Charles Dickens 3 page improving himself with their conversation, and rolling in
the lap of luxury. Would he have been doing that? No, he
wouldn’t. And what would have been your destination?’
turning on me again. ‘You would have been disposed of for
so many shillings according to the market price of the ar-
ticle, and Dunstable the butcher would have come up to you
as you lay in your straw, and he would have whipped you
under his left arm, and with his right he would have tucked
up his frock to get a penknife from out of his waistcoat-
pocket, and he would have shed your blood and had your
life. No bringing up by hand then. Not a bit of it!’
Joe offered me more gravy, which I was afraid to take.
‘He was a world of trouble to you, ma’am,’ said Mrs. Hub-
ble, commiserating my sister.
‘Trouble?’ echoed my sister; ‘trouble?’ and then entered
on a fearful catalogue of all the illnesses I had been guilty
of, and all the acts of sleeplessness I had committed, and all
the high places I had tumbled from, and all the low places
I had tumbled into, and all the injuries I had done myself,
and all the times she had wished me in my grave, and I had
contumaciously refused to go there.
I think the Romans must have aggravated one anoth-
er very much, with their noses. Perhaps, they became the
Great Expectations
restless people they were, in consequence. Anyhow, Mr.
Wopsle’s Roman nose so aggravated me, during the recital
of my misdemeanours, that I should have liked to pull it
until he howled. But, all I had endured up to this time, was
nothing in comparison with the awful feelings that took
possession of me when the pause was broken which ensued
upon my sister’s recital, and in which pause everybody had
looked at me (as I felt painfully conscious) with indignation
and abhorrence.
‘Yet,’ said Mr. Pumblechook, leading the company gently
back to the theme from which they had strayed, ‘Pork - re-
garded as biled - is rich, too; ain’t it?’
‘Have a little brandy, uncle,’ said my sister.
O Heavens, it had come at last! He would find it was
weak, he would say it was weak, and I was lost! I held tight
to the leg of the table under the cloth, with both hands, and
awaited my fate.
My sister went for the stone bottle, came back with the
stone bottle, and poured his brandy out: no one else taking
any. The wretched man trifled with his glass - took it up,
looked at it through the light, put it down - prolonged my
misery. All this time, Mrs. Joe and Joe were briskly clearing
the table for the pie and pudding.
I couldn’t keep my eyes off him. Always holding tight by
the leg of the table with my hands and feet, I saw the mis-
erable creature finger his glass playfully, take it up, smile,
throw his head back, and drink the brandy off. Instantly
afterwards, the company were seized with unspeakable
consternation, owing to his springing to his feet, turning
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round several times in an appalling spasmodic whooping-
cough dance, and rushing out at the door; he then became
visible through the window, violently plunging and expec-
torating, making the most hideous faces, and apparently
out of his mind.
I held on tight, while Mrs. Joe and Joe ran to him. I didn’t
know how I had done it, but I had no doubt I had murdered
him somehow. In my dreadful situation, it was a relief when
he was brought back, and, surveying the company all round
as if they had disagreed with him, sank down into his chair
with the one significant gasp, ‘Tar!’
I had filled up the bottle from the tar-water jug. I knew
he would be worse by-and-by. I moved the table, like a Me-
dium of the present day, by the vigour of my unseen hold
upon it.
‘Tar!’ cried my sister, in amazement. ‘Why, how ever
could Tar come there?’
But, Uncle Pumblechook, who was omnipotent in that
kitchen, wouldn’t hear the word, wouldn’t hear of the
subject, imperiously waved it all away with his hand, and
asked for hot gin-and-water. My sister, who had begun to
be alarmingly meditative, had to employ herself actively in
getting the gin, the hot water, the sugar, and the lemon-peel,
and mixing them. For the time being at least, I was saved. I
still held on to the leg of the table, but clutched it now with
the fervour of gratitude.
By degrees, I became calm enough to release my grasp
and partake of pudding. Mr. Pumblechook partook of pud-
ding. All partook of pudding. The course terminated, and
Great Expectations
Mr. Pumblechook had begun to beam under the genial in-
fluence of gin-and-water. I began to think I should get over
the day, when my sister said to Joe, ‘Clean plates - cold.’
I clutched the leg of the table again immediately, and
pressed it to my bosom as if it had been the companion of
my youth and friend of my soul. I foresaw what was coming,
and I felt that this time I really was gone.
‘You must taste,’ said my sister, addressing the guests
with her best grace, ‘You must taste, to finish with, such a
delightful and delicious present of Uncle Pumblechook’s!’
Must they! Let them not hope to taste it!
‘You must know,’ said my sister, rising, ‘it’s a pie; a sa-
voury pork pie.’
The company murmured their compliments. Uncle
Pumblechook, sensible of having deserved well of his fel-
low-creatures, said - quite vivaciously, all things considered
- ‘Well, Mrs. Joe, we’ll do our best endeavours; let us have a
cut at this same pie.’
My sister went out to get it. I heard her steps proceed to
the pantry. I saw Mr. Pumblechook balance his knife. I saw
re-awakening appetite in the Roman nostrils of Mr. Wopsle.
I heard Mr. Hubble remark that ‘a bit of savoury pork pie
would lay atop of anything you could mention, and do no
harm,’ and I heard Joe say, ‘You shall have some, Pip.’ I have
never been absolutely certain whether I uttered a shrill yell
of terror, merely in spirit, or in the bodily hearing of the
company. I felt that I could bear no more, and that I must
run away. I released the leg of the table, and ran for my life.
But, I ran no further than the house door, for there I ran
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head foremost into a party of soldiers with their muskets:
one of whom held out a pair of handcuffs to me, saying,
‘Here you are, look sharp, come on!’
Great Expectations
Chapter 5
The apparition of a file of soldiers ringing down the butt-
ends of their loaded muskets on our door-step, caused
the dinner-party to rise from table in confusion, and caused
Mrs. Joe re-entering the kitchen empty-handed, to stop
short and stare, in her wondering lament of ‘Gracious good-
ness gracious me, what’s gone - with the - pie!’
The sergeant and I were in the kitchen when Mrs. Joe
stood staring; at which crisis I partially recovered the use of
my senses. It was the sergeant who had spoken to me, and
he was now looking round at the company, with his hand-
cuffs invitingly extended towards them in his right hand,
and his left on my shoulder.
‘Excuse me, ladies and gentleman,’ said the sergeant, ‘but
as I have mentioned at the door to this smart young shaver’
(which he hadn’t), ‘I am on a chase in the name of the king,
and I want the blacksmith.’
‘And pray what might you want with him?’ retorted my
sister, quick to resent his being wanted at all.
‘Missis,’ returned the gallant sergeant, ‘speaking for my-
self, I should reply, the honour and pleasure of his fine wife’s
acquaintance; speaking for the king, I answer, a little job
done.’
This was received as rather neat in the sergeant; inso-
much that Mr Pumblechook cried audibly, ‘Good again!’
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‘You see, blacksmith,’ said the sergeant, who had by this
time picked out Joe with his eye, ‘we have had an accident
with these, and I find the lock of one of ‘em goes wrong, and
the coupling don’t act pretty. As they are wanted for imme-
diate service, will you throw your eye over them?’
Joe threw his eye over them, and pronounced that the job
would necessitate the lighting of his forge fire, and would
take nearer two hours than one, ‘Will it? Then will you set
about it at once, blacksmith?’ said the off-hand sergeant,
‘as it’s on his Majesty’s service. And if my men can beat a
hand anywhere, they’ll make themselves useful.’ With that,
he called to his men, who came trooping into the kitchen
one after another, and piled their arms in a corner. And
then they stood about, as soldiers do; now, with their hands
loosely clasped before them; now, resting a knee or a shoul-
der; now, easing a belt or a pouch; now, opening the door to
spit stiffly over their high stocks, out into the yard.
All these things I saw without then knowing that I saw
them, for I was in an agony of apprehension. But, beginning
to perceive that the handcuffs were not for me, and that the
military had so far got the better of the pie as to put it in the
background, I collected a little more of my scattered wits.
‘Would you give me the Time?’ said the sergeant, ad-
dressing himself to Mr. Pumblechook, as to a man whose
appreciative powers justified the inference that he was
equal to the time.
‘It’s just gone half-past two.’
‘That’s not so bad,’ said the sergeant, reflecting; ‘even if
I was forced to halt here nigh two hours, that’ll do. How
Great Expectations
far might you call yourselves from the marshes, hereabouts?
Not above a mile, I reckon?’
‘Just a mile,’ said Mrs. Joe.
‘That’ll do. We begin to close in upon ‘em about dusk. A
little before dusk, my orders are. That’ll do.’
‘Convicts, sergeant?’ asked Mr. Wopsle, in a matter-of-
course way.
‘Ay!’ returned the sergeant, ‘two. They’re pretty well
known to be out on the marshes still, and they won’t try to
get clear of ‘em before dusk. Anybody here seen anything of
any such game?’
Everybody, myself excepted, said no, with confidence.
Nobody thought of me.
‘Well!’ said the sergeant, ‘they’ll find themselves trapped
in a circle, I expect, sooner than they count on. Now, black-
smith! If you’re ready, his Majesty the King is.’
Joe had got his coat and waistcoat and cravat off, and his
leather apron on, and passed into the forge. One of the sol-
diers opened its wooden windows, another lighted the fire,
another turned to at the bellows, the rest stood round the
blaze, which was soon roaring. Then Joe began to hammer
and clink, hammer and clink, and we all looked on.
The interest of the impending pursuit not only absorbed
the general attention, but even made my sister liberal. She
drew a pitcher of beer from the cask, for the soldiers, and
invited the sergeant to take a glass of brandy. But Mr. Pum-
blechook said, sharply, ‘Give him wine, Mum. I’ll engage
there’s no Tar in that:’ so, the sergeant thanked him and
said that as he preferred his drink without tar, he would
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take wine, if it was equally convenient. When it was given
him, he drank his Majesty’s health and Compliments of the
Season, and took it all at a mouthful and smacked his lips.
‘Good stuff, eh, sergeant?’ said Mr. Pumblechook.
‘I’ll tell you something,’ returned the sergeant; ‘I suspect
that stuff’s of your providing.’
Mr. Pumblechook, with a fat sort of laugh, said, ‘Ay, ay?
Why?’
‘Because,’ returned the sergeant, clapping him on the
shoulder, ‘you’re a man that knows what’s what.’
‘D’ye think so?’ said Mr. Pumblechook, with his former
laugh. ‘Have another glass!’
‘With you. Hob and nob,’ returned the sergeant. ‘The top
of mine to the foot of yours - the foot of yours to the top of
mine - Ring once, ring twice - the best tune on the Musical
Glasses! Your health. May you live a thousand years, and
never be a worse judge of the right sort than you are at the
present moment of your life!’
The sergeant tossed off his glass again and seemed quite
ready for another glass. I noticed that Mr. Pumblechook in
his hospitality appeared to forget that he had made a pres-
ent of the wine, but took the bottle from Mrs. Joe and had
all the credit of handing it about in a gush of joviality. Even
I got some. And he was so very free of the wine that he even
called for the other bottle, and handed that about with the
same liberality, when the first was gone.
As I watched them while they all stood clustering about
the forge, enjoying themselves so much, I thought what
terrible good sauce for a dinner my fugitive friend on the
Great Expectations
marshes was. They had not enjoyed themselves a quarter
so much, before the entertainment was brightened with
the excitement he furnished. And now, when they were all
in lively anticipation of ‘the two villains’ being taken, and
when the bellows seemed to roar for the fugitives, the fire to
flare for them, the smoke to hurry away in pursuit of them,
Joe to hammer and clink for them, and all the murky shad-
ows on the wall to shake at them in menace as the blaze rose
and sank and the red-hot sparks dropped and died, the pale
after-noon outside, almost seemed in my pitying young
fancy to have turned pale on their account, poor wretches.
At last, Joe’s job was done, and the ringing and roaring
stopped. As Joe got on his coat, he mustered courage to
propose that some of us should go down with the soldiers
and see what came of the hunt. Mr. Pumblechook and Mr.
Hubble declined, on the plea of a pipe and ladies’ society;
but Mr. Wopsle said he would go, if Joe would. Joe said he
was agreeable, and would take me, if Mrs. Joe approved. We
never should have got leave to go, I am sure, but for Mrs.
Joe’s curiosity to know all about it and how it ended. As it
was, she merely stipulated, ‘If you bring the boy back with
his head blown to bits by a musket, don’t look to me to put
it together again.’
The sergeant took a polite leave of the ladies, and parted
from Mr. Pumblechook as from a comrade; though I doubt
if he were quite as fully sensible of that gentleman’s merits
under arid conditions, as when something moist was go-
ing. His men resumed their muskets and fell in. Mr. Wopsle,
Joe, and I, received strict charge to keep in the rear, and to
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speak no word after we reached the marshes. When we were
all out in the raw air and were steadily moving towards our
business, I treasonably whispered to Joe, ‘I hope, Joe, we
shan’t find them.’ and Joe whispered to me, ‘I’d give a shil-
ling if they had cut and run, Pip.’
We were joined by no stragglers from the village, for
the weather was cold and threatening, the way dreary, the
footing bad, darkness coming on, and the people had good
fires in-doors and were keeping the day. A few faces hurried
to glowing windows and looked after us, but none came
out. We passed the finger-post, and held straight on to the
churchyard. There, we were stopped a few minutes by a sig-
nal from the sergeant’s hand, while two or three of his men
dispersed themselves among the graves, and also examined
the porch. They came in again without finding anything,
and then we struck out on the open marshes, through the
gate at the side of the churchyard. A bitter sleet came rat-
tling against us here on the east wind, and Joe took me on
his back.
Now that we were out upon the dismal wilderness where
they little thought I had been within eight or nine hours and
had seen both men hiding, I considered for the first time,
with great dread, if we should come upon them, would my
particular convict suppose that it was I who had brought
the soldiers there? He had asked me if I was a deceiving imp,
and he had said I should be a fierce young hound if I joined
the hunt against him. Would he believe that I was both imp
and hound in treacherous earnest, and had betrayed him?
It was of no use asking myself this question now. There I
Great Expectations
was, on Joe’s back, and there was Joe beneath me, charging
at the ditches like a hunter, and stimulating Mr. Wopsle not
to tumble on his Roman nose, and to keep up with us. The
soldiers were in front of us, extending into a pretty wide line
with an interval between man and man. We were taking the
course I had begun with, and from which I had diverged in
the mist. Either the mist was not out again yet, or the wind
had dispelled it. Under the low red glare of sunset, the bea-
con, and the gibbet, and the mound of the Battery, and the
opposite shore of the river, were plain, though all of a wa-
tery lead colour.
With my heart thumping like a blacksmith at Joe’s broad
shoulder, I looked all about for any sign of the convicts. I
could see none, I could hear none. Mr. Wopsle had great-
ly alarmed me more than once, by his blowing and hard
breathing; but I knew the sounds by this time, and could
dissociate them from the object of pursuit. I got a dread-
ful start, when I thought I heard the file still going; but it
was only a sheep bell. The sheep stopped in their eating and
looked timidly at us; and the cattle, their heads turned from
the wind and sleet, stared angrily as if they held us respon-
sible for both annoyances; but, except these things, and the
shudder of the dying day in every blade of grass, there was
no break in the bleak stillness of the marshes.
The soldiers were moving on in the direction of the old
Battery, and we were moving on a little way behind them,
when, all of a sudden, we all stopped. For, there had reached
us on the wings of the wind and rain, a long shout. It was
repeated. It was at a distance towards the east, but it was
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long and loud. Nay, there seemed to be two or more shouts
raised together - if one might judge from a confusion in the
sound.
To this effect the sergeant and the nearest men were
speaking under their breath, when Joe and I came up. Af-
ter another moment’s listening, Joe (who was a good judge)
agreed, and Mr. Wopsle (who was a bad judge) agreed. The
sergeant, a decisive man, ordered that the sound should not
be answered, but that the course should be changed, and
that his men should make towards it ‘at the double.’ So we
slanted to the right (where the East was), and Joe pounded
away so wonderfully, that I had to hold on tight to keep my
seat.It was a run indeed now, and what Joe called, in the only
two words he spoke all the time, ‘a Winder.’ Down banks
and up banks, and over gates, and splashing into dykes,
and breaking among coarse rushes: no man cared where he
went. As we came nearer to the shouting, it became more
and more apparent that it was made by more than one voice.
Sometimes, it seemed to stop altogether, and then the sol-
diers stopped. When it broke out again, the soldiers made
for it at a greater rate than ever, and we after them. After a
while, we had so run it down, that we could hear one voice
calling ‘Murder!’ and another voice, ‘Convicts! Runaways!
Guard! This way for the runaway convicts!’ Then both voic-
es would seem to be stifled in a struggle, and then would
break out again. And when it had come to this, the soldiers
ran like deer, and Joe too.
The sergeant ran in first, when we had run the noise quite
Great Expectations
down, and two of his men ran in close upon him. Their piec-
es were cocked and levelled when we all ran in.
‘Here are both men!’ panted the sergeant, struggling at
the bottom of a ditch. ‘Surrender, you two! and confound
you for two wild beasts! Come asunder!’
Water was splashing, and mud was flying, and oaths
were being sworn, and blows were being struck, when some
more men went down into the ditch to help the sergeant,
and dragged out, separately, my convict and the other one.
Both were bleeding and panting and execrating and strug-
gling; but of course I knew them both directly.
‘Mind!’ said my convict, wiping blood from his face with
his ragged sleeves, and shaking torn hair from his fingers: ‘I
took him! I give him up to you! Mind that!’
‘It’s not much to be particular about,’ said the sergeant;
‘it’ll do you small good, my man, being in the same plight
yourself. Handcuffs there!’
‘I don’t expect it to do me any good. I don’t want it to do
me more good than it does now,’ said my convict, with a
greedy laugh. ‘I took him. He knows it. That’s enough for
me.’The other convict was livid to look at, and, in addition
to the old bruised left side of his face, seemed to be bruised
and torn all over. He could not so much as get his breath
to speak, until they were both separately handcuffed, but
leaned upon a soldier to keep himself from falling.
‘Take notice, guard - he tried to murder me,’ were his
first words.
‘Tried to murder him?’ said my convict, disdainfully.
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‘Try, and not do it? I took him, and giv’ him up; that’s what
I done. I not only prevented him getting off the marshes,
but I dragged him here - dragged him this far on his way
back. He’s a gentleman, if you please, this villain. Now, the
Hulks has got its gentleman again, through me. Murder
him? Worth my while, too, to murder him, when I could do
worse and drag him back!’
The other one still gasped, ‘He tried - he tried - to - mur-
der me. Bear - bear witness.’
‘Lookee here!’ said my convict to the sergeant. ‘Single-
handed I got clear of the prison-ship; I made a dash and I
done it. I could ha’ got clear of these death-cold flats like-
wise - look at my leg: you won’t find much iron on it - if I
hadn’t made the discovery that he was here. Let him go free?
Let him profit by the means as I found out? Let him make a
tool of me afresh and again? Once more? No, no, no. If I had
died at the bottom there;’ and he made an emphatic swing
at the ditch with his manacled hands; ‘I’d have held to him
with that grip, that you should have been safe to find him
in my hold.’
The other fugitive, who was evidently in extreme hor-
ror of his companion, repeated, ‘He tried to murder me. I
should have been a dead man if you had not come up.’
‘He lies!’ said my convict, with fierce energy. ‘He’s a liar
born, and he’ll die a liar. Look at his face; ain’t it written
there? Let him turn those eyes of his on me. I defy him to
do it.’
The other, with an effort at a scornful smile - which could
not, however, collect the nervous working of his mouth into
Great Expectations
any set expression - looked at the soldiers, and looked about
at the marshes and at the sky, but certainly did not look at
the speaker.
‘Do you see him?’ pursued my convict. ‘Do you see what
a villain he is? Do you see those grovelling and wandering
eyes? That’s how he looked when we were tried together. He
never looked at me.’
The other, always working and working his dry lips and
turning his eyes restlessly about him far and near, did at
last turn them for a moment on the speaker, with the words,
‘You are not much to look at,’ and with a half-taunting
glance at the bound hands. At that point, my convict be-
came so frantically exasperated, that he would have rushed
upon him but for the interposition of the soldiers. ‘Didn’t I
tell you,’ said the other convict then, ‘that he would murder
me, if he could?’ And any one could see that he shook with
fear, and that there broke out upon his lips, curious white
flakes, like thin snow.
‘Enough of this parley,’ said the sergeant. ‘Light those
torches.’
As one of the soldiers, who carried a basket in lieu of a
gun, went down on his knee to open it, my convict looked
round him for the first time, and saw me. I had alighted
from Joe’s back on the brink of the ditch when we came up,
and had not moved since. I looked at him eagerly when he
looked at me, and slightly moved my hands and shook my
head. I had been waiting for him to see me, that I might try
to assure him of my innocence. It was not at all expressed
to me that he even comprehended my intention, for he gave
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me a look that I did not understand, and it all passed in a
moment. But if he had looked at me for an hour or for a day,
I could not have remembered his face ever afterwards, as
having been more attentive.
The soldier with the basket soon got a light, and lighted
three or four torches, and took one himself and distribut-
ed the others. It had been almost dark before, but now it
seemed quite dark, and soon afterwards very dark. Before
we departed from that spot, four soldiers standing in a ring,
fired twice into the air. Presently we saw other torches kin-
dled at some distance behind us, and others on the marshes
on the opposite bank of the river. ‘All right,’ said the ser-
geant. ‘March.’
We had not gone far when three cannon were fired ahead
of us with a sound that seemed to burst something inside
my ear. ‘You are expected on board,’ said the sergeant to
my convict; ‘they know you are coming. Don’t straggle, my
man. Close up here.’
The two were kept apart, and each walked surrounded
by a separate guard. I had hold of Joe’s hand now, and Joe
carried one of the torches. Mr. Wopsle had been for going
back, but Joe was resolved to see it out, so we went on with
the party. There was a reasonably good path now, mostly on
the edge of the river, with a divergence here and there where
a dyke came, with a miniature windmill on it and a mud-
dy sluice-gate. When I looked round, I could see the other
lights coming in after us. The torches we carried, dropped
great blotches of fire upon the track, and I could see those,
too, lying smoking and flaring. I could see nothing else but
Great Expectations
black darkness. Our lights warmed the air about us with
their pitchy blaze, and the two prisoners seemed rather to
like that, as they limped along in the midst of the muskets.
We could not go fast, because of their lameness; and they
were so spent, that two or three times we had to halt while
they rested.
After an hour or so of this travelling, we came to a rough
wooden hut and a landing-place. There was a guard in the
hut, and they challenged, and the sergeant answered. Then,
we went into the hut where there was a smell of tobacco
and whitewash, and a bright fire, and a lamp, and a stand
of muskets, and a drum, and a low wooden bedstead, like
an overgrown mangle without the machinery, capable of
holding about a dozen soldiers all at once. Three or four sol-
diers who lay upon it in their great-coats, were not much
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