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Charles Dickens 35 page

now,’ said the suppressed voice with another oath, ‘call out

again, and I’ll make short work of you!’

Faint and sick with the pain of my injured arm, bewil-

dered by the surprise, and yet conscious how easily this

threat could be put in execution, I desisted, and tried to ease

my arm were it ever so little. But, it was bound too tight for

that. I felt as if, having been burnt before, it were now be-

ing boiled.

The sudden exclusion of the night and the substitution

of black darkness in its place, warned me that the man had

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closed a shutter. After groping about for a little, he found

the flint and steel he wanted, and began to strike a light. I

strained my sight upon the sparks that fell among the tin-

der, and upon which he breathed and breathed, match in

hand, but I could only see his lips, and the blue point of the

match; even those, but fitfully. The tinder was damp - no

wonder there - and one after another the sparks died out.

The man was in no hurry, and struck again with the flint

and steel. As the sparks fell thick and bright about him,

I could see his hands, and touches of his face, and could

make out that he was seated and bending over the table; but

nothing more. Presently I saw his blue lips again, breath-

ing on the tinder, and then a flare of light flashed up, and

showed me Orlick.

Whom I had looked for, I don’t know. I had not looked

for him. Seeing him, I felt that I was in a dangerous strait

indeed, and I kept my eyes upon him.

He lighted the candle from the flaring match with great

deliberation, and dropped the match, and trod it out. Then,

he put the candle away from him on the table, so that he

could see me, and sat with his arms folded on the table and

looked at me. I made out that I was fastened to a stout per-

pendicular ladder a few inches from the wall - a fixture

there - the means of ascent to the loft above.

‘Now,’ said he, when we had surveyed one another for

some time, ‘I’ve got you.’

‘Unbind me. Let me go!’

‘Ah!’ he returned, ‘I’ll let you go. I’ll let you go to the

moon, I’ll let you go to the stars. All in good time.’

 

Great Expectations

‘Why have you lured me here?’

‘Don’t you know?’ said he, with a deadly look

‘Why have you set upon me in the dark?’

‘Because I mean to do it all myself. One keeps a secret

better than two. Oh you enemy, you enemy!’

His enjoyment of the spectacle I furnished, as he sat with

his arms folded on the table, shaking his head at me and

hugging himself, had a malignity in it that made me trem-

ble. As I watched him in silence, he put his hand into the

corner at his side, and took up a gun with a brass-bound

stock.

‘Do you know this?’ said he, making as if he would take

aim at me. ‘Do you know where you saw it afore? Speak,

wolf!’

‘Yes,’ I answered.

‘You cost me that place. You did. Speak!’

‘What else could I do?’

‘You did that, and that would be enough, without more.

How dared you to come betwixt me and a young woman I



liked?’

‘When did I?’

‘When didn’t you? It was you as always give Old Orlick a

bad name to her.’

‘You gave it to yourself; you gained it for yourself. I could

have done you no harm, if you had done yourself none.’

‘You’re a liar. And you’ll take any pains, and spend any

money, to drive me out of this country, will you?’ said he,

repeating my words to Biddy in the last interview I had with

her. ‘Now, I’ll tell you a piece of information. It was never so

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well worth your while to get me out of this country as it is to-

night. Ah! If it was all your money twenty times told, to the

last brass farden!’ As he shook his heavy hand at me, with

his mouth snarling like a tiger’s, I felt that it was true.

‘What are you going to do to me?’

‘I’m a-going,’ said he, bringing his fist down upon the ta-

ble with a heavy blow, and rising as the blow fell, to give it

greater force, ‘I’m a-going to have your life!’

He leaned forward staring at me, slowly unclenched his

hand and drew it across his mouth as if his mouth watered

for me, and sat down again.

‘You was always in Old Orlick’s way since ever you was a

child. You goes out of his way, this present night. He’ll have

no more on you. You’re dead.’

I felt that I had come to the brink of my grave. For a

moment I looked wildly round my trap for any chance of

escape; but there was none.

‘More than that,’ said he, folding his arms on the table

again, ‘I won’t have a rag of you, I won’t have a bone of you,

left on earth. I’ll put your body in the kiln - I’d carry two

such to it, on my shoulders - and, let people suppose what

they may of you, they shall never know nothing.’

My mind, with inconceivable rapidity, followed out all the

consequences of such a death. Estella’s father would believe

I had deserted him, would be taken, would die accusing me;

even Herbert would doubt me, when he compared the let-

ter I had left for him, with the fact that I had called at Miss

Havisham’s gate for only a moment; Joe and Biddy would

never know how sorry I had been that night; none would

Great Expectations

ever know what I had suffered, how true I had meant to be,

what an agony I had passed through. The death close before

me was terrible, but far more terrible than death was the

dread of being misremembered after death. And so quick

were my thoughts, that I saw myself despised by unborn

generations - Estella’s children, and their children - while

the wretch’s words were yet on his lips.

‘Now, wolf,’ said he, ‘afore I kill you like any other beast

- which is wot I mean to do and wot I have tied you up for -

I’ll have a good look at you and a good goad at you. Oh, you

enemy!’

It had passed through my thoughts to cry out for help

again; though few could know better than I, the solitary

nature of the spot, and the hopelessness of aid. But as he

sat gloating over me, I was supported by a scornful detesta-

tion of him that sealed my lips. Above all things, I resolved

that I would not entreat him, and that I would die making

some last poor resistance to him. Softened as my thoughts

of all the rest of men were in that dire extremity; humbly

beseeching pardon, as I did, of Heaven; melted at heart, as I

was, by the thought that I had taken no farewell, and never

never now could take farewell, of those who were dear to

me, or could explain myself to them, or ask for their com-

passion on my miserable errors; still, if I could have killed

him, even in dying, I would have done it.

He had been drinking, and his eyes were red and blood-

shot. Around his neck was slung a tin bottle, as I had often

seen his meat and drink slung about him in other days. He

brought the bottle to his lips, and took a fiery drink from it;

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and I smelt the strong spirits that I saw flash into his face.

‘Wolf!’ said he, folding his arms again, ‘Old Orlick’s a-go-

ing to tell you somethink. It was you as did for your shrew

sister.’

Again my mind, with its former inconceivable rapidity,

had exhausted the whole subject of the attack upon my sis-

ter, her illness, and her death, before his slow and hesitating

speech had formed these words.

‘It was you, villain,’ said I.

‘I tell you it was your doing - I tell you it was done through

you,’ he retorted, catching up the gun, and making a blow

with the stock at the vacant air between us. ‘I come upon

her from behind, as I come upon you to-night. I giv’ it her!

I left her for dead, and if there had been a limekiln as nigh

her as there is now nigh you, she shouldn’t have come to

life again. But it warn’t Old Orlick as did it; it was you. You

was favoured, and he was bullied and beat. Old Orlick bul-

lied and beat, eh? Now you pays for it. You done it; now you

pays for it.’

He drank again, and became more ferocious. I saw by his

tilting of the bottle that there was no great quantity left in

it. I distinctly understood that he was working himself up

with its contents, to make an end of me. I knew that every

drop it held, was a drop of my life. I knew that when I was

changed into a part of the vapour that had crept towards

me but a little while before, like my own warning ghost, he

would do as he had done in my sister’s case - make all haste

to the town, and be seen slouching about there, drinking

at the ale-houses. My rapid mind pursued him to the town,

Great Expectations

made a picture of the street with him in it, and contrasted

its lights and life with the lonely marsh and the white va-

pour creeping over it, into which I should have dissolved.

It was not only that I could have summed up years and

years and years while he said a dozen words, but that what

he did say presented pictures to me, and not mere words. In

the excited and exalted state of my brain, I could not think

of a place without seeing it, or of persons without seeing

them. It is impossible to over-state the vividness of these

images, and yet I was so intent, all the time, upon him him-

self - who would not be intent on the tiger crouching to

spring! - that I knew of the slightest action of his fingers.

When he had drunk this second time, he rose from the

bench on which he sat, and pushed the table aside. Then, he

took up the candle, and shading it with his murderous hand

so as to throw its light on me, stood before me, looking at

me and enjoying the sight.

‘Wolf, I’ll tell you something more. It was Old Orlick as

you tumbled over on your stairs that night.’

I saw the staircase with its extinguished lamps. I saw the

shadows of the heavy stair-rails, thrown by the watchman’s

lantern on the wall. I saw the rooms that I was never to see

again; here, a door half open; there, a door closed; all the

articles of furniture around.

‘And why was Old Orlick there? I’ll tell you something

more, wolf. You and her have pretty well hunted me out of

this country, so far as getting a easy living in it goes, and I’ve

took up with new companions, and new masters. Some of

‘em writes my letters when I wants ‘em wrote - do you mind?

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- writes my letters, wolf! They writes fifty hands; they’re not

like sneaking you, as writes but one. I’ve had a firm mind

and a firm will to have your life, since you was down here at

your sister’s burying. I han’t seen a way to get you safe, and

I’ve looked arter you to know your ins and outs. For, says

Old Orlick to himself, ‘Somehow or another I’ll have him!’

What! When I looks for you, I finds your uncle Provis, eh?’

Mill Pond Bank, and Chinks’s Basin, and the Old Green

Copper Rope-Walk, all so clear and plain! Provis in his

rooms, the signal whose use was over, pretty Clara, the good

motherly woman, old Bill Barley on his back, all drifting by,

as on the swift stream of my life fast running out to sea!

‘You with a uncle too! Why, I know’d you at Gargery’s

when you was so small a wolf that I could have took your

weazen betwixt this finger and thumb and chucked you

away dead (as I’d thoughts o’ doing, odd times, when I see

you loitering amongst the pollards on a Sunday), and you

hadn’t found no uncles then. No, not you! But when Old

Orlick come for to hear that your uncle Provis had most-

like wore the leg-iron wot Old Orlick had picked up, filed

asunder, on these meshes ever so many year ago, and wot

he kep by him till he dropped your sister with it, like a bull-

ock, as he means to drop you - hey? - when he come for to

hear that - hey?—‘

In his savage taunting, he flared the candle so close at me,

that I turned my face aside, to save it from the flame.

‘Ah!’ he cried, laughing, after doing it again, ‘the burnt

child dreads the fire! Old Orlick knowed you was burnt, Old

Orlick knowed you was smuggling your uncle Provis away,

Great Expectations

Old Orlick’s a match for you and know’d you’d come to-

night! Now I’ll tell you something more, wolf, and this ends

it. There’s them that’s as good a match for your uncle Provis

as Old Orlick has been for you. Let him ‘ware them, when

he’s lost his nevvy! Let him ‘ware them, when no man can’t

find a rag of his dear relation’s clothes, nor yet a bone of his

body. There’s them that can’t and that won’t have Magwitch

- yes, I know the name! - alive in the same land with them,

and that’s had such sure information of him when he was

alive in another land, as that he couldn’t and shouldn’t leave

it unbeknown and put them in danger. P’raps it’s them that

writes fifty hands, and that’s not like sneaking you as writes

but one. ‘Ware Compeyson, Magwitch, and the gallows!’

He flared the candle at me again, smoking my face and

hair, and for an instant blinding me, and turned his power-

ful back as he replaced the light on the table. I had thought

a prayer, and had been with Joe and Biddy and Herbert, be-

fore he turned towards me again.

There was a clear space of a few feet between the table

and the opposite wall. Within this space, he now slouched

backwards and forwards. His great strength seemed to sit

stronger upon him than ever before, as he did this with his

hands hanging loose and heavy at his sides, and with his

eyes scowling at me. I had no grain of hope left. Wild as my

inward hurry was, and wonderful the force of the pictures

that rushed by me instead of thoughts, I could yet clearly

understand that unless he had resolved that I was within a

few moments of surely perishing out of all human knowl-

edge, he would never have told me what he had told.

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Of a sudden, he stopped, took the cork out of his bottle,

and tossed it away. Light as it was, I heard it fall like a plum-

met. He swallowed slowly, tilting up the bottle by little and

little, and now he looked at me no more. The last few drops

of liquor he poured into the palm of his hand, and licked up.

Then, with a sudden hurry of violence and swearing horri-

bly, he threw the bottle from him, and stooped; and I saw in

his hand a stone-hammer with a long heavy handle.

The resolution I had made did not desert me, for, without

uttering one vain word of appeal to him, I shouted out with

all my might, and struggled with all my might. It was only

my head and my legs that I could move, but to that extent I

struggled with all the force, until then unknown, that was

within me. In the same instant I heard responsive shouts,

saw figures and a gleam of light dash in at the door, heard

voices and tumult, and saw Orlick emerge from a struggle

of men, as if it were tumbling water, clear the table at a leap,

and fly out into the night.

After a blank, I found that I was lying unbound, on the

floor, in the same place, with my head on some one’s knee.

My eyes were fixed on the ladder against the wall, when I

came to myself - had opened on it before my mind saw it -

and thus as I recovered consciousness, I knew that I was in

the place where I had lost it.

Too indifferent at first, even to look round and ascertain

who supported me, I was lying looking at the ladder, when

there came between me and it, a face. The face of Trabb’s

boy!

‘I think he’s all right!’ said Trabb’s boy, in a sober voice;

Great Expectations

‘but ain’t he just pale though!’

At these words, the face of him who supported me looked

over into mine, and I saw my supporter to be—

‘Herbert! Great Heaven!’

‘Softly,’ said Herbert. ‘Gently, Handel. Don’t be too ea-

ger.’‘And our old comrade, Startop!’ I cried, as he too bent

over me.

‘Remember what he is going to assist us in,’ said Herbert,

‘and be calm.’

The allusion made me spring up; though I dropped again

from the pain in my arm. ‘The time has not gone by, Her-

bert, has it? What night is to-night? How long have I been

here?’ For, I had a strange and strong misgiving that I had

been lying there a long time - a day and a night - two days

and nights - more.

‘The time has not gone by. It is still Monday night.’

‘Thank God!’

‘And you have all to-morrow, Tuesday, to rest in,’ said

Herbert. ‘But you can’t help groaning, my dear Handel.

What hurt have you got? Can you stand?’

‘Yes, yes,’ said I, ‘I can walk. I have no hurt but in this

throbbing arm.’

They laid it bare, and did what they could. It was violently

swollen and inflamed, and I could scarcely endure to have

it touched. But, they tore up their handkerchiefs to make

fresh bandages, and carefully replaced it in the sling, until

we could get to the town and obtain some cooling lotion

to put upon it. In a little while we had shut the door of the

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dark and empty sluice-house, and were passing through the

quarry on our way back. Trabb’s boy - Trabb’s overgrown

young man now - went before us with a lantern, which was

the light I had seen come in at the door. But, the moon was

a good two hours higher than when I had last seen the sky,

and the night though rainy was much lighter. The white va-

pour of the kiln was passing from us as we went by, and, as I

had thought a prayer before, I thought a thanksgiving now.

Entreating Herbert to tell me how he had come to my

rescue - which at first he had flatly refused to do, but had

insisted on my remaining quiet - I learnt that I had in my

hurry dropped the letter, open, in our chambers, where he,

coming home to bring with him Startop whom he had met

in the street on his way to me, found it, very soon after I was

gone. Its tone made him uneasy, and the more so because of

the inconsistency between it and the hasty letter I had left

for him. His uneasiness increasing instead of subsiding after

a quarter of an hour’s consideration, he set off for the coach-

office, with Startop, who volunteered his company, to make

inquiry when the next coach went down. Finding that the

afternoon coach was gone, and finding that his uneasiness

grew into positive alarm, as obstacles came in his way, he re-

solved to follow in a post-chaise. So, he and Startop arrived

at the Blue Boar, fully expecting there to find me, or tid-

ings of me; but, finding neither, went on to Miss Havisham’s,

where they lost me. Hereupon they went back to the hotel

(doubtless at about the time when I was hearing the pop-

ular local version of my own story), to refresh themselves

and to get some one to guide them out upon the marshes.

Great Expectations

Among the loungers under the Boar’s archway, happened

to be Trabb’s boy - true to his ancient habit of happening to

be everywhere where he had no business - and Trabb’s boy

had seen me passing from Miss Havisham’s in the direction

of my dining-place. Thus, Trabb’s boy became their guide,

and with him they went out to the sluice-house: though by

the town way to the marshes, which I had avoided. Now, as

they went along, Herbert reflected, that I might, after all,

have been brought there on some genuine and serviceable

errand tending to Provis’s safety, and, bethinking himself

that in that case interruption must be mischievous, left his

guide and Startop on the edge of the quarry, and went on by

himself, and stole round the house two or three times, en-

deavouring to ascertain whether all was right within. As he

could hear nothing but indistinct sounds of one deep rough

voice (this was while my mind was so busy), he even at last

began to doubt whether I was there, when suddenly I cried

out loudly, and he answered the cries, and rushed in, closely

followed by the other two.

When I told Herbert what had passed within the house,

he was for our immediately going before a magistrate in

the town, late at night as it was, and getting out a warrant.

But, I had already considered that such a course, by detain-

ing us there, or binding us to come back, might be fatal to

Provis. There was no gainsaying this difficulty, and we re-

linquished all thoughts of pursuing Orlick at that time. For

the present, under the circumstances, we deemed it prudent

to make rather light of the matter to Trabb’s boy; who I am

convinced would have been much affected by disappoint-

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ment, if he had known that his intervention saved me from

the limekiln. Not that Trabb’s boy was of a malignant na-

ture, but that he had too much spare vivacity, and that it

was in his constitution to want variety and excitement at

anybody’s expense. When we parted, I presented him with

two guineas (which seemed to meet his views), and told

him that I was sorry ever to have had an ill opinion of him

(which made no impression on him at all).

Wednesday being so close upon us, we determined to

go back to London that night, three in the post-chaise; the

rather, as we should then be clear away, before the night’s

adventure began to be talked of. Herbert got a large bottle

of stuff for my arm, and by dint of having this stuff dropped

over it all the night through, I was just able to bear its pain

on the journey. It was daylight when we reached the Temple,

and I went at once to bed, and lay in bed all day.

My terror, as I lay there, of falling ill and being unfit-

ted for tomorrow, was so besetting, that I wonder it did not

disable me of itself. It would have done so, pretty surely, in

conjunction with the mental wear and tear I had suffered,

but for the unnatural strain upon me that to-morrow was.

So anxiously looked forward to, charged with such conse-

quences, its results so impenetrably hidden though so near.

No precaution could have been more obvious than our

refraining from communication with him that day; yet this

again increased my restlessness. I started at every footstep

and every sound, believing that he was discovered and tak-

en, and this was the messenger to tell me so. I persuaded

myself that I knew he was taken; that there was something

Great Expectations

more upon my mind than a fear or a presentiment; that

the fact had occurred, and I had a mysterious knowledge

of it. As the day wore on and no ill news came, as the day

closed in and darkness fell, my overshadowing dread of

being disabled by illness before to-morrow morning, al-

together mastered me. My burning arm throbbed, and my

burning head throbbed, and I fancied I was beginning to

wander. I counted up to high numbers, to make sure of my-

self, and repeated passages that I knew in prose and verse. It

happened sometimes that in the mere escape of a fatigued

mind, I dozed for some moments or forgot; then I would

say to myself with a start, ‘Now it has come, and I am turn-

ing delirious!’

They kept me very quiet all day, and kept my arm con-

stantly dressed, and gave me cooling drinks. Whenever I

fell asleep, I awoke with the notion I had had in the sluice-

house, that a long time had elapsed and the opportunity to

save him was gone. About midnight I got out of bed and

went to Herbert, with the conviction that I had been asleep

for four-and-twenty hours, and that Wednesday was past. It

was the last self-exhausting effort of my fretfulness, for, af-

ter that, I slept soundly.

Wednesday morning was dawning when I looked out of

window. The winking lights upon the bridges were already

pale, the coming sun was like a marsh of fire on the horizon.

The river, still dark and mysterious, was spanned by bridges

that were turning coldly grey, with here and there at top a

warm touch from the burning in the sky. As I looked along

the clustered roofs, with Church towers and spires shoot-

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ing into the unusually clear air, the sun rose up, and a veil

seemed to be drawn from the river, and millions of sparkles

burst out upon its waters. From me too, a veil seemed to be

drawn, and I felt strong and well.

Herbert lay asleep in his bed, and our old fellow-student

lay asleep on the sofa. I could not dress myself without help,

but I made up the fire, which was still burning, and got

some coffee ready for them. In good time they too started

up strong and well, and we admitted the sharp morning air

at the windows, and looked at the tide that was still flowing

towards us.

‘When it turns at nine o’clock,’ said Herbert, cheerfully,

‘look out for us, and stand ready, you over there at Mill Pond

Bank!’

Great Expectations

Chapter 54

It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot

and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light,

and winter in the shade. We had out pea-coats with us, and

I took a bag. Of all my worldly possessions I took no more

than the few necessaries that filled the bag. Where I might

go, what I might do, or when I might return, were questions

utterly unknown to me; nor did I vex my mind with them,

for it was wholly set on Provis’s safety. I only wondered for

the passing moment, as I stopped at the door and looked

back, under what altered circumstances I should next see

those rooms, if ever.

We loitered down to the Temple stairs, and stood loiter-

ing there, as if we were not quite decided to go upon the

water at all. Of course I had taken care that the boat should

be ready and everything in order. After a little show of in-

decision, which there were none to see but the two or three

amphibious creatures belonging to our Temple stairs, we

went on board and cast off; Herbert in the bow, I steering. It

was then about high-water - half-past eight.

Our plan was this. The tide, beginning to run down at

nine, and being with us until three, we intended still to

creep on after it had turned, and row against it until dark.

We should then be well in those long reaches below Gra-

vesend, between Kent and Essex, where the river is broad

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and solitary, where the waterside inhabitants are very few,

and where lone public-houses are scattered here and there,

of which we could choose one for a resting-place. There, we

meant to lie by, all night. The steamer for Hamburg, and the

steamer for Rotterdam, would start from London at about

nine on Thursday morning. We should know at what time

to expect them, according to where we were, and would hail

the first; so that if by any accident we were not taken abroad,

we should have another chance. We knew the distinguish-

ing marks of each vessel.

The relief of being at last engaged in the execution of the

purpose, was so great to me that I felt it difficult to real-

ize the condition in which I had been a few hours before.

The crisp air, the sunlight, the movement on the river, and

the moving river itself - the road that ran with us, seem-


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