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GREAT EXPECTATIONS
by Charles Dickens
Chapter XV
As I was getting too big for Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt's room, my education under that
preposterous female terminated. Not, however, until Biddy had imparted to me everything
she knew, from the little catalogue of prices, to a comic song she had once bought for a
half-penny. Although the only coherent part of the latter piece of literature were the
opening lines. When I went to Lunnon town sirs, Too rul loo
rul Too rul loo rul Wasn't I done very brown sirs? Too rul loo rul Too rul loo rulóstill,
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,óeven with a learned air,óas if he considered himself to be advancing immensely.
Dear fellow, I hope he did. It was pleasant and quiet, out there with
the sails on the river passing beyond the earthwork, and sometimes, when the tide was
low, looking as if they belonged to sunken ships that were still sailing on at the bottom
of the water. Whenever I watched the vessels standing out to sea with their white sails
spread, I somehow thought of Miss Havisham and Estella; and whenever the light struck
aslant, afar off, upon a cloud or sail or green hillside or water-line, it was just
the same.óMiss 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 concerning
them that had been much in my head. "Joe," said I; "don't you think I ought to
make Miss Havisham a visit?" "Well, Pip," returned Joe, slowly considering.
"What for?" "What for, Joe? What is any visit made for?"
"There is some wisits p'r'aps," said Joe, "as for ever remains open to the question,
Pip. But in regard to wisiting Miss Havisham. She might think you wanted something,óexpected
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,óMake a end on it!óAs you
was!óMe to the North, and you to the South!óKeep 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,óand
which I meantersay as even a set of shoes all four round might not be acceptable as
a present, in a total wacancy of hoofsó" "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,óor say a gross or two of shark-headed screws for general
use,óor some light fancy article, such as a toasting-fork when she took her muffins,óor
a gridiron when she took a sprat or such likeó" "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,ófor 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 yourselfó" "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 EstóHavisham." "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 favor 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,óa clear Impossibility,óbut he was a fellow of that obstinate disposition
that I believe him to have been the prey of no delusion in this particular, but wilfully
to have imposed that name upon the village as an affront to its understanding. He was
a broadshouldered loose-limbed swarthy fellow of great strength, never in a hurry, and always
slouching. He never even seemed to come to his work on purpose, but would slouch in as
if by mere accident; and when he went to the Jolly Bargemen to eat his dinner, or went
away at night, he would slouch out, like Cain or the Wandering Jew, as if he had no idea
where he was going and no intention of ever coming back. He lodged at a sluice-keeper's
out on the marshes, and on working-days would come slouching from his hermitage, with his
hands in his pockets and his dinner loosely tied in a bundle round his neck and dangling
on his back. On Sundays he mostly lay all day on the sluice-gates, or stood against
ricks and barns. He 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,ó
"Now, master! Sure you're not a going to favor only one of us. If Young Pip has a half-holiday,
do as much for Old Orlick." I suppose he was about five-and-twenty, but he usually spoke
of himself as an ancient person. "Why, what'll you do with a half-holiday,
if you get it?" said Joe. "What'll I do with it! What'll he do with
it? I'll do as much with it as him," said Orlick.
"As to Pip, he's going up town," said Joe. "Well then, as to Old Orlick, he's a going
up town," retorted that worthy. "Two can go up town. Tain't only one wot can go up town.
"Don't lose your temper," said Joe. "Shall if I like," growled Orlick. "Some and
their up-towning! Now, master! Come. No favoring in this shop. Be a man!"
The master refusing to entertain the subject until the journeyman was in a better temper,
Orlick plunged at the furnace, drew out a red-hot bar, made at me with it as if he were
going to run it through my body, whisked it round my head, laid it on the anvil, hammered
it out,óas if it were I, I thought, and the sparks were my spirting blood,óand finally
said, when he had hammered himself hot and the iron cold, and he again leaned on his
hammer,ó "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,óshe was a most unscrupulous spy and listener,óand 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-favored grin. ("Let her alone," said Joe.)
"I'd be a match for all noodles and all rogues," returned my sister, beginning to work herself
into a mighty rage. "And I couldn't be a match for the noodles, without being a match for
your master, who's the dunder-headed king of the 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? Oh! oh! oh!" Each of these exclamations was a
shriek; and I must remark of my sister, what is equally true of all the violent women I
have ever seen, that passion was no excuse for her, because it is undeniable that instead
of lapsing into passion, she consciously and deliberately took extraordinary pains to force
herself into it, and became blindly furious by regular stages; "what was the name he gave
me before the base man who swore to defend me? Oh! Hold me! Oh!"
"Ah-h-h!" growled the journeyman, between his teeth, "I'd hold you, if you was my wife.
I'd hold you under the pump, and choke it out of you."
("I tell you, let her alone," said Joe.) "Oh! To hear him!" cried my sister, with a
clap of her hands and a scream together,ówhich was her next stage. "To hear the names he's
giving me! That Orlick! In my own house! Me, a married woman! With my husband standing
by! Oh! Oh!" Here my sister, after a fit of clappings and screamings, beat her hands upon
her *** and upon her knees, and threw her cap off, and pulled her hair down,ówhich
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 neighborhood could stand uplong 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,ónamely, that it was Sunday,
and somebody was dead,óI 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:ósuch 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.óAy!" she cried suddenly, turning herself and her
chair towards me, "You are looking round for Estella? Hey?"
I had been looking round,óin fact, for Estella,óand 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 parlor. As I knew it would be miserable at
home, and as the nights were dark and the way was dreary, and almost any companionship
on the road was better than none, I made no great resistance; consequently, we turned
into Pumblechook's just as the street and the shops were lighting up.
As I never assisted at any other representation of George Barnwell, I don't know how long
it may usually take; but I know very well that it took until half-past nine o' clock
that night, and that when Mr. Wopsle got into Newgate, I thought he never would go to the
scaffold, he became so much slower than at any former period of his disgraceful career.
I thought 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 *** 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,ó"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 by, the guns is going again."
"At the Hulks?" said I. "Ay! There's some of the birds flown from
the cages. The guns have been going since dark, about. You'll hear one presently."
In effect, we had not walked many yards further, when the well-remembered boom came towards
us, deadened by the mist, and heavily rolled away along the low grounds by the river, as
if it were pursuing and threatening the fugitives. "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,óOld Clem! With a clink for the stout,óOld 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 findóit being eleven o'clockóin 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 were a group of women, all on the floor
in the midst of the kitchen. The unemployed bystanders drew back when they saw me, and
so I became aware of my sister,ólying 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,ódestined never to be on the Rampage
again, while she was the wife of Joe.