Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, Chapter
15
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 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 hillside 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 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.
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 uptown 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
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,--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 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,--
"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 uptowning!
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,--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-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,--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
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 upstairs
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 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 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 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,--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 into 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,--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.
End of chapter 15
