Great Expectations 
 

By Charles Dickens  

 

Chapter 1  

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 married 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 father’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 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 dykes 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 grey, 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.  

‘O! Don’t cut my throat, sir,’ I pleaded in terror. ‘Pray don’t do it, sir.’ ‘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 under­ 

sized for my years, and not strong.  

‘Darn me if I couldn’t eat em,’ said the man, with a threat­ 

ening 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.  

‘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.’  

‘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 weather-cock. 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 yonder. 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 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 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 step-ping-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 round for the horrible young man, and 
could see no signs of him. But, now I was frightened again, and ran home without stopping.  

 

Chapter 2  

M 

y sister, Mrs. Joe Gargery, was more than twenty years older than I, and had established a great 
reputation with herself and the neighbours 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 husband 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 powerful 
merit in herself, and a strong reproach against Joe, that she wore this apron so much. Though I really see 
no reason 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. ‘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 investigation. 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.’  

‘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 dis­consolately 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-bye, had not said it at all. ‘You’ll drive me to the churchyard betwixt you, 
one of these days, and oh, 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-and­butter 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 afterwards got into our mouths. Then she took some butter (not too 
much) on a knife and spread it on the loaf, in an apothecary kind of way, as if she were making a plaist­er 
- 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 plaister, 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 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 bread­and-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.’  

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 cupboard; having a belief in its virtues correspon­dent to its nastiness. At the best of 
times, so much of this elixir was administered to me as a choice restorative, that I was conscious of going 
about, smelling like a new fence. On this particular 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 boot-jack. 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), 
‘because 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 co­operates 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 ordered 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, 
declaring 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 imbruing his hands in 
me, should yield to a constitutional impatience, or should mistake the time, and should think himself 
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-and­butter 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 nee­dlework, 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 nothing of it but the single word ‘Pip.’  

‘There was a conwict off last night,’ said Joe, aloud, ‘after sun-set-gun. And they fired warning of him. 
And now, it appears 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.’ Therefore, 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.’ ‘And please what’s Hulks?’ said I. 
‘That’s the way with this boy!’ exclaimed my sister, point­ 

ing 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 accompany 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 who wanted my heart and liver; I was in mor­tal terror of my interlocutor 
with the ironed 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 drifting down the river on a strong spring-tide, to 
the Hulks; a ghostly pirate calling out to me through a speak-ing-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 window was shot with grey, I got up and went 
down stairs; 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 with my last night’s slice), some brandy from a 
stone bottle (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 earthen ware 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.  

 

Chapter 3  

I 

t 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 dykes 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 steaming out of their nostrils, ‘Holloa, young thief!’ One black ox, with a white cravat on - who 
even had to my awakened conscience 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!’ 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 grey, 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-crowned felt that 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 shivered 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 gallows 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 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 settled 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 sideways 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 politeness of making the remark. ‘There’s no more to be got where 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 keen-est scrutiny and the greatest surprise.  

‘Looked? When?’  

‘Just now.’  

‘Where?’  

‘Yonder,’ said I, pointing; ‘over there, where I found him nodding 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.  

‘I wonder you shouldn’t have been sure of that,’ I re­turned, ‘for we heard it up at home, and that’s 
further 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 hundred. 
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 mercilessly, with the flat of his hand.  

‘Yes, there!’  

‘Where is he?’ He crammed what little food was left, into the breast of his grey 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.’  

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.  

 

Chapter 4  

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 festivities of the day, and Joe had been put upon the kitchen door-step 
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 Christmas salutation, when I and my conscience 
showed ourselves.  

I said I had been down to hear the Carols. ‘Ah! well!’ ob­served 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 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 handsome mince-pie had been made yesterday morning (which accounted for the 
mincemeat not being missed), and the pudding was already on the boil. These extensive ar­rangements 
occasioned us to be cut off unceremoniously in respect of breakfast; ‘for I an’t,’ said Mrs. Joe, ‘I an’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 countenances, 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 parlour 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 mantelshelf, 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.  

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 scarecrow 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 Policemen 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 moving spectacle for compassionate minds. Yet, 
what I suf­fered outside, was nothing to what I underwent within. The terrors 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 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 propose a private conference in the vestry. I am far from being sure that I might not have 
astonished our small congregation 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 corn-
chandler 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 understood among his acquaintance that if you could only give him his head, he 
would read the clergyman into fits; he himself 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; and when he gave out the 
psalm - always giv-ing 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, ‘Oh, 
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 
parlour; which was a change very like Joe’s change from his working clothes to 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 remember 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 table-cloth, 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 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 aspiration 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 possible) 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 giving 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 sermon with some severity, and intimated - in 
the usual hy­pothetical case of the Church being ‘thrown open’ -what kind of sermon he would have 
given them. After favouring them with some heads of that discourse, he remarked that he considered 
the subject of the day’s homily, ill-chosen; which was the less excusable, he added, when there were so 
many subjects ‘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 salt­box.’ 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. Wopsle; 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 pa­renthesis.)  

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. ‘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 emphati­cally.  

Joe gave me some more gravy.  

‘Well, but I mean a four-footed Squeaker,’ said Mr. Pum­blechook. ‘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. Pum­blechook, who had an objection to being 
interrupted; ‘I mean, enjoying himself with his elders and betters, and improving 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 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.  

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, owing to his 
springing to his feet, turning round several times in an appalling spasmodic whooping-cough dance, and 
rushing out at the door; he then became visible through the window, 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 would be worse by-and-by. I moved the table, 
like a Me­dium of the present day, by the vigour 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 fervour 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. Pumblechook 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 delightful and delicious present of Uncle Pumblechook’s!’  

Must they! Let them not hope to taste it!  

‘You must know,’ said my sister, rising, ‘it’s a pie; a sa­voury pork pie.’  

The company murmured their compliments. Uncle Pumblechook, sensible of having deserved well of his 
fel­low-creatures, said - quite vivaciously, all things considered  

-‘Well, Mrs. Joe, we’ll do our best endeavours; 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 re-awakening appetite in the Roman nostrils of Mr. Wopsle. I heard Mr. Hubble remark that 
‘a bit of savoury 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 
terror, 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 further 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!’  

 

Chapter 5  

T 

he apparition of a file of soldiers ringing down the butt- 

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 good­ 

ness 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 hand­ 

cuffs 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 my­ 

self, I should reply, the honour and pleasure of his fine wife’s  

acquaintance; speaking for the king, I answer, a little job  

done.’  

This was received as rather neat in the sergeant; inso­ 

much that Mr Pumblechook cried audibly, ‘Good again!’  

‘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 beat 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 perceive that the handcuffs were not for me, and that the military 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.’ ‘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-
of­course 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. Nobody thought of me.  

‘Well!’ said the sergeant, ‘they’ll find themselves trapped in a circle, I expect, sooner than they count on. 
Now, black­smith! 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 sol­diers 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 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 shoulder, ‘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 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, before the entertainment was brightened with the excitement 
he furnished. And now, when they were all in lively anticipation 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 after-noon 
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 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 footing 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 churchyard. 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 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 particular convict suppose that it was I who had brought the soldiers 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 bea­con, and the gibbet, and the mound of the Battery, and the opposite shore of the river, 
were plain, though all of a wa­tery lead colour.  

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 breathing; but I knew the sounds by this time, and could dissociate 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 annoyances; 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 Battery, 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 speaking 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 answered, 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 dykes, and breaking among coarse rushes: 
no man cared where he went. As we came nearer to the shouting, it became more and more apparent 
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!’  

‘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. ‘Single­handed 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 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 turning his eyes restlessly about him far and near, 
did at last turn 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 others. It had been almost dark before, but now it seemed quite dark, and soon 
afterwards very dark. Before we departed 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 opposite 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 dyke 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, because 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 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 holding 
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 report, 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 thought­fully 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 prevent some persons laying under suspicion 
alonger me.’ ‘You can say what you like,’ returned the sergeant, stand- 

ing 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 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, blacksmith?’ 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. 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.  

 

Chapter 6 
 

M 

y 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 reference 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 composed. 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 mistrusted 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 for ever 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 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 
intercourse 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 excommunicated 
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 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 nought - 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 assisted 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 after the subject had died out, and had ceased to be men­tioned 
saving on exceptional occasions.  

 

Chapter 7  

A 

t the time when I stood in the churchyard, reading the family 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 complimentary 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 always to 
go through the village from our house in one particular 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 neighbour happened to want an extra boy to frighten birds, or pick up stones, 
or do any such job, I was favoured with the employment. In order, however, that our superior posi­tion 
might not be compromised thereby, a money-box was kept on the kitchen mantel-shelf, in to 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 liquidation 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 village; 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 twopence per week each, for the improving opportu­nity of 
seeing her do it. She rented a small cottage, and Mr. Wopsle had the room up-stairs, 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 fiction that Mr. Wopsle ‘examined’ the scholars, once a quarter. 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. Wopsle as Revenge, throwing his blood-stained sword in thunder down, and taking the 
War-denouncing trumpet with a withering 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 anything 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 transaction. Biddy was Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt’s grand­daughter; I 
confess myself quiet 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 alphabet 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 recognition. 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 fully 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:  

‘MI DEER JO i OPE U R KR WITE WELL i OPE i SHAL SON B HABELL 4 2 TEEDGE U JO AN THEN WE SHORL B 
SO GLODD AN WEN i M PRENGTD 2 U JO WOT LARX AN BLEVE ME INF XN PIP.’  

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 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 slowly searching 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.  

‘I don’t spell it at all,’ said Joe.  

‘But supposing you did?’  

‘It can’t be supposed,’ said Joe. ‘Tho’ I’m oncommon 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 last, 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 father, Pip, he were given 
to drink, and when he were overtook with drink, he hammered away at my moth­er, most onmerciful. It 
were a’most the only hammering he did, indeed, ‘xcepting at myself. And he hammered at me with a 
wigour only to be equalled by the wigour with which he didn’t hammer at his anwil. - You’re a-listening 
and un­derstanding, Pip?’  

‘Yes, Joe.’  

‘‘Consequence, my mother and me we ran away from my father, 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  

going to work; so I went to work to work at my present call­ing, which were his too, if he would have 
followed it, and I worked tolerable hard, I assure you, Pip. In time I were able to keep him, and I kept 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 hart.’  

Joe recited this couplet with such manifest pride and  

careful perspicuity, that I asked him if he had made it him­ 

self.  

‘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 
mention 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 un­ 

comfortable 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.’  

I could not help looking at the fire, in an obvious state  

of doubt.  

‘Whatever family opinions, or whatever the world’s opin­ions, 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 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 favour of the Lords of the Admiralty, or Treasury.  

‘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,’ Joe continued, ‘and in partickler would 
not be over partial to my being a scholar, for fear as I might rise. Like a sort or 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, ‘candour 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  

expected, and completely stopped me by arguing circularly,  

and answering with a fixed look, ‘Her.’  

‘And I an’t a master-mind,’ Joe resumed, when he had  

unfixed 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 fore-foot 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 Pumblechook being a bachelor and 
reposing no confidenc­es in his domestic servant. This was market-day, and Mrs. Joe was 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 if 
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 excitement, and throwing her bonnet back on 
her shoulders where it hung by the strings: ‘if this boy an’t grateful this night, he never will be!’  

I looked as grateful as any boy possibly could, who was wholly uninformed why he ought to assume that 
expres­sion.  

‘It’s only to be hoped,’ said my sister, ‘that he won’t be Pomp-eyed. But I have my fears.’ ‘She an’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 a-fire?’ ‘ -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 sister. ‘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 extreme­ 

ly light and sportive, ‘or I’ll work him.’  

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 dis­ 

mal 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, ‘mentioned 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, 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 Pum­blechook, 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-a­mussy 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 sackcloth, 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 along: ‘Boy, be for ever 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 feelings and what with soap-suds, 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.  

 

Chapter 8  

M 

r. Pumblechook’s premises in the High-street of the market town, were of a peppercorny and farinaceous 
character, as the premises of a corn-chandler and seeds-man 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 enter­tained 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 flavour about the 
corduroys, so much in the nature of seeds, and a general air and flavour 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. Pumblechook appeared to conduct his business by looking across the street at the saddler, who 
ap­peared to transact his business by keeping his eye on the coach-maker, who appeared to get on in life 
by putting his hands in his pockets and contemplating the baker, who in his turn folded his arms and 
stared at the grocer, who stood at his door and yawned at the chemist. The watch-maker, 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 parlour 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 gormandising manner.  

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 myself 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 court-yard 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?’  

‘If Miss Havisham wished to see me,’ returned Mr. Pum­blechook, 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 behaviour here be a credit unto them 
which brought you up by hand!’ I was not free from apprehension 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 court-yard. 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 without 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?’  

‘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 entrance 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 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 going in.’ And scornfully walked away, and - what was worse - took the candle with her.  

This was very uncomfortable, and I was half afraid. However, the only thing to be done being to knock at 
the door, I knocked, and was told from within to enter. I en­tered, therefore, 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 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 look-ing-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.  

‘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 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.  

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 visible 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 labouring-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 greatest disdain.  

‘Nothing but beggar my neighbour, 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 from 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 powder 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 disdain, before our first game was out. ‘And what 
coarse hands he has! And what thick boots!’  

I had never thought of being ashamed of my hands be­fore; but I began to consider them a very 
indifferent pair. Her contempt 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 labour-ing-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?’  

‘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 Wednes­ 

day, 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?’  

‘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 court-yard, to look at my coarse hands and my common 
boots. My opinion of those accessories was not favourable. 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, 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 counteraction.  

My sister’s bringing up had made me sensitive. In the little 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, according 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 solitary and unprotected way, I in 
great part refer the fact that I 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 behind 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 wilderness 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 garden 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 seemed to be everywhere. For, when I yielded to the temptation 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.  

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

 

Chapter 9  

W 

hen I reached home, my sister was very curious to  

know all about Miss Havisham’s, and asked a num­ 

ber 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 having 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 reserva­ 

tions. I felt convinced 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 understood; and although she was perfectly incompre­ 

hensible to me, I entertained an impression that there would  

be something 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 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 honour 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 an­swer as I could -which was 
somewhere about eightpence off. Mr. Pumblechook then put me through my pence-ta­ble from ‘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 began 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 inferred 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.’ ‘Now, boy! What was she a-doing of, when you went in today?’ 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 reck­ 

less witness 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.  

‘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?’  

‘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 un­doubtedly 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 divided between that phenomenon and a bear in the brewery. 
They were so much occupied, however, in discussing the marvels I had already presented for their 
con­sideration, that I escaped. 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 regarded the other two. Towards 
Joe, and Joe only, I consid­ered myself a young monster, while they sat debating what results would 
come to me from Miss Havisham’s acquain­tance and favour. They had no doubt that Miss Havisham 
would ‘do something’ for me; their doubts related to the form that something would take. My sister 
stood out for ‘property.’ Mr. Pumblechook was in favour 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 some­ 

thing.’ ‘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 coach?’ For, I stood shaking my 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; an’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, hanging 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 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 
on-common 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 encouraged me.  

‘Whether common ones as to callings and earnings,’ pur­sued Joe, reflectively, ‘mightn’t be the better of 
continuing for a 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 on-common 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 wellwisher would adwise, 
Pip, their being dropped into your meditations, when you go up-stairs 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 consider 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, instead 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.  

 

Chapter 10  

T 

he felicitous idea occurred to me a morning or two lat­ 

er when I woke, that the best step I could take towards  

making myself uncommon was to get out of Biddy every­ 

thing 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 obliging 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 ascer-taining who 
could tread the hardest upon whose toes. This mental exercise lasted until Biddy made a rush at them 
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 bed-chamber -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 uncommon under these circumstances: 
nevertheless, I re­solved to try it, and that very evening Biddy entered on our special agreement, by 
imparting some information from her little catalogue of Prices, under the head of moist sug­ar, and 
lending 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 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 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 handkerchief 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.  

‘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 gipsies, 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 dis­comfiture, 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?’  

‘No,’ said Joe, ‘it’s a kind of family name what he gave  

himself 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 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 offering 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 dump show, and was pointedly addressed to me. He 
stirred his rum-and-water pointedly at me, and he tasted his rum-and­water pointedly 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  

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 humour 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 unusual 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.’  

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 concerning the notes. Then my sister sealed them up in a piece of paper, and put them under 
some dried rose-leaves in an ornamental tea-pot on the top of a press in the state parlour. 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 
thinking 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.  

 

Chapter 11  

A 

t 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 preceded me into the dark 
passage where her candle stood. She took no notice of me until she had the candle in her hand, when 
she looked over her shoulder, superciliously saying, ‘You are to come this way today,’ and took me to 
quite another part of the house.  

The passage was a long one, and seemed to pervade the whole square basement of the Manor House. 
We traversed but one side of the square, however, and at the end of it she stopped, and put her candle 
down and opened a door. Here, the daylight reappeared, and I found myself in a small paved 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 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 colour, as if that part of the pudding had 
stuck to the saucepan and got burnt. This was my homely thought, as I contemplated the box-tree. There 
had been some light snow, overnight, and it lay nowhere else to my knowledge; but, it had not quite 
melted from the cold shadow of this bit of garden, and the wind caught it up in little eddies and threw it 
at the window, as if it pelted me for coming there.  

I divined that my coming had stopped conversation in the room, and that its other occupants were 
looking at me. I could see nothing of the room except the shining of the fire in the window glass, but I 
stiffened in all my joints with the consciousness that I was under close inspection.  

There were three ladies in the room and one gentleman. Before I had been standing at the window five 
minutes, they somehow conveyed to me that they were all toadies and humbugs, but that each of them 
pretended not to know that the others were toadies and humbugs: because the admis­sion that he or 
she did know it, would have made him or her out to be a 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 quite rigidly to repress a yawn. This lady, whose name was Camilla, very much reminded me 
of my sister, with the difference that she was older, and (as I found 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 manner quite my sister’s. ‘Nobody’s enemy but his 
own!’ ‘It would be much more commendable to be somebody else’s enemy,’ said the gentleman; ‘far 
more natural.’ ‘Cousin Raymond,’ observed another lady, ‘we are to love our neighbour.’ ‘Sarah Pocket,’ 
returned Cousin Raymond, ‘if a man is not his own neighbour, 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!’  

‘Good points in him, good points in him,’ said Cousin Raymond; ‘Heaven forbid I should deny good points 
in him; but he never had, and he never will have, any sense of the proprieties.’  

‘You know I was obliged,’ said Camilla, ‘I was obliged to be firm. I said, ‘It WILL NOT DO, for the credit of 
the fam­ily.’ I told him that, without deep trimmings, the family was disgraced. I cried about it from 
breakfast till dinner. I in­jured my digestion. And at last he flung out in his violent way, and said, with a D, 
‘Then do as you like.’ Thank Good­ness it will always be a consolation to me to know that I instantly went 
out in a pouring rain and bought the things.’  

‘He paid for them, did he not?’ asked Estella.  

‘It’s not the question, my dear child, who paid for them,’ returned Camilla. ‘I bought them. And I shall 
often think of that with peace, when I wake up in the night.’  

The ringing of a distant bell, combined with the echoing of some cry or call along the passage by which I 
had come, interrupted the conversation and caused Estella to say to me, ‘Now, boy!’ On my turning 
round, they all looked at me with the utmost contempt, and, as I went out, I heard Sarah 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:  

‘Well?’ ‘Well, miss?’ I answered, almost falling over her and checking myself. She stood looking at me, 
and, of course, I stood looking at her. ‘Am I pretty?’  

‘Yes; I think you are very pretty.’  

‘Am I insulting?’  

‘Not so much so as you were last time,’ said I.  

‘Not so much so?’  

‘No.’  

She fired when she asked the last question, and she slapped my face with such force as she had, when I 
an­swered it.  

‘Now?’ said she. ‘You little coarse monster, what do you think of me now?’  

‘I shall not tell you.’  

‘Because you are going to tell, up-stairs. Is that it?’  

‘No,’ said I, ‘that’s not it.’  

‘Why don’t you cry again, you little wretch?’  

‘Because I’ll never cry for you again,’ said I. Which was, I suppose, as false a declaration as ever was 
made; for I was inwardly crying for her then, and I know what I know of the pain she cost me afterwards.  

We went on our way up-stairs 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 prematurely bald on the top of his head, and had bushy black 
eyebrows that wouldn’t lie down but stood up bristling. His eyes were set very deep in his head, and 
were disagreeably sharp and suspicious. He had a large watch-chain, and strong black dots where his 
beard and whiskers would have been if he had let them. 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 neighbourhood? Hey?’ said he.  

‘Yes, sir,’ said I.  

‘How do you come here?’  

‘Miss Havisham sent for me, sir,’ I explained.  

‘Well! Behave yourself. I have a pretty large experience  

of boys, 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 down­stairs. I wondered whether he could be a doctor; but no, I thought; he couldn’t be a doctor, 
or he would have a quieter and more persuasive manner. There was not much time to consider the 
subject, for we were soon in Miss Havisham’s room, where she and everything else were just as I had left 
them. 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 you willing to work?’  

I could answer this inquiry with a better heart than I had been able to find for the other question, and I 
said I was quite willing.  

‘Then go into that opposite room,’ said she, pointing at the door behind me with her withered hand, 
‘and wait there till I come.’  

I crossed the staircase landing, and entered the room she indicated. From that room, too, the daylight 
was completely excluded, and it had an airless smell that was oppressive. A fire had been lately kindled in 
the damp old-fashioned grate, and it was more disposed to go out than to burn up, and the reluctant 
smoke which hung in the room seemed colder than the clearer air - like our own marsh mist. Certain 
win­try branches of candles on the high chimneypiece 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 table-cloth spread on it, as if a feast had been in preparation 
when the house and the clocks all stopped together. An epergne or centrepiece 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 speckled-legged spiders with blotchy bodies running home to it, and running out from it, as 
if some circumstances of the greatest public importance had just transpired in the spider community.  

I heard the mice too, rattling behind the panels, as if the same occurrence were important to their 
interests. But, the blackbeetles took no notice of the agitation, and groped about the hearth in a 
ponderous elderly way, as if they were short-sighted and hard of hearing, and not on terms with one 
another.  

These crawling things had fascinated my attention and I was watching them from a distance, when Miss 
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 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 imita­tion (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!’ ‘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 overflowed. ‘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 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 complimentary 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 appeared to rise from her legs to her bosom. ‘It’s 
all very true! It’s a weakness to be so affectionate, but I can’t help it. No doubt my health would be much 
better if it 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.  

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 vicious 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,’ resumed Camilla, ‘I have remained in that state, 
hours and hours, and Raymond is a witness of the extent to which I have choked, and what the total 
inefficacy of ginger has been, and I have been heard at the pianoforte-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 chemical as to the formation of 
new combina­tions there.  

When this same Matthew was mentioned, Miss Hav­isham stopped me and herself, and stood looking at 
the speaker. This change had a great influence in bringing Ca­milla’s chemistry to a sudden end.  

‘Matthew will come and see me at last,’ said Miss Hav­isham, sternly, when I am laid on that table. That 
will be his place - there,’ striking the table with her stick, ‘at my head! And yours will be there! And your 
husband’s there! And Sarah Pocket’s there! And Georgiana’s there! Now you all know where to take your 
stations when you come to feast upon me. And now go!’  

At the mention of each name, she had struck the table with her stick in a new place. She now said, ‘Walk 
me, walk me!’ and we went on again.  

‘I suppose there’s nothing to be done,’ exclaimed Camilla, ‘but comply and depart. It’s something to 
have seen the ob­ject 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 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 
Georgiana 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 cobwebs on the table but not touching it, ‘was brought here. It and I have worn away 
together. The mice have gnawed at it, and sharper teeth than teeth of mice have gnawed at me.’  

She held the head of her stick against her heart as she stood looking at the table; she 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 continued 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 returned 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 halfdozen games, a day was appointed for my return, and I was taken down into the 
yard to be fed in the for­mer dog-like manner. There, too, I was again left to wander about as I liked.  

It is not much to the purpose whether a gate in that gar­den wall which I had scrambled up to peep over 
on the last occasion was, on that last occasion, open or shut. Enough that I saw no gate then, and that I 
saw one now. As it stood open, and as I knew that Estella had let the visitors out - for, she had returned 
with the keys in her hand - I strolled into the garden and strolled all over it. It was quite a wilderness, and 
there were old melon-frames and cucumber-frames in it, which seemed in their decline to have 
produced a spon­taneous growth of weak attempts at pieces of old hats and boots, 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 re-appeared 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!’  

Halloa being a general observation which I had usually observed 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 fighting, too. There it is!’ In a most irritating manner he in­stantly slapped his hands against 
one another, daintily flung one of his legs up behind him, pulled my hair, slapped his hands again, dipped 
his head, and butted it into my stom­ach.  

The bull-like 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 therefore 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.  

‘Laws of the game!’ said he. Here, he skipped from his left leg on to his right. ‘Regular rules!’ Here, he 
skipped from his right leg on to his left. ‘Come to the ground, and go through the preliminaries!’ Here, he 
dodged backwards and forwards, and did all sorts of things while I looked helplessly at him.  

I was secretly afraid of him when I saw him so dexter­ous; but, I felt morally and physically convinced 
that his light head of hair could have had no business in the pit of my stomach, and that I had a right to 
consider it irrelevant when so obtruded 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, businesslike, 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 spinning himself about that was full of appearance. For the rest, he was a 
young gentleman in a grey suit (when not de­nuded for battle), with his elbows, knees, wrists, and heels, 
considerably in advance of the rest of him as to develop­ment.  

My heart failed me when I saw him squaring at me with every demonstration of mechanical nicety, and 
eyeing my anatomy as if he were minutely choosing his bone. I never 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 always knocked down; but, he would be up again in a moment, sponging himself or drinking 
out of the water-bottle, with the greatest satisfaction in seconding himself according to form, and then 
came at me with an air and a show that made me believe he really was going to do for me at last. He got 
heavily bruised, for I am sorry to record that the more I hit him, the harder I hit him; but, he came up 
again and again and again, until at last he got a bad fall with the back of his head against the wall. Even 
after that crisis in our affairs, he got up and turned round and round con­fusedly a few times, not 
knowing where I was; but finally went on his knees to his sponge and threw it up: at the same time 
panting out, ‘That means you have won.’  

He seemed so brave and innocent, that although I had not proposed the contest I felt but a gloomy 
satisfaction in my victory. Indeed, I go so far as to hope that I regarded myself while dressing, as a species 
of savage young wolf, or other wild beast. However, I got dressed, darkly wiping my sanguinary face at 
intervals, and I said, ‘Can I help you?’ and he said ‘No thankee,’ and I said ‘Good afternoon,’ and he said 
‘Same to you.’  

When I got into the court-yard, 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.  

 

Chapter 12  

M 

y 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 appeared that something would be done to me. I felt that the pale 
young gentleman’s blood was on my head, and that the Law would avenge it. 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 England, 
without laying themselves open to severe punishment. For some days, I even kept close at home, and 
looked out at the kitchen door with the great­est caution and trepidation before going on an errand, lest 
the officers of the County Jail should pounce upon me. The pale young gentleman’s nose had stained my 
trousers, and I tried to wash out that evidence of my guilt in the dead of night. I had cut my knuckles 
against the pale young gentle­man’s teeth, and I twisted my imagination into a thousand tangles, as I 
devised incredible ways of accounting for that damnatory circumstance when I should be 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 outrage done to her house, 
might rise in those grave-clothes of hers, draw a pistol, and shoot me dead? Whether suborned boys - a 
numerous band of mercenaries - might be engaged to fall upon me in the brewery, and cuff me until I 
was no more? It was high testimony to my confidence in the spirit of the pale young gentleman, that I 
never imagined him accessory to these retaliations; they always came into my mind as the acts of 
injudicious relatives of his, goad­ed on by the state of his visage and an indignant sympathy with the 
family features.  

However, 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 discovered on the premises. I 
found the same gate open, and I explored the garden, and even looked in at the windows of the 
detached house; but, my view was suddenly stopped by the closed shutters within, and all was lifeless. 
Only in the corner where the combat had taken place, could I de­tect any evidence of the young 
gentleman’s existence. There were traces of his gore in that spot, and I covered them with garden-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 across the landing, and round the other room. Over and over and over again, we would make 
these journeys, and sometimes they would last as long as three hours at a stretch. I insensibly fall into a 
general mention of these journeys as numerous, because it was at once settled that I should return every 
alternate day at noon for these purposes, and because I am now going to sum up a period of at least 
eight or ten months.  

As we began to be more used to one another, 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 going to be apprenticed to 
Joe, I believed; and I enlarged upon my knowing nothing and wanting to know every­thing, in the hope 
that she might offer some help towards that desirable end. But, she did not; on the contrary, she seemed 
to prefer my being ignorant. Neither did she ever give me any money - or anything but my daily dinner - 
nor ever stipulate that I should be paid for my services.  

Estella was always about, and always let me in and out, but never told me I might kiss her again. 
Sometimes, she would coldly tolerate me; sometimes, she would conde­scend to me; sometimes, she 
would be quite familiar with me; sometimes, she would tell me energetically that she hat­ed me. Miss 
Havisham would often ask me in a whisper, or when we were alone, ‘Does she grow prettier and prettier, 
Pip?’ And when I said yes (for indeed she did), would seem to enjoy it greedily. Also, when we played at 
cards Miss Havisham would look on, with a miserly relish of Estel­la’s moods, whatever they were. And 
sometimes, when her moods were so many and so contradictory of one another that I was puzzled what 
to say or do, 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 cer­emonious way of rendering homage to a patron saint; but, I believe 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 respected 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, soaring higher -Old Clem! One day soon 
after the appearance of the chair, Miss Havisham suddenly saying to me, with the impatient 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 my character fail to be influenced by them? Is 
it to be wondered at if my thoughts were dazed, as my eyes were, when I came out into the natural light 
from the misty yel­low rooms?  

Perhaps, I might have told Joe about the pale young gen­tleman, if I had not previously been betrayed 
into those enormous inventions to which I had confessed. Under the circumstances, I felt that Joe could 
hardly fail to discern in the pale young gentleman, an appropriate passenger to be put into the black 
velvet coach; therefore, I said nothing of him. Besides: that shrinking from having Miss Havisham and 
Estella discussed, which had come upon me in the be­ginning, grew much more potent as time went on. 
I reposed complete confidence in no one but Biddy; but, I told poor Biddy everything. Why it came 
natural to me to do so, and why Biddy had a deep concern in everything I told her, I did not know then, 
though I think I know now.  

Meanwhile, 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 be-fore the fire as if I were going to be cooked, would begin by saying, ‘Now, Mum, here is 
this boy! Here is this boy which you brought up by hand. Hold up your head, boy, and be for ever 
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 perceiving that he was not favourable to my being taken from the forge. I was fully old 
enough now, to be ap­prenticed to Joe; and when Joe sat with 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 irritating end to every one of these debates. All in a moment, with nothing to 
lead up to it, my sister would stop herself in a yawn, and catching sight of me as 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 favour to bother my life out.  

We went on in this way for a long time, and it seemed likely that we should continue to go on in this way 
for a long time, when, one day, Miss Havisham stopped short as she and I were walking, she leaning on 
my shoulder; and said with some displeasure:  

‘You are growing tall, Pip!’  

I thought it best to hint, through the medium of a medi­tative look, that this might be occasioned by 
circumstances over which I had no control.  

She said no more at the time; but, she presently stopped and looked at me again; and presently again; 
and after that, looked frowning and moody. On the next day of my atten­dance when our usual exercise 
was over, and I had landed her at her dressingtable, 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?’  

‘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 hon­our to be asked.  

‘Then let him come.’  

‘At any particular time, Miss Havisham?’  

‘There, there! I know nothing about times. Let him come soon, and come along with you.’  

When I got home at night, and delivered this message for Joe, my sister ‘went on the Rampage,’ in a 
more alarm­ing degree than at any previous period. She asked me and Joe whether we 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.  

 

Chapter 13  

I 

t 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 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 augur 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 
ostentatiously; but, I rather think they were displayed as articles of property -much as Cleopatra or any 
other sovereign lady on the Rampage might exhibit her wealth in a pageant or procession.  

When we came to Pumblechook’s, my sister bounced in and left us. As it was almost noon, Joe and I held 
straight on to Miss Havisham’s house. Estella opened the gate as usu­al, and, the moment she appeared, 
Joe took his hat off and stood weighing it by the brim in both his hands: as if he had some urgent reason 
in his mind for being particular to half a quarter of an ounce.  

Estella took no notice of either of us, but led us the way that I knew so well. I followed next to her, and 
Joe came last. When I looked back at Joe in the long passage, he was still weighing his hat with the 
greatest care, and was coming af­ter us in long strides on the tips of his toes.  

Estella told me we were both to go in, so I took Joe by the coat-cuff and conducted him into Miss 
Havisham’s presence. She was seated at her dressing-table, and looked round at us immediately.  

‘Oh!’ said she to Joe. ‘You are the husband of the sister of this boy?’  

I could hardly have imagined dear old Joe looking so un­like himself or so like some extraordinary bird; 
standing, as he did, speechless, with his tuft of feathers ruffled, and his mouth open, as if he wanted a 
worm.  

‘You are the husband,’ repeated Miss Havisham, ‘of the sister of this boy?’ It was very aggravating; but, 
throughout the interview Joe persisted in addressing Me instead of Miss Havisham.  

‘Which I 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 objec­tion? Does he like the trade?’  

‘Which it is well beknown to yourself, Pip,’ returned Joe, strengthening his former mixture of 
argumentation, con­fidence, and politeness, ‘that it were the wish of your own 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 heart!’  

It was quite in vain for me to endeavour to make him sensible that he ought to speak to Miss Havisham. 
The more I made faces and gestures to him to do it, the more confi­dential, argumentative, and polite, 
he persisted in being to Me.  

‘Have you brought his indentures with you?’ asked Miss Havisham.  

‘Well, Pip, you know,’ replied Joe, as if that were a little unreasonable, ‘you yourself see me put ‘em in 
my ‘at, and therefore you know as they are here.’ With which he took them out, and gave them, not to 
Miss Havisham, but to me. I 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 
mischievously. I took the indentures out of his hand and gave them to Miss Havisham.  

‘You expected,’ said Miss Havisham, as she looked them over, ‘no premium with the boy?’ ‘Joe!’ I 
remonstrated; for he made no reply at all. ‘Why don’t you answer—‘  

‘Pip,’ returned Joe, cutting me short as if he were hurt, ‘which I 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.  

‘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 man, you will expect no other and no more.’  

How Joe got out of the room, I have never been able to determine; but, I know that when he did get out 
he was steadily proceeding up-stairs 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 daylight alone again, Joe backed up against a wall, and said to me, ‘Astonishing!’ 
And there he remained so long, saying ‘Astonishing’ at intervals, so of­ten, that I began to think his 
senses were never coming back. At length he prolonged his remark into ‘Pip, I do assure you this is as-
TONishing!’ 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. Pumblechook’s parlour: 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. ‘Which that were my own belief,’ answered Joe -‘her compliments to Mrs. J. 
Gargery—‘ ‘Much good they’ll do me!’ observed my sister; but rather gratified too.  

‘And wishing,’ pursued Joe, with another fixed look at me, like another effort of remembrance, ‘that the 
state of Miss 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. Pumblechook. ‘She might have had the politeness to 
send that message at first, but it’s better late than never. And what did she give young 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 ap­pearance of reflection, ‘whether it were Joe, or Jorge.’  

My sister looked at Pumblechook: who smoothed the el­bows of his wooden armchair, and nodded at 
her and at the fire, as if he had known all about it beforehand.  

‘And how much have you got?’ asked my sister, laughing. Positively, laughing! ‘What would present 
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.’  

‘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 sufficiently 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 corn-chandler. ‘A pleasure’s a pleasure, all the world 
over. But this boy, you know; we must have him bound. I said I’d see to it - to tell you the truth.’  

The Justices were sitting in the Town Hall near at hand, and we at once went over to have me bound 
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 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 hard-
bake and sticking-plaister. Here, in a corner, my indentures 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 seeing me publicly tortured, and who were much disap­pointed to find that my friends 
were merely rallying round me, we went back to Pumblechook’s. And there my sister became so excited 
by the twenty-five guineas, that nothing would serve her but we must have a dinner out of that wind-
fall, at the Blue Boar, and that Pumblechook must go over in his chaise-cart, and bring the Hubbles and 
Mr. Wopsle.  

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 entertainment. And to 
make it worse, they all asked me from time to time -in short, whenever they had noth­ing else to do - 
why I didn’t enjoy myself. And what could I possibly do then, but say I was enjoying myself -when I 
wasn’t?  

However, they were grown up and had their own way, and they made the most of it. That swindling 
Pumblechook, exalted into the beneficent contriver of the whole occasion, actually took the top of the 
table; and, when he addressed them on the subject of my being bound, and had 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 bloodstain’d sword in thunder down, with such 
effect, that a waiter came in and said, ‘The Commercials 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 reply to the 
inquisitive bore who leads that piece of music in a most impertinent manner, by wanting to know all 
about everybody’s private affairs) that he was the man with his white locks flowing, and that he was 
upon the whole the weakest pilgrim going.  

Finally, I remember that when I got into my little bed­room I was truly wretched, and had a strong 
conviction on me that I should never like Joe’s trade. I had liked it once, but once was not now.  

 

Chapter 14 
 

I 

t is a most miserable thing to feel ashamed of home. There may be black ingratitude in the thing, and the 
punish­ment may be retributive and well deserved; but, that it is a miserable thing, I can testify.  

Home had never been a very pleasant place to me, be­cause of my sister’s temper. But, Joe had 
sanctified it, and I had believed in it. I had believed in the best parlour as a most elegant saloon; I had 
believed in the front door, as a mysterious portal of the Temple of State whose solemn opening was 
attended with a sacrifice of roast fowls; I had believed in the kitchen as a chaste though not magnificent 
apartment; I had believed in the forge as the glowing road to manhood and independence. Within a 
single year, all this was changed. Now, it was all coarse and common, and I would not have had Miss 
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 which the anvil 
was a feather. There have been occasions in my later life (I suppose as in most lives) when I have felt for 
a time as if a thick curtain had fallen on all its interest and romance, to shut me out from anything save 
dull en­durance any more. Never has that curtain dropped so heavy and blank, as when my way in life lay 
stretched out straight before me through the newly-entered road of apprentice­ship to Joe.  

I remember that at a later period of my ‘time,’ I used to stand about the churchyard on Sunday evenings 
when night was falling, comparing my own perspective with the windy marsh view, and making out some 
likeness between them by thinking how flat and low both were, and how on both there came an 
unknown way and a dark mist and then the sea. I was quite as dejected on the first working-day of my 
apprenticeship as in that after-time; but I am glad to know that I never breathed a murmur to Joe while 
my indentures lasted. It is about the only thing I am glad to know of myself in that connection.  

For, though it includes what I proceed to add, all the merit of what I proceed to add was Joe’s. It was not 
because I was faithful, but because Joe was faithful, that I never ran away and went for a soldier or a 
sailor. It was not because I had a strong sense of the virtue of industry, but because Joe had a strong 
sense of the virtue of industry, that I worked with tolerable zeal against the grain. It is not possible to 
know how far the influence of any amiable honest-hearted duty-doing man flies out into the world; but 
it is very pos­sible to know how it has touched one’s self in going by, and I know right well, that any good 
that intermixed itself with my apprenticeship came of plain contented Joe, and not of restlessly aspiring 
discontented me.  

What I wanted, who can say? How can I say, when I never knew? What I dreaded was, that in some 
unlucky hour I, be­ing at my 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 
despise me. Often after dark, when I was pulling the bel­lows for Joe, and we were singing Old Clem, and 
when the thought how we used to sing it at Miss Havisham’s would seem to show me Estella’s face in the 
fire, with her pretty hair fluttering in the wind and her eyes scorning me, - often at such a time I would 
look towards those panels of black night in the wall which the wooden windows then were, and would 
fancy that I saw her just drawing her face away, and would believe that she had come at last.  

After that, when we went 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.  

 

Chapter 15  

A 

s 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 halfpenny. 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 information, I made proposals to Mr. Wopsle to bestow some intellectual 
crumbs upon me; with which he kindly complied. As it turned out, however, that he only wanted me for 
a dramatic lay-figure, to be contradict­ed and embraced and wept over and bullied and clutched and 
stabbed and knocked about in a variety of ways, I soon declined that course of instruction; though not 
until Mr. Wopsle in his poetic fury had severely mauled me.  

Whatever I acquired, I tried to impart to Joe. This state­ment sounds so well, that I cannot in my 
conscience let it pass unexplained. I wanted to make Joe less ignorant and common, that he might be 
worthier of my society and less open to Estella’s reproach.  

The old Battery out on the marshes was our place of study, and a broken slate and a short piece of slate 
pencil were our educational implements: to which Joe always added a pipe of tobacco. I never knew Joe 
to remember anything from one Sunday to another, or to acquire, under my tuition, any piece of 
information whatever. Yet he would smoke his pipe at the Battery with a far more sagacious air than 
anywhere else - even with a learned air - as if he considered himself to be advancing immensely. Dear 
fellow, I hope he did.  

It was pleasant and quiet, out there with the sails on the river passing beyond the earthwork, and 
sometimes, when the tide was low, looking as if they belonged to sunken ships that were still sailing on 
at the bottom of the water. When­ever I watched the 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 hill-side 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 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 concern­ 

ing 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 re­ 

mains open to the question, Pip. But in regard to wisiting Miss Havisham. She might think you wanted 
something -expected something of her.’  

‘Don’t you think I might say that I did not, Joe?’ ‘You might, old chap,’ said Joe. ‘And she might credit it. 
Similarly she 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 repetition.  

‘You see, Pip,’ Joe pursued, as soon as he was past that danger, ‘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.’  

‘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 Havisham, 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 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 par­ticularly pressed it, ‘if I was yourself, Pip, I 
wouldn’t. No, I would not. For what’s a door-chain when she’s got one al­ways up? And shark-headers is 
open to misrepresentations. And if it was a toasting-fork, you’d go into brass and do yourself no credit. 
And the 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 endeavouring 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 up-town and make a call on Miss Est - Havisham.’  

‘Which her name,’ said Joe, gravely, ‘ain’t Estavisham, Pip, unless she have been rechris’ened.’  

‘I know, Joe, I know. It was a slip of mine. What do you think of it, Joe?’  

In brief, Joe thought that if I thought well of it, he thought well of it. But, he was particular in stipulating 
that if I were not received with cordiality, or if I were not encouraged to repeat my visit as a visit which 
had no ulterior object but was simply one of gratitude for a favour received, then this experimental trip 
should have no successor. By these condi­tions I promised to abide.  

Now, Joe kept a journeyman at weekly wages whose name was 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 al-ways 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 sluice­keeper’s out on the 
marshes, and on working days would come slouching from his hermitage, with his hands in his pockets 
and his dinner loosely tied in a bundle round his neck and dangling on his back. On Sundays he mostly lay 
all day on the sluice-gates, or stood against ricks and barns. He always slouched, locomotively, with his 
eyes on the ground; and, when accosted or otherwise required to raise them, he looked up in a half 
resentful, half 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 
myself fuel. When I became Joe’s ‘pren­tice, Orlick was perhaps confirmed in some suspicion that I 
should displace him; howbeit, 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 reminded Joe of my half-holiday. He said nothing 
at the moment, for he and Joe had just got a piece of hot iron be­tween them, and I was at the bellows; 
but by-and-by he said, leaning on his hammer:  

‘Now, master! Sure you’re not a-going to favour only one of us. If Young Pip has a half-holiday, do as 
much for Old Orlick.’ I suppose he was about five-and-twenty, but he usu­ally spoke of himself as an 
ancient person.  

‘Why, what’ll you do with a half-holiday, if you get it?’ said Joe. ‘What’ll I do with it! What’ll he do with 
it? I’ll do as much  

with it as him,’ said Orlick.  

‘As to Pip, he’s going up-town,’ said Joe.  

‘Well then, as to Old Orlick, he’s a-going up-town,’ re­torted that worthy. ‘Two can go up-town. Tan’t 
only one wot can go up-town.  

‘Don’t lose your temper,’ said Joe.  

‘Shall if I like,’ growled Orlick. ‘Some and their up-town­ing! Now, master! Come. No favouring in this 
shop. Be a man!’  

The master refusing to entertain the subject until the journeyman was in a better temper, Orlick plunged 
at the furnace, drew out a red-hot bar, made at me with it as if he 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 hearing -she was a most unscrupulous spy and 
listener -and she instantly looked in at one of the windows.  

‘Like you, you fool!’ said she to Joe, ‘giving holidays to great idle hulkers like that. You are a rich man, 
upon my life, to waste wages in that way. I wish I was his master!’  

‘You’d be everybody’s master, if you durst,’ retorted Orlick, with an ill-favoured grin.  

(“Let her alone,’ said Joe.)  

‘I’d be a match for all noodles and all rogues,’ returned my sister, 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 noodles. And I couldn’t be a match for the rogues, without being a match for 
you, who are the blackest-looking and the worst rogue between this and France. Now!’  

‘You’re a foul shrew, Mother Gargery, growled the jour­neyman. ‘If that makes a judge of rogues, you 
ought to be a 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? O! O! O!’ Each of these exclamations 
was a shriek; and I must remark of my sister, what is equally true of all the violent women I have ever 
seen, that passion was no excuse for her, because it is undeniable that instead of lapsing into passion, 
she consciously and deliberately took extraordinary pains to force herself into it, and became blindly 
furious by regu­lar stages; ‘what was the name he gave me before the base man who swore to defend 
me? O! Hold me! O!’  

‘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! O! O!’ 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 nothing 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 neighbourhood could stand up 
long against Joe, I never saw the man. Orlick, as if he had been of no more account than the pale young 
gentleman, was very soon among the coal-dust, and in no hurry to come out of it. Then, Joe unlocked 
the door and picked up my sister, who had dropped insensible at the window (but who had seen the 
fight first, I think), and who was carried into the house  

and laid down, and who was recommended to revive, and would do nothing but struggle and clench her 
hands in Joe’s hair. Then, came that singular calm and silence which suc­ceed all uproars; and then, with 
the vague sensation which I have always connected with such a lull -namely, that it was Sunday, and 
somebody was dead - I went up-stairs to dress myself.  

When I came down again, I found Joe and Orlick sweep­ing up, without any other traces of discomposure 
than a slit in one of Orlick’s nostrils, which was neither expressive nor ornamental. A pot of beer had 
appeared from the Jolly Bargemen, and they were sharing it by turns in a peaceable manner. The lull had 
a sedative and philosophical influence on Joe, who followed me out into the road to say, as a part­ing 
observation that might do me good, ‘On the Rampage, Pip, and off the Rampage, Pip - such is Life!’  

With what absurd emotions (for, we think the feelings that are very serious in a man quite comical in a 
boy) I found myself again going to Miss Havisham’s, matters little here. Nor, how I passed and 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 undoubtedly have gone, if my time had been my own, to come 
back.  

Miss Sarah Pocket came to the gate. No Estella.  

‘How, then? You here again?’ said Miss Pocket. ‘What do you want?’  

When I said that I only came to see how Miss Havisham was, Sarah evidently deliberated whether or no 
she should send me about my business. But, unwilling to hazard the re­sponsibility, she let me in, and 
presently brought the sharp message that I was to ‘come up.’  

Everything was unchanged, and Miss Havisham was alone. ‘Well?’ said she, fixing her eyes upon me. ‘I 
hope you want nothing? You’ll get nothing.’  

‘No, indeed, Miss Havisham. I only wanted you to know that I am doing very well in my apprenticeship, 
and 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, turning herself and her chair towards me, ‘You are looking round for Estella? Hey?’  

I had been looking round -in fact, for Estella -and I stammered that I hoped she was well.  

‘Abroad,’ said Miss Havisham; ‘educating for a lady; far out of reach; prettier than ever; admired by all 
who see her. Do you feel that you have lost her?’  

There was such a malignant enjoyment in her utterance of the last words, and she broke into such a 
disagreeable laugh, that I was at a loss what to say. She spared me the trouble of considering, by 
dismissing me. When the gate was closed upon me by Sarah of the walnut-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 disconsolately 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 consider 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 accompanying him to the Pumblechookian  

parlour. As I knew it would be miserable at home, and as  

the nights were dark and the way was dreary, and almost  

any companionship on the road was better than none, I  

made no great resistance; consequently, we turned into  

Pumblechook’s just as the street and the shops were light­ 

ing 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 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 declare 
that I felt positively apolo­getic, Pumblechook’s indignant 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 circumstances whatever; Millwood put me down in argument, on every occasion; it 
became sheer monomania in my master’s daughter to care a button for me; and all I can say for my 
gasping and procrastinat­ing conduct on the fatal morning, is, that it was worthy of the general 
feebleness of my character. Even after I was hap­pily hanged and Wopsle had closed the book, 
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 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 performance, ‘we have been indulging, Mr. Orlick, 
in an in­tellectual evening.’  

Old Orlick growled, as if he had nothing to say about that, and we all went on together. I asked him 
presently whether he had been spending his half-holiday up and down town?  

‘Yes,’ said he, ‘all of it. I come in behind yourself. I didn’t see you, but I must have been pretty close 
behind you. By-the-bye, 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 wellremembered 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.  

‘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 
sulkily 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 great­est agonies at Glastonbury. Orlick 
sometimes growled, ‘Beat it out, beat it out -Old Clem! With a clink for the stout -Old Clem!’ I thought he 
had been drinking, but he was not drunk.  

Thus, we came to the village. The way by which we ap­proached it, took us past the Three 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 my side.  

‘I can’t quite understand. The house seems to have been violently entered when Joe Gargery was out. 
Supposed by convicts. Somebody has been attacked and hurt.’  

We were running too fast to admit of more being said, and we made no stop until we got into our 
kitchen. It was full of people; the whole village was there, or in the yard; and there was a surgeon, and 
there was Joe, and there was 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.  

 

Chapter 16  

W 

ith my head full of George Barnwell, I was at first dis­ 

posed 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-labourer going home. The man could not be more par­ 

ticular as to the time at which he saw her (he got into dense  

confusion when he tried to be), than that it must have been  

before nine. When Joe went home at five minutes before ten,  

he found her struck down on the floor, and promptly called  

in assistance. The fire had not then burnt unusually low, nor  

was the snuff of the candle very long; the candle, however,  

had been blown out.  

Nothing had been taken away from any part of the house.  

Neither, beyond the blowing out of the candle - which stood  

on 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 had made, in falling 
and bleeding. But, there was one remarkable piece of evidence on the spot. She had been struck with 
something blunt and heavy, on the head and spine; after the blows were dealt, something heavy had 
been thrown down at her with considerable violence, as she lay on her face. And on the ground beside 
her, when Joe picked her up, was a convict’s leg-iron which had been filed asunder.  

Now, Joe, examining this iron with a smith’s eye, de­clared it to have been filed asunder some time ago. 
The hue and cry going off to the Hulks, and people coming thence to examine the iron, Joe’s opinion was 
corroborated. They did not undertake to say when it had left the prison-ships to which it undoubtedly 
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. Further, one of those two was already re-
taken, 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 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 everybody 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 altercation; the 
assailant had come in so silent­ly and suddenly, that she had been felled before she could look round.  

It was horrible to think that I had provided the weapon, however undesignedly, but I could hardly think 
otherwise. I suffered unspeakable trouble while I considered and re­considered whether I should at last 
dissolve that spell of my childhood, and tell Joe all the story. For months afterwards, I every day settled 
the question finally in the negative, and reopened and 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 fabulous dogs and veal-cutlets as a 
monstrous invention. However, I temporized with myself, of course - for, was I not wavering 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.  

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 neighbourhood with admiration; and they had a mysterious manner of taking their 
drink, that was almost as good as taking the culprit. But not quite, for they never did it.  

Long after these constitutional powers had dispersed, my sister lay very ill in bed. Her sight was 
disturbed, so that she saw objects multiplied, and grasped at visionary tea­cups and wine-glasses instead 
of the realities; her hearing was greatly impaired; her memory also; and her speech was unintelligible. 
When, at last, she came round so far as to be helped down-stairs, it was still necessary to keep my slate 
always by her, that she might indicate in writing what she could not indicate in speech. As she was (very 
bad hand­writing apart) a more than indifferent speller, and as Joe was a more than indifferent reader, 
extraordinary compli­cations arose between them, which I was always called in to solve. The 
administration of mutton instead of medicine, the substitution of Tea for Joe, and the baker for bacon, 
were among the mildest of my own mistakes.  

However, her temper was greatly improved, and she was patient. A tremulous uncertainty of the action 
of all her limbs soon became a part of 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 reap­pearance in the kitchen, when Biddy came to us 
with a small speckled box containing the whole of her worldly ef­fects, and became a blessing to the 
household. Above all, she was a blessing to Joe, for the dear old fellow was sadly cut up by the constant 
contemplation of the wreck of his wife, and had been accustomed, while attending on her of an evening, 
to turn to me every now and then and say, with his blue eyes moistened, ‘Such a fine figure of a woman 
as she once were, Pip!’ Biddy instantly taking the cleverest charge of her as though she had studied her 
from infancy, Joe became able in some sort to appreciate the greater quiet of his life, and to get down to 
the 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.  

Biddy’s first triumph in her new office, was to solve a dif­ficulty that had completely vanquished me. I 
had tried hard at it, but 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 something 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 hammers, one after another, but with­out avail. Then I bethought me of a crutch, the 
shape being much the same, and I borrowed one in the village, and dis­played it to my sister with 
considerable confidence. But she shook her head to that extent when she was shown it, that we were 
terrified lest in her weak and shattered state she should dislocate her neck.  

When my sister found that Biddy was very quick to un­derstand her, this mysterious sign reappeared on 
the slate. Biddy looked thoughtfully at it, heard my explanation, looked thoughtfully at my sister, looked 
thoughtfully at Joe (who was always represented on the slate by his initial let­ter), and ran into the forge, 
followed by Joe and me.  

‘Why, of course!’ cried Biddy, with an exultant face. ‘Don’t you see? It’s him!’  

Orlick, without a doubt! She had lost his name, and could only signify him by his hammer. We told him 
why we want­ed him to come into the kitchen, and he slowly laid down his hammer, wiped his brow 
with his arm, took another wipe at it with his apron, and came slouching out, with a curious loose 
vagabond bend in the knees that strongly dis­tinguished him.  

I confess that I expected to see my sister denounce him, and that I was disappointed by the different 
result. She manifested the greatest anxiety to be on good terms with him, was evidently much pleased 
by his being at length produced, and motioned that she would have him given something to drink. She 
watched his countenance as if she were particularly wishful to be assured that he took kindly to his 
reception, she showed every possible desire to concili­ate him, and there was an air of humble 
propitiation in all she did, such as I have seen pervade the bearing of a child towards a hard master. After 
that day, a day rarely passed without her drawing 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.  

 

Chapter 17  

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, however. Her shoes came up at the heel, her 
hair grew bright and neat, her hands were always clean. She was not beautiful - 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 see­ 

ing 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?’  

‘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 success­fully overcame that bad habit 
of living, so highly desirable to be got rid of by some people. I recalled the hopeless circumstances by 
which she had been surrounded in the miserable 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 untoward 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 readily 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.’ ‘Oh, 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.’  

‘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 re­turned for answer, ‘Yes; I am not over-
particular.’ It scarcely sounded flattering, but I knew she meant well.  

‘Instead of that,’ said I, plucking up more grass and chew­ing a blade or two, ‘see how I am going on. 
Dissatisfied, and uncomfortable, 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 independently 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.’  

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 conscious it would have served my face right, if I had lifted it up by my hair, 
and knocked it against the pebbles as a punishment 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 af­ter 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 
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 further, 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 further, or go home?’  

I said to Biddy we would walk a little further, 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 neighbour by 
candlelight 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, 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 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 favourite 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 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 circumstances were favourable to his dancing at 
Biddy, got before 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 
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.  

 

Chapter 18  

I 

t 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. Wopsle 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 testimony, 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 regarding the mental competency of that witness. The coroner, in Mr. 
Wopsle’s hands, became Timon of Athens; the beadle, Coriolanus. He enjoyed himself thor­oughly, and 
we all enjoyed ourselves, and were delightfully comfortable. In this cozy 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?’  

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 honour 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 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 suspicious 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 backwards, if you like - and, perhaps, have done it before to­day. 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 bottom.’ 
(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, 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 disputed, 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 settle, 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?’  

‘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 confronting 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 impressive and 
ceremonious one, went on ahead to open the front door. Our conference was held in the state parlour, 
which was feebly lighted by one candle.  

It began with the strange gentleman’s sitting down at the table, drawing the candle to him, and looking 
over some entries in his pocket-book. He then put up the pocket-book and set the candle a little aside: 
after peering round it into the darkness 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 object 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 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 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 instruc­tions, that you always 
bear the name of Pip. You will have no objection, I dare say, to your great expectations being 
encumbered 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 benefactor 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 prohibited 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 sus-picion 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 person from whom you 
derive your expectations, and the secret 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 objection.  

‘I should think not! Now, Mr. Pip, I have done with stipu­lations.’ 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 bullying suspicion; and even 
now he occasionally shut his eyes and threw his finger at me while he spoke, as much as to express 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 endowed with expectations only. There is already lodged in my hands, a sum of 
money amply sufficient for your suit­able education 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 accordance 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 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 greataunt; 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 anybody. 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 
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. 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, remember?’ ‘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 com­pensation?’  

‘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 honour 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 unthankful 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!’  

I drew Joe away, and he immediately became placable; merely stating to me, in an obliging manner and 
as a po­lite expostulatory 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 inclination 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 mean­time. You can take a hackney-
coach at the stage-coach office in London, and come straight to me. Understand, that I ex­press 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 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 parlour, 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 needlework 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 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 fortune. 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 nodded 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 gentleman, that I didn’t half like it.  

Infinite pains were then taken by Biddy to convey to my sister some idea of what had happened. To the 
best of my belief, 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 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.  

Anyhow, 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 before 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 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 genteel 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 ex­ceedingly 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 exchanged an affectionate good-night with her and 
Joe, and 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 fur­nished 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 Havisham’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 for-tunes 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 pervading 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.  

 

Chapter 19  

M 

orning 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 indentures from the press in the best 
parlour, 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 destined 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 dinner of roast-beef 
and plum-pudding, a pint of ale, and a gallon 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 shivering, 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 dykes 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 London 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.’  

‘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 emotion, 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 gentleman, 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 mean­ing, 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 throwing out in a general way for the elevation of her spirits, that I should never forget 
her, said I had a favour to ask of her.  

‘And it is, Biddy,’ said I, ‘that you will not omit any op­portunity 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 dearest 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.  

‘Oh, his manners! won’t his manners do, then?’ asked Biddy, plucking a black-currant leaf.  

‘My dear Biddy, they do very well here—‘  

‘Oh! 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.’  

‘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, snap­pishly, ‘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.  

‘Oh! 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. 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 opin­ion you take away of me, shall 
make no difference in my remembrance 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 nature (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 until 
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. Trabb, the tailor: who was having his breakfast in the parlour 
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 mention, 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 table-cloth, 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. May I venture to 
congratulate you? Would you do me the favour of stepping into the shop?’  

Mr. Trabb’s boy was the most audacious boy in all that countryside. When I had entered he was 
sweeping the shop, and he had sweetened his labours 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 stern­ness, ‘or I’ll knock your head off! Do me the 
favour 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 purpose, 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 number 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 deferential confidence recommended it to me as 
a light ar­ticle for summer wear, an article much in vogue among the nobility and gentry, an article that it 
would ever be an honour 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 
parlour to be measured. For, although Mr. Trabb had my measure already, and had previously been quite 
contented with it, he said apologetically that it ‘wouldn’t do under existing circum­stances, sir -wouldn’t 
do at all.’ So, Mr. Trabb measured and calculated me, in the parlour, 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 parlour 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 expe­rience of the stupendous power of 
money, was, that it had 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 property; but whenever I said anything to that effect, it 
followed that the officiating tradesman ceased to have his attention diverted through the window by the 
High-street, and concentrated 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 in the chaise-cart, and had called at 
the forge and heard the news. He had prepared a collation for me in the Barnwell parlour, 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 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 
favourites with equal 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 emptied 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 Thor­oughfares 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 honour of bringing you up by 
hand! It’s a sad  

picter, to reflect that she’s no longer equal to fully under­ 

standing the honour. May—‘  

I saw he was about to come at me again, and I stopped  

him.  

‘We’ll drink her health,’ said I.  

‘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 nobleminded, 
sir! Ever forgiving and ever affable. It might,’ said the servile Pumblechook, putting down his untasted 
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 favou­rite 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 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 
neighbourhood. 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 to me for the first time in my life, and certainly after having kept his secret 
wonderfully well, that he had always said of me, ‘That boy is no common boy, and mark me, his fortun’ 
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 sunshine, 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 expressive 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 ordered a young carter out of my way with the 
greatest in­dignation. 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 that there was not a moment to be lost.  

So, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, passed; and on Friday morning I went to Mr. Pumblechook’s, to 
put on my new clothes and pay my visit to Miss Havisham. Mr. Pum­blechook’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. Pumblechook’s very limited dressing-
glass, in the futile endeavour to see my legs, it seemed to fit me bet­ter. It being market morning at a 
neighbouring town some ten miles off, Mr. Pumblechook 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 personal 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 positively 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?’ ‘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.’  

‘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 countenance 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 bridecake 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 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 
splendour 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.  

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. Fantastic 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 down stairs. 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 port­manteau 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 
an­other 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.  

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 de­liberations, 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!  

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.  

 

Chapter 20  

T 

he journey from our town to the metropolis, was a jour­ney of about five hours. It was a little past mid-
day when the fourhorse 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 everything: otherwise, while I was scared by the immen­ 

sity 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 hammer- 

cloth 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 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 completed the ascent to his box, and had got 
away (which appeared to relieve his mind), I went into the front office with my little portmanteau in my 
hand and asked, Was Mr. Jaggers 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.’  

With those words, the clerk opened a door, and ushered me into an inner chamber at the back. Here, we 
found a gen­tleman 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 
pistol, a sword in a scabbard, several strange-looking boxes and packages, and two dreadful casts on a 
shelf, of faces peculiarly swollen, and twitchy about the nose. Mr. Jaggers’s own high-backed chair was of 
deadly black horse-hair, 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 opposite to Mr. Jag­gers’s chair, being 
greasy with shoulders. I recalled, too, that the one-eyed gentleman had shuffled forth 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. Jaggers’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 up-
stairs, and whether they all claimed to have the same detrimental 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 experience 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 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 eighteenpence. 
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.  

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 waiting 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 standing 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 little 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, ‘Oh 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. Jaggers 
coming across the road towards me. All the others who were wait­ing, saw him at the same time, and 
there was quite 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, throwing 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 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?’ ‘Oh 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?’  

‘Oh 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 im­mediately. No one remained now but the 
excitable Jew, who 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 devastating 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 relinquishing 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 acquaintance, 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 
hof­ 

fer 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 in­difference, and left him dancing on the pavement 
as if it were red-hot. Without further interruption, we reached the front office, 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?’  

‘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 character, 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 began 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 settin 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 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 remain 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 tradesmen 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 cask-
full, 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.’  

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 up-stairs 
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.  

 

Chapter 21  

C 

asting 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 embellishment 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 sustained 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. Wem­ 

mick to me. ‘No,’ said I. ‘I was new here once,’ said Mr. Wemmick. ‘Rum to think  

of now!’  

‘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.  

‘Oh! 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 postoffice of a mouth 
that he had a me­chanical appearance 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. ‘Yes,’ said he, nodding in the 
direction. ‘At Hammer-smith, 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 utterance 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 announcement, 
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 together in a rank corner as a club 
for Tom-cats.  

We entered this haven through a wicket-gate, and were disgorged 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 sparrows, 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 were divided, were in every stage of dilapidated blind and curtain, crippled flower-
pot, cracked glass, dusty decay, and miserable 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 frouzy mourning 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 expectations, 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 explained. ‘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. After this escape, I was content to take a foggy view of the Inn through the 
window’s encrusting dirt, and to stand dolefully 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 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 pa-
per-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 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 table, 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, because they come for 
you from the coffee-house. This is my little bedroom; rather musty, but Barnard’s is musty. This is your 
bed-room; 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:  

‘Lord bless me, you’re the prowling boy!’  

‘And you,’ said I, ‘are the pale young gentleman!’  

 

Chapter 22  

T 

he pale young gentleman and I stood contemplating one  

another in Barnard’s Inn, until we both burst out laugh­ 

ing. ‘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,  

reaching out his hand goodhumouredly, ‘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  

Herbert was the pale young gentleman’s name) still rather  

confounded his intention with his execution. But I made a  

modest 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 look-out 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 sent for me on a trial visit, and if I had come out of it successfully, 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-his­named. 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.  

‘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 question. 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 afterwards? 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 solicitor, 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 connexion 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 every look and tone, a 
natural incapacity to do any­thing secret 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 notion 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 conquered languor about him in the midst of his 
spirits and briskness, that did not seem indicative of natural strength.  

He had not a handsome face, but it was better than hand­some: being 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 you’ll want very few hints. I dare say we shall 
be often together, and I should like to banish any needless restraint between 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 neighbour- 

hood. 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 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 gipsy character that set the banquet 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 character: imposing 
on the waiter the wandering habits of putting the covers on the floor (where he fell over them), the 
melted butter in the armchair, the bread on the book­shelves, the cheese in the coalscuttle, 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 advantages. 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.’  

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 Havisham, 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 
genteel 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 privately, 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 family, residing in the house you are acquainted with. As the son grew a 
young man, he turned out riot­ous, extravagant, undutiful -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 emptying 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 resumed.  

‘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 perseverance 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 cheerfullest 
manner, ‘Not at all, I am sure!’ and re­sumed.  

‘There appeared upon the scene - say at the races, or the public 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 gentleman, 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 Havisham 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 councils, 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 time­serving 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 
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 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 under­stand. 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 morti­fication 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 con­sidering 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 Havisham, 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 between us. All that I know about Miss Havisham, you know.’  

‘And all that I know,’ I retorted, ‘you know.’  

‘I fully believe it. So there can be no competition or per­plexity 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 Havisham 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 having laid a young Insurer on his back, blackened his en­terprising eye, and cut his responsible 
head open. But, again, there came upon me, for my relief, that odd impression that Herbert Pocket 
would never be very successful or rich.  

‘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 expectations than my own.  

‘I think I shall trade, also,’ said he, putting his thumbs in his waistcoat 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 transac­tions, 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!’  

‘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  

carefully reckoning up and striking a balance. ‘Not directly  

profitable. 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 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 naturally 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 Sunday, since I had left Joe and Biddy. The space 
interposed between 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 im­possibilities, geographical and social, solar and lunar. Yet in the 
London streets, so crowded with people and so bril­liantly lighted in the dusk of evening, there were 
depressing hints of reproaches for that I had put the poor old kitchen at home so far away; and in the 
dead of night, the footsteps of some incapable impostor of a porter mooning about Bar­nard’s Inn, under 
pretence of watching it, fell hollow on my heart.  

On the Monday morning at a quarter before nine, Her-bert 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 incubated 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 Herbert 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 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 nursemaids 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 handkerchief, 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 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 tumbling 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 whenever 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 their own more enduring lamentation. I was at a loss to 
account for this surprising circumstance, and could not help giving my mind to speculations about it, 
until by­and-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 my­ 

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

 

Chapter 23  

M 

r. 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 grey hair, and his manner seemed quite natural. I use the word natural, in the 
sense of its being unaffect­ed; there was something 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 absent state of mind, and asked me if I liked the taste of 
orange-flower water? As the question had no bearing, near or remote, 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 
Chancellor’s, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s, anybody’s  

-and 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 doing 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 indifferent 
interest. Still, Mrs. Pocket was in general the object of a queer sort of respectful pity, because she had 
not married 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 introduced me to their occupants, by name Drum­mle and 
Startop. Drummle, an old-looking young man of a heavy order of architecture, was whistling. Startop, 
younger in years and appearance, 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 down stairs. They allowed a very liberal table to Mr. 
and Mrs. Pocket, yet it always appeared to me that by far the best part of the house to have boarded in, 
would have been the kitchen - always supposing the boarder capable of self­defence, for, before I had 
been there a week, a neighbouring lady with whom the family were personally unacquaint­ed, wrote in 
to say that she had 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 neighbours 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 happiness of marrying 
Mrs. Pocket very early in life, he had impaired his prospects and taken up the call­ing of a Grinder. After 
grinding a number of dull blades  

- of whom it was remarkable 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 gradually failing in loftier hopes, he had ‘read’ with 
divers who had lacked opportunities or ne­glected them, and had refurbished divers others for special 
occasions, and had turned his acquirements to the account of literary compilation and correction, and on 
such means, added to some very moderate private resources, still main­tained the house I saw.  

Mr. and Mrs. Pocket had a toady neighbour; a widow lady of that highly sympathetic nature that she 
agreed with everybody, blessed everybody, and shed smiles and tears on everybody, according to 
circumstances. This lady’s name was Mrs. Coiler, and I had the honour 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 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 disappointment (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 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 neighbour 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.  

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 little 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 noncommissioned 
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 pleasure 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 prematurely 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 endeavoured 
to lift himself up by the hair) laughed, and we all laughed and were glad.  

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 nutcrackers to play with: at the same time recom­mending 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 staircase with a 
dissipated page who had waited at dinner, and who had clearly lost half his buttons at the gamingtable.  

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 appalling things with the nutcrackers. 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.  

‘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 deso-late desperation. ‘Are infants to be nutcrackered 
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 nutcrackered dead, for people’s 
poor grandpapa’s posi­tions!’ Then he let himself down again, and became silent.  

We all looked awkwardly at the table-cloth while this was going 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 family (irrespective of servants) with whom it had any decided acquaintance.  

‘Mr. Drummle,’ said Mrs. Pocket, ‘will you ring for Flop-son? Jane, you undutiful little thing, go and lie 
down. Now, baby darling, come with ma!’  

The baby was the soul of honour, 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 engagement, 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 whitlow: 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 in which countryboys 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 tuition of the winner of a prizewherry who plied at our 
stairs, and to whom I was introduced by my new allies. This practical 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!’  

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 down stairs, 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.  

 

Chapter 24  

A 

fter 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 investing 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 confidential terms with me in an admirable manner; and I may state at once that he 
was always so zeal­ous and honourable in fulfilling his compact with me, that he made me zealous and 
honourable in fulfilling mine with him. If he had shown indifference 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 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 possi­bly 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?’  

‘Oh, not nearly so much.’  

‘Five pounds?’ said Mr. Jaggers.  

This was such a great fall, that I said in discomfiture, ‘Oh! 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?’  

‘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. Jaggers, 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 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 mantrap and was watching it. Suddenly -click -
you’re caught!’  

Without remarking that mantraps 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 Jaggers, 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 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 up-stairs. 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. ‘Get­ 

ting 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.  

This was all the establishment. When we went down­ 

stairs 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 evidence, didn’t plan it badly.’  

‘Is it like him?’ I asked, recoiling from the brute, as Wemmick 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 particular 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, Mr. Pip, except one -and she wasn’t of this slen­der ladylike 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 
horsehair 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 gentlemanly Cove, though’ (Mr. Wemmick was again apostrophizing), ‘and you said you could 
write Greek. Yah, Bounceable! 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 jewellery 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.  

‘Oh 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 be worth much, but, after all, 
they’re property and portable. It don’t signify to you with your brilliant look-out, but as to myself, my 
guidingstar always is, ‘Get hold of portable property”.’  

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 honour. 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. 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 departure, 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 policecourt, 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 
exami­nation 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 un­ 

der a single bite of his finger. Thieves and thieftakers 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 con­ 

duct as the representative of British law and justice in that  

chair that day.  

 

Chapter 25  

B 

entley 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 complexion 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 
suspicious. 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, Bentley 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 de­votedly 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 home­ward 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 al-ways creep in-shore like some uncomfortable 
amphibious creature, even when the tide would have sent him fast upon 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 halfshare 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 contempt; 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 expensive habits, and began to spend an amount of money that within a few short months I 
should have thought almost fabulous; 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 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 coming. 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 com­plimented 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’sa nother 
rum thing in his house,’ proceeded 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 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 impossible 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, 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 con­versation 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 Sundays 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 Wem­mick, ‘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 provisions.’  

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 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 flannel 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 Wemmick, 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 tremendous 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 arbour; 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 the Aged’s treat.’  

Proceeding into the Castle again, we found the Aged heating the poker, with expectant eyes, as a 
preliminary to the performance 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 
battery. 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 celebrated 
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 chamber 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 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 withdrew 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, beyond 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 
tightened 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 arbour and the lake and the fountain and the Aged, had all been blown into space 
together by the last discharge of the Stinger.  

 

Chapter 26  

I 

t 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 Wemmick had prepared me to receive. ‘No ceremo­ny,’ he 
stipulated, ‘and no dinner dress, and say tomorrow.’ 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 remarking 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.  

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 distrib-uted everything himself.  

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  

delicate 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 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 housekeeper, 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 nimble figure, extremely pale, with large faded eyes, and a quantity of streaming hair. I 
cannot say whether any diseased affection of the heart caused her lips to be parted as if she were 
panting, and her face to bear a curious expres­sion of suddenness 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 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 gaily, 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 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 im­movable 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 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 dumbwaiter, 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.’  

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 particularly hot upon some boorish sneer of Drummle’s, to the effect that we were too free 
with our money. It led to my remarking, 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.’  

‘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 better 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, 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 responding, 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 up-stairs 
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.’  

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.  

 

Chapter 27  

‘ 

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 9 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 kitch­ 

en 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 con­ 

fess 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 mortifi-cation, and a keen sense of incongruity. If I 
could have kept him 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 being 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, throughout 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 honour of occupying a few prominent pages in 
the books of a neighbouring 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 sincerely obliged to him for being so interested and considerate, 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 sittingroom and breakfast-table to assume their most splendid 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 giant 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 up-
stairs - 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 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 lastpatented 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 dis­covered this word; ‘as to be sure you are a honour 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 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 playbill 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 occasioned 
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 be­twixt 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 al­lowed 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 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 i; 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 flavour 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.’  

‘What do you say to coffee?’  

‘Thankee, Sir,’ returned Joe, evidently dispirited by the proposal, ‘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 behind his hand, as if he had had time to catch 
the whoop-ing-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 a perfect Chorus, but for his attention being providentially attracted 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 extraordinary 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 humouring 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; finally, 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 per­plexing 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 midway between his plate and his mouth; had his eyes 
attracted in such strange directions; was afflicted with such remarkable 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.  

‘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 honour. 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 honour of breaking wittles in the company and abode of 
gentlemen.’  

I was so unwilling to see the look again, that I made no remonstrance 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 shay­cart, Pumblechook. Which that same identical,’ said Joe, going down a 
new track, ‘do comb my ‘air the wrong way sometimes, 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.’  

‘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 working-man, Sir, and do not over stimilate), 
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 let-ter 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 en­couragement.  

‘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 holidaytime, you want to see 
him, go!’ I have now con­cluded, Sir,’ said Joe, rising from his chair, ‘and, Pip, I wish you ever well and 
ever prospering to a greater and a greater heighth.’  

‘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 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 neighbouring streets; but he was gone.  

 

Chapter 28  

I 

t 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 nothing 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 reasonable 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, 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 dockyards 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.  

‘Oh 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.’  

‘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 
understanding with them, and stood, with them be­side him, looking 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 in­cidentally spat and said 
something to the other convict, and they laughed and slued themselves round with a clink of their 
coupling manacle, and looked at something else. The great numbers on their backs, as if they were street 
doors; their coarse mangy ungainly outer surface, as if they were lower animals; 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 prisoners but on the seat in 
front, behind the coachman. Hereupon, 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 
vil­lainous 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 curious 
flavour of bread-poultice, baize, rope-yarn, and hearthstone, 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.’  

‘Or mine,’ said the other, gruffly. ‘I wouldn’t have incom­moded 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 complaints, 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 convict’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-shoulderd on one 
side, in my shrinking endeavours 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 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, although I could recognize nothing in the 
darkness and the fitful 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. They 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 Dockyard - ‘You’re a-going to be discharged?’ Yes, I was. Would I find out that boy 
that had fed him and kep his secret, 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 - Honour! - 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 highway, 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 
circumstanced, that it was not at all likely he could have known me without accidental help. Still, the 
coincidence of our being together on the coach, was sufficiently strange to fill me with a dread that some 
other coincidence might at any moment connect me, in his hearing, with my name. For this reason, I 
resolved to alight as soon as we touched the town, and put myself out of his hearing. This device I 
ex­ecuted successfully. 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 altogether undefined and vague, but there was 
great fear upon me. As I walked on to the hotel, I felt that a dread, much exceeding 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 remissness of his memory, 
he asked me if he should send Boots for Mr. Pumblechook?  

‘No,’ said I, ‘certainly not.’  

The waiter (it was he who had brought up the Great Re­monstrance 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 reference to the recent romantic rise in fortune 
of a young artificer in iron of this neighbourhood (what a theme, by the way, for the magic pen of our as 
yet not universally ac­knowledged 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 conve-nient and commodious business premises are situate within 
a hundred 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 thoughtcontracted brow of the local Sage or the lustrous eye of local 
Beauty inquire whose fortunes? We believe that Quintin Matsys was the BLACKSMITH of An-twerp. 
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.  

 

Chapter 29  

B 

etimes 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 romantic morning, invest her with any attributes save those she possessed. I mention 
this in this place, of a fixed purpose, because it is the clue by which I am to be fol-lowed into my poor 
labyrinth. According to my experience, the conventional notion of a lover cannot be always true. The 
unqualified truth 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 devoutly 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 court-yard; 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 grey 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 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 her 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 
her some time since you left.’  

‘I could have told you that, Orlick.’  

‘Ah!’ said he, drily. ‘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 court-yard. 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 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 pro­tection on the premises, and it come to be 
considered dangerous, 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.  

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,  

‘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 nothing 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 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 composure, 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 impossible 
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, 
extracted it from the darkness of night to look in at the wooden window of the forge and flit away. In a 
word, it was impossible 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 worshipping 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.’  

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 lingering intention left, of going to see Joe; but if 
I had, this observation 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, signifying 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 submis­sion 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 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 minding 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 brilliant 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 lib­ 

erty 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 Hav-isham 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 produce a remarkable occasional likeness of expression between 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 going 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 Havisham will soon be expecting you at your old 
post, though I think that might be laid aside now, with other old belongings. Let us make one more 
round of the garden, and then go in. Come! You shall not shed tears for my cruelty to­day; 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 Havisham on business, and would come back to dinner. The old wintry branches of 
chandeliers in the room where the mouldering 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, 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 
intensity 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 favours 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 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 whisper, ‘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 turn­ 

ing, 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 
propor­tions, which was of great value to him in his profession. I have seen him so terrify a client or a 
witness by ceremo­niously unfolding this pocket-handkerchief as if he were immediately going to blow 
his nose, and then pausing, as if 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 pockethand­kerchief 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 everybody 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?’  

‘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.’  

This brought us to the dinner-table, where she and Sarah Pocket awaited us. Mr. Jaggers presided, Estella 
sat opposite 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 any­thing I know, had 
been in that mysterious house the whole time. After dinner, a bottle of choice old port was placed 
before 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 in­formation 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 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 disadvantage. Three or four times I feebly thought I would start conversation; but 
whenever he saw me going to ask him anything, he looked at me with his glass in his hand, and rolling his 
wine about in his mouth, as if request­ing me to take notice that it was of no use, for he couldn’t answer.  

I think Miss Pocket was conscious that the sight of me involved 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 Havisham’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 colour 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 
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 blacksmith’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 keeping away from Joe, because I knew she would be contemptuous 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.  

 

Chapter 30  

A 

fter 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 satisfied 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 knowledge 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 difficult to deal with. ‘Oh no he won’t,’ said my guardian, making 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 Pumblechook that I could scarcely hold my cup, this gave me an opportunity 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 of Pumblechook’s premises, I got round into the High-street again, a little beyond that pitfall, 
and felt myself in comparative security.  

It was interesting to be in the quiet old town once more, and it was not disagreeable to be here and 
there suddenly recognized 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 uncon­scious 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 congratu­lating 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 fright­ened!’ 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.  

This was a hard thing to bear, but this was nothing. I had not advanced another two hundred yards, 
when, to my inexpressible terror, amazement, and indignation, I again beheld Trabb’s boy approaching. 
He was coming round a narrow corner. His blue bag was slung over his shoulder, honest 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 visited 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 ex­travagantly 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 im­ 

mediately afterwards taking to crowing and pursuing me  

across the bridge with crows, as from an exceedingly de­ 

jected 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 welcome 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 confidence was out of the question with The Avenger in the hall, which could merely be regarded in 
the light of an ante-chamber 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-ofcourse 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.’ ‘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 al­ways 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 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 diffidence, 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, ‘it seems to me that in the despondency of the 
tender passion, we are looking into our gift-horse’s mouth with a magnify-ing-glass. Likewise, it seems to 
me that, concentrating 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  

admiring his cheery ways.  

‘I ought to have,’ said Herbert, ‘for I have not much else. I must acknowledge, by-the-bye, that the good 
sense of what I have just said is not my own, but my father’s. The only re­mark I ever heard him make on 
your story, was the final one: ‘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 moment - positively repulsive.’  

‘You won’t succeed,’ said I.  

‘Oh 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 flavour of sour grapes, upon my soul and honour! Not being 
bound to her, can you not detach yourself from her? - I told you I should be disagreeable.’  

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 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 
endeavour 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 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.  

‘Oh 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.  

Because it is decidedly the case with us. My poor sister Charlotte who was next me and died before she 
was four­teen, was a striking example. Little Jane is the same. In her desire to be matrimonially 
established, you might suppose her to have passed her short existence in the perpetual con­templation 
of domestic bliss. Little Alick in a frock has already made arrangements for his union with a suitable 
young person at Kew. And indeed, I think we are all en­gaged, except the baby.’  

‘Then you are?’ said I.  

‘I am,’ said Herbert; ‘but it’s a secret.’  

I assured him of my keeping the secret, and begged to be favoured with further particulars. He had 
spoken so sen­sibly and feelingly of my weakness that I wanted to know something 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 become curiously crestfallen and meek, since 
we entered on the interesting theme, ‘that she is rather below my mother’s nonsensical family notions. 
Her father had to do with the victualling 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.  

‘Don’t you expect to see him?’ said I.  

‘Oh yes, I constantly expect to see him,’ returned Herbert, ‘because I never hear him, without expecting 
him to come tumbling 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 Capital, 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 playbill 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.  

 

Chapter 31  

O 

n 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 attendance; 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 decease, 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 appearance 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 always 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 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 kettledrum.’ 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 importance 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 taking 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 ac­cumulated 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 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 expressed, according to usage, by one very 
neat fold in the top, which I suppose to be always got up with a flat iron), a conversation 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 little 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 ec­clesiastical wash-house on one side, and a turnpike gate on the other. Mr. Wopsle in a 
comprehensive black cloak, be­ing descried entering at the turnpike, the gravedigger was admonished 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 moralizing over it, without dusting his fingers on a white napkin taken from his 
breast; but even that in­nocent and indispensable action did not pass without the comment ‘Wai-ter!’ 
The 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 down-hill, 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 down-stairs, 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. ‘Mr. Waldengarver,’ said the man, ‘would be glad to have the 
honour.’ ‘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 happiness to know you in former times, and the Drama has ever 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 com­plimented 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 victim; 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), ‘capitally.’ 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.’  

‘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 mistakes 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, Oh, no doubt they would improve.  

‘Did you observe, gentlemen,’ said Mr. Waldengarver, ‘that there was a man in the gallery who 
endeavoured to cast derision 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.’  

‘Oh dear no, sir,’ said Mr. Wopsle, ‘not drunk. His em­ployer 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; per­forming 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 malignity, who went through - I will not say sustained  

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

 

Chapter 32  

O 

ne 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 handwriting 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 several suits of clothes for this occasion; but as 
there was not, I was fain to be content with those I had. My appetite vanished 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 condition 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 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 neighbourhood shouldn’t 
complain, and that cannon of mine should prove equal to the pressure. However, this is not London 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 Newgate. We are in a banker’s-parcel case just at 
present, and I have been down the road taking as squint at the scene of action, 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 relief, notwithstanding its irreconcilability with 
my la­tent desire 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 earliest 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 surprised 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 exaggerated reaction consequent on all public wrong-doing - 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 flavour 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 frouzy, 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 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 familiar 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 settling his 
hat a little easier on his head with both hands, and then tightening the postoffice, and putting his hands 
in his pockets. In one or two instances, there was a difficulty respecting 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 recommendation 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 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-co­loured frock-coat, with a peculiar pallor over-spreading 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, turning 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 Wemmick.  

‘Perhaps,’ returned my friend, ‘but there’s no knowing.’  

‘I am glad to have the chance of bidding you good-bye, Mr. 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. Wemmick,’ said the man, unwilling to let his hand 
go, ‘I  

should have asked the favour of your wearing another ring  

- in acknowledgment of your attentions.’  

‘I’ll accept the will for the deed,’ said Wemmick. ‘By-the­bye; 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, of 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 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 waterside 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. 
‘Oh 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. Wemmick’s humour.  

‘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.’  

The turnkey laughed, and gave us good day, and stood laughing 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 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 instant had passed?  

 

Chapter 33  

I 

n her furred travelling-dress, Estella seemed more deli­ 

cately 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 lug­ 

gage to me, and when it was all collected I remembered  

-having forgotten 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 York-shire, 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. Oh, 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.’  

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 clue without which he couldn’t find the way up-stairs, 
and led us to the black hole of the establishment: fitted 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 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 was at once grave and rallying, ‘for they beset Miss Havisham 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 perplexity. When she left off - and she had not laughed languidly, 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. Oh, 
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 genuine, 
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 satisfaction 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 from a mere baby. - I was. You had not your little wits 
sharpened by their intriguing against you, sup­pressed and defenceless, 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 summoning these remembrances from any 
shallow place. I would not have been the cause of that look of hers, for all my expectations in a heap.  

‘Two things I can tell you,’ said Estella. ‘First, notwith­standing 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 me playfully -for her darker mood had been but momentary - I held it and put it to my lips. 
‘You ridiculous 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 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 everything 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 clue, brought in by degrees some fifty 
adjuncts to that refreshment 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 bullrushes typified by a soft bit of butter in a quantity 
of parsley, a pale loaf with a powdered head, two proof impres­sions of the bars of the kitchen fire-place 
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, 
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 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 neighbourhood 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 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.  

‘Oh 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  

Estella, 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.  

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 fashions 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 often said to the house, Here is the green 
farthingale, Here is the diamondhilted sword, Here are the shoes with red heels and the blue solitaire, -
sounded gravely in the moonlight, and two cherrycoloured maids came fluttering out to receive Estella. 
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 com-ing home from a little party 
escorted by her little lover; and I envied her little lover, in spite of his being subject to Flop-son.  

Mr. Pocket was out lecturing; for, he was a most delight­ful lecturer on domestic economy, and his 
treatises on the management of children and servants were considered the very 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 heartache 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.  

 

Chapter 34  

A 

s I had grown accustomed to my expectations, I had insensibly 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 uneasiness respecting 
my behaviour 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, supposing 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 influ­ence 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 sim­plicity of his life, and disturbed his peace with anxieties and 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 nat­ural 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 institution 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 gratifying 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 predominant 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 honour of joining the Grove, was Bentley Drummle: at that time floundering about 
town in a cab of his own, and doing a great deal of damage to the posts at the street corners. 
Occasionally, he shot himself out of his equipage head-foremost 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 separately by-and-by. Herbert would often come to Ham­mersmith when I was 
there, and I think at those seasons his father 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 the meantime Mr. Pocket 
grew greyer, 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 dignities, lost her pocket-handkerchief, told us about 
her grandpapa, 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 
almanack, 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 observance of a ceremony of seeing his principal, I think. He never did 
anything else in con­nexion with Lloyd’s that I could find out, except come back again. When he felt his 
case unusually 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, Handel, 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-and­twenty 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 unwholly unconnected,’ as my local pa­per might put it, ‘with 
jewellery,’ 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 depended on our humour - I would say to 
Herbert, as if it were a remarkable discovery:  

‘My dear Herbert, we are getting on badly.’  

‘My dear Handel,’ Herbert would say to me, in all sincer- 

ity, 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 out af­fairs.’  

We always derived profound satisfaction from making an appointment for this purpose. I always thought 
this was business, 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 bottle 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. Herbert 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 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 countenance.’  

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 re­ply, with admiration. ‘Really your business 
powers are very remarkable.’  

I thought so too. I established with myself on these occasions, 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 uni-formly, 
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-and­twopence, 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 exer­tions, my method, and Herbert’s 
compliments, I would sit with his symmetrical bundle and my own on the table be­fore 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 simply, that I was an honoured 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.  

 

Chapter 35  

I 

t was the first time that a grave had opened in my road of life, and the gap it made in the smooth ground 
was won­derful. 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 tenderness. Under its influence 
(and perhaps to make up for the want of the softer feeling) I was seized with a vio­lent indignation 
against the assailant from whom she had suffered so much; and I felt that on sufficient proof I could have 
revengefully pursued Orlick, or any one else, to the last extremity.  

Having written to Joe, to offer consolation, and to assure him that I should come to the funeral, I passed 
the inter­mediate 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 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 possession. Two dismally absurd persons, each ostenta­tiously exhibiting a crutch done up in a 
black bandage - as if that instrument could possibly communicate any comfort to anybody -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 consequence 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 admiring these sable warders and the closed windows of the house and 
forge; and as I came up, one of the two warders (the postboy) 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 best parlour. 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 somebody’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 spoken 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 parlour 
being faint with the smell of sweet cake, I looked about for the table 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 
ornaments, 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 of hatband, who 
was alter­nately stuffing himself, and making obsequious movements to catch my attention. The 
moment 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 being what Mr. Trabb called ‘formed’ in the 
parlour, two and two - and it was dreadfully like a preparation for some grim kind of dance; ‘which I 
meantersay, sir, as I would in preference 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 neighbours 
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 blind monster with twelve human legs, shuffling and blundering along, under the guidance of two 
keepers - the postboy and his comrade.  

The neighbourhood, however, highly approved of these arrangements, and we were much admired as 
we went through the village; the more youthful and vigorous part of the community making dashes now 
and then to cut us off, and lying in wait to intercept us at points of vantage. At such times the more 
exuberant among them called out in an excited manner on our emergence round some corner of 
expectancy, ‘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 hatband, 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 parents, 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 addressed 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 honour, 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 fortunes 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 parlour, 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 restraint 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 outside it, we got on better. I no­ticed that after the funeral Joe 
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 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 neighbours, and I hope I can be industrious and pa­tient, and teach myself while 
I teach others. You know, Mr. Pip,’ pursued 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 cir­cumstances.’ ‘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 evening, just at teatime, 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 colour 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 de­ 

ceive 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.’ ‘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 silence. 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.  

‘Oh 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 unkind­ 

ness, 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 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 often.’  

‘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.  

 

Chapter 36  

H 

erbert and I went on from bad to worse, in the way of increasing our debts, looking into our affairs, 
leaving Margins, 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 something 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 tissuepaper 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 guard­ 

ian was 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. Con­ 

gratulations, 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 apoplectic 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 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 answer the question. This reply 
seemed agreeable to Mr. Jaggers, 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. Jaggers. ‘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 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, 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 fountain­head, 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 coat­tails, 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 desired 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 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 anyhow 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 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 de­rived the notion that Miss Havisham, for some reason or no reason, had not taken him into 
her confidence as to her designing me for Estella; that he resented this, and felt a jealousy 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 favour us 
with his company, and he promptly 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 beating 
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.  

‘With some money down,’ I replied, for an uneasy re­membrance shot across me of that symmetrical 
bundle of papers at home; ‘with some money down, and perhaps some anticipation 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 London, 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 in­dignation, ‘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 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. Wem­mick?’ ‘That,’ he returned, ‘is my deliberate 
opinion in this of­fice.’  

‘Ah!’ said I, pressing him, for I thought I saw him near a loophole 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 together. 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 private 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 greatcoat 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, or a Something, or a Somebody, to unbend his brows a little. 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 intensely 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.  

 

Chapter 37  

D 

eeming Sunday the best day for taking Mr. Wemmick’s Walworth sentiments, I devoted the next ensuing 
Sun­day afternoon to a pilgrimage to the Castle. On arriving before the battlements, I found the Union 
Jack flying and the drawbridge up; but undeterred by this show of defiance and resistance, 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 afternoon’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 concerning the reputation of Mr. Jaggers, I 
roared that name at 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, with­out 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 several times and tapping the old gentleman on the chest to associate it with 
him, I at last succeeded in making my meaning understood.  

‘No,’ said the old gentleman; ‘the warehousing, the ware­housing. 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 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 behind, 
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 visitor at the 
Castle; for, on our going in, and my complimenting 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 John tumbled open; then Miss Skiffins and John both 
tumbled open together, and final-ly shut up together. On Wemmick’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 useful to the Aged. And by George, sir, it’s a thing worth 
mentioning, 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 visible 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 Wemmick 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 advantages I had derived in my first raw­ness and ignorance from his society, and I 
confessed that I feared I had but ill repaid 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 Wemmick, 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.’  

‘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 returned into the Castle where we found Miss 
Skiffins pre­paring tea. The responsible duty of making the toast was delegated to the Aged, and that 
excellent old gentleman was so intent upon it that he seemed to me in some danger of melting his eyes. 
It was no nominal meal that we were go­ing to make, but a vigorous reality. The Aged prepared such a 
haystack 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 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, representing 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 for 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 himself spoken to.  

‘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 elon­gation 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 deliberation 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 
Skiffins performed it mechanically.  

By-and-by, I noticed Wemmick’s arm beginning to dis­appear again, and gradually fading out of view. 
Shortly afterwards, his mouth began to widen again. After an inter­val of suspense on my part that was 
quite enthralling and almost 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, representing some clerical 
dignitary of a rubicund and social aspect. 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 
Wemmick 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 advance in that matter appertaining to our private and per­sonal capacities, and that he 
would be glad if I could come and see 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 having 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 affectionate 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 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.  

 

Chapter 38  

I 

f 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 favour, conduced to my distraction. She made use of me to 
tease other admirers, and she turned the very familiarity between 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, 
further 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 wa­ 

ter; there were picnics, fete 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 association 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, 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 ungenerous 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 disadvantage with her pride, and made me the sub­ject 
of a rebellious 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 always 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 sensi­tive 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 advisedly, 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 hearing. But, when we sat by her flickering fire at night, she was 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 awakened - I saw in this, that Estella was set to wreak Miss Havisham’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 commit 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 unhealthy 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 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 cob­webs 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 looking down at the fire.  

‘Speak the truth, you ingrate!’ cried Miss Havisham, pas­sionately 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 moving 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 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, 
insepa­rable 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 people? 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!’  

‘Soon forgotten!’ moaned Miss Havisham. ‘Times soon forgotten!’  

‘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 grey 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, Es­tella, to be proud and hard to me!’  

Estella looked at her for a moment with a kind of calm wonder, 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 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 daughter wholly in the dark 
confinement of these rooms, and had never let her know that there was such a thing as the daylight by 
which she had never once seen your face - if you had done that, and then, for a purpose had wanted her 
to understand 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 energy 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 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 together 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 grey 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 court-yard, 
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. Afterwards, 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 court-yard. 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 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 overhead, 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 court-yard 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 going along it in a ghostly manner, making a low cry. I followed her at a distance, and 
saw her go up the staircase. She carried 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, without 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 similar occasion; and there were four similar occasions, to the 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 characteristics.  

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. ‘I know that lady,’ said 
Herbert, across the table, when the toast had been honoured.  

‘Do you?’ said Drummle.  

‘And so do I,’ I added, with a scarlet face.  

‘Do you?’ said Drummle. ‘Oh, 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 honourable 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 without 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 
honourable 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 Honour) that if Mr. 
Drum­mle would bring never so slight a certificate from the lady, importing that he had the honour of 
her acquaintance, Mr. Pip must express his regret, as a gentleman and a Finch, for ‘having been betrayed 
into a warmth which.’ Next day was appointed for the production (lest our honour should take cold from 
delay), and next day Drummle appeared with a polite little avowal in Estella’s hand, that she had had the 
honour of dancing with him several 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 
anywhere. Drummle and I then sat snorting at one another for an hour, while the Grove engaged in 
indiscriminate contradiction, 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 Estella should show any favour 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 generosity 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 favoured; 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 allowed him to do it. A little while, and he was always in pursuit 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 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 purpose. 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 Assembly 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. Brandley 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 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, illtempered, lowering, stupid fellow.’  

‘Well?’ said she.  

‘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 favoured 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!’  

‘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 labour, 
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, 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.  

 

Chapter 19  

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 anxious, 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 
windmills 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 windows, 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 staircase 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 ac­companying, some following - 
struck that hour. The sound was curiously flawed by the wind; and I was listening, and thinking 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.  

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-grey 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 ascended 
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 resented 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 wondering pleasure, as if he had some part in the 
things he admired - 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-grey 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.  

‘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 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 em­brace 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.  

‘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, hurriedly putting something 
into a glass for myself, and drawing 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 forehead.  

‘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 inquired, ‘since he undertook that trust?’  

‘Never set eyes upon him. I warn’t likely to it.’  

‘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 
mantelshelf. 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 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 disappointments, 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? Why, I wrote 
from Portsmouth to a person in London, for particulars of your address. That person’s name? Why, 
Wemmick.’  

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, 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 dinner or my 
supper, and I says, ‘Here’s the boy again, a-looking 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.’  

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 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 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 manner, ‘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  

overmuch coming back of late years, and I should of a cer­tainty 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, 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 whis­pering at the outer door. With these fears upon me, I began either to imagine or recall that I 
had had mysterious warn­ings 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 
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 violent 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 remembrances 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. Assured 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 EXPECTATIONS.  

 

Chapter 20  

I 

t 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 announce 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 there, but eluded my touch in silence, I ran to 
the Lodge and urged the watchman to come quickly: telling him of the incident 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 watchman’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 ex­planation as I handed him a dram 
at the door, whether he had admitted 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 up-stairs.  

‘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 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-coloured 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 without 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 
watchman’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 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 conversations 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 situation, 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 laundress 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 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  

denoted some profession.  

‘When you came into the Temple last night—’ said I, pausing to wonder whether that could really have 
been last night, 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 fore­ 

finger 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.  

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 grubber, 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 the 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 favourite 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 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 grey 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 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 years 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 incurred?’  

‘Well, dear boy, the danger ain’t so great. Without I was informed 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 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 complacency 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 possession 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 favourable judgment of his physiognomy. ‘And 
even then, dear boy,’ said he, pull­ing a 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  

emergency, 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 cherished an extraordinary 
belief in the virtues of ‘shorts’ as a disguise, and had in his own mind sketched a dress for himself 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; 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’?’ 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 re­ 

sponsible 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 silent for a little while. ‘I have verified my 
information, and there’s an end.’  

‘And Magwitch -in New South Wales -having at last disclosed 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 cautioned 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 caution,’ 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—‘  

‘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 ex-planation 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 Temple, where I found the terrible Provis drinking rum­and-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 dis­mally 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 growing 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 jack-knife 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 
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 probable effect of 
rouge upon the dead; so awful was the manner in which everything in him that it was most desir­able to 
repress, started through that thin layer of pretence, and seemed to come blazing out at the crown of his 
head. It was abandoned 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 wrinkles 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, notwithstanding 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 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 consideration 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 comprehending 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, and in an instant I saw his jack-knife 
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 jack-knife, and groping in another pocket for 
something else.  

‘Herbert, my dear friend,’ said I, shutting the double doors, while Herbert stood staring and wondering, 
‘some-thing 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!’  

 

Chapter 41  

I 

n 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, after 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 know what’s due to ye both. Dear boy, and Pip’s comrade, you 
two may count upon me always having a gen-teel muz­zle 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 specific consolation in this, and remained 
perplexed and dismayed. 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 
experi­enced 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 suspicion of being watched, when the mind is conscious of danger 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 windows 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 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 encourage­ 

ment, 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 jack-knife and his pack of cards, and what not, as if it were all put 
down for him on a slate - I say, his chair re­maining 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 conceived 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, some­ 

thing 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—‘  

‘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 attached 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 another 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 favours, 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 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 ignorant 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 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 Pro-vis were recognized 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 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 breaking 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 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, 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 gentleman’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 struggle 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 particu­larly 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 applies 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 ne­ 

grohead, 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.  

 

Chapter 42  

‘ 

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 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-kettle. 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.  

‘This is the way it was, that when I was a ragged little cree­tur 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 stom­ach - and others on ‘em giv me tracts what I 
couldn’t read, and made me speeches what I couldn’t understand. They al­ways 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 labourer, a bit of a waggoner, 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 keymetal 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, 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 gentle-folks. 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 Compeyson 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.  

‘‘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 Com­peyson 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, dear boy and comrade? So I begun wi’ Compeyson, and a poor tool I was in his hands. 
Arthur lived at the top of Compeyson’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 parlour 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 brook - 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 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. ‘Oh, 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 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 
misdemeanour, 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.  

‘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 always 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 gentlemen, 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 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 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?’  

‘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.  

 

Chapter 43  

W 

hy 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 har­ 

boured? 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 nar­ 

rative; 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 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 Havisham’s. In the meantime, 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 
suspicious 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 binding 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 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 Havisham’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 shivering, 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, toothpick 
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 finished his breakfast, and 
where I ordered mine. It was poisonous 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 fire-place to stir the fire, but still pretended not to know him.  

‘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, 
pre­tending to yawn, but equally determined.  

‘Do you stay here long?’  

‘Can’t say,’ answered Mr. Drummle. ‘Do you?’  

‘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.’  

‘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 shoul-der 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.’  

‘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?’  

‘Wai-ter!,’ 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 tea-pot 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 showed no sign of stirring. Choking and boiling as I was, I felt that we 
could not go a word further, without introduc­ing Estella’s name, which I could not endure to hear him 
utter; 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 - led 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 dustcoloured 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 cof-fee-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 seen.  

 

Chapter 44  

I 

n 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 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 attended 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 Hav­isham; 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.’  

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 humouring 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.’  

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 under 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 supposed 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?’  

‘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 service 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 betrayed. 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 silence 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 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 fin-gers 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 pursuit, 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 there, as she sat looking by turns at Estella and 
at me.  

‘It seems,’ said Estella, very calmly, ‘that there are senti­ments, 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 in­difference 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 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 moment 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 Havisham’s, that it impressed me, even in my passion­ate hurry and grief.  

‘Estella, dearest 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 wor-thier person 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 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 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 every­where, 
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 
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 colour 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. Pursuing 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 read it by my lantern?’  

Much surprised by the request, I took the note. It was directed to Philip Pip, Esquire, and on the top of 
the super­scription were the words, ‘PLEASE READ THIS, HERE.’ I opened it, the watchman holding up his 
light, and read in­side, in Wemmick’s writing:  

‘DON’T GO HOME.’  

 

Chapter 45  

T 

urning from the Temple gate as soon as I had read the  

warning, 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 order 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 ar­ 

bitrary legs into the fire-place 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 constitution­ 

al rush-light 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, perforated 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.  

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 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 for ever, 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. 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 announcement 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 destroy 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 Wemmick 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 discourse proceeded in a low tone, while I toasted 
the Aged’s sausage and he buttered the crumb of the Aged’s roll.  

‘Now, Mr. Pip, you know,’ said Wemmick, ‘you and I understand one another. We are in our private and 
person-al capacities, and we have been engaged in a confidential transaction before today. 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 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. Previous 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 pretence 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; 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 medi-tation 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 breakfast, and crossing his arms, and pinching his shirt­sleeves (his notion of indoor 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 exceedingly, gave me one last nod, and went on 
with his breakfast.  

‘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 go­ing 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 neighbourhood, he had better 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 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 acquaintance. When I had begun to advance 
Her­bert’s prospects by Stealth, I had been able to bear this with cheerful philosophy; he and his 
affianced, for their part, had naturally not been very anxious to introduce a third person into their 
interviews; 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 tenement 
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 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 Wemmick 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 understood that he was summoned to Dover, and in fact he was taken down the 
Dover road and cornered out of it. Now, another 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 confuses 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 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 re­member 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 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.  

 

Chapter 46  

E 

ight o’clock had struck before I got into the air that was scented, not disagreeably, by the chips and 
shavings of the long-shore boatbuilders, 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 over-shooting 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 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 parlour and shut the door. It was an odd sensation 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 coloured 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 up-stairs. 
- 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 al­ 

ways at it.’  

‘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 ex­planation, ‘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 another 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?’  

‘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 completing 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 ceiling, 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 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 resigned 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 Her­bert’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 Barley 
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 suddenly 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 to 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 ex­traordinary 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 up-stairs 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 substitute 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 invisible 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 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 reflection, had resulted in my fully determining to 
say nothing to him respecting Compeyson. For anything I knew, his animosity 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 Wemmick 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 judgment. 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 
declared peril for my sake. As to altering my way of living, by 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 arising 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 Provis 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 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 down stairs. Looking back at him, I thought of the first 
night of his return when our positions 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, 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 parlour 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 overflowing. 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 occu­pied 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 win­dows after that, he looked out into the 
moonlight, and told me that the pavement was a solemnly empty as the pave­ment 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 where I could reach her within a minute or two. Then, I began 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 towards the east come down. Herbert 
was rarely there less frequently 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.  

 

Chapter 47  

S 

ome 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 jewellery 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 un­certain thoughts and plans. Therefore, I had sent him the unopened pocket-book by Herbert, 
to hold in his own keep­ing, 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 circum­stances 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 in­consistency of your own, last year, last month, 
last week?  

It was an unhappy life that I lived, and its one dominant anxiety, towering over all its other anxieties like 
a high mountain 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 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 dejection 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 
waterside neighbourhood (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 playbills, as a faith­ful Black, in connexion 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 table-cloths, 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 ser­vice -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 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 everybody 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 honest little grocer with a white hat, black gaiters, and red nose, getting into a 
clock, with a gridiron, and listening, and coming out, and knock­ing everybody down from behind with 
the gridiron whom he couldn’t confute with what he had overheard. This led to Mr. Wopsle’s (who had 
never been heard of before) coming in with a star and garter on, as a plenipotentiary 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, unmanned for the first time, respectfully dried his eyes on the Jack, and then cheering up and 
addressing Mr. Wopsle as Your Hon­our, solicited permission to take him by the fin. Mr. Wopsle 
conceding his fin with a gracious dignity, was immediately  

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 suspect 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 dinner. But he presently presented himself under worthier circumstances; for, the Genius of 
Youthful Love being in want of assistance - on account of the paren­tal brutality of an ignorant farmer 
who opposed the choice of his daughter’s heart, by purposely falling upon the object, in a flour sack, out 
of the firstfloor 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 colours, 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 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 suspected this poor actor. I mistrusted a design 
to entrap me into 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 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 indeed!’  

I cannot exaggerate the enhanced disquiet into which this 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 mo­ments 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 however 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 appropriate 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 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 com­municate 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.  

 

Chapter 48  

T 

he 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.’  

I was going to excuse myself, when he added, ‘Wem­ 

mick’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 windows, and the 
street lamp-lighters, scarcely find­ing ground enough to plant their ladders on in the midst of the 
afternoon’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. Although 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 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, Wemmick?’ 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 Wemmick, 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.  

‘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, taking a decanter of choicer wine from his dumb-
waiter, and filling for each of us and for himself, ‘and may the ques­tion of supremacy be settled to the 
lady’s satisfaction! To the satisfaction 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 attention.  

‘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 intent. 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 me when I last walked -not 
alone -in the ruined garden, and through the deserted brewery. I thought how the same feeling 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 sudden 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 at­tentive 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 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 arm­in-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 myself up when I dine with him - and I dine more comfort­ 

ably 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 being 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 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 housekeeper?’  

‘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 un­screwed 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 in­terest 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 handsome young woman, and I believe had some gipsy blood in her. Anyhow, it was hot 
enough when it was up, as you may suppose.’  

‘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, contending 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 broomstick 
(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 struggle, 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.  

‘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 hy-pothesis 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 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.  

 

Chapter 49  

P 

utting 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 break­fasted 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 grey 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 servants who lived in the supplementary house 
across the back court-yard, opened the gate. The lighted candle stood in the dark passage within, as of 
old, and I took it up and ascended 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 contemplation 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 or 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; 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 part­nership. 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 speaking, 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 with my explanation, and told her 
how I had hoped to com­plete the transaction out of my means, but how in this I was disappointed. That 
part of the subject (I reminded her) in­volved 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 purchase?’ 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.’  

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 non  

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, 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 ter­ror, 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.  

‘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 desolate 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 affection, 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 herself 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 without 
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 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 gradually did worse, 
and with my praises, and with my jew- 

els, 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 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 believe I may say that I do know your story, and 
have known it ever since I first left this neighbourhood. 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 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 down stairs into the natural 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 pre­sentiment 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 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 up-stairs 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 seated in the ragged chair upon the hearth 
close to the fire, with her back towards me. In the moment when I was withdrawing 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 struggling 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 anything 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 spiders 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.  

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 serious hurts, but that they of themselves 
were far from hopeless; the danger lay mainly in the nervous shock. By the surgeon’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 afterwards, 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 town.  

There was a stage, that evening, when she spoke collect­edly of what had happened, though with a 
certain terrible vivacity. 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 wanderings 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.’’  

 

Chapter 50  

M 

y 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 dif­ficult, 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.  

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 re­ 

covery 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 spon­taneously.  

‘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?’  

‘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 breaking 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 reply 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 charmingly, 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?’  

‘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 destroy 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 better 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?’  

‘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.’  

‘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 examine me. ‘You are rather excited, but you are 
quite your­self.’  

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

 

Chapter 51  

W 

hat 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 con­ 

versation, 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  

preservation I was so much concerned, some rays of the ro­ 

mantic interest that had so long surrounded her. Perhaps  

the latter possibility may be the nearer to the truth.  

Any way, I could scarcely be withheld from going out to  

Gerrard-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 re­ 

strained my impatience. On the understanding, again and  

again reiterated, 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.  

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 up-stairs 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, favoured 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. Wemmick 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 moment.  

My narrative finished, and their questions exhausted, I then produced Miss Havisham’s authority to 
receive the nine hundred pounds for Herbert. Mr. Jaggers’s eyes retired a little deeper into his head 
when I handed him the tablets, but he presently handed them over to Wemmick, with in­structions to 
draw the cheque 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 cheque 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. Jag­gers. 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 Jaggers; ‘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.’  

‘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 recently.’  

‘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 reason 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. Jag­gers. ‘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 soonest checked, but he did start, though he made it a part of the 
action of taking out his pocket-handkerchief. How Wemmick received the an-nouncement 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 performance, 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 Havisham 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 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 papers 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 danger 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 
con­cerned 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 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 instantly 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 ap­parently 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.’  

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 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, this was your manner of 
attack and this the manner of resistance, you went 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 intellect, 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 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 an­other, were dwelling within so 
many miles, furlongs, yards if you like, of one another. That the secret was still a secret, except 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, 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. Jaggers 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 another; Mr. Jaggers being highly dictatorial, and 
Wemmick obstinately justifying himself whenever there was the smallest 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 appearance of Mike, the client with the fur cap 
and the hab-it of wiping his nose on his sleeve, whom I had seen on the very first day of my appearance 
within those walls. This in­dividual, 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 
eldest daughter was taken up on suspicion of shop-lifting. As he imparted this melancholy circumstance 
to Wemmick, Mr. Jaggers standing magisterially before the fire and tak­ing no share in the proceedings, 
Mike’s eye happened to  

twinkle with a tear.  

‘What are you about?’ demanded Wemmick, with the ut­most 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.  

 

Chapter 52  

F 

rom Little Britain, I went, with my cheque 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 these bright plans, I felt that Herbert’s way was clearing 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 
honourable.’  

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  

let him know that there is urgent reason for your getting  

Provis 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 little, so that he was got out of 
England. Any foreign steam­er that fell in our way and would take us up, would do. I had always 
proposed to myself to get him well down the river in the boat; certainly well beyond Gravesend, which 
was a critical 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 previous 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 colour 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 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 arranged 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 prepare 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 let­ter, 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 tomorrow night at Nine, and to come to the 
little sluice-house by the limekiln, you had better come. If you want information 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.’  

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 Wemmick’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 great­coat, lock up the chambers, 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, 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 reference to Provis by name, mastered 
everything. I reasoned as I had reasoned already without knowing it - if that be reasoning - 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 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 neighbourhood?’  

‘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. Pum­ 

blechook.’  

‘Is he ungrateful to no one else?’  

‘No doubt he would be, if he could,’ returned the land­ 

lord, ‘but he can’t. And why? Because Pumblechook done  

everything 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.  

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.  

 

Chapter 53  

I 

t 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 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 vapour 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 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 candle 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 pressure 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 suppressed 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.  

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 deliberation, 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 per­pendicular 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 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. Oh 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?’  

‘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 to­night. 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.  

‘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 let­ter 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 before 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 
generations -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. Oh, 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 sealed my lips. Above all things, I resolved that I would not entreat 
him, and that I would die making some last poor resistance 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 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 blood­ 

shot. 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 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 
favoured, 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 vapour 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 ale-houses. 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 va­pour 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 over-state 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.  

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  

Copper Rope-Walk, all so clear and plain! Provis in his  

rooms, the signal whose use was over, pretty Clara, the good  

motherly 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 Orlick’s a match for you and 
know’d you’d come to­night! 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 Orlick 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 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 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!’ ‘Softly,’ said Herbert. ‘Gently, Handel. Don’t be too ea­ 

ger.’ ‘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  

Herbert. ‘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 throbbing 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 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 va­pour 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 rescue - which at first he had flatly refused to do, 
but had insisted 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 
inconsistency between it and the hasty letter I had left for him. His uneasiness increasing instead of 
subsiding after a quarter 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 Boar’s archway, happened to be Trabb’s boy - true to his ancient 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 genuine and 
serviceable errand tending to Provis’s safety, and, bethinking himself that in that case interruption must 
be mischievous, 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 Provis. There was 
no gainsaying this difficulty, and we re­linquished 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-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 tomorrow, was so besetting, that I wonder it 
did not disable me of itself. It would have done so, pretty surely, in conjunction 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 results 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, 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 day 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 Herbert, 
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 window. 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 grey, with here and there at top a warm 
touch from the burning in the sky. As I looked along the clustered roofs, with Church towers and spires 
shoot-ing 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!’  

 

Chapter 54  

I 

t was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in 
the light, and winter in the shade. We had out 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 passing moment, as I stopped at the door 
and looked back, under what altered circumstances I should next see those rooms, if ever.  

We loitered down to the Temple stairs, and stood loiter­ing there, as if we were not quite decided to go 
upon the water at all. Of course I had taken care that the boat should be ready and everything in order. 
After a little show of in­decision, which there were none to see but the two or three amphibious 
creatures belonging to our Temple stairs, we went on board and cast off; 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 
waterside inhabitants are very few, and where lone public-houses are scattered here and there, of which 
we could choose one for a resting-place. There, we meant to lie by, all night. The steamer for Hamburg, 
and the steamer for Rotterdam, would start from London at about nine on Thursday morning. We should 
know at what time to expect them, according to where we were, and would hail the first; so that if by 
any accident we were not taken 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 sympathize 
with us, animate us, and encourage us on - freshened me with new hope. I felt mortified to be of so little 
use in the boat; but, there were few better oarsmen than my two friends, and they rowed with a steady 
stroke that was to last all day.  

At that time, the steam-traffic on the Thames was far be­low its present extent, and 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 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 im­mensely 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 to­morrow’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. ‘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, avoid-ing 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 nobby eyes starting two inches out of her head, in and out, hammers going 
in shipbuilders’yards, saws going at timber, clashing engines going at things un­known, pumps going in 
leaky ships, capstans going, ships going out to sea, and unintelligible sea-creatures roaring curses over 
the bulwarks at respondent 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 purpose evident. But, we held our own, without 
any appearance of molestation.  

He had his boat-cloak on him, and looked, as I have said, a natural part of the scene. It was remarkable 
(but perhaps the wretched life he had led, accounted for it), that he was the least anxious of any of us. 
He was not indifferent, for he told me that he hoped to live to see his gentleman one of the best of 
gentlemen in a foreign country; he was not disposed to be passive or resigned, as I understood it; but he 
had no notion of meeting danger 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 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-flowing 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 despon­dent,’ 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.’  

He put his pipe back in his mouth with an undisturbed expression of face, and sat as composed and 
contented as if we were already out of England. Yet he was as submissive to a word of advice as if he had 
been in constant terror, for, when we ran ashore to get some bottles of beer into the boat, and he was 
stepping out, I hinted that I thought he would be safest where he was, and he said. ‘Do you, dear boy?’ 
and quietly sat down again.  

The air felt cold upon the river, but it was a bright day, and the sunshine was very cheering. The tide ran 
strong, I took care to lose none of it, and our steady stroke carried us on thoroughly well. By 
imperceptible degrees, as the tide ran  

out, we lost more and more of the nearer woods and hills, and dropped lower and lower between the 
muddy banks, but the tide was yet with us when we were off Gravesend. As our charge was wrapped in 
his cloak, I purposely passed within a boat or two’s length of the floating Custom House, and so out to 
catch the stream, alongside of two emigrant ships, and under the 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 of an hour’s rest proved full as much as they want­ed. We got ashore among some slippery 
stones while we ate and drank what we had with us, and looked about. It was like my own marsh 
country, flat and monotonous, and with a dim horizon; while the winding river turned and turned, and 
the great floating buoys upon it turned and turned, and everything else seemed stranded and still. For, 
now, the last of the fleet of ships was round the last low point we had headed; and the last green barge, 
straw-laden, with a brown sail, had followed; and some ballast-lighters, shaped like a child’s first rude 
imitation of a boat, lay low in the mud; and a little squat shoal-lighthouse on open piles, stood crippled in 
the mud on stilts and crutches; and slimy stakes stuck out of the mud, and slimy stones stuck out of the 
mud, and red landmarks and 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 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 when­ever such a sound came, one or other 
of us was sure to start and look in that direction. Here and there, the set of the current had worn down 
the bank into a little creek, and we were all suspicious of such places, and eyed them ner­vously. 
Sometimes, ‘What was that ripple?’ one of us would say in a low voice. Or another, ‘Is that a boat 
yonder?’ And afterwards, we would fall into a dead silence, and I would sit impatiently thinking with 
what an unusual amount of noise the oars worked in the thowels.  

At length we descried a light and a roof, and presently af­terwards 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 various liquors to drink. Also, there were two double-bed­ded rooms - ‘such as they were,’ the 
landlord said. No other company was in the house than the landlord, his wife, and a grizzled male 
creature, the ‘Jack’ of the little causeway, who was as slimy and smeary as if he had been 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 apportioned the bedrooms: Herbert and Startop were to occupy one; I and our 
charge the other. We found the air as carefully excluded from both, as if air were fatal to life; and there 
were more dirty clothes and bandboxes under the beds than I should have thought the family possessed. 
But, we considered ourselves well off, notwithstanding, for a more solitary place we could not have 
found.  

While we were comforting ourselves by the fire after our meal, the Jack - who was sitting in a corner, and 
who had a bloated pair of shoes on, which he had exhibited while we were eating our eggs and bacon, as 
interesting relics that he had taken a few days ago from the feet of a drowned seaman 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 an­other,’ said the Jack, ‘and gone down.’  

‘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  

confidence 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.  

‘Why, what do you make out that they done with their buttons then, Jack?’ asked the landlord, 
vacillating weakly.  

‘Done with their buttons?’ returned the Jack. ‘Chucked ‘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 great­est contempt, ‘when they comes betwixt him and his own light. A Four and two sitters 
don’t go hanging and hover­ing, up with one tide and down with another, and both with and against 
another, without 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 unusual 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 council. Whether we should remain at 
the house until near the steamer’s time, which would be about one in the afternoon; or whether we 
should put off early in the morning; was the question we discussed. On the whole we deemed it the 
better course to lie where we were, until within an hour or so of the steamer’s time, and then to get out 
in 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 banging about, with noises that 
startled me. Rising softly, for my charge lay fast asleep, I looked out of the window. It commanded the 
causeway where we had hauled up our boat, and, as my eyes adapted themselves to the light of the 
clouded moon, I saw two men looking into her. They passed by under the window, looking at nothing 
else, and they did not go down to the landing-place which I could discern to be empty, but struck across 
the marsh in the direction of the 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 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.  

But, it was half-past one before we saw her smoke, and soon afterwards we saw behind it the smoke of 
anoth­er steamer. As they were coming on at full speed, we got the two bags ready, and took that 
opportunity of saying good-bye to Herbert and Startop. We had all shaken hands cordially, and neither 
Herbert’s eyes nor mine were quite dry, when I saw a four-oared galley shoot out from under the bank 
but a little way ahead of us, and row out into the same track.  

A stretch of shore had been as yet between us and the steamer’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 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 order given to stop the paddles, and heard them 
stop, but felt her driving down upon us irresistibly. In the same moment, I saw the steersman of the 
galley lay his hand on his prisoner’s shoulder, and saw that both boats were swinging round with the 
force of the tide, and saw that all hands on board the steamer were running forward quite frantically. 
Still in the same moment, I saw the prisoner start up, lean across his captor, and pull the cloak from the 
neck of the shrinking sitter in the galley. Still in the same moment, I saw that the face disclosed, was the 
face of the other convict of long ago. Still in the same moment, I saw the face tilt backward with a white 
terror on it that I shall never forget, and heard a great cry on board the steamer and a loud splash in the 
water, and felt the boat sink from under me.  

It was but for an instant that I seemed to struggle with a thousand 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 convicts were gone.  

What with the cries aboard the steamer, and the furi­ous blowing off of her steam, and her driving on, 
and our driving on, I could not at first distinguish sky from water or shore from shore; but, the crew of 
the galley righted her with great speed, and, pulling certain swift strong strokes ahead, lay upon their 
oars, every man looking silently and eagerly at the water astern. Presently a dark object was seen in it, 
bearing towards us on the tide. No man spoke, but the steersman held up his hand, and all softly backed 
water, and kept the boat straight and true before it. As it came nearer, I saw it to be Magwitch, 
swimming, but not swimming free­ly. He was taken on board, and instantly manacled at the wrists and 
ankles.  

The galley was kept steady, and the silent eager look-out at the water was resumed. But, the Rotterdam 
steamer now came up, and apparently not understanding what had hap­pened, came on at speed. By the 
time she had been hailed and stopped, both steamers were drifting away from us, and we were rising 
and falling in a troubled wake of water.  

The look-out was kept, long after all was still again and the two steamers were gone; but, everybody 
knew that it was hopeless now.  

At length we gave it up, and pulled under the shore to­wards the tavern we had lately left, where we 
were received with no little surprise. Here, I was able to get some comforts for Magwitch - Provis no 
longer - who had received some very severe injury in the chest and a deep cut in the head.  

He told me that he believed himself to have gone under the keel of the steamer, and to have been struck 
on the head in rising. The injury to his chest (which rendered his breath­ing extremely painful) he 
thought he had received against the side of the galley. He added that he did not pretend to say what he 
might or might not have done to 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 endeavour of his 
captor to keep him in it, had capsized us. He told me in a whisper that they had gone down, fierce­ly 
locked in each other’s arms, and that there had been a struggle under water, and that he had disengaged 
himself, struck out, and swum away.  

I never had any reason to doubt the exact truth of what he thus told me. The officer who steered the 
galley gave the same account of their going overboard.  

When I asked this officer’s permission to change the pris­oner’s wet clothes by purchasing any spare 
garments I could get at the public-house, he gave it readily: merely observ-ing that he must take charge 
of everything his prisoner had about him. So the pocketbook which had once been in my 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 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 returned from transportation 
under a life sentence, and who had occasioned the death of the man who was the cause of his arrest.  

As we returned 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 understood 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 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.  

 

Chapter 55  

H 

e was taken to the Police Court next day, and would have been immediately committed for trial, but that 
it was necessary to send down for an old officer of the pris­on-ship from which he had once escaped, to 
speak to his identity. Nobody doubted it; but, 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 ignorance 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 favour before his 
apprehension, and to do so now would be idle. I had no claim, and I finally resolved, and ever afterwards 
abided by the resolution, that my heart should never be sickened with 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 recognizable 
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 considerable value. Both these heads of information were in a list that Magwitch, while 
in prison, gave to Mr. Jaggers, of the possessions he supposed I should inherit. His ignorance, poor 
fellow, at last served him; he never mistrusted but that my inheritance was quite safe, with Mr. Jaggers’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 than he thought.  

‘We shall lose a fine opportunity if I put off going to Cai­ro, and I am very much afraid I must go, Handel, 
when you most need me.’  

‘Herbert, I shall always need you, because I shall always love you; but my need is no greater now, than at 
another time.’  

‘You will be so lonely.’  

‘I have not leisure to think of that,’ said I. ‘You know that I am always with him to the full extent of the 
time allowed, and that I should be with him all day long, if I could. And when I come away from him, you 
know that my thoughts are with him.’  

The dreadful condition to which he was brought, was so appalling to both of us, that we could not refer 
to it in plain­er words.  

‘My dear fellow,’ said Herbert, ‘let the near prospect of our separation - for, it is very near - be my 
justification for troubling you about yourself. Have you thought of your fu­ture?’  

‘No, for I have been afraid to think of any future.’  

‘But yours cannot be dismissed; indeed, my dear dear Handel, it must not be dismissed. I wish you would 
enter on it now, as far as a few friendly words go, with me.’  

‘I will,’ said I.  

‘In this branch house of ours, Handel, we must have a—‘  

I saw that his delicacy was avoiding the right word, so I said, ‘A clerk.’  

‘A clerk. And I hope it is not 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—‘  

‘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.  

Remember! The blessed darling comes of no family, my  

dear Handel, and never looked into the red book, and hasn’t  

a notion about her grandpapa. What a fortune for the son  

of my mother!’  

On the Saturday in that same week, I took my leave of Herbert - full of bright hope, but sad and sorry to 
leave me  

-as he sat on one of the seaport mail 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.  

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 transacted, and it was from the talk of some of his people in trouble (some of his people 
being always in trouble) that I heard what I did. I kept my ears open, seeming to have them shut, until I 
heard that he was absent, and I thought that would be the best time for making the attempt. I can only 
suppose now, that it was a part of his policy, as a very clever man, habitually to deceive his own 
instruments. You don’t blame me, I hope, Mr. Pip? I am sure I 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 Wemmick, scratching his head, ‘and I assure you I 
haven’t been so cut up for a long time. What I look at, is the sacrifice of so much portable property. Dear 
me!’  

‘What I think of, Wemmick, is the poor owner of the property.’  

‘Yes, to be sure,’ said Wemmick. ‘Of course there can be no objection to your being sorry for him, and I’d 
put down a five-pound note myself to get him out of it. But what I look at, is this. The late Compeyson 
having been beforehand with him in intelligence of his return, and being so deter­mined to bring him to 
book, I do not think he could have been saved. Whereas, the portable property certainly could have 
been saved. That’s the difference between the property and the owner, don’t you see?’  

I invited Wemmick to come up-stairs, and refresh him­self with a glass of grog before walking to 
Walworth. He accepted the invitation. While he was drinking his mod­ 

erate allowance, he said, with nothing to lead up to it, and after having appeared rather fidgety: ‘What 
do you think of my meaning to take a holiday on Monday, Mr. Pip?’ ‘Why, I suppose you have not done 
such a thing these twelve months.’  

‘These twelve years, more likely,’ said Wemmick. ‘Yes. I’m going to take a holiday. More than that; I’m 
going to take a walk. More than that; I’m going to ask you to take a walk with me.’  

I was about to excuse myself, as being but a bad compan­ion just then, when Wemmick anticipated me.  

‘I know your engagements,’ said he, ‘and I know you 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 it might occupy you (including 
breakfast on the walk) from eight to twelve. Couldn’t you stretch a point and manage it?’  

He had done so much for me at various times, that this was very little to do for him. I said I could manage 
it - would manage it - and he was so very much pleased by my acqui­escence, that I was pleased too. At 
his particular request, I appointed to call for him at the Castle at half-past 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 training preparation on us, I was considerably surprised to see Wemmick take up a fishing-rod, 
and put it over his shoulder. ‘Why, we are not going fishing!’ said I. ‘No,’ 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 thereabouts, Wemmick said suddenly:  

‘Halloa! Here’s a church!’  

There was nothing very surprising in that; but a gain, I was rather surprised, when he said, as if he were 
animated by a brilliant idea:  

‘Let’s go in!’  

We went in, Wemmick leaving his fishing-rod in the porch, and looked all round. In the mean time, 
Wemmick was diving 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 similar sacrifice for the altar of 
Hymen. The old gentle­man, however, experienced so much difficulty in getting his gloves on, that 
Wemmick found it necessary to put him with his back against a pillar, and then to get behind the pillar 
himself and pull away at them, while I for my part held the old gentleman round the waist, that he might 
pres­ent and equal and safe resistance. By dint of this ingenious Scheme, his gloves were got on to 
perfection.  

The clerk and clergyman then appearing, we were ranged in order at those fatal rails. True to his notion 
of seeming to do it all without preparation, I heard Wemmick say to him­self as he took something out of 
his waistcoat-pocket before the service began, ‘Halloa! Here’s a ring!’  

I acted in the capacity of backer, or best-man, to the bridegroom; 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 unintentionally scandalized, 
and it happened thus. When he said, ‘Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?’ the old 
gentlemen, not in the least knowing what point of the ceremony 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 unconsciousness, 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. Wemmick, more heedful of the 
future, put her white gloves in her pocket and assumed her green. ‘Now, Mr. Pip,’ said Wemmick, 
triumphantly shouldering the fishing-rod as we came out, ‘let me ask you whether anybody would 
suppose this to be a wedding-party!’  

Breakfast had been ordered at a pleasant little tavern, a mile or so away upon the rising ground beyond 
the Green, and there was a bagatelle board in the room, in case we should desire to unbend our minds 
after the solemnity. It was pleasant to observe that Mrs. Wemmick no longer un­wound Wemmick’s arm 
when it adapted itself to her figure, but sat in a high-backed chair against the wall, like a vio­loncello in its 
case, and submitted to be embraced as that melodious instrument might have done.  

We had an excellent breakfast, and when any one de­clined anything on table, Wemmick said, ‘Provided 
by contract, you know; don’t be afraid of it!’ I drank to the new couple, drank to the Aged, drank to the 
Castle, saluted the bride at parting, and made myself as agreeable as I could.  

Wemmick came down to the door with me, and I again shook hands with him, and wished him joy.  

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

 

Chapter 56  

H 

e lay in prison very ill, during the whole interval be­tween his committal for trial, and the coming round 
of the Sessions. He had broken two ribs, they had wounded one of his lungs, and he breathed with great 
pain and dif­ficulty, which increased daily. It was a consequence of his hurt, that he spoke so low as to be 
scarcely audible; there­fore, he spoke very little. But, he was ever ready to listen to me, and it became 
the first duty of my life to say to him, and read to him, what I knew he ought to hear.  

Being far too ill to remain in the common prison, he was removed, after the first day or so, into the 
infirmary. This gave me opportunities of being with him that I could not otherwise have had. And but for 
his illness he would have been put in irons, for he was regarded as a determined pris­on-breaker, and I 
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 two which escaped him, that he 
pondered over the ques­tion whether he might have been a better man under better circumstances. But, 
he never justified himself by a hint tending that way, or tried to bend the past out of its eternal shape.  

It happened on two or three occasions in my presence, that his desperate reputation was alluded to by 
one or other 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 application to be made for the postponement of 
his trial un­til the following Sessions. It was obviously made with the assurance that he could not live so 
long, and was refused. The trial came on at once, and, when he was put to the bar, he was seated in a 
chair. No objection was made to my get­ting close to the dock, on the outside of it, and holding the hand 
that he stretched forth to me.  

The trial was very short and very clear. Such things as could be said for him, were said - how he had taken 
to in­dustrious habits, and had thriven lawfully and reputably. But, nothing could unsay the fact that he 
had returned, and was there in 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 experience of that Sessions) to devote a 
concluding day to the passing of Sentences, and to make a finishing effect with the Sentence of Death. 
But for the indelible picture that my remembrance now holds before me, I could scarcely be­lieve, even 
as I write these words, that I saw two-and-thirty men and women put before the Judge to receive that 
sen­tence together. Foremost among the two-and-thirty, was he; seated, that he might get breath 
enough to keep life in him.  

The whole scene starts out again in the vivid colours 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 defiant, some 
stricken with terror, some sobbing and weep­ing, some covering their faces, some staring gloomily 
about. There had been shrieks from among the women convicts, but they had been stilled, 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 miserable man would seem for a time to have become convinced 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 be­ing at length seized while in the act of flight, he had resisted them, and had - he best 
knew whether by express design, or  

in the blindness of his hardihood - caused the death of his denouncer, to whom his whole career was 
known. The ap­pointed punishment for his return to the land that had cast him out, being Death, and his 
case being this aggravated case, he must prepare himself to Die.  

The sun was striking in at the great windows of the court, through the glittering drops of rain upon the 
glass, and it made a broad shaft of light between the two-and-thirty and the Judge, linking both together, 
and perhaps reminding some among the audience, how both were passing on, with absolute equality, to 
the greater Judgment that knoweth all things and cannot 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 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 ranges of stern shut-up mansions and their long rows of 
lamps, are melancholy to me from this association.  

The daily visits I could make him were shortened now, and he was more strictly kept. Seeing, or fancying, 
that I was suspected of an intention of carrying poison to him, I asked to be searched before I sat down 
at his bedside, and told the officer who was always there, that I was willing to do anything that would 
assure him of the singleness of my designs. 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 prisoners in the room, and some other prisoners who attended on them as sick nurses 
(malefactors, but not incapable of kindness, God be thanked!), always joined in the same report.  

As the days went on, I noticed more and more that he would lie placidly looking at the white ceiling, with 
an absence of light in his face, until some word of mine bright­ened it for an instant, and 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.’  

‘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 comfortable alonger me, since I was under a dark 
cloud, than when the sun shone. That’s best of all.’  

He lay on his back, breathing with great difficulty. Do what he would, and love me though he did, the 
light left his face ever and again, and a film came over the placid look at the white ceiling.  

‘Are you in much pain 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, and he whispered, ‘You needn’t go yet.’ I thanked him gratefully, and asked, ‘Might I 
speak to him, if he can hear me?’  

The governor stepped aside, and beckoned the officer away. The change, though it was made without 
noise, drew back the film from the placid look at the white ceiling, and he looked most affectionately at 
me.  

‘Dear Magwitch, I must tell you, now at last. You under­stand what I say?’  

A gentle pressure on my hand.  

‘You had a child once, whom you loved and lost.’  

A stronger pressure on my hand.  

‘She lived and found powerful friends. She is living now. She is a lady and very beautiful. And I love her!’  

With a last faint effort, which would have been powerless but for my yielding to it and assisting it, he 
raised my hand to his lips. Then, he gently let it sink upon his breast again, with his own hands lying on it. 
The placid look at the white ceiling came back, and passed away, and his head dropped quietly on his 
breast.  

Mindful, then, of what we had read together, I thought of the two men who went up into the Temple to 
pray, and I knew there were no better words that I could say beside his bed, than ‘O Lord, be merciful to 
him, a sinner!’  

 

Chapter 57  

N 

ow that I was left wholly to myself, I gave notice of my intention to quit the chambers in the Temple as 
soon as my tenancy could legally determine, and in the meanwhile to underlet them. At once I put bills 
up in the windows; for, I was in debt, and had scarcely any money, and began to be seriously alarmed by 
the state of my affairs. I ought rather to write that I should have been alarmed if I had had energy and 
concentration enough to help me to the clear percep­tion of any truth beyond the fact that I was falling 
very ill. The late stress upon me had enabled me to put off illness, but not to put it away; I knew that it 
was coming on me now, and I knew very little else, and was even careless as to that.  

For a day or two, I lay on the sofa, or on the floor - any­where, according as I happened to sink down - 
with a heavy head and aching limbs, and no purpose, and no power. Then there came one night which 
appeared of great dura­tion, 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, 
possessed by the idea that he was coming up the stairs, and that the lights were blown out; whether I 
had been inexpressibly harassed by the distracted talking, laughing, and groaning, of 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 vapour of a limekiln would come between me and them, disordering 
them all, and it was through the vapour 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 account, I think.’  

‘What is to be done?’  

‘You had better come to my house,’ said the man. ‘I keep a very nice house.’  

I made some attempt to get up and dress myself. When I next attended to them, they were standing a 
little off from the bed, looking at me. I still lay there.  

‘You see my state,’ said I. ‘I would come with you if I could; but indeed I 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 encourage 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 identity; 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 person to have the engine stopped, and my part in it hammered off; that I passed through these 
phases of dis­ease, I know of my own remembrance, and did in some sort know at the time. That I 
sometimes struggled with real peo­ple, in the belief that they were murderers, and that I would all at 
once comprehend that they meant to do me good, and would then sink exhausted in their arms, and 
suffer them to lay me down, I also knew at the time. But, above all, I knew that there was a constant 
tendency in all these people  

-who, when I was very ill, would present all kinds of ex­traordinary transformations of the human face, 
and would be much dilated in size - above all, I say, I knew that there was an extraordinary tendency in 
all these people, sooner or later to settle down into the likeness of Joe.  

After I had turned the worst point of my illness, I began to notice that while all its other features 
changed, this one consistent feature did not change. Whoever came about me, still settled down into 
Joe. I opened my eyes in the night, and I saw in the great chair at the bedside, Joe. I opened my eyes in 
the day, and, sitting on the window-seat, smok­ing his pipe in the shaded open window, still I saw Joe. I 
asked for cooling drink, and the dear hand that gave it me was Joe’s. I sank back on my pillow after 
drinking, and the face that looked so hopefully and tenderly upon me was the face of Joe.  

At last, one day, I took courage, and said, ‘Is it Joe?’ And the dear old home-voice answered, ‘Which it 
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!’  

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.’’  

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 looking at him, it made me, in my weak state, cry 
again with pleasure to see the pride with which he set about his letter. My bedstead, divested of its 
curtains, had been re­moved, with me upon it, into the sittingroom, 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 crowbar or sledgehammer. It was necessary for Joe to hold on heavily to the 
table with his left elbow, and to get his right leg well out behind him, before he could be­gin, and when 
he did begin, he made every down-stroke so slowly that it might have been six feet long, while at every 
up-stroke I could hear his pen spluttering extensively. He had a curious idea that the inkstand was on the 
side of him where it was not, and constantly dipped his pen into space, and seemed quite satisfied with 
the result. Occasionally, he was tripped up by some orthographical stumbling-block, but on the whole he 
got on very well indeed, and when he had signed his name, and had removed a finishing blot from the 
paper to the crown of his head with his two forefingers, he got up and hovered about the table, trying 
the effect of his performance from various points of view as it lay there, with unbounded satisfaction.  

Not to make Joe uneasy by talking too much, even if I had been able to talk much, I deferred asking him 
about Miss Havisham until next day. He shook his head when I then asked him if she had recovered.  

‘Is she dead, Joe?’  

‘Why you see, old 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, 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 per­annium fur to buy pills, on account of being 
bilious. Miss Georgiana, 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 shovel-full to-day. Old Orlick he’s been a bustin’open a dwelling-ouse.’  

‘Whose?’ said I.  

‘Not, I grant, you, but what his manners is given to blus­terous,’ 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 become less weak, and Joe stayed with me, and I fancied I was little Pip again.  

For, the tenderness of Joe was so beautifully propor­tioned to my need, that I was like a child in his 
hands. He would sit and talk to me in the old confidence, and with the old simplicity, and in the old 
unassertive protecting way, so that I would half believe that all my life since the days of the old kitchen 
was one of the mental troubles of the fever that was gone. He did everything for me except the 
house­hold work, for which he had engaged a very decent woman, after paying off the laundress on his 
first arrival. ‘Which I do assure you, Pip,’ he would often say, in explanation of that liberty; ‘I found her a 
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 souptureen 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 ap­prenticeship. And when the day came, and an open carriage was got into the Lane, Joe wrapped 
me up, took me in his arms, carried me down to it, and put me in, as if I were still the small helpless 
creature to whom he had so abundantly given 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 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.’ ‘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 onneces­sary? 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.’  

‘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 favourite 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 little 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. Therefore, 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 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-over-doing on it, but you must have your sup­per 
and your wine-and-water, and you must be put betwixt the sheets.’  

The delicacy with which Joe dismissed this theme, and the sweet tact and kindness with which Biddy - 
who with her woman’s wit had found me out so soon - had prepared him for it, made a deep impression 
on my mind. But wheth­er Joe knew how poor I was, and how my great expectations had all dissolved, 
like our own marsh mists before the sun, I could not understand.  

Another thing in Joe that I could not understand when it first began to develop itself, but which I soon 
arrived at a sorrowful comprehension of, was this: As I became stron­ger and better, Joe became a little 
less easy with me. In my weakness and entire dependence on him, the dear fellow had fallen into the old 
tone, and 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 him off? Had I given Joe’s innocent heart no cause to feel instinctively that as I got 
stronger, his hold upon me would be weaker, and that he had better loosen it in time and let me go, 
before I plucked myself away?  

It was on the third or fourth occasion of my going out walking in the Temple Gardens 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 over-do 
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 re­morseful thoughts. That I was ashamed to tell him exactly how I was placed, and 
what I had come down to, I do not seek to conceal; but, I hope my reluctance was not quite an unworthy 
one. He would want to help me out of his little savings, I knew, and I knew that he ought not to help me, 
and that I must not suffer him to do it.  

It was a thoughtful evening with both of us. But, be-fore 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?  

‘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 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 un-happy 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 went down to the old place, to put it in 
execution; and how I sped in it, is all I have left to tell.  

 

Chapter 58  

T 

he tidings of my high fortunes having had a heavy fall,  

had got down to my native place and its neighbourhood,  

before I got there. I found the Blue Boar in possession of  

the intelligence, and I found that it made a great change in  

the Boar’s demeanour. Whereas the Boar had cultivated my  

good opinion 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 (prob­ 

ably 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, announcing 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 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 information 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 nocturnal 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 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 continued to stand over me, staring fishily and 
breathing noisily, as he always did.  

‘Little more than skin and bone!’ mused Mr. Pum­ 

blechook, 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 fingers.  

‘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 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 ar- 

ticle in question, retiring a step or two from my table, and speaking 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 interest 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 pointing 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 shaycart. 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 matter 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 ex­asperating 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 respected 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 malice. 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, Joseph,’ says you,’ here Pumblechook shook his head and hand at 
me, ‘‘he knows my total deficiency of common human 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 it, 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 mentioning, 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 astonished 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 honoured me with very unfavourable 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 country-side 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 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 to­wards 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 bel-lows; all shut up, and still.  

But, the house was not deserted, and the best parlour 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 ap­parition, 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.  

‘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.’  

‘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 honoured 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 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 composition 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 parlour 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.  

Many a year went round, before I was a partner in the House; but, I lived happily with Herbert and his 
wife, and lived frugally, and paid my debts, and maintained a con­stant correspondence 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 inaptitude, 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.  

 

Chapter 59  

F 

or 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 grey, 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 perfection. 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.’  

‘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 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 growing 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 beyond 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 gate, 
and where the casks. I had done so, and was looking along the desolate gardenwalk, 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:  

‘Estella!’  

‘I am greatly changed. I wonder you know me.’  

The freshness of her beauty was indeed gone, but its in­describable 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 moonlight, 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 has not been incompatible with the admission of that  

remembrance, I have given it a place in my heart.’  

‘You have always held your place in my heart,’ I an­ 

swered.  

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  

    Great Expectations  

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.  

 

 

