Great Expectations
Charles Dickens
Chapter XV Page 2
connected with such a lull,--namely, that it was Sunday, and
somebody was dead,--I went up stairs to dress myself.
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
to say, as a parting observation 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;
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
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
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
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,
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
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.
"Ah!" he answered, slouching out. "I was standing by a minute, on
the chance of company."
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
"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."
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
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 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
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
and there was Joe, and there were a group of women, all on the floor
in the midst of the kitchen. The unemployed bystanders drew back
when they saw me, and so I became aware of my sister,--lying
without sense or movement on the bare boards where she had been
knocked down by a tremendous blow on the back of the head, dealt by
some unknown hand when her face was turned towards the fire,--
destined never to be on the Rampage again, while she was the wife
of Joe.