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Charles Dickens 6 page

to walk on them. I saw her walking on them at the end of

the yard of casks. She had her back towards me, and held

her pretty brown hair spread out in her two hands, and nev-

er looked round, and passed out of my view directly. So, in

the brewery itself - by which I mean the large paved lofty

place in which they used to make the beer, and where the

 

Great Expectations

brewing utensils still were. When I first went into it, and,

rather oppressed by its gloom, stood near the door looking

about me, I saw her pass among the extinguished fires, and

ascend some light iron stairs, and go out by a gallery high

overhead, as if she were going out into the sky.

It was in this place, and at this moment, that a strange

thing happened to my fancy. I thought it a strange thing

then, and I thought it a stranger thing long afterwards. I

turned my eyes - a little dimmed by looking up at the frosty

light - towards a great wooden beam in a low nook of the

building near me on my right hand, and I saw a figure hang-

ing there by the neck. A figure all in yellow white, with but

one shoe to the feet; and it hung so, that I could see that the

faded trimmings of the dress were like earthy paper, and

that the face was Miss Havisham’s, with a movement going

over the whole countenance as if she were trying to call to

me. In the terror of seeing the figure, and in the terror of be-

ing certain that it had not been there a moment before, I at

first ran from it, and then ran towards it. And my terror was

greatest of all, when I found no figure there.

Nothing less than the frosty light of the cheerful sky, the

sight of people passing beyond the bars of the court-yard

gate, and the reviving influence of the rest of the bread and

meat and beer, would have brought me round. Even with

those aids, I might not have come to myself as soon as I

did, but that I saw Estella approaching with the keys, to let

me out. She would have some fair reason for looking down

upon me, I thought, if she saw me frightened; and she would

have no fair reason.

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She gave me a triumphant glance in passing me, as if she

rejoiced that my hands were so coarse and my boots were so

thick, and she opened the gate, and stood holding it. I was

passing out without looking at her, when she touched me

with a taunting hand.

‘Why don’t you cry?’

‘Because I don’t want to.’

‘You do,’ said she. ‘You have been crying till you are half

blind, and you are near crying again now.’

She laughed contemptuously, pushed me out, and locked

the gate upon me. I went straight to Mr. Pumblechook’s,

and was immensely relieved to find him not at home. So,

leaving word with the shopman on what day I was wanted

at Miss Havisham’s again, I set off on the four-mile walk to

our forge; pondering, as I went along, on all I had seen, and

deeply revolving that I was a common labouring-boy; that

my hands were coarse; that my boots were thick; that I had

fallen into a despicable habit of calling knaves Jacks; that I



was much more ignorant than I had considered myself last

night, and generally that I was in a low-lived bad way.

Great Expectations

Chapter 9

When I reached home, my sister was very curious to

know all about Miss Havisham’s, and asked a num-

ber of questions. And I soon found myself getting heavily

bumped from behind in the nape of the neck and the small

of the back, and having my face ignominiously shoved

against the kitchen wall, because I did not answer those

questions at sufficient length.

If a dread of not being understood be hidden in the

breasts of other young people to anything like the extent

to which it used to be hidden in mine - which I consider

probable, as I have no particular reason to suspect myself of

having been a monstrosity - it is the key to many reserva-

tions. I felt convinced that if I described Miss Havisham’s

as my eyes had seen it, I should not be understood. Not only

that, but I felt convinced that Miss Havisham too would not

be understood; and although she was perfectly incompre-

hensible to me, I entertained an impression that there would

be something coarse and treacherous in my dragging her as

she really was (to say nothing of Miss Estella) before the

contemplation of Mrs. Joe. Consequently, I said as little as I

could, and had my face shoved against the kitchen wall.

The worst of it was that that bullying old Pumblechook,

preyed upon by a devouring curiosity to be informed of all

I had seen and heard, came gaping over in his chaise-cart

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at tea-time, to have the details divulged to him. And the

mere sight of the torment, with his fishy eyes and mouth

open, his sandy hair inquisitively on end, and his waistcoat

heaving with windy arithmetic, made me vicious in my ret-

icence.

‘Well, boy,’ Uncle Pumblechook began, as soon as he was

seated in the chair of honour by the fire. ‘How did you get

on up town?’

I answered, ‘Pretty well, sir,’ and my sister shook her fist

at me.

‘Pretty well?’ Mr. Pumblechook repeated. ‘Pretty well is

no answer. Tell us what you mean by pretty well, boy?’

Whitewash on the forehead hardens the brain into a

state of obstinacy perhaps. Anyhow, with whitewash from

the wall on my forehead, my obstinacy was adamantine. I

reflected for some time, and then answered as if I had dis-

covered a new idea, ‘I mean pretty well.’

My sister with an exclamation of impatience was going

to fly at me - I had no shadow of defence, for Joe was busy

in the forge when Mr. Pumblechook interposed with ‘No!

Don’t lose your temper. Leave this lad to me, ma’am; leave

this lad to me.’ Mr. Pumblechook then turned me towards

him, as if he were going to cut my hair, and said:

‘First (to get our thoughts in order): Forty-three pence?’

I calculated the consequences of replying ‘Four Hundred

Pound,’ and finding them against me, went as near the an-

swer as I could - which was somewhere about eightpence

off. Mr. Pumblechook then put me through my pence-ta-

ble from ‘twelve pence make one shilling,’ up to ‘forty

 

Great Expectations

pence make three and fourpence,’ and then triumphantly

demanded, as if he had done for me, ‘Now! How much is

forty-three pence?’ To which I replied, after a long interval

of reflection, ‘I don’t know.’ And I was so aggravated that I

almost doubt if I did know.

Mr. Pumblechook worked his head like a screw to screw

it out of me, and said, ‘Is forty-three pence seven and six-

pence three fardens, for instance?’

‘Yes!’ said I. And although my sister instantly boxed my

ears, it was highly gratifying to me to see that the answer

spoilt his joke, and brought him to a dead stop.

‘Boy! What like is Miss Havisham?’ Mr. Pumblechook

began again when he had recovered; folding his arms tight

on his chest and applying the screw.

‘Very tall and dark,’ I told him.

‘Is she, uncle?’ asked my sister.

Mr. Pumblechook winked assent; from which I at once

inferred that he had never seen Miss Havisham, for she was

nothing of the kind.

‘Good!’ said Mr. Pumblechook conceitedly. (“This is the

way to have him! We are beginning to hold our own, I think,

Mum?’)

‘I am sure, uncle,’ returned Mrs. Joe, ‘I wish you had him

always: you know so well how to deal with him.’

‘Now, boy! What was she a-doing of, when you went in

today?’ asked Mr. Pumblechook.

‘She was sitting,’ I answered, ‘in a black velvet coach.’

Mr. Pumblechook and Mrs. Joe stared at one another -

as they well might - and both repeated, ‘In a black velvet

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coach?’

‘Yes,’ said I. ‘And Miss Estella - that’s her niece, I think

- handed her in cake and wine at the coach-window, on a

gold plate. And we all had cake and wine on gold plates.

And I got up behind the coach to eat mine, because she told

me to.’

‘Was anybody else there?’ asked Mr. Pumblechook.

‘Four dogs,’ said I.

‘Large or small?’

‘Immense,’ said I. ‘And they fought for veal cutlets out of

a silver basket.’

Mr. Pumblechook and Mrs. Joe stared at one another

again, in utter amazement. I was perfectly frantic - a reck-

less witness under the torture - and would have told them

anything.

‘Where was this coach, in the name of gracious?’ asked

my sister.

‘In Miss Havisham’s room.’ They stared again. ‘But there

weren’t any horses to it.’ I added this saving clause, in the

moment of rejecting four richly caparisoned coursers which

I had had wild thoughts of harnessing.

‘Can this be possible, uncle?’ asked Mrs. Joe. ‘What can

the boy mean?’

‘I’ll tell you, Mum,’ said Mr. Pumblechook. ‘My opinion

is, it’s a sedan-chair. She’s flighty, you know - very flighty -

quite flighty enough to pass her days in a sedan-chair.’

‘Did you ever see her in it, uncle?’ asked Mrs. Joe.

‘How could I,’ he returned, forced to the admission, ‘when

I never see her in my life? Never clapped eyes upon her!’

 

Great Expectations

‘Goodness, uncle! And yet you have spoken to her?’

‘Why, don’t you know,’ said Mr. Pumblechook, testily,

‘that when I have been there, I have been took up to the out-

side of her door, and the door has stood ajar, and she has

spoke to me that way. Don’t say you don’t know that, Mum.

Howsever, the boy went there to play. What did you play at,

boy?’

‘We played with flags,’ I said. (I beg to observe that I think

of myself with amazement, when I recall the lies I told on

this occasion.)

‘Flags!’ echoed my sister.

‘Yes,’ said I. ‘Estella waved a blue flag, and I waved a red

one, and Miss Havisham waved one sprinkled all over with

little gold stars, out at the coach-window. And then we all

waved our swords and hurrahed.’

‘Swords!’ repeated my sister. ‘Where did you get swords

from?’

‘Out of a cupboard,’ said I. ‘And I saw pistols in it - and

jam - and pills. And there was no daylight in the room, but

it was all lighted up with candles.’

‘That’s true, Mum,’ said Mr. Pumblechook, with a grave

nod. ‘That’s the state of the case, for that much I’ve seen

myself.’ And then they both stared at me, and I, with an

obtrusive show of artlessness on my countenance, stared at

them, and plaited the right leg of my trousers with my right

hand.

If they had asked me any more questions I should un-

doubtedly have betrayed myself, for I was even then on the

point of mentioning that there was a balloon in the yard,

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and should have hazarded the statement but for my inven-

tion being divided between that phenomenon and a bear

in the brewery. They were so much occupied, however, in

discussing the marvels I had already presented for their con-

sideration, that I escaped. The subject still held them when

Joe came in from his work to have a cup of tea. To whom my

sister, more for the relief of her own mind than for the grati-

fication of his, related my pretended experiences.

Now, when I saw Joe open his blue eyes and roll them all

round the kitchen in helpless amazement, I was overtaken

by penitence; but only as regarded him - not in the least as

regarded the other two. Towards Joe, and Joe only, I consid-

ered myself a young monster, while they sat debating what

results would come to me from Miss Havisham’s acquain-

tance and favour. They had no doubt that Miss Havisham

would ‘do something’ for me; their doubts related to the

form that something would take. My sister stood out for

‘property.’ Mr. Pumblechook was in favour of a handsome

premium for binding me apprentice to some genteel trade

- say, the corn and seed trade, for instance. Joe fell into the

deepest disgrace with both, for offering the bright sugges-

tion that I might only be presented with one of the dogs who

had fought for the veal-cutlets. ‘If a fool’s head can’t express

better opinions than that,’ said my sister, ‘and you have got

any work to do, you had better go and do it.’ So he went.

After Mr. Pumblechook had driven off, and when my

sister was washing up, I stole into the forge to Joe, and re-

mained by him until he had done for the night. Then I said,

‘Before the fire goes out, Joe, I should like to tell you some-

 

Great Expectations

thing.’

‘Should you, Pip?’ said Joe, drawing his shoeing-stool

near the forge. ‘Then tell us. What is it, Pip?’

‘Joe,’ said I, taking hold of his rolled-up shirt sleeve, and

twisting it between my finger and thumb, ‘you remember

all that about Miss Havisham’s?’

‘Remember?’ said Joe. ‘I believe you! Wonderful!’

‘It’s a terrible thing, Joe; it ain’t true.’

‘What are you telling of, Pip?’ cried Joe, falling back in

the greatest amazement. ‘You don’t mean to say it’s—‘

‘Yes I do; it’s lies, Joe.’

‘But not all of it? Why sure you don’t mean to say, Pip,

that there was no black welwet coach?’ For, I stood shaking

my head. ‘But at least there was dogs, Pip? Come, Pip,’ said

Joe, persuasively, ‘if there warn’t no weal-cutlets, at least

there was dogs?’

‘No, Joe.’

‘A dog?’ said Joe. ‘A puppy? Come?’

‘No, Joe, there was nothing at all of the kind.’

As I fixed my eyes hopelessly on Joe, Joe contemplated

me in dismay. ‘Pip, old chap! This won’t do, old fellow! I say!

Where do you expect to go to?’

‘It’s terrible, Joe; an’t it?’

‘Terrible?’ cried Joe. ‘Awful! What possessed you?’

‘I don’t know what possessed me, Joe,’ I replied, letting

his shirt sleeve go, and sitting down in the ashes at his feet,

hanging my head; ‘but I wish you hadn’t taught me to call

Knaves at cards, Jacks; and I wish my boots weren’t so thick

nor my hands so coarse.’

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And then I told Joe that I felt very miserable, and that

I hadn’t been able to explain myself to Mrs. Joe and Pum-

blechook who were so rude to me, and that there had been

a beautiful young lady at Miss Havisham’s who was dread-

fully proud, and that she had said I was common, and that I

knew I was common, and that I wished I was not common,

and that the lies had come of it somehow, though I didn’t

know how.

This was a case of metaphysics, at least as difficult for Joe

to deal with, as for me. But Joe took the case altogether out

of the region of metaphysics, and by that means vanquished

it. ‘There’s one thing you may be sure of, Pip,’ said Joe, after

some rumination, ‘namely, that lies is lies. Howsever they

come, they didn’t ought to come, and they come from the

father of lies, and work round to the same. Don’t you tell no

more of ‘em, Pip. That ain’t the way to get out of being com-

mon, old chap. And as to being common, I don’t make it out

at all clear. You are oncommon in some things. You’re on-

common small. Likewise you’re a oncommon scholar.’

‘No, I am ignorant and backward, Joe.’

‘Why, see what a letter you wrote last night! Wrote in

print even! I’ve seen letters - Ah! and from gentlefolks! -

that I’ll swear weren’t wrote in print,’ said Joe.

‘I have learnt next to nothing, Joe. You think much of me.

It’s only that.’

‘Well, Pip,’ said Joe, ‘be it so or be it son’t, you must be

a common scholar afore you can be a oncommon one, I

should hope! The king upon his throne, with his crown

 

Great Expectations

upon his ‘ed, can’t sit and write his acts of Parliament in

print, without having begun, when he were a unpromoted

Prince, with the alphabet - Ah!’ added Joe, with a shake of

the head that was full of meaning, ‘and begun at A too, and

worked his way to Z. And I know what that is to do, though

I can’t say I’ve exactly done it.’

There was some hope in this piece of wisdom, and it rath-

er encouraged me.

‘Whether common ones as to callings and earnings,’ pur-

sued Joe, reflectively, ‘mightn’t be the better of continuing

for a keep company with common ones, instead of going

out to play with oncommon ones - which reminds me to

hope that there were a flag, perhaps?’

‘No, Joe.’

‘(I’m sorry there weren’t a flag, Pip). Whether that might

be, or mightn’t be, is a thing as can’t be looked into now,

without putting your sister on the Rampage; and that’s a

thing not to be thought of, as being done intentional. Loo-

kee here, Pip, at what is said to you by a true friend. Which

this to you the true friend say. If you can’t get to be on-

common through going straight, you’ll never get to do it

through going crooked. So don’t tell no more on ‘em, Pip,

and live well and die happy.’

‘You are not angry with me, Joe?’

‘No, old chap. But bearing in mind that them were which

I meantersay of a stunning and outdacious sort - alluding to

them which bordered on weal-cutlets and dog-fighting - a

sincere wellwisher would adwise, Pip, their being dropped

into your meditations, when you go up-stairs to bed. That’s

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all, old chap, and don’t never do it no more.’

When I got up to my little room and said my prayers,

I did not forget Joe’s recommendation, and yet my young

mind was in that disturbed and unthankful state, that I

thought long after I laid me down, how common Estella

would consider Joe, a mere blacksmith: how thick his boots,

and how coarse his hands. I thought how Joe and my sister

were then sitting in the kitchen, and how I had come up to

bed from the kitchen, and how Miss Havisham and Estella

never sat in a kitchen, but were far above the level of such

common doings. I fell asleep recalling what I ‘used to do’

when I was at Miss Havisham’s; as though I had been there

weeks or months, instead of hours; and as though it were

quite an old subject of remembrance, instead of one that

had arisen only that day.

That was a memorable day to me, for it made great

changes in me. But, it is the same with any life. Imagine

one selected day struck out of it, and think how different

its course would have been. Pause you who read this, and

think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of

thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for

the formation of the first link on one memorable day.

Great Expectations

Chapter 10

The felicitous idea occurred to me a morning or two lat-

er when I woke, that the best step I could take towards

making myself uncommon was to get out of Biddy every-

thing she knew. In pursuance of this luminous conception

I mentioned to Biddy when I went to Mr. Wopsle’s great-

aunt’s at night, that I had a particular reason for wishing to

get on in life, and that I should feel very much obliged to her

if she would impart all her learning to me. Biddy, who was

the most obliging of girls, immediately said she would, and

indeed began to carry out her promise within five minutes.

The Educational scheme or Course established by Mr.

Wopsle’s great-aunt may be resolved into the following

synopsis. The pupils ate apples and put straws down one

another’s backs, until Mr Wopsle’s great-aunt collected her

energies, and made an indiscriminate totter at them with

a birch-rod. After receiving the charge with every mark of

derision, the pupils formed in line and buzzingly passed a

ragged book from hand to hand. The book had an alpha-

bet in it, some figures and tables, and a little spelling - that

is to say, it had had once. As soon as this volume began to

circulate, Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt fell into a state of coma;

arising either from sleep or a rheumatic paroxysm. The pu-

pils then entered among themselves upon a competitive

examination on the subject of Boots, with the view of ascer-

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taining who could tread the hardest upon whose toes. This

mental exercise lasted until Biddy made a rush at them and

distributed three defaced Bibles (shaped as if they had been

unskilfully cut off the chump-end of something), more il-

legibly printed at the best than any curiosities of literature

I have since met with, speckled all over with ironmould,

and having various specimens of the insect world smashed

between their leaves. This part of the Course was usually

lightened by several single combats between Biddy and re-

fractory students. When the fights were over, Biddy gave out

the number of a page, and then we all read aloud what we

could - or what we couldn’t - in a frightful chorus; Biddy

leading with a high shrill monotonous voice, and none of

us having the least notion of, or reverence for, what we were

reading about. When this horrible din had lasted a certain

time, it mechanically awoke Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt, who

staggered at a boy fortuitously, and pulled his ears. This was

understood to terminate the Course for the evening, and we

emerged into the air with shrieks of intellectual victory. It

is fair to remark that there was no prohibition against any

pupil’s entertaining himself with a slate or even with the

ink (when there was any), but that it was not easy to pursue

that branch of study in the winter season, on account of the

little general shop in which the classes were holden - and

which was also Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt’s sitting-room and

bed-chamber - being but faintly illuminated through the

agency of one low-spirited dip-candle and no snuffers.

It appeared to me that it would take time, to become

uncommon under these circumstances: nevertheless, I re-

Great Expectations

solved to try it, and that very evening Biddy entered on our

special agreement, by imparting some information from

her little catalogue of Prices, under the head of moist sug-

ar, and lending me, to copy at home, a large old English D

which she had imitated from the heading of some newspa-

per, and which I supposed, until she told me what it was, to

be a design for a buckle.

Of course there was a public-house in the village, and of

course Joe liked sometimes to smoke his pipe there. I had

received strict orders from my sister to call for him at the

Three Jolly Bargemen, that evening, on my way from school,

and bring him home at my peril. To the Three Jolly Barge-

men, therefore, I directed my steps.

There was a bar at the Jolly Bargemen, with some alarm-

ingly long chalk scores in it on the wall at the side of the

door, which seemed to me to be never paid off. They had

been there ever since I could remember, and had grown

more than I had. But there was a quantity of chalk about

our country, and perhaps the people neglected no opportu-

nity of turning it to account.

It being Saturday night, I found the landlord looking

rather grimly at these records, but as my business was with

Joe and not with him, I merely wished him good evening,

and passed into the common room at the end of the pas-

sage, where there was a bright large kitchen fire, and where

Joe was smoking his pipe in company with Mr. Wopsle and

a stranger. Joe greeted me as usual with ‘Halloa, Pip, old

chap!’ and the moment he said that, the stranger turned his

head and looked at me.

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He was a secret-looking man whom I had never seen be-

fore. His head was all on one side, and one of his eyes was

half shut up, as if he were taking aim at something with an

invisible gun. He had a pipe in his mouth, and he took it out,

and, after slowly blowing all his smoke away and looking

hard at me all the time, nodded. So, I nodded, and then he

nodded again, and made room on the settle beside him that

I might sit down there.

But, as I was used to sit beside Joe whenever I entered that

place of resort, I said ‘No, thank you, sir,’ and fell into the

space Joe made for me on the opposite settle. The strange

man, after glancing at Joe, and seeing that his attention was

otherwise engaged, nodded to me again when I had taken

my seat, and then rubbed his leg - in a very odd way, as it

struck me.

‘You was saying,’ said the strange man, turning to Joe,

‘that you was a blacksmith.’

‘Yes. I said it, you know,’ said Joe.

‘What’ll you drink, Mr. - ? You didn’t mention your

name, by-the-bye.’

Joe mentioned it now, and the strange man called him

by it. ‘What’ll you drink, Mr. Gargery? At my expense? To

top up with?’

‘Well,’ said Joe, ‘to tell you the truth, I ain’t much in the

habit of drinking at anybody’s expense but my own.’

‘Habit? No,’ returned the stranger, ‘but once and away,

and on a Saturday night too. Come! Put a name to it, Mr.

Gargery.’

‘I wouldn’t wish to be stiff company,’ said Joe. ‘Rum.’

Great Expectations

‘Rum,’ repeated the stranger. ‘And will the other gentle-

man originate a sentiment.’

‘Rum,’ said Mr. Wopsle.

‘Three Rums!’ cried the stranger, calling to the landlord.

‘Glasses round!’

‘This other gentleman,’ observed Joe, by way of introduc-

ing Mr. Wopsle, ‘is a gentleman that you would like to hear

give it out. Our clerk at church.’

‘Aha!’ said the stranger, quickly, and cocking his eye

at me. ‘The lonely church, right out on the marshes, with

graves round it!’

‘That’s it,’ said Joe.

The stranger, with a comfortable kind of grunt over his

pipe, put his legs up on the settle that he had to himself. He

wore a flapping broad-brimmed traveller’s hat, and under it

a handkerchief tied over his head in the manner of a cap: so

that he showed no hair. As he looked at the fire, I thought

I saw a cunning expression, followed by a half-laugh, come

into his face.

‘I am not acquainted with this country, gentlemen, but it

seems a solitary country towards the river.’

‘Most marshes is solitary,’ said Joe.

‘No doubt, no doubt. Do you find any gipsies, now, or

tramps, or vagrants of any sort, out there?’

‘No,’ said Joe; ‘none but a runaway convict now and then.

And we don’t find them, easy. Eh, Mr. Wopsle?’

Mr. Wopsle, with a majestic remembrance of old dis-

comfiture, assented; but not warmly.

‘Seems you have been out after such?’ asked the stranger.

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‘Once,’ returned Joe. ‘Not that we wanted to take them,

you understand; we went out as lookers on; me, and Mr.

Wopsle, and Pip. Didn’t us, Pip?’

‘Yes, Joe.’

The stranger looked at me again - still cocking his eye, as

if he were expressly taking aim at me with his invisible gun

- and said, ‘He’s a likely young parcel of bones that. What is

it you call him?’

‘Pip,’ said Joe.

‘Christened Pip?’

‘No, not christened Pip.’

‘Surname Pip?’

‘No,’ said Joe, ‘it’s a kind of family name what he gave

himself when a infant, and is called by.’

‘Son of yours?’

‘Well,’ said Joe, meditatively - not, of course, that it could


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