Great Expectations
Charles Dickens
Chapter VII Page 1
At 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
extra boy to frighten birds, or pick up stones, or do any such job,
I was favored 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
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 two pence per week
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
in later life, 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
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 full year after our hunt upon the
marshes, for it was a long time after, and it was winter and a hard
frost. With an alphabet on the hearth at my feet for reference, I
contrived in an hour or two to print and smear this epistle:--
"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."
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;
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
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 a slow,
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, the aid of my forefinger read him the
"Astonishing!" said Joe, when I had finished. "You ARE a scholar."
"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?"
reading, too."
"Are you, Joe?"
"On-common. Give me," said Joe, "a good book, or a good newspaper,
and sit me down afore a good fire, and I ask no better. Lord!" he
continued, after rubbing his knees a little, "when you do come to a
J and a O, and says you, "Here, at last, is a J-O, Joe," how
interesting reading is!"
I derived from this, that Joe's education, like Steam, was yet
in its infancy, Pursuing the subject, I inquired,--
"Didn't you ever go to school, Joe, when you were as little as me?"
"No, Pip."
"Why didn't you ever go to school, Joe, when you were as little as
me?"
"Well, Pip," said Joe, taking up the poker, and settling himself to
his usual occupation when he was thoughtful, of slowly raking the
fire between the lower bars; "I'll tell you. My 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 wigor only to be equalled by the wigor 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, a judicial touch or two of
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 kep him
till he went off in a purple leptic fit. And it were my intentions
to have had put upon his tombstone that, Whatsume'er the failings on
his part, Remember reader he were that good in his heart."
Joe recited this couplet with such manifest pride and careful
perspicuity, that I asked him if he had made it himself.
"I made it," said Joe, "my own self. I made it in a moment. It was
like striking out a horseshoe complete, in a single blow. I never
was so much surprised in all my life,--couldn't credit my own ed,--
to tell you the truth, hardly believed it were my own ed. As I was
saying, Pip, it were my intentions to have had it cut over him; but
poetry costs money, cut it how you will, small or large, and it
were not done. Not to 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 uncomfortable
"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
--a--woman!"
I could think of 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?"
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;
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
"Given to government," said Joe. "Which I meantersay the government
"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
again. I don't deny that she do throw us back-falls, and that she
do drop down upon us heavy. At such times as when your sister is on
the Ram-page, Pip," Joe sank his voice to a whisper and glanced at
the door, "candor compels fur to admit that she is a Buster."
Joe pronounced this word, as if it began with at least twelve
capital Bs.
"Why don't I rise? That were your observation when I broke it off,
Pip?"
"Yes, Joe."
"Well," said Joe, passing the poker into his left hand, that he
might feel his whisker; and I had no hope of him whenever he took
to that placid occupation; "your sister's a master-mind. A
master-mind."
"What's that?" I asked, in some hope of bringing him to a stand.
But Joe was readier with his definition than I had expected, and
completely stopped me by arguing circularly, and answering with a
fixed look, "Her."
"And I ain'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