Great Expectations
Charles Dickens
Chapter XV Page 1
As I was getting too big for Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt's room, my
education under preposterous female terminated. Not, however,
until Biddy had imparted to me everything she knew, from the little
catalogue of prices, to a comic song she had once bought for a
half-penny. Although the only coherent part of the latter piece of
literature were the opening lines,
When I went to Lunnon town sirs, Too rul loo rul Too rul loo rul
Wasn't I done very brown sirs? Too rul loo rul Too rul loo rul
--still, in my desire to be wiser, I got this composition by heart
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,
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
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
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 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,
standing out to sea with their white sails spread, I somehow
thought of Miss Havisham and Estella; and whenever the light struck
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
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,--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.
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,
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.
"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
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."
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 rat
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
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.
He pretended that his Christian name was Dolge,--a clear
Impossibility,--but he was a fellow of that obstinate disposition
that I believe him to have been the prey of no delusion in this
particular, but wilfully to have imposed that name upon the village
as an affront to its understanding. He was a broadshouldered
loose-limbed swarthy fellow of great strength, never in a hurry,
and always slouching. He never even seemed to come to his work on
purpose, but would slouch in as if by mere accident; and when he
went to the Jolly Bargemen to eat his dinner, or went away at
night, he would slouch out, like Cain or the Wandering Jew, as if
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
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
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 I might consider myself fuel. When I
became Joe's 'prentice, Orlick was perhaps confirmed in some
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 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
"As to Pip, he's going up town," said Joe.
"Well then, as to Old Orlick, he's a going up town," retorted
worthy. "Two can go up town. Tain't only one wot can go up town.
"Don't lose your temper," said Joe.
master! Come. No favoring in this shop. Be a man!"
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.
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
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
instead of lapsing into passion, she consciously and deliberately
took extraordinary pains to force herself into it, and became
blindly furious by regular stages; "was the name he gave me
before the base man who swore to defend me? Oh! Hold me! Oh!"
"Ah-h-h!" growled the journeyman, between his teeth, "I'd hold you,
if you was my wife. I'd hold you under the pump, and choke it out
of you."
("I tell you, let her alone," said Joe.)
"Oh! To hear him!" cried my sister, with a clap of her hands and a
scream together,--which was her next stage. "To hear the names he's
giving me! That Orlick! In my own house! Me, a married woman! With
my husband standing by! Oh! Oh!" Here my sister, after a fit of
clappings and screamings, beat her hands upon her bosom and upon
her knees, and threw her cap off, and pulled her hair down,--which
were the last stages on her road to frenzy. Being by this time a
perfect Fury and a complete success, she made a dash at the door
which I had fortunately locked.
What could the wretched Joe do now, after his disregarded
parenthetical interruptions, but stand up to his journeyman, and
ask him what he meant by interfering betwixt himself and Mrs. Joe;
and further whether he was man enough to come on? Old Orlick felt
that the situation admitted of 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 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, the vague sensation which I have always