Soon, soon go,” said Biddy.
“I have been thinking, Joe, that when I go down town on
Monday, and order my new clothes, I shall tell the tailor that
I’ll come and put them on there, or that I’ll have them sent

221
to Mr. Pumblechook’s. It would be very disagreeable to be
stared at by all the people here.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Hubble might like to see you in your new
gen-teel figure too, Pip,” said Joe, industriously cutting his
bread, with his cheese on it, in the palm of his left hand, and
glancing at my untasted supper as if he thought of the time
when we used to compare slices. “So might Wopsle. And the
Jolly Bargemen might take it as a compliment.”
“That’s just what I don’t want, Joe. They would make such a
business of it,—such a coarse and common business,—that I
couldn’t bear myself.”
“Ah, that indeed, Pip!” said Joe. “If you couldn’t abear
yourself—”
Biddy asked me here, as she sat holding my sister’s plate,
“Have you thought about when you’ll show yourself to Mr.
Gargery, and your sister and me? You will show yourself to
us; won’t you?”
“Biddy,” I returned with some resentment, “you are so ex-
ceedingly quick that it’s difficult to keep up with you.”
(“She always were quick,” observed Joe.)
“If you had waited another moment, Biddy, you would have
heard me say that I shall bring my clothes here in a bundle
one evening,—most likely on the evening before I go away.”
Biddy said no more. Handsomely forgiving her, I soon ex-
changed an affectionate good night with her and Joe, and

222
went up to bed. When I got into my little room, I sat down
and took a long look at it, as a mean little room that I should
soon be parted from and raised above, for ever. It was fur-
nished with fresh young remembrances too, and even at the
same moment I fell into much the same confused division of
mind between it and the better rooms to which I was going,
as I had been in so often between the forge and Miss Hav-
isham’s, and Biddy and Estella.
The sun had been shining brightly all day on the roof of my
attic, and the room was warm. As I put the window open
and stood looking out, I saw Joe come slowly forth at the
dark door, below, and take a turn or two in the air; and then
I saw Biddy come, and bring him a pipe and light it for him.
He never smoked so late, and it seemed to hint to me that he
wanted comforting, for some reason or other.
He presently stood at the door immediately beneath me,
smoking his pipe, and Biddy stood there too, quietly talking
to him, and I knew that they talked of me, for I heard my
name mentioned in an endearing tone by both of them more
than once. I would not have listened for more, if I could have
heard more; so I drew away from the window, and sat down
in my one chair by the bedside, feeling it very sorrowful and
strange that this first night of my bright fortunes should be
the loneliest I had ever known.
Looking towards the open window, I saw light wreaths from
Joe’s pipe floating there, and I fancied it was like a blessing
from Joe,—not obtruded on me or paraded before me, but per-

223
vading the air we shared together. I put my light out, and
crept into bed; and it was an uneasy bed now, and I never
slept the old sound sleep in it any more.

224
Chapter XIX
Morning made a considerable difference in my general
prospect of Life, and brightened it so much that it scarcely
seemed the same. What lay heaviest on my mind was, the
consideration that six days intervened between me and
the day of departure; for I could not divest myself of a
misgiving that something might happen to London in the
meanwhile, and that, when I got there, it would be either
greatly deteriorated or clean gone.
Joe and Biddy were very sympathetic and pleasant when I
spoke of our approaching separation; but they only referred
to it when I did. After breakfast, Joe brought out my inden-
tures from the press in the best parlor, and we put them in
the fire, and I felt that I was free. With all the novelty of my
emancipation on me, I went to church with Joe, and thought
perhaps the clergyman wouldn’t have read that about the
rich man and the kingdom of Heaven, if he had known all.
After our early dinner, I strolled out alone, purposing to finish
off the marshes at once, and get them done with. As I passed
the church, I felt (as I had felt during service in the morning)
a sublime compassion for the poor creatures who were des-
tined to go there, Sunday after Sunday, all their lives through,
and to lie obscurely at last among the low green mounds. I
promised myself that I would do something for them one of
these days, and formed a plan in outline for bestowing a din-
ner of roast-beef and plum-pudding, a pint of ale, and a gallon

225
of condescension, upon everybody in the village.
If I had often thought before, with something allied to shame,
of my companionship with the fugitive whom I had once seen
limping among those graves, what were my thoughts on this
Sunday, when the place recalled the wretch, ragged and shiv-
ering, with his felon iron and badge! My comfort was, that
it happened a long time ago, and that he had doubtless been
transported a long way off, and that he was dead to me, and
might be veritably dead into the bargain.
No more low, wet grounds, no more dikes and sluices, no
more of these grazing cattle,—though they seemed, in their
dull manner, to wear a more respectful air now, and to face
round, in order that they might stare as long as possible at the
possessor of such great expectations,—farewell, monotonous
acquaintances of my childhood, henceforth I was for Lon-
don and greatness; not for smith’s work in general, and for
you! I made my exultant way to the old Battery, and, lying
down there to consider the question whether Miss Havisham
intended me for Estella, fell asleep.
When I awoke, I was much surprised to find Joe sitting beside
me, smoking his pipe. He greeted me with a cheerful smile
on my opening my eyes, and said,—
“As being the last time, Pip, I thought I’d foller.”
“And Joe, I am very glad you did so.”
“Thankee, Pip.”

226
“You may be sure, dear Joe,” I went on, after we had shaken
hands, “that I shall never forget you.”
“No, no, Pip!” said Joe, in a comfortable tone, “I ’m sure of
that. Ay, ay, old chap! Bless you, it were only necessary to
get it well round in a man’s mind, to be certain on it. But it
took a bit of time to get it well round, the change come so
oncommon plump; didn’t it?”
Somehow, I was not best pleased with Joe’s being so mightily
secure of me. I should have liked him to have betrayed emo-
tion, or to have said, “It does you credit, Pip,” or something
of that sort. Therefore, I made no remark on Joe’s first head;
merely saying as to his second, that the tidings had indeed
come suddenly, but that I had always wanted to be a gentle-
man, and had often and often speculated on what I would do,
if I were one.
“Have you though?” said Joe. “Astonishing!”
“It’s a pity now, Joe,” said I, “that you did not get on a little
more, when we had our lessons here; isn’t it?”
“Well, I don’t know,” returned Joe. “I’m so awful dull. I’m
only master of my own trade. It were always a pity as I was
so awful dull; but it’s no more of a pity now, than it was—this
day twelvemonth—don’t you see?”
What I had meant was, that when I came into my property
and was able to do something for Joe, it would have been
much more agreeable if he had been better qualified for a
rise in station. He was so perfectly innocent of my mean-

227
ing, however, that I thought I would mention it to Biddy in
preference.
So, when we had walked home and had had tea, I took Biddy
into our little garden by the side of the lane, and, after throw-
ing out in a general way for the elevation of her spirits, that
I should never forget her, said I had a favor to ask of her.
“And it is, Biddy,” said I, “that you will not omit any oppor-
tunity of helping Joe on, a little.”
“How helping him on?” asked Biddy, with a steady sort of
glance.
“Well! Joe is a dear good fellow,—in fact, I think he is the dear-
est fellow that ever lived,—but he is rather backward in some
things. For instance, Biddy, in his learning and his manners.”
Although I was looking at Biddy as I spoke, and although she
opened her eyes very wide when I had spoken, she did not
look at me.
“O, his manners! won’t his manners do then?” asked Biddy,
plucking a black-currant leaf.
“My dear Biddy, they do very well here—”
“O! they do very well here?” interrupted Biddy, looking
closely at the leaf in her hand.
“Hear me out,—but if I were to remove Joe into a higher
sphere, as I shall hope to remove him when I fully come into
my property, they would hardly do him justice.”

228
“And don’t you think he knows that?” asked Biddy.
It was such a very provoking question (for it had never in
the most distant manner occurred to me), that I said, snap-
pishly,—
“Biddy, what do you mean?”
Biddy, having rubbed the leaf to pieces between her hands,—
and the smell of a black-currant bush has ever since recalled
to me that evening in the little garden by the side of the
lane,—said, “Have you never considered that he may be
proud?”
“Proud?” I repeated, with disdainful emphasis.
“O! there are many kinds of pride,” said Biddy, looking full at
me and shaking her head; “pride is not all of one kind—”
“Well? What are you stopping for?” said I.
“Not all of one kind,” resumed Biddy. “He may be too proud
to let any one take him out of a place that he is competent
to fill, and fills well and with respect. To tell you the truth,
I think he is; though it sounds bold in me to say so, for you
must know him far better than I do.”
“Now, Biddy,” said I, “I am very sorry to see this in you. I
did not expect to see this in you. You are envious, Biddy,
and grudging. You are dissatisfied on account of my rise in
fortune, and you can’t help showing it.”
“If you have the heart to think so,” returned Biddy, “say so.

229
Say so over and over again, if you have the heart to think so.”
“If you have the heart to be so, you mean, Biddy,” said I, in
a virtuous and superior tone; “don’t put it off upon me. I
am very sorry to see it, and it’s a—it’s a bad side of human
nature. I did intend to ask you to use any little opportunities
you might have after I was gone, of improving dear Joe. But
after this I ask you nothing. I am extremely sorry to see this
in you, Biddy,” I repeated. “It’s a—it’s a bad side of human
nature.”
“Whether you scold me or approve of me,” returned poor
Biddy, “you may equally depend upon my trying to do all
that lies in my power, here, at all times. And whatever opin-
ion you take away of me, shall make no difference in my re-
membrance of you. Yet a gentleman should not be unjust
neither,” said Biddy, turning away her head.
I again warmly repeated that it was a bad side of human na-
ture (in which sentiment, waiving its application, I have since
seen reason to think I was right), and I walked down the little
path away from Biddy, and Biddy went into the house, and
I went out at the garden gate and took a dejected stroll un-
til supper-time; again feeling it very sorrowful and strange
that this, the second night of my bright fortunes, should be
as lonely and unsatisfactory as the first.
But, morning once more brightened my view, and I extended
my clemency to Biddy, and we dropped the subject. Putting
on the best clothes I had, I went into town as early as I could
hope to find the shops open, and presented myself before Mr.

230
Trabb, the tailor, who was having his breakfast in the parlor
behind his shop, and who did not think it worth his while to
come out to me, but called me in to him.
“Well!” said Mr. Trabb, in a hail-fellow-well-met kind of way.
“How are you, and what can I do for you?”
Mr. Trabb had sliced his hot roll into three feather-beds, and
was slipping butter in between the blankets, and covering it
up. He was a prosperous old bachelor, and his open window
looked into a prosperous little garden and orchard, and there
was a prosperous iron safe let into the wall at the side of his
fireplace, and I did not doubt that heaps of his prosperity were
put away in it in bags.
“Mr. Trabb,” said I, “it’s an unpleasant thing to have to men-
tion, because it looks like boasting; but I have come into a
handsome property.”
A change passed over Mr. Trabb. He forgot the butter in
bed, got up from the bedside, and wiped his fingers on the
tablecloth, exclaiming, “Lord bless my soul!”
“I am going up to my guardian in London,” said I, casually
drawing some guineas out of my pocket and looking at them;
“and I want a fashionable suit of clothes to go in. I wish to
pay for them,” I added—otherwise I thought he might only
pretend to make them, “with ready money.”
“My dear sir,” said Mr. Trabb, as he respectfully bent his body,
opened his arms, and took the liberty of touching me on the
outside of each elbow, “don’t hurt me by mentioning that.

231
May I venture to congratulate you? Would you do me the
favor of stepping into the shop?”
Mr. Trabb’s boy was the most audacious boy in all that
country-side. When I had entered he was sweeping the
shop, and he had sweetened his labors by sweeping over me.
He was still sweeping when I came out into the shop with
Mr. Trabb, and he knocked the broom against all possible
corners and obstacles, to express (as I understood it) equality
with any blacksmith, alive or dead.
“Hold that noise,” said Mr. Trabb, with the greatest stern-
ness, “or I’ll knock your head off!—Do me the favor to be
seated, sir. Now, this,” said Mr. Trabb, taking down a roll of
cloth, and tiding it out in a flowing manner over the counter,
preparatory to getting his hand under it to show the gloss,
“is a very sweet article. I can recommend it for your pur-
pose, sir, because it really is extra super. But you shall see
some others. Give me Number Four, you!” (To the boy, and
with a dreadfully severe stare; foreseeing the danger of that
miscreant’s brushing me with it, or making some other sign
of familiarity.)
Mr. Trabb never removed his stern eye from the boy until
he had deposited number four on the counter and was at a
safe distance again. Then he commanded him to bring num-
ber five, and number eight. “And let me have none of your
tricks here,” said Mr. Trabb, “or you shall repent it, you young
scoundrel, the longest day you have to live.”
Mr. Trabb then bent over number four, and in a sort of def-

232
erential confidence recommended it to me as a light article
for summer wear, an article much in vogue among the nobil-
ity and gentry, an article that it would ever be an honor to
him to reflect upon a distinguished fellow-townsman’s (if he
might claim me for a fellow-townsman) having worn. “Are
you bringing numbers five and eight, you vagabond,” said Mr.
Trabb to the boy after that, “or shall I kick you out of the shop
and bring them myself?”
I selected the materials for a suit, with the assistance of Mr.
Trabb’s judgment, and re-entered the parlor to be measured.
For although Mr. Trabb had my measure already, and had
previously been quite contented with it, he said apologeti-
cally that it “wouldn’t do under existing circumstances, sir,—
wouldn’t do at all.” So, Mr. Trabb measured and calculated
me in the parlor, as if I were an estate and he the finest species
of surveyor, and gave himself such a world of trouble that
I felt that no suit of clothes could possibly remunerate him
for his pains. When he had at last done and had appointed
to send the articles to Mr. Pumblechook’s on the Thursday
evening, he said, with his hand upon the parlor lock, “I know,
sir, that London gentlemen cannot be expected to patronize
local work, as a rule; but if you would give me a turn now and
then in the quality of a townsman, I should greatly esteem it.
Good morning, sir, much obliged.—Door!”
The last word was flung at the boy, who had not the least
notion what it meant. But I saw him collapse as his master
rubbed me out with his hands, and my first decided expe-
rience of the stupendous power of money was, that it had

233
morally laid upon his back Trabb’s boy.
After this memorable event, I went to the hatter’s, and the
bootmaker’s, and the hosier’s, and felt rather like Mother
Hubbard’s dog whose outfit required the services of so many
trades. I also went to the coach-office and took my place for
seven o’clock on Saturday morning. It was not necessary to
explain everywhere that I had come into a handsome prop-
erty; but whenever I said anything to that effect, it followed
that the officiating tradesman ceased to have his attention di-
verted through the window by the High Street, and concen-
trated his mind upon me. When I had ordered everything I
wanted, I directed my steps towards Pumblechook’s, and, as
I approached that gentleman’s place of business, I saw him
standing at his door.
He was waiting for me with great impatience. He had been
out early with the chaise-cart, and had called at the forge and
heard the news. He had prepared a collation for me in the
Barnwell parlor, and he too ordered his shopman to “come
out of the gangway” as my sacred person passed.
“My dear friend,” said Mr. Pumblechook, taking me by both
hands, when he and I and the collation were alone, “I give
you joy of your good fortune. Well deserved, well deserved!”
This was coming to the point, and I thought it a sensible way
of expressing himself.
“To think,” said Mr. Pumblechook, after snorting admiration
at me for some moments, “that I should have been the humble

234
instrument of leading up to this, is a proud reward.”
I begged Mr. Pumblechook to remember that nothing was to
be ever said or hinted, on that point.
“My dear young friend,” said Mr. Pumblechook; “if you will
allow me to call you so—”
I murmured “Certainly,” and Mr. Pumblechook took me by
both hands again, and communicated a movement to his
waistcoat, which had an emotional appearance, though it
was rather low down, “My dear young friend, rely upon my
doing my little all in your absence, by keeping the fact before
the mind of Joseph.—Joseph!” said Mr. Pumblechook, in
the way of a compassionate adjuration. “Joseph‼ Joseph‼!”
Thereupon he shook his head and tapped it, expressing his
sense of deficiency in Joseph.
“But my dear young friend,” said Mr. Pumblechook, “you
must be hungry, you must be exhausted. Be seated. Here is a
chicken had round from the Boar, here is a tongue had round
from the Boar, here’s one or two little things had round from
the Boar, that I hope you may not despise. But do I,” said Mr.
Pumblechook, getting up again the moment after he had sat
down, “see afore me, him as I ever sported with in his times
of happy infancy? And may I—may I—?”
This May I, meant might he shake hands? I consented, and
he was fervent, and then sat down again.
“Here is wine,” said Mr. Pumblechook. “Let us drink, Thanks
to Fortune, and may she ever pick out her favorites with equal

235
judgment! And yet I cannot,” said Mr. Pumblechook, getting
up again, “see afore me One—and likewise drink to One—
without again expressing—May I—may I—?”
I said he might, and he shook hands with me again, and emp-
tied his glass and turned it upside down. I did the same; and
if I had turned myself upside down before drinking, the wine
could not have gone more direct to my head.
Mr. Pumblechook helped me to the liver wing, and to the
best slice of tongue (none of those out-of-the-way No Thor-
oughfares of Pork now), and took, comparatively speaking,
no care of himself at all. “Ah! poultry, poultry! You little
thought,” said Mr. Pumblechook, apostrophizing the fowl in
the dish, “when you was a young fledgling, what was in store
for you. You little thought you was to be refreshment beneath
this humble roof for one as—Call it a weakness, if you will,”
said Mr. Pumblechook, getting up again, “but may I? may
I—?”
It began to be unnecessary to repeat the form of saying he
might, so he did it at once. How he ever did it so often without
wounding himself with my knife, I don’t know.
“And your sister,” he resumed, after a little steady eating,
“which had the honor of bringing you up by hand! It’s a
sad picter, to reflect that she’s no longer equal to fully under-
standing the honor. May—”
I saw he was about to come at me again, and I stopped him.
“We’ll drink her health,” said I.

236
“Ah!” cried Mr. Pumblechook, leaning back in his chair, quite
flaccid with admiration, “that’s the way you know ’em, sir!”
(I don’t know who Sir was, but he certainly was not I, and
there was no third person present); “that’s the way you know
the noble-minded, sir! Ever forgiving and ever affable. It
might,” said the servile Pumblechook, putting down his un-
tasted glass in a hurry and getting up again, “to a common
person, have the appearance of repeating—but may I—?”
When he had done it, he resumed his seat and drank to my
sister. “Let us never be blind,” said Mr. Pumblechook, “to her
faults of temper, but it is to be hoped she meant well.”
At about this time, I began to observe that he was getting
flushed in the face; as to myself, I felt all face, steeped in wine
and smarting.
I mentioned to Mr. Pumblechook that I wished to have my
new clothes sent to his house, and he was ecstatic on my
so distinguishing him. I mentioned my reason for desiring
to avoid observation in the village, and he lauded it to the
skies. There was nobody but himself, he intimated, worthy
of my confidence, and—in short, might he? Then he asked
me tenderly if I remembered our boyish games at sums, and
how we had gone together to have me bound apprentice, and,
in effect, how he had ever been my favorite fancy and my
chosen friend? If I had taken ten times as many glasses of
wine as I had, I should have known that he never had stood
in that relation towards me, and should in my heart of hearts
have repudiated the idea. Yet for all that, I remember feeling

237
convinced that I had been much mistaken in him, and that he
was a sensible, practical, good-hearted prime fellow.
By degrees he fell to reposing such great confidence in
me, as to ask my advice in reference to his own affairs.
He mentioned that there was an opportunity for a great
amalgamation and monopoly of the corn and seed trade
on those premises, if enlarged, such as had never occurred
before in that or any other neighborhood. What alone was
wanting to the realization of a vast fortune, he considered
to be More Capital. Those were the two little words, more
capital. Now it appeared to him (Pumblechook) that if
that capital were got into the business, through a sleeping
partner, sir,—which sleeping partner would have nothing to
do but walk in, by self or deputy, whenever he pleased, and
examine the books,—and walk in twice a year and take his
profits away in his pocket, to the tune of fifty per cent,—it
appeared to him that that might be an opening for a young
gentleman of spirit combined with property, which would
be worthy of his attention. But what did I think? He had
great confidence in my opinion, and what did I think? I
gave it as my opinion. “Wait a bit!” The united vastness and
distinctness of this view so struck him, that he no longer
asked if he might shake hands with me, but said he really
must,—and did.
We drank all the wine, and Mr. Pumblechook pledged himself
over and over again to keep Joseph up to the mark (I don’t
know what mark), and to render me efficient and constant
service (I don’t know what service). He also made known

238
to me for the first time in my life, and certainly after hav-
ing kept his secret wonderfully well, that he had always said
of me, “That boy is no common boy, and mark me, his for-
tun’ will be no common fortun’.” He said with a tearful smile
that it was a singular thing to think of now, and I said so too.
Finally, I went out into the air, with a dim perception that
there was something unwonted in the conduct of the sun-
shine, and found that I had slumberously got to the turnpike
without having taken any account of the road.
There, I was roused by Mr. Pumblechook’s hailing me. He
was a long way down the sunny street, and was making ex-
pressive gestures for me to stop. I stopped, and he came up
breathless.
“No, my dear friend,” said he, when he had recovered wind for
speech. “Not if I can help it. This occasion shall not entirely
pass without that affability on your part.—May I, as an old
friend and well-wisher? May I?”
We shook hands for the hundredth time at least, and he or-
dered a young carter out of my way with the greatest indig-
nation. Then, he blessed me and stood waving his hand to
me until I had passed the crook in the road; and then I turned
into a field and had a long nap under a hedge before I pursued
my way home.
I had scant luggage to take with me to London, for little of
the little I possessed was adapted to my new station. But
I began packing that same afternoon, and wildly packed up
things that I knew I should want next morning, in a fiction

239
that there was not a moment to be lost.
So, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, passed; and on Fri-
day morning I went to Mr. Pumblechook’s, to put on my
new clothes and pay my visit to Miss Havisham. Mr. Pum-
blechook’s own room was given up to me to dress in, and
was decorated with clean towels expressly for the event. My
clothes were rather a disappointment, of course. Probably
every new and eagerly expected garment ever put on since
clothes came in, fell a trifle short of the wearer’s expectation.
But after I had had my new suit on some half an hour, and
had gone through an immensity of posturing with Mr. Pum-
blechook’s very limited dressing-glass, in the futile endeavor
to see my legs, it seemed to fit me better. It being market
morning at a neighboring town some ten miles off, Mr. Pum-
blechook was not at home. I had not told him exactly when
I meant to leave, and was not likely to shake hands with him
again before departing. This was all as it should be, and I
went out in my new array, fearfully ashamed of having to
pass the shopman, and suspicious after all that I was at a per-
sonal disadvantage, something like Joe’s in his Sunday suit.
I went circuitously to Miss Havisham’s by all the back ways,
and rang at the bell constrainedly, on account of the stiff long
fingers of my gloves. Sarah Pocket came to the gate, and pos-
itively reeled back when she saw me so changed; her walnut-
shell countenance likewise turned from brown to green and
yellow.
“You?” said she. “You? Good gracious! What do you want?”

240
“I am going to London, Miss Pocket,” said I, “and want to say
good-bye to Miss Havisham.”
I was not expected, for she left me locked in the yard, while
she went to ask if I were to be admitted. After a very short
delay, she returned and took me up, staring at me all the way.
Miss Havisham was taking exercise in the room with the
long spread table, leaning on her crutch stick. The room
was lighted as of yore, and at the sound of our entrance, she
stopped and turned. She was then just abreast of the rotted
bride-cake.
“Don’t go, Sarah,” she said. “Well, Pip?”
“I start for London, Miss Havisham, to-morrow,” I was
exceedingly careful what I said, “and I thought you would
kindly not mind my taking leave of you.”
“This is a gay figure, Pip,” said she, making her crutch stick
play round me, as if she, the fairy godmother who had
changed me, were bestowing the finishing gift.
“I have come into such good fortune since I saw you last,
Miss Havisham,” I murmured. “And I am so grateful for it,
Miss Havisham!”
“Ay, ay!” said she, looking at the discomfited and envious
Sarah, with delight. “I have seen Mr. Jaggers. I have heard
about it, Pip. So you go to-morrow?”
“Yes, Miss Havisham.”

241
“And you are adopted by a rich person?”
“Yes, Miss Havisham.”
“Not named?”
“No, Miss Havisham.”
“And Mr. Jaggers is made your guardian?”
“Yes, Miss Havisham.”
She quite gloated on these questions and answers, so keen
was her enjoyment of Sarah Pocket’s jealous dismay. “Well!”
she went on; “you have a promising career before you. Be
good—deserve it—and abide by Mr. Jaggers’s instructions.”
She looked at me, and looked at Sarah, and Sarah’s counte-
nance wrung out of her watchful face a cruel smile. “Good-
bye, Pip!—you will always keep the name of Pip, you know.”
“Yes, Miss Havisham.”
“Good-bye, Pip!”
She stretched out her hand, and I went down on my knee
and put it to my lips. I had not considered how I should take
leave of her; it came naturally to me at the moment to do this.
She looked at Sarah Pocket with triumph in her weird eyes,
and so I left my fairy godmother, with both her hands on her
crutch stick, standing in the midst of the dimly lighted room
beside the rotten bride-cake that was hidden in cobwebs.
Sarah Pocket conducted me down, as if I were a ghost who
must be seen out. She could not get over my appearance, and

242
was in the last degree confounded. I said “Good-bye, Miss
Pocket;” but she merely stared, and did not seem collected
enough to know that I had spoken. Clear of the house, I made
the best of my way back to Pumblechook’s, took off my new
clothes, made them into a bundle, and went back home in
my older dress, carrying it—to speak the truth—much more
at my ease too, though I had the bundle to carry.
And now, those six days which were to have run out so
slowly, had run out fast and were gone, and to-morrow
looked me in the face more steadily than I could look at it.
As the six evenings had dwindled away, to five, to four, to
three, to two, I had become more and more appreciative of
the society of Joe and Biddy. On this last evening, I dressed
my self out in my new clothes for their delight, and sat in
my splendor until bedtime. We had a hot supper on the
occasion, graced by the inevitable roast fowl, and we had
some flip to finish with. We were all very low, and none the
higher for pretending to be in spirits.
I was to leave our village at five in the morning, carrying
my little hand-portmanteau, and I had told Joe that I wished
to walk away all alone. I am afraid—sore afraid—that this
purpose originated in my sense of the contrast there would be
between me and Joe, if we went to the coach together. I had
pretended with myself that there was nothing of this taint in
the arrangement; but when I went up to my little room on
this last night, I felt compelled to admit that it might be so,
and had an impulse upon me to go down again and entreat
Joe to walk with me in the morning. I did not.

243
All night there were coaches in my broken sleep, going to
wrong places instead of to London, and having in the traces,
now dogs, now cats, now pigs, now men,—never horses. Fan-
tastic failures of journeys occupied me until the day dawned
and the birds were singing. Then, I got up and partly dressed,
and sat at the window to take a last look out, and in taking it
fell asleep.
Biddy was astir so early to get my breakfast, that, although
I did not sleep at the window an hour, I smelt the smoke of
the kitchen fire when I started up with a terrible idea that it
must be late in the afternoon. But long after that, and long
after I had heard the clinking of the teacups and was quite
ready, I wanted the resolution to go downstairs. After all,
I remained up there, repeatedly unlocking and unstrapping
my small portmanteau and locking and strapping it up again,
until Biddy called to me that I was late.
It was a hurried breakfast with no taste in it. I got up from
the meal, saying with a sort of briskness, as if it had only
just occurred to me, “Well! I suppose I must be off!” and
then I kissed my sister who was laughing and nodding and
shaking in her usual chair, and kissed Biddy, and threw my
arms around Joe’s neck. Then I took up my little portman-
teau and walked out. The last I saw of them was, when I
presently heard a scuffle behind me, and looking back, saw
Joe throwing an old shoe after me and Biddy throwing an-
other old shoe. I stopped then, to wave my hat, and dear old
Joe waved his strong right arm above his head, crying huskily
“Hooroar!” and Biddy put her apron to her face.

244
I walked away at a good pace, thinking it was easier to go
than I had supposed it would be, and reflecting that it would
never have done to have had an old shoe thrown after the
coach, in sight of all the High Street. I whistled and made
nothing of going. But the village was very peaceful and quiet,
and the light mists were solemnly rising, as if to show me
the world, and I had been so innocent and little there, and all
beyond was so unknown and great, that in a moment with a
strong heave and sob I broke into tears. It was by the finger-
post at the end of the village, and I laid my hand upon it, and
said, “Good-bye, O my dear, dear friend!”
Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for
they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our
hard hearts. I was better after I had cried than before,—more
sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle. If I
had cried before, I should have had Joe with me then.
So subdued I was by those tears, and by their breaking out
again in the course of the quiet walk, that when I was on
the coach, and it was clear of the town, I deliberated with
an aching heart whether I would not get down when we
changed horses and walk back, and have another evening at
home, and a better parting. We changed, and I had not made
up my mind, and still reflected for my comfort that it would
be quite practicable to get down and walk back, when we
changed again. And while I was occupied with these delib-
erations, I would fancy an exact resemblance to Joe in some
man coming along the road towards us, and my heart would
beat high.—As if he could possibly be there!

245
We changed again, and yet again, and it was now too late
and too far to go back, and I went on. And the mists had all
solemnly risen now, and the world lay spread before me.
This is the end of the first stage of Pip’s expectations.

246
Chapter XX
The journey from our town to the metropolis was a journey of
about five hours. It was a little past midday when the four-
horse stage-coach by which I was a passenger, got into the
ravel of traffic frayed out about the Cross Keys, Wood Street,
Cheapside, London.
We Britons had at that time particularly settled that it was
treasonable to doubt our having and our being the best of ev-
erything: otherwise, while I was scared by the immensity of
London, I think I might have had some faint doubts whether
it was not rather ugly, crooked, narrow, and dirty.
Mr. Jaggers had duly sent me his address; it was, Little
Britain, and he had written after it on his card, “just out
of Smithfield, and close by the coach-office.” Nevertheless,
a hackney-coachman, who seemed to have as many capes
to his greasy great-coat as he was years old, packed me
up in his coach and hemmed me in with a folding and
jingling barrier of steps, as if he were going to take me
fifty miles. His getting on his box, which I remember to
have been decorated with an old weather-stained pea-green
hammercloth moth-eaten into rags, was quite a work of
time. It was a wonderful equipage, with six great coronets
outside, and ragged things behind for I don’t know how
many footmen to hold on by, and a harrow below them, to
prevent amateur footmen from yielding to the temptation.
I had scarcely had time to enjoy the coach and to think how

247
like a straw-yard it was, and yet how like a rag-shop, and to
wonder why the horses’ nose-bags were kept inside, when
I observed the coachman beginning to get down, as if we
were going to stop presently. And stop we presently did, in a
gloomy street, at certain offices with an open door, whereon
was painted MR. JAGGERS.
“How much?” I asked the coachman.
The coachman answered, “A shilling—unless you wish to
make it more.”
I naturally said I had no wish to make it more.
“Then it must be a shilling,” observed the coachman. “I don’t
want to get into trouble. I know him!” He darkly closed an
eye at Mr. Jaggers’s name, and shook his head.
When he had got his shilling, and had in course of time com-
pleted the ascent to his box, and had got away (which ap-
peared to relieve his mind), I went into the front office with
my little portmanteau in my hand and asked, Was Mr. Jag-
gers at home?
“He is not,” returned the clerk. “He is in Court at present. Am
I addressing Mr. Pip?”
I signified that he was addressing Mr. Pip.
“Mr. Jaggers left word, would you wait in his room. He
couldn’t say how long he might be, having a case on. But
it stands to reason, his time being valuable, that he won’t be
longer than he can help.”

248
With those words, the clerk opened a door, and ushered me
into an inner chamber at the back. Here, we found a gen-
tleman with one eye, in a velveteen suit and knee-breeches,
who wiped his nose with his sleeve on being interrupted in
the perusal of the newspaper.
“Go and wait outside, Mike,” said the clerk.
I began to say that I hoped I was not interrupting, when the
clerk shoved this gentleman out with as little ceremony as I
ever saw used, and tossing his fur cap out after him, left me
alone.
Mr. Jaggers’s room was lighted by a skylight only, and was
a most dismal place; the skylight, eccentrically pitched like a
broken head, and the distorted adjoining houses looking as
if they had twisted themselves to peep down at me through
it. There were not so many papers about, as I should have
expected to see; and there were some odd objects about, that
I should not have expected to see,—such as an old rusty pis-
tol, a sword in a scabbard, several strange-looking boxes and
packages, and two dreadful casts on a shelf, of faces pecu-
liarly swollen, and twitchy about the nose. Mr. Jaggers’s own
high-backed chair was of deadly black horsehair, with rows
of brass nails round it, like a coffin; and I fancied I could see
how he leaned back in it, and bit his forefinger at the clients.
The room was but small, and the clients seemed to have had a
habit of backing up against the wall; the wall, especially op-
posite to Mr. Jaggers’s chair, being greasy with shoulders. I
recalled, too, that the one-eyed gentleman had shuffled forth

249
against the wall when I was the innocent cause of his being
turned out.
I sat down in the cliental chair placed over against Mr. Jag-
gers’s chair, and became fascinated by the dismal atmosphere
of the place. I called to mind that the clerk had the same air of
knowing something to everybody else’s disadvantage, as his
master had. I wondered how many other clerks there were
upstairs, and whether they all claimed to have the same detri-
mental mastery of their fellow-creatures. I wondered what
was the history of all the odd litter about the room, and how it
came there. I wondered whether the two swollen faces were
of Mr. Jaggers’s family, and, if he were so unfortunate as to
have had a pair of such ill-looking relations, why he stuck
them on that dusty perch for the blacks and flies to settle on,
instead of giving them a place at home. Of course I had no ex-
perience of a London summer day, and my spirits may have
been oppressed by the hot exhausted air, and by the dust and
grit that lay thick on everything. But I sat wondering and
waiting in Mr. Jaggers’s close room, until I really could not
bear the two casts on the shelf above Mr. Jaggers’s chair, and
got up and went out.
When I told the clerk that I would take a turn in the air while
I waited, he advised me to go round the corner and I should
come into Smithfield. So I came into Smithfield; and the
shameful place, being all asmear with filth and fat and blood
and foam, seemed to stick to me. So, I rubbed it off with all
possible speed by turning into a street where I saw the great
black dome of Saint Paul’s bulging at me from behind a grim

250
stone building which a bystander said was Newgate Prison.
Following the wall of the jail, I found the roadway covered
with straw to deaden the noise of passing vehicles; and from
this, and from the quantity of people standing about smelling
strongly of spirits and beer, I inferred that the trials were on.
While I looked about me here, an exceedingly dirty and
partially drunk minister of justice asked me if I would
like to step in and hear a trial or so: informing me that
he could give me a front place for half a crown, whence I
should command a full view of the Lord Chief Justice in
his wig and robes,—mentioning that awful personage like
waxwork, and presently offering him at the reduced price
of eighteen-pence. As I declined the proposal on the plea of
an appointment, he was so good as to take me into a yard
and show me where the gallows was kept, and also where
people were publicly whipped, and then he showed me the
Debtors’ Door, out of which culprits came to be hanged;
heightening the interest of that dreadful portal by giving me
to understand that “four on ’em” would come out at that door
the day after to-morrow at eight in the morning, to be killed
in a row. This was horrible, and gave me a sickening idea of
London; the more so as the Lord Chief Justice’s proprietor
wore (from his hat down to his boots and up again to his
pocket-handkerchief inclusive) mildewed clothes which had
evidently not belonged to him originally, and which I took it
into my head he had bought cheap of the executioner. Under
these circumstances I thought myself well rid of him for a
shilling.

251
I dropped into the office to ask if Mr. Jaggers had come in yet,
and I found he had not, and I strolled out again. This time, I
made the tour of Little Britain, and turned into Bartholomew
Close; and now I became aware that other people were wait-
ing about for Mr. Jaggers, as well as I. There were two men
of secret appearance lounging in Bartholomew Close, and
thoughtfully fitting their feet into the cracks of the pavement
as they talked together, one of whom said to the other when
they first passed me, that “Jaggers would do it if it was to be
done.” There was a knot of three men and two women stand-
ing at a corner, and one of the women was crying on her dirty
shawl, and the other comforted her by saying, as she pulled
her own shawl over her shoulders, “Jaggers is for him, ’Melia,
and what more could you have?” There was a red-eyed lit-
tle Jew who came into the Close while I was loitering there,
in company with a second little Jew whom he sent upon an
errand; and while the messenger was gone, I remarked this
Jew, who was of a highly excitable temperament, performing
a jig of anxiety under a lamp-post and accompanying himself,
in a kind of frenzy, with the words, “O Jaggerth, Jaggerth,
Jaggerth! all otherth ith Cag-Maggerth, give me Jaggerth!”
These testimonies to the popularity of my guardian made a
deep impression on me, and I admired and wondered more
than ever.
At length, as I was looking out at the iron gate of
Bartholomew Close into Little Britain, I saw Mr. Jag-
gers coming across the road towards me. All the others who
were waiting saw him at the same time, and there was quite

252
a rush at him. Mr. Jaggers, putting a hand on my shoulder
and walking me on at his side without saying anything to
me, addressed himself to his followers.
First, he took the two secret men.
“Now, I have nothing to say to you,” said Mr. Jaggers, throw-
ing his finger at them. “I want to know no more than I know.
As to the result, it’s a toss-up. I told you from the first it was
a toss-up. Have you paid Wemmick?”
“We made the money up this morning, sir,” said one of the
men, submissively, while the other perused Mr. Jaggers’s
face.
“I don’t ask you when you made it up, or where, or whether
you made it up at all. Has Wemmick got it?”
“Yes, sir,” said both the men together.
“Very well; then you may go. Now, I won’t have it!” said Mr
Jaggers, waving his hand at them to put them behind him. “If
you say a word to me, I’ll throw up the case.”
“We thought, Mr. Jaggers—” one of the men began, pulling
off his hat.
“That’s what I told you not to do,” said Mr. Jaggers. “You
thought! I think for you; that’s enough for you. If I want
you, I know where to find you; I don’t want you to find me.
Now I won’t have it. I won’t hear a word.”
The two men looked at one another as Mr. Jaggers waved

253
them behind again, and humbly fell back and were heard no
more.
“And now you!” said Mr. Jaggers, suddenly stopping, and
turning on the two women with the shawls, from whom the
three men had meekly separated,—“Oh! Amelia, is it?”
“Yes, Mr. Jaggers.”
“And do you remember,” retorted Mr. Jaggers, “that but for
me you wouldn’t be here and couldn’t be here?”
“O yes, sir!” exclaimed both women together. “Lord bless
you, sir, well we knows that!”
“Then why,” said Mr. Jaggers, “do you come here?”
“My Bill, sir!” the crying woman pleaded.
“Now, I tell you what!” said Mr. Jaggers. “Once for all. If
you don’t know that your Bill’s in good hands, I know it.
And if you come here bothering about your Bill, I’ll make an
example of both your Bill and you, and let him slip through
my fingers. Have you paid Wemmick?”
“O yes, sir! Every farden.”
“Very well. Then you have done all you have got to do. Say
another word—one single word—and Wemmick shall give
you your money back.”
This terrible threat caused the two women to fall off imme-
diately. No one remained now but the excitable Jew, who

254
had already raised the skirts of Mr. Jaggers’s coat to his lips
several times.
“I don’t know this man!” said Mr. Jaggers, in the same dev-
astating strain: “What does this fellow want?”
“Ma thear Mithter Jaggerth. Hown brother to Habraham
Latharuth?”
“Who’s he?” said Mr. Jaggers. “Let go of my coat.”
The suitor, kissing the hem of the garment again before relin-
quishing it, replied, “Habraham Latharuth, on thuthpithion
of plate.”
“You’re too late,” said Mr. Jaggers. “I am over the way.”
“Holy father, Mithter Jaggerth!” cried my excitable acquain-
tance, turning white, “don’t thay you’re again Habraham
Latharuth!”
“I am,” said Mr. Jaggers, “and there’s an end of it. Get out of
the way.”
“Mithter Jaggerth! Half a moment! My hown cuthen’th gone
to Mithter Wemmick at thith prethent minute, to hoffer him
hany termth. Mithter Jaggerth! Half a quarter of a moment!
If you’d have the condethenthun to be bought off from the
t’other thide—at hany thuperior prithe!—money no object!—
Mithter Jaggerth—Mithter—!”
My guardian threw his supplicant off with supreme indiffer-
ence, and left him dancing on the pavement as if it were red

255
hot. Without further interruption, we reached the front of-
fice, where we found the clerk and the man in velveteen with
the fur cap.
“Here’s Mike,” said the clerk, getting down from his stool, and
approaching Mr. Jaggers confidentially.
“Oh!” said Mr. Jaggers, turning to the man, who was pulling
a lock of hair in the middle of his forehead, like the Bull in
Cock Robin pulling at the bell-rope; “your man comes on this
afternoon. Well?”
“Well, Mas’r Jaggers,” returned Mike, in the voice of a sufferer
from a constitutional cold; “arter a deal o’ trouble, I’ve found
one, sir, as might do.”
“What is he prepared to swear?”
“Well, Mas’r Jaggers,” said Mike, wiping his nose on his fur
cap this time; “in a general way, anythink.”
Mr. Jaggers suddenly became most irate. “Now, I warned you
before,” said he, throwing his forefinger at the terrified client,
“that if you ever presumed to talk in that way here, I’d make
an example of you. You infernal scoundrel, how dare you tell
ME that?”
The client looked scared, but bewildered too, as if he were
unconscious what he had done.
“Spooney!” said the clerk, in a low voice, giving him a stir
with his elbow. “Soft Head! Need you say it face to face?”

256
“Now, I ask you, you blundering booby,” said my guardian,
very sternly, “once more and for the last time, what the man
you have brought here is prepared to swear?”
Mike looked hard at my guardian, as if he were trying to learn
a lesson from his face, and slowly replied, “Ayther to charac-
ter, or to having been in his company and never left him all
the night in question.”
“Now, be careful. In what station of life is this man?”
Mike looked at his cap, and looked at the floor, and looked
at the ceiling, and looked at the clerk, and even looked at
me, before beginning to reply in a nervous manner, “We’ve
dressed him up like—” when my guardian blustered out,—
“What? You WILL, will you?”
(“Spooney!” added the clerk again, with another stir.)
After some helpless casting about, Mike brightened and be-
gan again:—
“He is dressed like a ’spectable pieman. A sort of a pastry-
cook.”
“Is he here?” asked my guardian.
“I left him,” said Mike, “a setting on some doorsteps round the
corner.”
“Take him past that window, and let me see him.”
The window indicated was the office window. We all three

257
went to it, behind the wire blind, and presently saw the client
go by in an accidental manner, with a murderous-looking tall
individual, in a short suit of white linen and a paper cap. This
guileless confectioner was not by any means sober, and had
a black eye in the green stage of recovery, which was painted
over.
“Tell him to take his witness away directly,” said my guardian
to the clerk, in extreme disgust, “and ask him what he means
by bringing such a fellow as that.”
My guardian then took me into his own room, and while he
lunched, standing, from a sandwich-box and a pocket-flask
of sherry (he seemed to bully his very sandwich as he ate it),
informed me what arrangements he had made for me. I was
to go to “Barnard’s Inn,” to young Mr. Pocket’s rooms, where
a bed had been sent in for my accommodation; I was to re-
main with young Mr. Pocket until Monday; on Monday I was
to go with him to his father’s house on a visit, that I might
try how I liked it. Also, I was told what my allowance was to
be,—it was a very liberal one,—and had handed to me from
one of my guardian’s drawers, the cards of certain trades-
men with whom I was to deal for all kinds of clothes, and
such other things as I could in reason want. “You will find
your credit good, Mr. Pip,” said my guardian, whose flask
of sherry smelt like a whole caskful, as he hastily refreshed
himself, “but I shall by this means be able to check your bills,
and to pull you up if I find you outrunning the constable. Of
course you’ll go wrong somehow, but that’s no fault of mine.”

258
After I had pondered a little over this encouraging sentiment,
I asked Mr. Jaggers if I could send for a coach? He said it was
not worth while, I was so near my destination; Wemmick
should walk round with me, if I pleased.
I then found that Wemmick was the clerk in the next room.
Another clerk was rung down from upstairs to take his place
while he was out, and I accompanied him into the street, after
shaking hands with my guardian. We found a new set of
people lingering outside, but Wemmick made a way among
them by saying coolly yet decisively, “I tell you it’s no use;
he won’t have a word to say to one of you;” and we soon got
clear of them, and went on side by side.

259
Chapter XXI
Casting my eyes on Mr. Wemmick as we went along, to see
what he was like in the light of day, I found him to be a
dry man, rather short in stature, with a square wooden face,
whose expression seemed to have been imperfectly chipped
out with a dull-edged chisel. There were some marks in it that
might have been dimples, if the material had been softer and
the instrument finer, but which, as it was, were only dints.
The chisel had made three or four of these attempts at em-
bellishment over his nose, but had given them up without an
effort to smooth them off. I judged him to be a bachelor from
the frayed condition of his linen, and he appeared to have sus-
tained a good many bereavements; for he wore at least four
mourning rings, besides a brooch representing a lady and a
weeping willow at a tomb with an urn on it. I noticed, too,
that several rings and seals hung at his watch-chain, as if he
were quite laden with remembrances of departed friends. He
had glittering eyes,—small, keen, and black,—and thin wide
mottled lips. He had had them, to the best of my belief, from
forty to fifty years.
“So you were never in London before?” said Mr. Wemmick
to me.
“No,” said I.
“I was new here once,” said Mr. Wemmick. “Rum to think of
now!”

260
“You are well acquainted with it now?”
“Why, yes,” said Mr. Wemmick. “I know the moves of it.”
“Is it a very wicked place?” I asked, more for the sake of
saying something than for information.
“You may get cheated, robbed, and murdered in London. But
there are plenty of people anywhere, who’ll do that for you.”
“If there is bad blood between you and them,” said I, to soften
it off a little.
“O! I don’t know about bad blood,” returned Mr. Wemmick;
“there’s not much bad blood about. They’ll do it, if there’s
anything to be got by it.”
“That makes it worse.”
“You think so?” returned Mr. Wemmick. “Much about the
same, I should say.”
He wore his hat on the back of his head, and looked straight
before him: walking in a self-contained way as if there were
nothing in the streets to claim his attention. His mouth was
such a post-office of a mouth that he had a mechanical ap-
pearance of smiling. We had got to the top of Holborn Hill
before I knew that it was merely a mechanical appearance,
and that he was not smiling at all.
“Do you know where Mr. Matthew Pocket lives?” I asked Mr.
Wemmick.

261
“Yes,” said he, nodding in the direction. “At Hammersmith,
west of London.”
“Is that far?”
“Well! Say five miles.”
“Do you know him?”
“Why, you’re a regular cross-examiner!” said Mr. Wemmick,
looking at me with an approving air. “Yes, I know him. I
know him!”
There was an air of toleration or depreciation about his ut-
terance of these words that rather depressed me; and I was
still looking sideways at his block of a face in search of any
encouraging note to the text, when he said here we were at
Barnard’s Inn. My depression was not alleviated by the an-
nouncement, for, I had supposed that establishment to be
an hotel kept by Mr. Barnard, to which the Blue Boar in
our town was a mere public-house. Whereas I now found
Barnard to be a disembodied spirit, or a fiction, and his inn
the dingiest collection of shabby buildings ever squeezed to-
gether in a rank corner as a club for Tom-cats.
We entered this haven through a wicket-gate, and were dis-
gorged by an introductory passage into a melancholy little
square that looked to me like a flat burying-ground. I thought
it had the most dismal trees in it, and the most dismal spar-
rows, and the most dismal cats, and the most dismal houses
(in number half a dozen or so), that I had ever seen. I thought
the windows of the sets of chambers into which those houses

262
were divided were in every stage of dilapidated blind and cur-
tain, crippled flower-pot, cracked glass, dusty decay, and mis-
erable makeshift; while To Let, To Let, To Let, glared at me
from empty rooms, as if no new wretches ever came there,
and the vengeance of the soul of Barnard were being slowly
appeased by the gradual suicide of the present occupants and
their unholy interment under the gravel. A frowzy mourn-
ing of soot and smoke attired this forlorn creation of Barnard,
and it had strewn ashes on its head, and was undergoing
penance and humiliation as a mere dust-hole. Thus far my
sense of sight; while dry rot and wet rot and all the silent rots
that rot in neglected roof and cellar,—rot of rat and mouse and
bug and coaching-stables near at hand besides—addressed
themselves faintly to my sense of smell, and moaned, “Try
Barnard’s Mixture.”
So imperfect was this realization of the first of my great ex-
pectations, that I looked in dismay at Mr. Wemmick. “Ah!”
said he, mistaking me; “the retirement reminds you of the
country. So it does me.”
He led me into a corner and conducted me up a flight of
stairs,—which appeared to me to be slowly collapsing into
sawdust, so that one of those days the upper lodgers would
look out at their doors and find themselves without the
means of coming down,—to a set of chambers on the top
floor. MR. POCKET, JUN., was painted on the door, and
there was a label on the letter-box, “Return shortly.”
“He hardly thought you’d come so soon,” Mr. Wemmick ex-

263
plained. “You don’t want me any more?”
“No, thank you,” said I.
“As I keep the cash,” Mr. Wemmick observed, “we shall most
likely meet pretty often. Good day.”
“Good day.”
I put out my hand, and Mr. Wemmick at first looked at it as
if he thought I wanted something. Then he looked at me, and
said, correcting himself,—
“To be sure! Yes. You’re in the habit of shaking hands?”
I was rather confused, thinking it must be out of the London
fashion, but said yes.
“I have got so out of it!” said Mr. Wemmick,—“except at last.
Very glad, I’m sure, to make your acquaintance. Good day!”
When we had shaken hands and he was gone, I opened the
staircase window and had nearly beheaded myself, for, the
lines had rotted away, and it came down like the guillotine.
Happily it was so quick that I had not put my head out. Af-
ter this escape, I was content to take a foggy view of the
Inn through the window’s encrusting dirt, and to stand dole-
fully looking out, saying to myself that London was decidedly
overrated.
Mr. Pocket, Junior’s, idea of Shortly was not mine, for I had
nearly maddened myself with looking out for half an hour,
and had written my name with my finger several times in

264
the dirt of every pane in the window, before I heard footsteps
on the stairs. Gradually there arose before me the hat, head,
neckcloth, waistcoat, trousers, boots, of a member of society
of about my own standing. He had a paper-bag under each
arm and a pottle of strawberries in one hand, and was out of
breath.
“Mr. Pip?” said he.
“Mr. Pocket?” said I.
“Dear me!” he exclaimed. “I am extremely sorry; but I knew
there was a coach from your part of the country at midday,
and I thought you would come by that one. The fact is, I have
been out on your account,—not that that is any excuse,—for
I thought, coming from the country, you might like a little
fruit after dinner, and I went to Covent Garden Market to get
it good.”
For a reason that I had, I felt as if my eyes would start out
of my head. I acknowledged his attention incoherently, and
began to think this was a dream.
“Dear me!” said Mr. Pocket, Junior. “This door sticks so!”
As he was fast making jam of his fruit by wrestling with the
door while the paper-bags were under his arms, I begged him
to allow me to hold them. He relinquished them with an
agreeable smile, and combated with the door as if it were a
wild beast. It yielded so suddenly at last, that he staggered
back upon me, and I staggered back upon the opposite door,
and we both laughed. But still I felt as if my eyes must start

265
out of my head, and as if this must be a dream.
“Pray come in,” said Mr. Pocket, Junior. “Allow me to lead the
way. I am rather bare here, but I hope you’ll be able to make
out tolerably well till Monday. My father thought you would
get on more agreeably through to-morrow with me than with
him, and might like to take a walk about London. I am sure
I shall be very happy to show London to you. As to our ta-
ble, you won’t find that bad, I hope, for it will be supplied
from our coffee-house here, and (it is only right I should add)
at your expense, such being Mr. Jaggers’s directions. As to
our lodging, it’s not by any means splendid, because I have
my own bread to earn, and my father hasn’t anything to give
me, and I shouldn’t be willing to take it, if he had. This is our
sitting-room,—just such chairs and tables and carpet and so
forth, you see, as they could spare from home. You mustn’t
give me credit for the tablecloth and spoons and castors, be-
cause they come for you from the coffee-house. This is my
little bedroom; rather musty, but Barnard’s is musty. This
is your bedroom; the furniture’s hired for the occasion, but I
trust it will answer the purpose; if you should want anything,
I’ll go and fetch it. The chambers are retired, and we shall be
alone together, but we shan’t fight, I dare say. But dear me, I
beg your pardon, you’re holding the fruit all this time. Pray
let me take these bags from you. I am quite ashamed.”
As I stood opposite to Mr. Pocket, Junior, delivering him
the bags, One, Two, I saw the starting appearance come into
his own eyes that I knew to be in mine, and he said, falling
back,—

266
“Lord bless me, you’re the prowling boy!”
“And you,” said I, “are the pale young gentleman!”

267
Chapter XXII
The pale young gentleman and I stood contemplating one an-
other in Barnard’s Inn, until we both burst out laughing. “The
idea of its being you!” said he. “The idea of its being you!”
said I. And then we contemplated one another afresh, and
laughed again. “Well!” said the pale young gentleman, reach-
ing out his hand good-humoredly, “it’s all over now, I hope,
and it will be magnanimous in you if you’ll forgive me for
having knocked you about so.”
I derived from this speech that Mr. Herbert Pocket (for Her-
bert was the pale young gentleman’s name) still rather con-
founded his intention with his execution. But I made a mod-
est reply, and we shook hands warmly.
“You hadn’t come into your good fortune at that time?” said
Herbert Pocket.
“No,” said I.
“No,” he acquiesced: “I heard it had happened very lately. I
was rather on the lookout for good fortune then.”
“Indeed?”
“Yes. Miss Havisham had sent for me, to see if she could take
a fancy to me. But she couldn’t,—at all events, she didn’t.”
I thought it polite to remark that I was surprised to hear that.
“Bad taste,” said Herbert, laughing, “but a fact. Yes, she had

268
sent for me on a trial visit, and if I had come out of it suc-
cessfully, I suppose I should have been provided for; perhaps
I should have been what-you-may-called it to Estella.”
“What’s that?” I asked, with sudden gravity.
He was arranging his fruit in plates while we talked, which
divided his attention, and was the cause of his having made
this lapse of a word. “Affianced,” he explained, still busy with
the fruit. “Betrothed. Engaged. What’s-his-named. Any
word of that sort.”
“How did you bear your disappointment?” I asked.
“Pooh!” said he, “I didn’t care much for it. She’s a Tartar.”
“Miss Havisham?”
“I don’t say no to that, but I meant Estella. That girl’s hard
and haughty and capricious to the last degree, and has been
brought up by Miss Havisham to wreak revenge on all the
male sex.”
“What relation is she to Miss Havisham?”
“None,” said he. “Only adopted.”
“Why should she wreak revenge on all the male sex? What
revenge?”
“Lord, Mr. Pip!” said he. “Don’t you know?”
“No,” said I.

269
“Dear me! It’s quite a story, and shall be saved till dinner-
time. And now let me take the liberty of asking you a ques-
tion. How did you come there, that day?”
I told him, and he was attentive until I had finished, and then
burst out laughing again, and asked me if I was sore after-
wards? I didn’t ask him if he was, for my conviction on that
point was perfectly established.
“Mr. Jaggers is your guardian, I understand?” he went on.
“Yes.”
“You know he is Miss Havisham’s man of business and solic-
itor, and has her confidence when nobody else has?”
This was bringing me (I felt) towards dangerous ground. I
answered with a constraint I made no attempt to disguise,
that I had seen Mr. Jaggers in Miss Havisham’s house on the
very day of our combat, but never at any other time, and that I
believed he had no recollection of having ever seen me there.
“He was so obliging as to suggest my father for your tutor,
and he called on my father to propose it. Of course he knew
about my father from his connection with Miss Havisham.
My father is Miss Havisham’s cousin; not that that implies
familiar intercourse between them, for he is a bad courtier
and will not propitiate her.”
Herbert Pocket had a frank and easy way with him that was
very taking. I had never seen any one then, and I have never
seen any one since, who more strongly expressed to me, in

270
every look and tone, a natural incapacity to do anything se-
cret and mean. There was something wonderfully hopeful
about his general air, and something that at the same time
whispered to me he would never be very successful or rich.
I don’t know how this was. I became imbued with the no-
tion on that first occasion before we sat down to dinner, but
I cannot define by what means.
He was still a pale young gentleman, and had a certain con-
quered languor about him in the midst of his spirits and brisk-
ness, that did not seem indicative of natural strength. He had
not a handsome face, but it was better than handsome: be-
ing extremely amiable and cheerful. His figure was a little
ungainly, as in the days when my knuckles had taken such
liberties with it, but it looked as if it would always be light
and young. Whether Mr. Trabb’s local work would have sat
more gracefully on him than on me, may be a question; but I
am conscious that he carried off his rather old clothes much
better than I carried off my new suit.
As he was so communicative, I felt that reserve on my part
would be a bad return unsuited to our years. I therefore told
him my small story, and laid stress on my being forbidden to
inquire who my benefactor was. I further mentioned that as
I had been brought up a blacksmith in a country place, and
knew very little of the ways of politeness, I would take it as
a great kindness in him if he would give me a hint whenever
he saw me at a loss or going wrong.
“With pleasure,” said he, “though I venture to prophesy that

271
you’ll want very few hints. I dare say we shall be often to-
gether, and I should like to banish any needless restraint be-
tween us. Will you do me the favour to begin at once to call
me by my Christian name, Herbert?”
I thanked him and said I would. I informed him in exchange
that my Christian name was Philip.
“I don’t take to Philip,” said he, smiling, “for it sounds like a
moral boy out of the spelling-book, who was so lazy that he
fell into a pond, or so fat that he couldn’t see out of his eyes,
or so avaricious that he locked up his cake till the mice ate
it, or so determined to go a bird’s-nesting that he got himself
eaten by bears who lived handy in the neighborhood. I tell
you what I should like. We are so harmonious, and you have
been a blacksmith,—-would you mind it?”
“I shouldn’t mind anything that you propose,” I answered,
“but I don’t understand you.”
“Would you mind Handel for a familiar name? There’s a
charming piece of music by Handel, called the Harmonious
Blacksmith.”
“I should like it very much.”
“Then, my dear Handel,” said he, turning round as the door
opened, “here is the dinner, and I must beg of you to take the
top of the table, because the dinner is of your providing.”
This I would not hear of, so he took the top, and I faced him.
It was a nice little dinner,—seemed to me then a very Lord

272
Mayor’s Feast,—and it acquired additional relish from being
eaten under those independent circumstances, with no old
people by, and with London all around us. This again was
heightened by a certain gypsy character that set the ban-
quet off; for while the table was, as Mr. Pumblechook might
have said, the lap of luxury,—being entirely furnished forth
from the coffee-house,—the circumjacent region of sitting-
room was of a comparatively pastureless and shifty charac-
ter; imposing on the waiter the wandering habits of putting
the covers on the floor (where he fell over them), the melted
butter in the arm-chair, the bread on the bookshelves, the
cheese in the coal-scuttle, and the boiled fowl into my bed in
the next room,—where I found much of its parsley and butter
in a state of congelation when I retired for the night. All this
made the feast delightful, and when the waiter was not there
to watch me, my pleasure was without alloy.
We had made some progress in the dinner, when I reminded
Herbert of his promise to tell me about Miss Havisham.
“True,” he replied. “I’ll redeem it at once. Let me introduce
the topic, Handel, by mentioning that in London it is not the
custom to put the knife in the mouth,—for fear of accidents,—
and that while the fork is reserved for that use, it is not put
further in than necessary. It is scarcely worth mentioning,
only it’s as well to do as other people do. Also, the spoon is
not generally used over-hand, but under. This has two ad-
vantages. You get at your mouth better (which after all is the
object), and you save a good deal of the attitude of opening
oysters, on the part of the right elbow.”

273
He offered these friendly suggestions in such a lively way,
that we both laughed and I scarcely blushed.
“Now,” he pursued, “concerning Miss Havisham. Miss Hav-
isham, you must know, was a spoilt child. Her mother died
when she was a baby, and her father denied her nothing. Her
father was a country gentleman down in your part of the
world, and was a brewer. I don’t know why it should be a
crack thing to be a brewer; but it is indisputable that while
you cannot possibly be genteel and bake, you may be as gen-
teel as never was and brew. You see it every day.”
“Yet a gentleman may not keep a public-house; may he?” said
I.
“Not on any account,” returned Herbert; “but a public-house
may keep a gentleman. Well! Mr. Havisham was very rich
and very proud. So was his daughter.”
“Miss Havisham was an only child?” I hazarded.
“Stop a moment, I am coming to that. No, she was not an only
child; she had a half-brother. Her father privately married
again—his cook, I rather think.”
“I thought he was proud,” said I.
“My good Handel, so he was. He married his second wife pri-
vately, because he was proud, and in course of time she died.
When she was dead, I apprehend he first told his daughter
what he had done, and then the son became a part of the fam-
ily, residing in the house you are acquainted with. As the son

274
grew a young man, he turned out riotous, extravagant, undu-
tiful,—altogether bad. At last his father disinherited him; but
he softened when he was dying, and left him well off, though
not nearly so well off as Miss Havisham.—Take another glass
of wine, and excuse my mentioning that society as a body
does not expect one to be so strictly conscientious in empty-
ing one’s glass, as to turn it bottom upwards with the rim on
one’s nose.”
I had been doing this, in an excess of attention to his recital.
I thanked him, and apologized. He said, “Not at all,” and re-
sumed.
“Miss Havisham was now an heiress, and you may suppose
was looked after as a great match. Her half-brother had
now ample means again, but what with debts and what with
new madness wasted them most fearfully again. There were
stronger differences between him and her than there had
been between him and his father, and it is suspected that he
cherished a deep and mortal grudge against her as having
influenced the father’s anger. Now, I come to the cruel
part of the story,—merely breaking off, my dear Handel, to
remark that a dinner-napkin will not go into a tumbler.”
Why I was trying to pack mine into my tumbler, I am wholly
unable to say. I only know that I found myself, with a per-
severance worthy of a much better cause, making the most
strenuous exertions to compress it within those limits. Again
I thanked him and apologized, and again he said in the cheer-
fullest manner, “Not at all, I am sure!” and resumed.

275
“There appeared upon the scene—say at the races, or the pub-
lic balls, or anywhere else you like—a certain man, who made
love to Miss Havisham. I never saw him (for this happened
five-and-twenty years ago, before you and I were, Handel),
but I have heard my father mention that he was a showy
man, and the kind of man for the purpose. But that he was
not to be, without ignorance or prejudice, mistaken for a gen-
tleman, my father most strongly asseverates; because it is a
principle of his that no man who was not a true gentleman
at heart ever was, since the world began, a true gentleman
in manner. He says, no varnish can hide the grain of the
wood; and that the more varnish you put on, the more the
grain will express itself. Well! This man pursued Miss Hav-
isham closely, and professed to be devoted to her. I believe
she had not shown much susceptibility up to that time; but
all the susceptibility she possessed certainly came out then,
and she passionately loved him. There is no doubt that she
perfectly idolized him. He practised on her affection in that
systematic way, that he got great sums of money from her,
and he induced her to buy her brother out of a share in the
brewery (which had been weakly left him by his father) at an
immense price, on the plea that when he was her husband he
must hold and manage it all. Your guardian was not at that
time in Miss Havisham’s counsels, and she was too haughty
and too much in love to be advised by any one. Her relations
were poor and scheming, with the exception of my father;
he was poor enough, but not time-serving or jealous. The
only independent one among them, he warned her that she
was doing too much for this man, and was placing herself too

276
unreservedly in his power. She took the first opportunity of
angrily ordering my father out of the house, in his presence,
and my father has never seen her since.”
I thought of her having said, “Matthew will come and see
me at last when I am laid dead upon that table;” and I asked
Herbert whether his father was so inveterate against her?
“It’s not that,” said he, “but she charged him, in the presence
of her intended husband, with being disappointed in the hope
of fawning upon her for his own advancement, and, if he
were to go to her now, it would look true—even to him—
and even to her. To return to the man and make an end
of him. The marriage day was fixed, the wedding dresses
were bought, the wedding tour was planned out, the wedding
guests were invited. The day came, but not the bridegroom.
He wrote her a letter—”
“Which she received,” I struck in, “when she was dressing for
her marriage? At twenty minutes to nine?”
“At the hour and minute,” said Herbert, nodding, “at which
she afterwards stopped all the clocks. What was in it, further
than that it most heartlessly broke the marriage off, I can’t
tell you, because I don’t know. When she recovered from a
bad illness that she had, she laid the whole place waste, as
you have seen it, and she has never since looked upon the
light of day.”
“Is that all the story?” I asked, after considering it.
“All I know of it; and indeed I only know so much, through

277
piecing it out for myself; for my father always avoids it, and,
even when Miss Havisham invited me to go there, told me
no more of it than it was absolutely requisite I should under-
stand. But I have forgotten one thing. It has been supposed
that the man to whom she gave her misplaced confidence
acted throughout in concert with her half-brother; that it was
a conspiracy between them; and that they shared the profits.”
“I wonder he didn’t marry her and get all the property,” said
I.
“He may have been married already, and her cruel mortifica-
tion may have been a part of her half-brother’s scheme,” said
Herbert. “Mind! I don’t know that.”
“What became of the two men?” I asked, after again consid-
ering the subject.
“They fell into deeper shame and degradation—if there can
be deeper—and ruin.”
“Are they alive now?”
“I don’t know.”
“You said just now that Estella was not related to Miss Hav-
isham, but adopted. When adopted?”
Herbert shrugged his shoulders. “There has always been an
Estella, since I have heard of a Miss Havisham. I know no
more. And now, Handel,” said he, finally throwing off the
story as it were, “there is a perfectly open understanding be-
tween us. All that I know about Miss Havisham, you know.”

278
“And all that I know,” I retorted, “you know.”
“I fully believe it. So there can be no competition or per-
plexity between you and me. And as to the condition on
which you hold your advancement in life,—namely, that you
are not to inquire or discuss to whom you owe it,—you may
be very sure that it will never be encroached upon, or even
approached, by me, or by any one belonging to me.”
In truth, he said this with so much delicacy, that I felt the
subject done with, even though I should be under his father’s
roof for years and years to come. Yet he said it with so much
meaning, too, that I felt he as perfectly understood Miss Hav-
isham to be my benefactress, as I understood the fact myself.
It had not occurred to me before, that he had led up to the
theme for the purpose of clearing it out of our way; but we
were so much the lighter and easier for having broached it,
that I now perceived this to be the case. We were very gay
and sociable, and I asked him, in the course of conversation,
what he was? He replied, “A capitalist,—an Insurer of Ships.”
I suppose he saw me glancing about the room in search of
some tokens of Shipping, or capital, for he added, “In the
City.”
I had grand ideas of the wealth and importance of Insurers
of Ships in the City, and I began to think with awe of hav-
ing laid a young Insurer on his back, blackened his enterpris-
ing eye, and cut his responsible head open. But again there
came upon me, for my relief, that odd impression that Her-
bert Pocket would never be very successful or rich.

279
“I shall not rest satisfied with merely employing my capital
in insuring ships. I shall buy up some good Life Assurance
shares, and cut into the Direction. I shall also do a little in
the mining way. None of these things will interfere with
my chartering a few thousand tons on my own account. I
think I shall trade,” said he, leaning back in his chair, “to the
East Indies, for silks, shawls, spices, dyes, drugs, and precious
woods. It’s an interesting trade.”
“And the profits are large?” said I.
“Tremendous!” said he.
I wavered again, and began to think here were greater expec-
tations than my own.
“I think I shall trade, also,” said he, putting his thumbs in his
waist-coat pockets, “to the West Indies, for sugar, tobacco,
and rum. Also to Ceylon, specially for elephants’ tusks.”
“You will want a good many ships,” said I.
“A perfect fleet,” said he.
Quite overpowered by the magnificence of these transac-
tions, I asked him where the ships he insured mostly traded
to at present?
“I haven’t begun insuring yet,” he replied. “I am looking
about me.”
Somehow, that pursuit seemed more in keeping with
Barnard’s Inn. I said (in a tone of conviction), “Ah-h!”

280
“Yes. I am in a counting-house, and looking about me.”
“Is a counting-house profitable?” I asked.
“To—do you mean to the young fellow who’s in it?” he asked,
in reply.
“Yes; to you.”
“Why, n-no; not to me.” He said this with the air of one care-
fully reckoning up and striking a balance. “Not directly prof-
itable. That is, it doesn’t pay me anything, and I have to—
keep myself.”
This certainly had not a profitable appearance, and I shook
my head as if I would imply that it would be difficult to lay
by much accumulative capital from such a source of income.
“But the thing is,” said Herbert Pocket, “that you look about
you. That’s the grand thing. You are in a counting-house,
you know, and you look about you.”
It struck me as a singular implication that you couldn’t be
out of a counting-house, you know, and look about you; but
I silently deferred to his experience.
“Then the time comes,” said Herbert, “when you see your
opening. And you go in, and you swoop upon it and you
make your capital, and then there you are! When you have
once made your capital, you have nothing to do but employ
it.”
This was very like his way of conducting that encounter in

281
the garden; very like. His manner of bearing his poverty, too,
exactly corresponded to his manner of bearing that defeat. It
seemed to me that he took all blows and buffets now with
just the same air as he had taken mine then. It was evident
that he had nothing around him but the simplest necessaries,
for everything that I remarked upon turned out to have been
sent in on my account from the coffee-house or somewhere
else.
Yet, having already made his fortune in his own mind, he
was so unassuming with it that I felt quite grateful to him for
not being puffed up. It was a pleasant addition to his natu-
rally pleasant ways, and we got on famously. In the evening
we went out for a walk in the streets, and went half-price to
the Theatre; and next day we went to church at Westminster
Abbey, and in the afternoon we walked in the Parks; and I
wondered who shod all the horses there, and wished Joe did.
On a moderate computation, it was many months, that Sun-
day, since I had left Joe and Biddy. The space interposed be-
tween myself and them partook of that expansion, and our
marshes were any distance off. That I could have been at our
old church in my old church-going clothes, on the very last
Sunday that ever was, seemed a combination of impossibili-
ties, geographical and social, solar and lunar. Yet in the Lon-
don streets so crowded with people and so brilliantly lighted
in the dusk of evening, there were depressing hints of re-
proaches for that I had put the poor old kitchen at home so
far away; and in the dead of night, the footsteps of some in-
capable impostor of a porter mooning about Barnard’s Inn,

282
under pretence of watching it, fell hollow on my heart.
On the Monday morning at a quarter before nine, Herbert
went to the counting-house to report himself,—to look about
him, too, I suppose,—and I bore him company. He was to
come away in an hour or two to attend me to Hammersmith,
and I was to wait about for him. It appeared to me that the
eggs from which young Insurers were hatched were incu-
bated in dust and heat, like the eggs of ostriches, judging
from the places to which those incipient giants repaired on
a Monday morning. Nor did the counting-house where Her-
bert assisted, show in my eyes as at all a good Observatory;
being a back second floor up a yard, of a grimy presence in all
particulars, and with a look into another back second floor,
rather than a look out.
I waited about until it was noon, and I went upon ‘Change,
and I saw fluey men sitting there under the bills about
shipping, whom I took to be great merchants, though I
couldn’t understand why they should all be out of spirits.
When Herbert came, we went and had lunch at a celebrated
house which I then quite venerated, but now believe to have
been the most abject superstition in Europe, and where I
could not help noticing, even then, that there was much
more gravy on the tablecloths and knives and waiters’
clothes, than in the steaks. This collation disposed of at
a moderate price (considering the grease, which was not
charged for), we went back to Barnard’s Inn and got my little
portmanteau, and then took coach for Hammersmith. We
arrived there at two or three o’clock in the afternoon, and

283
had very little way to walk to Mr. Pocket’s house. Lifting
the latch of a gate, we passed direct into a little garden
overlooking the river, where Mr. Pocket’s children were
playing about. And unless I deceive myself on a point where
my interests or prepossessions are certainly not concerned,
I saw that Mr. and Mrs. Pocket’s children were not growing
up or being brought up, but were tumbling up.
Mrs. Pocket was sitting on a garden chair under a tree,
reading, with her legs upon another garden chair; and Mrs.
Pocket’s two nurse-maids were looking about them while
the children played. “Mamma,” said Herbert, “this is young
Mr. Pip.” Upon which Mrs. Pocket received me with an
appearance of amiable dignity.
“Master Alick and Miss Jane,” cried one of the nurses to two
of the children, “if you go a bouncing up against them bushes
you’ll fall over into the river and be drownded, and what’ll
your pa say then?”
At the same time this nurse picked up Mrs. Pocket’s handker-
chief, and said, “If that don’t make six times you’ve dropped
it, Mum!” Upon which Mrs. Pocket laughed and said, “Thank
you, Flopson,” and settling herself in one chair only, resumed
her book. Her countenance immediately assumed a knitted
and intent expression as if she had been reading for a week,
but before she could have read half a dozen lines, she fixed
her eyes upon me, and said, “I hope your mamma is quite
well?” This unexpected inquiry put me into such a difficulty
that I began saying in the absurdest way that if there had been

284
any such person I had no doubt she would have been quite
well and would have been very much obliged and would have
sent her compliments, when the nurse came to my rescue.
“Well!” she cried, picking up the pocket-handkerchief, “if
that don’t make seven times! What ARE you a doing of this
afternoon, Mum!” Mrs. Pocket received her property, at first
with a look of unutterable surprise as if she had never seen it
before, and then with a laugh of recognition, and said, “Thank
you, Flopson,” and forgot me, and went on reading.
I found, now I had leisure to count them, that there were no
fewer than six little Pockets present, in various stages of tum-
bling up. I had scarcely arrived at the total when a seventh
was heard, as in the region of air, wailing dolefully.
“If there ain’t Baby!” said Flopson, appearing to think it most
surprising. “Make haste up, Millers.”
Millers, who was the other nurse, retired into the house, and
by degrees the child’s wailing was hushed and stopped, as
if it were a young ventriloquist with something in its mouth.
Mrs. Pocket read all the time, and I was curious to know what
the book could be.
We were waiting, I supposed, for Mr. Pocket to come out to
us; at any rate we waited there, and so I had an opportunity
of observing the remarkable family phenomenon that when-
ever any of the children strayed near Mrs. Pocket in their
play, they always tripped themselves up and tumbled over
her,—always very much to her momentary astonishment, and

285
their own more enduring lamentation. I was at a loss to ac-
count for this surprising circumstance, and could not help
giving my mind to speculations about it, until by and by
Millers came down with the baby, which baby was handed
to Flopson, which Flopson was handing it to Mrs. Pocket,
when she too went fairly head foremost over Mrs. Pocket,
baby and all, and was caught by Herbert and myself.
“Gracious me, Flopson!” said Mrs. Pocket, looking off her
book for a moment, “everybody’s tumbling!”
“Gracious you, indeed, Mum!” returned Flopson, very red in
the face; “what have you got there?”
“I got here, Flopson?” asked Mrs. Pocket.
“Why, if it ain’t your footstool!” cried Flopson. “And if you
keep it under your skirts like that, who’s to help tumbling?
Here! Take the baby, Mum, and give me your book.”
Mrs. Pocket acted on the advice, and inexpertly danced the
infant a little in her lap, while the other children played about
it. This had lasted but a very short time, when Mrs. Pocket
issued summary orders that they were all to be taken into the
house for a nap. Thus I made the second discovery on that
first occasion, that the nurture of the little Pockets consisted
of alternately tumbling up and lying down.
Under these circumstances, when Flopson and Millers had
got the children into the house, like a little flock of sheep, and
Mr. Pocket came out of it to make my acquaintance, I was not
much surprised to find that Mr. Pocket was a gentleman with

286
a rather perplexed expression of face, and with his very gray
hair disordered on his head, as if he didn’t quite see his way
to putting anything straight.

287
Chapter XXIII
Mr. Pocket said he was glad to see me, and he hoped I was
not sorry to see him. “For, I really am not,” he added, with
his son’s smile, “an alarming personage.” He was a young-
looking man, in spite of his perplexities and his very gray
hair, and his manner seemed quite natural. I use the word
natural, in the sense of its being unaffected; there was some-
thing comic in his distraught way, as though it would have
been downright ludicrous but for his own perception that it
was very near being so. When he had talked with me a little,
he said to Mrs. Pocket, with a rather anxious contraction of
his eyebrows, which were black and handsome, “Belinda, I
hope you have welcomed Mr. Pip?” And she looked up from
her book, and said, “Yes.” She then smiled upon me in an ab-
sent state of mind, and asked me if I liked the taste of orange-
flower water? As the question had no bearing, near or re-
mote, on any foregone or subsequent transaction, I consider
it to have been thrown out, like her previous approaches, in
general conversational condescension.
I found out within a few hours, and may mention at once,
that Mrs. Pocket was the only daughter of a certain quite
accidental deceased Knight, who had invented for himself a
conviction that his deceased father would have been made a
Baronet but for somebody’s determined opposition arising
out of entirely personal motives,—I forget whose, if I ever
knew,—the Sovereign’s, the Prime Minister’s, the Lord Chan-
cellor’s, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s, anybody’s,—and

288
had tacked himself on to the nobles of the earth in right of
this quite supposititious fact. I believe he had been knighted
himself for storming the English grammar at the point of
the pen, in a desperate address engrossed on vellum, on the
occasion of the laying of the first stone of some building
or other, and for handing some Royal Personage either the
trowel or the mortar. Be that as it may, he had directed
Mrs. Pocket to be brought up from her cradle as one who
in the nature of things must marry a title, and who was
to be guarded from the acquisition of plebeian domestic
knowledge.
So successful a watch and ward had been established over the
young lady by this judicious parent, that she had grown up
highly ornamental, but perfectly helpless and useless. With
her character thus happily formed, in the first bloom of her
youth she had encountered Mr. Pocket: who was also in the
first bloom of youth, and not quite decided whether to mount
to the Woolsack, or to roof himself in with a mitre. As his do-
ing the one or the other was a mere question of time, he and
Mrs. Pocket had taken Time by the forelock (when, to judge
from its length, it would seem to have wanted cutting), and
had married without the knowledge of the judicious parent.
The judicious parent, having nothing to bestow or withhold
but his blessing, had handsomely settled that dower upon
them after a short struggle, and had informed Mr. Pocket
that his wife was “a treasure for a Prince.” Mr. Pocket had
invested the Prince’s treasure in the ways of the world ever
since, and it was supposed to have brought him in but indif-

289
ferent interest. Still, Mrs. Pocket was in general the object
of a queer sort of respectful pity, because she had not mar-
ried a title; while Mr. Pocket was the object of a queer sort
of forgiving reproach, because he had never got one.
Mr. Pocket took me into the house and showed me my room:
which was a pleasant one, and so furnished as that I could
use it with comfort for my own private sitting-room. He then
knocked at the doors of two other similar rooms, and intro-
duced me to their occupants, by name Drummle and Startop.
Drummle, an old-looking young man of a heavy order of ar-
chitecture, was whistling. Startop, younger in years and ap-
pearance, was reading and holding his head, as if he thought
himself in danger of exploding it with too strong a charge of
knowledge.
Both Mr. and Mrs. Pocket had such a noticeable air of being
in somebody else’s hands, that I wondered who really was in
possession of the house and let them live there, until I found
this unknown power to be the servants. It was a smooth way
of going on, perhaps, in respect of saving trouble; but it had
the appearance of being expensive, for the servants felt it a
duty they owed to themselves to be nice in their eating and
drinking, and to keep a deal of company downstairs. They
allowed a very liberal table to Mr. and Mrs. Pocket, yet it al-
ways appeared to me that by far the best part of the house to
have boarded in would have been the kitchen,—always sup-
posing the boarder capable of self-defence, for, before I had
been there a week, a neighboring lady with whom the family
were personally unacquainted, wrote in to say that she had

290
seen Millers slapping the baby. This greatly distressed Mrs.
Pocket, who burst into tears on receiving the note, and said
that it was an extraordinary thing that the neighbors couldn’t
mind their own business.
By degrees I learnt, and chiefly from Herbert, that Mr. Pocket
had been educated at Harrow and at Cambridge, where he
had distinguished himself; but that when he had had the hap-
piness of marrying Mrs. Pocket very early in life, he had im-
paired his prospects and taken up the calling of a Grinder.
After grinding a number of dull blades,—of whom it was re-
markable that their fathers, when influential, were always
going to help him to preferment, but always forgot to do it
when the blades had left the Grindstone,—he had wearied of
that poor work and had come to London. Here, after grad-
ually failing in loftier hopes, he had “read” with divers who
had lacked opportunities or neglected them, and had refur-
bished divers others for special occasions, and had turned his
acquirements to the account of literary compilation and cor-
rection, and on such means, added to some very moderate
private resources, still maintained the house I saw.
Mr. and Mrs. Pocket had a toady neighbor; a widow lady of
that highly sympathetic nature that she agreed with every-
body, blessed everybody, and shed smiles and tears on every-
body, according to circumstances. This lady’s name was Mrs.
Coiler, and I had the honor of taking her down to dinner on
the day of my installation. She gave me to understand on the
stairs, that it was a blow to dear Mrs. Pocket that dear Mr.
Pocket should be under the necessity of receiving gentlemen

291
to read with him. That did not extend to me, she told me in
a gush of love and confidence (at that time, I had known her
something less than five minutes); if they were all like Me, it
would be quite another thing.
“But dear Mrs. Pocket,” said Mrs. Coiler, “after her early dis-
appointment (not that dear Mr. Pocket was to blame in that),
requires so much luxury and elegance—”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, to stop her, for I was afraid she was going
to cry.
“And she is of so aristocratic a disposition—”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said again, with the same object as before.
“—That it is hard,” said Mrs. Coiler, “to have dear Mr. Pocket’s
time and attention diverted from dear Mrs. Pocket.”
I could not help thinking that it might be harder if the
butcher’s time and attention were diverted from dear Mrs.
Pocket; but I said nothing, and indeed had enough to do in
keeping a bashful watch upon my company manners.
It came to my knowledge, through what passed between
Mrs. Pocket and Drummle while I was attentive to my
knife and fork, spoon, glasses, and other instruments of
self-destruction, that Drummle, whose Christian name was
Bentley, was actually the next heir but one to a baronetcy.
It further appeared that the book I had seen Mrs. Pocket
reading in the garden was all about titles, and that she knew
the exact date at which her grandpapa would have come

292
into the book, if he ever had come at all. Drummle didn’t say
much, but in his limited way (he struck me as a sulky kind
of fellow) he spoke as one of the elect, and recognized Mrs.
Pocket as a woman and a sister. No one but themselves and
Mrs. Coiler the toady neighbor showed any interest in this
part of the conversation, and it appeared to me that it was
painful to Herbert; but it promised to last a long time, when
the page came in with the announcement of a domestic
affliction. It was, in effect, that the cook had mislaid the beef.
To my unutterable amazement, I now, for the first time, saw
Mr. Pocket relieve his mind by going through a performance
that struck me as very extraordinary, but which made no
impression on anybody else, and with which I soon became
as familiar as the rest. He laid down the carving-knife and
fork,—being engaged in carving, at the moment,—put his
two hands into his disturbed hair, and appeared to make an
extraordinary effort to lift himself up by it. When he had
done this, and had not lifted himself up at all, he quietly
went on with what he was about.
Mrs. Coiler then changed the subject and began to flatter
me. I liked it for a few moments, but she flattered me so very
grossly that the pleasure was soon over. She had a serpentine
way of coming close at me when she pretended to be vitally
interested in the friends and localities I had left, which was
altogether snaky and fork-tongued; and when she made an
occasional bounce upon Startop (who said very little to her),
or upon Drummle (who said less), I rather envied them for
being on the opposite side of the table.

293
After dinner the children were introduced, and Mrs. Coiler
made admiring comments on their eyes, noses, and legs,—a
sagacious way of improving their minds. There were four lit-
tle girls, and two little boys, besides the baby who might have
been either, and the baby’s next successor who was as yet
neither. They were brought in by Flopson and Millers, much
as though those two non-commissioned officers had been
recruiting somewhere for children and had enlisted these,
while Mrs. Pocket looked at the young Nobles that ought
to have been as if she rather thought she had had the plea-
sure of inspecting them before, but didn’t quite know what
to make of them.
“Here! Give me your fork, Mum, and take the baby,” said
Flopson. “Don’t take it that way, or you’ll get its head under
the table.”
Thus advised, Mrs. Pocket took it the other way, and got its
head upon the table; which was announced to all present by
a prodigious concussion.
“Dear, dear! Give it me back, Mum,” said Flopson; “and Miss
Jane, come and dance to baby, do!”
One of the little girls, a mere mite who seemed to have prema-
turely taken upon herself some charge of the others, stepped
out of her place by me, and danced to and from the baby until
it left off crying, and laughed. Then, all the children laughed,
and Mr. Pocket (who in the meantime had twice endeavored
to lift himself up by the hair) laughed, and we all laughed and
were glad.

294
Flopson, by dint of doubling the baby at the joints like a
Dutch doll, then got it safely into Mrs. Pocket’s lap, and
gave it the nut-crackers to play with; at the same time rec-
ommending Mrs. Pocket to take notice that the handles of
that instrument were not likely to agree with its eyes, and
sharply charging Miss Jane to look after the same. Then, the
two nurses left the room, and had a lively scuffle on the stair-
case with a dissipated page who had waited at dinner, and
who had clearly lost half his buttons at the gaming-table.
I was made very uneasy in my mind by Mrs. Pocket’s falling
into a discussion with Drummle respecting two baronetcies,
while she ate a sliced orange steeped in sugar and wine, and,
forgetting all about the baby on her lap, who did most ap-
palling things with the nut-crackers. At length little Jane,
perceiving its young brains to be imperilled, softly left her
place, and with many small artifices coaxed the dangerous
weapon away. Mrs. Pocket finishing her orange at about the
same time, and not approving of this, said to Jane,—
“You naughty child, how dare you? Go and sit down this
instant!”
“Mamma dear,” lisped the little girl, “baby ood have put hith
eyeth out.”
“How dare you tell me so?” retorted Mrs. Pocket. “Go and
sit down in your chair this moment!”
Mrs. Pocket’s dignity was so crushing, that I felt quite
abashed, as if I myself had done something to rouse it.

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“Belinda,” remonstrated Mr. Pocket, from the other end of the
table, “how can you be so unreasonable? Jane only interfered
for the protection of baby.”
“I will not allow anybody to interfere,” said Mrs. Pocket. “I
am surprised, Matthew, that you should expose me to the
affront of interference.”
“Good God!” cried Mr. Pocket, in an outbreak of desolate des-
peration. “Are infants to be nut-crackered into their tombs,
and is nobody to save them?”
“I will not be interfered with by Jane,” said Mrs. Pocket, with
a majestic glance at that innocent little offender. “I hope I
know my poor grandpapa’s position. Jane, indeed!”
Mr. Pocket got his hands in his hair again, and this time
really did lift himself some inches out of his chair. “Hear
this!” he helplessly exclaimed to the elements. “Babies are
to be nut-crackered dead, for people’s poor grandpapa’s po-
sitions!” Then he let himself down again, and became silent.
We all looked awkwardly at the tablecloth while this was go-
ing on. A pause succeeded, during which the honest and
irrepressible baby made a series of leaps and crows at little
Jane, who appeared to me to be the only member of the fam-
ily (irrespective of servants) with whom it had any decided
acquaintance.
“Mr. Drummle,” said Mrs. Pocket, “will you ring for Flopson?
Jane, you undutiful little thing, go and lie down. Now, baby
darling, come with ma!”

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The baby was the soul of honor, and protested with all its
might. It doubled itself up the wrong way over Mrs. Pocket’s
arm, exhibited a pair of knitted shoes and dimpled ankles to
the company in lieu of its soft face, and was carried out in
the highest state of mutiny. And it gained its point after all,
for I saw it through the window within a few minutes, being
nursed by little Jane.
It happened that the other five children were left behind at
the dinner-table, through Flopson’s having some private en-
gagement, and their not being anybody else’s business. I thus
became aware of the mutual relations between them and Mr.
Pocket, which were exemplified in the following manner. Mr.
Pocket, with the normal perplexity of his face heightened and
his hair rumpled, looked at them for some minutes, as if he
couldn’t make out how they came to be boarding and lodging
in that establishment, and why they hadn’t been billeted by
Nature on somebody else. Then, in a distant Missionary way
he asked them certain questions,—as why little Joe had that
hole in his frill, who said, Pa, Flopson was going to mend it
when she had time,—and how little Fanny came by that whit-
low, who said, Pa, Millers was going to poultice it when she
didn’t forget. Then, he melted into parental tenderness, and
gave them a shilling apiece and told them to go and play;
and then as they went out, with one very strong effort to lift
himself up by the hair he dismissed the hopeless subject.
In the evening there was rowing on the river. As Drummle
and Startop had each a boat, I resolved to set up mine, and
to cut them both out. I was pretty good at most exercises

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in which country boys are adepts, but as I was conscious
of wanting elegance of style for the Thames,—not to say for
other waters,—I at once engaged to place myself under the tu-
ition of the winner of a prize-wherry who plied at our stairs,
and to whom I was introduced by my new allies. This prac-
tical authority confused me very much by saying I had the
arm of a blacksmith. If he could have known how nearly the
compliment lost him his pupil, I doubt if he would have paid
it.
There was a supper-tray after we got home at night, and I
think we should all have enjoyed ourselves, but for a rather
disagreeable domestic occurrence. Mr. Pocket was in good
spirits, when a housemaid came in, and said, “If you please,
sir, I should wish to speak to you.”
“Speak to your master?” said Mrs. Pocket, whose dignity was
roused again. “How can you think of such a thing? Go and
speak to Flopson. Or speak to me—at some other time.”
“Begging your pardon, ma’am,” returned the housemaid, “I
should wish to speak at once, and to speak to master.”
Hereupon, Mr. Pocket went out of the room, and we made
the best of ourselves until he came back.
“This is a pretty thing, Belinda!” said Mr. Pocket, returning
with a countenance expressive of grief and despair. “Here’s
the cook lying insensibly drunk on the kitchen floor, with a
large bundle of fresh butter made up in the cupboard ready
to sell for grease!”

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Mrs. Pocket instantly showed much amiable emotion, and
said, “This is that odious Sophia’s doing!”
“What do you mean, Belinda?” demanded Mr. Pocket.
“Sophia has told you,” said Mrs. Pocket. “Did I not see her
with my own eyes and hear her with my own ears, come into
the room just now and ask to speak to you?”
“But has she not taken me downstairs, Belinda,” returned Mr.
Pocket, “and shown me the woman, and the bundle too?”
“And do you defend her, Matthew,” said Mrs. Pocket, “for
making mischief?”
Mr. Pocket uttered a dismal groan.
“Am I, grandpapa’s granddaughter, to be nothing in the
house?” said Mrs. Pocket. “Besides, the cook has always
been a very nice respectful woman, and said in the most
natural manner when she came to look after the situation,
that she felt I was born to be a Duchess.”
There was a sofa where Mr. Pocket stood, and he dropped
upon it in the attitude of the Dying Gladiator. Still in that
attitude he said, with a hollow voice, “Good night, Mr. Pip,”
when I deemed it advisable to go to bed and leave him.

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Chapter XXIV
After two or three days, when I had established myself in
my room and had gone backwards and forwards to London
several times, and had ordered all I wanted of my tradesmen,
Mr. Pocket and I had a long talk together. He knew more of
my intended career than I knew myself, for he referred to his
having been told by Mr. Jaggers that I was not designed for
any profession, and that I should be well enough educated
for my destiny if I could “hold my own” with the average
of young men in prosperous circumstances. I acquiesced, of
course, knowing nothing to the contrary.
He advised my attending certain places in London, for the
acquisition of such mere rudiments as I wanted, and my in-
vesting him with the functions of explainer and director of all
my studies. He hoped that with intelligent assistance I should
meet with little to discourage me, and should soon be able to
dispense with any aid but his. Through his way of saying this,
and much more to similar purpose, he placed himself on con-
fidential terms with me in an admirable manner; and I may
state at once that he was always so zealous and honorable in
fulfilling his compact with me, that he made me zealous and
honorable in fulfilling mine with him. If he had shown indif-
ference as a master, I have no doubt I should have returned
the compliment as a pupil; he gave me no such excuse, and
each of us did the other justice. Nor did I ever regard him as
having anything ludicrous about him—or anything but what
was serious, honest, and good—in his tutor communication

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with me.
When these points were settled, and so far carried out as
that I had begun to work in earnest, it occurred to me that
if I could retain my bedroom in Barnard’s Inn, my life would
be agreeably varied, while my manners would be none the
worse for Herbert’s society. Mr. Pocket did not object to
this arrangement, but urged that before any step could pos-
sibly be taken in it, it must be submitted to my guardian. I
felt that this delicacy arose out of the consideration that the
plan would save Herbert some expense, so I went off to Little
Britain and imparted my wish to Mr. Jaggers.
“If I could buy the furniture now hired for me,” said I, “and
one or two other little things, I should be quite at home there.”
“Go it!” said Mr. Jaggers, with a short laugh. “I told you
you’d get on. Well! How much do you want?”
I said I didn’t know how much.
“Come!” retorted Mr. Jaggers. “How much? Fifty pounds?”
“O, not nearly so much.”
“Five pounds?” said Mr. Jaggers.
This was such a great fall, that I said in discomfiture, “O, more
than that.”
“More than that, eh!” retorted Mr. Jaggers, lying in wait for
me, with his hands in his pockets, his head on one side, and
his eyes on the wall behind me; “how much more?”

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“It is so difficult to fix a sum,” said I, hesitating.
“Come!” said Mr. Jaggers. “Let’s get at it. Twice five; will
that do? Three times five; will that do? Four times five; will
that do?”
I said I thought that would do handsomely.
“Four times five will do handsomely, will it?” said Mr. Jag-
gers, knitting his brows. “Now, what do you make of four
times five?”
“What do I make of it?”
“Ah!” said Mr. Jaggers; “how much?”
“I suppose you make it twenty pounds,” said I, smiling.
“Never mind what I make it, my friend,” observed Mr. Jag-
gers, with a knowing and contradictory toss of his head. “I
want to know what you make it.”
“Twenty pounds, of course.”
“Wemmick!” said Mr. Jaggers, opening his office door. “Take
Mr. Pip’s written order, and pay him twenty pounds.”
This strongly marked way of doing business made a strongly
marked impression on me, and that not of an agreeable kind.
Mr. Jaggers never laughed; but he wore great bright creaking
boots, and, in poising himself on these boots, with his large
head bent down and his eyebrows joined together, awaiting
an answer, he sometimes caused the boots to creak, as if they
laughed in a dry and suspicious way. As he happened to go

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out now, and as Wemmick was brisk and talkative, I said to
Wemmick that I hardly knew what to make of Mr. Jaggers’s
manner.
“Tell him that, and he’ll take it as a compliment,” answered
Wemmick; “he don’t mean that you should know what to
make of it.—Oh!” for I looked surprised, “it’s not personal;
it’s professional: only professional.”
Wemmick was at his desk, lunching—and crunching—on a
dry hard biscuit; pieces of which he threw from time to time
into his slit of a mouth, as if he were posting them.
“Always seems to me,” said Wemmick, “as if he had set a man-
trap and was watching it. Suddenly-click—you’re caught!”
Without remarking that man-traps were not among the
amenities of life, I said I supposed he was very skilful?
“Deep,” said Wemmick, “as Australia.” Pointing with his pen
at the office floor, to express that Australia was understood,
for the purposes of the figure, to be symmetrically on the
opposite spot of the globe. “If there was anything deeper,”
added Wemmick, bringing his pen to paper, “he’d be it.”
Then, I said I supposed he had a fine business, and Wemmick
said, “Ca-pi-tal!” Then I asked if there were many clerks? to
which he replied,—
“We don’t run much into clerks, because there’s only one Jag-
gers, and people won’t have him at second hand. There are
only four of us. Would you like to see ’em? You are one of

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us, as I may say.”
I accepted the offer. When Mr. Wemmick had put all the
biscuit into the post, and had paid me my money from a
cash-box in a safe, the key of which safe he kept somewhere
down his back and produced from his coat-collar like an
iron-pigtail, we went upstairs. The house was dark and
shabby, and the greasy shoulders that had left their mark
in Mr. Jaggers’s room seemed to have been shuffling up
and down the staircase for years. In the front first floor, a
clerk who looked something between a publican and a rat-
catcher—a large pale, puffed, swollen man—was attentively
engaged with three or four people of shabby appearance,
whom he treated as unceremoniously as everybody seemed
to be treated who contributed to Mr. Jaggers’s coffers.
“Getting evidence together,” said Mr. Wemmick, as we came
out, “for the Bailey.” In the room over that, a little flabby
terrier of a clerk with dangling hair (his cropping seemed
to have been forgotten when he was a puppy) was similarly
engaged with a man with weak eyes, whom Mr. Wemmick
presented to me as a smelter who kept his pot always boiling,
and who would melt me anything I pleased,—and who was
in an excessive white-perspiration, as if he had been trying
his art on himself. In a back room, a high-shouldered man
with a face-ache tied up in dirty flannel, who was dressed
in old black clothes that bore the appearance of having been
waxed, was stooping over his work of making fair copies of
the notes of the other two gentlemen, for Mr. Jaggers’s own
use.

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This was all the establishment. When we went downstairs
again, Wemmick led me into my guardian’s room, and said,
“This you’ve seen already.”
“Pray,” said I, as the two odious casts with the twitchy leer
upon them caught my sight again, “whose likenesses are
those?”
“These?” said Wemmick, getting upon a chair, and blowing
the dust off the horrible heads before bringing them down.
“These are two celebrated ones. Famous clients of ours that
got us a world of credit. This chap (why you must have come
down in the night and been peeping into the inkstand, to get
this blot upon your eyebrow, you old rascal!) murdered his
master, and, considering that he wasn’t brought up to evi-
dence, didn’t plan it badly.”
“Is it like him?” I asked, recoiling from the brute, as Wem-
mick spat upon his eyebrow and gave it a rub with his sleeve.
“Like him? It’s himself, you know. The cast was made in
Newgate, directly after he was taken down. You had a par-
ticular fancy for me, hadn’t you, Old Artful?” said Wemmick.
He then explained this affectionate apostrophe, by touching
his brooch representing the lady and the weeping willow at
the tomb with the urn upon it, and saying, “Had it made for
me, express!”
“Is the lady anybody?” said I.
“No,” returned Wemmick. “Only his game. (You liked your
bit of game, didn’t you?) No; deuce a bit of a lady in the case,

305
Mr. Pip, except one,—and she wasn’t of this slender lady-
like sort, and you wouldn’t have caught her looking after this
urn, unless there was something to drink in it.” Wemmick’s
attention being thus directed to his brooch, he put down the
cast, and polished the brooch with his pocket-handkerchief.
“Did that other creature come to the same end?” I asked. “He
has the same look.”
“You’re right,” said Wemmick; “it’s the genuine look. Much
as if one nostril was caught up with a horse-hair and a little
fish-hook. Yes, he came to the same end; quite the natural end
here, I assure you. He forged wills, this blade did, if he didn’t
also put the supposed testators to sleep too. You were a gen-
tlemanly Cove, though” (Mr. Wemmick was again apostro-
phizing), “and you said you could write Greek. Yah, Bounce-
able! What a liar you were! I never met such a liar as you!”
Before putting his late friend on his shelf again, Wemmick
touched the largest of his mourning rings and said, “Sent out
to buy it for me, only the day before.”
While he was putting up the other cast and coming down
from the chair, the thought crossed my mind that all his
personal jewelry was derived from like sources. As he
had shown no diffidence on the subject, I ventured on the
liberty of asking him the question, when he stood before me,
dusting his hands.
“O yes,” he returned, “these are all gifts of that kind. One
brings another, you see; that’s the way of it. I always take
‘em. They’re curiosities. And they’re property. They may not

306
be worth much, but, after all, they’re property and portable.
It don’t signify to you with your brilliant lookout, but as to
myself, my guiding-star always is, ’Get hold of portable prop-
erty’.”
When I had rendered homage to this light, he went on to say,
in a friendly manner:—
“If at any odd time when you have nothing better to do, you
wouldn’t mind coming over to see me at Walworth, I could
offer you a bed, and I should consider it an honor. I have
not much to show you; but such two or three curiosities as I
have got you might like to look over; and I am fond of a bit
of garden and a summer-house.”
I said I should be delighted to accept his hospitality.
“Thankee,” said he; “then we’ll consider that it’s to come off,
when convenient to you. Have you dined with Mr. Jaggers
yet?”
“Not yet.”
“Well,” said Wemmick, “he’ll give you wine, and good wine.
I’ll give you punch, and not bad punch. And now I’ll tell you
something. When you go to dine with Mr. Jaggers, look at
his housekeeper.”
“Shall I see something very uncommon?”
“Well,” said Wemmick, “you’ll see a wild beast tamed. Not
so very uncommon, you’ll tell me. I reply, that depends on
the original wildness of the beast, and the amount of taming.

307
It won’t lower your opinion of Mr. Jaggers’s powers. Keep
your eye on it.”
I told him I would do so, with all the interest and curiosity
that his preparation awakened. As I was taking my depar-
ture, he asked me if I would like to devote five minutes to
seeing Mr. Jaggers “at it?”
For several reasons, and not least because I didn’t clearly
know what Mr. Jaggers would be found to be “at,” I replied
in the affirmative. We dived into the City, and came up
in a crowded police-court, where a blood-relation (in the
murderous sense) of the deceased, with the fanciful taste in
brooches, was standing at the bar, uncomfortably chewing
something; while my guardian had a woman under exami-
nation or cross-examination,—I don’t know which,—and was
striking her, and the bench, and everybody present, with
awe. If anybody, of whatsoever degree, said a word that he
didn’t approve of, he instantly required to have it “taken
down.” If anybody wouldn’t make an admission, he said,
“I’ll have it out of you!” and if anybody made an admission,
he said, “Now I have got you!” The magistrates shivered
under a single bite of his finger. Thieves and thief-takers
hung in dread rapture on his words, and shrank when a
hair of his eyebrows turned in their direction. Which side
he was on I couldn’t make out, for he seemed to me to be
grinding the whole place in a mill; I only know that when I
stole out on tiptoe, he was not on the side of the bench; for,
he was making the legs of the old gentleman who presided,
quite convulsive under the table, by his denunciations of his

308
conduct as the representative of British law and justice in
that chair that day.

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Chapter XXV
Bentley Drummle, who was so sulky a fellow that he even
took up a book as if its writer had done him an injury, did not
take up an acquaintance in a more agreeable spirit. Heavy in
figure, movement, and comprehension,—in the sluggish com-
plexion of his face, and in the large, awkward tongue that
seemed to loll about in his mouth as he himself lolled about
in a room,—he was idle, proud, niggardly, reserved, and sus-
picious. He came of rich people down in Somersetshire, who
had nursed this combination of qualities until they made the
discovery that it was just of age and a blockhead. Thus, Bent-
ley Drummle had come to Mr. Pocket when he was a head
taller than that gentleman, and half a dozen heads thicker
than most gentlemen.
Startop had been spoilt by a weak mother and kept at home
when he ought to have been at school, but he was devot-
edly attached to her, and admired her beyond measure. He
had a woman’s delicacy of feature, and was—“as you may
see, though you never saw her,” said Herbert to me—“exactly
like his mother.” It was but natural that I should take to him
much more kindly than to Drummle, and that, even in the
earliest evenings of our boating, he and I should pull home-
ward abreast of one another, conversing from boat to boat,
while Bentley Drummle came up in our wake alone, under
the overhanging banks and among the rushes. He would
always creep in-shore like some uncomfortable amphibious
creature, even when the tide would have sent him fast upon

310
his way; and I always think of him as coming after us in the
dark or by the back-water, when our own two boats were
breaking the sunset or the moonlight in mid-stream.
Herbert was my intimate companion and friend. I presented
him with a half-share in my boat, which was the occasion of
his often coming down to Hammersmith; and my possession
of a half-share in his chambers often took me up to London.
We used to walk between the two places at all hours. I have
an affection for the road yet (though it is not so pleasant a
road as it was then), formed in the impressibility of untried
youth and hope.
When I had been in Mr. Pocket’s family a month or two,
Mr. and Mrs. Camilla turned up. Camilla was Mr. Pocket’s
sister. Georgiana, whom I had seen at Miss Havisham’s on
the same occasion, also turned up. She was a cousin,—an
indigestive single woman, who called her rigidity religion,
and her liver love. These people hated me with the hatred
of cupidity and disappointment. As a matter of course, they
fawned upon me in my prosperity with the basest meanness.
Towards Mr. Pocket, as a grown-up infant with no notion of
his own interests, they showed the complacent forbearance
I had heard them express. Mrs. Pocket they held in con-
tempt; but they allowed the poor soul to have been heavily
disappointed in life, because that shed a feeble reflected light
upon themselves.
These were the surroundings among which I settled down,
and applied myself to my education. I soon contracted ex-

311
pensive habits, and began to spend an amount of money that
within a few short months I should have thought almost fab-
ulous; but through good and evil I stuck to my books. There
was no other merit in this, than my having sense enough to
feel my deficiencies. Between Mr. Pocket and Herbert I got
on fast; and, with one or the other always at my elbow to
give me the start I wanted, and clear obstructions out of my
road, I must have been as great a dolt as Drummle if I had
done less.
I had not seen Mr. Wemmick for some weeks, when I thought
I would write him a note and propose to go home with him
on a certain evening. He replied that it would give him much
pleasure, and that he would expect me at the office at six
o’clock. Thither I went, and there I found him, putting the
key of his safe down his back as the clock struck.
“Did you think of walking down to Walworth?” said he.
“Certainly,” said I, “if you approve.”
“Very much,” was Wemmick’s reply, “for I have had my legs
under the desk all day, and shall be glad to stretch them. Now,
I’ll tell you what I have got for supper, Mr. Pip. I have got
a stewed steak,—which is of home preparation,—and a cold
roast fowl,—which is from the cook’s-shop. I think it’s tender,
because the master of the shop was a Juryman in some cases
of ours the other day, and we let him down easy. I reminded
him of it when I bought the fowl, and I said, “Pick us out a
good one, old Briton, because if we had chosen to keep you in
the box another day or two, we could easily have done it.” He

312
said to that, “Let me make you a present of the best fowl in
the shop.” I let him, of course. As far as it goes, it’s property
and portable. You don’t object to an aged parent, I hope?”
I really thought he was still speaking of the fowl, until he
added, “Because I have got an aged parent at my place.” I
then said what politeness required.
“So, you haven’t dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?” he pursued, as
we walked along.
“Not yet.”
“He told me so this afternoon when he heard you were com-
ing. I expect you’ll have an invitation to-morrow. He’s going
to ask your pals, too. Three of ’em; ain’t there?”
Although I was not in the habit of counting Drummle as one
of my intimate associates, I answered, “Yes.”
“Well, he’s going to ask the whole gang,”—I hardly felt com-
plimented by the word,—“and whatever he gives you, he’ll
give you good. Don’t look forward to variety, but you’ll have
excellence. And there’s another rum thing in his house,” pro-
ceeded Wemmick, after a moment’s pause, as if the remark
followed on the housekeeper understood; “he never lets a
door or window be fastened at night.”
“Is he never robbed?”
“That’s it!” returned Wemmick. “He says, and gives it out
publicly, “I want to see the man who’ll rob me.” Lord bless
you, I have heard him, a hundred times, if I have heard him

313
once, say to regular cracksmen in our front office, “You know
where I live; now, no bolt is ever drawn there; why don’t you
do a stroke of business with me? Come; can’t I tempt you?”
Not a man of them, sir, would be bold enough to try it on, for
love or money.”
“They dread him so much?” said I.
“Dread him,” said Wemmick. “I believe you they dread him.
Not but what he’s artful, even in his defiance of them. No
silver, sir. Britannia metal, every spoon.”
“So they wouldn’t have much,” I observed, “even if they—”
“Ah! But he would have much,” said Wemmick, cutting me
short, “and they know it. He’d have their lives, and the lives
of scores of ’em. He’d have all he could get. And it’s im-
possible to say what he couldn’t get, if he gave his mind to
it.”
I was falling into meditation on my guardian’s greatness,
when Wemmick remarked:—
“As to the absence of plate, that’s only his natural depth, you
know. A river’s its natural depth, and he’s his natural depth.
Look at his watch-chain. That’s real enough.”
“It’s very massive,” said I.
“Massive?” repeated Wemmick. “I think so. And his watch
is a gold repeater, and worth a hundred pound if it’s worth
a penny. Mr. Pip, there are about seven hundred thieves in
this town who know all about that watch; there’s not a man,

314
a woman, or a child, among them, who wouldn’t identify the
smallest link in that chain, and drop it as if it was red hot, if
inveigled into touching it.”
At first with such discourse, and afterwards with conversa-
tion of a more general nature, did Mr. Wemmick and I beguile
the time and the road, until he gave me to understand that we
had arrived in the district of Walworth.
It appeared to be a collection of back lanes, ditches, and little
gardens, and to present the aspect of a rather dull retirement.
Wemmick’s house was a little wooden cottage in the midst of
plots of garden, and the top of it was cut out and painted like
a battery mounted with guns.
“My own doing,” said Wemmick. “Looks pretty; don’t it?”
I highly commended it, I think it was the smallest house I ever
saw; with the queerest gothic windows (by far the greater
part of them sham), and a gothic door almost too small to get
in at.
“That’s a real flagstaff, you see,” said Wemmick, “and on Sun-
days I run up a real flag. Then look here. After I have crossed
this bridge, I hoist it up—so—and cut off the communication.”
The bridge was a plank, and it crossed a chasm about four
feet wide and two deep. But it was very pleasant to see the
pride with which he hoisted it up and made it fast; smiling as
he did so, with a relish and not merely mechanically.
“At nine o’clock every night, Greenwich time,” said Wem-

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mick, “the gun fires. There he is, you see! And when you
hear him go, I think you’ll say he’s a Stinger.”
The piece of ordnance referred to, was mounted in a separate
fortress, constructed of lattice-work. It was protected from
the weather by an ingenious little tarpaulin contrivance in
the nature of an umbrella.
“Then, at the back,” said Wemmick, “out of sight, so as not
to impede the idea of fortifications,—for it’s a principle with
me, if you have an idea, carry it out and keep it up,—I don’t
know whether that’s your opinion—”
I said, decidedly.
“—At the back, there’s a pig, and there are fowls and rabbits;
then, I knock together my own little frame, you see, and grow
cucumbers; and you’ll judge at supper what sort of a salad I
can raise. So, sir,” said Wemmick, smiling again, but seriously
too, as he shook his head, “if you can suppose the little place
besieged, it would hold out a devil of a time in point of pro-
visions.”
Then, he conducted me to a bower about a dozen yards off,
but which was approached by such ingenious twists of path
that it took quite a long time to get at; and in this retreat
our glasses were already set forth. Our punch was cooling in
an ornamental lake, on whose margin the bower was raised.
This piece of water (with an island in the middle which might
have been the salad for supper) was of a circular form, and
he had constructed a fountain in it, which, when you set a

316
little mill going and took a cork out of a pipe, played to that
powerful extent that it made the back of your hand quite wet.
“I am my own engineer, and my own carpenter, and my
own plumber, and my own gardener, and my own Jack of all
Trades,” said Wemmick, in acknowledging my compliments.
“Well; it’s a good thing, you know. It brushes the Newgate
cobwebs away, and pleases the Aged. You wouldn’t mind
being at once introduced to the Aged, would you? It
wouldn’t put you out?”
I expressed the readiness I felt, and we went into the castle.
There we found, sitting by a fire, a very old man in a flan-
nel coat: clean, cheerful, comfortable, and well cared for, but
intensely deaf.
“Well aged parent,” said Wemmick, shaking hands with him
in a cordial and jocose way, “how am you?”
“All right, John; all right!” replied the old man.
“Here’s Mr. Pip, aged parent,” said Wemmick, “and I wish you
could hear his name. Nod away at him, Mr. Pip; that’s what
he likes. Nod away at him, if you please, like winking!”
“This is a fine place of my son’s, sir,” cried the old man, while I
nodded as hard as I possibly could. “This is a pretty pleasure-
ground, sir. This spot and these beautiful works upon it ought
to be kept together by the Nation, after my son’s time, for the
people’s enjoyment.”
“You’re as proud of it as Punch; ain’t you, Aged?” said Wem-

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mick, contemplating the old man, with his hard face really
softened; “there’s a nod for you;” giving him a tremendous
one; “there’s another for you;” giving him a still more tremen-
dous one; “you like that, don’t you? If you’re not tired, Mr.
Pip—though I know it’s tiring to strangers—will you tip him
one more? You can’t think how it pleases him.”
I tipped him several more, and he was in great spirits. We left
him bestirring himself to feed the fowls, and we sat down
to our punch in the arbor; where Wemmick told me, as he
smoked a pipe, that it had taken him a good many years to
bring the property up to its present pitch of perfection.
“Is it your own, Mr. Wemmick?”
“O yes,” said Wemmick, “I have got hold of it, a bit at a time.
It’s a freehold, by George!”
“Is it indeed? I hope Mr. Jaggers admires it?”
“Never seen it,” said Wemmick. “Never heard of it. Never
seen the Aged. Never heard of him. No; the office is one
thing, and private life is another. When I go into the office, I
leave the Castle behind me, and when I come into the Castle, I
leave the office behind me. If it’s not in any way disagreeable
to you, you’ll oblige me by doing the same. I don’t wish it
professionally spoken about.”
Of course I felt my good faith involved in the observance of
his request. The punch being very nice, we sat there drinking
it and talking, until it was almost nine o’clock. “Getting near
gun-fire,” said Wemmick then, as he laid down his pipe; “it’s

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the Aged’s treat.”
Proceeding into the Castle again, we found the Aged heating
the poker, with expectant eyes, as a preliminary to the perfor-
mance of this great nightly ceremony. Wemmick stood with
his watch in his hand until the moment was come for him to
take the red-hot poker from the Aged, and repair to the bat-
tery. He took it, and went out, and presently the Stinger went
off with a Bang that shook the crazy little box of a cottage as
if it must fall to pieces, and made every glass and teacup in
it ring. Upon this, the Aged—who I believe would have been
blown out of his arm-chair but for holding on by the elbows—
cried out exultingly, “He’s fired! I heerd him!” and I nodded
at the old gentleman until it is no figure of speech to declare
that I absolutely could not see him.
The interval between that time and supper Wemmick devoted
to showing me his collection of curiosities. They were mostly
of a felonious character; comprising the pen with which a cel-
ebrated forgery had been committed, a distinguished razor or
two, some locks of hair, and several manuscript confessions
written under condemnation,—upon which Mr. Wemmick
set particular value as being, to use his own words, “every
one of ’em Lies, sir.” These were agreeably dispersed among
small specimens of china and glass, various neat trifles made
by the proprietor of the museum, and some tobacco-stoppers
carved by the Aged. They were all displayed in that cham-
ber of the Castle into which I had been first inducted, and
which served, not only as the general sitting-room but as the
kitchen too, if I might judge from a saucepan on the hob, and

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a brazen bijou over the fireplace designed for the suspension
of a roasting-jack.
There was a neat little girl in attendance, who looked after
the Aged in the day. When she had laid the supper-cloth, the
bridge was lowered to give her means of egress, and she with-
drew for the night. The supper was excellent; and though the
Castle was rather subject to dry-rot insomuch that it tasted
like a bad nut, and though the pig might have been farther
off, I was heartily pleased with my whole entertainment. Nor
was there any drawback on my little turret bedroom, be-
yond there being such a very thin ceiling between me and the
flagstaff, that when I lay down on my back in bed, it seemed
as if I had to balance that pole on my forehead all night.
Wemmick was up early in the morning, and I am afraid I
heard him cleaning my boots. After that, he fell to gardening,
and I saw him from my gothic window pretending to employ
the Aged, and nodding at him in a most devoted manner. Our
breakfast was as good as the supper, and at half-past eight
precisely we started for Little Britain. By degrees, Wemmick
got dryer and harder as we went along, and his mouth tight-
ened into a post-office again. At last, when we got to his
place of business and he pulled out his key from his coat-
collar, he looked as unconscious of his Walworth property as
if the Castle and the drawbridge and the arbor and the lake
and the fountain and the Aged, had all been blown into space
together by the last discharge of the Stinger.

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Chapter XXVI
It fell out as Wemmick had told me it would, that I had an
early opportunity of comparing my guardian’s establishment
with that of his cashier and clerk. My guardian was in his
room, washing his hands with his scented soap, when I went
into the office from Walworth; and he called me to him, and
gave me the invitation for myself and friends which Wem-
mick had prepared me to receive. “No ceremony,” he stipu-
lated, “and no dinner dress, and say to-morrow.” I asked him
where we should come to (for I had no idea where he lived),
and I believe it was in his general objection to make anything
like an admission, that he replied, “Come here, and I’ll take
you home with me.” I embrace this opportunity of remark-
ing that he washed his clients off, as if he were a surgeon or a
dentist. He had a closet in his room, fitted up for the purpose,
which smelt of the scented soap like a perfumer’s shop. It
had an unusually large jack-towel on a roller inside the door,
and he would wash his hands, and wipe them and dry them
all over this towel, whenever he came in from a police court
or dismissed a client from his room. When I and my friends
repaired to him at six o’clock next day, he seemed to have
been engaged on a case of a darker complexion than usual,
for we found him with his head butted into this closet, not
only washing his hands, but laving his face and gargling his
throat. And even when he had done all that, and had gone all
round the jack-towel, he took out his penknife and scraped
the case out of his nails before he put his coat on.

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There were some people slinking about as usual when we
passed out into the street, who were evidently anxious to
speak with him; but there was something so conclusive in
the halo of scented soap which encircled his presence, that
they gave it up for that day. As we walked along westward,
he was recognized ever and again by some face in the crowd
of the streets, and whenever that happened he talked louder
to me; but he never otherwise recognized anybody, or took
notice that anybody recognized him.
He conducted us to Gerrard Street, Soho, to a house on the
south side of that street. Rather a stately house of its kind,
but dolefully in want of painting, and with dirty windows. He
took out his key and opened the door, and we all went into a
stone hall, bare, gloomy, and little used. So, up a dark brown
staircase into a series of three dark brown rooms on the first
floor. There were carved garlands on the panelled walls, and
as he stood among them giving us welcome, I know what
kind of loops I thought they looked like.
Dinner was laid in the best of these rooms; the second was
his dressing-room; the third, his bedroom. He told us that
he held the whole house, but rarely used more of it than we
saw. The table was comfortably laid—no silver in the service,
of course—and at the side of his chair was a capacious dumb-
waiter, with a variety of bottles and decanters on it, and four
dishes of fruit for dessert. I noticed throughout, that he kept
everything under his own hand, and distributed everything
himself.

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There was a bookcase in the room; I saw from the backs of the
books, that they were about evidence, criminal law, criminal
biography, trials, acts of Parliament, and such things. The
furniture was all very solid and good, like his watch-chain.
It had an official look, however, and there was nothing merely
ornamental to be seen. In a corner was a little table of papers
with a shaded lamp: so that he seemed to bring the office
home with him in that respect too, and to wheel it out of an
evening and fall to work.
As he had scarcely seen my three companions until now,—for
he and I had walked together,—he stood on the hearth-rug,
after ringing the bell, and took a searching look at them. To
my surprise, he seemed at once to be principally if not solely
interested in Drummle.
“Pip,” said he, putting his large hand on my shoulder and
moving me to the window, “I don’t know one from the other.
Who’s the Spider?”
“The spider?” said I.
“The blotchy, sprawly, sulky fellow.”
“That’s Bentley Drummle,” I replied; “the one with the deli-
cate face is Startop.”
Not making the least account of “the one with the delicate
face,” he returned, “Bentley Drummle is his name, is it? I like
the look of that fellow.”
He immediately began to talk to Drummle: not at all deterred

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by his replying in his heavy reticent way, but apparently led
on by it to screw discourse out of him. I was looking at
the two, when there came between me and them the house-
keeper, with the first dish for the table.
She was a woman of about forty, I supposed,—but I may have
thought her younger than she was. Rather tall, of a lithe nim-
ble figure, extremely pale, with large faded eyes, and a quan-
tity of streaming hair. I cannot say whether any diseased af-
fection of the heart caused her lips to be parted as if she were
panting, and her face to bear a curious expression of sudden-
ness and flutter; but I know that I had been to see Macbeth at
the theatre, a night or two before, and that her face looked to
me as if it were all disturbed by fiery air, like the faces I had
seen rise out of the Witches’ caldron.
She set the dish on, touched my guardian quietly on the arm
with a finger to notify that dinner was ready, and vanished.
We took our seats at the round table, and my guardian kept
Drummle on one side of him, while Startop sat on the other. It
was a noble dish of fish that the housekeeper had put on table,
and we had a joint of equally choice mutton afterwards, and
then an equally choice bird. Sauces, wines, all the accessories
we wanted, and all of the best, were given out by our host
from his dumb-waiter; and when they had made the circuit of
the table, he always put them back again. Similarly, he dealt
us clean plates and knives and forks, for each course, and
dropped those just disused into two baskets on the ground by
his chair. No other attendant than the housekeeper appeared.
She set on every dish; and I always saw in her face, a face

324
rising out of the caldron. Years afterwards, I made a dreadful
likeness of that woman, by causing a face that had no other
natural resemblance to it than it derived from flowing hair to
pass behind a bowl of flaming spirits in a dark room.
Induced to take particular notice of the housekeeper, both by
her own striking appearance and by Wemmick’s preparation,
I observed that whenever she was in the room she kept her
eyes attentively on my guardian, and that she would remove
her hands from any dish she put before him, hesitatingly, as
if she dreaded his calling her back, and wanted him to speak
when she was nigh, if he had anything to say. I fancied that
I could detect in his manner a consciousness of this, and a
purpose of always holding her in suspense.
Dinner went off gayly, and although my guardian seemed
to follow rather than originate subjects, I knew that he
wrenched the weakest part of our dispositions out of us. For
myself, I found that I was expressing my tendency to lavish
expenditure, and to patronize Herbert, and to boast of my
great prospects, before I quite knew that I had opened my
lips. It was so with all of us, but with no one more than
Drummle: the development of whose inclination to gird in a
grudging and suspicious way at the rest, was screwed out of
him before the fish was taken off.
It was not then, but when we had got to the cheese, that
our conversation turned upon our rowing feats, and that
Drummle was rallied for coming up behind of a night in that
slow amphibious way of his. Drummle upon this, informed

325
our host that he much preferred our room to our company,
and that as to skill he was more than our master, and that as
to strength he could scatter us like chaff. By some invisible
agency, my guardian wound him up to a pitch little short of
ferocity about this trifle; and he fell to baring and spanning
his arm to show how muscular it was, and we all fell to
baring and spanning our arms in a ridiculous manner.
Now the housekeeper was at that time clearing the table; my
guardian, taking no heed of her, but with the side of his face
turned from her, was leaning back in his chair biting the side
of his forefinger and showing an interest in Drummle, that,
to me, was quite inexplicable. Suddenly, he clapped his large
hand on the housekeeper’s, like a trap, as she stretched it
across the table. So suddenly and smartly did he do this, that
we all stopped in our foolish contention.
“If you talk of strength,” said Mr. Jaggers, “I ’ll show you a
wrist. Molly, let them see your wrist.”
Her entrapped hand was on the table, but she had already put
her other hand behind her waist. “Master,” she said, in a low
voice, with her eyes attentively and entreatingly fixed upon
him. “Don’t.”
“I ’ll show you a wrist,” repeated Mr. Jaggers, with an im-
movable determination to show it. “Molly, let them see your
wrist.”
“Master,” she again murmured. “Please!”
“Molly,” said Mr. Jaggers, not looking at her, but obstinately

326
looking at the opposite side of the room, “let them see both
your wrists. Show them. Come!”
He took his hand from hers, and turned that wrist up on the
table. She brought her other hand from behind her, and held
the two out side by side. The last wrist was much disfig-
ured,—deeply scarred and scarred across and across. When
she held her hands out she took her eyes from Mr. Jaggers,
and turned them watchfully on every one of the rest of us in
succession.
“There’s power here,” said Mr. Jaggers, coolly tracing out the
sinews with his forefinger. “Very few men have the power of
wrist that this woman has. It’s remarkable what mere force
of grip there is in these hands. I have had occasion to notice
many hands; but I never saw stronger in that respect, man’s
or woman’s, than these.”
While he said these words in a leisurely, critical style, she
continued to look at every one of us in regular succession
as we sat. The moment he ceased, she looked at him again.
“That’ll do, Molly,” said Mr. Jaggers, giving her a slight nod;
“you have been admired, and can go.” She withdrew her
hands and went out of the room, and Mr. Jaggers, putting
the decanters on from his dumb-waiter, filled his glass and
passed round the wine.
“At half-past nine, gentlemen,” said he, “we must break up.
Pray make the best use of your time. I am glad to see you all.
Mr. Drummle, I drink to you.”

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If his object in singling out Drummle were to bring him
out still more, it perfectly succeeded. In a sulky triumph,
Drummle showed his morose depreciation of the rest of
us, in a more and more offensive degree, until he became
downright intolerable. Through all his stages, Mr. Jaggers
followed him with the same strange interest. He actually
seemed to serve as a zest to Mr. Jaggers’s wine.
In our boyish want of discretion I dare say we took too much
to drink, and I know we talked too much. We became par-
ticularly hot upon some boorish sneer of Drummle’s, to the
effect that we were too free with our money. It led to my re-
marking, with more zeal than discretion, that it came with a
bad grace from him, to whom Startop had lent money in my
presence but a week or so before.
“Well,” retorted Drummle; “he’ll be paid.”
“I don’t mean to imply that he won’t,” said I, “but it might
make you hold your tongue about us and our money, I should
think.”
“You should think!” retorted Drummle. “Oh Lord!”
“I dare say,” I went on, meaning to be very severe, “that you
wouldn’t lend money to any of us if we wanted it.”
“You are right,” said Drummle. “I wouldn’t lend one of you a
sixpence. I wouldn’t lend anybody a sixpence.”
“Rather mean to borrow under those circumstances, I should
say.”

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“You should say,” repeated Drummle. “Oh Lord!”
This was so very aggravating—the more especially as I found
myself making no way against his surly obtuseness—that I
said, disregarding Herbert’s efforts to check me,—
“Come, Mr. Drummle, since we are on the subject, I’ll tell
you what passed between Herbert here and me, when you
borrowed that money.”
“I don’t want to know what passed between Herbert there
and you,” growled Drummle. And I think he added in a lower
growl, that we might both go to the devil and shake ourselves.
“I’ll tell you, however,” said I, “whether you want to know or
not. We said that as you put it in your pocket very glad to
get it, you seemed to be immensely amused at his being so
weak as to lend it.”
Drummle laughed outright, and sat laughing in our faces,
with his hands in his pockets and his round shoulders raised;
plainly signifying that it was quite true, and that he despised
us as asses all.
Hereupon Startop took him in hand, though with a much bet-
ter grace than I had shown, and exhorted him to be a little
more agreeable. Startop, being a lively, bright young fellow,
and Drummle being the exact opposite, the latter was always
disposed to resent him as a direct personal affront. He now
retorted in a coarse, lumpish way, and Startop tried to turn
the discussion aside with some small pleasantry that made us
all laugh. Resenting this little success more than anything,

329
Drummle, without any threat or warning, pulled his hands
out of his pockets, dropped his round shoulders, swore, took
up a large glass, and would have flung it at his adversary’s
head, but for our entertainer’s dexterously seizing it at the
instant when it was raised for that purpose.
“Gentlemen,” said Mr. Jaggers, deliberately putting down the
glass, and hauling out his gold repeater by its massive chain,
“I am exceedingly sorry to announce that it’s half past nine.”
On this hint we all rose to depart. Before we got to the street
door, Startop was cheerily calling Drummle “old boy,” as if
nothing had happened. But the old boy was so far from re-
sponding, that he would not even walk to Hammersmith on
the same side of the way; so Herbert and I, who remained
in town, saw them going down the street on opposite sides;
Startop leading, and Drummle lagging behind in the shadow
of the houses, much as he was wont to follow in his boat.
As the door was not yet shut, I thought I would leave Herbert
there for a moment, and run upstairs again to say a word to
my guardian. I found him in his dressing-room surrounded
by his stock of boots, already hard at it, washing his hands of
us.
I told him I had come up again to say how sorry I was that
anything disagreeable should have occurred, and that I hoped
he would not blame me much.
“Pooh!” said he, sluicing his face, and speaking through the
water-drops; “it’s nothing, Pip. I like that Spider though.”

330
He had turned towards me now, and was shaking his head,
and blowing, and towelling himself.
“I am glad you like him, sir,” said I—“but I don’t.”
“No, no,” my guardian assented; “don’t have too much to do
with him. Keep as clear of him as you can. But I like the
fellow, Pip; he is one of the true sort. Why, if I was a fortune-
teller—”
Looking out of the towel, he caught my eye.
“But I am not a fortune-teller,” he said, letting his head drop
into a festoon of towel, and towelling away at his two ears.
“You know what I am, don’t you? Good night, Pip.”
“Good night, sir.”
In about a month after that, the Spider’s time with Mr. Pocket
was up for good, and, to the great relief of all the house but
Mrs. Pocket, he went home to the family hole.

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Chapter XXVII
“MY DEAR MR PIP:—
“I write this by request of Mr. Gargery, for to let you know
that he is going to London in company with Mr. Wopsle
and would be glad if agreeable to be allowed to see you.
He would call at Barnard’s Hotel Tuesday morning at nine
o’clock, when if not agreeable please leave word. Your poor
sister is much the same as when you left. We talk of you in
the kitchen every night, and wonder what you are saying
and doing. If now considered in the light of a liberty, excuse
it for the love of poor old days. No more, dear Mr. Pip, from
your ever obliged, and affectionate servant,
“BIDDY.”
“P.S. He wishes me most particular to write what larks. He
says you will understand. I hope and do not doubt it will be
agreeable to see him, even though a gentleman, for you had
ever a good heart, and he is a worthy, worthy man. I have
read him all, excepting only the last little sentence, and he
wishes me most particular to write again what larks.”
I received this letter by the post on Monday morning, and
therefore its appointment was for next day. Let me confess
exactly with what feelings I looked forward to Joe’s coming.
Not with pleasure, though I was bound to him by so many
ties; no; with considerable disturbance, some mortification,
and a keen sense of incongruity. If I could have kept him

332
away by paying money, I certainly would have paid money.
My greatest reassurance was that he was coming to Barnard’s
Inn, not to Hammersmith, and consequently would not fall
in Bentley Drummle’s way. I had little objection to his be-
ing seen by Herbert or his father, for both of whom I had a
respect; but I had the sharpest sensitiveness as to his being
seen by Drummle, whom I held in contempt. So, through-
out life, our worst weaknesses and meannesses are usually
committed for the sake of the people whom we most despise.
I had begun to be always decorating the chambers in some
quite unnecessary and inappropriate way or other, and very
expensive those wrestles with Barnard proved to be. By this
time, the rooms were vastly different from what I had found
them, and I enjoyed the honor of occupying a few prominent
pages in the books of a neighboring upholsterer. I had got
on so fast of late, that I had even started a boy in boots,—top
boots,—in bondage and slavery to whom I might have been
said to pass my days. For, after I had made the monster (out
of the refuse of my washerwoman’s family), and had clothed
him with a blue coat, canary waistcoat, white cravat, creamy
breeches, and the boots already mentioned, I had to find him
a little to do and a great deal to eat; and with both of those
horrible requirements he haunted my existence.
This avenging phantom was ordered to be on duty at eight
on Tuesday morning in the hall, (it was two feet square, as
charged for floorcloth,) and Herbert suggested certain things
for breakfast that he thought Joe would like. While I felt sin-
cerely obliged to him for being so interested and considerate,

333
I had an odd half-provoked sense of suspicion upon me, that
if Joe had been coming to see him, he wouldn’t have been
quite so brisk about it.
However, I came into town on the Monday night to be ready
for Joe, and I got up early in the morning, and caused the
sitting-room and breakfast-table to assume their most splen-
did appearance. Unfortunately the morning was drizzly, and
an angel could not have concealed the fact that Barnard was
shedding sooty tears outside the window, like some weak gi-
ant of a Sweep.
As the time approached I should have liked to run away, but
the Avenger pursuant to orders was in the hall, and presently
I heard Joe on the staircase. I knew it was Joe, by his clumsy
manner of coming upstairs,—his state boots being always too
big for him,—and by the time it took him to read the names
on the other floors in the course of his ascent. When at last he
stopped outside our door, I could hear his finger tracing over
the painted letters of my name, and I afterwards distinctly
heard him breathing in at the keyhole. Finally he gave a faint
single rap, and Pepper—such was the compromising name of
the avenging boy—announced “Mr. Gargery!” I thought he
never would have done wiping his feet, and that I must have
gone out to lift him off the mat, but at last he came in.
“Joe, how are you, Joe?”
“Pip, how AIR you, Pip?”
With his good honest face all glowing and shining, and his

334
hat put down on the floor between us, he caught both my
hands and worked them straight up and down, as if I had
been the last-patented Pump.
“I am glad to see you, Joe. Give me your hat.”
But Joe, taking it up carefully with both hands, like a bird’s-
nest with eggs in it, wouldn’t hear of parting with that piece
of property, and persisted in standing talking over it in a most
uncomfortable way.
“Which you have that growed,” said Joe, “and that swelled,
and that gentle-folked;” Joe considered a little before he dis-
covered this word; “as to be sure you are a honor to your king
and country.”
“And you, Joe, look wonderfully well.”
“Thank God,” said Joe, “I’m ekerval to most. And your sister,
she’s no worse than she were. And Biddy, she’s ever right
and ready. And all friends is no backerder, if not no forarder.
’Ceptin Wopsle; he’s had a drop.”
All this time (still with both hands taking great care of the
bird’s-nest), Joe was rolling his eyes round and round the
room, and round and round the flowered pattern of my
dressing-gown.
“Had a drop, Joe?”
“Why yes,” said Joe, lowering his voice, “he’s left the Church
and went into the playacting. Which the playacting have
likeways brought him to London along with me. And his

335
wish were,” said Joe, getting the bird’s-nest under his left arm
for the moment, and groping in it for an egg with his right;
“if no offence, as I would ’and you that.”
I took what Joe gave me, and found it to be the crumpled
play-bill of a small metropolitan theatre, announcing the first
appearance, in that very week, of “the celebrated Provincial
Amateur of Roscian renown, whose unique performance in
the highest tragic walk of our National Bard has lately occa-
sioned so great a sensation in local dramatic circles.”
“Were you at his performance, Joe?” I inquired.
“I were,” said Joe, with emphasis and solemnity.
“Was there a great sensation?”
“Why,” said Joe, “yes, there certainly were a peck of orange-
peel. Partickler when he see the ghost. Though I put it to
yourself, sir, whether it were calc’lated to keep a man up to
his work with a good hart, to be continiwally cutting in be-
twixt him and the Ghost with “Amen!” A man may have had
a misfortun’ and been in the Church,” said Joe, lowering his
voice to an argumentative and feeling tone, “but that is no
reason why you should put him out at such a time. Which I
meantersay, if the ghost of a man’s own father cannot be al-
lowed to claim his attention, what can, Sir? Still more, when
his mourning ’at is unfortunately made so small as that the
weight of the black feathers brings it off, try to keep it on
how you may.”
A ghost-seeing effect in Joe’s own countenance informed me

336
that Herbert had entered the room. So, I presented Joe to
Herbert, who held out his hand; but Joe backed from it, and
held on by the bird’s-nest.
“Your servant, Sir,” said Joe, “which I hope as you and
Pip”—here his eye fell on the Avenger, who was putting
some toast on table, and so plainly denoted an intention
to make that young gentleman one of the family, that I
frowned it down and confused him more—“I meantersay,
you two gentlemen,—which I hope as you get your elths in
this close spot? For the present may be a werry good inn,
according to London opinions,” said Joe, confidentially, “and
I believe its character do stand it; but I wouldn’t keep a pig
in it myself,—not in the case that I wished him to fatten
wholesome and to eat with a meller flavor on him.”
Having borne this flattering testimony to the merits of our
dwelling-place, and having incidentally shown this tendency
to call me “sir,” Joe, being invited to sit down to table, looked
all round the room for a suitable spot on which to deposit his
hat,—as if it were only on some very few rare substances in
nature that it could find a resting place,—and ultimately stood
it on an extreme corner of the chimney-piece, from which it
ever afterwards fell off at intervals.
“Do you take tea, or coffee, Mr. Gargery?” asked Herbert,
who always presided of a morning.
“Thankee, Sir,” said Joe, stiff from head to foot, “I’ll take
whichever is most agreeable to yourself.”

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“What do you say to coffee?”
“Thankee, Sir,” returned Joe, evidently dispirited by the pro-
posal, “since you are so kind as make chice of coffee, I will
not run contrairy to your own opinions. But don’t you never
find it a little ’eating?”
“Say tea then,” said Herbert, pouring it out.
Here Joe’s hat tumbled off the mantel-piece, and he started
out of his chair and picked it up, and fitted it to the same exact
spot. As if it were an absolute point of good breeding that it
should tumble off again soon.
“When did you come to town, Mr. Gargery?”
“Were it yesterday afternoon?” said Joe, after coughing be-
hind his hand, as if he had had time to catch the whooping-
cough since he came. “No it were not. Yes it were. Yes. It
were yesterday afternoon” (with an appearance of mingled
wisdom, relief, and strict impartiality).
“Have you seen anything of London yet?”
“Why, yes, Sir,” said Joe, “me and Wopsle went off straight to
look at the Blacking Ware’us. But we didn’t find that it come
up to its likeness in the red bills at the shop doors; which I
meantersay,” added Joe, in an explanatory manner, “as it is
there drawd too architectooralooral.”
I really believe Joe would have prolonged this word (mightily
expressive to my mind of some architecture that I know) into

338
a perfect Chorus, but for his attention being providentially at-
tracted by his hat, which was toppling. Indeed, it demanded
from him a constant attention, and a quickness of eye and
hand, very like that exacted by wicket-keeping. He made ex-
traordinary play with it, and showed the greatest skill; now,
rushing at it and catching it neatly as it dropped; now, merely
stopping it midway, beating it up, and humoring it in various
parts of the room and against a good deal of the pattern of
the paper on the wall, before he felt it safe to close with it; fi-
nally splashing it into the slop-basin, where I took the liberty
of laying hands upon it.
As to his shirt-collar, and his coat-collar, they were perplex-
ing to reflect upon,—insoluble mysteries both. Why should a
man scrape himself to that extent, before he could consider
himself full dressed? Why should he suppose it necessary to
be purified by suffering for his holiday clothes? Then he fell
into such unaccountable fits of meditation, with his fork mid-
way between his plate and his mouth; had his eyes attracted
in such strange directions; was afflicted with such remark-
able coughs; sat so far from the table, and dropped so much
more than he ate, and pretended that he hadn’t dropped it;
that I was heartily glad when Herbert left us for the City.
I had neither the good sense nor the good feeling to know that
this was all my fault, and that if I had been easier with Joe,
Joe would have been easier with me. I felt impatient of him
and out of temper with him; in which condition he heaped
coals of fire on my head.

339
“Us two being now alone, sir,”—began Joe.
“Joe,” I interrupted, pettishly, “how can you call me, sir?”
Joe looked at me for a single instant with something faintly
like reproach. Utterly preposterous as his cravat was, and as
his collars were, I was conscious of a sort of dignity in the
look.
“Us two being now alone,” resumed Joe, “and me having the
intentions and abilities to stay not many minutes more, I will
now conclude—leastways begin—to mention what have led
to my having had the present honor. For was it not,” said
Joe, with his old air of lucid exposition, “that my only wish
were to be useful to you, I should not have had the honor of
breaking wittles in the company and abode of gentlemen.”
I was so unwilling to see the look again, that I made no re-
monstrance against this tone.
“Well, sir,” pursued Joe, “this is how it were. I were at the
Bargemen t’other night, Pip;”—whenever he subsided into
affection, he called me Pip, and whenever he relapsed into
politeness he called me sir; “when there come up in his shay-
cart, Pumblechook. Which that same identical,” said Joe, go-
ing down a new track, “do comb my ’air the wrong way some-
times, awful, by giving out up and down town as it were him
which ever had your infant companionation and were looked
upon as a playfellow by yourself.”
“Nonsense. It was you, Joe.”

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“Which I fully believed it were, Pip,” said Joe, slightly tossing
his head, “though it signify little now, sir. Well, Pip; this same
identical, which his manners is given to blusterous, come to
me at the Bargemen (wot a pipe and a pint of beer do give
refreshment to the workingman, sir, and do not over stimi-
late), and his word were, ‘Joseph, Miss Havisham she wish to
speak to you.’ ”
“Miss Havisham, Joe?”
“ ‘She wish,’ were Pumblechook’s word, ‘to speak to you.’ ”
Joe sat and rolled his eyes at the ceiling.
“Yes, Joe? Go on, please.”
“Next day, sir,” said Joe, looking at me as if I were a long way
off, “having cleaned myself, I go and I see Miss A.”
“Miss A., Joe? Miss Havisham?”
“Which I say, sir,” replied Joe, with an air of legal formality, as
if he were making his will, “Miss A., or otherways Havisham.
Her expression air then as follering: ‘Mr. Gargery. You air
in correspondence with Mr. Pip?’ Having had a letter from
you, I were able to say ‘I am.’ (When I married your sister, sir,
I said ‘I will;’ and when I answered your friend, Pip, I said ‘I
am.’) ‘Would you tell him, then,’ said she, ‘that which Estella
has come home and would be glad to see him.’ ”
I felt my face fire up as I looked at Joe. I hope one remote
cause of its firing may have been my consciousness that if I
had known his errand, I should have given him more encour-

341
agement.
“Biddy,” pursued Joe, “when I got home and asked her fur to
write the message to you, a little hung back. Biddy says, ‘I
know he will be very glad to have it by word of mouth, it
is holiday time, you want to see him, go!’ I have now con-
cluded, sir,” said Joe, rising from his chair, “and, Pip, I wish
you ever well and ever prospering to a greater and a greater
height.”
“But you are not going now, Joe?”
“Yes I am,” said Joe.
“But you are coming back to dinner, Joe?”
“No I am not,” said Joe.
Our eyes met, and all the “Sir” melted out of that manly heart
as he gave me his hand.
“Pip, dear old chap, life is made of ever so many partings
welded together, as I may say, and one man’s a blacksmith,
and one’s a whitesmith, and one’s a goldsmith, and one’s a
coppersmith. Diwisions among such must come, and must be
met as they come. If there’s been any fault at all to-day, it’s
mine. You and me is not two figures to be together in London;
nor yet anywheres else but what is private, and beknown,
and understood among friends. It ain’t that I am proud, but
that I want to be right, as you shall never see me no more
in these clothes. I’m wrong in these clothes. I’m wrong out
of the forge, the kitchen, or off th’ meshes. You won’t find

342
half so much fault in me if you think of me in my forge dress,
with my hammer in my hand, or even my pipe. You won’t
find half so much fault in me if, supposing as you should ever
wish to see me, you come and put your head in at the forge
window and see Joe the blacksmith, there, at the old anvil, in
the old burnt apron, sticking to the old work. I’m awful dull,
but I hope I’ve beat out something nigh the rights of this at
last. And so GOD bless you, dear old Pip, old chap, GOD bless
you!”
I had not been mistaken in my fancy that there was a simple
dignity in him. The fashion of his dress could no more come
in its way when he spoke these words than it could come in
its way in Heaven. He touched me gently on the forehead,
and went out. As soon as I could recover myself sufficiently,
I hurried out after him and looked for him in the neighboring
streets; but he was gone.

343
Chapter XXVIII
It was clear that I must repair to our town next day, and in
the first flow of my repentance, it was equally clear that I
must stay at Joe’s. But, when I had secured my box-place by
to-morrow’s coach, and had been down to Mr. Pocket’s and
back, I was not by any means convinced on the last point,
and began to invent reasons and make excuses for putting
up at the Blue Boar. I should be an inconvenience at Joe’s; I
was not expected, and my bed would not be ready; I should
be too far from Miss Havisham’s, and she was exacting and
mightn’t like it. All other swindlers upon earth are noth-
ing to the self-swindlers, and with such pretences did I cheat
myself. Surely a curious thing. That I should innocently take
a bad half-crown of somebody else’s manufacture is reason-
able enough; but that I should knowingly reckon the spurious
coin of my own make as good money! An obliging stranger,
under pretence of compactly folding up my bank-notes for
security’s sake, abstracts the notes and gives me nutshells;
but what is his sleight of hand to mine, when I fold up my
own nutshells and pass them on myself as notes!
Having settled that I must go to the Blue Boar, my mind
was much disturbed by indecision whether or not to take
the Avenger. It was tempting to think of that expensive
Mercenary publicly airing his boots in the archway of the
Blue Boar’s posting-yard; it was almost solemn to imagine
him casually produced in the tailor’s shop, and confounding
the disrespectful senses of Trabb’s boy. On the other hand,

344
Trabb’s boy might worm himself into his intimacy and tell
him things; or, reckless and desperate wretch as I knew he
could be, might hoot him in the High Street. My patroness,
too, might hear of him, and not approve. On the whole, I
resolved to leave the Avenger behind.
It was the afternoon coach by which I had taken my place,
and, as winter had now come round, I should not arrive at
my destination until two or three hours after dark. Our time
of starting from the Cross Keys was two o’clock. I arrived on
the ground with a quarter of an hour to spare, attended by
the Avenger,—if I may connect that expression with one who
never attended on me if he could possibly help it.
At that time it was customary to carry Convicts down to the
dock-yards by stage-coach. As I had often heard of them in
the capacity of outside passengers, and had more than once
seen them on the high road dangling their ironed legs over
the coach roof, I had no cause to be surprised when Herbert,
meeting me in the yard, came up and told me there were two
convicts going down with me. But I had a reason that was
an old reason now for constitutionally faltering whenever I
heard the word “convict.”
“You don’t mind them, Handel?” said Herbert.
“O no!”
“I thought you seemed as if you didn’t like them?”
“I can’t pretend that I do like them, and I suppose you don’t
particularly. But I don’t mind them.”

345
“See! There they are,” said Herbert, “coming out of the Tap.
What a degraded and vile sight it is!”
They had been treating their guard, I suppose, for they had a
gaoler with them, and all three came out wiping their mouths
on their hands. The two convicts were handcuffed together,
and had irons on their legs,—irons of a pattern that I knew
well. They wore the dress that I likewise knew well. Their
keeper had a brace of pistols, and carried a thick-knobbed
bludgeon under his arm; but he was on terms of good under-
standing with them, and stood with them beside him, look-
ing on at the putting-to of the horses, rather with an air as
if the convicts were an interesting Exhibition not formally
open at the moment, and he the Curator. One was a taller
and stouter man than the other, and appeared as a matter of
course, according to the mysterious ways of the world, both
convict and free, to have had allotted to him the smaller suit
of clothes. His arms and legs were like great pincushions
of those shapes, and his attire disguised him absurdly; but I
knew his half-closed eye at one glance. There stood the man
whom I had seen on the settle at the Three Jolly Bargemen
on a Saturday night, and who had brought me down with his
invisible gun!
It was easy to make sure that as yet he knew me no more than
if he had never seen me in his life. He looked across at me,
and his eye appraised my watch-chain, and then he inciden-
tally spat and said something to the other convict, and they
laughed and slued themselves round with a clink of their cou-
pling manacle, and looked at something else. The great num-

346
bers on their backs, as if they were street doors; their coarse
mangy ungainly outer surface, as if they were lower ani-
mals; their ironed legs, apologetically garlanded with pocket-
handkerchiefs; and the way in which all present looked at
them and kept from them; made them (as Herbert had said)
a most disagreeable and degraded spectacle.
But this was not the worst of it. It came out that the whole of
the back of the coach had been taken by a family removing
from London, and that there were no places for the two pris-
oners but on the seat in front behind the coachman. Here-
upon, a choleric gentleman, who had taken the fourth place
on that seat, flew into a most violent passion, and said that
it was a breach of contract to mix him up with such villain-
ous company, and that it was poisonous, and pernicious, and
infamous, and shameful, and I don’t know what else. At
this time the coach was ready and the coachman impatient,
and we were all preparing to get up, and the prisoners had
come over with their keeper,—bringing with them that cu-
rious flavor of bread-poultice, baize, rope-yarn, and hearth-
stone, which attends the convict presence.
“Don’t take it so much amiss, sir,” pleaded the keeper to the
angry passenger; “I’ll sit next you myself. I’ll put ’em on the
outside of the row. They won’t interfere with you, sir. You
needn’t know they’re there.”
“And don’t blame me,” growled the convict I had recognized.
“I don’t want to go. I am quite ready to stay behind. As fur
as I am concerned any one’s welcome to my place.”

347
“Or mine,” said the other, gruffly. “I wouldn’t have incom-
moded none of you, if I’d had my way.” Then they both
laughed, and began cracking nuts, and spitting the shells
about.—As I really think I should have liked to do myself, if I
had been in their place and so despised.
At length, it was voted that there was no help for the angry
gentleman, and that he must either go in his chance company
or remain behind. So he got into his place, still making com-
plaints, and the keeper got into the place next him, and the
convicts hauled themselves up as well as they could, and the
convict I had recognized sat behind me with his breath on the
hair of my head.
“Good-bye, Handel!” Herbert called out as we started. I
thought what a blessed fortune it was, that he had found
another name for me than Pip.
It is impossible to express with what acuteness I felt the con-
vict’s breathing, not only on the back of my head, but all
along my spine. The sensation was like being touched in the
marrow with some pungent and searching acid, it set my very
teeth on edge. He seemed to have more breathing business
to do than another man, and to make more noise in doing it;
and I was conscious of growing high-shouldered on one side,
in my shrinking endeavors to fend him off.
The weather was miserably raw, and the two cursed the cold.
It made us all lethargic before we had gone far, and when we
had left the Half-way House behind, we habitually dozed and
shivered and were silent. I dozed off, myself, in considering

348
the question whether I ought to restore a couple of pounds
sterling to this creature before losing sight of him, and how it
could best be done. In the act of dipping forward as if I were
going to bathe among the horses, I woke in a fright and took
the question up again.
But I must have lost it longer than I had thought, since, al-
though I could recognize nothing in the darkness and the fit-
ful lights and shadows of our lamps, I traced marsh country
in the cold damp wind that blew at us. Cowering forward
for warmth and to make me a screen against the wind, the
convicts were closer to me than before. The very first words
I heard them interchange as I became conscious, were the
words of my own thought, “Two One Pound notes.”
“How did he get ’em?” said the convict I had never seen.
“How should I know?” returned the other. “He had ’em
stowed away somehows. Giv him by friends, I expect.”
“I wish,” said the other, with a bitter curse upon the cold, “that
I had ’em here.”
“Two one pound notes, or friends?”
“Two one pound notes. I’d sell all the friends I ever had for
one, and think it a blessed good bargain. Well? So he says—?”
“So he says,” resumed the convict I had recognized,—“it was
all said and done in half a minute, behind a pile of timber in
the Dock-yard,—’You’re a going to be discharged?’ Yes, I was.
Would I find out that boy that had fed him and kep his secret,

349
and give him them two one pound notes? Yes, I would. And
I did.”
“More fool you,” growled the other. “I’d have spent ’em on a
Man, in wittles and drink. He must have been a green one.
Mean to say he knowed nothing of you?”
“Not a ha’porth. Different gangs and different ships. He was
tried again for prison breaking, and got made a Lifer.”
“And was that—Honor!—the only time you worked out, in
this part of the country?”
“The only time.”
“What might have been your opinion of the place?”
“A most beastly place. Mudbank, mist, swamp, and work;
work, swamp, mist, and mudbank.”
They both execrated the place in very strong language, and
gradually growled themselves out, and had nothing left to
say.
After overhearing this dialogue, I should assuredly have got
down and been left in the solitude and darkness of the high-
way, but for feeling certain that the man had no suspicion of
my identity. Indeed, I was not only so changed in the course
of nature, but so differently dressed and so differently cir-
cumstanced, that it was not at all likely he could have known
me without accidental help. Still, the coincidence of our be-
ing together on the coach, was sufficiently strange to fill me

350
with a dread that some other coincidence might at any mo-
ment connect me, in his hearing, with my name. For this rea-
son, I resolved to alight as soon as we touched the town, and
put myself out of his hearing. This device I executed success-
fully. My little portmanteau was in the boot under my feet; I
had but to turn a hinge to get it out; I threw it down before
me, got down after it, and was left at the first lamp on the
first stones of the town pavement. As to the convicts, they
went their way with the coach, and I knew at what point they
would be spirited off to the river. In my fancy, I saw the boat
with its convict crew waiting for them at the slime-washed
stairs,—again heard the gruff “Give way, you!” like and order
to dogs,—again saw the wicked Noah’s Ark lying out on the
black water.
I could not have said what I was afraid of, for my fear was al-
together undefined and vague, but there was great fear upon
me. As I walked on to the hotel, I felt that a dread, much ex-
ceeding the mere apprehension of a painful or disagreeable
recognition, made me tremble. I am confident that it took no
distinctness of shape, and that it was the revival for a few
minutes of the terror of childhood.
The coffee-room at the Blue Boar was empty, and I had not
only ordered my dinner there, but had sat down to it, before
the waiter knew me. As soon as he had apologized for the re-
missness of his memory, he asked me if he should send Boots
for Mr. Pumblechook?
“No,” said I, “certainly not.”

351
The waiter (it was he who had brought up the Great Re-
monstrance from the Commercials, on the day when I was
bound) appeared surprised, and took the earliest opportunity
of putting a dirty old copy of a local newspaper so directly in
my way, that I took it up and read this paragraph:—
Our readers will learn, not altogether without interest, in ref-
erence to the recent romantic rise in fortune of a young ar-
tificer in iron of this neighborhood (what a theme, by the
way, for the magic pen of our as yet not universally acknowl-
edged townsman TOOBY, the poet of our columns!) that
the youth’s earliest patron, companion, and friend, was a
highly respected individual not entirely unconnected with
the corn and seed trade, and whose eminently convenient
and commodious business premises are situate within a hun-
dred miles of the High Street. It is not wholly irrespective
of our personal feelings that we record HIM as the Mentor
of our young Telemachus, for it is good to know that our
town produced the founder of the latter’s fortunes. Does
the thought-contracted brow of the local Sage or the lustrous
eye of local Beauty inquire whose fortunes? We believe that
Quintin Matsys was the BLACKSMITH of Antwerp. VERB.
SAP.
I entertain a conviction, based upon large experience, that if
in the days of my prosperity I had gone to the North Pole, I
should have met somebody there, wandering Esquimaux or
civilized man, who would have told me that Pumblechook
was my earliest patron and the founder of my fortunes.

352
Chapter XXIX
Betimes in the morning I was up and out. It was too early
yet to go to Miss Havisham’s, so I loitered into the country
on Miss Havisham’s side of town,—which was not Joe’s side;
I could go there to-morrow,—thinking about my patroness,
and painting brilliant pictures of her plans for me.
She had adopted Estella, she had as good as adopted me,
and it could not fail to be her intention to bring us together.
She reserved it for me to restore the desolate house, admit
the sunshine into the dark rooms, set the clocks a-going and
the cold hearths a-blazing, tear down the cobwebs, destroy
the vermin,—in short, do all the shining deeds of the young
Knight of romance, and marry the Princess. I had stopped
to look at the house as I passed; and its seared red brick
walls, blocked windows, and strong green ivy clasping even
the stacks of chimneys with its twigs and tendons, as if with
sinewy old arms, had made up a rich attractive mystery, of
which I was the hero. Estella was the inspiration of it, and
the heart of it, of course. But, though she had taken such
strong possession of me, though my fancy and my hope were
so set upon her, though her influence on my boyish life and
character had been all-powerful, I did not, even that roman-
tic morning, invest her with any attributes save those she
possessed. I mention this in this place, of a fixed purpose, be-
cause it is the clew by which I am to be followed into my poor
labyrinth. According to my experience, the conventional no-
tion of a lover cannot be always true. The unqualified truth

353
is, that when I loved Estella with the love of a man, I loved her
simply because I found her irresistible. Once for all; I knew
to my sorrow, often and often, if not always, that I loved her
against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope,
against happiness, against all discouragement that could be.
Once for all; I loved her none the less because I knew it, and
it had no more influence in restraining me than if I had de-
voutly believed her to be human perfection.
I so shaped out my walk as to arrive at the gate at my old
time. When I had rung at the bell with an unsteady hand, I
turned my back upon the gate, while I tried to get my breath
and keep the beating of my heart moderately quiet. I heard
the side-door open, and steps come across the courtyard; but
I pretended not to hear, even when the gate swung on its
rusty hinges.
Being at last touched on the shoulder, I started and turned. I
started much more naturally then, to find myself confronted
by a man in a sober gray dress. The last man I should have
expected to see in that place of porter at Miss Havisham’s
door.
“Orlick!”
“Ah, young master, there’s more changes than yours. But
come in, come in. It’s opposed to my orders to hold the gate
open.”
I entered and he swung it, and locked it, and took the key out.
“Yes!” said he, facing round, after doggedly preceding me a

354
few steps towards the house. “Here I am!”
“How did you come here?”
“I come her,” he retorted, “on my legs. I had my box brought
alongside me in a barrow.”
“Are you here for good?”
“I ain’t here for harm, young master, I suppose?”
I was not so sure of that. I had leisure to entertain the retort
in my mind, while he slowly lifted his heavy glance from the
pavement, up my legs and arms, to my face.
“Then you have left the forge?” I said.
“Do this look like a forge?” replied Orlick, sending his glance
all round him with an air of injury. “Now, do it look like it?”
I asked him how long he had left Gargery’s forge?
“One day is so like another here,” he replied, “that I don’t
know without casting it up. However, I come here some time
since you left.”
“I could have told you that, Orlick.”
“Ah!” said he, dryly. “But then you’ve got to be a scholar.”
By this time we had come to the house, where I found his
room to be one just within the side-door, with a little window
in it looking on the courtyard. In its small proportions, it was
not unlike the kind of place usually assigned to a gate-porter
in Paris. Certain keys were hanging on the wall, to which he

355
now added the gate key; and his patchwork-covered bed was
in a little inner division or recess. The whole had a slovenly,
confined, and sleepy look, like a cage for a human dormouse;
while he, looming dark and heavy in the shadow of a corner
by the window, looked like the human dormouse for whom
it was fitted up,—as indeed he was.
“I never saw this room before,” I remarked; “but there used
to be no Porter here.”
“No,” said he; “not till it got about that there was no protec-
tion on the premises, and it come to be considered danger-
ous, with convicts and Tag and Rag and Bobtail going up and
down. And then I was recommended to the place as a man
who could give another man as good as he brought, and I
took it. It’s easier than bellowsing and hammering.—That’s
loaded, that is.”
My eye had been caught by a gun with a brass-bound stock
over the chimney-piece, and his eye had followed mine.
“Well,” said I, not desirous of more conversation, “shall I go
up to Miss Havisham?”
“Burn me, if I know!” he retorted, first stretching himself and
then shaking himself; “my orders ends here, young master. I
give this here bell a rap with this here hammer, and you go
on along the passage till you meet somebody.”
“I am expected, I believe?”
“Burn me twice over, if I can say!” said he.

356
Upon that, I turned down the long passage which I had first
trodden in my thick boots, and he made his bell sound. At
the end of the passage, while the bell was still reverberating,
I found Sarah Pocket, who appeared to have now become
constitutionally green and yellow by reason of me.
“Oh!” said she. “You, is it, Mr. Pip?”
“It is, Miss Pocket. I am glad to tell you that Mr. Pocket and
family are all well.”
“Are they any wiser?” said Sarah, with a dismal shake of
the head; “they had better be wiser, than well. Ah, Matthew,
Matthew! You know your way, sir?”
Tolerably, for I had gone up the staircase in the dark, many
a time. I ascended it now, in lighter boots than of yore, and
tapped in my old way at the door of Miss Havisham’s room.
“Pip’s rap,” I heard her say, immediately; “come in, Pip.”
She was in her chair near the old table, in the old dress, with
her two hands crossed on her stick, her chin resting on them,
and her eyes on the fire. Sitting near her, with the white shoe,
that had never been worn, in her hand, and her head bent as
she looked at it, was an elegant lady whom I had never seen.
“Come in, Pip,” Miss Havisham continued to mutter, without
looking round or up; “come in, Pip, how do you do, Pip? so
you kiss my hand as if I were a queen, eh?—Well?”
She looked up at me suddenly, only moving her eyes, and
repeated in a grimly playful manner,—

357
“Well?”
“I heard, Miss Havisham,” said I, rather at a loss, “that you
were so kind as to wish me to come and see you, and I came
directly.”
“Well?”
The lady whom I had never seen before, lifted up her eyes
and looked archly at me, and then I saw that the eyes were
Estella’s eyes. But she was so much changed, was so much
more beautiful, so much more womanly, in all things winning
admiration, had made such wonderful advance, that I seemed
to have made none. I fancied, as I looked at her, that I slipped
hopelessly back into the coarse and common boy again. O
the sense of distance and disparity that came upon me, and
the inaccessibility that came about her!
She gave me her hand. I stammered something about the
pleasure I felt in seeing her again, and about my having
looked forward to it, for a long, long time.
“Do you find her much changed, Pip?” asked Miss Havisham,
with her greedy look, and striking her stick upon a chair that
stood between them, as a sign to me to sit down there.
“When I came in, Miss Havisham, I thought there was noth-
ing of Estella in the face or figure; but now it all settles down
so curiously into the old—”
“What? You are not going to say into the old Estella?” Miss
Havisham interrupted. “She was proud and insulting, and

358
you wanted to go away from her. Don’t you remember?”
I said confusedly that that was long ago, and that I knew no
better then, and the like. Estella smiled with perfect com-
posure, and said she had no doubt of my having been quite
right, and of her having been very disagreeable.
“Is he changed?” Miss Havisham asked her.
“Very much,” said Estella, looking at me.
“Less coarse and common?” said Miss Havisham, playing
with Estella’s hair.
Estella laughed, and looked at the shoe in her hand, and
laughed again, and looked at me, and put the shoe down.
She treated me as a boy still, but she lured me on.
We sat in the dreamy room among the old strange influences
which had so wrought upon me, and I learnt that she had
but just come home from France, and that she was going to
London. Proud and wilful as of old, she had brought those
qualities into such subjection to her beauty that it was im-
possible and out of nature—or I thought so—to separate them
from her beauty. Truly it was impossible to dissociate her
presence from all those wretched hankerings after money
and gentility that had disturbed my boyhood,—from all those
ill-regulated aspirations that had first made me ashamed of
home and Joe,—from all those visions that had raised her face
in the glowing fire, struck it out of the iron on the anvil, ex-
tracted it from the darkness of night to look in at the wooden
window of the forge, and flit away. In a word, it was impossi-

359
ble for me to separate her, in the past or in the present, from
the innermost life of my life.
It was settled that I should stay there all the rest of the day,
and return to the hotel at night, and to London to-morrow.
When we had conversed for a while, Miss Havisham sent us
two out to walk in the neglected garden: on our coming in by
and by, she said, I should wheel her about a little, as in times
of yore.
So, Estella and I went out into the garden by the gate through
which I had strayed to my encounter with the pale young
gentleman, now Herbert; I, trembling in spirit and worship-
ping the very hem of her dress; she, quite composed and most
decidedly not worshipping the hem of mine. As we drew near
to the place of encounter, she stopped and said,—
“I must have been a singular little creature to hide and see
that fight that day; but I did, and I enjoyed it very much.”
“You rewarded me very much.”
“Did I?” she replied, in an incidental and forgetful way. “I
remember I entertained a great objection to your adversary,
because I took it ill that he should be brought here to pester
me with his company.”
“He and I are great friends now.”
“Are you? I think I recollect though, that you read with his
father?”
“Yes.”

360
I made the admission with reluctance, for it seemed to have
a boyish look, and she already treated me more than enough
like a boy.
“Since your change of fortune and prospects, you have
changed your companions,” said Estella.
“Naturally,” said I.
“And necessarily,” she added, in a haughty tone; “what was
fit company for you once, would be quite unfit company for
you now.”
In my conscience, I doubt very much whether I had any lin-
gering intention left of going to see Joe; but if I had, this ob-
servation put it to flight.
“You had no idea of your impending good fortune, in those
times?” said Estella, with a slight wave of her hand, signify-
ing in the fighting times.
“Not the least.”
The air of completeness and superiority with which she
walked at my side, and the air of youthfulness and submis-
sion with which I walked at hers, made a contrast that I
strongly felt. It would have rankled in me more than it did,
if I had not regarded myself as eliciting it by being so set
apart for her and assigned to her.
The garden was too overgrown and rank for walking in with
ease, and after we had made the round of it twice or thrice,
we came out again into the brewery yard. I showed her to a

361
nicety where I had seen her walking on the casks, that first
old day, and she said, with a cold and careless look in that
direction, “Did I?” I reminded her where she had come out
of the house and given me my meat and drink, and she said,
“I don’t remember.” “Not remember that you made me cry?”
said I. “No,” said she, and shook her head and looked about
her. I verily believe that her not remembering and not mind-
ing in the least, made me cry again, inwardly,—and that is the
sharpest crying of all.
“You must know,” said Estella, condescending to me as a bril-
liant and beautiful woman might, “that I have no heart,—if
that has anything to do with my memory.”
I got through some jargon to the effect that I took the liberty
of doubting that. That I knew better. That there could be no
such beauty without it.
“Oh! I have a heart to be stabbed in or shot in, I have no
doubt,” said Estella, “and of course if it ceased to beat I should
cease to be. But you know what I mean. I have no softness
there, no—sympathy—sentiment—nonsense.”
What was it that was borne in upon my mind when she stood
still and looked attentively at me? Anything that I had seen
in Miss Havisham? No. In some of her looks and gestures
there was that tinge of resemblance to Miss Havisham which
may often be noticed to have been acquired by children, from
grown person with whom they have been much associated
and secluded, and which, when childhood is passed, will pro-
duce a remarkable occasional likeness of expression between

362
faces that are otherwise quite different. And yet I could not
trace this to Miss Havisham. I looked again, and though she
was still looking at me, the suggestion was gone.
What was it?
“I am serious,” said Estella, not so much with a frown (for her
brow was smooth) as with a darkening of her face; “if we are
to be thrown much together, you had better believe it at once.
No!” imperiously stopping me as I opened my lips. “I have
not bestowed my tenderness anywhere. I have never had any
such thing.”
In another moment we were in the brewery, so long disused,
and she pointed to the high gallery where I had seen her go-
ing out on that same first day, and told me she remembered
to have been up there, and to have seen me standing scared
below. As my eyes followed her white hand, again the same
dim suggestion that I could not possibly grasp crossed me.
My involuntary start occasioned her to lay her hand upon
my arm. Instantly the ghost passed once more and was gone.
What was it?
“What is the matter?” asked Estella. “Are you scared again?”
“I should be, if I believed what you said just now,” I replied,
to turn it off.
“Then you don’t? Very well. It is said, at any rate. Miss Hav-
isham will soon be expecting you at your old post, though I
think that might be laid aside now, with other old belongings.

363
Let us make one more round of the garden, and then go in.
Come! You shall not shed tears for my cruelty to-day; you
shall be my Page, and give me your shoulder.”
Her handsome dress had trailed upon the ground. She held
it in one hand now, and with the other lightly touched my
shoulder as we walked. We walked round the ruined garden
twice or thrice more, and it was all in bloom for me. If the
green and yellow growth of weed in the chinks of the old wall
had been the most precious flowers that ever blew, it could
not have been more cherished in my remembrance.
There was no discrepancy of years between us to remove
her far from me; we were of nearly the same age, though
of course the age told for more in her case than in mine; but
the air of inaccessibility which her beauty and her manner
gave her, tormented me in the midst of my delight, and at the
height of the assurance I felt that our patroness had chosen
us for one another. Wretched boy!
At last we went back into the house, and there I heard, with
surprise, that my guardian had come down to see Miss Hav-
isham on business, and would come back to dinner. The old
wintry branches of chandeliers in the room where the moul-
dering table was spread had been lighted while we were out,
and Miss Havisham was in her chair and waiting for me.
It was like pushing the chair itself back into the past, when
we began the old slow circuit round about the ashes of the
bridal feast. But, in the funereal room, with that figure of
the grave fallen back in the chair fixing its eyes upon her,

364
Estella looked more bright and beautiful than before, and I
was under stronger enchantment.
The time so melted away, that our early dinner-hour drew
close at hand, and Estella left us to prepare herself. We had
stopped near the centre of the long table, and Miss Havisham,
with one of her withered arms stretched out of the chair,
rested that clenched hand upon the yellow cloth. As Estella
looked back over her shoulder before going out at the door,
Miss Havisham kissed that hand to her, with a ravenous in-
tensity that was of its kind quite dreadful.
Then, Estella being gone and we two left alone, she turned to
me, and said in a whisper,—
“Is she beautiful, graceful, well-grown? Do you admire her?”
“Everybody must who sees her, Miss Havisham.”
She drew an arm round my neck, and drew my head close
down to hers as she sat in the chair. “Love her, love her, love
her! How does she use you?”
Before I could answer (if I could have answered so difficult a
question at all) she repeated, “Love her, love her, love her! If
she favors you, love her. If she wounds you, love her. If she
tears your heart to pieces,—and as it gets older and stronger
it will tear deeper,—love her, love her, love her!”
Never had I seen such passionate eagerness as was joined
to her utterance of these words. I could feel the muscles of
the thin arm round my neck swell with the vehemence that

365
possessed her.
“Hear me, Pip! I adopted her, to be loved. I bred her and
educated her, to be loved. I developed her into what she is,
that she might be loved. Love her!”
She said the word often enough, and there could be no doubt
that she meant to say it; but if the often repeated word had
been hate instead of love—despair—revenge—dire death—it
could not have sounded from her lips more like a curse.
“I’ll tell you,” said she, in the same hurried passionate whis-
per, “what real love is. It is blind devotion, unquestioning
self-humiliation, utter submission, trust and belief against
yourself and against the whole world, giving up your whole
heart and soul to the smiter—as I did!”
When she came to that, and to a wild cry that followed that,
I caught her round the waist. For she rose up in the chair, in
her shroud of a dress, and struck at the air as if she would as
soon have struck herself against the wall and fallen dead.
All this passed in a few seconds. As I drew her down into
her chair, I was conscious of a scent that I knew, and turning,
saw my guardian in the room.
He always carried (I have not yet mentioned it, I think) a
pocket-handkerchief of rich silk and of imposing propor-
tions, which was of great value to him in his profession. I
have seen him so terrify a client or a witness by ceremo-
niously unfolding this pocket-handkerchief as if he were
immediately going to blow his nose, and then pausing, as if

366
he knew he should not have time to do it before such client
or witness committed himself, that the self-committal has
followed directly, quite as a matter of course. When I saw
him in the room he had this expressive pocket-handkerchief
in both hands, and was looking at us. On meeting my eye,
he said plainly, by a momentary and silent pause in that
attitude, “Indeed? Singular!” and then put the handkerchief
to its right use with wonderful effect.
Miss Havisham had seen him as soon as I, and was (like ev-
erybody else) afraid of him. She made a strong attempt to
compose herself, and stammered that he was as punctual as
ever.
“As punctual as ever,” he repeated, coming up to us. “(How
do you do, Pip? Shall I give you a ride, Miss Havisham? Once
round?) And so you are here, Pip?”
I told him when I had arrived, and how Miss Havisham had
wished me to come and see Estella. To which he replied, “Ah!
Very fine young lady!” Then he pushed Miss Havisham in
her chair before him, with one of his large hands, and put
the other in his trousers-pocket as if the pocket were full of
secrets.
“Well, Pip! How often have you seen Miss Estella before?”
said he, when he came to a stop.
“How often?”
“Ah! How many times? Ten thousand times?”

367
“Oh! Certainly not so many.”
“Twice?”
“Jaggers,” interposed Miss Havisham, much to my relief,
“leave my Pip alone, and go with him to your dinner.”
He complied, and we groped our way down the dark stairs
together. While we were still on our way to those detached
apartments across the paved yard at the back, he asked me
how often I had seen Miss Havisham eat and drink; offering
me a breadth of choice, as usual, between a hundred times
and once.
I considered, and said, “Never.”
“And never will, Pip,” he retorted, with a frowning smile.
“She has never allowed herself to be seen doing either, since
she lived this present life of hers. She wanders about in the
night, and then lays hands on such food as she takes.”
“Pray, sir,” said I, “may I ask you a question?”
“You may,” said he, “and I may decline to answer it. Put your
question.”
“Estella’s name. Is it Havisham or—?” I had nothing to add.
“Or what?” said he.
“Is it Havisham?”
“It is Havisham.”

368
This brought us to the dinner-table, where she and Sarah
Pocket awaited us. Mr. Jaggers presided, Estella sat oppo-
site to him, I faced my green and yellow friend. We dined
very well, and were waited on by a maid-servant whom I had
never seen in all my comings and goings, but who, for any-
thing I know, had been in that mysterious house the whole
time. After dinner a bottle of choice old port was placed be-
fore my guardian (he was evidently well acquainted with the
vintage), and the two ladies left us.
Anything to equal the determined reticence of Mr. Jaggers
under that roof I never saw elsewhere, even in him. He kept
his very looks to himself, and scarcely directed his eyes to
Estella’s face once during dinner. When she spoke to him, he
listened, and in due course answered, but never looked at her,
that I could see. On the other hand, she often looked at him,
with interest and curiosity, if not distrust, but his face never
showed the least consciousness. Throughout dinner he took a
dry delight in making Sarah Pocket greener and yellower, by
often referring in conversation with me to my expectations;
but here, again, he showed no consciousness, and even made
it appear that he extorted—and even did extort, though I don’t
know how—those references out of my innocent self.
And when he and I were left alone together, he sat with an
air upon him of general lying by in consequence of infor-
mation he possessed, that really was too much for me. He
cross-examined his very wine when he had nothing else in
hand. He held it between himself and the candle, tasted the
port, rolled it in his mouth, swallowed it, looked at his glass

369
again, smelt the port, tried it, drank it, filled again, and cross-
examined the glass again, until I was as nervous as if I had
known the wine to be telling him something to my disad-
vantage. Three or four times I feebly thought I would start
conversation; but whenever he saw me going to ask him any-
thing, he looked at me with his glass in his hand, and rolling
his wine about in his mouth, as if requesting me to take no-
tice that it was of no use, for he couldn’t answer.
I think Miss Pocket was conscious that the sight of me in-
volved her in the danger of being goaded to madness, and
perhaps tearing off her cap,—which was a very hideous one,
in the nature of a muslin mop,—and strewing the ground with
her hair,—which assuredly had never grown on her head. She
did not appear when we afterwards went up to Miss Hav-
isham’s room, and we four played at whist. In the interval,
Miss Havisham, in a fantastic way, had put some of the most
beautiful jewels from her dressing-table into Estella’s hair,
and about her bosom and arms; and I saw even my guardian
look at her from under his thick eyebrows, and raise them
a little, when her loveliness was before him, with those rich
flushes of glitter and color in it.
Of the manner and extent to which he took our trumps into
custody, and came out with mean little cards at the ends of
hands, before which the glory of our Kings and Queens was
utterly abased, I say nothing; nor, of the feeling that I had,
respecting his looking upon us personally in the light of three
very obvious and poor riddles that he had found out long
ago. What I suffered from, was the incompatibility between

370
his cold presence and my feelings towards Estella. It was not
that I knew I could never bear to speak to him about her, that
I knew I could never bear to hear him creak his boots at her,
that I knew I could never bear to see him wash his hands of
her; it was, that my admiration should be within a foot or
two of him,—it was, that my feelings should be in the same
place with him,—that, was the agonizing circumstance.
We played until nine o’clock, and then it was arranged that
when Estella came to London I should be forewarned of her
coming and should meet her at the coach; and then I took
leave of her, and touched her and left her.
My guardian lay at the Boar in the next room to mine. Far
into the night, Miss Havisham’s words, “Love her, love her,
love her!” sounded in my ears. I adapted them for my own
repetition, and said to my pillow, “I love her, I love her, I love
her!” hundreds of times. Then, a burst of gratitude came
upon me, that she should be destined for me, once the black-
smith’s boy. Then I thought if she were, as I feared, by no
means rapturously grateful for that destiny yet, when would
she begin to be interested in me? When should I awaken the
heart within her that was mute and sleeping now?
Ah me! I thought those were high and great emotions. But I
never thought there was anything low and small in my keep-
ing away from Joe, because I knew she would be contemp-
tuous of him. It was but a day gone, and Joe had brought
the tears into my eyes; they had soon dried, God forgive me!
soon dried.

371
Chapter XXX
After well considering the matter while I was dressing at the
Blue Boar in the morning, I resolved to tell my guardian that
I doubted Orlick’s being the right sort of man to fill a post
of trust at Miss Havisham’s. “Why of course he is not the
right sort of man, Pip,” said my guardian, comfortably satis-
fied beforehand on the general head, “because the man who
fills the post of trust never is the right sort of man.” It seemed
quite to put him into spirits to find that this particular post
was not exceptionally held by the right sort of man, and he
listened in a satisfied manner while I told him what knowl-
edge I had of Orlick. “Very good, Pip,” he observed, when I
had concluded, “I’ll go round presently, and pay our friend
off.” Rather alarmed by this summary action, I was for a little
delay, and even hinted that our friend himself might be diffi-
cult to deal with. “Oh no he won’t,” said my guardian, mak-
ing his pocket-handkerchief-point, with perfect confidence;
“I should like to see him argue the question with me.”
As we were going back together to London by the midday
coach, and as I breakfasted under such terrors of Pumble-
chook that I could scarcely hold my cup, this gave me an op-
portunity of saying that I wanted a walk, and that I would go
on along the London road while Mr. Jaggers was occupied,
if he would let the coachman know that I would get into my
place when overtaken. I was thus enabled to fly from the Blue
Boar immediately after breakfast. By then making a loop of
about a couple of miles into the open country at the back

372
of Pumblechook’s premises, I got round into the High Street
again, a little beyond that pitfall, and felt myself in compara-
tive security.
It was interesting to be in the quiet old town once more, and
it was not disagreeable to be here and there suddenly rec-
ognized and stared after. One or two of the tradespeople
even darted out of their shops and went a little way down the
street before me, that they might turn, as if they had forgotten
something, and pass me face to face,—on which occasions I
don’t know whether they or I made the worse pretence; they
of not doing it, or I of not seeing it. Still my position was
a distinguished one, and I was not at all dissatisfied with it,
until Fate threw me in the way of that unlimited miscreant,
Trabb’s boy.
Casting my eyes along the street at a certain point of my
progress, I beheld Trabb’s boy approaching, lashing himself
with an empty blue bag. Deeming that a serene and un-
conscious contemplation of him would best beseem me, and
would be most likely to quell his evil mind, I advanced with
that expression of countenance, and was rather congratu-
lating myself on my success, when suddenly the knees of
Trabb’s boy smote together, his hair uprose, his cap fell off,
he trembled violently in every limb, staggered out into the
road, and crying to the populace, “Hold me! I’m so fright-
ened!” feigned to be in a paroxysm of terror and contrition,
occasioned by the dignity of my appearance. As I passed him,
his teeth loudly chattered in his head, and with every mark
of extreme humiliation, he prostrated himself in the dust.

373
This was a hard thing to bear, but this was nothing. I had
not advanced another two hundred yards when, to my in-
expressible terror, amazement, and indignation, I again be-
held Trabb’s boy approaching. He was coming round a nar-
row corner. His blue bag was slung over his shoulder, hon-
est industry beamed in his eyes, a determination to proceed
to Trabb’s with cheerful briskness was indicated in his gait.
With a shock he became aware of me, and was severely vis-
ited as before; but this time his motion was rotatory, and he
staggered round and round me with knees more afflicted, and
with uplifted hands as if beseeching for mercy. His sufferings
were hailed with the greatest joy by a knot of spectators, and
I felt utterly confounded.
I had not got as much further down the street as the post-
office, when I again beheld Trabb’s boy shooting round by a
back way. This time, he was entirely changed. He wore the
blue bag in the manner of my great-coat, and was strutting
along the pavement towards me on the opposite side of the
street, attended by a company of delighted young friends to
whom he from time to time exclaimed, with a wave of his
hand, “Don’t know yah!” Words cannot state the amount
of aggravation and injury wreaked upon me by Trabb’s boy,
when passing abreast of me, he pulled up his shirt-collar,
twined his side-hair, stuck an arm akimbo, and smirked ex-
travagantly by, wriggling his elbows and body, and drawling
to his attendants, “Don’t know yah, don’t know yah, ’pon my
soul don’t know yah!” The disgrace attendant on his imme-
diately afterwards taking to crowing and pursuing me across

374
the bridge with crows, as from an exceedingly dejected fowl
who had known me when I was a blacksmith, culminated
the disgrace with which I left the town, and was, so to speak,
ejected by it into the open country.
But unless I had taken the life of Trabb’s boy on that occasion,
I really do not even now see what I could have done save
endure. To have struggled with him in the street, or to have
exacted any lower recompense from him than his heart’s best
blood, would have been futile and degrading. Moreover, he
was a boy whom no man could hurt; an invulnerable and
dodging serpent who, when chased into a corner, flew out
again between his captor’s legs, scornfully yelping. I wrote,
however, to Mr. Trabb by next day’s post, to say that Mr. Pip
must decline to deal further with one who could so far forget
what he owed to the best interests of society, as to employ a
boy who excited Loathing in every respectable mind.
The coach, with Mr. Jaggers inside, came up in due time, and I
took my box-seat again, and arrived in London safe,—but not
sound, for my heart was gone. As soon as I arrived, I sent a
penitential codfish and barrel of oysters to Joe (as reparation
for not having gone myself), and then went on to Barnard’s
Inn.
I found Herbert dining on cold meat, and delighted to wel-
come me back. Having despatched The Avenger to the coffee-
house for an addition to the dinner, I felt that I must open my
breast that very evening to my friend and chum. As confi-
dence was out of the question with The Avenger in the hall,

375
which could merely be regarded in the light of an antecham-
ber to the keyhole, I sent him to the Play. A better proof of the
severity of my bondage to that taskmaster could scarcely be
afforded, than the degrading shifts to which I was constantly
driven to find him employment. So mean is extremity, that I
sometimes sent him to Hyde Park corner to see what o’clock
it was.
Dinner done and we sitting with our feet upon the fender,
I said to Herbert, “My dear Herbert, I have something very
particular to tell you.”
“My dear Handel,” he returned, “I shall esteem and respect
your confidence.”
“It concerns myself, Herbert,” said I, “and one other person.”
Herbert crossed his feet, looked at the fire with his head on
one side, and having looked at it in vain for some time, looked
at me because I didn’t go on.
“Herbert,” said I, laying my hand upon his knee, “I love—I
adore—Estella.”
Instead of being transfixed, Herbert replied in an easy matter-
of-course way, “Exactly. Well?”
“Well, Herbert? Is that all you say? Well?”
“What next, I mean?” said Herbert. “Of course I know that.”
“How do you know it?” said I.
“How do I know it, Handel? Why, from you.”

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“I never told you.”
“Told me! You have never told me when you have got your
hair cut, but I have had senses to perceive it. You have al-
ways adored her, ever since I have known you. You brought
your adoration and your portmanteau here together. Told
me! Why, you have always told me all day long. When you
told me your own story, you told me plainly that you began
adoring her the first time you saw her, when you were very
young indeed.”
“Very well, then,” said I, to whom this was a new and not
unwelcome light, “I have never left off adoring her. And she
has come back, a most beautiful and most elegant creature.
And I saw her yesterday. And if I adored her before, I now
doubly adore her.”
“Lucky for you then, Handel,” said Herbert, “that you are
picked out for her and allotted to her. Without encroaching
on forbidden ground, we may venture to say that there can
be no doubt between ourselves of that fact. Have you any
idea yet, of Estella’s views on the adoration question?”
I shook my head gloomily. “Oh! She is thousands of miles
away, from me,” said I.
“Patience, my dear Handel: time enough, time enough. But
you have something more to say?”
“I am ashamed to say it,” I returned, “and yet it’s no worse to
say it than to think it. You call me a lucky fellow. Of course, I
am. I was a blacksmith’s boy but yesterday; I am—what shall

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I say I am—to-day?”
“Say a good fellow, if you want a phrase,” returned Herbert,
smiling, and clapping his hand on the back of mine—“a good
fellow, with impetuosity and hesitation, boldness and diffi-
dence, action and dreaming, curiously mixed in him.”
I stopped for a moment to consider whether there really was
this mixture in my character. On the whole, I by no means
recognized the analysis, but thought it not worth disputing.
“When I ask what I am to call myself to-day, Herbert,” I went
on, “I suggest what I have in my thoughts. You say I am lucky.
I know I have done nothing to raise myself in life, and that
Fortune alone has raised me; that is being very lucky. And
yet, when I think of Estella—”
(“And when don’t you, you know?” Herbert threw in, with
his eyes on the fire; which I thought kind and sympathetic of
him.)
“—Then, my dear Herbert, I cannot tell you how dependent
and uncertain I feel, and how exposed to hundreds of
chances. Avoiding forbidden ground, as you did just now, I
may still say that on the constancy of one person (naming
no person) all my expectations depend. And at the best, how
indefinite and unsatisfactory, only to know so vaguely what
they are!” In saying this, I relieved my mind of what had
always been there, more or less, though no doubt most since
yesterday.
“Now, Handel,” Herbert replied, in his gay, hopeful way,

378
“it seems to me that in the despondency of the tender
passion, we are looking into our gift-horse’s mouth with a
magnifying-glass. Likewise, it seems to me that, concen-
trating our attention on the examination, we altogether
overlook one of the best points of the animal. Didn’t you
tell me that your guardian, Mr. Jaggers, told you in the
beginning, that you were not endowed with expectations
only? And even if he had not told you so,—though that is a
very large If, I grant,—could you believe that of all men in
London, Mr. Jaggers is the man to hold his present relations
towards you unless he were sure of his ground?”
I said I could not deny that this was a strong point. I said
it (people often do so, in such cases) like a rather reluctant
concession to truth and justice;—as if I wanted to deny it!
“I should think it was a strong point,” said Herbert, “and I
should think you would be puzzled to imagine a stronger;
as to the rest, you must bide your guardian’s time, and he
must bide his client’s time. You’ll be one-and-twenty before
you know where you are, and then perhaps you’ll get some
further enlightenment. At all events, you’ll be nearer getting
it, for it must come at last.”
“What a hopeful disposition you have!” said I, gratefully ad-
miring his cheery ways.
“I ought to have,” said Herbert, “for I have not much else. I
must acknowledge, by the by, that the good sense of what I
have just said is not my own, but my father’s. The only re-
mark I ever heard him make on your story, was the final one,

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“The thing is settled and done, or Mr. Jaggers would not be
in it.” And now before I say anything more about my father,
or my father’s son, and repay confidence with confidence, I
want to make myself seriously disagreeable to you for a mo-
ment,—positively repulsive.”
“You won’t succeed,” said I.
“O yes I shall!” said he. “One, two, three, and now I am in for
it. Handel, my good fellow;”—though he spoke in this light
tone, he was very much in earnest,—“I have been thinking
since we have been talking with our feet on this fender, that
Estella surely cannot be a condition of your inheritance, if
she was never referred to by your guardian. Am I right in
so understanding what you have told me, as that he never
referred to her, directly or indirectly, in any way? Never even
hinted, for instance, that your patron might have views as to
your marriage ultimately?”
“Never.”
“Now, Handel, I am quite free from the flavor of sour grapes,
upon my soul and honor! Not being bound to her, can you not
detach yourself from her?—I told you I should be disagree-
able.”
I turned my head aside, for, with a rush and a sweep, like
the old marsh winds coming up from the sea, a feeling like
that which had subdued me on the morning when I left the
forge, when the mists were solemnly rising, and when I laid
my hand upon the village finger-post, smote upon my heart

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again. There was silence between us for a little while.
“Yes; but my dear Handel,” Herbert went on, as if we had been
talking, instead of silent, “its having been so strongly rooted
in the breast of a boy whom nature and circumstances made
so romantic, renders it very serious. Think of her bringing-
up, and think of Miss Havisham. Think of what she is herself
(now I am repulsive and you abominate me). This may lead
to miserable things.”
“I know it, Herbert,” said I, with my head still turned away,
“but I can’t help it.”
“You can’t detach yourself?”
“No. Impossible!”
“You can’t try, Handel?”
“No. Impossible!”
“Well!” said Herbert, getting up with a lively shake as if he
had been asleep, and stirring the fire, “now I’ll endeavor to
make myself agreeable again!”
So he went round the room and shook the curtains out, put
the chairs in their places, tidied the books and so forth that
were lying about, looked into the hall, peeped into the letter-
box, shut the door, and came back to his chair by the fire:
where he sat down, nursing his left leg in both arms.
“I was going to say a word or two, Handel, concerning my
father and my father’s son. I am afraid it is scarcely necessary

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for my father’s son to remark that my father’s establishment
is not particularly brilliant in its housekeeping.”
“There is always plenty, Herbert,” said I, to say something
encouraging.
“O yes! and so the dustman says, I believe, with the strongest
approval, and so does the marine-store shop in the back
street. Gravely, Handel, for the subject is grave enough, you
know how it is as well as I do. I suppose there was a time
once when my father had not given matters up; but if ever
there was, the time is gone. May I ask you if you have ever
had an opportunity of remarking, down in your part of the
country, that the children of not exactly suitable marriages
are always most particularly anxious to be married?”
This was such a singular question, that I asked him in return,
“Is it so?”
“I don’t know,” said Herbert, “that’s what I want to know. Be-
cause it is decidedly the case with us. My poor sister Char-
lotte, who was next me and died before she was fourteen,
was a striking example. Little Jane is the same. In her de-
sire to be matrimonially established, you might suppose her
to have passed her short existence in the perpetual contem-
plation of domestic bliss. Little Alick in a frock has already
made arrangements for his union with a suitable young per-
son at Kew. And indeed, I think we are all engaged, except
the baby.”
“Then you are?” said I.

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“I am,” said Herbert; “but it’s a secret.”
I assured him of my keeping the secret, and begged to be fa-
vored with further particulars. He had spoken so sensibly
and feelingly of my weakness that I wanted to know some-
thing about his strength.
“May I ask the name?” I said.
“Name of Clara,” said Herbert.
“Live in London?”
“Yes, perhaps I ought to mention,” said Herbert, who had be-
come curiously crestfallen and meek, since we entered on the
interesting theme, “that she is rather below my mother’s non-
sensical family notions. Her father had to do with the vict-
ualling of passenger-ships. I think he was a species of purser.”
“What is he now?” said I.
“He’s an invalid now,” replied Herbert.
“Living on—?”
“On the first floor,” said Herbert. Which was not at all what I
meant, for I had intended my question to apply to his means.
“I have never seen him, for he has always kept his room
overhead, since I have known Clara. But I have heard him
constantly. He makes tremendous rows,—roars, and pegs at
the floor with some frightful instrument.” In looking at me
and then laughing heartily, Herbert for the time recovered
his usual lively manner.

383
“Don’t you expect to see him?” said I.
“O yes, I constantly expect to see him,” returned Herbert, “be-
cause I never hear him, without expecting him to come tum-
bling through the ceiling. But I don’t know how long the
rafters may hold.”
When he had once more laughed heartily, he became meek
again, and told me that the moment he began to realize Cap-
ital, it was his intention to marry this young lady. He added
as a self-evident proposition, engendering low spirits, “But
you can’t marry, you know, while you’re looking about you.”
As we contemplated the fire, and as I thought what a difficult
vision to realize this same Capital sometimes was, I put my
hands in my pockets. A folded piece of paper in one of them
attracting my attention, I opened it and found it to be the
play-bill I had received from Joe, relative to the celebrated
provincial amateur of Roscian renown. “And bless my heart,”
I involuntarily added aloud, “it’s to-night!”
This changed the subject in an instant, and made us hurriedly
resolve to go to the play. So, when I had pledged myself
to comfort and abet Herbert in the affair of his heart by all
practicable and impracticable means, and when Herbert had
told me that his affianced already knew me by reputation and
that I should be presented to her, and when we had warmly
shaken hands upon our mutual confidence, we blew out our
candles, made up our fire, locked our door, and issued forth
in quest of Mr. Wopsle and Denmark.

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Chapter XXXI
On our arrival in Denmark, we found the king and queen of
that country elevated in two arm-chairs on a kitchen-table,
holding a Court. The whole of the Danish nobility were in at-
tendance; consisting of a noble boy in the wash-leather boots
of a gigantic ancestor, a venerable Peer with a dirty face who
seemed to have risen from the people late in life, and the
Danish chivalry with a comb in its hair and a pair of white
silk legs, and presenting on the whole a feminine appearance.
My gifted townsman stood gloomily apart, with folded arms,
and I could have wished that his curls and forehead had been
more probable.
Several curious little circumstances transpired as the action
proceeded. The late king of the country not only appeared
to have been troubled with a cough at the time of his de-
cease, but to have taken it with him to the tomb, and to have
brought it back. The royal phantom also carried a ghostly
manuscript round its truncheon, to which it had the appear-
ance of occasionally referring, and that too, with an air of
anxiety and a tendency to lose the place of reference which
were suggestive of a state of mortality. It was this, I conceive,
which led to the Shade’s being advised by the gallery to “turn
over!”—a recommendation which it took extremely ill. It was
likewise to be noted of this majestic spirit, that whereas it al-
ways appeared with an air of having been out a long time
and walked an immense distance, it perceptibly came from
a closely contiguous wall. This occasioned its terrors to be

385
received derisively. The Queen of Denmark, a very buxom
lady, though no doubt historically brazen, was considered by
the public to have too much brass about her; her chin being
attached to her diadem by a broad band of that metal (as if
she had a gorgeous toothache), her waist being encircled by
another, and each of her arms by another, so that she was
openly mentioned as “the kettle-drum.” The noble boy in the
ancestral boots was inconsistent, representing himself, as it
were in one breath, as an able seaman, a strolling actor, a
grave-digger, a clergyman, and a person of the utmost im-
portance at a Court fencing-match, on the authority of whose
practised eye and nice discrimination the finest strokes were
judged. This gradually led to a want of toleration for him, and
even—on his being detected in holy orders, and declining to
perform the funeral service—to the general indignation tak-
ing the form of nuts. Lastly, Ophelia was a prey to such slow
musical madness, that when, in course of time, she had taken
off her white muslin scarf, folded it up, and buried it, a sulky
man who had been long cooling his impatient nose against
an iron bar in the front row of the gallery, growled, “Now the
baby’s put to bed let’s have supper!” Which, to say the least
of it, was out of keeping.
Upon my unfortunate townsman all these incidents accumu-
lated with playful effect. Whenever that undecided Prince
had to ask a question or state a doubt, the public helped him
out with it. As for example; on the question whether ’twas
nobler in the mind to suffer, some roared yes, and some no,
and some inclining to both opinions said “Toss up for it;” and

386
quite a Debating Society arose. When he asked what should
such fellows as he do crawling between earth and heaven,
he was encouraged with loud cries of “Hear, hear!” When
he appeared with his stocking disordered (its disorder ex-
pressed, according to usage, by one very neat fold in the top,
which I suppose to be always got up with a flat iron), a con-
versation took place in the gallery respecting the paleness of
his leg, and whether it was occasioned by the turn the ghost
had given him. On his taking the recorders,—very like a lit-
tle black flute that had just been played in the orchestra and
handed out at the door,—he was called upon unanimously
for Rule Britannia. When he recommended the player not to
saw the air thus, the sulky man said, “And don’t you do it,
neither; you’re a deal worse than him!” And I grieve to add
that peals of laughter greeted Mr. Wopsle on every one of
these occasions.
But his greatest trials were in the churchyard, which had the
appearance of a primeval forest, with a kind of small eccle-
siastical wash-house on one side, and a turnpike gate on the
other. Mr. Wopsle in a comprehensive black cloak, being de-
scried entering at the turnpike, the gravedigger was admon-
ished in a friendly way, “Look out! Here’s the undertaker a
coming, to see how you’re a getting on with your work!” I
believe it is well known in a constitutional country that Mr.
Wopsle could not possibly have returned the skull, after mor-
alizing over it, without dusting his fingers on a white napkin
taken from his breast; but even that innocent and indispens-
able action did not pass without the comment, “Wai-ter!” The

387
arrival of the body for interment (in an empty black box with
the lid tumbling open), was the signal for a general joy, which
was much enhanced by the discovery, among the bearers, of
an individual obnoxious to identification. The joy attended
Mr. Wopsle through his struggle with Laertes on the brink of
the orchestra and the grave, and slackened no more until he
had tumbled the king off the kitchen-table, and had died by
inches from the ankles upward.
We had made some pale efforts in the beginning to applaud
Mr. Wopsle; but they were too hopeless to be persisted in.
Therefore we had sat, feeling keenly for him, but laughing,
nevertheless, from ear to ear. I laughed in spite of myself
all the time, the whole thing was so droll; and yet I had a
latent impression that there was something decidedly fine in
Mr. Wopsle’s elocution,—not for old associations’ sake, I am
afraid, but because it was very slow, very dreary, very uphill
and downhill, and very unlike any way in which any man
in any natural circumstances of life or death ever expressed
himself about anything. When the tragedy was over, and he
had been called for and hooted, I said to Herbert, “Let us go
at once, or perhaps we shall meet him.”
We made all the haste we could downstairs, but we were not
quick enough either. Standing at the door was a Jewish man
with an unnatural heavy smear of eyebrow, who caught my
eyes as we advanced, and said, when we came up with him,—
“Mr. Pip and friend?”
Identity of Mr. Pip and friend confessed.

388
“Mr. Waldengarver,” said the man, “would be glad to have the
honor.”
“Waldengarver?” I repeated—when Herbert murmured in my
ear, “Probably Wopsle.”
“Oh!” said I. “Yes. Shall we follow you?”
“A few steps, please.” When we were in a side alley, he turned
and asked, “How did you think he looked?—I dressed him.”
I don’t know what he had looked like, except a funeral; with
the addition of a large Danish sun or star hanging round his
neck by a blue ribbon, that had given him the appearance of
being insured in some extraordinary Fire Office. But I said he
had looked very nice.
“When he come to the grave,” said our conductor, “he showed
his cloak beautiful. But, judging from the wing, it looked to
me that when he see the ghost in the queen’s apartment, he
might have made more of his stockings.”
I modestly assented, and we all fell through a little dirty
swing door, into a sort of hot packing-case immediately
behind it. Here Mr. Wopsle was divesting himself of his
Danish garments, and here there was just room for us to
look at him over one another’s shoulders, by keeping the
packing-case door, or lid, wide open.
“Gentlemen,” said Mr. Wopsle, “I am proud to see you. I hope,
Mr. Pip, you will excuse my sending round. I had the hap-
piness to know you in former times, and the Drama has ever

389
had a claim which has ever been acknowledged, on the noble
and the affluent.”
Meanwhile, Mr. Waldengarver, in a frightful perspiration,
was trying to get himself out of his princely sables.
“Skin the stockings off Mr. Waldengarver,” said the owner
of that property, “or you’ll bust ’em. Bust ’em, and you’ll
bust five-and-thirty shillings. Shakspeare never was compli-
mented with a finer pair. Keep quiet in your chair now, and
leave ’em to me.”
With that, he went upon his knees, and began to flay his vic-
tim; who, on the first stocking coming off, would certainly
have fallen over backward with his chair, but for there being
no room to fall anyhow.
I had been afraid until then to say a word about the play. But
then, Mr. Waldengarver looked up at us complacently, and
said,—
“Gentlemen, how did it seem to you, to go, in front?”
Herbert said from behind (at the same time poking me), “Cap-
itally.” So I said “Capitally.”
“How did you like my reading of the character, gentlemen?”
said Mr. Waldengarver, almost, if not quite, with patronage.
Herbert said from behind (again poking me), “Massive and
concrete.” So I said boldly, as if I had originated it, and must
beg to insist upon it, “Massive and concrete.”

390
“I am glad to have your approbation, gentlemen,” said Mr.
Waldengarver, with an air of dignity, in spite of his being
ground against the wall at the time, and holding on by the
seat of the chair.
“But I’ll tell you one thing, Mr. Waldengarver,” said the man
who was on his knees, “in which you’re out in your reading.
Now mind! I don’t care who says contrairy; I tell you so.
You’re out in your reading of Hamlet when you get your legs
in profile. The last Hamlet as I dressed, made the same mis-
takes in his reading at rehearsal, till I got him to put a large
red wafer on each of his shins, and then at that rehearsal
(which was the last) I went in front, sir, to the back of the pit,
and whenever his reading brought him into profile, I called
out “I don’t see no wafers!” And at night his reading was
lovely.”
Mr. Waldengarver smiled at me, as much as to say “a faithful
Dependent—I overlook his folly;” and then said aloud, “My
view is a little classic and thoughtful for them here; but they
will improve, they will improve.”
Herbert and I said together, O, no doubt they would improve.
“Did you observe, gentlemen,” said Mr. Waldengarver, “that
there was a man in the gallery who endeavored to cast deri-
sion on the service,—I mean, the representation?”
We basely replied that we rather thought we had noticed such
a man. I added, “He was drunk, no doubt.”
“O dear no, sir,” said Mr. Wopsle, “not drunk. His employer

391
would see to that, sir. His employer would not allow him to
be drunk.”
“You know his employer?” said I.
Mr. Wopsle shut his eyes, and opened them again; perform-
ing both ceremonies very slowly. “You must have observed,
gentlemen,” said he, “an ignorant and a blatant ass, with a
rasping throat and a countenance expressive of low malig-
nity, who went through—I will not say sustained—the rôle (if
I may use a French expression) of Claudius, King of Denmark.
That is his employer, gentlemen. Such is the profession!”
Without distinctly knowing whether I should have been
more sorry for Mr. Wopsle if he had been in despair, I was
so sorry for him as it was, that I took the opportunity of
his turning round to have his braces put on,—which jostled
us out at the doorway,—to ask Herbert what he thought of
having him home to supper? Herbert said he thought it
would be kind to do so; therefore I invited him, and he went
to Barnard’s with us, wrapped up to the eyes, and we did our
best for him, and he sat until two o’clock in the morning,
reviewing his success and developing his plans. I forget in
detail what they were, but I have a general recollection that
he was to begin with reviving the Drama, and to end with
crushing it; inasmuch as his decease would leave it utterly
bereft and without a chance or hope.
Miserably I went to bed after all, and miserably thought of
Estella, and miserably dreamed that my expectations were
all cancelled, and that I had to give my hand in marriage to

392
Herbert’s Clara, or play Hamlet to Miss Havisham’s Ghost,
before twenty thousand people, without knowing twenty
words of it.

393
Chapter XXXII
One day when I was busy with my books and Mr. Pocket, I
received a note by the post, the mere outside of which threw
me into a great flutter; for, though I had never seen the hand-
writing in which it was addressed, I divined whose hand it
was. It had no set beginning, as Dear Mr. Pip, or Dear Pip, or
Dear Sir, or Dear Anything, but ran thus:—
“I am to come to London the day after to-morrow by the mid-
day coach. I believe it was settled you should meet me? At
all events Miss Havisham has that impression, and I write in
obedience to it. She sends you her regard.
“Yours, ESTELLA.”
If there had been time, I should probably have ordered sev-
eral suits of clothes for this occasion; but as there was not,
I was fain to be content with those I had. My appetite van-
ished instantly, and I knew no peace or rest until the day
arrived. Not that its arrival brought me either; for, then I
was worse than ever, and began haunting the coach-office in
Wood Street, Cheapside, before the coach had left the Blue
Boar in our town. For all that I knew this perfectly well, I
still felt as if it were not safe to let the coach-office be out of
my sight longer than five minutes at a time; and in this con-
dition of unreason I had performed the first half-hour of a
watch of four or five hours, when Wemmick ran against me.
“Halloa, Mr. Pip,” said he; “how do you do? I should hardly

394
have thought this was your beat.”
I explained that I was waiting to meet somebody who was
coming up by coach, and I inquired after the Castle and the
Aged.
“Both flourishing thankye,” said Wemmick, “and particularly
the Aged. He’s in wonderful feather. He’ll be eighty-two next
birthday. I have a notion of firing eighty-two times, if the
neighborhood shouldn’t complain, and that cannon of mine
should prove equal to the pressure. However, this is not Lon-
don talk. Where do you think I am going to?”
“To the office?” said I, for he was tending in that direction.
“Next thing to it,” returned Wemmick, “I am going to New-
gate. We are in a banker’s-parcel case just at present, and I
have been down the road taking a squint at the scene of ac-
tion, and thereupon must have a word or two with our client.”
“Did your client commit the robbery?” I asked.
“Bless your soul and body, no,” answered Wemmick, very
drily. “But he is accused of it. So might you or I be. Either of
us might be accused of it, you know.”
“Only neither of us is,” I remarked.
“Yah!” said Wemmick, touching me on the breast with his
forefinger; “you’re a deep one, Mr. Pip! Would you like to
have a look at Newgate? Have you time to spare?”
I had so much time to spare, that the proposal came as a re-

395
lief, notwithstanding its irreconcilability with my latent de-
sire to keep my eye on the coach-office. Muttering that I
would make the inquiry whether I had time to walk with him,
I went into the office, and ascertained from the clerk with the
nicest precision and much to the trying of his temper, the ear-
liest moment at which the coach could be expected,—which
I knew beforehand, quite as well as he. I then rejoined Mr.
Wemmick, and affecting to consult my watch, and to be sur-
prised by the information I had received, accepted his offer.
We were at Newgate in a few minutes, and we passed through
the lodge where some fetters were hanging up on the bare
walls among the prison rules, into the interior of the jail. At
that time jails were much neglected, and the period of exag-
gerated reaction consequent on all public wrongdoing—and
which is always its heaviest and longest punishment—was
still far off. So, felons were not lodged and fed better than
soldiers (to say nothing of paupers), and seldom set fire to
their prisons with the excusable object of improving the fla-
vor of their soup. It was visiting time when Wemmick took
me in, and a potman was going his rounds with beer; and
the prisoners, behind bars in yards, were buying beer, and
talking to friends; and a frowzy, ugly, disorderly, depressing
scene it was.
It struck me that Wemmick walked among the prisoners
much as a gardener might walk among his plants. This was
first put into my head by his seeing a shoot that had come
up in the night, and saying, “What, Captain Tom? Are you
there? Ah, indeed!” and also, “Is that Black Bill behind the

396
cistern? Why I didn’t look for you these two months; how do
you find yourself?” Equally in his stopping at the bars and
attending to anxious whisperers,—always singly,—Wemmick
with his post-office in an immovable state, looked at them
while in conference, as if he were taking particular notice
of the advance they had made, since last observed, towards
coming out in full blow at their trial.
He was highly popular, and I found that he took the famil-
iar department of Mr. Jaggers’s business; though something
of the state of Mr. Jaggers hung about him too, forbidding
approach beyond certain limits. His personal recognition of
each successive client was comprised in a nod, and in his set-
tling his hat a little easier on his head with both hands, and
then tightening the post-office, and putting his hands in his
pockets. In one or two instances there was a difficulty re-
specting the raising of fees, and then Mr. Wemmick, backing
as far as possible from the insufficient money produced, said,
“it’s no use, my boy. I’m only a subordinate. I can’t take
it. Don’t go on in that way with a subordinate. If you are
unable to make up your quantum, my boy, you had better
address yourself to a principal; there are plenty of principals
in the profession, you know, and what is not worth the while
of one, may be worth the while of another; that’s my recom-
mendation to you, speaking as a subordinate. Don’t try on
useless measures. Why should you? Now, who’s next?”
Thus, we walked through Wemmick’s greenhouse, until he
turned to me and said, “Notice the man I shall shake hands
with.” I should have done so, without the preparation, as he

397
had shaken hands with no one yet.
Almost as soon as he had spoken, a portly upright man
(whom I can see now, as I write) in a well-worn olive-colored
frock-coat, with a peculiar pallor overspreading the red in
his complexion, and eyes that went wandering about when
he tried to fix them, came up to a corner of the bars, and put
his hand to his hat—which had a greasy and fatty surface
like cold broth—with a half-serious and half-jocose military
salute.
“Colonel, to you!” said Wemmick; “how are you, Colonel?”
“All right, Mr. Wemmick.”
“Everything was done that could be done, but the evidence
was too strong for us, Colonel.”
“Yes, it was too strong, sir,—but I don’t care.”
“No, no,” said Wemmick, coolly, “you don’t care.” Then, turn-
ing to me, “Served His Majesty this man. Was a soldier in the
line and bought his discharge.”
I said, “Indeed?” and the man’s eyes looked at me, and then
looked over my head, and then looked all round me, and then
he drew his hand across his lips and laughed.
“I think I shall be out of this on Monday, sir,” he said to Wem-
mick.
“Perhaps,” returned my friend, “but there’s no knowing.”
“I am glad to have the chance of bidding you good-bye, Mr.

398
Wemmick,” said the man, stretching out his hand between
two bars.
“Thankye,” said Wemmick, shaking hands with him. “Same
to you, Colonel.”
“If what I had upon me when taken had been real, Mr. Wem-
mick,” said the man, unwilling to let his hand go, “I should
have asked the favor of your wearing another ring—in ac-
knowledgment of your attentions.”
“I’ll accept the will for the deed,” said Wemmick. “By the
by; you were quite a pigeon-fancier.” The man looked up at
the sky. “I am told you had a remarkable breed of tumblers.
Could you commission any friend of yours to bring me a pair,
if you’ve no further use for ’em?”
“It shall be done, sir.”
“All right,” said Wemmick, “they shall be taken care of. Good
afternoon, Colonel. Good-bye!” They shook hands again, and
as we walked away Wemmick said to me, “A Coiner, a very
good workman. The Recorder’s report is made to-day, and
he is sure to be executed on Monday. Still you see, as far as
it goes, a pair of pigeons are portable property all the same.”
With that, he looked back, and nodded at this dead plant, and
then cast his eyes about him in walking out of the yard, as
if he were considering what other pot would go best in its
place.
As we came out of the prison through the lodge, I found that
the great importance of my guardian was appreciated by the

399
turnkeys, no less than by those whom they held in charge.
“Well, Mr. Wemmick,” said the turnkey, who kept us between
the two studded and spiked lodge gates, and who carefully
locked one before he unlocked the other, “what’s Mr. Jaggers
going to do with that water-side murder? Is he going to make
it manslaughter, or what’s he going to make of it?”
“Why don’t you ask him?” returned Wemmick.
“O yes, I dare say!” said the turnkey.
“Now, that’s the way with them here, Mr. Pip,” remarked
Wemmick, turning to me with his post-office elongated.
“They don’t mind what they ask of me, the subordinate; but
you’ll never catch ’em asking any questions of my principal.”
“Is this young gentleman one of the ’prentices or articled ones
of your office?” asked the turnkey, with a grin at Mr. Wem-
mick’s humor.
“There he goes again, you see!” cried Wemmick, “I told you
so! Asks another question of the subordinate before his first
is dry! Well, supposing Mr. Pip is one of them?”
“Why then,” said the turnkey, grinning again, “he knows
what Mr. Jaggers is.”
“Yah!” cried Wemmick, suddenly hitting out at the turnkey in
a facetious way, “you’re dumb as one of your own keys when
you have to do with my principal, you know you are. Let us
out, you old fox, or I’ll get him to bring an action against you
for false imprisonment.”

400
The turnkey laughed, and gave us good day, and stood laugh-
ing at us over the spikes of the wicket when we descended
the steps into the street.
“Mind you, Mr. Pip,” said Wemmick, gravely in my ear, as he
took my arm to be more confidential; “I don’t know that Mr.
Jaggers does a better thing than the way in which he keeps
himself so high. He’s always so high. His constant height is
of a piece with his immense abilities. That Colonel durst no
more take leave of him, than that turnkey durst ask him his
intentions respecting a case. Then, between his height and
them, he slips in his subordinate,—don’t you see?—and so he
has ’em, soul and body.”
I was very much impressed, and not for the first time, by
my guardian’s subtlety. To confess the truth, I very heartily
wished, and not for the first time, that I had had some other
guardian of minor abilities.
Mr. Wemmick and I parted at the office in Little Britain,
where suppliants for Mr. Jaggers’s notice were lingering
about as usual, and I returned to my watch in the street of
the coach-office, with some three hours on hand. I consumed
the whole time in thinking how strange it was that I should
be encompassed by all this taint of prison and crime; that,
in my childhood out on our lonely marshes on a winter
evening, I should have first encountered it; that, it should
have reappeared on two occasions, starting out like a stain
that was faded but not gone; that, it should in this new way
pervade my fortune and advancement. While my mind was

401
thus engaged, I thought of the beautiful young Estella, proud
and refined, coming towards me, and I thought with absolute
abhorrence of the contrast between the jail and her. I wished
that Wemmick had not met me, or that I had not yielded to
him and gone with him, so that, of all days in the year on
this day, I might not have had Newgate in my breath and on
my clothes. I beat the prison dust off my feet as I sauntered
to and fro, and I shook it out of my dress, and I exhaled its
air from my lungs. So contaminated did I feel, remembering
who was coming, that the coach came quickly after all, and
I was not yet free from the soiling consciousness of Mr.
Wemmick’s conservatory, when I saw her face at the coach
window and her hand waving to me.
What was the nameless shadow which again in that one in-
stant had passed?

402
Chapter XXXIII
In her furred travelling-dress, Estella seemed more delicately
beautiful than she had ever seemed yet, even in my eyes. Her
manner was more winning than she had cared to let it be to
me before, and I thought I saw Miss Havisham’s influence in
the change.
We stood in the Inn Yard while she pointed out her luggage to
me, and when it was all collected I remembered—having for-
gotten everything but herself in the meanwhile—that I knew
nothing of her destination.
“I am going to Richmond,” she told me. “Our lesson is, that
there are two Richmonds, one in Surrey and one in Yorkshire,
and that mine is the Surrey Richmond. The distance is ten
miles. I am to have a carriage, and you are to take me. This
is my purse, and you are to pay my charges out of it. O, you
must take the purse! We have no choice, you and I, but to
obey our instructions. We are not free to follow our own
devices, you and I.”
As she looked at me in giving me the purse, I hoped there was
an inner meaning in her words. She said them slightingly, but
not with displeasure.
“A carriage will have to be sent for, Estella. Will you rest here
a little?”
“Yes, I am to rest here a little, and I am to drink some tea, and
you are to take care of me the while.”

403
She drew her arm through mine, as if it must be done, and I
requested a waiter who had been staring at the coach like a
man who had never seen such a thing in his life, to show us a
private sitting-room. Upon that, he pulled out a napkin, as if
it were a magic clew without which he couldn’t find the way
upstairs, and led us to the black hole of the establishment, fit-
ted up with a diminishing mirror (quite a superfluous article,
considering the hole’s proportions), an anchovy sauce-cruet,
and somebody’s pattens. On my objecting to this retreat, he
took us into another room with a dinner-table for thirty, and
in the grate a scorched leaf of a copy-book under a bushel of
coal-dust. Having looked at this extinct conflagration and
shaken his head, he took my order; which, proving to be
merely, “Some tea for the lady,” sent him out of the room in
a very low state of mind.
I was, and I am, sensible that the air of this chamber, in its
strong combination of stable with soup-stock, might have led
one to infer that the coaching department was not doing well,
and that the enterprising proprietor was boiling down the
horses for the refreshment department. Yet the room was all
in all to me, Estella being in it. I thought that with her I could
have been happy there for life. (I was not at all happy there
at the time, observe, and I knew it well.)
“Where are you going to, at Richmond?” I asked Estella.
“I am going to live,” said she, “at a great expense, with a
lady there, who has the power—or says she has—of taking
me about, and introducing me, and showing people to me

404
and showing me to people.”
“I suppose you will be glad of variety and admiration?”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
She answered so carelessly, that I said, “You speak of yourself
as if you were some one else.”
“Where did you learn how I speak of others? Come, come,”
said Estella, smiling delightfully, “you must not expect me to
go to school to you; I must talk in my own way. How do you
thrive with Mr. Pocket?”
“I live quite pleasantly there; at least—” It appeared to me that
I was losing a chance.
“At least?” repeated Estella.
“As pleasantly as I could anywhere, away from you.”
“You silly boy,” said Estella, quite composedly, “how can you
talk such nonsense? Your friend Mr. Matthew, I believe, is
superior to the rest of his family?”
“Very superior indeed. He is nobody’s enemy—”
“Don’t add but his own,” interposed Estella, “for I hate that
class of man. But he really is disinterested, and above small
jealousy and spite, I have heard?”
“I am sure I have every reason to say so.”
“You have not every reason to say so of the rest of his people,”
said Estella, nodding at me with an expression of face that

405
was at once grave and rallying, “for they beset Miss Hav-
isham with reports and insinuations to your disadvantage.
They watch you, misrepresent you, write letters about you
(anonymous sometimes), and you are the torment and the
occupation of their lives. You can scarcely realize to yourself
the hatred those people feel for you.”
“They do me no harm, I hope?”
Instead of answering, Estella burst out laughing. This was
very singular to me, and I looked at her in considerable per-
plexity. When she left off—and she had not laughed lan-
guidly, but with real enjoyment—I said, in my diffident way
with her,—
“I hope I may suppose that you would not be amused if they
did me any harm.”
“No, no you may be sure of that,” said Estella. “You may be
certain that I laugh because they fail. O, those people with
Miss Havisham, and the tortures they undergo!” She laughed
again, and even now when she had told me why, her laughter
was very singular to me, for I could not doubt its being gen-
uine, and yet it seemed too much for the occasion. I thought
there must really be something more here than I knew; she
saw the thought in my mind, and answered it.
“It is not easy for even you.” said Estella, “to know what sat-
isfaction it gives me to see those people thwarted, or what an
enjoyable sense of the ridiculous I have when they are made
ridiculous. For you were not brought up in that strange house

406
from a mere baby. I was. You had not your little wits sharp-
ened by their intriguing against you, suppressed and defence-
less, under the mask of sympathy and pity and what not that
is soft and soothing. I had. You did not gradually open your
round childish eyes wider and wider to the discovery of that
impostor of a woman who calculates her stores of peace of
mind for when she wakes up in the night. I did.”
It was no laughing matter with Estella now, nor was she sum-
moning these remembrances from any shallow place. I would
not have been the cause of that look of hers for all my expec-
tations in a heap.
“Two things I can tell you,” said Estella. “First, notwith-
standing the proverb that constant dropping will wear away
a stone, you may set your mind at rest that these people
never will—never would, in hundred years—impair your
ground with Miss Havisham, in any particular, great or
small. Second, I am beholden to you as the cause of their
being so busy and so mean in vain, and there is my hand
upon it.”
As she gave it to me playfully,—for her darker mood had been
but Momentary,—I held it and put it to my lips. “You ridicu-
lous boy,” said Estella, “will you never take warning? Or do
you kiss my hand in the same spirit in which I once let you
kiss my cheek?”
“What spirit was that?” said I.
“I must think a moment. A spirit of contempt for the fawners

407
and plotters.”
“If I say yes, may I kiss the cheek again?”
“You should have asked before you touched the hand. But,
yes, if you like.”
I leaned down, and her calm face was like a statue’s. “Now,”
said Estella, gliding away the instant I touched her cheek,
“you are to take care that I have some tea, and you are to
take me to Richmond.”
Her reverting to this tone as if our association were forced
upon us, and we were mere puppets, gave me pain; but every-
thing in our intercourse did give me pain. Whatever her tone
with me happened to be, I could put no trust in it, and build
no hope on it; and yet I went on against trust and against
hope. Why repeat it a thousand times? So it always was.
I rang for the tea, and the waiter, reappearing with his magic
clew, brought in by degrees some fifty adjuncts to that re-
freshment, but of tea not a glimpse. A teaboard, cups and
saucers, plates, knives and forks (including carvers), spoons
(various), saltcellars, a meek little muffin confined with the
utmost precaution under a strong iron cover, Moses in the
bulrushes typified by a soft bit of butter in a quantity of pars-
ley, a pale loaf with a powdered head, two proof impressions
of the bars of the kitchen fireplace on triangular bits of bread,
and ultimately a fat family urn; which the waiter staggered
in with, expressing in his countenance burden and suffering.
After a prolonged absence at this stage of the entertainment,

408
he at length came back with a casket of precious appearance
containing twigs. These I steeped in hot water, and so from
the whole of these appliances extracted one cup of I don’t
know what for Estella.
The bill paid, and the waiter remembered, and the ostler not
forgotten, and the chambermaid taken into consideration,—
in a word, the whole house bribed into a state of contempt
and animosity, and Estella’s purse much lightened,—we got
into our post-coach and drove away. Turning into Cheapside
and rattling up Newgate Street, we were soon under the walls
of which I was so ashamed.
“What place is that?” Estella asked me.
I made a foolish pretence of not at first recognizing it, and
then told her. As she looked at it, and drew in her head again,
murmuring, “Wretches!” I would not have confessed to my
visit for any consideration.
“Mr. Jaggers,” said I, by way of putting it neatly on somebody
else, “has the reputation of being more in the secrets of that
dismal place than any man in London.”
“He is more in the secrets of every place, I think,” said Estella,
in a low voice.
“You have been accustomed to see him often, I suppose?”
“I have been accustomed to see him at uncertain intervals,
ever since I can remember. But I know him no better now,
than I did before I could speak plainly. What is your own

409
experience of him? Do you advance with him?”
“Once habituated to his distrustful manner,” said I, “I have
done very well.”
“Are you intimate?”
“I have dined with him at his private house.”
“I fancy,” said Estella, shrinking “that must be a curious place.”
“It is a curious place.”
I should have been chary of discussing my guardian too freely
even with her; but I should have gone on with the subject so
far as to describe the dinner in Gerrard Street, if we had not
then come into a sudden glare of gas. It seemed, while it
lasted, to be all alight and alive with that inexplicable feeling
I had had before; and when we were out of it, I was as much
dazed for a few moments as if I had been in lightning.
So we fell into other talk, and it was principally about the
way by which we were travelling, and about what parts of
London lay on this side of it, and what on that. The great city
was almost new to her, she told me, for she had never left Miss
Havisham’s neighborhood until she had gone to France, and
she had merely passed through London then in going and
returning. I asked her if my guardian had any charge of her
while she remained here? To that she emphatically said “God
forbid!” and no more.
It was impossible for me to avoid seeing that she cared to
attract me; that she made herself winning, and would have

410
won me even if the task had needed pains. Yet this made me
none the happier, for even if she had not taken that tone of
our being disposed of by others, I should have felt that she
held my heart in her hand because she wilfully chose to do it,
and not because it would have wrung any tenderness in her
to crush it and throw it away.
When we passed through Hammersmith, I showed her where
Mr. Matthew Pocket lived, and said it was no great way from
Richmond, and that I hoped I should see her sometimes.
“O yes, you are to see me; you are to come when you think
proper; you are to be mentioned to the family; indeed you
are already mentioned.”
I inquired was it a large household she was going to be a
member of?
“No; there are only two; mother and daughter. The mother
is a lady of some station, though not averse to increasing her
income.”
“I wonder Miss Havisham could part with you again so soon.”
“It is a part of Miss Havisham’s plans for me, Pip,” said Es-
tella, with a sigh, as if she were tired; “I am to write to her
constantly and see her regularly and report how I go on,—I
and the jewels,—for they are nearly all mine now.”
It was the first time she had ever called me by my name. Of
course she did so purposely, and knew that I should treasure
it up.

411
We came to Richmond all too soon, and our destination there
was a house by the green,—a staid old house, where hoops
and powder and patches, embroidered coats, rolled stockings,
ruffles and swords, had had their court days many a time.
Some ancient trees before the house were still cut into fash-
ions as formal and unnatural as the hoops and wigs and stiff
skirts; but their own allotted places in the great procession
of the dead were not far off, and they would soon drop into
them and go the silent way of the rest.
A bell with an old voice—which I dare say in its time had of-
ten said to the house, Here is the green farthingale, Here is
the diamond-hilted sword, Here are the shoes with red heels
and the blue solitaire—sounded gravely in the moonlight, and
two cherry-colored maids came fluttering out to receive Es-
tella. The doorway soon absorbed her boxes, and she gave me
her hand and a smile, and said good night, and was absorbed
likewise. And still I stood looking at the house, thinking how
happy I should be if I lived there with her, and knowing that
I never was happy with her, but always miserable.
I got into the carriage to be taken back to Hammersmith, and I
got in with a bad heart-ache, and I got out with a worse heart-
ache. At our own door, I found little Jane Pocket coming
home from a little party escorted by her little lover; and I
envied her little lover, in spite of his being subject to Flopson.
Mr. Pocket was out lecturing; for, he was a most delightful
lecturer on domestic economy, and his treatises on the man-
agement of children and servants were considered the very

412
best text-books on those themes. But Mrs. Pocket was at
home, and was in a little difficulty, on account of the baby’s
having been accommodated with a needle-case to keep him
quiet during the unaccountable absence (with a relative in
the Foot Guards) of Millers. And more needles were missing
than it could be regarded as quite wholesome for a patient of
such tender years either to apply externally or to take as a
tonic.
Mr. Pocket being justly celebrated for giving most excellent
practical advice, and for having a clear and sound perception
of things and a highly judicious mind, I had some notion in
my heart-ache of begging him to accept my confidence. But
happening to look up at Mrs. Pocket as she sat reading her
book of dignities after prescribing Bed as a sovereign remedy
for baby, I thought—Well—No, I wouldn’t.

413
Chapter XXXIV
As I had grown accustomed to my expectations, I had insensi-
bly begun to notice their effect upon myself and those around
me. Their influence on my own character I disguised from
my recognition as much as possible, but I knew very well
that it was not all good. I lived in a state of chronic uneasi-
ness respecting my behavior to Joe. My conscience was not
by any means comfortable about Biddy. When I woke up in
the night,—like Camilla,—I used to think, with a weariness on
my spirits, that I should have been happier and better if I had
never seen Miss Havisham’s face, and had risen to manhood
content to be partners with Joe in the honest old forge. Many
a time of an evening, when I sat alone looking at the fire, I
thought, after all there was no fire like the forge fire and the
kitchen fire at home.
Yet Estella was so inseparable from all my restlessness and
disquiet of mind, that I really fell into confusion as to the
limits of my own part in its production. That is to say, sup-
posing I had had no expectations, and yet had had Estella
to think of, I could not make out to my satisfaction that I
should have done much better. Now, concerning the influ-
ence of my position on others, I was in no such difficulty,
and so I perceived—though dimly enough perhaps—that it
was not beneficial to anybody, and, above all, that it was not
beneficial to Herbert. My lavish habits led his easy nature
into expenses that he could not afford, corrupted the sim-
plicity of his life, and disturbed his peace with anxieties and

414
regrets. I was not at all remorseful for having unwittingly
set those other branches of the Pocket family to the poor
arts they practised; because such littlenesses were their nat-
ural bent, and would have been evoked by anybody else, if I
had left them slumbering. But Herbert’s was a very different
case, and it often caused me a twinge to think that I had done
him evil service in crowding his sparely furnished chambers
with incongruous upholstery work, and placing the Canary-
breasted Avenger at his disposal.
So now, as an infallible way of making little ease great ease, I
began to contract a quantity of debt. I could hardly begin but
Herbert must begin too, so he soon followed. At Startop’s
suggestion, we put ourselves down for election into a club
called The Finches of the Grove: the object of which insti-
tution I have never divined, if it were not that the members
should dine expensively once a fortnight, to quarrel among
themselves as much as possible after dinner, and to cause six
waiters to get drunk on the stairs. I know that these gratify-
ing social ends were so invariably accomplished, that Herbert
and I understood nothing else to be referred to in the first
standing toast of the society: which ran “Gentlemen, may
the present promotion of good feeling ever reign predomi-
nant among the Finches of the Grove.”
The Finches spent their money foolishly (the Hotel we dined
at was in Covent Garden), and the first Finch I saw when I
had the honor of joining the Grove was Bentley Drummle, at
that time floundering about town in a cab of his own, and do-
ing a great deal of damage to the posts at the street corners.

415
Occasionally, he shot himself out of his equipage headfore-
most over the apron; and I saw him on one occasion deliver
himself at the door of the Grove in this unintentional way—
like coals. But here I anticipate a little, for I was not a Finch,
and could not be, according to the sacred laws of the society,
until I came of age.
In my confidence in my own resources, I would willingly
have taken Herbert’s expenses on myself; but Herbert was
proud, and I could make no such proposal to him. So he
got into difficulties in every direction, and continued to look
about him. When we gradually fell into keeping late hours
and late company, I noticed that he looked about him with a
desponding eye at breakfast-time; that he began to look about
him more hopefully about mid-day; that he drooped when
he came into dinner; that he seemed to descry Capital in the
distance, rather clearly, after dinner; that he all but realized
Capital towards midnight; and that at about two o’clock in
the morning, he became so deeply despondent again as to
talk of buying a rifle and going to America, with a general
purpose of compelling buffaloes to make his fortune.
I was usually at Hammersmith about half the week, and when
I was at Hammersmith I haunted Richmond, whereof sep-
arately by and by. Herbert would often come to Hammer-
smith when I was there, and I think at those seasons his fa-
ther would occasionally have some passing perception that
the opening he was looking for, had not appeared yet. But
in the general tumbling up of the family, his tumbling out
in life somewhere, was a thing to transact itself somehow. In

416
the meantime Mr. Pocket grew grayer, and tried oftener to lift
himself out of his perplexities by the hair. While Mrs. Pocket
tripped up the family with her footstool, read her book of dig-
nities, lost her pocket-handkerchief, told us about her grand-
papa, and taught the young idea how to shoot, by shooting it
into bed whenever it attracted her notice.
As I am now generalizing a period of my life with the object
of clearing my way before me, I can scarcely do so better than
by at once completing the description of our usual manners
and customs at Barnard’s Inn.
We spent as much money as we could, and got as little for
it as people could make up their minds to give us. We were
always more or less miserable, and most of our acquaintance
were in the same condition. There was a gay fiction among us
that we were constantly enjoying ourselves, and a skeleton
truth that we never did. To the best of my belief, our case
was in the last aspect a rather common one.
Every morning, with an air ever new, Herbert went into the
City to look about him. I often paid him a visit in the dark
back-room in which he consorted with an ink-jar, a hat-peg,
a coal-box, a string-box, an almanac, a desk and stool, and a
ruler; and I do not remember that I ever saw him do anything
else but look about him. If we all did what we undertake to
do, as faithfully as Herbert did, we might live in a Republic of
the Virtues. He had nothing else to do, poor fellow, except at
a certain hour of every afternoon to “go to Lloyd’s”—in obser-
vance of a ceremony of seeing his principal, I think. He never

417
did anything else in connection with Lloyd’s that I could find
out, except come back again. When he felt his case unusu-
ally serious, and that he positively must find an opening, he
would go on ’Change at a busy time, and walk in and out, in
a kind of gloomy country dance figure, among the assembled
magnates. “For,” says Herbert to me, coming home to dinner
on one of those special occasions, “I find the truth to be, Han-
del, that an opening won’t come to one, but one must go to
it,—so I have been.”
If we had been less attached to one another, I think we must
have hated one another regularly every morning. I detested
the chambers beyond expression at that period of repentance,
and could not endure the sight of the Avenger’s livery; which
had a more expensive and a less remunerative appearance
then than at any other time in the four-and-twenty hours. As
we got more and more into debt, breakfast became a hollower
and hollower form, and, being on one occasion at breakfast-
time threatened (by letter) with legal proceedings, “not un-
wholly unconnected,” as my local paper might put it, “with
jewelery,” I went so far as to seize the Avenger by his blue
collar and shake him off his feet,—so that he was actually in
the air, like a booted Cupid,—for presuming to suppose that
we wanted a roll.
At certain times—meaning at uncertain times, for they de-
pended on our humor—I would say to Herbert, as if it were a
remarkable discovery,—
“My dear Herbert, we are getting on badly.”

418
“My dear Handel,” Herbert would say to me, in all sincerity,
“if you will believe me, those very words were on my lips, by
a strange coincidence.”
“Then, Herbert,” I would respond, “let us look into our affairs.”
We always derived profound satisfaction from making an ap-
pointment for this purpose. I always thought this was busi-
ness, this was the way to confront the thing, this was the way
to take the foe by the throat. And I know Herbert thought so
too.
We ordered something rather special for dinner, with a bot-
tle of something similarly out of the common way, in order
that our minds might be fortified for the occasion, and we
might come well up to the mark. Dinner over, we produced
a bundle of pens, a copious supply of ink, and a goodly show
of writing and blotting paper. For there was something very
comfortable in having plenty of stationery.
I would then take a sheet of paper, and write across the top of
it, in a neat hand, the heading, “Memorandum of Pip’s debts”;
with Barnard’s Inn and the date very carefully added. Her-
bert would also take a sheet of paper, and write across it with
similar formalities, “Memorandum of Herbert’s debts.”
Each of us would then refer to a confused heap of papers
at his side, which had been thrown into drawers, worn into
holes in pockets, half burnt in lighting candles, stuck for
weeks into the looking-glass, and otherwise damaged. The
sound of our pens going refreshed us exceedingly, insomuch

419
that I sometimes found it difficult to distinguish between
this edifying business proceeding and actually paying the
money. In point of meritorious character, the two things
seemed about equal.
When we had written a little while, I would ask Herbert how
he got on? Herbert probably would have been scratching his
head in a most rueful manner at the sight of his accumulating
figures.
“They are mounting up, Handel,” Herbert would say; “upon
my life, they are mounting up.”
“Be firm, Herbert,” I would retort, plying my own pen with
great assiduity. “Look the thing in the face. Look into your
affairs. Stare them out of countenance.”
“So I would, Handel, only they are staring me out of counte-
nance.”
However, my determined manner would have its effect, and
Herbert would fall to work again. After a time he would give
up once more, on the plea that he had not got Cobbs’s bill, or
Lobbs’s, or Nobbs’s, as the case might be.
“Then, Herbert, estimate; estimate it in round numbers, and
put it down.”
“What a fellow of resource you are!” my friend would re-
ply, with admiration. “Really your business powers are very
remarkable.”
I thought so too. I established with myself, on these occa-

420
sions, the reputation of a first-rate man of business,—prompt,
decisive, energetic, clear, cool-headed. When I had got all my
responsibilities down upon my list, I compared each with the
bill, and ticked it off. My self-approval when I ticked an entry
was quite a luxurious sensation. When I had no more ticks
to make, I folded all my bills up uniformly, docketed each on
the back, and tied the whole into a symmetrical bundle. Then
I did the same for Herbert (who modestly said he had not my
administrative genius), and felt that I had brought his affairs
into a focus for him.
My business habits had one other bright feature, which I
called “leaving a Margin.” For example; supposing Herbert’s
debts to be one hundred and sixty-four pounds four-and-
twopence, I would say, “Leave a margin, and put them down
at two hundred.” Or, supposing my own to be four times
as much, I would leave a margin, and put them down at
seven hundred. I had the highest opinion of the wisdom of
this same Margin, but I am bound to acknowledge that on
looking back, I deem it to have been an expensive device.
For, we always ran into new debt immediately, to the full
extent of the margin, and sometimes, in the sense of freedom
and solvency it imparted, got pretty far on into another
margin.
But there was a calm, a rest, a virtuous hush, consequent
on these examinations of our affairs that gave me, for the
time, an admirable opinion of myself. Soothed by my ex-
ertions, my method, and Herbert’s compliments, I would sit
with his symmetrical bundle and my own on the table before

421
me among the stationary, and feel like a Bank of some sort,
rather than a private individual.
We shut our outer door on these solemn occasions, in order
that we might not be interrupted. I had fallen into my serene
state one evening, when we heard a letter dropped through
the slit in the said door, and fall on the ground. “It’s for you,
Handel,” said Herbert, going out and coming back with it,
“and I hope there is nothing the matter.” This was in allusion
to its heavy black seal and border.
The letter was signed Trabb & Co., and its contents were sim-
ply, that I was an honored sir, and that they begged to inform
me that Mrs. J. Gargery had departed this life on Monday
last at twenty minutes past six in the evening, and that my
attendance was requested at the interment on Monday next
at three o’clock in the afternoon.

422
Chapter XXXV
It was the first time that a grave had opened in my road of
life, and the gap it made in the smooth ground was won-
derful. The figure of my sister in her chair by the kitchen
fire, haunted me night and day. That the place could possibly
be, without her, was something my mind seemed unable to
compass; and whereas she had seldom or never been in my
thoughts of late, I had now the strangest ideas that she was
coming towards me in the street, or that she would presently
knock at the door. In my rooms too, with which she had
never been at all associated, there was at once the blankness
of death and a perpetual suggestion of the sound of her voice
or the turn of her face or figure, as if she were still alive and
had been often there.
Whatever my fortunes might have been, I could scarcely have
recalled my sister with much tenderness. But I suppose there
is a shock of regret which may exist without much tender-
ness. Under its influence (and perhaps to make up for the
want of the softer feeling) I was seized with a violent indig-
nation against the assailant from whom she had suffered so
much; and I felt that on sufficient proof I could have revenge-
fully pursued Orlick, or any one else, to the last extremity.
Having written to Joe, to offer him consolation, and to assure
him that I would come to the funeral, I passed the intermedi-
ate days in the curious state of mind I have glanced at. I went
down early in the morning, and alighted at the Blue Boar in

423
good time to walk over to the forge.
It was fine summer weather again, and, as I walked along,
the times when I was a little helpless creature, and my sister
did not spare me, vividly returned. But they returned with a
gentle tone upon them that softened even the edge of Tickler.
For now, the very breath of the beans and clover whispered
to my heart that the day must come when it would be well
for my memory that others walking in the sunshine should
be softened as they thought of me.
At last I came within sight of the house, and saw that Trabb
and Co. had put in a funereal execution and taken posses-
sion. Two dismally absurd persons, each ostentatiously ex-
hibiting a crutch done up in a black bandage,—as if that in-
strument could possibly communicate any comfort to any-
body,—were posted at the front door; and in one of them I
recognized a postboy discharged from the Boar for turning a
young couple into a sawpit on their bridal morning, in conse-
quence of intoxication rendering it necessary for him to ride
his horse clasped round the neck with both arms. All the
children of the village, and most of the women, were admir-
ing these sable warders and the closed windows of the house
and forge; and as I came up, one of the two warders (the post-
boy) knocked at the door,—implying that I was far too much
exhausted by grief to have strength remaining to knock for
myself.
Another sable warder (a carpenter, who had once eaten two
geese for a wager) opened the door, and showed me into the

424
best parlor. Here, Mr. Trabb had taken unto himself the best
table, and had got all the leaves up, and was holding a kind
of black Bazaar, with the aid of a quantity of black pins. At
the moment of my arrival, he had just finished putting some-
body’s hat into black long-clothes, like an African baby; so he
held out his hand for mine. But I, misled by the action, and
confused by the occasion, shook hands with him with every
testimony of warm affection.
Poor dear Joe, entangled in a little black cloak tied in a large
bow under his chin, was seated apart at the upper end of
the room; where, as chief mourner, he had evidently been
stationed by Trabb. When I bent down and said to him, “Dear
Joe, how are you?” he said, “Pip, old chap, you knowed her
when she were a fine figure of a—” and clasped my hand and
said no more.
Biddy, looking very neat and modest in her black dress, went
quietly here and there, and was very helpful. When I had spo-
ken to Biddy, as I thought it not a time for talking I went and
sat down near Joe, and there began to wonder in what part of
the house it—she—my sister—was. The air of the parlor being
faint with the smell of sweet-cake, I looked about for the ta-
ble of refreshments; it was scarcely visible until one had got
accustomed to the gloom, but there was a cut-up plum cake
upon it, and there were cut-up oranges, and sandwiches, and
biscuits, and two decanters that I knew very well as orna-
ments, but had never seen used in all my life; one full of port,
and one of sherry. Standing at this table, I became conscious
of the servile Pumblechook in a black cloak and several yards

425
of hatband, who was alternately stuffing himself, and mak-
ing obsequious movements to catch my attention. The mo-
ment he succeeded, he came over to me (breathing sherry and
crumbs), and said in a subdued voice, “May I, dear sir?” and
did. I then descried Mr. and Mrs. Hubble; the last-named in
a decent speechless paroxysm in a corner. We were all going
to “follow,” and were all in course of being tied up separately
(by Trabb) into ridiculous bundles.
“Which I meantersay, Pip,” Joe whispered me, as we were be-
ing what Mr. Trabb called “formed” in the parlor, two and
two,—and it was dreadfully like a preparation for some grim
kind of dance; “which I meantersay, sir, as I would in prefer-
ence have carried her to the church myself, along with three
or four friendly ones wot come to it with willing harts and
arms, but it were considered wot the neighbors would look
down on such and would be of opinions as it were wanting
in respect.”
“Pocket-handkerchiefs out, all!” cried Mr. Trabb at this point,
in a depressed business-like voice. “Pocket-handkerchiefs
out! We are ready!”
So we all put our pocket-handkerchiefs to our faces, as if our
noses were bleeding, and filed out two and two; Joe and I;
Biddy and Pumblechook; Mr. and Mrs. Hubble. The remains
of my poor sister had been brought round by the kitchen
door, and, it being a point of Undertaking ceremony that the
six bearers must be stifled and blinded under a horrible black
velvet housing with a white border, the whole looked like a

426
blind monster with twelve human legs, shuffling and blun-
dering along, under the guidance of two keepers,—the post-
boy and his comrade.
The neighborhood, however, highly approved of these ar-
rangements, and we were much admired as we went through
the village; the more youthful and vigorous part of the com-
munity making dashes now and then to cut us off, and ly-
ing in wait to intercept us at points of vantage. At such
times the more exuberant among them called out in an ex-
cited manner on our emergence round some corner of ex-
pectancy, “Here they come!” “Here they are!” and we were
all but cheered. In this progress I was much annoyed by the
abject Pumblechook, who, being behind me, persisted all the
way as a delicate attention in arranging my streaming hat-
band, and smoothing my cloak. My thoughts were further
distracted by the excessive pride of Mr. and Mrs. Hubble,
who were surpassingly conceited and vainglorious in being
members of so distinguished a procession.
And now the range of marshes lay clear before us, with the
sails of the ships on the river growing out of it; and we went
into the churchyard, close to the graves of my unknown par-
ents, Philip Pirrip, late of this parish, and Also Georgiana,
Wife of the Above. And there, my sister was laid quietly in
the earth, while the larks sang high above it, and the light
wind strewed it with beautiful shadows of clouds and trees.
Of the conduct of the worldly minded Pumblechook while
this was doing, I desire to say no more than it was all ad-

427
dressed to me; and that even when those noble passages were
read which remind humanity how it brought nothing into
the world and can take nothing out, and how it fleeth like a
shadow and never continueth long in one stay, I heard him
cough a reservation of the case of a young gentleman who
came unexpectedly into large property. When we got back,
he had the hardihood to tell me that he wished my sister
could have known I had done her so much honor, and to hint
that she would have considered it reasonably purchased at
the price of her death. After that, he drank all the rest of the
sherry, and Mr. Hubble drank the port, and the two talked
(which I have since observed to be customary in such cases)
as if they were of quite another race from the deceased, and
were notoriously immortal. Finally, he went away with Mr.
and Mrs. Hubble,—to make an evening of it, I felt sure, and
to tell the Jolly Bargemen that he was the founder of my for-
tunes and my earliest benefactor.
When they were all gone, and when Trabb and his men—but
not his Boy; I looked for him—had crammed their mummery
into bags, and were gone too, the house felt wholesomer.
Soon afterwards, Biddy, Joe, and I, had a cold dinner together;
but we dined in the best parlor, not in the old kitchen, and Joe
was so exceedingly particular what he did with his knife and
fork and the saltcellar and what not, that there was great re-
straint upon us. But after dinner, when I made him take his
pipe, and when I had loitered with him about the forge, and
when we sat down together on the great block of stone out-
side it, we got on better. I noticed that after the funeral Joe

428
changed his clothes so far, as to make a compromise between
his Sunday dress and working dress; in which the dear fellow
looked natural, and like the Man he was.
He was very much pleased by my asking if I might sleep in
my own little room, and I was pleased too; for I felt that I had
done rather a great thing in making the request. When the
shadows of evening were closing in, I took an opportunity of
getting into the garden with Biddy for a little talk.
“Biddy,” said I, “I think you might have written to me about
these sad matters.”
“Do you, Mr. Pip?” said Biddy. “I should have written if I had
thought that.”
“Don’t suppose that I mean to be unkind, Biddy, when I say
I consider that you ought to have thought that.”
“Do you, Mr. Pip?”
She was so quiet, and had such an orderly, good, and pretty
way with her, that I did not like the thought of making her
cry again. After looking a little at her downcast eyes as she
walked beside me, I gave up that point.
“I suppose it will be difficult for you to remain here now,
Biddy dear?”
“Oh! I can’t do so, Mr. Pip,” said Biddy, in a tone of regret
but still of quiet conviction. “I have been speaking to Mrs.
Hubble, and I am going to her to-morrow. I hope we shall

429
be able to take some care of Mr. Gargery, together, until he
settles down.”
“How are you going to live, Biddy? If you want any mo—”
“How am I going to live?” repeated Biddy, striking in, with
a momentary flush upon her face. “I’ll tell you, Mr. Pip. I
am going to try to get the place of mistress in the new school
nearly finished here. I can be well recommended by all the
neighbors, and I hope I can be industrious and patient, and
teach myself while I teach others. You know, Mr. Pip,” pur-
sued Biddy, with a smile, as she raised her eyes to my face,
“the new schools are not like the old, but I learnt a good deal
from you after that time, and have had time since then to
improve.”
“I think you would always improve, Biddy, under any circum-
stances.”
“Ah! Except in my bad side of human nature,” murmured
Biddy.
It was not so much a reproach as an irresistible thinking
aloud. Well! I thought I would give up that point too. So,
I walked a little further with Biddy, looking silently at her
downcast eyes.
“I have not heard the particulars of my sister’s death, Biddy.”
“They are very slight, poor thing. She had been in one of
her bad states—though they had got better of late, rather
than worse—for four days, when she came out of it in the

430
evening, just at tea-time, and said quite plainly, ‘Joe.’ As she
had never said any word for a long while, I ran and fetched
in Mr. Gargery from the forge. She made signs to me that
she wanted him to sit down close to her, and wanted me to
put her arms round his neck. So I put them round his neck,
and she laid her head down on his shoulder quite content
and satisfied. And so she presently said ‘Joe’ again, and once
‘Pardon,’ and once ‘Pip.’ And so she never lifted her head up
any more, and it was just an hour later when we laid it down
on her own bed, because we found she was gone.”
Biddy cried; the darkening garden, and the lane, and the stars
that were coming out, were blurred in my own sight.
“Nothing was ever discovered, Biddy?”
“Nothing.”
“Do you know what is become of Orlick?”
“I should think from the color of his clothes that he is working
in the quarries.”
“Of course you have seen him then?—Why are you looking
at that dark tree in the lane?”
“I saw him there, on the night she died.”
“That was not the last time either, Biddy?”
“No; I have seen him there, since we have been walking
here.—It is of no use,” said Biddy, laying her hand upon
my arm, as I was for running out, “you know I would not

431
deceive you; he was not there a minute, and he is gone.”
It revived my utmost indignation to find that she was still
pursued by this fellow, and I felt inveterate against him. I
told her so, and told her that I would spend any money or
take any pains to drive him out of that country. By degrees
she led me into more temperate talk, and she told me how Joe
loved me, and how Joe never complained of anything,—she
didn’t say, of me; she had no need; I knew what she meant,—
but ever did his duty in his way of life, with a strong hand, a
quiet tongue, and a gentle heart.
“Indeed, it would be hard to say too much for him,” said I;
“and Biddy, we must often speak of these things, for of course
I shall be often down here now. I am not going to leave poor
Joe alone.”
Biddy said never a single word.
“Biddy, don’t you hear me?”
“Yes, Mr. Pip.”
“Not to mention your calling me Mr. Pip,—which appears to
me to be in bad taste, Biddy,—what do you mean?”
“What do I mean?” asked Biddy, timidly.
“Biddy,” said I, in a virtuously self-asserting manner, “I must
request to know what you mean by this?”
“By this?” said Biddy.
“Now, don’t echo,” I retorted. “You used not to echo, Biddy.”

432
“Used not!” said Biddy. “O Mr. Pip! Used!”
Well! I rather thought I would give up that point too. Af-
ter another silent turn in the garden, I fell back on the main
position.
“Biddy,” said I, “I made a remark respecting my coming down
here often, to see Joe, which you received with a marked si-
lence. Have the goodness, Biddy, to tell me why.”
“Are you quite sure, then, that you WILL come to see him
often?” asked Biddy, stopping in the narrow garden walk,
and looking at me under the stars with a clear and honest
eye.
“O dear me!” said I, as if I found myself compelled to give
up Biddy in despair. “This really is a very bad side of human
nature! Don’t say any more, if you please, Biddy. This shocks
me very much.”
For which cogent reason I kept Biddy at a distance during
supper, and when I went up to my own old little room, took
as stately a leave of her as I could, in my murmuring soul,
deem reconcilable with the churchyard and the event of the
day. As often as I was restless in the night, and that was every
quarter of an hour, I reflected what an unkindness, what an
injury, what an injustice, Biddy had done me.
Early in the morning I was to go. Early in the morning I was
out, and looking in, unseen, at one of the wooden windows of
the forge. There I stood, for minutes, looking at Joe, already
at work with a glow of health and strength upon his face that

433
made it show as if the bright sun of the life in store for him
were shining on it.
“Good-bye, dear Joe!—No, don’t wipe it off—for God’s sake,
give me your blackened hand!—I shall be down soon and of-
ten.”
“Never too soon, sir,” said Joe, “and never too often, Pip!”
Biddy was waiting for me at the kitchen door, with a mug of
new milk and a crust of bread. “Biddy,” said I, when I gave
her my hand at parting, “I am not angry, but I am hurt.”
“No, don’t be hurt,” she pleaded quite pathetically; “let only
me be hurt, if I have been ungenerous.”
Once more, the mists were rising as I walked away. If they
disclosed to me, as I suspect they did, that I should not come
back, and that Biddy was quite right, all I can say is,—they
were quite right too.

434
Chapter XXXVI
Herbert and I went on from bad to worse, in the way of
increasing our debts, looking into our affairs, leaving Mar-
gins, and the like exemplary transactions; and Time went
on, whether or no, as he has a way of doing; and I came of
age,—in fulfilment of Herbert’s prediction, that I should do
so before I knew where I was.
Herbert himself had come of age eight months before me. As
he had nothing else than his majority to come into, the event
did not make a profound sensation in Barnard’s Inn. But we
had looked forward to my one-and-twentieth birthday, with
a crowd of speculations and anticipations, for we had both
considered that my guardian could hardly help saying some-
thing definite on that occasion.
I had taken care to have it well understood in Little Britain
when my birthday was. On the day before it, I received an
official note from Wemmick, informing me that Mr. Jaggers
would be glad if I would call upon him at five in the afternoon
of the auspicious day. This convinced us that something great
was to happen, and threw me into an unusual flutter when I
repaired to my guardian’s office, a model of punctuality.
In the outer office Wemmick offered me his congratulations,
and incidentally rubbed the side of his nose with a folded
piece of tissue-paper that I liked the look of. But he said
nothing respecting it, and motioned me with a nod into my
guardian’s room. It was November, and my guardian was

435
standing before his fire leaning his back against the chimney-
piece, with his hands under his coattails.
“Well, Pip,” said he, “I must call you Mr. Pip to-day. Congrat-
ulations, Mr. Pip.”
We shook hands,—he was always a remarkably short
shaker,—and I thanked him.
“Take a chair, Mr. Pip,” said my guardian.
As I sat down, and he preserved his attitude and bent his
brows at his boots, I felt at a disadvantage, which reminded
me of that old time when I had been put upon a tombstone.
The two ghastly casts on the shelf were not far from him, and
their expression was as if they were making a stupid apoplec-
tic attempt to attend to the conversation.
“Now my young friend,” my guardian began, as if I were a
witness in the box, “I am going to have a word or two with
you.”
“If you please, sir.”
“What do you suppose,” said Mr. Jaggers, bending forward to
look at the ground, and then throwing his head back to look
at the ceiling,—“what do you suppose you are living at the
rate of?”
“At the rate of, sir?”
“At,” repeated Mr. Jaggers, still looking at the ceiling, “the—
rate—of?” And then looked all round the room, and paused

436
with his pocket-handkerchief in his hand, half-way to his
nose.
I had looked into my affairs so often, that I had thoroughly
destroyed any slight notion I might ever have had of their
bearings. Reluctantly, I confessed myself quite unable to an-
swer the question. This reply seemed agreeable to Mr. Jag-
gers, who said, “I thought so!” and blew his nose with an air
of satisfaction.
“Now, I have asked you a question, my friend,” said Mr. Jag-
gers. “Have you anything to ask me?”
“Of course it would be a great relief to me to ask you several
questions, sir; but I remember your prohibition.”
“Ask one,” said Mr. Jaggers.
“Is my benefactor to be made known to me to-day?”
“No. Ask another.”
“Is that confidence to be imparted to me soon?”
“Waive that, a moment,” said Mr. Jaggers, “and ask another.”
I looked about me, but there appeared to be now no possible
escape from the inquiry, “Have-I—anything to receive, sir?”
On that, Mr. Jaggers said, triumphantly, “I thought we should
come to it!” and called to Wemmick to give him that piece of
paper. Wemmick appeared, handed it in, and disappeared.
“Now, Mr. Pip,” said Mr. Jaggers, “attend, if you please. You
have been drawing pretty freely here; your name occurs

437
pretty often in Wemmick’s cash-book; but you are in debt,
of course?”
“I am afraid I must say yes, sir.”
“You know you must say yes; don’t you?” said Mr. Jaggers.
“Yes, sir.”
“I don’t ask you what you owe, because you don’t know; and
if you did know, you wouldn’t tell me; you would say less.
Yes, yes, my friend,” cried Mr. Jaggers, waving his forefinger
to stop me as I made a show of protesting: “it’s likely enough
that you think you wouldn’t, but you would. You’ll excuse
me, but I know better than you. Now, take this piece of paper
in your hand. You have got it? Very good. Now, unfold it and
tell me what it is.”
“This is a bank-note,” said I, “for five hundred pounds.”
“That is a bank-note,” repeated Mr. Jaggers, “for five hundred
pounds. And a very handsome sum of money too, I think.
You consider it so?”
“How could I do otherwise!”
“Ah! But answer the question,” said Mr. Jaggers.
“Undoubtedly.”
“You consider it, undoubtedly, a handsome sum of money.
Now, that handsome sum of money, Pip, is your own. It is a
present to you on this day, in earnest of your expectations.
And at the rate of that handsome sum of money per annum,

438
and at no higher rate, you are to live until the donor of the
whole appears. That is to say, you will now take your money
affairs entirely into your own hands, and you will draw from
Wemmick one hundred and twenty-five pounds per quarter,
until you are in communication with the fountain-head, and
no longer with the mere agent. As I have told you before, I
am the mere agent. I execute my instructions, and I am paid
for doing so. I think them injudicious, but I am not paid for
giving any opinion on their merits.”
I was beginning to express my gratitude to my benefactor
for the great liberality with which I was treated, when Mr.
Jaggers stopped me. “I am not paid, Pip,” said he, coolly, “to
carry your words to any one;” and then gathered up his coat-
tails, as he had gathered up the subject, and stood frowning
at his boots as if he suspected them of designs against him.
After a pause, I hinted,—
“There was a question just now, Mr. Jaggers, which you de-
sired me to waive for a moment. I hope I am doing nothing
wrong in asking it again?”
“What is it?” said he.
I might have known that he would never help me out; but it
took me aback to have to shape the question afresh, as if it
were quite new. “Is it likely,” I said, after hesitating, “that my
patron, the fountain-head you have spoken of, Mr. Jaggers,
will soon—” there I delicately stopped.
“Will soon what?” asked Mr. Jaggers. “That’s no question as

439
it stands, you know.”
“Will soon come to London,” said I, after casting about for a
precise form of words, “or summon me anywhere else?”
“Now, here,” replied Mr. Jaggers, fixing me for the first time
with his dark deep-set eyes, “we must revert to the evening
when we first encountered one another in your village. What
did I tell you then, Pip?”
“You told me, Mr. Jaggers, that it might be years hence when
that person appeared.”
“Just so,” said Mr. Jaggers, “that’s my answer.”
As we looked full at one another, I felt my breath come
quicker in my strong desire to get something out of him.
And as I felt that it came quicker, and as I felt that he saw
that it came quicker, I felt that I had less chance than ever of
getting anything out of him.
“Do you suppose it will still be years hence, Mr. Jaggers?”
Mr. Jaggers shook his head,—not in negativing the question,
but in altogether negativing the notion that he could any-
how be got to answer it,—and the two horrible casts of the
twitched faces looked, when my eyes strayed up to them, as
if they had come to a crisis in their suspended attention, and
were going to sneeze.
“Come!” said Mr. Jaggers, warming the backs of his legs
with the backs of his warmed hands, “I’ll be plain with you,
my friend Pip. That’s a question I must not be asked. You’ll

440
understand that better, when I tell you it’s a question that
might compromise me. Come! I’ll go a little further with
you; I’ll say something more.”
He bent down so low to frown at his boots, that he was able
to rub the calves of his legs in the pause he made.
“When that person discloses,” said Mr. Jaggers, straightening
himself, “you and that person will settle your own affairs.
When that person discloses, my part in this business will
cease and determine. When that person discloses, it will not
be necessary for me to know anything about it. And that’s
all I have got to say.”
We looked at one another until I withdrew my eyes, and
looked thoughtfully at the floor. From this last speech I de-
rived the notion that Miss Havisham, for some reason or no
reason, had not taken him into her confidence as to her de-
signing me for Estella; that he resented this, and felt a jeal-
ousy about it; or that he really did object to that scheme, and
would have nothing to do with it. When I raised my eyes
again, I found that he had been shrewdly looking at me all
the time, and was doing so still.
“If that is all you have to say, sir,” I remarked, “there can be
nothing left for me to say.”
He nodded assent, and pulled out his thief-dreaded watch,
and asked me where I was going to dine? I replied at my own
chambers, with Herbert. As a necessary sequence, I asked
him if he would favor us with his company, and he promptly

441
accepted the invitation. But he insisted on walking home
with me, in order that I might make no extra preparation for
him, and first he had a letter or two to write, and (of course)
had his hands to wash. So I said I would go into the outer
office and talk to Wemmick.
The fact was, that when the five hundred pounds had come
into my pocket, a thought had come into my head which had
been often there before; and it appeared to me that Wemmick
was a good person to advise with concerning such thought.
He had already locked up his safe, and made preparations for
going home. He had left his desk, brought out his two greasy
office candlesticks and stood them in line with the snuffers on
a slab near the door, ready to be extinguished; he had raked
his fire low, put his hat and great-coat ready, and was beat-
ing himself all over the chest with his safe-key, as an athletic
exercise after business.
“Mr. Wemmick,” said I, “I want to ask your opinion. I am very
desirous to serve a friend.”
Wemmick tightened his post-office and shook his head, as if
his opinion were dead against any fatal weakness of that sort.
“This friend,” I pursued, “is trying to get on in commercial life,
but has no money, and finds it difficult and disheartening to
make a beginning. Now I want somehow to help him to a
beginning.”
“With money down?” said Wemmick, in a tone drier than
any sawdust.

442
“With some money down,” I replied, for an uneasy remem-
brance shot across me of that symmetrical bundle of papers
at home—“with some money down, and perhaps some antic-
ipation of my expectations.”
“Mr. Pip,” said Wemmick, “I should like just to run over with
you on my fingers, if you please, the names of the various
bridges up as high as Chelsea Reach. Let’s see; there’s Lon-
don, one; Southwark, two; Blackfriars, three; Waterloo, four;
Westminster, five; Vauxhall, six.” He had checked off each
bridge in its turn, with the handle of his safe-key on the palm
of his hand. “There’s as many as six, you see, to choose from.”
“I don’t understand you,” said I.
“Choose your bridge, Mr. Pip,” returned Wemmick, “and take
a walk upon your bridge, and pitch your money into the
Thames over the centre arch of your bridge, and you know
the end of it. Serve a friend with it, and you may know the
end of it too,—but it’s a less pleasant and profitable end.”
I could have posted a newspaper in his mouth, he made it so
wide after saying this.
“This is very discouraging,” said I.
“Meant to be so,” said Wemmick.
“Then is it your opinion,” I inquired, with some little indig-
nation, “that a man should never—”
“—Invest portable property in a friend?” said Wemmick.
“Certainly he should not. Unless he wants to get rid of the

443
friend,—and then it becomes a question how much portable
property it may be worth to get rid of him.”
“And that,” said I, “is your deliberate opinion, Mr. Wem-
mick?”
“That,” he returned, “is my deliberate opinion in this office.”
“Ah!” said I, pressing him, for I thought I saw him near a loop-
hole here; “but would that be your opinion at Walworth?”
“Mr. Pip,” he replied, with gravity, “Walworth is one place,
and this office is another. Much as the Aged is one person,
and Mr. Jaggers is another. They must not be confounded to-
gether. My Walworth sentiments must be taken at Walworth;
none but my official sentiments can be taken in this office.”
“Very well,” said I, much relieved, “then I shall look you up at
Walworth, you may depend upon it.”
“Mr. Pip,” he returned, “you will be welcome there, in a pri-
vate and personal capacity.”
We had held this conversation in a low voice, well knowing
my guardian’s ears to be the sharpest of the sharp. As he now
appeared in his doorway, towelling his hands, Wemmick got
on his great-coat and stood by to snuff out the candles. We
all three went into the street together, and from the door-step
Wemmick turned his way, and Mr. Jaggers and I turned ours.
I could not help wishing more than once that evening, that
Mr. Jaggers had had an Aged in Gerrard Street, or a Stinger,

444
or a Something, or a Somebody, to unbend his brows a lit-
tle. It was an uncomfortable consideration on a twenty-first
birthday, that coming of age at all seemed hardly worth while
in such a guarded and suspicious world as he made of it.
He was a thousand times better informed and cleverer than
Wemmick, and yet I would a thousand times rather have had
Wemmick to dinner. And Mr. Jaggers made not me alone in-
tensely melancholy, because, after he was gone, Herbert said
of himself, with his eyes fixed on the fire, that he thought he
must have committed a felony and forgotten the details of it,
he felt so dejected and guilty.

445
Chapter XXXVII
Deeming Sunday the best day for taking Mr. Wemmick’s
Walworth sentiments, I devoted the next ensuing Sunday af-
ternoon to a pilgrimage to the Castle. On arriving before
the battlements, I found the Union Jack flying and the draw-
bridge up; but undeterred by this show of defiance and resis-
tance, I rang at the gate, and was admitted in a most pacific
manner by the Aged.
“My son, sir,” said the old man, after securing the drawbridge,
“rather had it in his mind that you might happen to drop in,
and he left word that he would soon be home from his after-
noon’s walk. He is very regular in his walks, is my son. Very
regular in everything, is my son.”
I nodded at the old gentleman as Wemmick himself might
have nodded, and we went in and sat down by the fireside.
“You made acquaintance with my son, sir,” said the old man,
in his chirping way, while he warmed his hands at the blaze,
“at his office, I expect?” I nodded. “Hah! I have heerd that my
son is a wonderful hand at his business, sir?” I nodded hard.
“Yes; so they tell me. His business is the Law?” I nodded
harder. “Which makes it more surprising in my son,” said the
old man, “for he was not brought up to the Law, but to the
Wine-Coopering.”
Curious to know how the old gentleman stood informed con-
cerning the reputation of Mr. Jaggers, I roared that name at

446
him. He threw me into the greatest confusion by laughing
heartily and replying in a very sprightly manner, “No, to be
sure; you’re right.” And to this hour I have not the faintest
notion what he meant, or what joke he thought I had made.
As I could not sit there nodding at him perpetually, with-
out making some other attempt to interest him, I shouted at
inquiry whether his own calling in life had been “the Wine-
Coopering.” By dint of straining that term out of myself sev-
eral times and tapping the old gentleman on the chest to as-
sociate it with him, I at last succeeded in making my meaning
understood.
“No,” said the old gentleman; “the warehousing, the ware-
housing. First, over yonder;” he appeared to mean up the
chimney, but I believe he intended to refer me to Liverpool;
“and then in the City of London here. However, having an
infirmity—for I am hard of hearing, sir—”
I expressed in pantomime the greatest astonishment.
“—Yes, hard of hearing; having that infirmity coming upon
me, my son he went into the Law, and he took charge of me,
and he by little and little made out this elegant and beautiful
property. But returning to what you said, you know,” pursued
the old man, again laughing heartily, “what I say is, No to be
sure; you’re right.”
I was modestly wondering whether my utmost ingenuity
would have enabled me to say anything that would have
amused him half as much as this imaginary pleasantry, when

447
I was startled by a sudden click in the wall on one side of the
chimney, and the ghostly tumbling open of a little wooden
flap with “JOHN” upon it. The old man, following my eyes,
cried with great triumph, “My son’s come home!” and we
both went out to the drawbridge.
It was worth any money to see Wemmick waving a salute
to me from the other side of the moat, when we might have
shaken hands across it with the greatest ease. The Aged was
so delighted to work the drawbridge, that I made no offer to
assist him, but stood quiet until Wemmick had come across,
and had presented me to Miss Skiffins; a lady by whom he
was accompanied.
Miss Skiffins was of a wooden appearance, and was, like her
escort, in the post-office branch of the service. She might
have been some two or three years younger than Wemmick,
and I judged her to stand possessed of portable property. The
cut of her dress from the waist upward, both before and be-
hind, made her figure very like a boy’s kite; and I might have
pronounced her gown a little too decidedly orange, and her
gloves a little too intensely green. But she seemed to be a
good sort of fellow, and showed a high regard for the Aged.
I was not long in discovering that she was a frequent visi-
tor at the Castle; for, on our going in, and my compliment-
ing Wemmick on his ingenious contrivance for announcing
himself to the Aged, he begged me to give my attention for
a moment to the other side of the chimney, and disappeared.
Presently another click came, and another little door tumbled
open with “Miss Skiffins” on it; then Miss Skiffins shut up and

448
John tumbled open; then Miss Skiffins and John both tum-
bled open together, and finally shut up together. On Wem-
mick’s return from working these mechanical appliances, I
expressed the great admiration with which I regarded them,
and he said, “Well, you know, they’re both pleasant and use-
ful to the Aged. And by George, sir, it’s a thing worth men-
tioning, that of all the people who come to this gate, the secret
of those pulls is only known to the Aged, Miss Skiffins, and
me!”
“And Mr. Wemmick made them,” added Miss Skiffins, “with
his own hands out of his own head.”
While Miss Skiffins was taking off her bonnet (she retained
her green gloves during the evening as an outward and vis-
ible sign that there was company), Wemmick invited me to
take a walk with him round the property, and see how the
island looked in wintertime. Thinking that he did this to
give me an opportunity of taking his Walworth sentiments, I
seized the opportunity as soon as we were out of the Castle.
Having thought of the matter with care, I approached my
subject as if I had never hinted at it before. I informed Wem-
mick that I was anxious in behalf of Herbert Pocket, and I
told him how we had first met, and how we had fought. I
glanced at Herbert’s home, and at his character, and at his
having no means but such as he was dependent on his father
for; those, uncertain and unpunctual. I alluded to the advan-
tages I had derived in my first rawness and ignorance from
his society, and I confessed that I feared I had but ill repaid

449
them, and that he might have done better without me and my
expectations. Keeping Miss Havisham in the background at
a great distance, I still hinted at the possibility of my having
competed with him in his prospects, and at the certainty of
his possessing a generous soul, and being far above any mean
distrusts, retaliations, or designs. For all these reasons (I told
Wemmick), and because he was my young companion and
friend, and I had a great affection for him, I wished my own
good fortune to reflect some rays upon him, and therefore I
sought advice from Wemmick’s experience and knowledge
of men and affairs, how I could best try with my resources
to help Herbert to some present income,—say of a hundred
a year, to keep him in good hope and heart,—and gradually
to buy him on to some small partnership. I begged Wem-
mick, in conclusion, to understand that my help must always
be rendered without Herbert’s knowledge or suspicion, and
that there was no one else in the world with whom I could
advise. I wound up by laying my hand upon his shoulder,
and saying, “I can’t help confiding in you, though I know it
must be troublesome to you; but that is your fault, in having
ever brought me here.”
Wemmick was silent for a little while, and then said with a
kind of start, “Well you know, Mr. Pip, I must tell you one
thing. This is devilish good of you.”
“Say you’ll help me to be good then,” said I.
“Ecod,” replied Wemmick, shaking his head, “that’s not my
trade.”

450
“Nor is this your trading-place,” said I.
“You are right,” he returned. “You hit the nail on the head. Mr.
Pip, I’ll put on my considering-cap, and I think all you want
to do may be done by degrees. Skiffins (that’s her brother) is
an accountant and agent. I’ll look him up and go to work for
you.”
“I thank you ten thousand times.”
“On the contrary,” said he, “I thank you, for though we are
strictly in our private and personal capacity, still it may be
mentioned that there are Newgate cobwebs about, and it
brushes them away.”
After a little further conversation to the same effect, we re-
turned into the Castle where we found Miss Skiffins prepar-
ing tea. The responsible duty of making the toast was dele-
gated to the Aged, and that excellent old gentleman was so
intent upon it that he seemed to me in some danger of melt-
ing his eyes. It was no nominal meal that we were going to
make, but a vigorous reality. The Aged prepared such a hay-
stack of buttered toast, that I could scarcely see him over it
as it simmered on an iron stand hooked on to the top-bar;
while Miss Skiffins brewed such a jorum of tea, that the pig
in the back premises became strongly excited, and repeatedly
expressed his desire to participate in the entertainment.
The flag had been struck, and the gun had been fired, at the
right moment of time, and I felt as snugly cut off from the
rest of Walworth as if the moat were thirty feet wide by as

451
many deep. Nothing disturbed the tranquillity of the Castle,
but the occasional tumbling open of John and Miss Skiffins:
which little doors were a prey to some spasmodic infirmity
that made me sympathetically uncomfortable until I got used
to it. I inferred from the methodical nature of Miss Skiffins’s
arrangements that she made tea there every Sunday night;
and I rather suspected that a classic brooch she wore, rep-
resenting the profile of an undesirable female with a very
straight nose and a very new moon, was a piece of portable
property that had been given her by Wemmick.
We ate the whole of the toast, and drank tea in proportion,
and it was delightful to see how warm and greasy we all got
after it. The Aged especially, might have passed for some
clean old chief of a savage tribe, just oiled. After a short pause
of repose, Miss Skiffins—in the absence of the little servant
who, it seemed, retired to the bosom of her family on Sunday
afternoons—washed up the tea-things, in a trifling lady-like
amateur manner that compromised none of us. Then, she
put on her gloves again, and we drew round the fire, and
Wemmick said, “Now, Aged Parent, tip us the paper.”
Wemmick explained to me while the Aged got his spectacles
out, that this was according to custom, and that it gave the
old gentleman infinite satisfaction to read the news aloud. “I
won’t offer an apology,” said Wemmick, “for he isn’t capable
of many pleasures—are you, Aged P.?”
“All right, John, all right,” returned the old man, seeing him-
self spoken to.

452
“Only tip him a nod every now and then when he looks off
his paper,” said Wemmick, “and he’ll be as happy as a king.
We are all attention, Aged One.”
“All right, John, all right!” returned the cheerful old man, so
busy and so pleased, that it really was quite charming.
The Aged’s reading reminded me of the classes at Mr.
Wopsle’s great-aunt’s, with the pleasanter peculiarity that
it seemed to come through a keyhole. As he wanted the
candles close to him, and as he was always on the verge
of putting either his head or the newspaper into them, he
required as much watching as a powder-mill. But Wemmick
was equally untiring and gentle in his vigilance, and the
Aged read on, quite unconscious of his many rescues.
Whenever he looked at us, we all expressed the greatest
interest and amazement, and nodded until he resumed again.
As Wemmick and Miss Skiffins sat side by side, and as I sat
in a shadowy corner, I observed a slow and gradual elonga-
tion of Mr. Wemmick’s mouth, powerfully suggestive of his
slowly and gradually stealing his arm round Miss Skiffins’s
waist. In course of time I saw his hand appear on the other
side of Miss Skiffins; but at that moment Miss Skiffins neatly
stopped him with the green glove, unwound his arm again as
if it were an article of dress, and with the greatest delibera-
tion laid it on the table before her. Miss Skiffins’s composure
while she did this was one of the most remarkable sights I
have ever seen, and if I could have thought the act consistent
with abstraction of mind, I should have deemed that Miss

453
Skiffins performed it mechanically.
By and by, I noticed Wemmick’s arm beginning to disap-
pear again, and gradually fading out of view. Shortly after-
wards, his mouth began to widen again. After an interval
of suspense on my part that was quite enthralling and al-
most painful, I saw his hand appear on the other side of Miss
Skiffins. Instantly, Miss Skiffins stopped it with the neatness
of a placid boxer, took off that girdle or cestus as before, and
laid it on the table. Taking the table to represent the path of
virtue, I am justified in stating that during the whole time of
the Aged’s reading, Wemmick’s arm was straying from the
path of virtue and being recalled to it by Miss Skiffins.
At last, the Aged read himself into a light slumber. This was
the time for Wemmick to produce a little kettle, a tray of
glasses, and a black bottle with a porcelain-topped cork, rep-
resenting some clerical dignitary of a rubicund and social as-
pect. With the aid of these appliances we all had something
warm to drink, including the Aged, who was soon awake
again. Miss Skiffins mixed, and I observed that she and Wem-
mick drank out of one glass. Of course I knew better than to
offer to see Miss Skiffins home, and under the circumstances I
thought I had best go first; which I did, taking a cordial leave
of the Aged, and having passed a pleasant evening.
Before a week was out, I received a note from Wemmick,
dated Walworth, stating that he hoped he had made some ad-
vance in that matter appertaining to our private and personal
capacities, and that he would be glad if I could come and see

454
him again upon it. So, I went out to Walworth again, and yet
again, and yet again, and I saw him by appointment in the
City several times, but never held any communication with
him on the subject in or near Little Britain. The upshot was,
that we found a worthy young merchant or shipping-broker,
not long established in business, who wanted intelligent help,
and who wanted capital, and who in due course of time and
receipt would want a partner. Between him and me, secret
articles were signed of which Herbert was the subject, and I
paid him half of my five hundred pounds down, and engaged
for sundry other payments: some, to fall due at certain dates
out of my income: some, contingent on my coming into my
property. Miss Skiffins’s brother conducted the negotiation.
Wemmick pervaded it throughout, but never appeared in it.
The whole business was so cleverly managed, that Herbert
had not the least suspicion of my hand being in it. I never
shall forget the radiant face with which he came home one
afternoon, and told me, as a mighty piece of news, of his hav-
ing fallen in with one Clarriker (the young merchant’s name),
and of Clarriker’s having shown an extraordinary inclination
towards him, and of his belief that the opening had come
at last. Day by day as his hopes grew stronger and his face
brighter, he must have thought me a more and more affec-
tionate friend, for I had the greatest difficulty in restraining
my tears of triumph when I saw him so happy. At length, the
thing being done, and he having that day entered Clarriker’s
House, and he having talked to me for a whole evening in a
flush of pleasure and success, I did really cry in good earnest

455
when I went to bed, to think that my expectations had done
some good to somebody.
A great event in my life, the turning point of my life, now
opens on my view. But, before I proceed to narrate it, and
before I pass on to all the changes it involved, I must give
one chapter to Estella. It is not much to give to the theme
that so long filled my heart.

456
Chapter XXXVIII
If that staid old house near the Green at Richmond should
ever come to be haunted when I am dead, it will be haunted,
surely, by my ghost. O the many, many nights and days
through which the unquiet spirit within me haunted that
house when Estella lived there! Let my body be where
it would, my spirit was always wandering, wandering,
wandering, about that house.
The lady with whom Estella was placed, Mrs. Brandley by
name, was a widow, with one daughter several years older
than Estella. The mother looked young, and the daughter
looked old; the mother’s complexion was pink, and the
daughter’s was yellow; the mother set up for frivolity, and
the daughter for theology. They were in what is called a good
position, and visited, and were visited by, numbers of people.
Little, if any, community of feeling subsisted between them
and Estella, but the understanding was established that they
were necessary to her, and that she was necessary to them.
Mrs. Brandley had been a friend of Miss Havisham’s before
the time of her seclusion.
In Mrs. Brandley’s house and out of Mrs. Brandley’s house,
I suffered every kind and degree of torture that Estella could
cause me. The nature of my relations with her, which placed
me on terms of familiarity without placing me on terms of fa-
vor, conduced to my distraction. She made use of me to tease
other admirers, and she turned the very familiarity between

457
herself and me to the account of putting a constant slight on
my devotion to her. If I had been her secretary, steward, half-
brother, poor relation,—if I had been a younger brother of her
appointed husband,—I could not have seemed to myself fur-
ther from my hopes when I was nearest to her. The privilege
of calling her by her name and hearing her call me by mine
became, under the circumstances an aggravation of my trials;
and while I think it likely that it almost maddened her other
lovers, I know too certainly that it almost maddened me.
She had admirers without end. No doubt my jealousy made
an admirer of every one who went near her; but there were
more than enough of them without that.
I saw her often at Richmond, I heard of her often in town,
and I used often to take her and the Brandleys on the water;
there were picnics, fête days, plays, operas, concerts, parties,
all sorts of pleasures, through which I pursued her,—and they
were all miseries to me. I never had one hour’s happiness in
her society, and yet my mind all round the four-and-twenty
hours was harping on the happiness of having her with me
unto death.
Throughout this part of our intercourse,—and it lasted, as will
presently be seen, for what I then thought a long time,—she
habitually reverted to that tone which expressed that our as-
sociation was forced upon us. There were other times when
she would come to a sudden check in this tone and in all her
many tones, and would seem to pity me.
“Pip, Pip,” she said one evening, coming to such a check,

458
when we sat apart at a darkening window of the house in
Richmond; “will you never take warning?”
“Of what?”
“Of me.”
“Warning not to be attracted by you, do you mean, Estella?”
“Do I mean! If you don’t know what I mean, you are blind.”
I should have replied that Love was commonly reputed blind,
but for the reason that I always was restrained—and this was
not the least of my miseries—by a feeling that it was ungener-
ous to press myself upon her, when she knew that she could
not choose but obey Miss Havisham. My dread always was,
that this knowledge on her part laid me under a heavy disad-
vantage with her pride, and made me the subject of a rebel-
lious struggle in her bosom.
“At any rate,” said I, “I have no warning given me just now,
for you wrote to me to come to you, this time.”
“That’s true,” said Estella, with a cold careless smile that al-
ways chilled me.
After looking at the twilight without, for a little while, she
went on to say:—
“The time has come round when Miss Havisham wishes to
have me for a day at Satis. You are to take me there, and
bring me back, if you will. She would rather I did not travel
alone, and objects to receiving my maid, for she has a sensi-

459
tive horror of being talked of by such people. Can you take
me?”
“Can I take you, Estella!”
“You can then? The day after to-morrow, if you please. You
are to pay all charges out of my purse, You hear the condition
of your going?”
“And must obey,” said I.
This was all the preparation I received for that visit, or for
others like it; Miss Havisham never wrote to me, nor had I
ever so much as seen her handwriting. We went down on
the next day but one, and we found her in the room where I
had first beheld her, and it is needless to add that there was
no change in Satis House.
She was even more dreadfully fond of Estella than she had
been when I last saw them together; I repeat the word ad-
visedly, for there was something positively dreadful in the
energy of her looks and embraces. She hung upon Estella’s
beauty, hung upon her words, hung upon her gestures, and
sat mumbling her own trembling fingers while she looked at
her, as though she were devouring the beautiful creature she
had reared.
From Estella she looked at me, with a searching glance that
seemed to pry into my heart and probe its wounds. “How
does she use you, Pip; how does she use you?” she asked me
again, with her witch-like eagerness, even in Estella’s hear-
ing. But, when we sat by her flickering fire at night, she was

460
most weird; for then, keeping Estella’s hand drawn through
her arm and clutched in her own hand, she extorted from her,
by dint of referring back to what Estella had told her in her
regular letters, the names and conditions of the men whom
she had fascinated; and as Miss Havisham dwelt upon this
roll, with the intensity of a mind mortally hurt and diseased,
she sat with her other hand on her crutch stick, and her chin
on that, and her wan bright eyes glaring at me, a very spectre.
I saw in this, wretched though it made me, and bitter the
sense of dependence and even of degradation that it awak-
ened,—I saw in this that Estella was set to wreak Miss Hav-
isham’s revenge on men, and that she was not to be given to
me until she had gratified it for a term. I saw in this, a reason
for her being beforehand assigned to me. Sending her out to
attract and torment and do mischief, Miss Havisham sent her
with the malicious assurance that she was beyond the reach
of all admirers, and that all who staked upon that cast were
secured to lose. I saw in this that I, too, was tormented by
a perversion of ingenuity, even while the prize was reserved
for me. I saw in this the reason for my being staved off so
long and the reason for my late guardian’s declining to com-
mit himself to the formal knowledge of such a scheme. In a
word, I saw in this Miss Havisham as I had her then and there
before my eyes, and always had had her before my eyes; and
I saw in this, the distinct shadow of the darkened and un-
healthy house in which her life was hidden from the sun.
The candles that lighted that room of hers were placed in
sconces on the wall. They were high from the ground, and

461
they burnt with the steady dulness of artificial light in air
that is seldom renewed. As I looked round at them, and at
the pale gloom they made, and at the stopped clock, and at
the withered articles of bridal dress upon the table and the
ground, and at her own awful figure with its ghostly reflec-
tion thrown large by the fire upon the ceiling and the wall, I
saw in everything the construction that my mind had come
to, repeated and thrown back to me. My thoughts passed
into the great room across the landing where the table was
spread, and I saw it written, as it were, in the falls of the cob-
webs from the centre-piece, in the crawlings of the spiders on
the cloth, in the tracks of the mice as they betook their little
quickened hearts behind the panels, and in the gropings and
pausings of the beetles on the floor.
It happened on the occasion of this visit that some sharp
words arose between Estella and Miss Havisham. It was the
first time I had ever seen them opposed.
We were seated by the fire, as just now described, and Miss
Havisham still had Estella’s arm drawn through her own, and
still clutched Estella’s hand in hers, when Estella gradually
began to detach herself. She had shown a proud impatience
more than once before, and had rather endured that fierce
affection than accepted or returned it.
“What!” said Miss Havisham, flashing her eyes upon her, “are
you tired of me?”
“Only a little tired of myself,” replied Estella, disengaging her
arm, and moving to the great chimney-piece, where she stood

462
looking down at the fire.
“Speak the truth, you ingrate!” cried Miss Havisham, pas-
sionately striking her stick upon the floor; “you are tired of
me.”
Estella looked at her with perfect composure, and again
looked down at the fire. Her graceful figure and her beautiful
face expressed a self-possessed indifference to the wild heat
of the other, that was almost cruel.
“You stock and stone!” exclaimed Miss Havisham. “You cold,
cold heart!”
“What?” said Estella, preserving her attitude of indifference
as she leaned against the great chimney-piece and only mov-
ing her eyes; “do you reproach me for being cold? You?”
“Are you not?” was the fierce retort.
“You should know,” said Estella. “I am what you have made
me. Take all the praise, take all the blame; take all the success,
take all the failure; in short, take me.”
“O, look at her, look at her!” cried Miss Havisham, bitterly;
“Look at her so hard and thankless, on the hearth where she
was reared! Where I took her into this wretched breast when
it was first bleeding from its stabs, and where I have lavished
years of tenderness upon her!”
“At least I was no party to the compact,” said Estella, “for if I
could walk and speak, when it was made, it was as much as
I could do. But what would you have? You have been very

463
good to me, and I owe everything to you. What would you
have?”
“Love,” replied the other.
“You have it.”
“I have not,” said Miss Havisham.
“Mother by adoption,” retorted Estella, never departing from
the easy grace of her attitude, never raising her voice as the
other did, never yielding either to anger or tenderness,—
“mother by adoption, I have said that I owe everything to
you. All I possess is freely yours. All that you have given
me, is at your command to have again. Beyond that, I have
nothing. And if you ask me to give you, what you never
gave me, my gratitude and duty cannot do impossibilities.”
“Did I never give her love!” cried Miss Havisham, turning
wildly to me. “Did I never give her a burning love, insepara-
ble from jealousy at all times, and from sharp pain, while she
speaks thus to me! Let her call me mad, let her call me mad!”
“Why should I call you mad,” returned Estella, “I, of all peo-
ple? Does any one live, who knows what set purposes you
have, half as well as I do? Does any one live, who knows
what a steady memory you have, half as well as I do? I who
have sat on this same hearth on the little stool that is even
now beside you there, learning your lessons and looking up
into your face, when your face was strange and frightened
me!”

464
“Soon forgotten!” moaned Miss Havisham. “Times soon for-
gotten!”
“No, not forgotten,” retorted Estella,—“not forgotten, but
treasured up in my memory. When have you found me false
to your teaching? When have you found me unmindful of
your lessons? When have you found me giving admission
here,” she touched her bosom with her hand, “to anything
that you excluded? Be just to me.”
“So proud, so proud!” moaned Miss Havisham, pushing away
her gray hair with both her hands.
“Who taught me to be proud?” returned Estella. “Who
praised me when I learnt my lesson?”
“So hard, so hard!” moaned Miss Havisham, with her former
action.
“Who taught me to be hard?” returned Estella. “Who praised
me when I learnt my lesson?”
“But to be proud and hard to me!” Miss Havisham quite
shrieked, as she stretched out her arms. “Estella, Estella, Es-
tella, to be proud and hard to me!”
Estella looked at her for a moment with a kind of calm won-
der, but was not otherwise disturbed; when the moment was
past, she looked down at the fire again.
“I cannot think,” said Estella, raising her eyes after a silence
“why you should be so unreasonable when I come to see
you after a separation. I have never forgotten your wrongs

465
and their causes. I have never been unfaithful to you or
your schooling. I have never shown any weakness that I can
charge myself with.”
“Would it be weakness to return my love?” exclaimed Miss
Havisham. “But yes, yes, she would call it so!”
“I begin to think,” said Estella, in a musing way, after another
moment of calm wonder, “that I almost understand how this
comes about. If you had brought up your adopted daugh-
ter wholly in the dark confinement of these rooms, and had
never let her know that there was such a thing as the day-
light by which she had never once seen your face,—if you
had done that, and then, for a purpose had wanted her to un-
derstand the daylight and know all about it, you would have
been disappointed and angry?”
Miss Havisham, with her head in her hands, sat making a
low moaning, and swaying herself on her chair, but gave no
answer.
“Or,” said Estella,—“which is a nearer case,—if you had taught
her, from the dawn of her intelligence, with your utmost en-
ergy and might, that there was such a thing as daylight, but
that it was made to be her enemy and destroyer, and she must
always turn against it, for it had blighted you and would else
blight her;—if you had done this, and then, for a purpose, had
wanted her to take naturally to the daylight and she could not
do it, you would have been disappointed and angry?”
Miss Havisham sat listening (or it seemed so, for I could not

466
see her face), but still made no answer.
“So,” said Estella, “I must be taken as I have been made. The
success is not mine, the failure is not mine, but the two to-
gether make me.”
Miss Havisham had settled down, I hardly knew how, upon
the floor, among the faded bridal relics with which it was
strewn. I took advantage of the moment—I had sought one
from the first—to leave the room, after beseeching Estella’s
attention to her, with a movement of my hand. When I left,
Estella was yet standing by the great chimney-piece, just as
she had stood throughout. Miss Havisham’s gray hair was all
adrift upon the ground, among the other bridal wrecks, and
was a miserable sight to see.
It was with a depressed heart that I walked in the starlight
for an hour and more, about the courtyard, and about the
brewery, and about the ruined garden. When I at last took
courage to return to the room, I found Estella sitting at Miss
Havisham’s knee, taking up some stitches in one of those old
articles of dress that were dropping to pieces, and of which
I have often been reminded since by the faded tatters of old
banners that I have seen hanging up in cathedrals. After-
wards, Estella and I played at cards, as of yore,—only we were
skilful now, and played French games,—and so the evening
wore away, and I went to bed.
I lay in that separate building across the courtyard. It was
the first time I had ever lain down to rest in Satis House, and
sleep refused to come near me. A thousand Miss Havishams

467
haunted me. She was on this side of my pillow, on that, at the
head of the bed, at the foot, behind the half-opened door of
the dressing-room, in the dressing-room, in the room over-
head, in the room beneath,—everywhere. At last, when the
night was slow to creep on towards two o’clock, I felt that
I absolutely could no longer bear the place as a place to lie
down in, and that I must get up. I therefore got up and put on
my clothes, and went out across the yard into the long stone
passage, designing to gain the outer courtyard and walk there
for the relief of my mind. But I was no sooner in the passage
than I extinguished my candle; for I saw Miss Havisham go-
ing along it in a ghostly manner, making a low cry. I followed
her at a distance, and saw her go up the staircase. She car-
ried a bare candle in her hand, which she had probably taken
from one of the sconces in her own room, and was a most
unearthly object by its light. Standing at the bottom of the
staircase, I felt the mildewed air of the feast-chamber, with-
out seeing her open the door, and I heard her walking there,
and so across into her own room, and so across again into
that, never ceasing the low cry. After a time, I tried in the
dark both to get out, and to go back, but I could do neither
until some streaks of day strayed in and showed me where to
lay my hands. During the whole interval, whenever I went
to the bottom of the staircase, I heard her footstep, saw her
light pass above, and heard her ceaseless low cry.
Before we left next day, there was no revival of the difference
between her and Estella, nor was it ever revived on any sim-
ilar occasion; and there were four similar occasions, to the

468
best of my remembrance. Nor, did Miss Havisham’s manner
towards Estella in anywise change, except that I believed it
to have something like fear infused among its former char-
acteristics.
It is impossible to turn this leaf of my life, without putting
Bentley Drummle’s name upon it; or I would, very gladly.
On a certain occasion when the Finches were assembled in
force, and when good feeling was being promoted in the
usual manner by nobody’s agreeing with anybody else, the
presiding Finch called the Grove to order, forasmuch as Mr.
Drummle had not yet toasted a lady; which, according to the
solemn constitution of the society, it was the brute’s turn
to do that day. I thought I saw him leer in an ugly way at
me while the decanters were going round, but as there was
no love lost between us, that might easily be. What was
my indignant surprise when he called upon the company to
pledge him to “Estella!”
“Estella who?” said I.
“Never you mind,” retorted Drummle.
“Estella of where?” said I. “You are bound to say of where.”
Which he was, as a Finch.
“Of Richmond, gentlemen,” said Drummle, putting me out of
the question, “and a peerless beauty.”
Much he knew about peerless beauties, a mean, miserable
idiot! I whispered Herbert.

469
“I know that lady,” said Herbert, across the table, when the
toast had been honored.
“Do you?” said Drummle.
“And so do I,” I added, with a scarlet face.
“Do you?” said Drummle. “O, Lord!”
This was the only retort—except glass or crockery—that the
heavy creature was capable of making; but, I became as
highly incensed by it as if it had been barbed with wit, and
I immediately rose in my place and said that I could not
but regard it as being like the honorable Finch’s impudence
to come down to that Grove,—we always talked about
coming down to that Grove, as a neat Parliamentary turn of
expression,—down to that Grove, proposing a lady of whom
he knew nothing. Mr. Drummle, upon this, starting up,
demanded what I meant by that? Whereupon I made him
the extreme reply that I believed he knew where I was to be
found.
Whether it was possible in a Christian country to get on with-
out blood, after this, was a question on which the Finches
were divided. The debate upon it grew so lively, indeed, that
at least six more honorable members told six more, during the
discussion, that they believed they knew where they were to
be found. However, it was decided at last (the Grove being a
Court of Honor) that if Mr. Drummle would bring never so
slight a certificate from the lady, importing that he had the
honor of her acquaintance, Mr. Pip must express his regret,

470
as a gentleman and a Finch, for “having been betrayed into
a warmth which.” Next day was appointed for the produc-
tion (lest our honor should take cold from delay), and next
day Drummle appeared with a polite little avowal in Estella’s
hand, that she had had the honor of dancing with him sev-
eral times. This left me no course but to regret that I had
been “betrayed into a warmth which,” and on the whole to
repudiate, as untenable, the idea that I was to be found any-
where. Drummle and I then sat snorting at one another for an
hour, while the Grove engaged in indiscriminate contradic-
tion, and finally the promotion of good feeling was declared
to have gone ahead at an amazing rate.
I tell this lightly, but it was no light thing to me. For, I cannot
adequately express what pain it gave me to think that Es-
tella should show any favor to a contemptible, clumsy, sulky
booby, so very far below the average. To the present moment,
I believe it to have been referable to some pure fire of gen-
erosity and disinterestedness in my love for her, that I could
not endure the thought of her stooping to that hound. No
doubt I should have been miserable whomsoever she had fa-
vored; but a worthier object would have caused me a different
kind and degree of distress.
It was easy for me to find out, and I did soon find out, that
Drummle had begun to follow her closely, and that she al-
lowed him to do it. A little while, and he was always in pur-
suit of her, and he and I crossed one another every day. He
held on, in a dull persistent way, and Estella held him on; now
with encouragement, now with discouragement, now almost

471
flattering him, now openly despising him, now knowing him
very well, now scarcely remembering who he was.
The Spider, as Mr. Jaggers had called him, was used to lying
in wait, however, and had the patience of his tribe. Added to
that, he had a blockhead confidence in his money and in his
family greatness, which sometimes did him good service,—
almost taking the place of concentration and determined pur-
pose. So, the Spider, doggedly watching Estella, outwatched
many brighter insects, and would often uncoil himself and
drop at the right nick of time.
At a certain Assembly Ball at Richmond (there used to be As-
sembly Balls at most places then), where Estella had outshone
all other beauties, this blundering Drummle so hung about
her, and with so much toleration on her part, that I resolved
to speak to her concerning him. I took the next opportunity;
which was when she was waiting for Mrs. Blandley to take
her home, and was sitting apart among some flowers, ready
to go. I was with her, for I almost always accompanied them
to and from such places.
“Are you tired, Estella?”
“Rather, Pip.”
“You should be.”
“Say rather, I should not be; for I have my letter to Satis House
to write, before I go to sleep.”
“Recounting to-night’s triumph?” said I. “Surely a very poor

472
one, Estella.”
“What do you mean? I didn’t know there had been any.”
“Estella,” said I, “do look at that fellow in the corner yonder,
who is looking over here at us.”
“Why should I look at him?” returned Estella, with her eyes
on me instead. “What is there in that fellow in the corner
yonder,—to use your words,—that I need look at?”
“Indeed, that is the very question I want to ask you,” said I.
“For he has been hovering about you all night.”
“Moths, and all sorts of ugly creatures,” replied Estella, with
a glance towards him, “hover about a lighted candle. Can the
candle help it?”
“No,” I returned; “but cannot the Estella help it?”
“Well!” said she, laughing, after a moment, “perhaps. Yes.
Anything you like.”
“But, Estella, do hear me speak. It makes me wretched
that you should encourage a man so generally despised as
Drummle. You know he is despised.”
“Well?” said she.
“You know he is as ungainly within as without. A deficient,
ill-tempered, lowering, stupid fellow.”
“Well?” said she.

473
“You know he has nothing to recommend him but money and
a ridiculous roll of addle-headed predecessors; now, don’t
you?”
“Well?” said she again; and each time she said it, she opened
her lovely eyes the wider.
To overcome the difficulty of getting past that monosyllable,
I took it from her, and said, repeating it with emphasis, “Well!
Then, that is why it makes me wretched.”
Now, if I could have believed that she favored Drummle with
any idea of making me-me—wretched, I should have been in
better heart about it; but in that habitual way of hers, she
put me so entirely out of the question, that I could believe
nothing of the kind.
“Pip,” said Estella, casting her glance over the room, “don’t
be foolish about its effect on you. It may have its effect on
others, and may be meant to have. It’s not worth discussing.”
“Yes it is,” said I, “because I cannot bear that people should
say, ‘she throws away her graces and attractions on a mere
boor, the lowest in the crowd.’ ”
“I can bear it,” said Estella.
“Oh! don’t be so proud, Estella, and so inflexible.”
“Calls me proud and inflexible in this breath!” said Estella,
opening her hands. “And in his last breath reproached me
for stooping to a boor!”

474
“There is no doubt you do,” said I, something hurriedly, “for
I have seen you give him looks and smiles this very night,
such as you never give to—me.”
“Do you want me then,” said Estella, turning suddenly with
a fixed and serious, if not angry, look, “to deceive and entrap
you?”
“Do you deceive and entrap him, Estella?”
“Yes, and many others,—all of them but you. Here is Mrs.
Brandley. I’ll say no more.”
And now that I have given the one chapter to the theme that
so filled my heart, and so often made it ache and ache again,
I pass on unhindered, to the event that had impended over
me longer yet; the event that had begun to be prepared for,
before I knew that the world held Estella, and in the days
when her baby intelligence was receiving its first distortions
from Miss Havisham’s wasting hands.
In the Eastern story, the heavy slab that was to fall on the
bed of state in the flush of conquest was slowly wrought out
of the quarry, the tunnel for the rope to hold it in its place
was slowly carried through the leagues of rock, the slab was
slowly raised and fitted in the roof, the rope was rove to it
and slowly taken through the miles of hollow to the great
iron ring. All being made ready with much labor, and the
hour come, the sultan was aroused in the dead of the night,
and the sharpened axe that was to sever the rope from the
great iron ring was put into his hand, and he struck with it,

475
and the rope parted and rushed away, and the ceiling fell. So,
in my case; all the work, near and afar, that tended to the
end, had been accomplished; and in an instant the blow was
struck, and the roof of my stronghold dropped upon me.

476
Chapter XXXIX
I was three-and-twenty years of age. Not another word had
I heard to enlighten me on the subject of my expectations,
and my twenty-third birthday was a week gone. We had left
Barnard’s Inn more than a year, and lived in the Temple. Our
chambers were in Garden-court, down by the river.
Mr. Pocket and I had for some time parted company as to our
original relations, though we continued on the best terms.
Notwithstanding my inability to settle to anything,—which
I hope arose out of the restless and incomplete tenure on
which I held my means,—I had a taste for reading, and read
regularly so many hours a day. That matter of Herbert’s
was still progressing, and everything with me was as I have
brought it down to the close of the last preceding chapter.
Business had taken Herbert on a journey to Marseilles. I was
alone, and had a dull sense of being alone. Dispirited and anx-
ious, long hoping that to-morrow or next week would clear
my way, and long disappointed, I sadly missed the cheerful
face and ready response of my friend.
It was wretched weather; stormy and wet, stormy and wet;
and mud, mud, mud, deep in all the streets. Day after day, a
vast heavy veil had been driving over London from the East,
and it drove still, as if in the East there were an Eternity of
cloud and wind. So furious had been the gusts, that high
buildings in town had had the lead stripped off their roofs;
and in the country, trees had been torn up, and sails of wind-

477
mills carried away; and gloomy accounts had come in from
the coast, of shipwreck and death. Violent blasts of rain had
accompanied these rages of wind, and the day just closed as
I sat down to read had been the worst of all.
Alterations have been made in that part of the Temple since
that time, and it has not now so lonely a character as it had
then, nor is it so exposed to the river. We lived at the top of
the last house, and the wind rushing up the river shook the
house that night, like discharges of cannon, or breakings of a
sea. When the rain came with it and dashed against the win-
dows, I thought, raising my eyes to them as they rocked, that
I might have fancied myself in a storm-beaten lighthouse.
Occasionally, the smoke came rolling down the chimney as
though it could not bear to go out into such a night; and when
I set the doors open and looked down the staircase, the stair-
case lamps were blown out; and when I shaded my face with
my hands and looked through the black windows (opening
them ever so little was out of the question in the teeth of such
wind and rain), I saw that the lamps in the court were blown
out, and that the lamps on the bridges and the shore were
shuddering, and that the coal-fires in barges on the river were
being carried away before the wind like red-hot splashes in
the rain.
I read with my watch upon the table, purposing to close my
book at eleven o’clock. As I shut it, Saint Paul’s, and all the
many church-clocks in the City—some leading, some accom-
panying, some following—struck that hour. The sound was
curiously flawed by the wind; and I was listening, and think-

478
ing how the wind assailed and tore it, when I heard a footstep
on the stair.
What nervous folly made me start, and awfully connect it
with the footstep of my dead sister, matters not. It was past
in a moment, and I listened again, and heard the footstep
stumble in coming on. Remembering then, that the staircase-
lights were blown out, I took up my reading-lamp and went
out to the stair-head. Whoever was below had stopped on
seeing my lamp, for all was quiet.
“There is some one down there, is there not?” I called out,
looking down.
“Yes,” said a voice from the darkness beneath.
“What floor do you want?”
“The top. Mr. Pip.”
“That is my name.—There is nothing the matter?”
“Nothing the matter,” returned the voice. And the man came
on.
I stood with my lamp held out over the stair-rail, and he came
slowly within its light. It was a shaded lamp, to shine upon
a book, and its circle of light was very contracted; so that he
was in it for a mere instant, and then out of it. In the instant,
I had seen a face that was strange to me, looking up with
an incomprehensible air of being touched and pleased by the
sight of me.

479
Moving the lamp as the man moved, I made out that he was
substantially dressed, but roughly, like a voyager by sea. That
he had long iron-gray hair. That his age was about sixty. That
he was a muscular man, strong on his legs, and that he was
browned and hardened by exposure to weather. As he as-
cended the last stair or two, and the light of my lamp included
us both, I saw, with a stupid kind of amazement, that he was
holding out both his hands to me.
“Pray what is your business?” I asked him.
“My business?” he repeated, pausing. “Ah! Yes. I will explain
my business, by your leave.”
“Do you wish to come in?”
“Yes,” he replied; “I wish to come in, master.”
I had asked him the question inhospitably enough, for I re-
sented the sort of bright and gratified recognition that still
shone in his face. I resented it, because it seemed to imply
that he expected me to respond to it. But I took him into the
room I had just left, and, having set the lamp on the table,
asked him as civilly as I could to explain himself.
He looked about him with the strangest air,—an air of won-
dering pleasure, as if he had some part in the things he ad-
mired,—and he pulled off a rough outer coat, and his hat.
Then, I saw that his head was furrowed and bald, and that the
long iron-gray hair grew only on its sides. But, I saw nothing
that in the least explained him. On the contrary, I saw him
next moment, once more holding out both his hands to me.

480
“What do you mean?” said I, half suspecting him to be mad.
He stopped in his looking at me, and slowly rubbed his right
hand over his head. “It’s disapinting to a man,” he said, in a
coarse broken voice, “arter having looked for’ard so distant,
and come so fur; but you’re not to blame for that,—neither
on us is to blame for that. I’ll speak in half a minute. Give
me half a minute, please.”
He sat down on a chair that stood before the fire, and covered
his forehead with his large brown veinous hands. I looked at
him attentively then, and recoiled a little from him; but I did
not know him.
“There’s no one nigh,” said he, looking over his shoulder; “is
there?”
“Why do you, a stranger coming into my rooms at this time
of the night, ask that question?” said I.
“You’re a game one,” he returned, shaking his head at me with
a deliberate affection, at once most unintelligible and most
exasperating; “I’m glad you’ve grow’d up, a game one! But
don’t catch hold of me. You’d be sorry arterwards to have
done it.”
I relinquished the intention he had detected, for I knew him!
Even yet I could not recall a single feature, but I knew him! If
the wind and the rain had driven away the intervening years,
had scattered all the intervening objects, had swept us to the
churchyard where we first stood face to face on such different
levels, I could not have known my convict more distinctly

481
than I knew him now as he sat in the chair before the fire.
No need to take a file from his pocket and show it to me;
no need to take the handkerchief from his neck and twist it
round his head; no need to hug himself with both his arms,
and take a shivering turn across the room, looking back at me
for recognition. I knew him before he gave me one of those
aids, though, a moment before, I had not been conscious of
remotely suspecting his identity.
He came back to where I stood, and again held out both his
hands. Not knowing what to do,—for, in my astonishment
I had lost my self-possession,—I reluctantly gave him my
hands. He grasped them heartily, raised them to his lips,
kissed them, and still held them.
“You acted noble, my boy,” said he. “Noble, Pip! And I have
never forgot it!”
At a change in his manner as if he were even going to em-
brace me, I laid a hand upon his breast and put him away.
“Stay!” said I. “Keep off! If you are grateful to me for what
I did when I was a little child, I hope you have shown your
gratitude by mending your way of life. If you have come here
to thank me, it was not necessary. Still, however you have
found me out, there must be something good in the feeling
that has brought you here, and I will not repulse you; but
surely you must understand that—I—”
My attention was so attracted by the singularity of his fixed
look at me, that the words died away on my tongue.

482
“You was a saying,” he observed, when we had confronted
one another in silence, “that surely I must understand. What,
surely must I understand?”
“That I cannot wish to renew that chance intercourse with
you of long ago, under these different circumstances. I am
glad to believe you have repented and recovered yourself. I
am glad to tell you so. I am glad that, thinking I deserve
to be thanked, you have come to thank me. But our ways
are different ways, none the less. You are wet, and you look
weary. Will you drink something before you go?”
He had replaced his neckerchief loosely, and had stood,
keenly observant of me, biting a long end of it. “I think,” he
answered, still with the end at his mouth and still observant
of me, “that I will drink (I thank you) afore I go.”
There was a tray ready on a side-table. I brought it to the table
near the fire, and asked him what he would have? He touched
one of the bottles without looking at it or speaking, and I
made him some hot rum and water. I tried to keep my hand
steady while I did so, but his look at me as he leaned back
in his chair with the long draggled end of his neckerchief
between his teeth—evidently forgotten—made my hand very
difficult to master. When at last I put the glass to him, I saw
with amazement that his eyes were full of tears.
Up to this time I had remained standing, not to disguise that
I wished him gone. But I was softened by the softened aspect
of the man, and felt a touch of reproach. “I hope,” said I, hur-
riedly putting something into a glass for myself, and drawing

483
a chair to the table, “that you will not think I spoke harshly
to you just now. I had no intention of doing it, and I am sorry
for it if I did. I wish you well and happy!”
As I put my glass to my lips, he glanced with surprise at the
end of his neckerchief, dropping from his mouth when he
opened it, and stretched out his hand. I gave him mine, and
then he drank, and drew his sleeve across his eyes and fore-
head.
“How are you living?” I asked him.
“I’ve been a sheep-farmer, stock-breeder, other trades
besides, away in the new world,” said he; “many a thousand
mile of stormy water off from this.”
“I hope you have done well?”
“I’ve done wonderfully well. There’s others went out alonger
me as has done well too, but no man has done nigh as well
as me. I’m famous for it.”
“I am glad to hear it.”
“I hope to hear you say so, my dear boy.”
Without stopping to try to understand those words or the
tone in which they were spoken, I turned off to a point that
had just come into my mind.
“Have you ever seen a messenger you once sent to me,” I in-
quired, “since he undertook that trust?”
“Never set eyes upon him. I warn’t likely to it.”

484
“He came faithfully, and he brought me the two one-pound
notes. I was a poor boy then, as you know, and to a poor
boy they were a little fortune. But, like you, I have done well
since, and you must let me pay them back. You can put them
to some other poor boy’s use.” I took out my purse.
He watched me as I laid my purse upon the table and opened
it, and he watched me as I separated two one-pound notes
from its contents. They were clean and new, and I spread
them out and handed them over to him. Still watching me,
he laid them one upon the other, folded them long-wise, gave
them a twist, set fire to them at the lamp, and dropped the
ashes into the tray.
“May I make so bold,” he said then, with a smile that was like
a frown, and with a frown that was like a smile, “as ask you
how you have done well, since you and me was out on them
lone shivering marshes?”
“How?”
“Ah!”
He emptied his glass, got up, and stood at the side of the fire,
with his heavy brown hand on the mantel-shelf. He put a foot
up to the bars, to dry and warm it, and the wet boot began to
steam; but, he neither looked at it, nor at the fire, but steadily
looked at me. It was only now that I began to tremble.
When my lips had parted, and had shaped some words that
were without sound, I forced myself to tell him (though I
could not do it distinctly), that I had been chosen to succeed

485
to some property.
“Might a mere warmint ask what property?” said he.
I faltered, “I don’t know.”
“Might a mere warmint ask whose property?” said he.
I faltered again, “I don’t know.”
“Could I make a guess, I wonder,” said the Convict, “at your
income since you come of age! As to the first figure now.
Five?”
With my heart beating like a heavy hammer of disordered
action, I rose out of my chair, and stood with my hand upon
the back of it, looking wildly at him.
“Concerning a guardian,” he went on. “There ought to have
been some guardian, or such-like, whiles you was a minor.
Some lawyer, maybe. As to the first letter of that lawyer’s
name now. Would it be J?”
All the truth of my position came flashing on me; and its dis-
appointments, dangers, disgraces, consequences of all kinds,
rushed in in such a multitude that I was borne down by them
and had to struggle for every breath I drew.
“Put it,” he resumed, “as the employer of that lawyer whose
name begun with a J, and might be Jaggers,—put it as he had
come over sea to Portsmouth, and had landed there, and had
wanted to come on to you. ‘However, you have found me
out,’ you says just now. Well! However, did I find you out?

486
Why, I wrote from Portsmouth to a person in London, for
particulars of your address. That person’s name? Why, Wem-
mick.”
I could not have spoken one word, though it had been to save
my life. I stood, with a hand on the chair-back and a hand
on my breast, where I seemed to be suffocating,—I stood so,
looking wildly at him, until I grasped at the chair, when the
room began to surge and turn. He caught me, drew me to the
sofa, put me up against the cushions, and bent on one knee
before me, bringing the face that I now well remembered, and
that I shuddered at, very near to mine.
“Yes, Pip, dear boy, I’ve made a gentleman on you! It’s me
wot has done it! I swore that time, sure as ever I earned a
guinea, that guinea should go to you. I swore arterwards,
sure as ever I spec’lated and got rich, you should get rich. I
lived rough, that you should live smooth; I worked hard, that
you should be above work. What odds, dear boy? Do I tell
it, fur you to feel a obligation? Not a bit. I tell it, fur you to
know as that there hunted dunghill dog wot you kep life in,
got his head so high that he could make a gentleman,—and,
Pip, you’re him!”
The abhorrence in which I held the man, the dread I had of
him, the repugnance with which I shrank from him, could
not have been exceeded if he had been some terrible beast.
“Look’ee here, Pip. I’m your second father. You’re my son,—
more to me nor any son. I’ve put away money, only for you
to spend. When I was a hired-out shepherd in a solitary hut,

487
not seeing no faces but faces of sheep till I half forgot wot
men’s and women’s faces wos like, I see yourn. I drops my
knife many a time in that hut when I was a-eating my din-
ner or my supper, and I says, ‘Here’s the boy again, a look-
ing at me whiles I eats and drinks!’ I see you there a many
times, as plain as ever I see you on them misty marshes. ‘Lord
strike me dead!’ I says each time,—and I goes out in the air to
say it under the open heavens,—’but wot, if I gets liberty and
money, I’ll make that boy a gentleman!’ And I done it. Why,
look at you, dear boy! Look at these here lodgings o’yourn,
fit for a lord! A lord? Ah! You shall show money with lords
for wagers, and beat ’em!”
In his heat and triumph, and in his knowledge that I had been
nearly fainting, he did not remark on my reception of all this.
It was the one grain of relief I had.
“Look’ee here!” he went on, taking my watch out of my
pocket, and turning towards him a ring on my finger, while I
recoiled from his touch as if he had been a snake, “a gold ’un
and a beauty: that’s a gentleman’s, I hope! A diamond all set
round with rubies; that’s a gentleman’s, I hope! Look at your
linen; fine and beautiful! Look at your clothes; better ain’t
to be got! And your books too,” turning his eyes round the
room, “mounting up, on their shelves, by hundreds! And you
read ’em; don’t you? I see you’d been a reading of ’em when
I come in. Ha, ha, ha! You shall read ’em to me, dear boy!
And if they’re in foreign languages wot I don’t understand, I
shall be just as proud as if I did.”

488
Again he took both my hands and put them to his lips, while
my blood ran cold within me.
“Don’t you mind talking, Pip,” said he, after again drawing
his sleeve over his eyes and forehead, as the click came in his
throat which I well remembered,—and he was all the more
horrible to me that he was so much in earnest; “you can’t
do better nor keep quiet, dear boy. You ain’t looked slowly
forward to this as I have; you wosn’t prepared for this as I
wos. But didn’t you never think it might be me?”
“O no, no, no,” I returned, “Never, never!”
“Well, you see it wos me, and single-handed. Never a soul in
it but my own self and Mr. Jaggers.”
“Was there no one else?” I asked.
“No,” said he, with a glance of surprise: “who else should
there be? And, dear boy, how good looking you have growed!
There’s bright eyes somewheres—eh? Isn’t there bright eyes
somewheres, wot you love the thoughts on?”
O Estella, Estella!
“They shall be yourn, dear boy, if money can buy ‘em. Not
that a gentleman like you, so well set up as you, can’t win
’em off of his own game; but money shall back you! Let me
finish wot I was a telling you, dear boy. From that there hut
and that there hiring-out, I got money left me by my master
(which died, and had been the same as me), and got my liberty
and went for myself. In every single thing I went for, I went

489
for you. ’Lord strike a blight upon it,’ I says, wotever it was I
went for, ‘if it ain’t for him!’ It all prospered wonderful. As I
giv’ you to understand just now, I’m famous for it. It was the
money left me, and the gains of the first few year wot I sent
home to Mr. Jaggers—all for you—when he first come arter
you, agreeable to my letter.”
O that he had never come! That he had left me at the forge,—
far from contented, yet, by comparison happy!
“And then, dear boy, it was a recompense to me, look’ee here,
to know in secret that I was making a gentleman. The blood
horses of them colonists might fling up the dust over me as I
was walking; what do I say? I says to myself, ’I’m making a
better gentleman nor ever you‘ll be!’ When one of ‘em says to
another, ’He was a convict, a few year ago, and is a ignorant
common fellow now, for all he’s lucky,’ what do I say? I says
to myself, ‘If I ain’t a gentleman, nor yet ain’t got no learning,
I’m the owner of such. All on you owns stock and land; which
on you owns a brought-up London gentleman?’ This way I
kep myself a going. And this way I held steady afore my mind
that I would for certain come one day and see my boy, and
make myself known to him, on his own ground.”
He laid his hand on my shoulder. I shuddered at the thought
that for anything I knew, his hand might be stained with
blood.
“It warn’t easy, Pip, for me to leave them parts, nor yet
it warn’t safe. But I held to it, and the harder it was, the
stronger I held, for I was determined, and my mind firm

490
made up. At last I done it. Dear boy, I done it!”
I tried to collect my thoughts, but I was stunned. Throughout,
I had seemed to myself to attend more to the wind and the
rain than to him; even now, I could not separate his voice
from those voices, though those were loud and his was silent.
“Where will you put me?” he asked, presently. “I must be put
somewheres, dear boy.”
“To sleep?” said I.
“Yes. And to sleep long and sound,” he answered; “for I’ve
been sea-tossed and sea-washed, months and months.”
“My friend and companion,” said I, rising from the sofa, “is
absent; you must have his room.”
“He won’t come back to-morrow; will he?”
“No,” said I, answering almost mechanically, in spite of my
utmost efforts; “not to-morrow.”
“Because, look’ee here, dear boy,” he said, dropping his voice,
and laying a long finger on my breast in an impressive man-
ner, “caution is necessary.”
“How do you mean? Caution?”
“By G——, it’s Death!”
“What’s death?”
“I was sent for life. It’s death to come back. There’s been

491
overmuch coming back of late years, and I should of a cer-
tainty be hanged if took.”
Nothing was needed but this; the wretched man, after loading
wretched me with his gold and silver chains for years, had
risked his life to come to me, and I held it there in my keeping!
If I had loved him instead of abhorring him; if I had been
attracted to him by the strongest admiration and affection,
instead of shrinking from him with the strongest repugnance;
it could have been no worse. On the contrary, it would have
been better, for his preservation would then have naturally
and tenderly addressed my heart.
My first care was to close the shutters, so that no light might
be seen from without, and then to close and make fast the
doors. While I did so, he stood at the table drinking rum and
eating biscuit; and when I saw him thus engaged, I saw my
convict on the marshes at his meal again. It almost seemed
to me as if he must stoop down presently, to file at his leg.
When I had gone into Herbert’s room, and had shut off
any other communication between it and the staircase than
through the room in which our conversation had been held,
I asked him if he would go to bed? He said yes, but asked
me for some of my “gentleman’s linen” to put on in the
morning. I brought it out, and laid it ready for him, and my
blood again ran cold when he again took me by both hands
to give me good night.
I got away from him, without knowing how I did it, and
mended the fire in the room where we had been together,

492
and sat down by it, afraid to go to bed. For an hour or more,
I remained too stunned to think; and it was not until I began
to think, that I began fully to know how wrecked I was, and
how the ship in which I had sailed was gone to pieces.
Miss Havisham’s intentions towards me, all a mere dream;
Estella not designed for me; I only suffered in Satis House as
a convenience, a sting for the greedy relations, a model with
a mechanical heart to practise on when no other practice was
at hand; those were the first smarts I had. But, sharpest and
deepest pain of all,—it was for the convict, guilty of I knew
not what crimes, and liable to be taken out of those rooms
where I sat thinking, and hanged at the Old Bailey door, that
I had deserted Joe.
I would not have gone back to Joe now, I would not have gone
back to Biddy now, for any consideration; simply, I suppose,
because my sense of my own worthless conduct to them was
greater than every consideration. No wisdom on earth could
have given me the comfort that I should have derived from
their simplicity and fidelity; but I could never, never, undo
what I had done.
In every rage of wind and rush of rain, I heard pursuers.
Twice, I could have sworn there was a knocking and whis-
pering at the outer door. With these fears upon me, I began
either to imagine or recall that I had had mysterious warn-
ings of this man’s approach. That, for weeks gone by, I had
passed faces in the streets which I had thought like his. That
these likenesses had grown more numerous, as he, coming

493
over the sea, had drawn nearer. That his wicked spirit had
somehow sent these messengers to mine, and that now on
this stormy night he was as good as his word, and with me.
Crowding up with these reflections came the reflection that
I had seen him with my childish eyes to be a desperately vi-
olent man; that I had heard that other convict reiterate that
he had tried to murder him; that I had seen him down in the
ditch tearing and fighting like a wild beast. Out of such re-
membrances I brought into the light of the fire a half-formed
terror that it might not be safe to be shut up there with him
in the dead of the wild solitary night. This dilated until it
filled the room, and impelled me to take a candle and go in
and look at my dreadful burden.
He had rolled a handkerchief round his head, and his face
was set and lowering in his sleep. But he was asleep, and
quietly too, though he had a pistol lying on the pillow. As-
sured of this, I softly removed the key to the outside of his
door, and turned it on him before I again sat down by the
fire. Gradually I slipped from the chair and lay on the floor.
When I awoke without having parted in my sleep with the
perception of my wretchedness, the clocks of the Eastward
churches were striking five, the candles were wasted out, the
fire was dead, and the wind and rain intensified the thick
black darkness.
THIS IS THE END OF THE SECOND STAGE OF PIP’S EX-
PECTATIONS.

494
Chapter XL
It was fortunate for me that I had to take precautions to
ensure (so far as I could) the safety of my dreaded visitor;
for, this thought pressing on me when I awoke, held other
thoughts in a confused concourse at a distance.
The impossibility of keeping him concealed in the chambers
was self-evident. It could not be done, and the attempt to do it
would inevitably engender suspicion. True, I had no Avenger
in my service now, but I was looked after by an inflammatory
old female, assisted by an animated rag-bag whom she called
her niece, and to keep a room secret from them would be to
invite curiosity and exaggeration. They both had weak eyes,
which I had long attributed to their chronically looking in at
keyholes, and they were always at hand when not wanted;
indeed that was their only reliable quality besides larceny.
Not to get up a mystery with these people, I resolved to an-
nounce in the morning that my uncle had unexpectedly come
from the country.
This course I decided on while I was yet groping about in
the darkness for the means of getting a light. Not stumbling
on the means after all, I was fain to go out to the adjacent
Lodge and get the watchman there to come with his lantern.
Now, in groping my way down the black staircase I fell over
something, and that something was a man crouching in a
corner.
As the man made no answer when I asked him what he did

495
there, but eluded my touch in silence, I ran to the Lodge and
urged the watchman to come quickly; telling him of the in-
cident on the way back. The wind being as fierce as ever, we
did not care to endanger the light in the lantern by rekindling
the extinguished lamps on the staircase, but we examined the
staircase from the bottom to the top and found no one there.
It then occurred to me as possible that the man might have
slipped into my rooms; so, lighting my candle at the watch-
man’s, and leaving him standing at the door, I examined them
carefully, including the room in which my dreaded guest lay
asleep. All was quiet, and assuredly no other man was in
those chambers.
It troubled me that there should have been a lurker on the
stairs, on that night of all nights in the year, and I asked the
watchman, on the chance of eliciting some hopeful explana-
tion as I handed him a dram at the door, whether he had ad-
mitted at his gate any gentleman who had perceptibly been
dining out? Yes, he said; at different times of the night, three.
One lived in Fountain Court, and the other two lived in the
Lane, and he had seen them all go home. Again, the only
other man who dwelt in the house of which my chambers
formed a part had been in the country for some weeks, and
he certainly had not returned in the night, because we had
seen his door with his seal on it as we came upstairs.
“The night being so bad, sir,” said the watchman, as he gave
me back my glass, “uncommon few have come in at my gate.
Besides them three gentlemen that I have named, I don’t call
to mind another since about eleven o’clock, when a stranger

496
asked for you.”
“My uncle,” I muttered. “Yes.”
“You saw him, sir?”
“Yes. Oh yes.”
“Likewise the person with him?”
“Person with him!” I repeated.
“I judged the person to be with him,” returned the watchman.
“The person stopped, when he stopped to make inquiry of me,
and the person took this way when he took this way.”
“What sort of person?”
The watchman had not particularly noticed; he should say
a working person; to the best of his belief, he had a dust-
colored kind of clothes on, under a dark coat. The watchman
made more light of the matter than I did, and naturally; not
having my reason for attaching weight to it.
When I had got rid of him, which I thought it well to do with-
out prolonging explanations, my mind was much troubled by
these two circumstances taken together. Whereas they were
easy of innocent solution apart,—as, for instance, some diner
out or diner at home, who had not gone near this watch-
man’s gate, might have strayed to my staircase and dropped
asleep there,—and my nameless visitor might have brought
some one with him to show him the way,—still, joined, they
had an ugly look to one as prone to distrust and fear as the

497
changes of a few hours had made me.
I lighted my fire, which burnt with a raw pale flare at that
time of the morning, and fell into a doze before it. I seemed
to have been dozing a whole night when the clocks struck six.
As there was full an hour and a half between me and daylight,
I dozed again; now, waking up uneasily, with prolix conver-
sations about nothing, in my ears; now, making thunder of
the wind in the chimney; at length, falling off into a profound
sleep from which the daylight woke me with a start.
All this time I had never been able to consider my own situ-
ation, nor could I do so yet. I had not the power to attend to
it. I was greatly dejected and distressed, but in an incoherent
wholesale sort of way. As to forming any plan for the future,
I could as soon have formed an elephant. When I opened
the shutters and looked out at the wet wild morning, all of
a leaden hue; when I walked from room to room; when I sat
down again shivering, before the fire, waiting for my laun-
dress to appear; I thought how miserable I was, but hardly
knew why, or how long I had been so, or on what day of the
week I made the reflection, or even who I was that made it.
At last, the old woman and the niece came in,—the latter with
a head not easily distinguishable from her dusty broom,—
and testified surprise at sight of me and the fire. To whom
I imparted how my uncle had come in the night and was
then asleep, and how the breakfast preparations were to be
modified accordingly. Then I washed and dressed while they
knocked the furniture about and made a dust; and so, in a

498
sort of dream or sleep-waking, I found myself sitting by the
fire again, waiting for—Him—to come to breakfast.
By and by, his door opened and he came out. I could not bring
myself to bear the sight of him, and I thought he had a worse
look by daylight.
“I do not even know,” said I, speaking low as he took his seat
at the table, “by what name to call you. I have given out that
you are my uncle.”
“That’s it, dear boy! Call me uncle.”
“You assumed some name, I suppose, on board ship?”
“Yes, dear boy. I took the name of Provis.”
“Do you mean to keep that name?”
“Why, yes, dear boy, it’s as good as another,—unless you’d
like another.”
“What is your real name?” I asked him in a whisper.
“Magwitch,” he answered, in the same tone; “chrisen’d Abel.”
“What were you brought up to be?”
“A warmint, dear boy.”
He answered quite seriously, and used the word as if it de-
noted some profession.
“When you came into the Temple last night—” said I, pausing
to wonder whether that could really have been last night,

499
which seemed so long ago.
“Yes, dear boy?”
“When you came in at the gate and asked the watchman the
way here, had you any one with you?”
“With me? No, dear boy.”
“But there was some one there?”
“I didn’t take particular notice,” he said, dubiously, “not
knowing the ways of the place. But I think there was a
person, too, come in alonger me.”
“Are you known in London?”
“I hope not!” said he, giving his neck a jerk with his forefin-
ger that made me turn hot and sick.
“Were you known in London, once?”
“Not over and above, dear boy. I was in the provinces mostly.”
“Were you—tried—in London?”
“Which time?” said he, with a sharp look.
“The last time.”
He nodded. “First knowed Mr. Jaggers that way. Jaggers was
for me.”
It was on my lips to ask him what he was tried for, but he took
up a knife, gave it a flourish, and with the words, “And what
I done is worked out and paid for!” fell to at his breakfast.

500
He ate in a ravenous way that was very disagreeable, and
all his actions were uncouth, noisy, and greedy. Some of his
teeth had failed him since I saw him eat on the marshes,
and as he turned his food in his mouth, and turned his head
sideways to bring his strongest fangs to bear upon it, he
looked terribly like a hungry old dog. If I had begun with
any appetite, he would have taken it away, and I should have
sat much as I did,—repelled from him by an insurmountable
aversion, and gloomily looking at the cloth.
“I’m a heavy grubber, dear boy,” he said, as a polite kind of
apology when he made an end of his meal, “but I always
was. If it had been in my constitution to be a lighter grub-
ber, I might ha’ got into lighter trouble. Similarly, I must
have my smoke. When I was first hired out as shepherd
t’other side the world, it’s my belief I should ha’ turned into a
molloncolly-mad sheep myself, if I hadn’t a had my smoke.”
As he said so, he got up from table, and putting his hand
into the breast of the pea-coat he wore, brought out a short
black pipe, and a handful of loose tobacco of the kind that is
called Negro-head. Having filled his pipe, he put the surplus
tobacco back again, as if his pocket were a drawer. Then,
he took a live coal from the fire with the tongs, and lighted
his pipe at it, and then turned round on the hearth-rug with
his back to the fire, and went through his favorite action of
holding out both his hands for mine.
“And this,” said he, dandling my hands up and down in his,
as he puffed at his pipe,—“and this is the gentleman what I

501
made! The real genuine One! It does me good fur to look at
you, Pip. All I stip’late, is, to stand by and look at you, dear
boy!”
I released my hands as soon as I could, and found that I was
beginning slowly to settle down to the contemplation of my
condition. What I was chained to, and how heavily, became
intelligible to me, as I heard his hoarse voice, and sat looking
up at his furrowed bald head with its iron gray hair at the
sides.
“I mustn’t see my gentleman a footing it in the mire of the
streets; there mustn’t be no mud on his boots. My gentleman
must have horses, Pip! Horses to ride, and horses to drive,
and horses for his servant to ride and drive as well. Shall
colonists have their horses (and blood ’uns, if you please,
good Lord!) and not my London gentleman? No, no. We’ll
show ’em another pair of shoes than that, Pip; won’t us?”
He took out of his pocket a great thick pocket-book, bursting
with papers, and tossed it on the table.
“There’s something worth spending in that there book, dear
boy. It’s yourn. All I’ve got ain’t mine; it’s yourn. Don’t you
be afeerd on it. There’s more where that come from. I’ve
come to the old country fur to see my gentleman spend his
money like a gentleman. That’ll be my pleasure. My pleasure
’ull be fur to see him do it. And blast you all!” he wound
up, looking round the room and snapping his fingers once
with a loud snap, “blast you every one, from the judge in his
wig, to the colonist a stirring up the dust, I’ll show a better

502
gentleman than the whole kit on you put together!”
“Stop!” said I, almost in a frenzy of fear and dislike, “I want
to speak to you. I want to know what is to be done. I want
to know how you are to be kept out of danger, how long you
are going to stay, what projects you have.”
“Look’ee here, Pip,” said he, laying his hand on my arm in a
suddenly altered and subdued manner; “first of all, look’ee
here. I forgot myself half a minute ago. What I said was low;
that’s what it was; low. Look’ee here, Pip. Look over it. I
ain’t a going to be low.”
“First,” I resumed, half groaning, “what precautions can be
taken against your being recognized and seized?”
“No, dear boy,” he said, in the same tone as before, “that don’t
go first. Lowness goes first. I ain’t took so many year to
make a gentleman, not without knowing what’s due to him.
Look’ee here, Pip. I was low; that’s what I was; low. Look
over it, dear boy.”
Some sense of the grimly-ludicrous moved me to a fretful
laugh, as I replied, “I have looked over it. In Heaven’s name,
don’t harp upon it!”
“Yes, but look’ee here,” he persisted. “Dear boy, I ain’t come
so fur, not fur to be low. Now, go on, dear boy. You was a
saying—”
“How are you to be guarded from the danger you have in-
curred?”

503
“Well, dear boy, the danger ain’t so great. Without I was in-
formed agen, the danger ain’t so much to signify. There’s
Jaggers, and there’s Wemmick, and there’s you. Who else is
there to inform?”
“Is there no chance person who might identify you in the
street?” said I.
“Well,” he returned, “there ain’t many. Nor yet I don’t intend
to advertise myself in the newspapers by the name of A.M.
come back from Botany Bay; and years have rolled away, and
who’s to gain by it? Still, look’ee here, Pip. If the danger had
been fifty times as great, I should ha’ come to see you, mind
you, just the same.”
“And how long do you remain?”
“How long?” said he, taking his black pipe from his mouth,
and dropping his jaw as he stared at me. “I’m not a going
back. I’ve come for good.”
“Where are you to live?” said I. “What is to be done with
you? Where will you be safe?”
“Dear boy,” he returned, “there’s disguising wigs can be
bought for money, and there’s hair powder, and spectacles,
and black clothes,—shorts and what not. Others has done
it safe afore, and what others has done afore, others can do
agen. As to the where and how of living, dear boy, give me
your own opinions on it.”
“You take it smoothly now,” said I, “but you were very serious

504
last night, when you swore it was Death.”
“And so I swear it is Death,” said he, putting his pipe back in
his mouth, “and Death by the rope, in the open street not fur
from this, and it’s serious that you should fully understand it
to be so. What then, when that’s once done? Here I am. To go
back now ’ud be as bad as to stand ground—worse. Besides,
Pip, I’m here, because I’ve meant it by you, years and years.
As to what I dare, I’m a old bird now, as has dared all manner
of traps since first he was fledged, and I’m not afeerd to perch
upon a scarecrow. If there’s Death hid inside of it, there is,
and let him come out, and I’ll face him, and then I’ll believe
in him and not afore. And now let me have a look at my
gentleman agen.”
Once more, he took me by both hands and surveyed me with
an air of admiring proprietorship: smoking with great com-
placency all the while.
It appeared to me that I could do no better than secure him
some quiet lodging hard by, of which he might take pos-
session when Herbert returned: whom I expected in two or
three days. That the secret must be confided to Herbert as
a matter of unavoidable necessity, even if I could have put
the immense relief I should derive from sharing it with him
out of the question, was plain to me. But it was by no means
so plain to Mr. Provis (I resolved to call him by that name),
who reserved his consent to Herbert’s participation until he
should have seen him and formed a favorable judgment of his
physiognomy. “And even then, dear boy,” said he, pulling a

505
greasy little clasped black Testament out of his pocket, “we’ll
have him on his oath.”
To state that my terrible patron carried this little black book
about the world solely to swear people on in cases of emer-
gency, would be to state what I never quite established; but
this I can say, that I never knew him put it to any other use.
The book itself had the appearance of having been stolen
from some court of justice, and perhaps his knowledge of its
antecedents, combined with his own experience in that wise,
gave him a reliance on its powers as a sort of legal spell or
charm. On this first occasion of his producing it, I recalled
how he had made me swear fidelity in the churchyard long
ago, and how he had described himself last night as always
swearing to his resolutions in his solitude.
As he was at present dressed in a seafaring slop suit, in which
he looked as if he had some parrots and cigars to dispose of, I
next discussed with him what dress he should wear. He cher-
ished an extraordinary belief in the virtues of “shorts” as a
disguise, and had in his own mind sketched a dress for him-
self that would have made him something between a dean
and a dentist. It was with considerable difficulty that I won
him over to the assumption of a dress more like a prosperous
farmer’s; and we arranged that he should cut his hair close,
and wear a little powder. Lastly, as he had not yet been seen
by the laundress or her niece, he was to keep himself out of
their view until his change of dress was made.
It would seem a simple matter to decide on these precautions;

506
but in my dazed, not to say distracted, state, it took so long,
that I did not get out to further them until two or three in the
afternoon. He was to remain shut up in the chambers while
I was gone, and was on no account to open the door.
There being to my knowledge a respectable lodging-house in
Essex Street, the back of which looked into the Temple, and
was almost within hail of my windows, I first of all repaired
to that house, and was so fortunate as to secure the second
floor for my uncle, Mr. Provis. I then went from shop to shop,
making such purchases as were necessary to the change in
his appearance. This business transacted, I turned my face,
on my own account, to Little Britain. Mr. Jaggers was at
his desk, but, seeing me enter, got up immediately and stood
before his fire.
“Now, Pip,” said he, “be careful.”
“I will, sir,” I returned. For, coming along I had thought well
of what I was going to say.
“Don’t commit yourself,” said Mr. Jaggers, “and don’t commit
any one. You understand—any one. Don’t tell me anything:
I don’t want to know anything; I am not curious.”
Of course I saw that he knew the man was come.
“I merely want, Mr. Jaggers,” said I, “to assure myself that
what I have been told is true. I have no hope of its being
untrue, but at least I may verify it.”
Mr. Jaggers nodded. “But did you say ‘told’ or ‘informed’?”

507
he asked me, with his head on one side, and not looking at
me, but looking in a listening way at the floor. “Told would
seem to imply verbal communication. You can’t have verbal
communication with a man in New South Wales, you know.”
“I will say, informed, Mr. Jaggers.”
“Good.”
“I have been informed by a person named Abel Magwitch,
that he is the benefactor so long unknown to me.”
“That is the man,” said Mr. Jaggers, “in New South Wales.”
“And only he?” said I.
“And only he,” said Mr. Jaggers.
“I am not so unreasonable, sir, as to think you at all respon-
sible for my mistakes and wrong conclusions; but I always
supposed it was Miss Havisham.”
“As you say, Pip,” returned Mr. Jaggers, turning his eyes upon
me coolly, and taking a bite at his forefinger, “I am not at all
responsible for that.”
“And yet it looked so like it, sir,” I pleaded with a downcast
heart.
“Not a particle of evidence, Pip,” said Mr. Jaggers, shaking his
head and gathering up his skirts. “Take nothing on its looks;
take everything on evidence. There’s no better rule.”
“I have no more to say,” said I, with a sigh, after standing

508
silent for a little while. “I have verified my information, and
there’s an end.”
“And Magwitch—in New South Wales—having at last dis-
closed himself,” said Mr. Jaggers, “you will comprehend, Pip,
how rigidly throughout my communication with you, I have
always adhered to the strict line of fact. There has never
been the least departure from the strict line of fact. You are
quite aware of that?”
“Quite, sir.”
“I communicated to Magwitch—in New South Wales—when
he first wrote to me—from New South Wales—the caution
that he must not expect me ever to deviate from the strict
line of fact. I also communicated to him another caution. He
appeared to me to have obscurely hinted in his letter at some
distant idea he had of seeing you in England here. I cau-
tioned him that I must hear no more of that; that he was not
at all likely to obtain a pardon; that he was expatriated for
the term of his natural life; and that his presenting himself in
this country would be an act of felony, rendering him liable
to the extreme penalty of the law. I gave Magwitch that cau-
tion,” said Mr. Jaggers, looking hard at me; “I wrote it to New
South Wales. He guided himself by it, no doubt.”
“No doubt,” said I.
“I have been informed by Wemmick,” pursued Mr. Jaggers,
still looking hard at me, “that he has received a letter, under
date Portsmouth, from a colonist of the name of Purvis, or—”

509
“Or Provis,” I suggested.
“Or Provis—thank you, Pip. Perhaps it is Provis? Perhaps
you know it’s Provis?”
“Yes,” said I.
“You know it’s Provis. A letter, under date Portsmouth, from
a colonist of the name of Provis, asking for the particulars
of your address, on behalf of Magwitch. Wemmick sent him
the particulars, I understand, by return of post. Probably it
is through Provis that you have received the explanation of
Magwitch—in New South Wales?”
“It came through Provis,” I replied.
“Good day, Pip,” said Mr. Jaggers, offering his hand; “glad
to have seen you. In writing by post to Magwitch—in New
South Wales—or in communicating with him through Pro-
vis, have the goodness to mention that the particulars and
vouchers of our long account shall be sent to you, together
with the balance; for there is still a balance remaining. Good
day, Pip!”
We shook hands, and he looked hard at me as long as he could
see me. I turned at the door, and he was still looking hard at
me, while the two vile casts on the shelf seemed to be trying
to get their eyelids open, and to force out of their swollen
throats, “O, what a man he is!”
Wemmick was out, and though he had been at his desk he
could have done nothing for me. I went straight back to the

510
Temple, where I found the terrible Provis drinking rum and
water and smoking negro-head, in safety.
Next day the clothes I had ordered all came home, and he
put them on. Whatever he put on, became him less (it dis-
mally seemed to me) than what he had worn before. To my
thinking, there was something in him that made it hopeless
to attempt to disguise him. The more I dressed him and the
better I dressed him, the more he looked like the slouching
fugitive on the marshes. This effect on my anxious fancy was
partly referable, no doubt, to his old face and manner grow-
ing more familiar to me; but I believe too that he dragged one
of his legs as if there were still a weight of iron on it, and that
from head to foot there was Convict in the very grain of the
man.
The influences of his solitary hut-life were upon him besides,
and gave him a savage air that no dress could tame; added
to these were the influences of his subsequent branded life
among men, and, crowning all, his consciousness that he
was dodging and hiding now. In all his ways of sitting and
standing, and eating and drinking,—of brooding about in
a high-shouldered reluctant style,—of taking out his great
horn-handled jackknife and wiping it on his legs and cutting
his food,—of lifting light glasses and cups to his lips, as if
they were clumsy pannikins,—of chopping a wedge off his
bread, and soaking up with it the last fragments of gravy
round and round his plate, as if to make the most of an
allowance, and then drying his finger-ends on it, and then
swallowing it,—in these ways and a thousand other small

511
nameless instances arising every minute in the day, there
was Prisoner, Felon, Bondsman, plain as plain could be.
It had been his own idea to wear that touch of powder, and I
had conceded the powder after overcoming the shorts. But I
can compare the effect of it, when on, to nothing but the prob-
able effect of rouge upon the dead; so awful was the manner
in which everything in him that it was most desirable to re-
press, started through that thin layer of pretence, and seemed
to come blazing out at the crown of his head. It was aban-
doned as soon as tried, and he wore his grizzled hair cut short.
Words cannot tell what a sense I had, at the same time, of
the dreadful mystery that he was to me. When he fell asleep
of an evening, with his knotted hands clenching the sides
of the easy-chair, and his bald head tattooed with deep wrin-
kles falling forward on his breast, I would sit and look at him,
wondering what he had done, and loading him with all the
crimes in the Calendar, until the impulse was powerful on
me to start up and fly from him. Every hour so increased my
abhorrence of him, that I even think I might have yielded to
this impulse in the first agonies of being so haunted, notwith-
standing all he had done for me and the risk he ran, but for
the knowledge that Herbert must soon come back. Once, I
actually did start out of bed in the night, and begin to dress
myself in my worst clothes, hurriedly intending to leave him
there with everything else I possessed, and enlist for India as
a private soldier.
I doubt if a ghost could have been more terrible to me, up in

512
those lonely rooms in the long evenings and long nights, with
the wind and the rain always rushing by. A ghost could not
have been taken and hanged on my account, and the consid-
eration that he could be, and the dread that he would be, were
no small addition to my horrors. When he was not asleep, or
playing a complicated kind of Patience with a ragged pack of
cards of his own,—a game that I never saw before or since,
and in which he recorded his winnings by sticking his jack-
knife into the table,—when he was not engaged in either of
these pursuits, he would ask me to read to him,—“Foreign
language, dear boy!” While I complied, he, not comprehend-
ing a single word, would stand before the fire surveying me
with the air of an Exhibitor, and I would see him, between the
fingers of the hand with which I shaded my face, appealing in
dumb show to the furniture to take notice of my proficiency.
The imaginary student pursued by the misshapen creature he
had impiously made, was not more wretched than I, pursued
by the creature who had made me, and recoiling from him
with a stronger repulsion, the more he admired me and the
fonder he was of me.
This is written of, I am sensible, as if it had lasted a year.
It lasted about five days. Expecting Herbert all the time, I
dared not go out, except when I took Provis for an airing
after dark. At length, one evening when dinner was over and
I had dropped into a slumber quite worn out,—for my nights
had been agitated and my rest broken by fearful dreams,—I
was roused by the welcome footstep on the staircase. Provis,
who had been asleep too, staggered up at the noise I made,

513
and in an instant I saw his jackknife shining in his hand.
“Quiet! It’s Herbert!” I said; and Herbert came bursting in,
with the airy freshness of six hundred miles of France upon
him.
“Handel, my dear fellow, how are you, and again how are
you, and again how are you? I seem to have been gone a
twelvemonth! Why, so I must have been, for you have grown
quite thin and pale! Handel, my—Halloa! I beg your pardon.”
He was stopped in his running on and in his shaking hands
with me, by seeing Provis. Provis, regarding him with a fixed
attention, was slowly putting up his jackknife, and groping
in another pocket for something else.
“Herbert, my dear friend,” said I, shutting the double doors,
while Herbert stood staring and wondering, “something very
strange has happened. This is—a visitor of mine.”
“It’s all right, dear boy!” said Provis coming forward, with
his little clasped black book, and then addressing himself to
Herbert. “Take it in your right hand. Lord strike you dead on
the spot, if ever you split in any way sumever! Kiss it!”
“Do so, as he wishes it,” I said to Herbert. So, Herbert, looking
at me with a friendly uneasiness and amazement, complied,
and Provis immediately shaking hands with him, said, “Now
you’re on your oath, you know. And never believe me on
mine, if Pip shan’t make a gentleman on you!”

514
Chapter XLI
In vain should I attempt to describe the astonishment and
disquiet of Herbert, when he and I and Provis sat down before
the fire, and I recounted the whole of the secret. Enough,
that I saw my own feelings reflected in Herbert’s face, and
not least among them, my repugnance towards the man who
had done so much for me.
What would alone have set a division between that man and
us, if there had been no other dividing circumstance, was his
triumph in my story. Saving his troublesome sense of having
been “low” on one occasion since his return,—on which point
he began to hold forth to Herbert, the moment my revelation
was finished,—he had no perception of the possibility of my
finding any fault with my good fortune. His boast that he
had made me a gentleman, and that he had come to see me
support the character on his ample resources, was made for
me quite as much as for himself. And that it was a highly
agreeable boast to both of us, and that we must both be very
proud of it, was a conclusion quite established in his own
mind.
“Though, look’ee here, Pip’s comrade,” he said to Herbert, af-
ter having discoursed for some time, “I know very well that
once since I come back—for half a minute—I’ve been low. I
said to Pip, I knowed as I had been low. But don’t you fret
yourself on that score. I ain’t made Pip a gentleman, and Pip
ain’t a going to make you a gentleman, not fur me not to

515
know what’s due to ye both. Dear boy, and Pip’s comrade,
you two may count upon me always having a gen-teel muz-
zle on. Muzzled I have been since that half a minute when I
was betrayed into lowness, muzzled I am at the present time,
muzzled I ever will be.”
Herbert said, “Certainly,” but looked as if there were no spe-
cific consolation in this, and remained perplexed and dis-
mayed. We were anxious for the time when he would go
to his lodging and leave us together, but he was evidently
jealous of leaving us together, and sat late. It was midnight
before I took him round to Essex Street, and saw him safely
in at his own dark door. When it closed upon him, I experi-
enced the first moment of relief I had known since the night
of his arrival.
Never quite free from an uneasy remembrance of the man on
the stairs, I had always looked about me in taking my guest
out after dark, and in bringing him back; and I looked about
me now. Difficult as it is in a large city to avoid the suspi-
cion of being watched, when the mind is conscious of dan-
ger in that regard, I could not persuade myself that any of
the people within sight cared about my movements. The few
who were passing passed on their several ways, and the street
was empty when I turned back into the Temple. Nobody had
come out at the gate with us, nobody went in at the gate with
me. As I crossed by the fountain, I saw his lighted back win-
dows looking bright and quiet, and, when I stood for a few
moments in the doorway of the building where I lived, before
going up the stairs, Garden Court was as still and lifeless as

516
the staircase was when I ascended it.
Herbert received me with open arms, and I had never felt
before so blessedly what it is to have a friend. When he had
spoken some sound words of sympathy and encouragement,
we sat down to consider the question, What was to be done?
The chair that Provis had occupied still remaining where it
had stood,—for he had a barrack way with him of hanging
about one spot, in one unsettled manner, and going through
one round of observances with his pipe and his negro-head
and his jackknife and his pack of cards, and what not, as if
it were all put down for him on a slate,—I say his chair re-
maining where it had stood, Herbert unconsciously took it,
but next moment started out of it, pushed it away, and took
another. He had no occasion to say after that that he had con-
ceived an aversion for my patron, neither had I occasion to
confess my own. We interchanged that confidence without
shaping a syllable.
“What,” said I to Herbert, when he was safe in another chair,—
“what is to be done?”
“My poor dear Handel,” he replied, holding his head, “I am
too stunned to think.”
“So was I, Herbert, when the blow first fell. Still, something
must be done. He is intent upon various new expenses,—
horses, and carriages, and lavish appearances of all kinds. He
must be stopped somehow.”
“You mean that you can’t accept—”

517
“How can I?” I interposed, as Herbert paused. “Think of him!
Look at him!”
An involuntary shudder passed over both of us.
“Yet I am afraid the dreadful truth is, Herbert, that he is at-
tached to me, strongly attached to me. Was there ever such
a fate!”
“My poor dear Handel,” Herbert repeated.
“Then,” said I, “after all, stopping short here, never taking an-
other penny from him, think what I owe him already! Then
again: I am heavily in debt,—very heavily for me, who have
now no expectations,—and I have been bred to no calling, and
I am fit for nothing.”
“Well, well, well!” Herbert remonstrated. “Don’t say fit for
nothing.”
“What am I fit for? I know only one thing that I am fit for,
and that is, to go for a soldier. And I might have gone, my
dear Herbert, but for the prospect of taking counsel with your
friendship and affection.”
Of course I broke down there: and of course Herbert, beyond
seizing a warm grip of my hand, pretended not to know it.
“Anyhow, my dear Handel,” said he presently, “soldiering
won’t do. If you were to renounce this patronage and
these favors, I suppose you would do so with some faint
hope of one day repaying what you have already had. Not
very strong, that hope, if you went soldiering! Besides, it’s

518
absurd. You would be infinitely better in Clarriker’s house,
small as it is. I am working up towards a partnership, you
know.”
Poor fellow! He little suspected with whose money.
“But there is another question,” said Herbert. “This is an ig-
norant, determined man, who has long had one fixed idea.
More than that, he seems to me (I may misjudge him) to be a
man of a desperate and fierce character.”
“I know he is,” I returned. “Let me tell you what evidence I
have seen of it.” And I told him what I had not mentioned in
my narrative, of that encounter with the other convict.
“See, then,” said Herbert; “think of this! He comes here at the
peril of his life, for the realization of his fixed idea. In the
moment of realization, after all his toil and waiting, you cut
the ground from under his feet, destroy his idea, and make
his gains worthless to him. Do you see nothing that he might
do, under the disappointment?”
“I have seen it, Herbert, and dreamed of it, ever since the
fatal night of his arrival. Nothing has been in my thoughts
so distinctly as his putting himself in the way of being taken.”
“Then you may rely upon it,” said Herbert, “that there would
be great danger of his doing it. That is his power over you as
long as he remains in England, and that would be his reckless
course if you forsook him.”
I was so struck by the horror of this idea, which had weighed

519
upon me from the first, and the working out of which would
make me regard myself, in some sort, as his murderer, that
I could not rest in my chair, but began pacing to and fro. I
said to Herbert, meanwhile, that even if Provis were recog-
nized and taken, in spite of himself, I should be wretched
as the cause, however innocently. Yes; even though I was
so wretched in having him at large and near me, and even
though I would far rather have worked at the forge all the
days of my life than I would ever have come to this!
But there was no staving off the question, What was to be
done?
“The first and the main thing to be done,” said Herbert, “is to
get him out of England. You will have to go with him, and
then he may be induced to go.”
“But get him where I will, could I prevent his coming back?”
“My good Handel, is it not obvious that with Newgate in the
next street, there must be far greater hazard in your break-
ing your mind to him and making him reckless, here, than
elsewhere? If a pretext to get him away could be made out of
that other convict, or out of anything else in his life, now.”
“There, again!” said I, stopping before Herbert, with my open
hands held out, as if they contained the desperation of the
case. “I know nothing of his life. It has almost made me
mad to sit here of a night and see him before me, so bound
up with my fortunes and misfortunes, and yet so unknown
to me, except as the miserable wretch who terrified me two

520
days in my childhood!”
Herbert got up, and linked his arm in mine, and we slowly
walked to and fro together, studying the carpet.
“Handel,” said Herbert, stopping, “you feel convinced that
you can take no further benefits from him; do you?”
“Fully. Surely you would, too, if you were in my place?”
“And you feel convinced that you must break with him?”
“Herbert, can you ask me?”
“And you have, and are bound to have, that tenderness for the
life he has risked on your account, that you must save him, if
possible, from throwing it away. Then you must get him out
of England before you stir a finger to extricate yourself. That
done, extricate yourself, in Heaven’s name, and we’ll see it
out together, dear old boy.”
It was a comfort to shake hands upon it, and walk up and
down again, with only that done.
“Now, Herbert,” said I, “with reference to gaining some
knowledge of his history. There is but one way that I know
of. I must ask him point blank.”
“Yes. Ask him,” said Herbert, “when we sit at breakfast in the
morning.” For he had said, on taking leave of Herbert, that
he would come to breakfast with us.
With this project formed, we went to bed. I had the wildest
dreams concerning him, and woke unrefreshed; I woke, too,

521
to recover the fear which I had lost in the night, of his being
found out as a returned transport. Waking, I never lost that
fear.
He came round at the appointed time, took out his jackknife,
and sat down to his meal. He was full of plans “for his gentle-
man’s coming out strong, and like a gentleman,” and urged
me to begin speedily upon the pocket-book which he had left
in my possession. He considered the chambers and his own
lodging as temporary residences, and advised me to look out
at once for a “fashionable crib” near Hyde Park, in which he
could have “a shake-down.” When he had made an end of his
breakfast, and was wiping his knife on his leg, I said to him,
without a word of preface,—
“After you were gone last night, I told my friend of the strug-
gle that the soldiers found you engaged in on the marshes,
when we came up. You remember?”
“Remember!” said he. “I think so!”
“We want to know something about that man—and about
you. It is strange to know no more about either, and par-
ticularly you, than I was able to tell last night. Is not this as
good a time as another for our knowing more?”
“Well!” he said, after consideration. “You’re on your oath,
you know, Pip’s comrade?”
“Assuredly,” replied Herbert.
“As to anything I say, you know,” he insisted. “The oath ap-

522
plies to all.”
“I understand it to do so.”
“And look’ee here! Wotever I done is worked out and paid
for,” he insisted again.
“So be it.”
He took out his black pipe and was going to fill it with negro-
head, when, looking at the tangle of tobacco in his hand, he
seemed to think it might perplex the thread of his narrative.
He put it back again, stuck his pipe in a button-hole of his
coat, spread a hand on each knee, and after turning an angry
eye on the fire for a few silent moments, looked round at us
and said what follows.

523
Chapter XLII
“Dear boy and Pip’s comrade. I am not a going fur to tell you
my life like a song, or a story-book. But to give it you short
and handy, I’ll put it at once into a mouthful of English. In
jail and out of jail, in jail and out of jail, in jail and out of
jail. There, you’ve got it. That’s my life pretty much, down
to such times as I got shipped off, arter Pip stood my friend.
“I’ve been done everything to, pretty well—except hanged.
I’ve been locked up as much as a silver tea-kittle. I’ve been
carted here and carted there, and put out of this town, and put
out of that town, and stuck in the stocks, and whipped and
worried and drove. I’ve no more notion where I was born
than you have—if so much. I first become aware of myself
down in Essex, a thieving turnips for my living. Summun
had run away from me—a man—a tinker—and he’d took the
fire with him, and left me wery cold.
“I know’d my name to be Magwitch, chrisen’d Abel. How did
I know it? Much as I know’d the birds’ names in the hedges
to be chaffinch, sparrer, thrush. I might have thought it was
all lies together, only as the birds’ names come out true, I
supposed mine did.
“So fur as I could find, there warn’t a soul that see young Abel
Magwitch, with us little on him as in him, but wot caught
fright at him, and either drove him off, or took him up. I
was took up, took up, took up, to that extent that I reg’larly
grow’d up took up.

524
“This is the way it was, that when I was a ragged little cree-
tur as much to be pitied as ever I see (not that I looked in
the glass, for there warn’t many insides of furnished houses
known to me), I got the name of being hardened. ‘This is a
terrible hardened one,’ they says to prison wisitors, picking
out me. ‘May be said to live in jails, this boy.’ Then they
looked at me, and I looked at them, and they measured my
head, some on ’em,—they had better a measured my stom-
ach,—and others on ’em giv me tracts what I couldn’t read,
and made me speeches what I couldn’t understand. They al-
ways went on agen me about the Devil. But what the Devil
was I to do? I must put something into my stomach, mustn’t
I?—Howsomever, I’m a getting low, and I know what’s due.
Dear boy and Pip’s comrade, don’t you be afeerd of me being
low.
“Tramping, begging, thieving, working sometimes when I
could,—though that warn’t as often as you may think, till you
put the question whether you would ha’ been over-ready to
give me work yourselves,—a bit of a poacher, a bit of a laborer,
a bit of a wagoner, a bit of a haymaker, a bit of a hawker, a
bit of most things that don’t pay and lead to trouble, I got
to be a man. A deserting soldier in a Traveller’s Rest, what
lay hid up to the chin under a lot of taturs, learnt me to read;
and a travelling Giant what signed his name at a penny a
time learnt me to write. I warn’t locked up as often now as
formerly, but I wore out my good share of key-metal still.
“At Epsom races, a matter of over twenty years ago, I got
acquainted wi’ a man whose skull I’d crack wi’ this poker,

525
like the claw of a lobster, if I’d got it on this hob. His right
name was Compeyson; and that’s the man, dear boy, what
you see me a pounding in the ditch, according to what you
truly told your comrade arter I was gone last night.
“He set up fur a gentleman, this Compeyson, and he’d been to
a public boarding-school and had learning. He was a smooth
one to talk, and was a dab at the ways of gentlefolks. He was
good-looking too. It was the night afore the great race, when
I found him on the heath, in a booth that I know’d on. Him
and some more was a sitting among the tables when I went
in, and the landlord (which had a knowledge of me, and was
a sporting one) called him out, and said, ‘I think this is a man
that might suit you,’—meaning I was.
“Compeyson, he looks at me very noticing, and I look at him.
He has a watch and a chain and a ring and a breast-pin and
a handsome suit of clothes.
“‘To judge from appearances, you’re out of luck,’ says Com-
peyson to me.
“‘Yes, master, and I’ve never been in it much.’ (I had come out
of Kingston Jail last on a vagrancy committal. Not but what
it might have been for something else; but it warn’t.)
“‘Luck changes,’ says Compeyson; ‘perhaps yours is going to
change.’
“I says, ‘I hope it may be so. There’s room.’
“‘What can you do?’ says Compeyson.

526
“‘Eat and drink,’ I says; ‘if you’ll find the materials.’
“Compeyson laughed, looked at me again very noticing, giv
me five shillings, and appointed me for next night. Same
place.
“I went to Compeyson next night, same place, and Com-
peyson took me on to be his man and pardner. And what
was Compeyson’s business in which we was to go pardners?
Compeyson’s business was the swindling, handwriting
forging, stolen bank-note passing, and such-like. All sorts of
traps as Compeyson could set with his head, and keep his
own legs out of and get the profits from and let another man
in for, was Compeyson’s business. He’d no more heart than
a iron file, he was as cold as death, and he had the head of
the Devil afore mentioned.
“There was another in with Compeyson, as was called
Arthur,—not as being so chrisen’d, but as a surname. He
was in a Decline, and was a shadow to look at. Him and
Compeyson had been in a bad thing with a rich lady some
years afore, and they’d made a pot of money by it; but
Compeyson betted and gamed, and he’d have run through
the king’s taxes. So, Arthur was a dying, and a dying poor
and with the horrors on him, and Compeyson’s wife (which
Compeyson kicked mostly) was a having pity on him when
she could, and Compeyson was a having pity on nothing
and nobody.
“I might a took warning by Arthur, but I didn’t; and I won’t
pretend I was partick’ler—for where ‘ud be the good on it,

527
dear boy and comrade? So I begun wi’ Compeyson, and a
poor tool I was in his hands. Arthur lived at the top of Com-
peyson’s house (over nigh Brentford it was), and Compeyson
kept a careful account agen him for board and lodging, in case
he should ever get better to work it out. But Arthur soon
settled the account. The second or third time as ever I see
him, he come a tearing down into Compeyson’s parlor late
at night, in only a flannel gown, with his hair all in a sweat,
and he says to Compeyson’s wife, ‘Sally, she really is upstairs
alonger me, now, and I can’t get rid of her. She’s all in white,’
he says, ‘wi’ white flowers in her hair, and she’s awful mad,
and she’s got a shroud hanging over her arm, and she says
she’ll put it on me at five in the morning.’
“Says Compeyson: ‘Why, you fool, don’t you know she’s got
a living body? And how should she be up there, without
coming through the door, or in at the window, and up the
stairs?’
“‘I don’t know how she’s there,’ says Arthur, shivering
dreadful with the horrors, ’but she’s standing in the corner
at the foot of the bed, awful mad. And over where her
heart’s broke—you broke it!—there’s drops of blood.’
“Compeyson spoke hardy, but he was always a coward. ‘Go
up alonger this drivelling sick man,’ he says to his wife, ‘and
Magwitch, lend her a hand, will you?’ But he never come
nigh himself.
“Compeyson’s wife and me took him up to bed agen, and he
raved most dreadful. ‘Why look at her!’ he cries out. ‘She’s

528
a shaking the shroud at me! Don’t you see her? Look at her
eyes! Ain’t it awful to see her so mad?’ Next he cries, ‘She’ll
put it on me, and then I’m done for! Take it away from her,
take it away!’ And then he catched hold of us, and kep on a
talking to her, and answering of her, till I half believed I see
her myself.
“Compeyson’s wife, being used to him, giv him some liquor
to get the horrors off, and by and by he quieted. ‘O, she’s
gone! Has her keeper been for her?’ he says. ‘Yes,’ says
Compeyson’s wife. ‘Did you tell him to lock her and bar her
in?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘And to take that ugly thing away from her?’ ‘Yes,
yes, all right.’ ‘You’re a good creetur,’ he says, ‘don’t leave
me, whatever you do, and thank you!’
“He rested pretty quiet till it might want a few minutes of five,
and then he starts up with a scream, and screams out, ‘Here
she is! She’s got the shroud again. She’s unfolding it. She’s
coming out of the corner. She’s coming to the bed. Hold me,
both on you—one of each side—don’t let her touch me with
it. Hah! she missed me that time. Don’t let her throw it over
my shoulders. Don’t let her lift me up to get it round me.
She’s lifting me up. Keep me down!’ Then he lifted himself
up hard, and was dead.
“Compeyson took it easy as a good riddance for both sides.
Him and me was soon busy, and first he swore me (being ever
artful) on my own book,—this here little black book, dear boy,
what I swore your comrade on.
“Not to go into the things that Compeyson planned, and I

529
done—which ‘ud take a week—I’ll simply say to you, dear
boy, and Pip’s comrade, that that man got me into such nets
as made me his black slave. I was always in debt to him,
always under his thumb, always a working, always a getting
into danger. He was younger than me, but he’d got craft, and
he’d got learning, and he overmatched me five hundred times
told and no mercy. My Missis as I had the hard time wi’—Stop
though! I ain’t brought her in—”
He looked about him in a confused way, as if he had lost his
place in the book of his remembrance; and he turned his face
to the fire, and spread his hands broader on his knees, and
lifted them off and put them on again.
“There ain’t no need to go into it,” he said, looking round once
more. “The time wi’ Compeyson was a’most as hard a time
as ever I had; that said, all’s said. Did I tell you as I was tried,
alone, for misdemeanor, while with Compeyson?”
I answered, No.
“Well!” he said, “I was, and got convicted. As to took up on
suspicion, that was twice or three times in the four or five
year that it lasted; but evidence was wanting. At last, me
and Compeyson was both committed for felony,—on a charge
of putting stolen notes in circulation,—and there was other
charges behind. Compeyson says to me, ‘Separate defences,
no communication,’ and that was all. And I was so miserable
poor, that I sold all the clothes I had, except what hung on
my back, afore I could get Jaggers.

530
“When we was put in the dock, I noticed first of all what
a gentleman Compeyson looked, wi’ his curly hair and his
black clothes and his white pocket-handkercher, and what a
common sort of a wretch I looked. When the prosecution
opened and the evidence was put short, aforehand, I noticed
how heavy it all bore on me, and how light on him. When
the evidence was giv in the box, I noticed how it was always
me that had come for’ard, and could be swore to, how it was
always me that the money had been paid to, how it was al-
ways me that had seemed to work the thing and get the profit.
But when the defence come on, then I see the plan plainer;
for, says the counsellor for Compeyson, ‘My lord and gen-
tlemen, here you has afore you, side by side, two persons as
your eyes can separate wide; one, the younger, well brought
up, who will be spoke to as such; one, the elder, ill brought
up, who will be spoke to as such; one, the younger, seldom
if ever seen in these here transactions, and only suspected;
t’other, the elder, always seen in ’em and always wi’ his guilt
brought home. Can you doubt, if there is but one in it, which
is the one, and, if there is two in it, which is much the worst
one?’ And such-like. And when it come to character, warn’t
it Compeyson as had been to the school, and warn’t it his
schoolfellows as was in this position and in that, and warn’t
it him as had been know’d by witnesses in such clubs and
societies, and nowt to his disadvantage? And warn’t it me
as had been tried afore, and as had been know’d up hill and
down dale in Bridewells and Lock-Ups! And when it come
to speech-making, warn’t it Compeyson as could speak to
‘em wi’ his face dropping every now and then into his white

531
pocket-handkercher,—ah! and wi’ verses in his speech, too,—
and warn’t it me as could only say, ‘Gentlemen, this man at
my side is a most precious rascal’? And when the verdict
come, warn’t it Compeyson as was recommended to mercy
on account of good character and bad company, and giving
up all the information he could agen me, and warn’t it me as
got never a word but Guilty? And when I says to Compeyson,
‘Once out of this court, I’ll smash that face of yourn!’ ain’t it
Compeyson as prays the Judge to be protected, and gets two
turnkeys stood betwixt us? And when we’re sentenced, ain’t
it him as gets seven year, and me fourteen, and ain’t it him
as the Judge is sorry for, because he might a done so well,
and ain’t it me as the Judge perceives to be a old offender of
wiolent passion, likely to come to worse?”
He had worked himself into a state of great excitement, but
he checked it, took two or three short breaths, swallowed
as often, and stretching out his hand towards me said, in a
reassuring manner, “I ain’t a going to be low, dear boy!”
He had so heated himself that he took out his handkerchief
and wiped his face and head and neck and hands, before he
could go on.
“I had said to Compeyson that I’d smash that face of his, and I
swore Lord smash mine! to do it. We was in the same prison-
ship, but I couldn’t get at him for long, though I tried. At last I
come behind him and hit him on the cheek to turn him round
and get a smashing one at him, when I was seen and seized.
The black-hole of that ship warn’t a strong one, to a judge of

532
black-holes that could swim and dive. I escaped to the shore,
and I was a hiding among the graves there, envying them as
was in ’em and all over, when I first see my boy!”
He regarded me with a look of affection that made him almost
abhorrent to me again, though I had felt great pity for him.
“By my boy, I was giv to understand as Compeyson was out
on them marshes too. Upon my soul, I half believe he escaped
in his terror, to get quit of me, not knowing it was me as had
got ashore. I hunted him down. I smashed his face. ‘And
now,’ says I ‘as the worst thing I can do, caring nothing for
myself, I’ll drag you back.’ And I’d have swum off, towing
him by the hair, if it had come to that, and I’d a got him aboard
without the soldiers.
“Of course he’d much the best of it to the last,—his character
was so good. He had escaped when he was made half wild by
me and my murderous intentions; and his punishment was
light. I was put in irons, brought to trial again, and sent for
life. I didn’t stop for life, dear boy and Pip’s comrade, being
here.”
He wiped himself again, as he had done before, and then
slowly took his tangle of tobacco from his pocket, and
plucked his pipe from his button-hole, and slowly filled it,
and began to smoke.
“Is he dead?” I asked, after a silence.
“Is who dead, dear boy?”

533
“Compeyson.”
“He hopes I am, if he’s alive, you may be sure,” with a fierce
look. “I never heerd no more of him.”
Herbert had been writing with his pencil in the cover of a
book. He softly pushed the book over to me, as Provis stood
smoking with his eyes on the fire, and I read in it:—
“Young Havisham’s name was Arthur. Compeyson is the
man who professed to be Miss Havisham’s lover.”
I shut the book and nodded slightly to Herbert, and put the
book by; but we neither of us said anything, and both looked
at Provis as he stood smoking by the fire.

534
Chapter XLIII
Why should I pause to ask how much of my shrinking from
Provis might be traced to Estella? Why should I loiter on my
road, to compare the state of mind in which I had tried to rid
myself of the stain of the prison before meeting her at the
coach-office, with the state of mind in which I now reflected
on the abyss between Estella in her pride and beauty, and
the returned transport whom I harbored? The road would be
none the smoother for it, the end would be none the better
for it, he would not be helped, nor I extenuated.
A new fear had been engendered in my mind by his narrative;
or rather, his narrative had given form and purpose to the fear
that was already there. If Compeyson were alive and should
discover his return, I could hardly doubt the consequence.
That Compeyson stood in mortal fear of him, neither of the
two could know much better than I; and that any such man as
that man had been described to be would hesitate to release
himself for good from a dreaded enemy by the safe means of
becoming an informer was scarcely to be imagined.
Never had I breathed, and never would I breathe—or so I
resolved—a word of Estella to Provis. But, I said to Herbert
that, before I could go abroad, I must see both Estella and
Miss Havisham. This was when we were left alone on the
night of the day when Provis told us his story. I resolved to
go out to Richmond next day, and I went.
On my presenting myself at Mrs. Brandley’s, Estella’s maid

535
was called to tell that Estella had gone into the country.
Where? To Satis House, as usual. Not as usual, I said, for
she had never yet gone there without me; when was she
coming back? There was an air of reservation in the answer
which increased my perplexity, and the answer was, that
her maid believed she was only coming back at all for a little
while. I could make nothing of this, except that it was meant
that I should make nothing of it, and I went home again in
complete discomfiture.
Another night consultation with Herbert after Provis was
gone home (I always took him home, and always looked well
about me), led us to the conclusion that nothing should be
said about going abroad until I came back from Miss Hav-
isham’s. In the mean time, Herbert and I were to consider
separately what it would be best to say; whether we should
devise any pretence of being afraid that he was under sus-
picious observation; or whether I, who had never yet been
abroad, should propose an expedition. We both knew that
I had but to propose anything, and he would consent. We
agreed that his remaining many days in his present hazard
was not to be thought of.
Next day I had the meanness to feign that I was under a bind-
ing promise to go down to Joe; but I was capable of almost
any meanness towards Joe or his name. Provis was to be
strictly careful while I was gone, and Herbert was to take the
charge of him that I had taken. I was to be absent only one
night, and, on my return, the gratification of his impatience
for my starting as a gentleman on a greater scale was to be

536
begun. It occurred to me then, and as I afterwards found to
Herbert also, that he might be best got away across the water,
on that pretence,—as, to make purchases, or the like.
Having thus cleared the way for my expedition to Miss Hav-
isham’s, I set off by the early morning coach before it was
yet light, and was out on the open country road when the
day came creeping on, halting and whimpering and shiver-
ing, and wrapped in patches of cloud and rags of mist, like a
beggar. When we drove up to the Blue Boar after a drizzly
ride, whom should I see come out under the gateway, tooth-
pick in hand, to look at the coach, but Bentley Drummle!
As he pretended not to see me, I pretended not to see him. It
was a very lame pretence on both sides; the lamer, because
we both went into the coffee-room, where he had just fin-
ished his breakfast, and where I ordered mine. It was poi-
sonous to me to see him in the town, for I very well knew
why he had come there.
Pretending to read a smeary newspaper long out of date,
which had nothing half so legible in its local news, as the
foreign matter of coffee, pickles, fish sauces, gravy, melted
butter, and wine with which it was sprinkled all over, as if it
had taken the measles in a highly irregular form, I sat at my
table while he stood before the fire. By degrees it became an
enormous injury to me that he stood before the fire. And I
got up, determined to have my share of it. I had to put my
hand behind his legs for the poker when I went up to the
fireplace to stir the fire, but still pretended not to know him.

537
“Is this a cut?” said Mr. Drummle.
“Oh!” said I, poker in hand; “it’s you, is it? How do you do?
I was wondering who it was, who kept the fire off.”
With that, I poked tremendously, and having done so, planted
myself side by side with Mr. Drummle, my shoulders squared
and my back to the fire.
“You have just come down?” said Mr. Drummle, edging me
a little away with his shoulder.
“Yes,” said I, edging him a little away with my shoulder.
“Beastly place,” said Drummle. “Your part of the country, I
think?”
“Yes,” I assented. “I am told it’s very like your Shropshire.”
“Not in the least like it,” said Drummle.
Here Mr. Drummle looked at his boots and I looked at mine,
and then Mr. Drummle looked at my boots, and I looked at
his.
“Have you been here long?” I asked, determined not to yield
an inch of the fire.
“Long enough to be tired of it,” returned Drummle, pretend-
ing to yawn, but equally determined.
“Do you stay here long?”
“Can’t say,” answered Mr. Drummle. “Do you?”

538
“Can’t say,” said I.
I felt here, through a tingling in my blood, that if Mr.
Drummle’s shoulder had claimed another hair’s breadth of
room, I should have jerked him into the window; equally,
that if my own shoulder had urged a similar claim, Mr.
Drummle would have jerked me into the nearest box. He
whistled a little. So did I.
“Large tract of marshes about here, I believe?” said Drummle.
“Yes. What of that?” said I.
Mr. Drummle looked at me, and then at my boots, and then
said, “Oh!” and laughed.
“Are you amused, Mr. Drummle?”
“No,” said he, “not particularly. I am going out for a ride in the
saddle. I mean to explore those marshes for amusement. Out-
of-the-way villages there, they tell me. Curious little public-
houses—and smithies—and that. Waiter!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Is that horse of mine ready?”
“Brought round to the door, sir.”
“I say. Look here, you sir. The lady won’t ride to-day; the
weather won’t do.”
“Very good, sir.”
“And I don’t dine, because I’m going to dine at the lady’s.”

539
“Very good, sir.”
Then, Drummle glanced at me, with an insolent triumph on
his great-jowled face that cut me to the heart, dull as he was,
and so exasperated me, that I felt inclined to take him in my
arms (as the robber in the story-book is said to have taken
the old lady) and seat him on the fire.
One thing was manifest to both of us, and that was, that until
relief came, neither of us could relinquish the fire. There we
stood, well squared up before it, shoulder to shoulder and
foot to foot, with our hands behind us, not budging an inch.
The horse was visible outside in the drizzle at the door, my
breakfast was put on the table, Drummle’s was cleared away,
the waiter invited me to begin, I nodded, we both stood our
ground.
“Have you been to the Grove since?” said Drummle.
“No,” said I, “I had quite enough of the Finches the last time I
was there.”
“Was that when we had a difference of opinion?”
“Yes,” I replied, very shortly.
“Come, come! They let you off easily enough,” sneered
Drummle. “You shouldn’t have lost your temper.”
“Mr. Drummle,” said I, “you are not competent to give advice
on that subject. When I lose my temper (not that I admit
having done so on that occasion), I don’t throw glasses.”

540
“I do,” said Drummle.
After glancing at him once or twice, in an increased state of
smouldering ferocity, I said,—
“Mr. Drummle, I did not seek this conversation, and I don’t
think it an agreeable one.”
“I am sure it’s not,” said he, superciliously over his shoulder;
“I don’t think anything about it.”
“And therefore,” I went on, “with your leave, I will suggest
that we hold no kind of communication in future.”
“Quite my opinion,” said Drummle, “and what I should have
suggested myself, or done—more likely—without suggesting.
But don’t lose your temper. Haven’t you lost enough without
that?”
“What do you mean, sir?”
“Waiter!” said Drummle, by way of answering me.
The waiter reappeared.
“Look here, you sir. You quite understand that the young lady
don’t ride to-day, and that I dine at the young lady’s?”
“Quite so, sir!”
When the waiter had felt my fast-cooling teapot with the
palm of his hand, and had looked imploringly at me, and
had gone out, Drummle, careful not to move the shoulder
next me, took a cigar from his pocket and bit the end off, but

541
showed no sign of stirring. Choking and boiling as I was, I
felt that we could not go a word further, without introduc-
ing Estella’s name, which I could not endure to hear him ut-
ter; and therefore I looked stonily at the opposite wall, as if
there were no one present, and forced myself to silence. How
long we might have remained in this ridiculous position it
is impossible to say, but for the incursion of three thriving
farmers—laid on by the waiter, I think—who came into the
coffee-room unbuttoning their great-coats and rubbing their
hands, and before whom, as they charged at the fire, we were
obliged to give way.
I saw him through the window, seizing his horse’s mane,
and mounting in his blundering brutal manner, and sidling
and backing away. I thought he was gone, when he came
back, calling for a light for the cigar in his mouth, which
he had forgotten. A man in a dust-colored dress appeared
with what was wanted,—I could not have said from where:
whether from the inn yard, or the street, or where not,—
and as Drummle leaned down from the saddle and lighted
his cigar and laughed, with a jerk of his head towards the
coffee-room windows, the slouching shoulders and ragged
hair of this man whose back was towards me reminded me
of Orlick.
Too heavily out of sorts to care much at the time whether it
were he or no, or after all to touch the breakfast, I washed the
weather and the journey from my face and hands, and went
out to the memorable old house that it would have been so
much the better for me never to have entered, never to have

542
seen.

543
Chapter XLIV
In the room where the dressing-table stood, and where the
wax-candles burnt on the wall, I found Miss Havisham and
Estella; Miss Havisham seated on a settee near the fire, and
Estella on a cushion at her feet. Estella was knitting, and Miss
Havisham was looking on. They both raised their eyes as I
went in, and both saw an alteration in me. I derived that,
from the look they interchanged.
“And what wind,” said Miss Havisham, “blows you here, Pip?”
Though she looked steadily at me, I saw that she was rather
confused. Estella, pausing a moment in her knitting with her
eyes upon me, and then going on, I fancied that I read in the
action of her fingers, as plainly as if she had told me in the
dumb alphabet, that she perceived I had discovered my real
benefactor.
“Miss Havisham,” said I, “I went to Richmond yesterday, to
speak to Estella; and finding that some wind had blown her
here, I followed.”
Miss Havisham motioning to me for the third or fourth time
to sit down, I took the chair by the dressing-table, which I
had often seen her occupy. With all that ruin at my feet and
about me, it seemed a natural place for me, that day.
“What I had to say to Estella, Miss Havisham, I will say before
you, presently—in a few moments. It will not surprise you, it
will not displease you. I am as unhappy as you can ever have

544
meant me to be.”
Miss Havisham continued to look steadily at me. I could see
in the action of Estella’s fingers as they worked that she at-
tended to what I said; but she did not look up.
“I have found out who my patron is. It is not a fortunate
discovery, and is not likely ever to enrich me in reputation,
station, fortune, anything. There are reasons why I must say
no more of that. It is not my secret, but another’s.”
As I was silent for a while, looking at Estella and considering
how to go on, Miss Havisham repeated, “It is not your secret,
but another’s. Well?”
“When you first caused me to be brought here, Miss Hav-
isham, when I belonged to the village over yonder, that I wish
I had never left, I suppose I did really come here, as any other
chance boy might have come,—as a kind of servant, to gratify
a want or a whim, and to be paid for it?”
“Ay, Pip,” replied Miss Havisham, steadily nodding her head;
“you did.”
“And that Mr. Jaggers—”
“Mr. Jaggers,” said Miss Havisham, taking me up in a firm
tone, “had nothing to do with it, and knew nothing of it. His
being my lawyer, and his being the lawyer of your patron is
a coincidence. He holds the same relation towards numbers
of people, and it might easily arise. Be that as it may, it did
arise, and was not brought about by any one.”

545
Any one might have seen in her haggard face that there was
no suppression or evasion so far.
“But when I fell into the mistake I have so long remained in,
at least you led me on?” said I.
“Yes,” she returned, again nodding steadily, “I let you go on.”
“Was that kind?”
“Who am I,” cried Miss Havisham, striking her stick upon the
floor and flashing into wrath so suddenly that Estella glanced
up at her in surprise,—“who am I, for God’s sake, that I should
be kind?”
It was a weak complaint to have made, and I had not meant to
make it. I told her so, as she sat brooding after this outburst.
“Well, well, well!” she said. “What else?”
“I was liberally paid for my old attendance here,” I said, to
soothe her, “in being apprenticed, and I have asked these
questions only for my own information. What follows has
another (and I hope more disinterested) purpose. In humor-
ing my mistake, Miss Havisham, you punished—practised
on—perhaps you will supply whatever term expresses your
intention, without offence—your self-seeking relations?”
“I did. Why, they would have it so! So would you. What has
been my history, that I should be at the pains of entreating
either them or you not to have it so! You made your own
snares. I never made them.”

546
Waiting until she was quiet again,—for this, too, flashed out
of her in a wild and sudden way,—I went on.
“I have been thrown among one family of your relations,
Miss Havisham, and have been constantly among them since
I went to London. I know them to have been as honestly un-
der my delusion as I myself. And I should be false and base
if I did not tell you, whether it is acceptable to you or no, and
whether you are inclined to give credence to it or no, that you
deeply wrong both Mr. Matthew Pocket and his son Herbert,
if you suppose them to be otherwise than generous, upright,
open, and incapable of anything designing or mean.”
“They are your friends,” said Miss Havisham.
“They made themselves my friends,” said I, “when they sup-
posed me to have superseded them; and when Sarah Pocket,
Miss Georgiana, and Mistress Camilla were not my friends, I
think.”
This contrasting of them with the rest seemed, I was glad to
see, to do them good with her. She looked at me keenly for a
little while, and then said quietly,—
“What do you want for them?”
“Only,” said I, “that you would not confound them with the
others. They may be of the same blood, but, believe me, they
are not of the same nature.”
Still looking at me keenly, Miss Havisham repeated,—
“What do you want for them?”

547
“I am not so cunning, you see,” I said, in answer, conscious
that I reddened a little, “as that I could hide from you, even
if I desired, that I do want something. Miss Havisham, if you
would spare the money to do my friend Herbert a lasting ser-
vice in life, but which from the nature of the case must be
done without his knowledge, I could show you how.”
“Why must it be done without his knowledge?” she asked,
settling her hands upon her stick, that she might regard me
the more attentively.
“Because,” said I, “I began the service myself, more than two
years ago, without his knowledge, and I don’t want to be be-
trayed. Why I fail in my ability to finish it, I cannot explain.
It is a part of the secret which is another person’s and not
mine.”
She gradually withdrew her eyes from me, and turned them
on the fire. After watching it for what appeared in the si-
lence and by the light of the slowly wasting candles to be a
long time, she was roused by the collapse of some of the red
coals, and looked towards me again—at first, vacantly—then,
with a gradually concentrating attention. All this time Estella
knitted on. When Miss Havisham had fixed her attention on
me, she said, speaking as if there had been no lapse in our
dialogue,—
“What else?”
“Estella,” said I, turning to her now, and trying to command
my trembling voice, “you know I love you. You know that I

548
have loved you long and dearly.”
She raised her eyes to my face, on being thus addressed, and
her fingers plied their work, and she looked at me with an
unmoved countenance. I saw that Miss Havisham glanced
from me to her, and from her to me.
“I should have said this sooner, but for my long mistake. It
induced me to hope that Miss Havisham meant us for one
another. While I thought you could not help yourself, as it
were, I refrained from saying it. But I must say it now.”
Preserving her unmoved countenance, and with her fingers
still going, Estella shook her head.
“I know,” said I, in answer to that action,—“I know. I have no
hope that I shall ever call you mine, Estella. I am ignorant
what may become of me very soon, how poor I may be, or
where I may go. Still, I love you. I have loved you ever since
I first saw you in this house.”
Looking at me perfectly unmoved and with her fingers busy,
she shook her head again.
“It would have been cruel in Miss Havisham, horribly cruel,
to practise on the susceptibility of a poor boy, and to torture
me through all these years with a vain hope and an idle pur-
suit, if she had reflected on the gravity of what she did. But
I think she did not. I think that, in the endurance of her own
trial, she forgot mine, Estella.”
I saw Miss Havisham put her hand to her heart and hold it

549
there, as she sat looking by turns at Estella and at me.
“It seems,” said Estella, very calmly, “that there are senti-
ments, fancies,—I don’t know how to call them,—which I am
not able to comprehend. When you say you love me, I know
what you mean, as a form of words; but nothing more. You
address nothing in my breast, you touch nothing there. I
don’t care for what you say at all. I have tried to warn you
of this; now, have I not?”
I said in a miserable manner, “Yes.”
“Yes. But you would not be warned, for you thought I did not
mean it. Now, did you not think so?”
“I thought and hoped you could not mean it. You, so young,
untried, and beautiful, Estella! Surely it is not in Nature.”
“It is in my nature,” she returned. And then she added, with a
stress upon the words, “It is in the nature formed within me.
I make a great difference between you and all other people
when I say so much. I can do no more.”
“Is it not true,” said I, “that Bentley Drummle is in town here,
and pursuing you?”
“It is quite true,” she replied, referring to him with the indif-
ference of utter contempt.
“That you encourage him, and ride out with him, and that he
dines with you this very day?”
She seemed a little surprised that I should know it, but again

550
replied, “Quite true.”
“You cannot love him, Estella!”
Her fingers stopped for the first time, as she retorted rather
angrily, “What have I told you? Do you still think, in spite of
it, that I do not mean what I say?”
“You would never marry him, Estella?”
She looked towards Miss Havisham, and considered for a mo-
ment with her work in her hands. Then she said, “Why not
tell you the truth? I am going to be married to him.”
I dropped my face into my hands, but was able to control
myself better than I could have expected, considering what
agony it gave me to hear her say those words. When I raised
my face again, there was such a ghastly look upon Miss Hav-
isham’s, that it impressed me, even in my passionate hurry
and grief.
“Estella, dearest Estella, do not let Miss Havisham lead you
into this fatal step. Put me aside for ever,—you have done
so, I well know,—but bestow yourself on some worthier per-
son than Drummle. Miss Havisham gives you to him, as the
greatest slight and injury that could be done to the many far
better men who admire you, and to the few who truly love
you. Among those few there may be one who loves you even
as dearly, though he has not loved you as long, as I. Take him,
and I can bear it better, for your sake!”
My earnestness awoke a wonder in her that seemed as if it

551
would have been touched with compassion, if she could have
rendered me at all intelligible to her own mind.
“I am going,” she said again, in a gentler voice, “to be married
to him. The preparations for my marriage are making, and I
shall be married soon. Why do you injuriously introduce the
name of my mother by adoption? It is my own act.”
“Your own act, Estella, to fling yourself away upon a brute?”
“On whom should I fling myself away?” she retorted, with a
smile. “Should I fling myself away upon the man who would
the soonest feel (if people do feel such things) that I took
nothing to him? There! It is done. I shall do well enough,
and so will my husband. As to leading me into what you call
this fatal step, Miss Havisham would have had me wait, and
not marry yet; but I am tired of the life I have led, which has
very few charms for me, and I am willing enough to change
it. Say no more. We shall never understand each other.”
“Such a mean brute, such a stupid brute!” I urged, in despair.
“Don’t be afraid of my being a blessing to him,” said Estella;
“I shall not be that. Come! Here is my hand. Do we part on
this, you visionary boy—or man?”
“O Estella!” I answered, as my bitter tears fell fast on her
hand, do what I would to restrain them; “even if I remained
in England and could hold my head up with the rest, how
could I see you Drummle’s wife?”
“Nonsense,” she returned,—“nonsense. This will pass in no

552
time.”
“Never, Estella!”
“You will get me out of your thoughts in a week.”
“Out of my thoughts! You are part of my existence, part of
myself. You have been in every line I have ever read since
I first came here, the rough common boy whose poor heart
you wounded even then. You have been in every prospect I
have ever seen since,—on the river, on the sails of the ships,
on the marshes, in the clouds, in the light, in the darkness, in
the wind, in the woods, in the sea, in the streets. You have
been the embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind
has ever become acquainted with. The stones of which the
strongest London buildings are made are not more real, or
more impossible to be displaced by your hands, than your
presence and influence have been to me, there and every-
where, and will be. Estella, to the last hour of my life, you
cannot choose but remain part of my character, part of the
little good in me, part of the evil. But, in this separation, I
associate you only with the good; and I will faithfully hold
you to that always, for you must have done me far more good
than harm, let me feel now what sharp distress I may. O God
bless you, God forgive you!”
In what ecstasy of unhappiness I got these broken words out
of myself, I don’t know. The rhapsody welled up within me,
like blood from an inward wound, and gushed out. I held her
hand to my lips some lingering moments, and so I left her. But
ever afterwards, I remembered,—and soon afterwards with

553
stronger reason,—that while Estella looked at me merely with
incredulous wonder, the spectral figure of Miss Havisham,
her hand still covering her heart, seemed all resolved into a
ghastly stare of pity and remorse.
All done, all gone! So much was done and gone, that when I
went out at the gate, the light of the day seemed of a darker
color than when I went in. For a while, I hid myself among
some lanes and by-paths, and then struck off to walk all the
way to London. For, I had by that time come to myself so
far as to consider that I could not go back to the inn and see
Drummle there; that I could not bear to sit upon the coach
and be spoken to; that I could do nothing half so good for
myself as tire myself out.
It was past midnight when I crossed London Bridge. Pursu-
ing the narrow intricacies of the streets which at that time
tended westward near the Middlesex shore of the river, my
readiest access to the Temple was close by the river-side,
through Whitefriars. I was not expected till to-morrow; but
I had my keys, and, if Herbert were gone to bed, could get to
bed myself without disturbing him.
As it seldom happened that I came in at that Whitefriars gate
after the Temple was closed, and as I was very muddy and
weary, I did not take it ill that the night-porter examined me
with much attention as he held the gate a little way open for
me to pass in. To help his memory I mentioned my name.
“I was not quite sure, sir, but I thought so. Here’s a note, sir.
The messenger that brought it, said would you be so good as

554
read it by my lantern?”
Much surprised by the request, I took the note. It was di-
rected to Philip Pip, Esquire, and on the top of the super-
scription were the words, “PLEASE READ THIS, HERE.” I
opened it, the watchman holding up his light, and read in-
side, in Wemmick’s writing,—
“DON’T GO HOME.”

555
Chapter XLV
Turning from the Temple gate as soon as I had read the warn-
ing, I made the best of my way to Fleet Street, and there got a
late hackney chariot and drove to the Hummums in Covent
Garden. In those times a bed was always to be got there at
any hour of the night, and the chamberlain, letting me in
at his ready wicket, lighted the candle next in order on his
shelf, and showed me straight into the bedroom next in or-
der on his list. It was a sort of vault on the ground floor at
the back, with a despotic monster of a four-post bedstead in
it, straddling over the whole place, putting one of his arbi-
trary legs into the fireplace and another into the doorway,
and squeezing the wretched little washing-stand in quite a
Divinely Righteous manner.
As I had asked for a night-light, the chamberlain had brought
me in, before he left me, the good old constitutional rushlight
of those virtuous days—an object like the ghost of a walking-
cane, which instantly broke its back if it were touched, which
nothing could ever be lighted at, and which was placed in
solitary confinement at the bottom of a high tin tower, per-
forated with round holes that made a staringly wide-awake
pattern on the walls. When I had got into bed, and lay there
footsore, weary, and wretched, I found that I could no more
close my own eyes than I could close the eyes of this foolish
Argus. And thus, in the gloom and death of the night, we
stared at one another.

556
What a doleful night! How anxious, how dismal, how long!
There was an inhospitable smell in the room, of cold soot
and hot dust; and, as I looked up into the corners of the
tester over my head, I thought what a number of blue-bottle
flies from the butchers’, and earwigs from the market, and
grubs from the country, must be holding on up there, lying
by for next summer. This led me to speculate whether any of
them ever tumbled down, and then I fancied that I felt light
falls on my face,—a disagreeable turn of thought, suggesting
other and more objectionable approaches up my back. When
I had lain awake a little while, those extraordinary voices
with which silence teems began to make themselves audible.
The closet whispered, the fireplace sighed, the little washing-
stand ticked, and one guitar-string played occasionally in the
chest of drawers. At about the same time, the eyes on the wall
acquired a new expression, and in every one of those staring
rounds I saw written, DON’T GO HOME.
Whatever night-fancies and night-noises crowded on me,
they never warded off this DON’T GO HOME. It plaited
itself into whatever I thought of, as a bodily pain would have
done. Not long before, I had read in the newspapers, how
a gentleman unknown had come to the Hummums in the
night, and had gone to bed, and had destroyed himself, and
had been found in the morning weltering in blood. It came
into my head that he must have occupied this very vault
of mine, and I got out of bed to assure myself that there
were no red marks about; then opened the door to look out
into the passages, and cheer myself with the companionship

557
of a distant light, near which I knew the chamberlain to
be dozing. But all this time, why I was not to go home,
and what had happened at home, and when I should go
home, and whether Provis was safe at home, were questions
occupying my mind so busily, that one might have supposed
there could be no more room in it for any other theme. Even
when I thought of Estella, and how we had parted that day
forever, and when I recalled all the circumstances of our
parting, and all her looks and tones, and the action of her
fingers while she knitted,—even then I was pursuing, here
and there and everywhere, the caution, Don’t go home.
When at last I dozed, in sheer exhaustion of mind and body,
it became a vast shadowy verb which I had to conjugate.
Imperative mood, present tense: Do not thou go home, let
him not go home, let us not go home, do not ye or you go
home, let not them go home. Then potentially: I may not
and I cannot go home; and I might not, could not, would
not, and should not go home; until I felt that I was going
distracted, and rolled over on the pillow, and looked at the
staring rounds upon the wall again.
I had left directions that I was to be called at seven; for it was
plain that I must see Wemmick before seeing any one else,
and equally plain that this was a case in which his Walworth
sentiments only could be taken. It was a relief to get out of
the room where the night had been so miserable, and I needed
no second knocking at the door to startle me from my uneasy
bed.
The Castle battlements arose upon my view at eight o’clock.

558
The little servant happening to be entering the fortress with
two hot rolls, I passed through the postern and crossed the
drawbridge in her company, and so came without announce-
ment into the presence of Wemmick as he was making tea for
himself and the Aged. An open door afforded a perspective
view of the Aged in bed.
“Halloa, Mr. Pip!” said Wemmick. “You did come home,
then?”
“Yes,” I returned; “but I didn’t go home.”
“That’s all right,” said he, rubbing his hands. “I left a note for
you at each of the Temple gates, on the chance. Which gate
did you come to?”
I told him.
“I’ll go round to the others in the course of the day and de-
stroy the notes,” said Wemmick; “it’s a good rule never to
leave documentary evidence if you can help it, because you
don’t know when it may be put in. I’m going to take a liberty
with you. Would you mind toasting this sausage for the Aged
P.?”
I said I should be delighted to do it.
“Then you can go about your work, Mary Anne,” said Wem-
mick to the little servant; “which leaves us to ourselves, don’t
you see, Mr. Pip?” he added, winking, as she disappeared.
I thanked him for his friendship and caution, and our dis-
course proceeded in a low tone, while I toasted the Aged’s

559
sausage and he buttered the crumb of the Aged’s roll.
“Now, Mr. Pip, you know,” said Wemmick, “you and I under-
stand one another. We are in our private and personal capac-
ities, and we have been engaged in a confidential transaction
before to-day. Official sentiments are one thing. We are extra
official.”
I cordially assented. I was so very nervous, that I had already
lighted the Aged’s sausage like a torch, and been obliged to
blow it out.
“I accidentally heard, yesterday morning,” said Wemmick,
“being in a certain place where I once took you,—even
between you and me, it’s as well not to mention names when
avoidable—”
“Much better not,” said I. “I understand you.”
“I heard there by chance, yesterday morning,” said Wemmick,
“that a certain person not altogether of uncolonial pursuits,
and not unpossessed of portable property,—I don’t know who
it may really be,—we won’t name this person—”
“Not necessary,” said I.
“—Had made some little stir in a certain part of the world
where a good many people go, not always in gratification
of their own inclinations, and not quite irrespective of the
government expense—”
In watching his face, I made quite a firework of the Aged’s
sausage, and greatly discomposed both my own attention and

560
Wemmick’s; for which I apologized.
“—By disappearing from such place, and being no more heard
of thereabouts. From which,” said Wemmick, “conjectures
had been raised and theories formed. I also heard that you at
your chambers in Garden Court, Temple, had been watched,
and might be watched again.”
“By whom?” said I.
“I wouldn’t go into that,” said Wemmick, evasively, “it might
clash with official responsibilities. I heard it, as I have in my
time heard other curious things in the same place. I don’t tell
it you on information received. I heard it.”
He took the toasting-fork and sausage from me as he spoke,
and set forth the Aged’s breakfast neatly on a little tray. Pre-
vious to placing it before him, he went into the Aged’s room
with a clean white cloth, and tied the same under the old
gentleman’s chin, and propped him up, and put his nightcap
on one side, and gave him quite a rakish air. Then he placed
his breakfast before him with great care, and said, “All right,
ain’t you, Aged P.?” To which the cheerful Aged replied, “All
right, John, my boy, all right!” As there seemed to be a tacit
understanding that the Aged was not in a presentable state,
and was therefore to be considered invisible, I made a pre-
tence of being in complete ignorance of these proceedings.
“This watching of me at my chambers (which I have once had
reason to suspect),” I said to Wemmick when he came back,
“is inseparable from the person to whom you have adverted;

561
is it?”
Wemmick looked very serious. “I couldn’t undertake to say
that, of my own knowledge. I mean, I couldn’t undertake to
say it was at first. But it either is, or it will be, or it’s in great
danger of being.”
As I saw that he was restrained by fealty to Little Britain from
saying as much as he could, and as I knew with thankfulness
to him how far out of his way he went to say what he did, I
could not press him. But I told him, after a little meditation
over the fire, that I would like to ask him a question, subject
to his answering or not answering, as he deemed right, and
sure that his course would be right. He paused in his break-
fast, and crossing his arms, and pinching his shirt-sleeves (his
notion of in-door comfort was to sit without any coat), he
nodded to me once, to put my question.
“You have heard of a man of bad character, whose true name
is Compeyson?”
He answered with one other nod.
“Is he living?”
One other nod.
“Is he in London?”
He gave me one other nod, compressed the post-office ex-
ceedingly, gave me one last nod, and went on with his break-
fast.

562
“Now,” said Wemmick, “questioning being over,” which he
emphasized and repeated for my guidance, “I come to what
I did, after hearing what I heard. I went to Garden Court to
find you; not finding you, I went to Clarriker’s to find Mr.
Herbert.”
“And him you found?” said I, with great anxiety.
“And him I found. Without mentioning any names or go-
ing into any details, I gave him to understand that if he was
aware of anybody—Tom, Jack, or Richard—being about the
chambers, or about the immediate neighborhood, he had bet-
ter get Tom, Jack, or Richard out of the way while you were
out of the way.”
“He would be greatly puzzled what to do?”
“He was puzzled what to do; not the less, because I gave him
my opinion that it was not safe to try to get Tom, Jack, or
Richard too far out of the way at present. Mr. Pip, I’ll tell
you something. Under existing circumstances, there is no
place like a great city when you are once in it. Don’t break
cover too soon. Lie close. Wait till things slacken, before you
try the open, even for foreign air.”
I thanked him for his valuable advice, and asked him what
Herbert had done?
“Mr. Herbert,” said Wemmick, “after being all of a heap for
half an hour, struck out a plan. He mentioned to me as a
secret, that he is courting a young lady who has, as no doubt
you are aware, a bedridden Pa. Which Pa, having been in the

563
Purser line of life, lies a-bed in a bow-window where he can
see the ships sail up and down the river. You are acquainted
with the young lady, most probably?”
“Not personally,” said I.
The truth was, that she had objected to me as an expensive
companion who did Herbert no good, and that, when Herbert
had first proposed to present me to her, she had received the
proposal with such very moderate warmth, that Herbert had
felt himself obliged to confide the state of the case to me, with
a view to the lapse of a little time before I made her acquain-
tance. When I had begun to advance Herbert’s prospects by
stealth, I had been able to bear this with cheerful philoso-
phy: he and his affianced, for their part, had naturally not
been very anxious to introduce a third person into their in-
terviews; and thus, although I was assured that I had risen
in Clara’s esteem, and although the young lady and I had
long regularly interchanged messages and remembrances by
Herbert, I had never seen her. However, I did not trouble
Wemmick with these particulars.
“The house with the bow-window,” said Wemmick, “being by
the river-side, down the Pool there between Limehouse and
Greenwich, and being kept, it seems, by a very respectable
widow who has a furnished upper floor to let, Mr. Herbert
put it to me, what did I think of that as a temporary tene-
ment for Tom, Jack, or Richard? Now, I thought very well
of it, for three reasons I’ll give you. That is to say: Firstly.
It’s altogether out of all your beats, and is well away from

564
the usual heap of streets great and small. Secondly. Without
going near it yourself, you could always hear of the safety of
Tom, Jack, or Richard, through Mr. Herbert. Thirdly. After
a while and when it might be prudent, if you should want
to slip Tom, Jack, or Richard on board a foreign packet-boat,
there he is—ready.”
Much comforted by these considerations, I thanked Wem-
mick again and again, and begged him to proceed.
“Well, sir! Mr. Herbert threw himself into the business with
a will, and by nine o’clock last night he housed Tom, Jack,
or Richard,—whichever it may be,—you and I don’t want to
know,—quite successfully. At the old lodgings it was under-
stood that he was summoned to Dover, and, in fact, he was
taken down the Dover road and cornered out of it. Now, an-
other great advantage of all this is, that it was done without
you, and when, if any one was concerning himself about your
movements, you must be known to be ever so many miles off
and quite otherwise engaged. This diverts suspicion and con-
fuses it; and for the same reason I recommended that, even if
you came back last night, you should not go home. It brings
in more confusion, and you want confusion.”
Wemmick, having finished his breakfast, here looked at his
watch, and began to get his coat on.
“And now, Mr. Pip,” said he, with his hands still in the
sleeves, “I have probably done the most I can do; but if I
can ever do more,—from a Walworth point of view, and in
a strictly private and personal capacity,—I shall be glad to

565
do it. Here’s the address. There can be no harm in your
going here to-night, and seeing for yourself that all is well
with Tom, Jack, or Richard, before you go home,—which
is another reason for your not going home last night. But,
after you have gone home, don’t go back here. You are very
welcome, I am sure, Mr. Pip”; his hands were now out of his
sleeves, and I was shaking them; “and let me finally impress
one important point upon you.” He laid his hands upon my
shoulders, and added in a solemn whisper: “Avail yourself of
this evening to lay hold of his portable property. You don’t
know what may happen to him. Don’t let anything happen
to the portable property.”
Quite despairing of making my mind clear to Wemmick on
this point, I forbore to try.
“Time’s up,” said Wemmick, “and I must be off. If you had
nothing more pressing to do than to keep here till dark, that’s
what I should advise. You look very much worried, and it
would do you good to have a perfectly quiet day with the
Aged,—he’ll be up presently,—and a little bit of—you remem-
ber the pig?”
“Of course,” said I.
“Well; and a little bit of him. That sausage you toasted was
his, and he was in all respects a first-rater. Do try him, if it is
only for old acquaintance sake. Good-bye, Aged Parent!” in
a cheery shout.
“All right, John; all right, my boy!” piped the old man from

566
within.
I soon fell asleep before Wemmick’s fire, and the Aged and I
enjoyed one another’s society by falling asleep before it more
or less all day. We had loin of pork for dinner, and greens
grown on the estate; and I nodded at the Aged with a good
intention whenever I failed to do it drowsily. When it was
quite dark, I left the Aged preparing the fire for toast; and
I inferred from the number of teacups, as well as from his
glances at the two little doors in the wall, that Miss Skiffins
was expected.

567
Chapter XLVI
Eight o’clock had struck before I got into the air, that was
scented, not disagreeably, by the chips and shavings of the
long-shore boat-builders, and mast, oar, and block makers.
All that water-side region of the upper and lower Pool below
Bridge was unknown ground to me; and when I struck down
by the river, I found that the spot I wanted was not where
I had supposed it to be, and was anything but easy to find.
It was called Mill Pond Bank, Chinks’s Basin; and I had no
other guide to Chinks’s Basin than the Old Green Copper
Rope-walk.
It matters not what stranded ships repairing in dry docks I
lost myself among, what old hulls of ships in course of being
knocked to pieces, what ooze and slime and other dregs of
tide, what yards of ship-builders and ship-breakers, what
rusty anchors blindly biting into the ground, though for
years off duty, what mountainous country of accumulated
casks and timber, how many rope-walks that were not
the Old Green Copper. After several times falling short
of my destination and as often overshooting it, I came
unexpectedly round a corner, upon Mill Pond Bank. It was
a fresh kind of place, all circumstances considered, where
the wind from the river had room to turn itself round; and
there were two or three trees in it, and there was the stump
of a ruined windmill, and there was the Old Green Copper
Rope-walk,—whose long and narrow vista I could trace in
the moonlight, along a series of wooden frames set in the

568
ground, that looked like superannuated haymaking-rakes
which had grown old and lost most of their teeth.
Selecting from the few queer houses upon Mill Pond Bank a
house with a wooden front and three stories of bow-window
(not bay-window, which is another thing), I looked at the
plate upon the door, and read there, Mrs. Whimple. That
being the name I wanted, I knocked, and an elderly woman
of a pleasant and thriving appearance responded. She was
immediately deposed, however, by Herbert, who silently led
me into the parlor and shut the door. It was an odd sensa-
tion to see his very familiar face established quite at home
in that very unfamiliar room and region; and I found myself
looking at him, much as I looked at the corner-cupboard with
the glass and china, the shells upon the chimney-piece, and
the colored engravings on the wall, representing the death of
Captain Cook, a ship-launch, and his Majesty King George
the Third in a state coachman’s wig, leather-breeches, and
top-boots, on the terrace at Windsor.
“All is well, Handel,” said Herbert, “and he is quite satisfied,
though eager to see you. My dear girl is with her father; and
if you’ll wait till she comes down, I’ll make you known to her,
and then we’ll go upstairs. That’s her father.”
I had become aware of an alarming growling overhead, and
had probably expressed the fact in my countenance.
“I am afraid he is a sad old rascal,” said Herbert, smiling, “but
I have never seen him. Don’t you smell rum? He is always
at it.”

569
“At rum?” said I.
“Yes,” returned Herbert, “and you may suppose how mild it
makes his gout. He persists, too, in keeping all the provisions
upstairs in his room, and serving them out. He keeps them
on shelves over his head, and will weigh them all. His room
must be like a chandler’s shop.”
While he thus spoke, the growling noise became a prolonged
roar, and then died away.
“What else can be the consequence,” said Herbert, in expla-
nation, “if he will cut the cheese? A man with the gout in
his right hand—and everywhere else—can’t expect to get
through a Double Gloucester without hurting himself.”
He seemed to have hurt himself very much, for he gave an-
other furious roar.
“To have Provis for an upper lodger is quite a godsend to
Mrs. Whimple,” said Herbert, “for of course people in general
won’t stand that noise. A curious place, Handel; isn’t it?”
It was a curious place, indeed; but remarkably well kept and
clean.
“Mrs. Whimple,” said Herbert, when I told him so, “is the
best of housewives, and I really do not know what my Clara
would do without her motherly help. For, Clara has no
mother of her own, Handel, and no relation in the world but
old Gruffandgrim.”
“Surely that’s not his name, Herbert?”

570
“No, no,” said Herbert, “that’s my name for him. His name is
Mr. Barley. But what a blessing it is for the son of my father
and mother to love a girl who has no relations, and who can
never bother herself or anybody else about her family!”
Herbert had told me on former occasions, and now reminded
me, that he first knew Miss Clara Barley when she was com-
pleting her education at an establishment at Hammersmith,
and that on her being recalled home to nurse her father, he
and she had confided their affection to the motherly Mrs.
Whimple, by whom it had been fostered and regulated with
equal kindness and discretion, ever since. It was understood
that nothing of a tender nature could possibly be confided
to old Barley, by reason of his being totally unequal to the
consideration of any subject more psychological than Gout,
Rum, and Purser’s stores.
As we were thus conversing in a low tone while Old Barley’s
sustained growl vibrated in the beam that crossed the ceil-
ing, the room door opened, and a very pretty, slight, dark-
eyed girl of twenty or so came in with a basket in her hand:
whom Herbert tenderly relieved of the basket, and presented,
blushing, as “Clara.” She really was a most charming girl, and
might have passed for a captive fairy, whom that truculent
Ogre, Old Barley, had pressed into his service.
“Look here,” said Herbert, showing me the basket, with a
compassionate and tender smile, after we had talked a little;
“here’s poor Clara’s supper, served out every night. Here’s
her allowance of bread, and here’s her slice of cheese, and

571
here’s her rum,—which I drink. This is Mr. Barley’s breakfast
for to-morrow, served out to be cooked. Two mutton-chops,
three potatoes, some split peas, a little flour, two ounces of
butter, a pinch of salt, and all this black pepper. It’s stewed
up together, and taken hot, and it’s a nice thing for the gout,
I should think!”
There was something so natural and winning in Clara’s re-
signed way of looking at these stores in detail, as Herbert
pointed them out; and something so confiding, loving, and
innocent in her modest manner of yielding herself to Her-
bert’s embracing arm; and something so gentle in her, so
much needing protection on Mill Pond Bank, by Chinks’s
Basin, and the Old Green Copper Rope-walk, with Old Bar-
ley growling in the beam,—that I would not have undone the
engagement between her and Herbert for all the money in
the pocket-book I had never opened.
I was looking at her with pleasure and admiration, when sud-
denly the growl swelled into a roar again, and a frightful
bumping noise was heard above, as if a giant with a wooden
leg were trying to bore it through the ceiling to come at us.
Upon this Clara said to Herbert, “Papa wants me, darling!”
and ran away.
“There is an unconscionable old shark for you!” said Herbert.
“What do you suppose he wants now, Handel?”
“I don’t know,” said I. “Something to drink?”
“That’s it!” cried Herbert, as if I had made a guess of extraor-

572
dinary merit. “He keeps his grog ready mixed in a little tub on
the table. Wait a moment, and you’ll hear Clara lift him up to
take some. There he goes!” Another roar, with a prolonged
shake at the end. “Now,” said Herbert, as it was succeeded
by silence, “he’s drinking. Now,” said Herbert, as the growl
resounded in the beam once more, “he’s down again on his
back!”
Clara returned soon afterwards, and Herbert accompanied
me upstairs to see our charge. As we passed Mr. Barley’s
door, he was heard hoarsely muttering within, in a strain that
rose and fell like wind, the following Refrain, in which I sub-
stitute good wishes for something quite the reverse:—
“Ahoy! Bless your eyes, here’s old Bill Barley. Here’s old Bill
Barley, bless your eyes. Here’s old Bill Barley on the flat of
his back, by the Lord. Lying on the flat of his back like a
drifting old dead flounder, here’s your old Bill Barley, bless
your eyes. Ahoy! Bless you.”
In this strain of consolation, Herbert informed me the invisi-
ble Barley would commune with himself by the day and night
together; Often, while it was light, having, at the same time,
one eye at a telescope which was fitted on his bed for the
convenience of sweeping the river.
In his two cabin rooms at the top of the house, which were
fresh and airy, and in which Mr. Barley was less audible than
below, I found Provis comfortably settled. He expressed no
alarm, and seemed to feel none that was worth mentioning;
but it struck me that he was softened,—indefinably, for I could

573
not have said how, and could never afterwards recall how
when I tried, but certainly.
The opportunity that the day’s rest had given me for reflec-
tion had resulted in my fully determining to say nothing to
him respecting Compeyson. For anything I knew, his ani-
mosity towards the man might otherwise lead to his seeking
him out and rushing on his own destruction. Therefore, when
Herbert and I sat down with him by his fire, I asked him first
of all whether he relied on Wemmick’s judgment and sources
of information?
“Ay, ay, dear boy!” he answered, with a grave nod, “Jaggers
knows.”
“Then, I have talked with Wemmick,” said I, “and have come
to tell you what caution he gave me and what advice.”
This I did accurately, with the reservation just mentioned;
and I told him how Wemmick had heard, in Newgate prison
(whether from officers or prisoners I could not say), that he
was under some suspicion, and that my chambers had been
watched; how Wemmick had recommended his keeping close
for a time, and my keeping away from him; and what Wem-
mick had said about getting him abroad. I added, that of
course, when the time came, I should go with him, or should
follow close upon him, as might be safest in Wemmick’s judg-
ment. What was to follow that I did not touch upon; neither,
indeed, was I at all clear or comfortable about it in my own
mind, now that I saw him in that softer condition, and in de-
clared peril for my sake. As to altering my way of living by

574
enlarging my expenses, I put it to him whether in our present
unsettled and difficult circumstances, it would not be simply
ridiculous, if it were no worse?
He could not deny this, and indeed was very reasonable
throughout. His coming back was a venture, he said, and he
had always known it to be a venture. He would do nothing
to make it a desperate venture, and he had very little fear of
his safety with such good help.
Herbert, who had been looking at the fire and pondering,
here said that something had come into his thoughts aris-
ing out of Wemmick’s suggestion, which it might be worth
while to pursue. “We are both good watermen, Handel, and
could take him down the river ourselves when the right time
comes. No boat would then be hired for the purpose, and no
boatmen; that would save at least a chance of suspicion, and
any chance is worth saving. Never mind the season; don’t
you think it might be a good thing if you began at once to
keep a boat at the Temple stairs, and were in the habit of
rowing up and down the river? You fall into that habit, and
then who notices or minds? Do it twenty or fifty times, and
there is nothing special in your doing it the twenty-first or
fifty-first.”
I liked this scheme, and Provis was quite elated by it. We
agreed that it should be carried into execution, and that Pro-
vis should never recognize us if we came below Bridge, and
rowed past Mill Pond Bank. But we further agreed that he
should pull down the blind in that part of his window which

575
gave upon the east, whenever he saw us and all was right.
Our conference being now ended, and everything arranged,
I rose to go; remarking to Herbert that he and I had better
not go home together, and that I would take half an hour’s
start of him. “I don’t like to leave you here,” I said to Provis,
“though I cannot doubt your being safer here than near me.
Good-bye!”
“Dear boy,” he answered, clasping my hands, “I don’t know
when we may meet again, and I don’t like good-bye. Say
good night!”
“Good night! Herbert will go regularly between us, and when
the time comes you may be certain I shall be ready. Good
night, good night!”
We thought it best that he should stay in his own rooms; and
we left him on the landing outside his door, holding a light
over the stair-rail to light us downstairs. Looking back at
him, I thought of the first night of his return, when our po-
sitions were reversed, and when I little supposed my heart
could ever be as heavy and anxious at parting from him as it
was now.
Old Barley was growling and swearing when we repassed his
door, with no appearance of having ceased or of meaning to
cease. When we got to the foot of the stairs, I asked Herbert
whether he had preserved the name of Provis. He replied,
certainly not, and that the lodger was Mr. Campbell. He also
explained that the utmost known of Mr. Campbell there was,

576
that he (Herbert) had Mr. Campbell consigned to him, and
felt a strong personal interest in his being well cared for, and
living a secluded life. So, when we went into the parlor where
Mrs. Whimple and Clara were seated at work, I said nothing
of my own interest in Mr. Campbell, but kept it to myself.
When I had taken leave of the pretty, gentle, dark-eyed girl,
and of the motherly woman who had not outlived her honest
sympathy with a little affair of true love, I felt as if the Old
Green Copper Rope-walk had grown quite a different place.
Old Barley might be as old as the hills, and might swear like a
whole field of troopers, but there were redeeming youth and
trust and hope enough in Chinks’s Basin to fill it to over-
flowing. And then I thought of Estella, and of our parting,
and went home very sadly.
All things were as quiet in the Temple as ever I had seen
them. The windows of the rooms on that side, lately occu-
pied by Provis, were dark and still, and there was no lounger
in Garden Court. I walked past the fountain twice or thrice
before I descended the steps that were between me and my
rooms, but I was quite alone. Herbert, coming to my bedside
when he came in,—for I went straight to bed, dispirited and
fatigued,—made the same report. Opening one of the win-
dows after that, he looked out into the moonlight, and told
me that the pavement was as solemnly empty as the pave-
ment of any cathedral at that same hour.
Next day I set myself to get the boat. It was soon done, and
the boat was brought round to the Temple stairs, and lay

577
where I could reach her within a minute or two. Then, I be-
gan to go out as for training and practice: sometimes alone,
sometimes with Herbert. I was often out in cold, rain, and
sleet, but nobody took much note of me after I had been out a
few times. At first, I kept above Blackfriars Bridge; but as the
hours of the tide changed, I took towards London Bridge. It
was Old London Bridge in those days, and at certain states of
the tide there was a race and fall of water there which gave it
a bad reputation. But I knew well enough how to ‘shoot’ the
bridge after seeing it done, and so began to row about among
the shipping in the Pool, and down to Erith. The first time I
passed Mill Pond Bank, Herbert and I were pulling a pair of
oars; and, both in going and returning, we saw the blind to-
wards the east come down. Herbert was rarely there less fre-
quently than three times in a week, and he never brought me
a single word of intelligence that was at all alarming. Still, I
knew that there was cause for alarm, and I could not get rid of
the notion of being watched. Once received, it is a haunting
idea; how many undesigning persons I suspected of watching
me, it would be hard to calculate.
In short, I was always full of fears for the rash man who was
in hiding. Herbert had sometimes said to me that he found
it pleasant to stand at one of our windows after dark, when
the tide was running down, and to think that it was flowing,
with everything it bore, towards Clara. But I thought with
dread that it was flowing towards Magwitch, and that any
black mark on its surface might be his pursuers, going swiftly,
silently, and surely, to take him.

578
Chapter XLVII
Some weeks passed without bringing any change. We waited
for Wemmick, and he made no sign. If I had never known him
out of Little Britain, and had never enjoyed the privilege of
being on a familiar footing at the Castle, I might have doubted
him; not so for a moment, knowing him as I did.
My worldly affairs began to wear a gloomy appearance, and
I was pressed for money by more than one creditor. Even I
myself began to know the want of money (I mean of ready
money in my own pocket), and to relieve it by converting
some easily spared articles of jewelery into cash. But I had
quite determined that it would be a heartless fraud to take
more money from my patron in the existing state of my un-
certain thoughts and plans. Therefore, I had sent him the
unopened pocket-book by Herbert, to hold in his own keep-
ing, and I felt a kind of satisfaction—whether it was a false
kind or a true, I hardly know—in not having profited by his
generosity since his revelation of himself.
As the time wore on, an impression settled heavily upon
me that Estella was married. Fearful of having it confirmed,
though it was all but a conviction, I avoided the newspapers,
and begged Herbert (to whom I had confided the circum-
stances of our last interview) never to speak of her to me.
Why I hoarded up this last wretched little rag of the robe of
hope that was rent and given to the winds, how do I know?
Why did you who read this, commit that not dissimilar

579
inconsistency of your own last year, last month, last week?
It was an unhappy life that I lived; and its one dominant anx-
iety, towering over all its other anxieties, like a high moun-
tain above a range of mountains, never disappeared from my
view. Still, no new cause for fear arose. Let me start from
my bed as I would, with the terror fresh upon me that he
was discovered; let me sit listening, as I would with dread,
for Herbert’s returning step at night, lest it should be fleeter
than ordinary, and winged with evil news,—for all that, and
much more to like purpose, the round of things went on.
Condemned to inaction and a state of constant restlessness
and suspense, I rowed about in my boat, and waited, waited,
waited, as I best could.
There were states of the tide when, having been down the
river, I could not get back through the eddy-chafed arches
and starlings of old London Bridge; then, I left my boat at a
wharf near the Custom House, to be brought up afterwards
to the Temple stairs. I was not averse to doing this, as it
served to make me and my boat a commoner incident among
the water-side people there. From this slight occasion sprang
two meetings that I have now to tell of.
One afternoon, late in the month of February, I came ashore
at the wharf at dusk. I had pulled down as far as Greenwich
with the ebb tide, and had turned with the tide. It had been
a fine bright day, but had become foggy as the sun dropped,
and I had had to feel my way back among the shipping, pretty
carefully. Both in going and returning, I had seen the signal

580
in his window, All well.
As it was a raw evening, and I was cold, I thought I would
comfort myself with dinner at once; and as I had hours of de-
jection and solitude before me if I went home to the Temple, I
thought I would afterwards go to the play. The theatre where
Mr. Wopsle had achieved his questionable triumph was in
that water-side neighborhood (it is nowhere now), and to that
theatre I resolved to go. I was aware that Mr. Wopsle had not
succeeded in reviving the Drama, but, on the contrary, had
rather partaken of its decline. He had been ominously heard
of, through the play-bills, as a faithful Black, in connection
with a little girl of noble birth, and a monkey. And Herbert
had seen him as a predatory Tartar of comic propensities,
with a face like a red brick, and an outrageous hat all over
bells.
I dined at what Herbert and I used to call a geographical chop-
house, where there were maps of the world in porter-pot rims
on every half-yard of the tablecloths, and charts of gravy on
every one of the knives,—to this day there is scarcely a single
chop-house within the Lord Mayor’s dominions which is not
geographical,—and wore out the time in dozing over crumbs,
staring at gas, and baking in a hot blast of dinners. By and
by, I roused myself, and went to the play.
There, I found a virtuous boatswain in His Majesty’s ser-
vice,—a most excellent man, though I could have wished his
trousers not quite so tight in some places, and not quite so
loose in others,—who knocked all the little men’s hats over

581
their eyes, though he was very generous and brave, and who
wouldn’t hear of anybody’s paying taxes, though he was very
patriotic. He had a bag of money in his pocket, like a pudding
in the cloth, and on that property married a young person
in bed-furniture, with great rejoicings; the whole population
of Portsmouth (nine in number at the last census) turning
out on the beach to rub their own hands and shake every-
body else’s, and sing “Fill, fill!” A certain dark-complexioned
Swab, however, who wouldn’t fill, or do anything else that
was proposed to him, and whose heart was openly stated (by
the boatswain) to be as black as his figure-head, proposed
to two other Swabs to get all mankind into difficulties; which
was so effectually done (the Swab family having considerable
political influence) that it took half the evening to set things
right, and then it was only brought about through an hon-
est little grocer with a white hat, black gaiters, and red nose,
getting into a clock, with a gridiron, and listening, and com-
ing out, and knocking everybody down from behind with the
gridiron whom he couldn’t confute with what he had over-
heard. This led to Mr. Wopsle’s (who had never been heard
of before) coming in with a star and garter on, as a plenipo-
tentiary of great power direct from the Admiralty, to say that
the Swabs were all to go to prison on the spot, and that he
had brought the boatswain down the Union Jack, as a slight
acknowledgment of his public services. The boatswain, un-
manned for the first time, respectfully dried his eyes on the
Jack, and then cheering up, and addressing Mr. Wopsle as
Your Honor, solicited permission to take him by the fin. Mr.
Wopsle, conceding his fin with a gracious dignity, was imme-

582
diately shoved into a dusty corner, while everybody danced
a hornpipe; and from that corner, surveying the public with
a discontented eye, became aware of me.
The second piece was the last new grand comic Christmas
pantomime, in the first scene of which, it pained me to sus-
pect that I detected Mr. Wopsle with red worsted legs under
a highly magnified phosphoric countenance and a shock of
red curtain-fringe for his hair, engaged in the manufacture
of thunderbolts in a mine, and displaying great cowardice
when his gigantic master came home (very hoarse) to din-
ner. But he presently presented himself under worthier cir-
cumstances; for, the Genius of Youthful Love being in want of
assistance,—on account of the parental brutality of an igno-
rant farmer who opposed the choice of his daughter’s heart,
by purposely falling upon the object, in a flour-sack, out of
the first-floor window,—summoned a sententious Enchanter;
and he, coming up from the antipodes rather unsteadily, after
an apparently violent journey, proved to be Mr. Wopsle in a
high-crowned hat, with a necromantic work in one volume
under his arm. The business of this enchanter on earth being
principally to be talked at, sung at, butted at, danced at, and
flashed at with fires of various colors, he had a good deal of
time on his hands. And I observed, with great surprise, that
he devoted it to staring in my direction as if he were lost in
amazement.
There was something so remarkable in the increasing glare
of Mr. Wopsle’s eye, and he seemed to be turning so many
things over in his mind and to grow so confused, that I could

583
not make it out. I sat thinking of it long after he had ascended
to the clouds in a large watch-case, and still I could not make
it out. I was still thinking of it when I came out of the theatre
an hour afterwards, and found him waiting for me near the
door.
“How do you do?” said I, shaking hands with him as we
turned down the street together. “I saw that you saw me.”
“Saw you, Mr. Pip!” he returned. “Yes, of course I saw you.
But who else was there?”
“Who else?”
“It is the strangest thing,” said Mr. Wopsle, drifting into his
lost look again; “and yet I could swear to him.”
Becoming alarmed, I entreated Mr. Wopsle to explain his
meaning.
“Whether I should have noticed him at first but for your being
there,” said Mr. Wopsle, going on in the same lost way, “I can’t
be positive; yet I think I should.”
Involuntarily I looked round me, as I was accustomed to look
round me when I went home; for these mysterious words
gave me a chill.
“Oh! He can’t be in sight,” said Mr. Wopsle. “He went out
before I went off. I saw him go.”
Having the reason that I had for being suspicious, I even sus-
pected this poor actor. I mistrusted a design to entrap me into

584
some admission. Therefore I glanced at him as we walked on
together, but said nothing.
“I had a ridiculous fancy that he must be with you, Mr. Pip, till
I saw that you were quite unconscious of him, sitting behind
you there like a ghost.”
My former chill crept over me again, but I was resolved not to
speak yet, for it was quite consistent with his words that he
might be set on to induce me to connect these references with
Provis. Of course, I was perfectly sure and safe that Provis
had not been there.
“I dare say you wonder at me, Mr. Pip; indeed, I see you
do. But it is so very strange! You’ll hardly believe what I am
going to tell you. I could hardly believe it myself, if you told
me.”
“Indeed?” said I.
“No, indeed. Mr. Pip, you remember in old times a certain
Christmas Day, when you were quite a child, and I dined at
Gargery’s, and some soldiers came to the door to get a pair
of handcuffs mended?”
“I remember it very well.”
“And you remember that there was a chase after two convicts,
and that we joined in it, and that Gargery took you on his
back, and that I took the lead, and you kept up with me as
well as you could?”
“I remember it all very well.” Better than he thought,—except

585
the last clause.
“And you remember that we came up with the two in a ditch,
and that there was a scuffle between them, and that one of
them had been severely handled and much mauled about the
face by the other?”
“I see it all before me.”
“And that the soldiers lighted torches, and put the two in the
centre, and that we went on to see the last of them, over the
black marshes, with the torchlight shining on their faces,—
I am particular about that,—with the torchlight shining on
their faces, when there was an outer ring of dark night all
about us?”
“Yes,” said I. “I remember all that.”
“Then, Mr. Pip, one of those two prisoners sat behind you
tonight. I saw him over your shoulder.”
“Steady!” I thought. I asked him then, “Which of the two do
you suppose you saw?”
“The one who had been mauled,” he answered readily, “and
I’ll swear I saw him! The more I think of him, the more certain
I am of him.”
“This is very curious!” said I, with the best assumption I could
put on of its being nothing more to me. “Very curious in-
deed!”
I cannot exaggerate the enhanced disquiet into which this

586
conversation threw me, or the special and peculiar terror I
felt at Compeyson’s having been behind me “like a ghost.”
For if he had ever been out of my thoughts for a few mo-
ments together since the hiding had begun, it was in those
very moments when he was closest to me; and to think that I
should be so unconscious and off my guard after all my care
was as if I had shut an avenue of a hundred doors to keep him
out, and then had found him at my elbow. I could not doubt,
either, that he was there, because I was there, and that, how-
ever slight an appearance of danger there might be about us,
danger was always near and active.
I put such questions to Mr. Wopsle as, When did the man
come in? He could not tell me that; he saw me, and over my
shoulder he saw the man. It was not until he had seen him
for some time that he began to identify him; but he had from
the first vaguely associated him with me, and known him
as somehow belonging to me in the old village time. How
was he dressed? Prosperously, but not noticeably otherwise;
he thought, in black. Was his face at all disfigured? No, he
believed not. I believed not too, for, although in my brooding
state I had taken no especial notice of the people behind me,
I thought it likely that a face at all disfigured would have
attracted my attention.
When Mr. Wopsle had imparted to me all that he could recall
or I extract, and when I had treated him to a little appropri-
ate refreshment, after the fatigues of the evening, we parted.
It was between twelve and one o’clock when I reached the
Temple, and the gates were shut. No one was near me when

587
I went in and went home.
Herbert had come in, and we held a very serious council by
the fire. But there was nothing to be done, saving to com-
municate to Wemmick what I had that night found out, and
to remind him that we waited for his hint. As I thought that
I might compromise him if I went too often to the Castle, I
made this communication by letter. I wrote it before I went
to bed, and went out and posted it; and again no one was near
me. Herbert and I agreed that we could do nothing else but
be very cautious. And we were very cautious indeed,—more
cautious than before, if that were possible,—and I for my part
never went near Chinks’s Basin, except when I rowed by, and
then I only looked at Mill Pond Bank as I looked at anything
else.

588
Chapter XLVIII
The second of the two meetings referred to in the last chapter
occurred about a week after the first. I had again left my
boat at the wharf below Bridge; the time was an hour earlier
in the afternoon; and, undecided where to dine, I had strolled
up into Cheapside, and was strolling along it, surely the most
unsettled person in all the busy concourse, when a large hand
was laid upon my shoulder by some one overtaking me. It
was Mr. Jaggers’s hand, and he passed it through my arm.
“As we are going in the same direction, Pip, we may walk
together. Where are you bound for?”
“For the Temple, I think,” said I.
“Don’t you know?” said Mr. Jaggers.
“Well,” I returned, glad for once to get the better of him in
cross-examination, “I do not know, for I have not made up
my mind.”
“You are going to dine?” said Mr. Jaggers. “You don’t mind
admitting that, I suppose?”
“No,” I returned, “I don’t mind admitting that.”
“And are not engaged?”
“I don’t mind admitting also that I am not engaged.”
“Then,” said Mr. Jaggers, “come and dine with me.”

589
I was going to excuse myself, when he added, “Wemmick’s
coming.” So I changed my excuse into an acceptance,—the
few words I had uttered, serving for the beginning of either,—
and we went along Cheapside and slanted off to Little Britain,
while the lights were springing up brilliantly in the shop win-
dows, and the street lamp-lighters, scarcely finding ground
enough to plant their ladders on in the midst of the after-
noon’s bustle, were skipping up and down and running in
and out, opening more red eyes in the gathering fog than my
rushlight tower at the Hummums had opened white eyes in
the ghostly wall.
At the office in Little Britain there was the usual letter-
writing, hand-washing, candle-snuffing, and safe-locking,
that closed the business of the day. As I stood idle by Mr.
Jaggers’s fire, its rising and falling flame made the two casts
on the shelf look as if they were playing a diabolical game at
bo-peep with me; while the pair of coarse, fat office candles
that dimly lighted Mr. Jaggers as he wrote in a corner were
decorated with dirty winding-sheets, as if in remembrance
of a host of hanged clients.
We went to Gerrard Street, all three together, in a hackney-
coach: And, as soon as we got there, dinner was served. Al-
though I should not have thought of making, in that place, the
most distant reference by so much as a look to Wemmick’s
Walworth sentiments, yet I should have had no objection to
catching his eye now and then in a friendly way. But it was
not to be done. He turned his eyes on Mr. Jaggers whenever
he raised them from the table, and was as dry and distant to

590
me as if there were twin Wemmicks, and this was the wrong
one.
“Did you send that note of Miss Havisham’s to Mr. Pip, Wem-
mick?” Mr. Jaggers asked, soon after we began dinner.
“No, sir,” returned Wemmick; “it was going by post, when
you brought Mr. Pip into the office. Here it is.” He handed it
to his principal instead of to me.
“It’s a note of two lines, Pip,” said Mr. Jaggers, handing it on,
“sent up to me by Miss Havisham on account of her not being
sure of your address. She tells me that she wants to see you
on a little matter of business you mentioned to her. You’ll go
down?”
“Yes,” said I, casting my eyes over the note, which was exactly
in those terms.
“When do you think of going down?”
“I have an impending engagement,” said I, glancing at Wem-
mick, who was putting fish into the post-office, “that renders
me rather uncertain of my time. At once, I think.”
“If Mr. Pip has the intention of going at once,” said Wemmick
to Mr. Jaggers, “he needn’t write an answer, you know.”
Receiving this as an intimation that it was best not to delay,
I settled that I would go to-morrow, and said so. Wemmick
drank a glass of wine, and looked with a grimly satisfied air
at Mr. Jaggers, but not at me.

591
“So, Pip! Our friend the Spider,” said Mr. Jaggers, “has played
his cards. He has won the pool.”
It was as much as I could do to assent.
“Hah! He is a promising fellow—in his way—but he may not
have it all his own way. The stronger will win in the end, but
the stronger has to be found out first. If he should turn to,
and beat her—”
“Surely,” I interrupted, with a burning face and heart, “you do
not seriously think that he is scoundrel enough for that, Mr.
Jaggers?”
“I didn’t say so, Pip. I am putting a case. If he should turn
to and beat her, he may possibly get the strength on his side;
if it should be a question of intellect, he certainly will not.
It would be chance work to give an opinion how a fellow of
that sort will turn out in such circumstances, because it’s a
toss-up between two results.”
“May I ask what they are?”
“A fellow like our friend the Spider,” answered Mr. Jaggers,
“either beats or cringes. He may cringe and growl, or cringe
and not growl; but he either beats or cringes. Ask Wemmick
his opinion.”
“Either beats or cringes,” said Wemmick, not at all addressing
himself to me.
“So here’s to Mrs. Bentley Drummle,” said Mr. Jaggers, tak-
ing a decanter of choicer wine from his dumb-waiter, and

592
filling for each of us and for himself, “and may the question
of supremacy be settled to the lady’s satisfaction! To the sat-
isfaction of the lady and the gentleman, it never will be. Now,
Molly, Molly, Molly, Molly, how slow you are to-day!”
She was at his elbow when he addressed her, putting a dish
upon the table. As she withdrew her hands from it, she fell
back a step or two, nervously muttering some excuse. And a
certain action of her fingers, as she spoke, arrested my atten-
tion.
“What’s the matter?” said Mr. Jaggers.
“Nothing. Only the subject we were speaking of,” said I, “was
rather painful to me.”
The action of her fingers was like the action of knitting. She
stood looking at her master, not understanding whether she
was free to go, or whether he had more to say to her and
would call her back if she did go. Her look was very in-
tent. Surely, I had seen exactly such eyes and such hands
on a memorable occasion very lately!
He dismissed her, and she glided out of the room. But she
remained before me as plainly as if she were still there. I
looked at those hands, I looked at those eyes, I looked at that
flowing hair; and I compared them with other hands, other
eyes, other hair, that I knew of, and with what those might
be after twenty years of a brutal husband and a stormy life.
I looked again at those hands and eyes of the housekeeper,
and thought of the inexplicable feeling that had come over

593
me when I last walked—not alone—in the ruined garden, and
through the deserted brewery. I thought how the same feel-
ing had come back when I saw a face looking at me, and a
hand waving to me from a stage-coach window; and how it
had come back again and had flashed about me like lightning,
when I had passed in a carriage—not alone—through a sud-
den glare of light in a dark street. I thought how one link
of association had helped that identification in the theatre,
and how such a link, wanting before, had been riveted for
me now, when I had passed by a chance swift from Estella’s
name to the fingers with their knitting action, and the atten-
tive eyes. And I felt absolutely certain that this woman was
Estella’s mother.
Mr. Jaggers had seen me with Estella, and was not likely to
have missed the sentiments I had been at no pains to conceal.
He nodded when I said the subject was painful to me, clapped
me on the back, put round the wine again, and went on with
his dinner.
Only twice more did the housekeeper reappear, and then her
stay in the room was very short, and Mr. Jaggers was sharp
with her. But her hands were Estella’s hands, and her eyes
were Estella’s eyes, and if she had reappeared a hundred
times I could have been neither more sure nor less sure that
my conviction was the truth.
It was a dull evening, for Wemmick drew his wine, when it
came round, quite as a matter of business,—just as he might
have drawn his salary when that came round,—and with his

594
eyes on his chief, sat in a state of perpetual readiness for
cross-examination. As to the quantity of wine, his post-office
was as indifferent and ready as any other post-office for its
quantity of letters. From my point of view, he was the wrong
twin all the time, and only externally like the Wemmick of
Walworth.
We took our leave early, and left together. Even when we
were groping among Mr. Jaggers’s stock of boots for our hats,
I felt that the right twin was on his way back; and we had not
gone half a dozen yards down Gerrard Street in the Walworth
direction, before I found that I was walking arm in arm with
the right twin, and that the wrong twin had evaporated into
the evening air.
“Well!” said Wemmick, “that’s over! He’s a wonderful man,
without his living likeness; but I feel that I have to screw my-
self up when I dine with him,—and I dine more comfortably
unscrewed.”
I felt that this was a good statement of the case, and told him
so.
“Wouldn’t say it to anybody but yourself,” he answered. “I
know that what is said between you and me goes no further.”
I asked him if he had ever seen Miss Havisham’s adopted
daughter, Mrs. Bentley Drummle. He said no. To avoid be-
ing too abrupt, I then spoke of the Aged and of Miss Skiffins.
He looked rather sly when I mentioned Miss Skiffins, and
stopped in the street to blow his nose, with a roll of the head,

595
and a flourish not quite free from latent boastfulness.
“Wemmick,” said I, “do you remember telling me, before I first
went to Mr. Jaggers’s private house, to notice that house-
keeper?”
“Did I?” he replied. “Ah, I dare say I did. Deuce take me,”
he added, suddenly, “I know I did. I find I am not quite un-
screwed yet.”
“A wild beast tamed, you called her.”
“And what do you call her?”
“The same. How did Mr. Jaggers tame her, Wemmick?”
“That’s his secret. She has been with him many a long year.”
“I wish you would tell me her story. I feel a particular inter-
est in being acquainted with it. You know that what is said
between you and me goes no further.”
“Well!” Wemmick replied, “I don’t know her story,—that is, I
don’t know all of it. But what I do know I’ll tell you. We are
in our private and personal capacities, of course.”
“Of course.”
“A score or so of years ago, that woman was tried at the Old
Bailey for murder, and was acquitted. She was a very hand-
some young woman, and I believe had some gypsy blood in
her. Anyhow, it was hot enough when it was up, as you may
suppose.”

596
“But she was acquitted.”
“Mr. Jaggers was for her,” pursued Wemmick, with a look full
of meaning, “and worked the case in a way quite astonishing.
It was a desperate case, and it was comparatively early days
with him then, and he worked it to general admiration; in
fact, it may almost be said to have made him. He worked it
himself at the police-office, day after day for many days, con-
tending against even a committal; and at the trial where he
couldn’t work it himself, sat under counsel, and—every one
knew—put in all the salt and pepper. The murdered person
was a woman,—a woman a good ten years older, very much
larger, and very much stronger. It was a case of jealousy.
They both led tramping lives, and this woman in Gerrard
Street here had been married very young, over the broom-
stick (as we say), to a tramping man, and was a perfect fury
in point of jealousy. The murdered woman,—more a match
for the man, certainly, in point of years—was found dead in a
barn near Hounslow Heath. There had been a violent strug-
gle, perhaps a fight. She was bruised and scratched and torn,
and had been held by the throat, at last, and choked. Now,
there was no reasonable evidence to implicate any person but
this woman, and on the improbabilities of her having been
able to do it Mr. Jaggers principally rested his case. You may
be sure,” said Wemmick, touching me on the sleeve, “that he
never dwelt upon the strength of her hands then, though he
sometimes does now.”
I had told Wemmick of his showing us her wrists, that day of
the dinner party.

597
“Well, sir!” Wemmick went on; “it happened—happened,
don’t you see?—that this woman was so very artfully dressed
from the time of her apprehension, that she looked much
slighter than she really was; in particular, her sleeves are
always remembered to have been so skilfully contrived that
her arms had quite a delicate look. She had only a bruise
or two about her,—nothing for a tramp,—but the backs of
her hands were lacerated, and the question was, Was it
with finger-nails? Now, Mr. Jaggers showed that she had
struggled through a great lot of brambles which were not as
high as her face; but which she could not have got through
and kept her hands out of; and bits of those brambles were
actually found in her skin and put in evidence, as well
as the fact that the brambles in question were found on
examination to have been broken through, and to have little
shreds of her dress and little spots of blood upon them here
and there. But the boldest point he made was this: it was
attempted to be set up, in proof of her jealousy, that she was
under strong suspicion of having, at about the time of the
murder, frantically destroyed her child by this man—some
three years old—to revenge herself upon him. Mr. Jaggers
worked that in this way: “We say these are not marks of
finger-nails, but marks of brambles, and we show you the
brambles. You say they are marks of finger-nails, and you
set up the hypothesis that she destroyed her child. You must
accept all consequences of that hypothesis. For anything we
know, she may have destroyed her child, and the child in
clinging to her may have scratched her hands. What then?
You are not trying her for the murder of her child; why

598
don’t you? As to this case, if you will have scratches, we
say that, for anything we know, you may have accounted
for them, assuming for the sake of argument that you have
not invented them?” “To sum up, sir,” said Wemmick, “Mr.
Jaggers was altogether too many for the jury, and they gave
in.”
“Has she been in his service ever since?”
“Yes; but not only that,” said Wemmick, “she went into his
service immediately after her acquittal, tamed as she is now.
She has since been taught one thing and another in the way
of her duties, but she was tamed from the beginning.”
“Do you remember the sex of the child?”
“Said to have been a girl.”
“You have nothing more to say to me to-night?”
“Nothing. I got your letter and destroyed it. Nothing.”
We exchanged a cordial good-night, and I went home, with
new matter for my thoughts, though with no relief from the
old.

599
Chapter XLIX
Putting Miss Havisham’s note in my pocket, that it might
serve as my credentials for so soon reappearing at Satis
House, in case her waywardness should lead her to express
any surprise at seeing me, I went down again by the coach
next day. But I alighted at the Halfway House, and break-
fasted there, and walked the rest of the distance; for I sought
to get into the town quietly by the unfrequented ways, and
to leave it in the same manner.
The best light of the day was gone when I passed along the
quiet echoing courts behind the High Street. The nooks of
ruin where the old monks had once had their refectories and
gardens, and where the strong walls were now pressed into
the service of humble sheds and stables, were almost as silent
as the old monks in their graves. The cathedral chimes had
at once a sadder and a more remote sound to me, as I hurried
on avoiding observation, than they had ever had before; so,
the swell of the old organ was borne to my ears like funeral
music; and the rooks, as they hovered about the gray tower
and swung in the bare high trees of the priory garden, seemed
to call to me that the place was changed, and that Estella was
gone out of it for ever.
An elderly woman, whom I had seen before as one of the ser-
vants who lived in the supplementary house across the back
courtyard, opened the gate. The lighted candle stood in the
dark passage within, as of old, and I took it up and ascended

600
the staircase alone. Miss Havisham was not in her own room,
but was in the larger room across the landing. Looking in
at the door, after knocking in vain, I saw her sitting on the
hearth in a ragged chair, close before, and lost in the contem-
plation of, the ashy fire.
Doing as I had often done, I went in, and stood touching the
old chimney-piece, where she could see me when she raised
her eyes. There was an air of utter loneliness upon her, that
would have moved me to pity though she had wilfully done
me a deeper injury than I could charge her with. As I stood
compassionating her, and thinking how, in the progress of
time, I too had come to be a part of the wrecked fortunes of
that house, her eyes rested on me. She stared, and said in a
low voice, “Is it real?”
“It is I, Pip. Mr. Jaggers gave me your note yesterday, and I
have lost no time.”
“Thank you. Thank you.”
As I brought another of the ragged chairs to the hearth and
sat down, I remarked a new expression on her face, as if she
were afraid of me.
“I want,” she said, “to pursue that subject you mentioned to
me when you were last here, and to show you that I am not
all stone. But perhaps you can never believe, now, that there
is anything human in my heart?”
When I said some reassuring words, she stretched out her
tremulous right hand, as though she was going to touch me;

601
but she recalled it again before I understood the action, or
knew how to receive it.
“You said, speaking for your friend, that you could tell me
how to do something useful and good. Something that you
would like done, is it not?”
“Something that I would like done very much.”
“What is it?”
I began explaining to her that secret history of the partner-
ship. I had not got far into it, when I judged from her looks
that she was thinking in a discursive way of me, rather than
of what I said. It seemed to be so; for, when I stopped speak-
ing, many moments passed before she showed that she was
conscious of the fact.
“Do you break off,” she asked then, with her former air of
being afraid of me, “because you hate me too much to bear
to speak to me?”
“No, no,” I answered, “how can you think so, Miss Havisham!
I stopped because I thought you were not following what I
said.”
“Perhaps I was not,” she answered, putting a hand to her head.
“Begin again, and let me look at something else. Stay! Now
tell me.”
She set her hand upon her stick in the resolute way that
sometimes was habitual to her, and looked at the fire with
a strong expression of forcing herself to attend. I went on

602
with my explanation, and told her how I had hoped to com-
plete the transaction out of my means, but how in this I was
disappointed. That part of the subject (I reminded her) in-
volved matters which could form no part of my explanation,
for they were the weighty secrets of another.
“So!” said she, assenting with her head, but not looking at
me. “And how much money is wanting to complete the pur-
chase?”
I was rather afraid of stating it, for it sounded a large sum.
“Nine hundred pounds.”
“If I give you the money for this purpose, will you keep my
secret as you have kept your own?”
“Quite as faithfully.”
“And your mind will be more at rest?”
“Much more at rest.”
“Are you very unhappy now?”
She asked this question, still without looking at me, but in an
unwonted tone of sympathy. I could not reply at the moment,
for my voice failed me. She put her left arm across the head
of her stick, and softly laid her forehead on it.
“I am far from happy, Miss Havisham; but I have other causes
of disquiet than any you know of. They are the secrets I have
mentioned.”

603
After a little while, she raised her head, and looked at the fire
again.
“It is noble in you to tell me that you have other causes of
unhappiness. Is it true?”
“Too true.”
“Can I only serve you, Pip, by serving your friend? Regarding
that as done, is there nothing I can do for you yourself?”
“Nothing. I thank you for the question. I thank you even
more for the tone of the question. But there is nothing.”
She presently rose from her seat, and looked about the
blighted room for the means of writing. There were none
there, and she took from her pocket a yellow set of ivory
tablets, mounted in tarnished gold, and wrote upon them
with a pencil in a case of tarnished gold that hung from her
neck.
“You are still on friendly terms with Mr. Jaggers?”
“Quite. I dined with him yesterday.”
“This is an authority to him to pay you that money, to lay
out at your irresponsible discretion for your friend. I keep
no money here; but if you would rather Mr. Jaggers knew
nothing of the matter, I will send it to you.”
“Thank you, Miss Havisham; I have not the least objection to
receiving it from him.”
She read me what she had written; and it was direct and clear,

604
and evidently intended to absolve me from any suspicion of
profiting by the receipt of the money. I took the tablets from
her hand, and it trembled again, and it trembled more as she
took off the chain to which the pencil was attached, and put
it in mine. All this she did without looking at me.
“My name is on the first leaf. If you can ever write under my
name, “I forgive her,” though ever so long after my broken
heart is dust pray do it!”
“O Miss Havisham,” said I, “I can do it now. There have been
sore mistakes; and my life has been a blind and thankless
one; and I want forgiveness and direction far too much, to be
bitter with you.”
She turned her face to me for the first time since she had
averted it, and, to my amazement, I may even add to my ter-
ror, dropped on her knees at my feet; with her folded hands
raised to me in the manner in which, when her poor heart
was young and fresh and whole, they must often have been
raised to heaven from her mother’s side.
To see her with her white hair and her worn face kneeling at
my feet gave me a shock through all my frame. I entreated
her to rise, and got my arms about her to help her up; but
she only pressed that hand of mine which was nearest to her
grasp, and hung her head over it and wept. I had never seen
her shed a tear before, and, in the hope that the relief might
do her good, I bent over her without speaking. She was not
kneeling now, but was down upon the ground.

605
“O!” she cried, despairingly. “What have I done! What have
I done!”
“If you mean, Miss Havisham, what have you done to injure
me, let me answer. Very little. I should have loved her under
any circumstances. Is she married?”
“Yes.”
It was a needless question, for a new desolation in the deso-
late house had told me so.
“What have I done! What have I done!” She wrung her
hands, and crushed her white hair, and returned to this cry
over and over again. “What have I done!”
I knew not how to answer, or how to comfort her. That she
had done a grievous thing in taking an impressionable child
to mould into the form that her wild resentment, spurned af-
fection, and wounded pride found vengeance in, I knew full
well. But that, in shutting out the light of day, she had shut
out infinitely more; that, in seclusion, she had secluded her-
self from a thousand natural and healing influences; that, her
mind, brooding solitary, had grown diseased, as all minds do
and must and will that reverse the appointed order of their
Maker, I knew equally well. And could I look upon her with-
out compassion, seeing her punishment in the ruin she was,
in her profound unfitness for this earth on which she was
placed, in the vanity of sorrow which had become a master
mania, like the vanity of penitence, the vanity of remorse, the
vanity of unworthiness, and other monstrous vanities that

606
have been curses in this world?
“Until you spoke to her the other day, and until I saw in you
a looking-glass that showed me what I once felt myself, I did
not know what I had done. What have I done! What have I
done!” And so again, twenty, fifty times over, What had she
done!
“Miss Havisham,” I said, when her cry had died away, “you
may dismiss me from your mind and conscience. But Estella
is a different case, and if you can ever undo any scrap of what
you have done amiss in keeping a part of her right nature
away from her, it will be better to do that than to bemoan the
past through a hundred years.”
“Yes, yes, I know it. But, Pip—my dear!” There was an earnest
womanly compassion for me in her new affection. “My dear!
Believe this: when she first came to me, I meant to save her
from misery like my own. At first, I meant no more.”
“Well, well!” said I. “I hope so.”
“But as she grew, and promised to be very beautiful, I grad-
ually did worse, and with my praises, and with my jewels,
and with my teachings, and with this figure of myself always
before her, a warning to back and point my lessons, I stole
her heart away, and put ice in its place.”
“Better,” I could not help saying, “to have left her a natural
heart, even to be bruised or broken.”
With that, Miss Havisham looked distractedly at me for a

607
while, and then burst out again, What had she done!
“If you knew all my story,” she pleaded, “you would have
some compassion for me and a better understanding of me.”
“Miss Havisham,” I answered, as delicately as I could, “I be-
lieve I may say that I do know your story, and have known
it ever since I first left this neighborhood. It has inspired me
with great commiseration, and I hope I understand it and its
influences. Does what has passed between us give me any
excuse for asking you a question relative to Estella? Not as
she is, but as she was when she first came here?”
She was seated on the ground, with her arms on the ragged
chair, and her head leaning on them. She looked full at me
when I said this, and replied, “Go on.”
“Whose child was Estella?”
She shook her head.
“You don’t know?”
She shook her head again.
“But Mr. Jaggers brought her here, or sent her here?”
“Brought her here.”
“Will you tell me how that came about?”
She answered in a low whisper and with caution: “I had been
shut up in these rooms a long time (I don’t know how long;
you know what time the clocks keep here), when I told him

608
that I wanted a little girl to rear and love, and save from my
fate. I had first seen him when I sent for him to lay this place
waste for me; having read of him in the newspapers, before
I and the world parted. He told me that he would look about
him for such an orphan child. One night he brought her here
asleep, and I called her Estella.”
“Might I ask her age then?”
“Two or three. She herself knows nothing, but that she was
left an orphan and I adopted her.”
So convinced I was of that woman’s being her mother, that
I wanted no evidence to establish the fact in my own mind.
But, to any mind, I thought, the connection here was clear
and straight.
What more could I hope to do by prolonging the interview? I
had succeeded on behalf of Herbert, Miss Havisham had told
me all she knew of Estella, I had said and done what I could to
ease her mind. No matter with what other words we parted;
we parted.
Twilight was closing in when I went downstairs into the nat-
ural air. I called to the woman who had opened the gate when
I entered, that I would not trouble her just yet, but would
walk round the place before leaving. For I had a presenti-
ment that I should never be there again, and I felt that the
dying light was suited to my last view of it.
By the wilderness of casks that I had walked on long ago,
and on which the rain of years had fallen since, rotting them

609
in many places, and leaving miniature swamps and pools of
water upon those that stood on end, I made my way to the
ruined garden. I went all round it; round by the corner where
Herbert and I had fought our battle; round by the paths where
Estella and I had walked. So cold, so lonely, so dreary all!
Taking the brewery on my way back, I raised the rusty latch
of a little door at the garden end of it, and walked through.
I was going out at the opposite door,—not easy to open
now, for the damp wood had started and swelled, and the
hinges were yielding, and the threshold was encumbered
with a growth of fungus,—when I turned my head to look
back. A childish association revived with wonderful force
in the moment of the slight action, and I fancied that I saw
Miss Havisham hanging to the beam. So strong was the
impression, that I stood under the beam shuddering from
head to foot before I knew it was a fancy,—though to be sure
I was there in an instant.
The mournfulness of the place and time, and the great terror
of this illusion, though it was but momentary, caused me to
feel an indescribable awe as I came out between the open
wooden gates where I had once wrung my hair after Estella
had wrung my heart. Passing on into the front courtyard,
I hesitated whether to call the woman to let me out at the
locked gate of which she had the key, or first to go upstairs
and assure myself that Miss Havisham was as safe and well
as I had left her. I took the latter course and went up.
I looked into the room where I had left her, and I saw her

610
seated in the ragged chair upon the hearth close to the fire,
with her back towards me. In the moment when I was with-
drawing my head to go quietly away, I saw a great flaming
light spring up. In the same moment I saw her running at
me, shrieking, with a whirl of fire blazing all about her, and
soaring at least as many feet above her head as she was high.
I had a double-caped great-coat on, and over my arm another
thick coat. That I got them off, closed with her, threw her
down, and got them over her; that I dragged the great cloth
from the table for the same purpose, and with it dragged
down the heap of rottenness in the midst, and all the ugly
things that sheltered there; that we were on the ground strug-
gling like desperate enemies, and that the closer I covered her,
the more wildly she shrieked and tried to free herself,—that
this occurred I knew through the result, but not through any-
thing I felt, or thought, or knew I did. I knew nothing until
I knew that we were on the floor by the great table, and that
patches of tinder yet alight were floating in the smoky air,
which, a moment ago, had been her faded bridal dress.
Then, I looked round and saw the disturbed beetles and spi-
ders running away over the floor, and the servants coming in
with breathless cries at the door. I still held her forcibly down
with all my strength, like a prisoner who might escape; and I
doubt if I even knew who she was, or why we had struggled,
or that she had been in flames, or that the flames were out,
until I saw the patches of tinder that had been her garments
no longer alight but falling in a black shower around us.

611
She was insensible, and I was afraid to have her moved, or
even touched. Assistance was sent for, and I held her until
it came, as if I unreasonably fancied (I think I did) that, if I
let her go, the fire would break out again and consume her.
When I got up, on the surgeon’s coming to her with other
aid, I was astonished to see that both my hands were burnt;
for, I had no knowledge of it through the sense of feeling.
On examination it was pronounced that she had received se-
rious hurts, but that they of themselves were far from hope-
less; the danger lay mainly in the nervous shock. By the sur-
geon’s directions, her bed was carried into that room and laid
upon the great table, which happened to be well suited to the
dressing of her injuries. When I saw her again, an hour after-
wards, she lay, indeed, where I had seen her strike her stick,
and had heard her say that she would lie one day.
Though every vestige of her dress was burnt, as they told me,
she still had something of her old ghastly bridal appearance;
for, they had covered her to the throat with white cotton-
wool, and as she lay with a white sheet loosely overlying
that, the phantom air of something that had been and was
changed was still upon her.
I found, on questioning the servants, that Estella was in Paris,
and I got a promise from the surgeon that he would write to
her by the next post. Miss Havisham’s family I took upon
myself; intending to communicate with Mr. Matthew Pocket
only, and leave him to do as he liked about informing the rest.
This I did next day, through Herbert, as soon as I returned to

612
town.
There was a stage, that evening, when she spoke collectedly
of what had happened, though with a certain terrible vivac-
ity. Towards midnight she began to wander in her speech;
and after that it gradually set in that she said innumerable
times in a low solemn voice, “What have I done!” And then,
“When she first came, I meant to save her from misery like
mine.” And then, “Take the pencil and write under my name,
‘I forgive her!’ ” She never changed the order of these three
sentences, but she sometimes left out a word in one or other
of them; never putting in another word, but always leaving a
blank and going on to the next word.
As I could do no service there, and as I had, nearer home, that
pressing reason for anxiety and fear which even her wander-
ings could not drive out of my mind, I decided, in the course
of the night that I would return by the early morning coach,
walking on a mile or so, and being taken up clear of the town.
At about six o’clock of the morning, therefore, I leaned over
her and touched her lips with mine, just as they said, not
stopping for being touched, “Take the pencil and write under
my name, ‘I forgive her.’ ”

613
Chapter L
My hands had been dressed twice or thrice in the night, and
again in the morning. My left arm was a good deal burned to
the elbow, and, less severely, as high as the shoulder; it was
very painful, but the flames had set in that direction, and I
felt thankful it was no worse. My right hand was not so badly
burnt but that I could move the fingers. It was bandaged, of
course, but much less inconveniently than my left hand and
arm; those I carried in a sling; and I could only wear my coat
like a cloak, loose over my shoulders and fastened at the neck.
My hair had been caught by the fire, but not my head or face.
When Herbert had been down to Hammersmith and seen his
father, he came back to me at our chambers, and devoted the
day to attending on me. He was the kindest of nurses, and at
stated times took off the bandages, and steeped them in the
cooling liquid that was kept ready, and put them on again,
with a patient tenderness that I was deeply grateful for.
At first, as I lay quiet on the sofa, I found it painfully diffi-
cult, I might say impossible, to get rid of the impression of
the glare of the flames, their hurry and noise, and the fierce
burning smell. If I dozed for a minute, I was awakened by
Miss Havisham’s cries, and by her running at me with all
that height of fire above her head. This pain of the mind was
much harder to strive against than any bodily pain I suffered;
and Herbert, seeing that, did his utmost to hold my attention
engaged.

614
Neither of us spoke of the boat, but we both thought of it.
That was made apparent by our avoidance of the subject, and
by our agreeing—without agreement—to make my recovery
of the use of my hands a question of so many hours, not of
so many weeks.
My first question when I saw Herbert had been of course,
whether all was well down the river? As he replied in the
affirmative, with perfect confidence and cheerfulness, we did
not resume the subject until the day was wearing away. But
then, as Herbert changed the bandages, more by the light of
the fire than by the outer light, he went back to it sponta-
neously.
“I sat with Provis last night, Handel, two good hours.”
“Where was Clara?”
“Dear little thing!” said Herbert. “She was up and down with
Gruffandgrim all the evening. He was perpetually pegging at
the floor the moment she left his sight. I doubt if he can hold
out long, though. What with rum and pepper,—and pepper
and rum,—I should think his pegging must be nearly over.”
“And then you will be married, Herbert?”
“How can I take care of the dear child otherwise?—Lay your
arm out upon the back of the sofa, my dear boy, and I’ll sit
down here, and get the bandage off so gradually that you shall
not know when it comes. I was speaking of Provis. Do you
know, Handel, he improves?”

615
“I said to you I thought he was softened when I last saw him.”
“So you did. And so he is. He was very communicative last
night, and told me more of his life. You remember his break-
ing off here about some woman that he had had great trouble
with.—Did I hurt you?”
I had started, but not under his touch. His words had given
me a start.
“I had forgotten that, Herbert, but I remember it now you
speak of it.”
“Well! He went into that part of his life, and a dark wild part
it is. Shall I tell you? Or would it worry you just now?”
“Tell me by all means. Every word.”
Herbert bent forward to look at me more nearly, as if my re-
ply had been rather more hurried or more eager than he could
quite account for. “Your head is cool?” he said, touching it.
“Quite,” said I. “Tell me what Provis said, my dear Herbert.”
“It seems,” said Herbert, “—there’s a bandage off most charm-
ingly, and now comes the cool one,—makes you shrink at
first, my poor dear fellow, don’t it? but it will be comfortable
presently,—it seems that the woman was a young woman,
and a jealous woman, and a revengeful woman; revengeful,
Handel, to the last degree.”
“To what last degree?”
“Murder.—Does it strike too cold on that sensitive place?”

616
“I don’t feel it. How did she murder? Whom did she murder?”
“Why, the deed may not have merited quite so terrible
a name,” said Herbert, “but, she was tried for it, and Mr.
Jaggers defended her, and the reputation of that defence
first made his name known to Provis. It was another and a
stronger woman who was the victim, and there had been
a struggle—in a barn. Who began it, or how fair it was, or
how unfair, may be doubtful; but how it ended is certainly
not doubtful, for the victim was found throttled.”
“Was the woman brought in guilty?”
“No; she was acquitted.—My poor Handel, I hurt you!”
“It is impossible to be gentler, Herbert. Yes? What else?”
“This acquitted young woman and Provis had a little child;
a little child of whom Provis was exceedingly fond. On the
evening of the very night when the object of her jealousy was
strangled as I tell you, the young woman presented herself
before Provis for one moment, and swore that she would de-
stroy the child (which was in her possession), and he should
never see it again; then she vanished.—There’s the worst arm
comfortably in the sling once more, and now there remains
but the right hand, which is a far easier job. I can do it bet-
ter by this light than by a stronger, for my hand is steadiest
when I don’t see the poor blistered patches too distinctly.—
You don’t think your breathing is affected, my dear boy? You
seem to breathe quickly.”
“Perhaps I do, Herbert. Did the woman keep her oath?”

617
“There comes the darkest part of Provis’s life. She did.”
“That is, he says she did.”
“Why, of course, my dear boy,” returned Herbert, in a tone of
surprise, and again bending forward to get a nearer look at
me. “He says it all. I have no other information.”
“No, to be sure.”
“Now, whether,” pursued Herbert, “he had used the child’s
mother ill, or whether he had used the child’s mother well,
Provis doesn’t say; but she had shared some four or five years
of the wretched life he described to us at this fireside, and he
seems to have felt pity for her, and forbearance towards her.
Therefore, fearing he should be called upon to depose about
this destroyed child, and so be the cause of her death, he hid
himself (much as he grieved for the child), kept himself dark,
as he says, out of the way and out of the trial, and was only
vaguely talked of as a certain man called Abel, out of whom
the jealousy arose. After the acquittal she disappeared, and
thus he lost the child and the child’s mother.”
“I want to ask—”
“A moment, my dear boy, and I have done. That evil
genius, Compeyson, the worst of scoundrels among many
scoundrels, knowing of his keeping out of the way at that
time and of his reasons for doing so, of course afterwards
held the knowledge over his head as a means of keeping him
poorer and working him harder. It was clear last night that
this barbed the point of Provis’s animosity.”

618
“I want to know,” said I, “and particularly, Herbert, whether
he told you when this happened?”
“Particularly? Let me remember, then, what he said as to that.
His expression was, ‘a round score o’ year ago, and a’most
directly after I took up wi’ Compeyson.’ How old were you
when you came upon him in the little churchyard?”
“I think in my seventh year.”
“Ay. It had happened some three or four years then, he said,
and you brought into his mind the little girl so tragically lost,
who would have been about your age.”
“Herbert,” said I, after a short silence, in a hurried way, “can
you see me best by the light of the window, or the light of the
fire?”
“By the firelight,” answered Herbert, coming close again.
“Look at me.”
“I do look at you, my dear boy.”
“Touch me.”
“I do touch you, my dear boy.”
“You are not afraid that I am in any fever, or that my head is
much disordered by the accident of last night?”
“N-no, my dear boy,” said Herbert, after taking time to exam-
ine me. “You are rather excited, but you are quite yourself.”

619
“I know I am quite myself. And the man we have in hiding
down the river, is Estella’s Father.”

620
Chapter LI
What purpose I had in view when I was hot on tracing out
and proving Estella’s parentage, I cannot say. It will presently
be seen that the question was not before me in a distinct
shape until it was put before me by a wiser head than my
own.
But when Herbert and I had held our momentous conversa-
tion, I was seized with a feverish conviction that I ought to
hunt the matter down,—that I ought not to let it rest, but that
I ought to see Mr. Jaggers, and come at the bare truth. I really
do not know whether I felt that I did this for Estella’s sake, or
whether I was glad to transfer to the man in whose preser-
vation I was so much concerned some rays of the romantic
interest that had so long surrounded me. Perhaps the latter
possibility may be the nearer to the truth.
Any way, I could scarcely be withheld from going out to Ger-
rard Street that night. Herbert’s representations that, if I did,
I should probably be laid up and stricken useless, when our
fugitive’s safety would depend upon me, alone restrained my
impatience. On the understanding, again and again reiter-
ated, that, come what would, I was to go to Mr. Jaggers to-
morrow, I at length submitted to keep quiet, and to have my
hurts looked after, and to stay at home. Early next morning
we went out together, and at the corner of Giltspur Street by
Smithfield, I left Herbert to go his way into the City, and took
my way to Little Britain.

621
There were periodical occasions when Mr. Jaggers and
Wemmick went over the office accounts, and checked
off the vouchers, and put all things straight. On these
occasions, Wemmick took his books and papers into Mr.
Jaggers’s room, and one of the upstairs clerks came down
into the outer office. Finding such clerk on Wemmick’s
post that morning, I knew what was going on; but I was
not sorry to have Mr. Jaggers and Wemmick together, as
Wemmick would then hear for himself that I said nothing to
compromise him.
My appearance, with my arm bandaged and my coat loose
over my shoulders, favored my object. Although I had sent
Mr. Jaggers a brief account of the accident as soon as I had
arrived in town, yet I had to give him all the details now; and
the speciality of the occasion caused our talk to be less dry
and hard, and less strictly regulated by the rules of evidence,
than it had been before. While I described the disaster, Mr.
Jaggers stood, according to his wont, before the fire. Wem-
mick leaned back in his chair, staring at me, with his hands
in the pockets of his trousers, and his pen put horizontally
into the post. The two brutal casts, always inseparable in my
mind from the official proceedings, seemed to be congestively
considering whether they didn’t smell fire at the present mo-
ment.
My narrative finished, and their questions exhausted, I then
produced Miss Havisham’s authority to receive the nine hun-
dred pounds for Herbert. Mr. Jaggers’s eyes retired a little
deeper into his head when I handed him the tablets, but he

622
presently handed them over to Wemmick, with instructions
to draw the check for his signature. While that was in course
of being done, I looked on at Wemmick as he wrote, and Mr.
Jaggers, poising and swaying himself on his well-polished
boots, looked on at me. “I am sorry, Pip,” said he, as I put
the check in my pocket, when he had signed it, “that we do
nothing for you.”
“Miss Havisham was good enough to ask me,” I returned,
“whether she could do nothing for me, and I told her No.”
“Everybody should know his own business,” said Mr. Jag-
gers. And I saw Wemmick’s lips form the words “portable
property.”
“I should not have told her No, if I had been you,” said Mr Jag-
gers; “but every man ought to know his own business best.”
“Every man’s business,” said Wemmick, rather reproachfully
towards me, “is portable property.”
As I thought the time was now come for pursuing the theme
I had at heart, I said, turning on Mr. Jaggers:—
“I did ask something of Miss Havisham, however, sir. I asked
her to give me some information relative to her adopted
daughter, and she gave me all she possessed.”
“Did she?” said Mr. Jaggers, bending forward to look at his
boots and then straightening himself. “Hah! I don’t think I
should have done so, if I had been Miss Havisham. But she
ought to know her own business best.”

623
“I know more of the history of Miss Havisham’s adopted child
than Miss Havisham herself does, sir. I know her mother.”
Mr. Jaggers looked at me inquiringly, and repeated
“Mother?”
“I have seen her mother within these three days.”
“Yes?” said Mr. Jaggers.
“And so have you, sir. And you have seen her still more re-
cently.”
“Yes?” said Mr. Jaggers.
“Perhaps I know more of Estella’s history than even you do,”
said I. “I know her father too.”
A certain stop that Mr. Jaggers came to in his manner—he
was too self-possessed to change his manner, but he could
not help its being brought to an indefinably attentive stop—
assured me that he did not know who her father was. This I
had strongly suspected from Provis’s account (as Herbert had
repeated it) of his having kept himself dark; which I pieced
on to the fact that he himself was not Mr. Jaggers’s client
until some four years later, and when he could have no rea-
son for claiming his identity. But, I could not be sure of this
unconsciousness on Mr. Jaggers’s part before, though I was
quite sure of it now.
“So! You know the young lady’s father, Pip?” said Mr. Jag-
gers.

624
“Yes,” I replied, “and his name is Provis—from New South
Wales.”
Even Mr. Jaggers started when I said those words. It was the
slightest start that could escape a man, the most carefully
repressed and the sooner checked, but he did start, though
he made it a part of the action of taking out his pocket-
handkerchief. How Wemmick received the announcement I
am unable to say; for I was afraid to look at him just then,
lest Mr. Jaggers’s sharpness should detect that there had
been some communication unknown to him between us.
“And on what evidence, Pip,” asked Mr. Jaggers, very coolly,
as he paused with his handkerchief half way to his nose,
“does Provis make this claim?”
“He does not make it,” said I, “and has never made it, and has
no knowledge or belief that his daughter is in existence.”
For once, the powerful pocket-handkerchief failed. My reply
was so unexpected, that Mr. Jaggers put the handkerchief
back into his pocket without completing the usual perfor-
mance, folded his arms, and looked with stern attention at
me, though with an immovable face.
Then I told him all I knew, and how I knew it; with the one
reservation that I left him to infer that I knew from Miss Hav-
isham what I in fact knew from Wemmick. I was very careful
indeed as to that. Nor did I look towards Wemmick until I had
finished all I had to tell, and had been for some time silently
meeting Mr. Jaggers’s look. When I did at last turn my eyes

625
in Wemmick’s direction, I found that he had unposted his
pen, and was intent upon the table before him.
“Hah!” said Mr. Jaggers at last, as he moved towards the pa-
pers on the table. “What item was it you were at, Wemmick,
when Mr. Pip came in?”
But I could not submit to be thrown off in that way, and I
made a passionate, almost an indignant appeal, to him to be
more frank and manly with me. I reminded him of the false
hopes into which I had lapsed, the length of time they had
lasted, and the discovery I had made: and I hinted at the dan-
ger that weighed upon my spirits. I represented myself as
being surely worthy of some little confidence from him, in
return for the confidence I had just now imparted. I said that
I did not blame him, or suspect him, or mistrust him, but I
wanted assurance of the truth from him. And if he asked
me why I wanted it, and why I thought I had any right to
it, I would tell him, little as he cared for such poor dreams,
that I had loved Estella dearly and long, and that although
I had lost her, and must live a bereaved life, whatever con-
cerned her was still nearer and dearer to me than anything
else in the world. And seeing that Mr. Jaggers stood quite still
and silent, and apparently quite obdurate, under this appeal, I
turned to Wemmick, and said, “Wemmick, I know you to be a
man with a gentle heart. I have seen your pleasant home, and
your old father, and all the innocent, cheerful playful ways
with which you refresh your business life. And I entreat you
to say a word for me to Mr. Jaggers, and to represent to him
that, all circumstances considered, he ought to be more open

626
with me!”
I have never seen two men look more oddly at one another
than Mr. Jaggers and Wemmick did after this apostrophe.
At first, a misgiving crossed me that Wemmick would be in-
stantly dismissed from his employment; but it melted as I saw
Mr. Jaggers relax into something like a smile, and Wemmick
become bolder.
“What’s all this?” said Mr. Jaggers. “You with an old father,
and you with pleasant and playful ways?”
“Well!” returned Wemmick. “If I don’t bring ’em here, what
does it matter?”
“Pip,” said Mr. Jaggers, laying his hand upon my arm, and
smiling openly, “this man must be the most cunning impostor
in all London.”
“Not a bit of it,” returned Wemmick, growing bolder and
bolder. “I think you’re another.”
Again they exchanged their former odd looks, each appar-
ently still distrustful that the other was taking him in.
“You with a pleasant home?” said Mr. Jaggers.
“Since it don’t interfere with business,” returned Wemmick,
“let it be so. Now, I look at you, sir, I shouldn’t wonder if you
might be planning and contriving to have a pleasant home
of your own one of these days, when you’re tired of all this
work.”

627
Mr. Jaggers nodded his head retrospectively two or three
times, and actually drew a sigh. “Pip,” said he, “we won’t
talk about ‘poor dreams;’ you know more about such things
than I, having much fresher experience of that kind. But now
about this other matter. I’ll put a case to you. Mind! I admit
nothing.”
He waited for me to declare that I quite understood that he
expressly said that he admitted nothing.
“Now, Pip,” said Mr. Jaggers, “put this case. Put the case that
a woman, under such circumstances as you have mentioned,
held her child concealed, and was obliged to communicate
the fact to her legal adviser, on his representing to her that
he must know, with an eye to the latitude of his defence, how
the fact stood about that child. Put the case that, at the same
time he held a trust to find a child for an eccentric rich lady
to adopt and bring up.”
“I follow you, sir.”
“Put the case that he lived in an atmosphere of evil, and that
all he saw of children was their being generated in great
numbers for certain destruction. Put the case that he often
saw children solemnly tried at a criminal bar, where they
were held up to be seen; put the case that he habitually knew
of their being imprisoned, whipped, transported, neglected,
cast out, qualified in all ways for the hangman, and growing
up to be hanged. Put the case that pretty nigh all the children
he saw in his daily business life he had reason to look upon
as so much spawn, to develop into the fish that were to come

628
to his net,—to be prosecuted, defended, forsworn, made
orphans, bedevilled somehow.”
“I follow you, sir.”
“Put the case, Pip, that here was one pretty little child out
of the heap who could be saved; whom the father believed
dead, and dared make no stir about; as to whom, over the
mother, the legal adviser had this power: “I know what you
did, and how you did it. You came so and so, you did such and
such things to divert suspicion. I have tracked you through
it all, and I tell it you all. Part with the child, unless it should
be necessary to produce it to clear you, and then it shall be
produced. Give the child into my hands, and I will do my best
to bring you off. If you are saved, your child is saved too; if
you are lost, your child is still saved.” Put the case that this
was done, and that the woman was cleared.”
“I understand you perfectly.”
“But that I make no admissions?”
“That you make no admissions.” And Wemmick repeated,
“No admissions.”
“Put the case, Pip, that passion and the terror of death had a
little shaken the woman’s intellects, and that when she was
set at liberty, she was scared out of the ways of the world,
and went to him to be sheltered. Put the case that he took
her in, and that he kept down the old, wild, violent nature
whenever he saw an inkling of its breaking out, by asserting
his power over her in the old way. Do you comprehend the

629
imaginary case?”
“Quite.”
“Put the case that the child grew up, and was married for
money. That the mother was still living. That the father was
still living. That the mother and father, unknown to one an-
other, were dwelling within so many miles, furlongs, yards if
you like, of one another. That the secret was still a secret, ex-
cept that you had got wind of it. Put that last case to yourself
very carefully.”
“I do.”
“I ask Wemmick to put it to himself very carefully.”
And Wemmick said, “I do.”
“For whose sake would you reveal the secret? For the
father’s? I think he would not be much the better for the
mother. For the mother’s? I think if she had done such a
deed she would be safer where she was. For the daughter’s?
I think it would hardly serve her to establish her parentage
for the information of her husband, and to drag her back to
disgrace, after an escape of twenty years, pretty secure to
last for life. But add the case that you had loved her, Pip, and
had made her the subject of those ‘poor dreams’ which have,
at one time or another, been in the heads of more men than
you think likely, then I tell you that you had better—and
would much sooner when you had thought well of it—chop
off that bandaged left hand of yours with your bandaged
right hand, and then pass the chopper on to Wemmick there,

630
to cut that off too.”
I looked at Wemmick, whose face was very grave. He gravely
touched his lips with his forefinger. I did the same. Mr. Jag-
gers did the same. “Now, Wemmick,” said the latter then,
resuming his usual manner, “what item was it you were at
when Mr. Pip came in?”
Standing by for a little, while they were at work, I observed
that the odd looks they had cast at one another were repeated
several times: with this difference now, that each of them
seemed suspicious, not to say conscious, of having shown
himself in a weak and unprofessional light to the other. For
this reason, I suppose, they were now inflexible with one an-
other; Mr. Jaggers being highly dictatorial, and Wemmick
obstinately justifying himself whenever there was the small-
est point in abeyance for a moment. I had never seen them
on such ill terms; for generally they got on very well indeed
together.
But they were both happily relieved by the opportune ap-
pearance of Mike, the client with the fur cap and the habit
of wiping his nose on his sleeve, whom I had seen on the
very first day of my appearance within those walls. This in-
dividual, who, either in his own person or in that of some
member of his family, seemed to be always in trouble (which
in that place meant Newgate), called to announce that his el-
dest daughter was taken up on suspicion of shoplifting. As
he imparted this melancholy circumstance to Wemmick, Mr.
Jaggers standing magisterially before the fire and taking no

631
share in the proceedings, Mike’s eye happened to twinkle
with a tear.
“What are you about?” demanded Wemmick, with the ut-
most indignation. “What do you come snivelling here for?”
“I didn’t go to do it, Mr. Wemmick.”
“You did,” said Wemmick. “How dare you? You’re not in a fit
state to come here, if you can’t come here without spluttering
like a bad pen. What do you mean by it?”
“A man can’t help his feelings, Mr. Wemmick,” pleaded Mike.
“His what?” demanded Wemmick, quite savagely. “Say that
again!”
“Now look here my man,” said Mr. Jaggers, advancing a step,
and pointing to the door. “Get out of this office. I’ll have no
feelings here. Get out.”
“It serves you right,” said Wemmick, “Get out.”
So, the unfortunate Mike very humbly withdrew, and Mr.
Jaggers and Wemmick appeared to have re-established their
good understanding, and went to work again with an air of
refreshment upon them as if they had just had lunch.

632
Chapter LII
From Little Britain I went, with my check in my pocket, to
Miss Skiffins’s brother, the accountant; and Miss Skiffins’s
brother, the accountant, going straight to Clarriker’s and
bringing Clarriker to me, I had the great satisfaction of
concluding that arrangement. It was the only good thing I
had done, and the only completed thing I had done, since I
was first apprised of my great expectations.
Clarriker informing me on that occasion that the affairs of the
House were steadily progressing, that he would now be able
to establish a small branch-house in the East which was much
wanted for the extension of the business, and that Herbert in
his new partnership capacity would go out and take charge of
it, I found that I must have prepared for a separation from my
friend, even though my own affairs had been more settled.
And now, indeed, I felt as if my last anchor were loosening
its hold, and I should soon be driving with the winds and
waves.
But there was recompense in the joy with which Herbert
would come home of a night and tell me of these changes,
little imagining that he told me no news, and would sketch
airy pictures of himself conducting Clara Barley to the land
of the Arabian Nights, and of me going out to join them (with
a caravan of camels, I believe), and of our all going up the Nile
and seeing wonders. Without being sanguine as to my own
part in those bright plans, I felt that Herbert’s way was clear-

633
ing fast, and that old Bill Barley had but to stick to his pepper
and rum, and his daughter would soon be happily provided
for.
We had now got into the month of March. My left arm,
though it presented no bad symptoms, took, in the natural
course, so long to heal that I was still unable to get a coat on.
My right arm was tolerably restored; disfigured, but fairly
serviceable.
On a Monday morning, when Herbert and I were at breakfast,
I received the following letter from Wemmick by the post.
“Walworth. Burn this as soon as read. Early in the week, or
say Wednesday, you might do what you know of, if you felt
disposed to try it. Now burn.”
When I had shown this to Herbert and had put it in the fire—
but not before we had both got it by heart—we considered
what to do. For, of course my being disabled could now be
no longer kept out of view.
“I have thought it over again and again,” said Herbert, “and I
think I know a better course than taking a Thames waterman.
Take Startop. A good fellow, a skilled hand, fond of us, and
enthusiastic and honorable.”
I had thought of him more than once.
“But how much would you tell him, Herbert?”
“It is necessary to tell him very little. Let him suppose it a
mere freak, but a secret one, until the morning comes: then

634
let him know that there is urgent reason for your getting Pro-
vis aboard and away. You go with him?”
“No doubt.”
“Where?”
It had seemed to me, in the many anxious considerations I
had given the point, almost indifferent what port we made
for,—Hamburg, Rotterdam, Antwerp,—the place signified lit-
tle, so that he was out of England. Any foreign steamer that
fell in our way and would take us up would do. I had al-
ways proposed to myself to get him well down the river in
the boat; certainly well beyond Gravesend, which was a crit-
ical place for search or inquiry if suspicion were afoot. As
foreign steamers would leave London at about the time of
high-water, our plan would be to get down the river by a pre-
vious ebb-tide, and lie by in some quiet spot until we could
pull off to one. The time when one would be due where we
lay, wherever that might be, could be calculated pretty nearly,
if we made inquiries beforehand.
Herbert assented to all this, and we went out immediately
after breakfast to pursue our investigations. We found that a
steamer for Hamburg was likely to suit our purpose best, and
we directed our thoughts chiefly to that vessel. But we noted
down what other foreign steamers would leave London with
the same tide, and we satisfied ourselves that we knew the
build and color of each. We then separated for a few hours:
I, to get at once such passports as were necessary; Herbert,
to see Startop at his lodgings. We both did what we had to

635
do without any hindrance, and when we met again at one
o’clock reported it done. I, for my part, was prepared with
passports; Herbert had seen Startop, and he was more than
ready to join.
Those two should pull a pair of oars, we settled, and I would
steer; our charge would be sitter, and keep quiet; as speed
was not our object, we should make way enough. We ar-
ranged that Herbert should not come home to dinner before
going to Mill Pond Bank that evening; that he should not go
there at all to-morrow evening, Tuesday; that he should pre-
pare Provis to come down to some stairs hard by the house,
on Wednesday, when he saw us approach, and not sooner;
that all the arrangements with him should be concluded that
Monday night; and that he should be communicated with no
more in any way, until we took him on board.
These precautions well understood by both of us, I went
home.
On opening the outer door of our chambers with my key,
I found a letter in the box, directed to me; a very dirty let-
ter, though not ill-written. It had been delivered by hand (of
course, since I left home), and its contents were these:—
“If you are not afraid to come to the old marshes to-night
or to-morrow night at nine, and to come to the little sluice-
house by the limekiln, you had better come. If you want in-
formation regarding your uncle Provis, you had much better
come and tell no one, and lose no time. You must come alone.
Bring this with you.”

636
I had had load enough upon my mind before the receipt of
this strange letter. What to do now, I could not tell. And
the worst was, that I must decide quickly, or I should miss
the afternoon coach, which would take me down in time for
to-night. To-morrow night I could not think of going, for it
would be too close upon the time of the flight. And again, for
anything I knew, the proffered information might have some
important bearing on the flight itself.
If I had had ample time for consideration, I believe I should
still have gone. Having hardly any time for consideration,—
my watch showing me that the coach started within half an
hour,—I resolved to go. I should certainly not have gone, but
for the reference to my Uncle Provis. That, coming on Wem-
mick’s letter and the morning’s busy preparation, turned the
scale.
It is so difficult to become clearly possessed of the contents
of almost any letter, in a violent hurry, that I had to read this
mysterious epistle again twice, before its injunction to me to
be secret got mechanically into my mind. Yielding to it in
the same mechanical kind of way, I left a note in pencil for
Herbert, telling him that as I should be so soon going away,
I knew not for how long, I had decided to hurry down and
back, to ascertain for myself how Miss Havisham was faring.
I had then barely time to get my great-coat, lock up the cham-
bers, and make for the coach-office by the short by-ways. If I
had taken a hackney-chariot and gone by the streets, I should
have missed my aim; going as I did, I caught the coach just
as it came out of the yard. I was the only inside passenger,

637
jolting away knee-deep in straw, when I came to myself.
For I really had not been myself since the receipt of the letter;
it had so bewildered me, ensuing on the hurry of the morning.
The morning hurry and flutter had been great; for, long and
anxiously as I had waited for Wemmick, his hint had come
like a surprise at last. And now I began to wonder at myself
for being in the coach, and to doubt whether I had sufficient
reason for being there, and to consider whether I should get
out presently and go back, and to argue against ever heeding
an anonymous communication, and, in short, to pass through
all those phases of contradiction and indecision to which I
suppose very few hurried people are strangers. Still, the ref-
erence to Provis by name mastered everything. I reasoned as
I had reasoned already without knowing it,—if that be rea-
soning,—in case any harm should befall him through my not
going, how could I ever forgive myself!
It was dark before we got down, and the journey seemed long
and dreary to me, who could see little of it inside, and who
could not go outside in my disabled state. Avoiding the Blue
Boar, I put up at an inn of minor reputation down the town,
and ordered some dinner. While it was preparing, I went to
Satis House and inquired for Miss Havisham; she was still
very ill, though considered something better.
My inn had once been a part of an ancient ecclesiastical
house, and I dined in a little octagonal common-room, like
a font. As I was not able to cut my dinner, the old landlord
with a shining bald head did it for me. This bringing us

638
into conversation, he was so good as to entertain me with
my own story,—of course with the popular feature that
Pumblechook was my earliest benefactor and the founder of
my fortunes.
“Do you know the young man?” said I.
“Know him!” repeated the landlord. “Ever since he was—no
height at all.”
“Does he ever come back to this neighborhood?”
“Ay, he comes back,” said the landlord, “to his great friends,
now and again, and gives the cold shoulder to the man that
made him.”
“What man is that?”
“Him that I speak of,” said the landlord. “Mr. Pumblechook.”
“Is he ungrateful to no one else?”
“No doubt he would be, if he could,” returned the landlord,
“but he can’t. And why? Because Pumblechook done every-
thing for him.”
“Does Pumblechook say so?”
“Say so!” replied the landlord. “He han’t no call to say so.”
“But does he say so?”
“It would turn a man’s blood to white wine winegar to hear
him tell of it, sir,” said the landlord.

639
I thought, “Yet Joe, dear Joe, you never tell of it. Long-
suffering and loving Joe, you never complain. Nor you,
sweet-tempered Biddy!”
“Your appetite’s been touched like by your accident,” said the
landlord, glancing at the bandaged arm under my coat. “Try
a tenderer bit.”
“No, thank you,” I replied, turning from the table to brood
over the fire. “I can eat no more. Please take it away.”
I had never been struck at so keenly, for my thanklessness to
Joe, as through the brazen impostor Pumblechook. The falser
he, the truer Joe; the meaner he, the nobler Joe.
My heart was deeply and most deservedly humbled as I
mused over the fire for an hour or more. The striking of the
clock aroused me, but not from my dejection or remorse,
and I got up and had my coat fastened round my neck, and
went out. I had previously sought in my pockets for the
letter, that I might refer to it again; but I could not find it,
and was uneasy to think that it must have been dropped in
the straw of the coach. I knew very well, however, that the
appointed place was the little sluice-house by the limekiln
on the marshes, and the hour nine. Towards the marshes I
now went straight, having no time to spare.

640
Chapter LIII
It was a dark night, though the full moon rose as I left the
enclosed lands, and passed out upon the marshes. Beyond
their dark line there was a ribbon of clear sky, hardly broad
enough to hold the red large moon. In a few minutes she had
ascended out of that clear field, in among the piled mountains
of cloud.
There was a melancholy wind, and the marshes were very
dismal. A stranger would have found them insupportable,
and even to me they were so oppressive that I hesitated, half
inclined to go back. But I knew them well, and could have
found my way on a far darker night, and had no excuse for
returning, being there. So, having come there against my
inclination, I went on against it.
The direction that I took was not that in which my old home
lay, nor that in which we had pursued the convicts. My back
was turned towards the distant Hulks as I walked on, and,
though I could see the old lights away on the spits of sand, I
saw them over my shoulder. I knew the limekiln as well as I
knew the old Battery, but they were miles apart; so that, if a
light had been burning at each point that night, there would
have been a long strip of the blank horizon between the two
bright specks.
At first, I had to shut some gates after me, and now and then
to stand still while the cattle that were lying in the banked-
up pathway arose and blundered down among the grass and

641
reeds. But after a little while I seemed to have the whole flats
to myself.
It was another half-hour before I drew near to the kiln. The
lime was burning with a sluggish stifling smell, but the fires
were made up and left, and no workmen were visible. Hard
by was a small stone-quarry. It lay directly in my way, and
had been worked that day, as I saw by the tools and barrows
that were lying about.
Coming up again to the marsh level out of this excavation,—
for the rude path lay through it,—I saw a light in the old
sluice-house. I quickened my pace, and knocked at the door
with my hand. Waiting for some reply, I looked about me,
noticing how the sluice was abandoned and broken, and how
the house—of wood with a tiled roof—would not be proof
against the weather much longer, if it were so even now, and
how the mud and ooze were coated with lime, and how the
choking vapor of the kiln crept in a ghostly way towards me.
Still there was no answer, and I knocked again. No answer
still, and I tried the latch.
It rose under my hand, and the door yielded. Looking in, I
saw a lighted candle on a table, a bench, and a mattress on
a truckle bedstead. As there was a loft above, I called, “Is
there any one here?” but no voice answered. Then I looked
at my watch, and, finding that it was past nine, called again,
“Is there any one here?” There being still no answer, I went
out at the door, irresolute what to do.
It was beginning to rain fast. Seeing nothing save what I

642
had seen already, I turned back into the house, and stood just
within the shelter of the doorway, looking out into the night.
While I was considering that some one must have been there
lately and must soon be coming back, or the candle would
not be burning, it came into my head to look if the wick were
long. I turned round to do so, and had taken up the can-
dle in my hand, when it was extinguished by some violent
shock; and the next thing I comprehended was, that I had
been caught in a strong running noose, thrown over my head
from behind.
“Now,” said a suppressed voice with an oath, “I’ve got you!”
“What is this?” I cried, struggling. “Who is it? Help, help,
help!”
Not only were my arms pulled close to my sides, but the pres-
sure on my bad arm caused me exquisite pain. Sometimes, a
strong man’s hand, sometimes a strong man’s breast, was set
against my mouth to deaden my cries, and with a hot breath
always close to me, I struggled ineffectually in the dark, while
I was fastened tight to the wall. “And now,” said the sup-
pressed voice with another oath, “call out again, and I’ll make
short work of you!”
Faint and sick with the pain of my injured arm, bewildered by
the surprise, and yet conscious how easily this threat could
be put in execution, I desisted, and tried to ease my arm were
it ever so little. But, it was bound too tight for that. I felt as
if, having been burnt before, it were now being boiled.

643
The sudden exclusion of the night, and the substitution of
black darkness in its place, warned me that the man had
closed a shutter. After groping about for a little, he found
the flint and steel he wanted, and began to strike a light. I
strained my sight upon the sparks that fell among the tinder,
and upon which he breathed and breathed, match in hand,
but I could only see his lips, and the blue point of the match;
even those but fitfully. The tinder was damp,—no wonder
there,—and one after another the sparks died out.
The man was in no hurry, and struck again with the flint and
steel. As the sparks fell thick and bright about him, I could
see his hands, and touches of his face, and could make out
that he was seated and bending over the table; but nothing
more. Presently I saw his blue lips again, breathing on the
tinder, and then a flare of light flashed up, and showed me
Orlick.
Whom I had looked for, I don’t know. I had not looked for
him. Seeing him, I felt that I was in a dangerous strait indeed,
and I kept my eyes upon him.
He lighted the candle from the flaring match with great de-
liberation, and dropped the match, and trod it out. Then he
put the candle away from him on the table, so that he could
see me, and sat with his arms folded on the table and looked
at me. I made out that I was fastened to a stout perpendic-
ular ladder a few inches from the wall,—a fixture there,—the
means of ascent to the loft above.
“Now,” said he, when we had surveyed one another for some

644
time, “I’ve got you.”
“Unbind me. Let me go!”
“Ah!” he returned, “I ’ll let you go. I’ll let you go to the moon,
I’ll let you go to the stars. All in good time.”
“Why have you lured me here?”
“Don’t you know?” said he, with a deadly look.
“Why have you set upon me in the dark?”
“Because I mean to do it all myself. One keeps a secret better
than two. O you enemy, you enemy!”
His enjoyment of the spectacle I furnished, as he sat with his
arms folded on the table, shaking his head at me and hugging
himself, had a malignity in it that made me tremble. As I
watched him in silence, he put his hand into the corner at his
side, and took up a gun with a brass-bound stock.
“Do you know this?” said he, making as if he would take aim
at me. “Do you know where you saw it afore? Speak, wolf!”
“Yes,” I answered.
“You cost me that place. You did. Speak!”
“What else could I do?”
“You did that, and that would be enough, without more. How
dared you to come betwixt me and a young woman I liked?”
“When did I?”

645
“When didn’t you? It was you as always give Old Orlick a
bad name to her.”
“You gave it to yourself; you gained it for yourself. I could
have done you no harm, if you had done yourself none.”
“You’re a liar. And you’ll take any pains, and spend any
money, to drive me out of this country, will you?” said he,
repeating my words to Biddy in the last interview I had with
her. “Now, I’ll tell you a piece of information. It was never
so well worth your while to get me out of this country as it
is to-night. Ah! If it was all your money twenty times told,
to the last brass farden!” As he shook his heavy hand at me,
with his mouth snarling like a tiger’s, I felt that it was true.
“What are you going to do to me?”
“I’m a going,” said he, bringing his fist down upon the table
with a heavy blow, and rising as the blow fell to give it greater
force,—“I’m a going to have your life!”
He leaned forward staring at me, slowly unclenched his hand
and drew it across his mouth as if his mouth watered for me,
and sat down again.
“You was always in Old Orlick’s way since ever you was a
child. You goes out of his way this present night. He’ll have
no more on you. You’re dead.”
I felt that I had come to the brink of my grave. For a moment
I looked wildly round my trap for any chance of escape; but
there was none.

646
“More than that,” said he, folding his arms on the table again,
“I won’t have a rag of you, I won’t have a bone of you, left on
earth. I’ll put your body in the kiln,—I’d carry two such to it,
on my Shoulders,—and, let people suppose what they may of
you, they shall never know nothing.”
My mind, with inconceivable rapidity followed out all the
consequences of such a death. Estella’s father would believe
I had deserted him, would be taken, would die accusing me;
even Herbert would doubt me, when he compared the let-
ter I had left for him with the fact that I had called at Miss
Havisham’s gate for only a moment; Joe and Biddy would
never know how sorry I had been that night, none would
ever know what I had suffered, how true I had meant to be,
what an agony I had passed through. The death close be-
fore me was terrible, but far more terrible than death was
the dread of being misremembered after death. And so quick
were my thoughts, that I saw myself despised by unborn gen-
erations,—Estella’s children, and their children,—while the
wretch’s words were yet on his lips.
“Now, wolf,” said he, “afore I kill you like any other beast,—
which is wot I mean to do and wot I have tied you up for,—
I’ll have a good look at you and a good goad at you. O you
enemy!”
It had passed through my thoughts to cry out for help again;
though few could know better than I, the solitary nature of
the spot, and the hopelessness of aid. But as he sat gloating
over me, I was supported by a scornful detestation of him that

647
sealed my lips. Above all things, I resolved that I would not
entreat him, and that I would die making some last poor resis-
tance to him. Softened as my thoughts of all the rest of men
were in that dire extremity; humbly beseeching pardon, as I
did, of Heaven; melted at heart, as I was, by the thought that
I had taken no farewell, and never now could take farewell of
those who were dear to me, or could explain myself to them,
or ask for their compassion on my miserable errors,—still, if
I could have killed him, even in dying, I would have done it.
He had been drinking, and his eyes were red and bloodshot.
Around his neck was slung a tin bottle, as I had often seen his
meat and drink slung about him in other days. He brought
the bottle to his lips, and took a fiery drink from it; and I smelt
the strong spirits that I saw flash into his face.
“Wolf!” said he, folding his arms again, “Old Orlick’s a going
to tell you somethink. It was you as did for your shrew sister.”
Again my mind, with its former inconceivable rapidity, had
exhausted the whole subject of the attack upon my sister, her
illness, and her death, before his slow and hesitating speech
had formed these words.
“It was you, villain,” said I.
“I tell you it was your doing,—I tell you it was done through
you,” he retorted, catching up the gun, and making a blow
with the stock at the vacant air between us. “I come upon
her from behind, as I come upon you to-night. I giv’ it her!
I left her for dead, and if there had been a limekiln as nigh

648
her as there is now nigh you, she shouldn’t have come to life
again. But it warn’t Old Orlick as did it; it was you. You was
favored, and he was bullied and beat. Old Orlick bullied and
beat, eh? Now you pays for it. You done it; now you pays for
it.”
He drank again, and became more ferocious. I saw by his
tilting of the bottle that there was no great quantity left in it.
I distinctly understood that he was working himself up with
its contents to make an end of me. I knew that every drop it
held was a drop of my life. I knew that when I was changed
into a part of the vapor that had crept towards me but a little
while before, like my own warning ghost, he would do as he
had done in my sister’s case,—make all haste to the town, and
be seen slouching about there drinking at the alehouses. My
rapid mind pursued him to the town, made a picture of the
street with him in it, and contrasted its lights and life with
the lonely marsh and the white vapor creeping over it, into
which I should have dissolved.
It was not only that I could have summed up years and years
and years while he said a dozen words, but that what he did
say presented pictures to me, and not mere words. In the
excited and exalted state of my brain, I could not think of a
place without seeing it, or of persons without seeing them.
It is impossible to overstate the vividness of these images,
and yet I was so intent, all the time, upon him himself,—who
would not be intent on the tiger crouching to spring!—that I
knew of the slightest action of his fingers.

649
When he had drunk this second time, he rose from the bench
on which he sat, and pushed the table aside. Then, he took
up the candle, and, shading it with his murderous hand so as
to throw its light on me, stood before me, looking at me and
enjoying the sight.
“Wolf, I’ll tell you something more. It was Old Orlick as you
tumbled over on your stairs that night.”
I saw the staircase with its extinguished lamps. I saw the
shadows of the heavy stair-rails, thrown by the watchman’s
lantern on the wall. I saw the rooms that I was never to see
again; here, a door half open; there, a door closed; all the
articles of furniture around.
“And why was Old Orlick there? I’ll tell you something more,
wolf. You and her have pretty well hunted me out of this
country, so far as getting a easy living in it goes, and I’ve took
up with new companions, and new masters. Some of ‘em
writes my letters when I wants ’em wrote,—do you mind?—
writes my letters, wolf! They writes fifty hands; they’re not
like sneaking you, as writes but one. I’ve had a firm mind
and a firm will to have your life, since you was down here at
your sister’s burying. I han’t seen a way to get you safe, and
I’ve looked arter you to know your ins and outs. For, says
Old Orlick to himself, ’Somehow or another I’ll have him!’
What! When I looks for you, I finds your uncle Provis, eh?”
Mill Pond Bank, and Chinks’s Basin, and the Old Green Cop-
per Rope-walk, all so clear and plain! Provis in his rooms, the
signal whose use was over, pretty Clara, the good motherly

650
woman, old Bill Barley on his back, all drifting by, as on the
swift stream of my life fast running out to sea!
“You with a uncle too! Why, I know’d you at Gargery’s when
you was so small a wolf that I could have took your weazen
betwixt this finger and thumb and chucked you away dead
(as I’d thoughts o’ doing, odd times, when I see you loitering
amongst the pollards on a Sunday), and you hadn’t found no
uncles then. No, not you! But when Old Orlick come for to
hear that your uncle Provis had most like wore the leg-iron
wot Old Orlick had picked up, filed asunder, on these meshes
ever so many year ago, and wot he kep by him till he dropped
your sister with it, like a bullock, as he means to drop you—
hey?—when he come for to hear that—hey?”
In his savage taunting, he flared the candle so close at me that
I turned my face aside to save it from the flame.
“Ah!” he cried, laughing, after doing it again, “the burnt child
dreads the fire! Old Orlick knowed you was burnt, Old Orlick
knowed you was smuggling your uncle Provis away, Old Or-
lick’s a match for you and know’d you’d come to-night! Now
I’ll tell you something more, wolf, and this ends it. There’s
them that’s as good a match for your uncle Provis as Old Or-
lick has been for you. Let him ’ware them, when he’s lost his
nevvy! Let him ’ware them, when no man can’t find a rag of
his dear relation’s clothes, nor yet a bone of his body. There’s
them that can’t and that won’t have Magwitch,—yes, I know
the name!—alive in the same land with them, and that’s had
such sure information of him when he was alive in another

651
land, as that he couldn’t and shouldn’t leave it unbeknown
and put them in danger. P’raps it’s them that writes fifty
hands, and that’s not like sneaking you as writes but one.
’Ware Compeyson, Magwitch, and the gallows!”
He flared the candle at me again, smoking my face and hair,
and for an instant blinding me, and turned his powerful back
as he replaced the light on the table. I had thought a prayer,
and had been with Joe and Biddy and Herbert, before he
turned towards me again.
There was a clear space of a few feet between the table and the
opposite wall. Within this space, he now slouched backwards
and forwards. His great strength seemed to sit stronger upon
him than ever before, as he did this with his hands hanging
loose and heavy at his sides, and with his eyes scowling at
me. I had no grain of hope left. Wild as my inward hurry
was, and wonderful the force of the pictures that rushed by
me instead of thoughts, I could yet clearly understand that,
unless he had resolved that I was within a few moments of
surely perishing out of all human knowledge, he would never
have told me what he had told.
Of a sudden, he stopped, took the cork out of his bottle, and
tossed it away. Light as it was, I heard it fall like a plummet.
He swallowed slowly, tilting up the bottle by little and little,
and now he looked at me no more. The last few drops of
liquor he poured into the palm of his hand, and licked up.
Then, with a sudden hurry of violence and swearing horribly,
he threw the bottle from him, and stooped; and I saw in his

652
hand a stone-hammer with a long heavy handle.
The resolution I had made did not desert me, for, without
uttering one vain word of appeal to him, I shouted out with
all my might, and struggled with all my might. It was only
my head and my legs that I could move, but to that extent
I struggled with all the force, until then unknown, that was
within me. In the same instant I heard responsive shouts, saw
figures and a gleam of light dash in at the door, heard voices
and tumult, and saw Orlick emerge from a struggle of men,
as if it were tumbling water, clear the table at a leap, and fly
out into the night.
After a blank, I found that I was lying unbound, on the floor,
in the same place, with my head on some one’s knee. My
eyes were fixed on the ladder against the wall, when I came
to myself,—had opened on it before my mind saw it,—and
thus as I recovered consciousness, I knew that I was in the
place where I had lost it.
Too indifferent at first, even to look round and ascertain who
supported me, I was lying looking at the ladder, when there
came between me and it a face. The face of Trabb’s boy!
“I think he’s all right!” said Trabb’s boy, in a sober voice; “but
ain’t he just pale though!”
At these words, the face of him who supported me looked
over into mine, and I saw my supporter to be—
“Herbert! Great Heaven!”

653
“Softly,” said Herbert. “Gently, Handel. Don’t be too eager.”
“And our old comrade, Startop!” I cried, as he too bent over
me.
“Remember what he is going to assist us in,” said Herbert,
“and be calm.”
The allusion made me spring up; though I dropped again from
the pain in my arm. “The time has not gone by, Herbert, has
it? What night is to-night? How long have I been here?” For,
I had a strange and strong misgiving that I had been lying
there a long time—a day and a night,—two days and nights,—
more.
“The time has not gone by. It is still Monday night.”
“Thank God!”
“And you have all to-morrow, Tuesday, to rest in,” said Her-
bert. “But you can’t help groaning, my dear Handel. What
hurt have you got? Can you stand?”
“Yes, yes,” said I, “I can walk. I have no hurt but in this throb-
bing arm.”
They laid it bare, and did what they could. It was violently
swollen and inflamed, and I could scarcely endure to have
it touched. But, they tore up their handkerchiefs to make
fresh bandages, and carefully replaced it in the sling, until we
could get to the town and obtain some cooling lotion to put
upon it. In a little while we had shut the door of the dark and
empty sluice-house, and were passing through the quarry on

654
our way back. Trabb’s boy—Trabb’s overgrown young man
now—went before us with a lantern, which was the light I
had seen come in at the door. But, the moon was a good two
hours higher than when I had last seen the sky, and the night,
though rainy, was much lighter. The white vapor of the kiln
was passing from us as we went by, and as I had thought a
prayer before, I thought a thanksgiving now.
Entreating Herbert to tell me how he had come to my res-
cue,—which at first he had flatly refused to do, but had in-
sisted on my remaining quiet,—I learnt that I had in my hurry
dropped the letter, open, in our chambers, where he, coming
home to bring with him Startop whom he had met in the
street on his way to me, found it, very soon after I was gone.
Its tone made him uneasy, and the more so because of the in-
consistency between it and the hasty letter I had left for him.
His uneasiness increasing instead of subsiding, after a quar-
ter of an hour’s consideration, he set off for the coach-office
with Startop, who volunteered his company, to make inquiry
when the next coach went down. Finding that the afternoon
coach was gone, and finding that his uneasiness grew into
positive alarm, as obstacles came in his way, he resolved to
follow in a post-chaise. So he and Startop arrived at the Blue
Boar, fully expecting there to find me, or tidings of me; but,
finding neither, went on to Miss Havisham’s, where they lost
me. Hereupon they went back to the hotel (doubtless at about
the time when I was hearing the popular local version of my
own story) to refresh themselves and to get some one to guide
them out upon the marshes. Among the loungers under the

655
Boar’s archway happened to be Trabb’s Boy,—true to his an-
cient habit of happening to be everywhere where he had no
business,—and Trabb’s boy had seen me passing from Miss
Havisham’s in the direction of my dining-place. Thus Trabb’s
boy became their guide, and with him they went out to the
sluice-house, though by the town way to the marshes, which
I had avoided. Now, as they went along, Herbert reflected,
that I might, after all, have been brought there on some gen-
uine and serviceable errand tending to Provis’s safety, and,
bethinking himself that in that case interruption must be mis-
chievous, left his guide and Startop on the edge of the quarry,
and went on by himself, and stole round the house two or
three times, endeavouring to ascertain whether all was right
within. As he could hear nothing but indistinct sounds of
one deep rough voice (this was while my mind was so busy),
he even at last began to doubt whether I was there, when
suddenly I cried out loudly, and he answered the cries, and
rushed in, closely followed by the other two.
When I told Herbert what had passed within the house, he
was for our immediately going before a magistrate in the
town, late at night as it was, and getting out a warrant. But, I
had already considered that such a course, by detaining us
there, or binding us to come back, might be fatal to Pro-
vis. There was no gainsaying this difficulty, and we relin-
quished all thoughts of pursuing Orlick at that time. For the
present, under the circumstances, we deemed it prudent to
make rather light of the matter to Trabb’s boy; who, I am
convinced, would have been much affected by disappoint-

656
ment, if he had known that his intervention saved me from
the limekiln. Not that Trabb’s boy was of a malignant nature,
but that he had too much spare vivacity, and that it was in
his constitution to want variety and excitement at anybody’s
expense. When we parted, I presented him with two guineas
(which seemed to meet his views), and told him that I was
sorry ever to have had an ill opinion of him (which made no
impression on him at all).
Wednesday being so close upon us, we determined to go back
to London that night, three in the post-chaise; the rather, as
we should then be clear away before the night’s adventure
began to be talked of. Herbert got a large bottle of stuff for
my arm; and by dint of having this stuff dropped over it all the
night through, I was just able to bear its pain on the journey.
It was daylight when we reached the Temple, and I went at
once to bed, and lay in bed all day.
My terror, as I lay there, of falling ill, and being unfitted for
to-morrow, was so besetting, that I wonder it did not disable
me of itself. It would have done so, pretty surely, in conjunc-
tion with the mental wear and tear I had suffered, but for the
unnatural strain upon me that to-morrow was. So anxiously
looked forward to, charged with such consequences, its re-
sults so impenetrably hidden, though so near.
No precaution could have been more obvious than our
refraining from communication with him that day; yet this
again increased my restlessness. I started at every footstep
and every sound, believing that he was discovered and taken,

657
and this was the messenger to tell me so. I persuaded myself
that I knew he was taken; that there was something more
upon my mind than a fear or a presentiment; that the fact
had occurred, and I had a mysterious knowledge of it. As the
days wore on, and no ill news came, as the day closed in and
darkness fell, my overshadowing dread of being disabled by
illness before to-morrow morning altogether mastered me.
My burning arm throbbed, and my burning head throbbed,
and I fancied I was beginning to wander. I counted up to
high numbers, to make sure of myself, and repeated passages
that I knew in prose and verse. It happened sometimes that
in the mere escape of a fatigued mind, I dozed for some
moments or forgot; then I would say to myself with a start,
“Now it has come, and I am turning delirious!”
They kept me very quiet all day, and kept my arm constantly
dressed, and gave me cooling drinks. Whenever I fell asleep,
I awoke with the notion I had had in the sluice-house, that a
long time had elapsed and the opportunity to save him was
gone. About midnight I got out of bed and went to Her-
bert, with the conviction that I had been asleep for four-and-
twenty hours, and that Wednesday was past. It was the last
self-exhausting effort of my fretfulness, for after that I slept
soundly.
Wednesday morning was dawning when I looked out of win-
dow. The winking lights upon the bridges were already pale,
the coming sun was like a marsh of fire on the horizon. The
river, still dark and mysterious, was spanned by bridges that
were turning coldly gray, with here and there at top a warm

658
touch from the burning in the sky. As I looked along the clus-
tered roofs, with church-towers and spires shooting into the
unusually clear air, the sun rose up, and a veil seemed to be
drawn from the river, and millions of sparkles burst out upon
its waters. From me too, a veil seemed to be drawn, and I felt
strong and well.
Herbert lay asleep in his bed, and our old fellow-student lay
asleep on the sofa. I could not dress myself without help; but I
made up the fire, which was still burning, and got some coffee
ready for them. In good time they too started up strong and
well, and we admitted the sharp morning air at the windows,
and looked at the tide that was still flowing towards us.
“When it turns at nine o’clock,” said Herbert, cheerfully,
“look out for us, and stand ready, you over there at Mill Pond
Bank!”

659
Chapter LIV
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 win-
ter 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 Provis’s safety. I only wondered for the pass-
ing 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 indeci-
sion, which there were none to see but the two or three am-
phibious creatures belonging to our Temple stairs, we went
on board and cast off; Herbert in the bow, I 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 water-side inhabitants are very few, and

660
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
abroad, 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 sympa-
thize 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 rowed with a steady stroke that was to last
all day.
At that time, the steam-traffic on the Thames was far be-
low its present extent, and watermen’s boats were far more
numerous. Of barges, sailing colliers, and coasting-traders,
there were perhaps, as many as now; but of steam-ships,
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

661
than it is in these; and we went ahead among many skiffs and
wherries briskly.
Old London Bridge was soon passed, and old Billingsgate
Market with its oyster-boats and Dutchmen, and the White
Tower and Traitor’s Gate, and we were in among the tiers
of shipping. Here were the Leith, Aberdeen, and Glasgow
steamers, loading and unloading goods, and looking im-
mensely high out of the water as we passed alongside; here,
were colliers by the score and score, with the coal-whippers
plunging off stages on deck, as counterweights to measures
of coal swinging up, which were then rattled over the
side into barges; here, at her moorings was to-morrow’s
steamer for Rotterdam, of which we took good notice; and
here to-morrow’s for Hamburg, under whose bowsprit we
crossed. And now I, sitting in the stern, could see, with a
faster beating heart, Mill Pond Bank and Mill Pond 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, and a black canvas bag; and he looked as like a
river-pilot as my heart could have wished.

662
“Dear boy!” he said, putting his arm on my shoulder, as
he took his seat. “Faithful dear boy, well done. Thankye,
thankye!”
Again among the tiers of shipping, in and out, avoiding
rusty chain-cables frayed hempen hawsers and bobbing
buoys, sinking for the moment floating broken baskets,
scattering floating chips of wood and shaving, cleaving
floating scum of coal, in and out, under the figure-head 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 ship-builders’
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 lightermen, in and
out,—out at last upon the clearer river, where the ships’ boys
might take their fenders in, no longer fishing in troubled
waters with them over the side, and where the festooned
sails might fly out to the wind.
At the stairs where we had taken him abroad, 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 pur-
pose evident. But we held our own without any appearance
of molestation.

663
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 half way. When it came upon him, he
confronted it, but it must come before he troubled himself.
“If you knowed, dear boy,” he said to me, “what it is to sit here
alonger my dear boy and have my smoke, arter having 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, t’other side the
world, I was always a looking to this side; and it come flat
to be there, for all I was a growing rich. Everybody knowed

664
Magwitch, and Magwitch could come, and Magwitch could
go, and nobody’s head would be troubled about him. They
ain’t so easy concerning me here, dear boy,—wouldn’t be,
leastwise, 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 gunwale, and
said, smiling with that softened air upon him which was not
new to me:—
“Ay, I s’pose I think so, dear boy. We’d be puzzled to be more
quiet and easy-going than we are at present. But—it’s a flow-
ing so soft and pleasant through the water, p’raps, as makes
me think it—I was a thinking 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 catches 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 despon-
dent,” said I.
“Not a bit on it, dear boy! It comes of flowing on so quiet,
and of that there rippling at the boat’s head making a sort of
a Sunday tune. Maybe I’m a growing a trifle old besides.”

665
He put his pipe back in his mouth with an undisturbed ex-
pression 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 un-
der the bows 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 mudbanks.
Our oarsmen were so fresh, by dint of having occasionally
let her drive with the tide for a minute or two, that a quarter

666
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 every-
thing 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
tidemarks 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 Startop persevered,
and rowed and rowed and rowed 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, fast 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 a melancholy 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

667
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 galley-fire 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 when-
ever 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 af-
terwards 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 descried a light and a roof, and presently af-
terwards ran alongside a little causeway made of stones that
had been picked up hard by. Leaving the rest in the boat, I
stepped ashore, and found the light to be in a 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

668
various liquors to drink. Also, there were two double-bedded
rooms,—“such as they were,” the landlord said. No other com-
pany was in the house than the landlord, his wife, and a griz-
zled male creature, the “Jack” of the little causeway, who was
as slimy and smeary as if he had been 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 appor-
tioned the bedrooms: Herbert and Startop were to occupy
one; I and our charge the other. We found the air as care-
fully excluded from both, as if air were fatal to life; and there
were more dirty clothes and bandboxes under the beds than
I should have thought the family possessed. But we consid-
ered 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
washed ashore—asked me if we had seen a four-oared galley
going up with the 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 ha’ thought better on’t for some reason or an-
other,” said the Jack, “and gone down.”

669
“A four-oared 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
ha’ been glad to pison the beer myself,” said the Jack, “or put
some rattling 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
they was, what they wasn’t.”
“I knows what I thinks,” observed the Jack.
“You thinks Custum ’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 confi-
dence in his views, the Jack took one of his bloated shoes off,
looked into it, knocked 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.

670
“Why, what do you make out that they done with their but-
tons then, Jack?” asked the landlord, vacillating weakly.
“Done with their buttons?” returned the Jack. “Chucked ’em
overboard. Swallered ’em. Sowed ’em, to come up small
salad. Done with their buttons!”
“Don’t be cheeky, Jack,” remonstrated the landlord, in a
melancholy and pathetic way.
“A Custum ’Us officer knows what to do with his Buttons,”
said the Jack, repeating the obnoxious word with the great-
est contempt, “when they comes betwixt him and his own
light. A four and two sitters don’t go hanging and hover-
ing, up with one tide and down with another, and both with
and against another, without there being Custum ’Us 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.
This 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-oared galley hovering about in so un-
usual a way as to attract this notice was an ugly circumstance
that I could not get rid of. When I had induced Provis to go up
to bed, I went outside with my two companions (Startop by
this time knew the state of the case), and held another coun-
cil. 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

671
question we discussed. On the whole we deemed it the bet-
ter course to lie where we were, until within an hour or so of
the steamer’s time, and then to get out in her 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 bang-
ing about, with noises that startled me. Rising softly, for my
charge lay fast asleep, I looked out of the window. It com-
manded 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 un-
der 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 Nore.
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 Startop 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.
Again our charge was the least anxious of the party. It was

672
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 reconnoitre; 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 footpints 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 rowed 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.

673
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 Her-
bert and Startop. We had all shaken hands cordially, and nei-
ther 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’s smoke, by reason of the bend and wind of the
river; but now she was visible, coming head on. I called to
Herbert and Startop to keep before the tide, that she might
see us lying by for her, and I adjured Provis 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 skilfully handled, had crossed us, let us come up
with her, and fallen alongside. 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 Provis 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.
Startop 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 peddles grew louder and louder. I felt as if her

674
shadow were absolutely upon us, when the galley hailed us.
I answered.
“You have a returned Transport there,” said the man who held
the lines. “That’s the man, wrapped in the cloak. His name
is Abel Magwitch, otherwise Provis. 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 athwart
us, and were holding on to our gunwale, 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 or-
der 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 cap-
tor, and pull the cloak from the neck of the shrinking sitter in
the galley. Still in the same moment, I saw that the face dis-
closed, 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 thou-

675
sand mill-weirs and a thousand flashes of light; that instant
past, I was taken on board the galley. Herbert was there, and
Startop was there; but our boat was gone, and the two con-
victs were gone.
What with the cries aboard the steamer, and the furious blow-
ing 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 silently and eagerly at
the water astern. Presently a dark object was seen in it, bear-
ing 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 an-
kles.
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 hap-
pened, 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 hope-
less now.
At length we gave it up, and pulled under the shore towards

676
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 breath-
ing 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 Compeyson,
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 had 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 strug-
gle 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 pris-
oner’s wet clothes by purchasing any spare garments I could
get at the public-house, he gave it readily: merely observ-
ing that he must take charge of everything his prisoner had
about him. So the pocket-book which had once been in my

677
hands passed into the officer’s. 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 likeliest 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 Startop 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

678
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 had been tried again, who had re-
turned 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 towards 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 under-
stood Wemmick’s hint now. I foresaw that, being convicted,
his possessions would be forfeited to the Crown.
“Lookee here, dear boy,” said he “It’s best as a gentleman
should not be knowed to belong to me now. Only come to see
me as if you come by chance alonger Wemmick. Sit where I
can see you when I am swore to, for the last o’ many times,
and I don’t ask no more.”
“I will never stir from your side,” said I, “when I am suffered

679
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,—softened now, like all the rest of him. It
was a good thing that he had touched this point, for it put
into my mind what I might not otherwise have thought of
until too late,—that he need never know how his hopes of
enriching me had perished.

680
Chapter LV
He was taken to the Police Court next day, and would have
been immediately committed for trial, but that it was neces-
sary 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 Compeyson, 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 over night, 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 ig-
norance of the fate of his wealth. Mr. Jaggers was querulous
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 would 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 to do so now would be
idle. I had no claim, and I finally resolved, and ever after-

681
wards abided by the resolution, that my heart should never
be sickened with the 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 recogniz-
able by the contents of his pockets, notes were still legible,
folded in a case he carried. Among these were the name
of a banking-house in New South Wales, where a sum of
money was, and the designation of certain lands of consider-
able value. Both these heads of information were in a list that
Magwitch, while in prison, gave to Mr. Jaggers, of the pos-
sessions 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’s 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

682
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 ap-
palling 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 trou-
bling 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 Han-
del, 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—”

683
I saw that his delicacy was avoiding the right word, so I said,
“A clerk.”
“A clerk. And I hope it is not at all 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! Secondly, 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—”

684
“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.
Whimple 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. Re-
member! The blessed darling comes of no family, my dear
Handel, and never looked into the red book, and hasn’t a no-
tion about her grandpapa. What a fortune for the son of my
mother!”
On the Saturday in that same week, I took my leave of Her-
bert,—full of bright hope, but sad and sorry to leave me,—as
he sat on one of the seaport mail coaches. 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.

685
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 Compeyson,” said Wemmick, “had by little and little
got at the bottom of half of the regular business now trans-
acted; 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, habit-
ually to deceive his own instruments. You don’t blame me,
I hope, Mr. Pip? I am sure I tried 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 Wem-
mick, 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 prop-
erty.”
“Yes, to be sure,” said Wemmick. “Of course, there can be

686
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 Compeyson having been beforehand
with him in intelligence of his return, and being so deter-
mined 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 ap-
peared rather fidgety,—
“What do you think of my meaning to take a holiday on Mon-
day, 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 are 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

687
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 acqui-
escence, that I was pleased too. At his particular request, I
appointed to call for him at the Castle at half past eight 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 train-
ing preparation on us, I was considerably surprised to see
Wemmick take up a fishing-rod, and put it over his shoul-
der. “Why, we are not going fishing!” said I. “No,” returned
Wemmick, “but I like to walk with one.”
I thought this odd; however, I said nothing, and we set off. We
went towards Camberwell Green, and when we were there-
abouts, Wemmick said suddenly,—
“Halloa! Here’s a church!”
There was nothing very surprising in that; but again, I was

688
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 in the porch,
and looked all round. In the mean time, Wemmick was div-
ing into his coat-pockets, and getting something out of paper
there.
“Halloa!” said he. “Here’s a couple of pair of gloves! Let’s
put ’em 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 at a side door, escorting a lady.
“Halloa!” 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 simi-
lar sacrifice for the altar of Hymen. The old gentleman, how-
ever, 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 an equal and safe re-
sistance. By dint of this ingenious scheme, his gloves were
got on to perfection.

689
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, “Halloa! Here’s a ring!”
I acted in the capacity of backer, or best-man, to the bride-
groom; while a little limp pew-opener in a soft bonnet like
a baby’s, made a feint 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 uninten-
tionally 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 cere-
mony we had arrived at, stood most amiably 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 uncon-
sciousness, the bridegroom cried out in his accustomed voice,
“Now Aged P. you know; who giveth?” To which the Aged
replied with great briskness, 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. Wem-
mick, more heedful of the future, put her white gloves in her
pocket and assumed her green. “Now, Mr. Pip,” said Wem-

690
mick, 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 de-
sire to unbend our minds after the solemnity. It was pleasant
to observe that Mrs. Wemmick no longer unwound Wem-
mick’s arm when it adapted itself to her figure, but sat in a
high-backed chair against the wall, like a violoncello in its
case, and submitted to be embraced as that melodious instru-
ment 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.
“Thankee!” said Wemmick, rubbing his hands. “She’s such
a manager of fowls, 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 Walworth sentiment,
please.”
“I understand. Not to be mentioned in Little Britain,” said I.
Wemmick nodded. “After what you let out the other day, Mr.

691
Jaggers may as well not know of it. He might think my brain
was softening, or something of the kind.”

692
Chapter LVI
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 re-
moved, 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 know not what else.
Although 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

693
two which escaped him, that he pondered over the question
whether he might have been a better man under better cir-
cumstances. 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 of the
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 ap-
plication to be made for the postponement of his trial until
the following Sessions. It was obviously made with the as-
surance 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
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 learnt from my terrible

694
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 to-
gether. 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. Penned 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 de-
fiant, some stricken with terror, some sobbing and weep-
ing, 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 nosegays, other civic gewgaws
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. Then 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

695
miserable man would seem for a time to have become con-
vinced of his errors, when far removed from the scenes of
his old offences, 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 had quitted 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 be-
ing 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 hardihood—caused the death of his
denouncer, to whom his whole career was known. The ap-
pointed 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 err. 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

696
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, but was wholly absorbed in these 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

697
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 sus-
pected 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. Nobody
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 prison-
ers in the room, and some other prisoners who attended on
them as sick nurses, (malefactors, but not incapable of kind-
ness, 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 then it would subside again. Sometimes he was
almost or quite unable to speak, 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.”

698
“It is just the time,” said I. “I waited for it at the gate.”
“You always waits at the gate; don’t you, dear boy?”
“Yes. Not to lose a moment of the time.”
“Thank’ee dear boy, thank’ee. God bless you! You’ve 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 com-
fortable 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 to-day?”
“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,

699
and he whispered, “You needn’t go yet.” I thanked him grate-
fully, 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,
than “O Lord, be merciful to him a sinner!”

700
Chapter LVII
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 un-
derlet them. At once I put bills up in the windows; for, I was
in debt, and had scarcely any money, and began to be seri-
ously 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, and which
teemed 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 in Garden 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, pos-
sessed by the idea that he was coming up the stairs, and that

701
the lights were blown out; whether I had been inexpressibly
harassed by the distracted talking, laughing, and groaning of
some one, 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 limekiln would come between me and them, dis-
ordering 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. Jeweller’s ac-
count, 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;

702
but indeed I am 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 encour-
age me to believe that I was better than I thought. Forasmuch
as they hang in my memory by only this one slender thread, I
don’t know what they did, except that they forbore 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 iden-
tity; that I was a brick in the house-wall, and yet entreating
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 per-
son 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 compre-
hend 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 like-
ness of Joe.

703
After I had turned the worst point of my illness, I began to
notice that while all its other features changed, this one con-
sistent 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 cool-
ing 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 air, old
chap.”
“O Joe, you break my heart! Look angry at me, Joe. Strike
me, Joe. Tell me of my ingratitude. Don’t be so good to me!”
For 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 friends. 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, “O God bless him! O God
bless this gentle Christian man!”

704
Joe’s eyes were red when I next found him beside me; but I
was holding his hand, and we both felt happy.
“How long, dear Joe?”
“Which you meantersay, Pip, how long have your illness
lasted, dear old chap?”
“Yes, Joe.”
“It’s the end of May, Pip. To-morrow 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 formerly single he is now married
though underpaid for a deal of walking and shoe-leather, but
wealth were not a object on his part, and marriage were the
great wish of his hart—”
“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 wisit at such a moment might not prove unacceptabobble.
And Biddy, her word were, ‘Go to him, without loss of time.’
That,” 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.’ ”

705
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, and lay quiet, while he proceeded to
indite a note to Biddy, with my love in it.
Evidently Biddy had taught Joe to write. As I lay in bed look-
ing at him, it made me, in my weak state, cry again with plea-
sure to see the pride with which he set about his letter. My
bedstead, divested of its curtains, had been removed, with me
upon it, into the sitting-room, as the airiest and largest, and
the carpet had been taken away, and the room kept always
fresh and wholesome night and day. At my own writing-
table, pushed into a corner and cumbered 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 he were going to wield a crow-bar or sledge-
hammer. It was necessary for Joe to hold on heavily to the
table with his left elbow, and to get his right leg well out be-
hind him, before he could begin; and when he did begin he
made every downstroke so slowly that it might have been
six feet long, while at every upstroke I could hear his pen
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 orthograph-
ical stumbling-block; but on the whole he got on very well
indeed; and when he had signed his name, and had removed

706
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 Hav-
isham until next day. He shook his head when I then asked
him if she had recovered.
“Is she dead, Joe?”
“Why you see, old chap,” 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 nigher where it is,” said Joe; “she ain’t living.”
“Did she linger long, Joe?”
“Arter 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 meantersay tied it up, on Miss Estella. But
she had wrote out a little coddleshell in her own hand a day
or two afore the accident, leaving a cool four thousand to Mr.
Matthew Pocket. And why, do you suppose, above all things,

707
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 air the writing,” said Joe, repeating the legal turn 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 peran-
nium fur to buy pills, on account of being bilious. Miss Geor-
giana, she have twenty pound down. Mrs.—what’s the name
of them wild beasts with humps, old chap?”
“Camels?” said I, wondering why he could possibly want to
know.
Joe nodded. “Mrs. Camels,” by which I presently understood
he meant Camilla, “she have five pound fur to buy rushlights
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 in more nor one additional shovelful to-day. Old Orlick
he’s been a bustin’ open a dwelling-ouse.”

708
“Whose?” said I.
“Not, I grant you, but what his manners is given to bluster-
ous,” said Joe, apologetically; “still, a Englishman’s ouse is
his Castle, and castles must not be busted ’cept when done in
war time. And wotsume’er the failings on his part, he were a
corn and seedsman in his hart.”
“Is it Pumblechook’s house that has been broken into, then?”
“That’s it, Pip,” said Joe; “and they took his till, and they took
his cash-box, and they drinked his wine, and they partook
of his wittles, and they slapped his face, and they pulled his
nose, and they tied him up to his bedpust, and they giv’ him a
dozen, and they stuffed his mouth full of flowering annuals to
prewent his crying out. But he knowed 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 be-
come 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

709
laundress on his first arrival. “Which I do assure you, Pip,”
he would often say, in explanation of that liberty; “I found
her a tapping the spare bed, like a cask of beer, and drawing
off the feathers in a bucket, for sale. Which she would have
tapped yourn next, and draw’d it off with you a laying on
it, and was then a carrying away the coals gradiwally in the
soup-tureen and wegetable-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 apprentice-
ship. And when the day came, and an open carriage was got
into the Lane, Joe wrapped me up, took me in his arms, car-
ried me down to it, and put me in, as if I were still the small
helpless creature to whom he had so abundantly given of 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 wild-flowers 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
I 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

710
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 heerd,” returned Joe, “as it were not Miss Havisham, old
chap.”
“Did you hear who it was, Joe?”
“Well! I heerd as it were a person what sent the person what
giv’ you the bank-notes at the Jolly Bargemen, Pip.”
“So it was.”

711
“Astonishing!” said Joe, in the placidest way.
“Did you hear that he was dead, Joe?” I presently asked, with
increasing diffidence.
“Which? Him as sent the bank-notes, 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 another in a general way in that
direction.”
“Did you hear anything of his circumstances, Joe?”
“Not partickler, Pip.”
“If you would like to hear, Joe—” I was beginning, when Joe
got up and came to my sofa.
“Lookee here, old chap,” said Joe, bending over me. “Ever the
best of friends; ain’t us, Pip?”
I was ashamed to answer him.
“Wery 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 two sech must be for ever onneces-
sary? There’s subjects enough as betwixt two sech, without
onnecessary ones. Lord! To think of your poor sister and her
Rampages! And don’t you remember Tickler?”
“I do indeed, Joe.”

712
“Lookee here, old chap,” said Joe. “I done what I could to keep
you and Tickler in sunders, but my power were 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, not yet a shake or two of a man (to which your
sister was quite welcome), that ‘ud put a man off from getting
a little child out of punishment. But when that little child
is dropped into heavier for that grab of whisker or shaking,
then that man naterally up and says to himself, ’Where is the
good as you are a doing? I grant you I see the ’arm,’ says the
man, ‘but I don’t see the good. I call upon you, sir, therefore,
to pint out the good.’ ”
“The man says?” I observed, as Joe waited for me to speak.
“The man says,” Joe assented. “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 kep any lit-
tle matter to yourself, when you was a little child, you kep
it mostly because you know’d as J. Gargery’s power to part
you and Tickler in sunders were not fully equal to his incli-
nations. Theerfore, think no more of it as betwixt two sech,
and do not let us pass remarks upon onnecessary subjects.
Biddy giv’ herself a deal o’ trouble with me afore I left (for I

713
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 his logical arrangement, “being
done, now this to you a true friend, say. Namely. You mustn’t
go a 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 sorrow-
ful 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 called 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.
Ah! Had I given Joe no reason to doubt my constancy, and to
think that in prosperity I should grow cold to him and cast

714
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 walk-
ing in the Temple Gardens leaning 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
fur to see you able, sir.”
The last word grated 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 remorse-
ful 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 unwor-
thy 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

715
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 for ever. 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 chap, you’re a’most come round, sir.”
“It has been a memorable time for me, Joe.”
“Likeways 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 have 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?

716
“Yes, dear Joe, quite.”
“And are always a getting stronger, old chap?”
“Yes, dear Joe, steadily.”
Joe patted 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 fur you are well
again dear Pip and will do better without JO.
“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

717
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 had
formed 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
and a soothing hand), I hope I am a little worthier of you
that 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

718
went down to the old place to put it in execution. And how I
sped in it is all I have left to tell.

719
Chapter LVIII
The tidings of my high fortunes having had a heavy fall had
got down to my native place and its neighborhood before I
got there. I found the Blue Boar in possession of the intelli-
gence, and I found that it made a great change in the Boar’s
demeanour. Whereas the Boar had cultivated my good opin-
ion with warm assiduity when I was coming into property,
the Boar was exceedingly cool on the subject now that I was
going out of property.
It was evening when I arrived, much fatigued by the journey
I had so often made so easily. The Boar could not put me into
my usual bedroom, which was engaged (probably by some
one who had expectations), and could only assign me a very
indifferent chamber among the pigeons and post-chaises up
the yard. But I had as sound a sleep in that lodging as in the
most superior accommodation the Boar could have given me,
and the quality of my dreams was about the same as in the
best bedroom.
Early in the morning, while my breakfast was getting ready, I
strolled round by Satis House. There were printed bills on the
gate and on bits of carpet hanging out of the windows, an-
nouncing a sale by auction of the Household Furniture and
Effects, next week. The House itself was to be sold as old
building materials, and pulled down. LOT 1 was marked in
whitewashed knock-knee letters on the brew house; LOT 2
on that part of the main building which had been so long

720
shut up. Other lots were marked off on other parts of the
structure, and the ivy had been torn down to make room for
the inscriptions, and much of it trailed low in the dust and
was withered already. Stepping in for a moment at the open
gate, and looking around me with the uncomfortable air of
a stranger who had no business there, I saw the auctioneer’s
clerk walking on the casks and telling them off for the in-
formation of a catalogue-compiler, pen in hand, who made a
temporary desk of the wheeled chair I had so often pushed
along to the tune of Old Clem.
When I got back to my breakfast in the Boar’s coffee-room,
I found Mr. Pumblechook conversing with the landlord. Mr.
Pumblechook (not improved in appearance by his late noc-
turnal adventure) was waiting for me, and addressed me in
the following terms:—
“Young man, I am sorry to see you brought low. But what
else could be expected! what else could be expected!”
As he extended his hand with a magnificently forgiving air,
and as I was broken by illness and unfit to quarrel, I took it.
“William,” said Mr. Pumblechook to the waiter, “put a muffin
on table. And has it come to this! Has it come to this!”
I frowningly sat down to my breakfast. Mr. Pumblechook
stood over me and poured out my tea—before I could touch
the teapot—with the air of a benefactor who was resolved to
be true to the last.
“William,” said Mr. Pumblechook, mournfully, “put the salt

721
on. In happier times,” addressing me, “I think you took sugar?
And did you take milk? You did. Sugar and milk. William,
bring a watercress.”
“Thank you,” said I, shortly, “but I don’t eat watercresses.”
“You don’t eat ’em,” returned Mr. Pumblechook, sighing and
nodding his head several times, as if he might have expected
that, and as if abstinence from watercresses were consistent
with my downfall. “True. The simple fruits of the earth. No.
You needn’t bring any, William.”
I went on with my breakfast, and Mr. Pumblechook contin-
ued to stand over me, staring fishily and breathing noisily, as
he always did.
“Little more than skin and bone!” mused Mr. Pumblechook,
aloud. “And yet when he went from here (I may say with my
blessing), and I spread afore him my humble store, like the
Bee, he was as plump as a Peach!”
This reminded me of the wonderful difference between the
servile manner in which he had offered his hand in my new
prosperity, saying, “May I?” and the ostentatious clemency
with which he had just now exhibited the same fat five fin-
gers.
“Hah!” he went on, handing me the bread and butter. “And
air you a going to Joseph?”
“In heaven’s name,” said I, firing in spite of myself, “what
does it matter to you where I am going? Leave that teapot

722
alone.”
It was the worst course I could have taken, because it gave
Pumblechook the opportunity he wanted.
“Yes, young man,” said he, releasing the handle of the article
in question, retiring a step or two from my table, and speak-
ing for the behoof of the landlord and waiter at the door, “I
will leave that teapot alone. You are right, young man. For
once you are right. I forgit myself when I take such an in-
terest in your breakfast, as to wish your frame, exhausted by
the debilitating effects of prodigygality, to be stimilated by
the ’olesome nourishment of your forefathers. And yet,” said
Pumblechook, turning to the landlord and waiter, and point-
ing me out at arm’s length, “this is him as I ever sported with
in his days of happy infancy! Tell me not it cannot be; I tell
you this is him!”
A low murmur from the two replied. The waiter appeared to
be particularly affected.
“This is him,” said Pumblechook, “as I have rode in my shay-
cart. This is him as I have seen brought up by hand. This
is him untoe the sister of which I was uncle by marriage, as
her name was Georgiana M’ria from her own mother, let him
deny it if he can!”
The waiter seemed convinced that I could not deny it, and
that it gave the case a black look.
“Young man,” said Pumblechook, screwing his head at me in
the old fashion, “you air a going to Joseph. What does it mat-

723
ter to me, you ask me, where you air a going? I say to you,
Sir, you air a going to Joseph.”
The waiter coughed, as if he modestly invited me to get over
that.
“Now,” said Pumblechook, and all this with a most exasper-
ating air of saying in the cause of virtue what was perfectly
convincing and conclusive, “I will tell you what to say to
Joseph. Here is Squires of the Boar present, known and re-
spected in this town, and here is William, which his father’s
name was Potkins if I do not deceive myself.”
“You do not, sir,” said William.
“In their presence,” pursued Pumblechook, “I will tell you,
young man, what to say to Joseph. Says you, “Joseph, I
have this day seen my earliest benefactor and the founder of
my fortun’s. I will name no names, Joseph, but so they are
pleased to call him up town, and I have seen that man.”
“I swear I don’t see him here,” said I.
“Say that likewise,” retorted Pumblechook. “Say you said
that, and even Joseph will probably betray surprise.”
“There you quite mistake him,” said I. “I know better.”
“Says you,” Pumblechook went on, “ ‘Joseph, I have seen that
man, and that man bears you no malice and bears me no mal-
ice. He knows your character, Joseph, and is well acquainted
with your pig-headedness and ignorance; and he knows my
character, Joseph, and he knows my want of gratitoode. Yes,

724
Joseph,’ says you,” here Pumblechook shook his head and
hand at me, “’he knows my total deficiency of common hu-
man gratitoode. He knows it, Joseph, as none can. You do
not know it, Joseph, having no call to know it, but that man
do.”’
Windy donkey as he was, it really amazed me that he could
have the face to talk thus to mine.
“Says you, ’Joseph, he gave me a little message, which I will
now repeat. It was that, in my being brought low, he saw
the finger of Providence. He knowed that finger when he
saw Joseph, and he saw it plain. It pinted out this writing,
Joseph. Reward of ingratitoode to his earliest benefactor, and
founder of fortun’s. But that man said he did not repent of
what he had done, Joseph. Not at all. It was right to do it, it
was kind to do it, it was benevolent to do it, and he would do
it again.”’
“It’s pity,” said I, scornfully, as I finished my interrupted
breakfast, “that the man did not say what he had done and
would do again.”
“Squires of the Boar!” Pumblechook was now addressing the
landlord, “and William! I have no objections to your men-
tioning, either up town or down town, if such should be your
wishes, that it was right to do it, kind to do it, benevolent to
do it, and that I would do it again.”
With those words the Impostor shook them both by the hand,
with an air, and left the house; leaving me much more aston-

725
ished than delighted by the virtues of that same indefinite “it.”
I was not long after him in leaving the house too, and when I
went down the High Street I saw him holding forth (no doubt
to the same effect) at his shop door to a select group, who
honored me with very unfavorable glances as I passed on the
opposite side of the way.
But, it was only the pleasanter to turn to Biddy and to Joe,
whose great forbearance shone more brightly than before, if
that could be, contrasted with this brazen pretender. I went
towards them slowly, for my limbs were weak, but with a
sense of increasing relief as I drew nearer to them, and a sense
of leaving arrogance and untruthfulness further and further
behind.
The June weather was delicious. The sky was blue, the larks
were soaring high over the green corn, I thought all that
countryside more beautiful and peaceful by far than I had
ever known it to be yet. Many pleasant pictures of the life
that I would lead there, and of the change for the better that
would come over my character when I had a guiding spirit
at my side whose simple faith and clear home wisdom I had
proved, beguiled my way. They awakened a tender emotion
in me; for my heart was softened by my return, and such a
change had come to pass, that I felt like one who was toiling
home barefoot from distant travel, and whose wanderings
had lasted many years.
The schoolhouse where Biddy was mistress I had never seen;
but, the little roundabout lane by which I entered the village,

726
for quietness’ sake, took me past it. I was disappointed to
find that the day was a holiday; no children were there, and
Biddy’s house was closed. Some hopeful notion of seeing
her, busily engaged in her daily duties, before she saw me,
had been in my mind and was defeated.
But the forge was a very short distance off, and I went to-
wards it under the sweet green limes, listening for the clink
of Joe’s hammer. Long after I ought to have heard it, and long
after I had fancied I heard it and found it but a fancy, all was
still. The limes were there, and the white thorns were there,
and the chestnut-trees were there, and their leaves rustled
harmoniously when I stopped to listen; but, the clink of Joe’s
hammer was not in the midsummer wind.
Almost fearing, without knowing why, to come in view of the
forge, I saw it at last, and saw that it was closed. No gleam
of fire, no glittering shower of sparks, no roar of bellows; all
shut up, and still.
But the house was not deserted, and the best parlor seemed
to be in use, for there were white curtains fluttering in its
window, and the window was open and gay with flowers.
I went softly towards it, meaning to peep over the flowers,
when Joe and Biddy stood before me, arm in arm.
At first Biddy gave a cry, as if she thought it was my appari-
tion, but in another moment she was in my embrace. I wept
to see her, and she wept to see me; I, because she looked so
fresh and pleasant; she, because I looked so worn and white.

727
“But dear Biddy, how smart you are!”
“Yes, dear Pip.”
“And Joe, how smart you are!”
“Yes, dear old Pip, old chap.”
I looked at both of them, from one to the other, and then—
“It’s my wedding-day!” cried Biddy, in a burst of happiness,
“and I am married to Joe!”
They had taken me into the kitchen, and I had laid my head
down on the old deal table. Biddy held one of my hands to her
lips, and Joe’s restoring touch was on my shoulder. “Which
he warn’t strong enough, my dear, fur to be surprised,” said
Joe. And Biddy said, “I ought to have thought of it, dear Joe,
but I was too happy.” They were both so overjoyed to see me,
so proud to see me, so touched by my coming to them, so
delighted that I should have come by accident to make their
day complete!
My first thought was one of great thankfulness that I had
never breathed this last baffled hope to Joe. How often, while
he was with me in my illness, had it risen to my lips! How
irrevocable would have been his knowledge of it, if he had
remained with me but another hour!
“Dear Biddy,” said I, “you have the best husband in the whole
world, and if you could have seen him by my bed you would
have—But no, you couldn’t love him better than you do.”

728
“No, I couldn’t indeed,” said Biddy.
“And, dear Joe, you have the best wife in the whole world,
and she will make you as happy as even you deserve to be,
you dear, good, noble Joe!”
Joe looked at me with a quivering lip, and fairly put his sleeve
before his eyes.
“And Joe and Biddy both, as you have been to church to-
day, and are in charity and love with all mankind, receive my
humble thanks for all you have done for me, and all I have so
ill repaid! And when I say that I am going away within the
hour, for I am soon going abroad, and that I shall never rest
until I have worked for the money with which you have kept
me out of prison, and have sent it to you, don’t think, dear
Joe and Biddy, that if I could repay it a thousand times over,
I suppose I could cancel a farthing of the debt I owe you, or
that I would do so if I could!”
They were both melted by these words, and both entreated
me to say no more.
“But I must say more. Dear Joe, I hope you will have children
to love, and that some little fellow will sit in this chimney-
corner of a winter night, who may remind you of another
little fellow gone out of it for ever. Don’t tell him, Joe, that
I was thankless; don’t tell him, Biddy, that I was ungenerous
and unjust; only tell him that I honored you both, because
you were both so good and true, and that, as your child, I
said it would be natural to him to grow up a much better

729
man than I did.”
“I ain’t a going,” said Joe, from behind his sleeve, “to tell him
nothink o’ that natur, Pip. Nor Biddy ain’t. Nor yet no one
ain’t.”
“And now, though I know you have already done it in your
own kind hearts, pray tell me, both, that you forgive me! Pray
let me hear you say the words, that I may carry the sound of
them away with me, and then I shall be able to believe that
you can trust me, and think better of me, in the time to come!”
“O dear old Pip, old chap,” said Joe. “God knows as I forgive
you, if I have anythink to forgive!”
“Amen! And God knows I do!” echoed Biddy.
“Now let me go up and look at my old little room, and rest
there a few minutes by myself. And then, when I have eaten
and drunk with you, go with me as far as the finger-post, dear
Joe and Biddy, before we say good-bye!”
I sold all I had, and put aside as much as I could, for a com-
position with my creditors,—who gave me ample time to pay
them in full,—and I went out and joined Herbert. Within a
month, I had quitted England, and within two months I was
clerk to Clarriker and Co., and within four months I assumed
my first undivided responsibility. For the beam across the
parlor ceiling at Mill Pond Bank had then ceased to tremble
under old Bill Barley’s growls and was at peace, and Herbert
had gone away to marry Clara, and I was left in sole charge
of the Eastern Branch until he brought her back.

730
Many a year went round before I was a partner in the House;
but I lived happily with Herbert and his wife, and lived fru-
gally, and paid my debts, and maintained a constant corre-
spondence with Biddy and Joe. It was not until I became
third in the Firm, that Clarriker betrayed me to Herbert; but
he then declared that the secret of Herbert’s partnership had
been long enough upon his conscience, and he must tell it.
So he told it, and Herbert was as much moved as amazed,
and the dear fellow and I were not the worse friends for the
long concealment. I must not leave it to be supposed that we
were ever a great House, or that we made mints of money. We
were not in a grand way of business, but we had a good name,
and worked for our profits, and did very well. We owed so
much to Herbert’s ever cheerful industry and readiness, that
I often wondered how I had conceived that old idea of his in-
aptitude, until I was one day enlightened by the reflection,
that perhaps the inaptitude had never been in him at all, but
had been in me.

731
Chapter LIX
For eleven years, I had not seen Joe nor Biddy with my bodily
eyes,—though they had both been often before my fancy in
the East,—when, upon an evening in December, an hour or
two after dark, I laid my hand softly on the latch of the old
kitchen door. I touched it so softly that I was not heard, and
looked in unseen. There, smoking his pipe in the old place
by the kitchen firelight, as hale and as strong as ever, though
a little gray, sat Joe; and there, fenced into the corner with
Joe’s leg, and sitting on my own little stool looking at the
fire, was—I again!
“We giv’ him the name of Pip for your sake, dear old chap,”
said Joe, delighted, when I took another stool by the child’s
side (but I did not rumple his hair), “and we hoped he might
grow a little bit like you, and we think he do.”
I thought so too, and I took him out for a walk next morning,
and we talked immensely, understanding one another to per-
fection. And I took him down to the churchyard, and set him
on a certain tombstone there, and he showed me from that
elevation which stone was sacred to the memory of Philip
Pirrip, late of this Parish, and Also Georgiana, Wife of the
Above.
“Biddy,” said I, when I talked with her after dinner, as her little
girl lay sleeping in her lap, “you must give Pip to me one of
these days; or lend him, at all events.”

732
“No, no,” said Biddy, gently. “You must marry.”
“So Herbert and Clara say, but I don’t think I shall, Biddy. I
have so settled down in their home, that it’s not at all likely.
I am already quite an old bachelor.”
Biddy looked down at her child, and put its little hand to her
lips, and then put the good matronly hand with which she
had touched it into mine. There was something in the action,
and in the light pressure of Biddy’s wedding-ring, that had a
very pretty eloquence in it.
“Dear Pip,” said Biddy, “you are sure you don’t fret for her?”
“O no,—I think not, Biddy.”
“Tell me as an old, old friend. Have you quite forgotten her?
“My dear Biddy, I have forgotten nothing in my life that ever
had a foremost place there, and little that ever had any place
there. But that poor dream, as I once used to call it, has all
gone by, Biddy,—all gone by!”
Nevertheless, I knew, while I said those words, that I secretly
intended to revisit the site of the old house that evening,
alone, for her sake. Yes, even so. For Estella’s sake.
I had heard of her as leading a most unhappy life, and as being
separated from her husband, who had used her with great
cruelty, and who had become quite renowned as a compound
of pride, avarice, brutality, and meanness. And I had heard
of the death of her husband, from an accident consequent
on his ill-treatment of a horse. This release had befallen her

733
some two years before; for anything I knew, she was married
again.
The early dinner hour at Joe’s, left me abundance of time,
without hurrying my talk with Biddy, to walk over to the old
spot before dark. But, what with loitering on the way to look
at old objects and to think of old times, the day had quite
declined when I came to the place.
There was no house now, no brewery, no building whatever
left, but the wall of the old garden. The cleared space had
been enclosed with a rough fence, and looking over it, I saw
that some of the old ivy had struck root anew, and was grow-
ing green on low quiet mounds of ruin. A gate in the fence
standing ajar, I pushed it open, and went in.
A cold silvery mist had veiled the afternoon, and the moon
was not yet up to scatter it. But, the stars were shining be-
yond the mist, and the moon was coming, and the evening
was not dark. I could trace out where every part of the old
house had been, and where the brewery had been, and where
the gates, and where the casks. I had done so, and was look-
ing along the desolate garden walk, when I beheld a solitary
figure in it.
The figure showed itself aware of me, as I advanced. It had
been moving towards me, but it stood still. As I drew nearer,
I saw it to be the figure of a woman. As I drew nearer yet,
it was about to turn away, when it stopped, and let me come
up with it. Then, it faltered, as if much surprised, and uttered
my name, and I cried out,—

734
“Estella!”
“I am greatly changed. I wonder you know me.”
The freshness of her beauty was indeed gone, but its in-
describable majesty and its indescribable charm remained.
Those attractions in it, I had seen before; what I had never
seen before, was the saddened, softened light of the once
proud eyes; what I had never felt before was the friendly
touch of the once insensible hand.
We sat down on a bench that was near, and I said, “After
so many years, it is strange that we should thus meet again,
Estella, here where our first meeting was! Do you often come
back?”
“I have never been here since.”
“Nor I.”
The moon began to rise, and I thought of the placid look at
the white ceiling, which had passed away. The moon began
to rise, and I thought of the pressure on my hand when I had
spoken the last words he had heard on earth.
Estella was the next to break the silence that ensued between
us.
“I have very often hoped and intended to come back, but
have been prevented by many circumstances. Poor, poor old
place!”
The silvery mist was touched with the first rays of the moon-

735
light, and the same rays touched the tears that dropped from
her eyes. Not knowing that I saw them, and setting herself
to get the better of them, she said quietly,—
“Were you wondering, as you walked along, how it came to
be left in this condition?”
“Yes, Estella.”
“The ground belongs to me. It is the only possession I have
not relinquished. Everything else has gone from me, little
by little, but I have kept this. It was the subject of the only
determined resistance I made in all the wretched years.”
“Is it to be built on?”
“At last, it is. I came here to take leave of it before its change.
And you,” she said, in a voice of touching interest to a wan-
derer,—“you live abroad still?”
“Still.”
“And do well, I am sure?”
“I work pretty hard for a sufficient living, and therefore—yes,
I do well.”
“I have often thought of you,” said Estella.
“Have you?”
“Of late, very often. There was a long hard time when I kept
far from me the remembrance of what I had thrown away
when I was quite ignorant of its worth. But since my duty

736
has not been incompatible with the admission of that remem-
brance, I have given it a place in my heart.”
“You have always held your place in my heart,” I answered.
And we were silent again until she spoke.
“I little thought,” said Estella, “that I should take leave of you
in taking leave of this spot. I am very glad to do so.”
“Glad to part again, Estella? To me, parting is a painful thing.
To me, the remembrance of our last parting has been ever
mournful and painful.”
“But you said to me,” returned Estella, very earnestly, “ ‘God
bless you, God forgive you!’ And if you could say that to me
then, you will not hesitate to say that to me now,—now, when
suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has
taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have
been bent and broken, but—I hope—into a better shape. Be
as considerate and good to me as you were, and tell me we
are friends.”
“We are friends,” said I, rising and bending over her, as she
rose from the bench.
“And will continue friends apart,” said Estella.
I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined place;
and, as the morning mists had risen long ago when I first left
the forge, so the evening mists were rising now, and in all the
broad expanse of tranquil light they showed to me, I saw no
shadow of another parting from her.

737