Never mind what I make it, my friend. I want to know what you make it.


Twenty pounds, of course.


Wemmick!


This strongly marked way of doing business made a strongly marked impression on me, and that not of an agreeable kind.


Tell him that, and he’ll take it as a compliment, he don’t mean that you should know what to make of it.—Oh! it’s not personal; it’s professional: only professional. Always seems to me as if he had set a man-trap and was watching it. Suddenly—click—you’re caught!


I supposed he was very skilful?


Deep, as Australia. If there was anything deeper, he’d be it.


I supposed he had a fine business,


Ca-pi-tal!


if there were many clerks?


We don’t run much into clerks, because there’s only one Jaggers, and people won’t have him at second hand. There are only four of us. Would you like to see ’em? You are one of us, as I may say.


Getting evidence together, for the Bailey.


This you’ve seen already.


Pray, whose likenesses are those?


These? These are two celebrated ones. Famous clients of ours that got us a world of credit. This chap (why you must have come down in the night and been peeping into the inkstand, to get this blot upon your eyebrow, you old rascal!) murdered his master, and, considering that he wasn’t brought up to evidence, didn’t plan it badly.


Is it like him?


Like him? It’s himself, you know. The cast was made in Newgate, directly after he was taken down. You had a particular fancy for me, hadn’t you, Old Artful? Had it made for me, express!


Is the lady anybody?


No. Only his game. (You liked your bit of game, didn’t you?) No; deuce a bit of a lady in the case, Mr. Pip, except one,—and she wasn’t of this slender lady-like sort, and you wouldn’t have caught her looking after this urn, unless there was something to drink in it.


Did that other creature come to the same end? He has the same look.


You’re right, it’s the genuine look. Much as if one nostril was caught up with a horse-hair and a little fish-hook. Yes, he came to the same end; quite the natural end here, I assure you. He forged wills, this blade did, if he didn’t also put the supposed testators to sleep too. You were a gentlemanly Cove, though and you said you could write Greek. Yah, Bounceable! What a liar you were! I never met such a liar as you! Sent out to buy it for me, only the day before. these are all gifts of that kind. One brings another, you see; that’s the way of it. I always take ’em. They’re curiosities. And they’re property. They may not be worth much, but, after all, they’re property and portable. It don’t signify to you with your brilliant lookout, but as to myself, my guiding-star always is, ‘Get hold of portable property’. If at any odd time when you have nothing better to do, you wouldn’t mind coming over to see me at Walworth, I could offer you a bed, and I should consider it an honour. I have not much to show you; but such two or three curiosities as I have got you might like to look over; and I am fond of a bit of garden and a summer-house.


I should be delighted to accept his hospitality.


Thankee, then we’ll consider that it’s to come off, when convenient to you. Have you dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?


Not yet.


Well, he’ll give you wine, and good wine. I’ll give you punch, and not bad punch. And now I’ll tell you something. When you go to dine with Mr. Jaggers, look at his housekeeper.


Shall I see something very uncommon?


Well, you’ll see a wild beast tamed. Not so very uncommon, you’ll tell me. I reply, that depends on the original wildness of the beast, and the amount of taming. It won’t lower your opinion of Mr. Jaggers’s powers. Keep your eye on it.


I would do so, with all the interest and curiosity that his preparation awakened.


Would you like to devote five minutes to seeing Mr. Jaggers “at it?”


For several reasons, and not least because I didn’t clearly know what Mr. Jaggers would be found to be “at,” I replied in the affirmative.


Did you think of walking down to Walworth?


Certainly, if you approve.


Very much, for I have had my legs under the desk all day, and shall be glad to stretch them. Now, I’ll tell you what I have got for supper, Mr. Pip. I have got a stewed steak,—which is of home preparation,—and a cold roast fowl,—which is from the cook’s-shop. I think it’s tender, because the master of the shop was a Juryman in some cases of ours the other day, and we let him down easy. I reminded him of it when I bought the fowl, and I said, “Pick us out a good one, old Briton, because if we had chosen to keep you in the box another day or two, we could easily have done it.” He said to that, “Let me make you a present of the best fowl in the shop.” I let him, of course. As far as it goes, it’s property and portable. You don’t object to an aged parent, I hope? Because I have got an aged parent at my place. So, you haven’t dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?


He told me so this afternoon when he heard you were coming. I expect you’ll have an invitation to-morrow. He’s going to ask your pals, too. Three of ’em; ain’t there?


Yes.


Well, he’s going to ask the whole gang, and whatever he gives you, he’ll give you good. Don’t look forward to variety, but you’ll have excellence. And there’s another rum thing in his house, he never lets a door or window be fastened at night.


Is he never robbed?


That’s it! I want to see the man who’ll rob me. Lord bless you, I have heard him, a hundred times, if I have heard him once, say to regular cracksmen in our front office, “You know where I live; now, no bolt is ever drawn there; why don’t you do a stroke of business with me? Come; can’t I tempt you?” Not a man of them, sir, would be bold enough to try it on, for love or money.


They dread him so much?


Dread him. I believe you they dread him. Not but what he’s artful, even in his defiance of them. No silver, sir. Britannia metal, every spoon.


So they wouldn’t have much, even if they—


Ah! But he would have much, and they know it. He’d have their lives, and the lives of scores of ’em. He’d have all he could get. And it’s impossible to say what he couldn’t get, if he gave his mind to it. As to the absence of plate, that’s only his natural depth, you know. A river’s its natural depth, and he’s his natural depth. Look at his watch-chain. That’s real enough.


It’s very massive,


Massive? I think so. And his watch is a gold repeater, and worth a hundred pound if it’s worth a penny. Mr. Pip, there are about seven hundred thieves in this town who know all about that watch; there’s not a man, a woman, or a child, among them, who wouldn’t identify the smallest link in that chain, and drop it as if it was red hot, if inveigled into touching it.


My own doing. Looks pretty; don’t it? That’s a real flagstaff, you see, and on Sundays I run up a real flag. Then look here. After I have crossed this bridge, I hoist it up—so—and cut off the communication. At nine o’clock every night, Greenwich time, the gun fires. There he is, you see! And when you hear him go, I think you’ll say he’s a Stinger. Then, at the back, out of sight, so as not to impede the idea of fortifications,—for it’s a principle with me, if you have an idea, carry it out and keep it up,—I don’t know whether that’s your opinion— —At the back, there’s a pig, and there are fowls and rabbits; then, I knock together my own little frame, you see, and grow cucumbers; and you’ll judge at supper what sort of a salad I can raise. So, sir, if you can suppose the little place besieged, it would hold out a devil of a time in point of provisions.


I am my own engineer, and my own carpenter, and my own plumber, and my own gardener, and my own Jack of all Trades. Well; it’s a good thing, you know. It brushes the Newgate cobwebs away, and pleases the Aged. You wouldn’t mind being at once introduced to the Aged, would you? It wouldn’t put you out? Well aged parent, how am you?


All right, John; all right!


Here’s Mr. Pip, aged parent, and I wish you could hear his name. Nod away at him, Mr. Pip; that’s what he likes. Nod away at him, if you please, like winking!


This is a fine place of my son’s, sir. This is a pretty pleasure-ground, sir. This spot and these beautiful works upon it ought to be kept together by the Nation, after my son’s time, for the people’s enjoyment.


You’re as proud of it as Punch; ain’t you, Aged? there’s a nod for you; there’s another for you; you like that, don’t you? If you’re not tired, Mr. Pip—though I know it’s tiring to strangers—will you tip him one more? You can’t think how it pleases him.


Is it your own, Mr. Wemmick?


O yes. I have got hold of it, a bit at a time. It’s a freehold, by George!


Is it indeed? I hope Mr. Jaggers admires it?


Never seen it. Never heard of it. Never seen the Aged. Never heard of him. No; the office is one thing, and private life is another. When I go into the office, I leave the Castle behind me, and when I come into the Castle, I leave the office behind me. If it’s not in any way disagreeable to you, you’ll oblige me by doing the same. I don’t wish it professionally spoken about. Getting near gun-fire, it’s the Aged’s treat.


He’s fired! I heerd him!


every one of ’em Lies, sir.


No ceremony, and no dinner dress, and say to-morrow. Come here, and I’ll take you home with me.


Pip. I don’t know one from the other. Who’s the Spider?


The spider?


The blotchy, sprawly, sulky fellow.


That’s Bentley Drummle, the one with the delicate face is Startop.


Bentley Drummle is his name, is it? I like the look of that fellow.


If you talk of strength. I’ll show you a wrist. Molly, let them see your wrist.


Master. Don’t.


I’ll show you a wrist. Molly, let them see your wrist.


Master. Please!


Molly, let them see both your wrists. Show them. Come! There’s power here. Very few men have the power of wrist that this woman has. It’s remarkable what mere force of grip there is in these hands. I have had occasion to notice many hands; but I never saw stronger in that respect, man’s or woman’s, than these. That’ll do, Molly, you have been admired, and can go. At half-past nine, gentlemen, we must break up. Pray make the best use of your time. I am glad to see you all. Mr. Drummle, I drink to you.


Well, he’ll be paid.


I don’t mean to imply that he won’t, but it might make you hold your tongue about us and our money, I should think.


You should think! Oh Lord!


I dare say, that you wouldn’t lend money to any of us if we wanted it.


You are right. I wouldn’t lend one of you a sixpence. I wouldn’t lend anybody a sixpence.


Rather mean to borrow under those circumstances, I should say.


You should say. Oh Lord!


Come, Mr. Drummle, since we are on the subject, I’ll tell you what passed between Herbert here and me, when you borrowed that money.


I don’t want to know what passed between Herbert there and you,


I’ll tell you, however, whether you want to know or not. We said that as you put it in your pocket very glad to get it, you seemed to be immensely amused at his being so weak as to lend it.


Gentlemen. I am exceedingly sorry to announce that it’s half past nine.


Pooh! it’s nothing, Pip. I like that Spider though.


I am glad you like him, sir, but I don’t.


No, no, don’t have too much to do with him. Keep as clear of him as you can. But I like the fellow, Pip; he is one of the true sort. Why, if I was a fortune-teller— But I am not a fortune-teller. You know what I am, don’t you? Good night, Pip.


Good night, sir.


MY DEAR MR PIP:— I write this by request of Mr. Gargery, for to let you know that he is going to London in company with Mr. Wopsle and would be glad if agreeable to be allowed to see you. He would call at Barnard’s Hotel Tuesday morning at nine o’clock, when if not agreeable please leave word. Your poor sister is much the same as when you left. We talk of you in the kitchen every night, and wonder what you are saying and doing. If now considered in the light of a liberty, excuse it for the love of poor old days. No more, dear Mr. Pip, from P.S. He wishes me most particular to write what larks. He says you will understand. I hope and do not doubt it will be agreeable to see him, even though a gentleman, for you had ever a good heart, and he is a worthy, worthy man. I have read him all, excepting only the last little sentence, and he wishes me most particular to write again what larks.


Mr. Gargery!


Joe, how are you, Joe?


Pip, how AIR you, Pip?


I am glad to see you, Joe. Give me your hat.


Which you have that growed, and that swelled, and that gentle-folked; as to be sure you are a honour to your king and country.


And you, Joe, look wonderfully well.


Thank God. I’m ekerval to most. And your sister, she’s no worse than she were. And Biddy, she’s ever right and ready. And all friends is no backerder, if not no forarder. ’Ceptin Wopsle; he’s had a drop.


Had a drop, Joe?


Why yes, he’s left the Church and went into the playacting. Which the playacting have likeways brought him to London along with me. And his wish were, if no offence, as I would ’and you that.


Were you at his performance, Joe?


I were,


Was there a great sensation?


Why, yes, there certainly were a peck of orange-peel. Partickler when he see the ghost. Though I put it to yourself, sir, whether it were calc’lated to keep a man up to his work with a good hart, to be continiwally cutting in betwixt him and the Ghost with “Amen!” A man may have had a misfortun’ and been in the Church, but that is no reason why you should put him out at such a time. Which I meantersay, if the ghost of a man’s own father cannot be allowed to claim his attention, what can, Sir? Still more, when his mourning ’at is unfortunately made so small as that the weight of the black feathers brings it off, try to keep it on how you may. Your servant, Sir, which I hope as you and Pip I meantersay, you two gentlemen,—which I hope as you get your elths in this close spot? For the present may be a werry good inn, according to London opinions, and I believe its character do stand it; but I wouldn’t keep a pig in it myself,—not in the case that I wished him to fatten wholesome and to eat with a meller flavour on him.


Do you take tea, or coffee, Mr. Gargery?


Thankee, Sir. I’ll take whichever is most agreeable to yourself.


What do you say to coffee?


Thankee, Sir, since you are so kind as make chice of coffee, I will not run contrairy to your own opinions. But don’t you never find it a little ’eating?


Say tea then. When did you come to town, Mr. Gargery?


Were it yesterday afternoon? No it were not. Yes it were. Yes. It were yesterday afternoon


Have you seen anything of London yet?


Why, yes, Sir, me and Wopsle went off straight to look at the Blacking Ware’us. But we didn’t find that it come up to its likeness in the red bills at the shop doors; which I meantersay, as it is there drawd too architectooralooral.


Us two being now alone, sir,


Joe, how can you call me, sir?


Us two being now alone, and me having the intentions and abilities to stay not many minutes more, I will now conclude—leastways begin—to mention what have led to my having had the present honour. For was it not, that my only wish were to be useful to you, I should not have had the honour of breaking wittles in the company and abode of gentlemen. Well, sir, this is how it were. I were at the Bargemen t’other night, Pip; when there come up in his shay-cart, Pumblechook. Which that same identical, do comb my ’air the wrong way sometimes, awful, by giving out up and down town as it were him which ever had your infant companionation and were looked upon as a playfellow by yourself.


Nonsense. It was you, Joe.


Which I fully believed it were, Pip, though it signify little now, sir. Well, Pip; this same identical, which his manners is given to blusterous, come to me at the Bargemen (wot a pipe and a pint of beer do give refreshment to the workingman, sir, and do not over stimilate), and his word were, ‘Joseph, Miss Havisham she wish to speak to you.’


Miss Havisham, Joe?


'She wish,' were Pumblechook’s word, 'to speak to you.'


Yes, Joe? Go on, please.


Next day, sir, having cleaned myself, I go and I see Miss A.


Miss A., Joe? Miss Havisham?


Which I say, sir. Miss A., or otherways Havisham. Her expression air then as follering: ‘Mr. Gargery. You air in correspondence with Mr. Pip?’ Having had a letter from you, I were able to say ‘I am.’ (When I married your sister, sir, I said ‘I will;’ and when I answered your friend, Pip, I said ‘I am.’) ‘Would you tell him, then,’ said she, ‘that which Estella has come home and would be glad to see him.’ Biddy, when I got home and asked her fur to write the message to you, a little hung back. Biddy says, ‘I know he will be very glad to have it by word of mouth, it is holiday time, you want to see him, go!’ I have now concluded, sir, and, Pip, I wish you ever well and ever prospering to a greater and a greater height.


But you are not going now, Joe?


Yes I am,


But you are coming back to dinner, Joe?


No I am not. Pip, dear old chap, life is made of ever so many partings welded together, as I may say, and one man’s a blacksmith, and one’s a whitesmith, and one’s a goldsmith, and one’s a coppersmith. Diwisions among such must come, and must be met as they come. If there’s been any fault at all to-day, it’s mine. You and me is not two figures to be together in London; nor yet anywheres else but what is private, and beknown, and understood among friends. It ain’t that I am proud, but that I want to be right, as you shall never see me no more in these clothes. I’m wrong in these clothes. I’m wrong out of the forge, the kitchen, or off th’ meshes. You won’t find half so much fault in me if you think of me in my forge dress, with my hammer in my hand, or even my pipe. You won’t find half so much fault in me if, supposing as you should ever wish to see me, you come and put your head in at the forge window and see Joe the blacksmith, there, at the old anvil, in the old burnt apron, sticking to the old work. I’m awful dull, but I hope I’ve beat out something nigh the rights of this at last. And so GOD bless you, dear old Pip, old chap, GOD bless you!


You don’t mind them, Handel?


O no!


I thought you seemed as if you didn’t like them?


I can’t pretend that I do like them, and I suppose you don’t particularly. But I don’t mind them.


See! There they are, coming out of the Tap. What a degraded and vile sight it is!


Don’t take it so much amiss, sir. I’ll sit next you myself. I’ll put ’em on the outside of the row. They won’t interfere with you, sir. You needn’t know they’re there.


And don’t blame me. I don’t want to go. I am quite ready to stay behind. As fur as I am concerned any one’s welcome to my place.


Or mine. I wouldn’t have incommoded none of you, if I’d had my way.


Good-bye, Handel!


How did he get ’em?


How should I know? I wish, that I had ’em here.


Two one pound notes, or friends? Two one pound notes. Two one pound notes. I’d sell all the friends I ever had for one, and think it a blessed good bargain. Well? So he says—? So he says, it was all said and done in half a minute, behind a pile of timber in the Dock-yard,—‘You’re a-going to be discharged?’ Yes, I was. Would I find out that boy that had fed him and kep his secret, and give him them two one pound notes? Yes, I would. And I did.


More fool you. I’d have spent ’em on a Man, in wittles and drink. He must have been a green one. Mean to say he knowed nothing of you?


Not a ha’porth. Different gangs and different ships. He was tried again for prison breaking, and got made a Lifer.


And was that—Honour!—the only time you worked out, in this part of the country?


The only time.


What might have been your opinion of the place?


A most beastly place. Mudbank, mist, swamp, and work; work, swamp, mist, and mudbank.


No, certainly not.


Orlick!


Ah, young master, there’s more changes than yours. But come in, come in. It’s opposed to my orders to hold the gate open. Yes! Here I am!


How did you come here?


I come here, on my legs. I had my box brought alongside me in a barrow.


Are you here for good?


I ain’t here for harm, young master, I suppose?


Then you have left the forge?


Do this look like a forge? Now, do it look like it? One day is so like another here,


Oh! You, is it, Mr. Pip? Are they any wiser? they had better be wiser, than well. Ah, Matthew, Matthew! You know your way, sir?


Pip’s rap, come in, Pip. Come in, Pip, come in, Pip, how do you do, Pip? so you kiss my hand as if I were a queen, eh?—Well? Well?


I heard, Miss Havisham, that you were so kind as to wish me to come and see you, and I came directly.


Well?


When I came in, Miss Havisham, I thought there was nothing of Estella in the face or figure; but now it all settles down so curiously into the old—


What? You are not going to say into the old Estella? She was proud and insulting, and you wanted to go away from her. Don’t you remember? Is he changed?


Very much. Less coarse and common?


I must have been a singular little creature to hide and see that fight that day; but I did, and I enjoyed it very much. You rewarded me very much. Did I? I remember I entertained a great objection to your adversary, because I took it ill that he should be brought here to pester me with his company. Are you? I think I recollect though, that you read with his father? Naturally, and necessarily, what was fit company for you once, would be quite unfit company for you now. Not the least.


I have no heart,—if that has anything to do with my memory. Oh! I have a heart to be stabbed in or shot in, I have no doubt, and of course if it ceased to beat I should cease to be. But you know what I mean. I have no softness there, no—sympathy—sentiment—nonsense.


I am serious, if we are to be thrown much together, you had better believe it at once. No! I have not bestowed my tenderness anywhere. I have never had any such thing. What is the matter? Are you scared again?


I should be, if I believed what you said just now,


Then you don’t? Very well. It is said, at any rate. Miss Havisham will soon be expecting you at your old post, though I think that might be laid aside now, with other old belongings. Let us make one more round of the garden, and then go in. Come! You shall not shed tears for my cruelty to-day; you shall be my Page, and give me your shoulder.


Is she beautiful, graceful, well-grown? Do you admire her?


Everybody must who sees her, Miss Havisham.


Love her, love her, love her! How does she use you? Love her, love her, love her! If she favours you, love her. If she wounds you, love her. If she tears your heart to pieces,—and as it gets older and stronger it will tear deeper,—love her, love her, love her! Hear me, Pip! I adopted her, to be loved. I bred her and educated her, to be loved. I developed her into what she is, that she might be loved. Love her! I’ll tell you, what real love is. It is blind devotion, unquestioning self-humiliation, utter submission, trust and belief against yourself and against the whole world, giving up your whole heart and soul to the smiter—as I did!


Indeed? Singular! As punctual as ever. How do you do, Pip? Shall I give you a ride, Miss Havisham? Once round? And so you are here, Pip? Ah! Very fine young lady! Well, Pip! How often have you seen Miss Estella before?


How often?


Ah! How many times? Ten thousand times?


Oh! Certainly not so many.


Twice?


Jaggers, leave my Pip alone, and go with him to your dinner.


Never.


And never will, Pip. She has never allowed herself to be seen doing either, since she lived this present life of hers. She wanders about in the night, and then lays hands on such food as she takes.


Pray, sir, may I ask you a question?


You may, and I may decline to answer it. Put your question.


Estella’s name. Is it Havisham or—?


Or what?


Is it Havisham?


It is Havisham.


I love her, I love her, I love her!


Why of course he is not the right sort of man, Pip, because the man who fills the post of trust never is the right sort of man. Very good, Pip. I’ll go round presently, and pay our friend off. Oh no he won’t. I should like to see him argue the question with me.


Hold me! I’m so frightened!


Don’t know yah! Don’t know yah, don’t know yah, ’pon my soul don’t know yah!


My dear Herbert, I have something very particular to tell you.


My dear Handel. I shall esteem and respect your confidence.


It concerns myself, Herbert, and one other person. Herbert. I love—I adore—Estella.


Exactly. Well?


Well, Herbert? Is that all you say? Well?


What next, I mean? Of course I know that.


How do you know it?


How do I know it, Handel? Why, from you.


I never told you.


Told me! You have never told me when you have got your hair cut, but I have had senses to perceive it. You have always adored her, ever since I have known you. You brought your adoration and your portmanteau here together. Told me! Why, you have always told me all day long. When you told me your own story, you told me plainly that you began adoring her the first time you saw her, when you were very young indeed.


Very well, then. I have never left off adoring her. And she has come back, a most beautiful and most elegant creature. And I saw her yesterday. And if I adored her before, I now doubly adore her.


Lucky for you then, Handel, that you are picked out for her and allotted to her. Without encroaching on forbidden ground, we may venture to say that there can be no doubt between ourselves of that fact. Have you any idea yet, of Estella’s views on the adoration question?


Oh! She is thousands of miles away, from me,


Patience, my dear Handel: time enough, time enough. But you have something more to say?


I am ashamed to say it, and yet it’s no worse to say it than to think it. You call me a lucky fellow. Of course, I am. I was a blacksmith’s boy but yesterday; I am—what shall I say I am—to-day?


Say a good fellow, if you want a phrase, a good fellow, with impetuosity and hesitation, boldness and diffidence, action and dreaming, curiously mixed in him.


When I ask what I am to call myself to-day, Herbert. I suggest what I have in my thoughts. You say I am lucky. I know I have done nothing to raise myself in life, and that Fortune alone has raised me; that is being very lucky. And yet, when I think of Estella—


And when don’t you, you know?


—Then, my dear Herbert, I cannot tell you how dependent and uncertain I feel, and how exposed to hundreds of chances. Avoiding forbidden ground, as you did just now, I may still say that on the constancy of one person (naming no person) all my expectations depend. And at the best, how indefinite and unsatisfactory, only to know so vaguely what they are!


Now, Handel. Now, Handel, it seems to me that in the despondency of the tender passion, we are looking into our gift-horse’s mouth with a magnifying-glass. Likewise, it seems to me that, concentrating our attention on the examination, we altogether overlook one of the best points of the animal. Didn’t you tell me that your guardian, Mr. Jaggers, told you in the beginning, that you were not endowed with expectations only? And even if he had not told you so,—though that is a very large If, I grant,—could you believe that of all men in London, Mr. Jaggers is the man to hold his present relations towards you unless he were sure of his ground?


I said I could not deny that this was a strong point.


I should think it was a strong point, and I should think you would be puzzled to imagine a stronger; as to the rest, you must bide your guardian’s time, and he must bide his client’s time. You’ll be one-and-twenty before you know where you are, and then perhaps you’ll get some further enlightenment. At all events, you’ll be nearer getting it, for it must come at last.


What a hopeful disposition you have!


I ought to have, for I have not much else. I must acknowledge, by the by, that the good sense of what I have just said is not my own, but my father’s. The only remark I ever heard him make on your story, was the final one, “The thing is settled and done, or Mr. Jaggers would not be in it.” And now before I say anything more about my father, or my father’s son, and repay confidence with confidence, I want to make myself seriously disagreeable to you for a moment,—positively repulsive.


You won’t succeed,


O yes I shall! One, two, three, and now I am in for it. Handel, my good fellow; I have been thinking since we have been talking with our feet on this fender, that Estella surely cannot be a condition of your inheritance, if she was never referred to by your guardian. Am I right in so understanding what you have told me, as that he never referred to her, directly or indirectly, in any way? Never even hinted, for instance, that your patron might have views as to your marriage ultimately?


Never.


Now, Handel, I am quite free from the flavour of sour grapes, upon my soul and honour! Not being bound to her, can you not detach yourself from her?—I told you I should be disagreeable.


No. Impossible! No. Impossible!


Well! now I’ll endeavour to make myself agreeable again! I was going to say a word or two, Handel, concerning my father and my father’s son. I am afraid it is scarcely necessary for my father’s son to remark that my father’s establishment is not particularly brilliant in its housekeeping.


There is always plenty, Herbert,


O yes! and so the dustman says, I believe, with the strongest approval, and so does the marine-store shop in the back street. Gravely, Handel, for the subject is grave enough, you know how it is as well as I do. I suppose there was a time once when my father had not given matters up; but if ever there was, the time is gone. May I ask you if you have ever had an opportunity of remarking, down in your part of the country, that the children of not exactly suitable marriages are always most particularly anxious to be married?


Is it so?


I don’t know, that’s what I want to know. Because it is decidedly the case with us. My poor sister Charlotte, who was next me and died before she was fourteen, was a striking example. Little Jane is the same. In her desire to be matrimonially established, you might suppose her to have passed her short existence in the perpetual contemplation of domestic bliss. Little Alick in a frock has already made arrangements for his union with a suitable young person at Kew. And indeed, I think we are all engaged, except the baby.


Then you are?


I am, but it’s a secret.


May I ask the name?


Name of Clara. Yes, perhaps I ought to mention that she is rather below my mother’s nonsensical family notions. Her father had to do with the victualling of passenger-ships. I think he was a species of purser.


What is he now?


He’s an invalid now,


Living on—?


On the first floor. O yes, I constantly expect to see him, because I never hear him, without expecting him to come tumbling through the ceiling. But I don’t know how long the rafters may hold. But you can’t marry, you know, while you’re looking about you.


And bless my heart, it’s to-night!


Look out! Here’s the undertaker a coming, to see how you’re a getting on with your work!


Wai-ter!


Let us go at once, or perhaps we shall meet him.


Mr. Pip and friend? Mr. Waldengarver, would be glad to have the honour.


Waldengarver?


Probably Wopsle.


Oh! Yes. Shall we follow you?


A few steps, please. How did you think he looked?—I dressed him.


When he come to the grave, he showed his cloak beautiful. But, judging from the wing, it looked to me that when he see the ghost in the queen’s apartment, he might have made more of his stockings.


Gentlemen, I am proud to see you. I hope, Mr. Pip, you will excuse my sending round. I had the happiness to know you in former times, and the Drama has ever had a claim which has ever been acknowledged, on the noble and the affluent.


Skin the stockings off Mr. Waldengarver, or you’ll bust ’em. Bust ’em, and you’ll bust five-and-thirty shillings. Shakspeare never was complimented with a finer pair. Keep quiet in your chair now, and leave ’em to me.


Gentlemen, how did it seem to you, to go, in front?


Capitally.


How did you like my reading of the character, gentlemen?


Massive and concrete.


I am glad to have your approbation, gentlemen,


But I’ll tell you one thing, Mr. Waldengarver, in which you’re out in your reading. Now mind! I don’t care who says contrairy; I tell you so. You’re out in your reading of Hamlet when you get your legs in profile. The last Hamlet as I dressed, made the same mistakes in his reading at rehearsal, till I got him to put a large red wafer on each of his shins, and then at that rehearsal (which was the last) I went in front, sir, to the back of the pit, and whenever his reading brought him into profile, I called out “I don’t see no wafers!” And at night his reading was lovely.


a faithful Dependent—I overlook his folly; My view is a little classic and thoughtful for them here; but they will improve, they will improve.


O, no doubt they would improve.


Did you observe, gentlemen, that there was a man in the gallery who endeavoured to cast derision on the service,—I mean, the representation?


He was drunk, no doubt.


O dear no, sir, not drunk. His employer would see to that, sir. His employer would not allow him to be drunk.


You know his employer?


You must have observed, gentlemen, an ignorant and a blatant ass, with a rasping throat and a countenance expressive of low malignity, who went through—I will not say sustained—the rôle (if I may use a French expression) of Claudius, King of Denmark. That is his employer, gentlemen. Such is the profession!


I am to come to London the day after to-morrow by the midday coach. I believe it was settled you should meet me? At all events Miss Havisham has that impression, and I write in obedience to it. She sends you her regard. Yours, ESTELLA.


Halloa, Mr. Pip, how do you do? I should hardly have thought this was your beat. Both flourishing thankye, and particularly the Aged. He’s in wonderful feather. He’ll be eighty-two next birthday. I have a notion of firing eighty-two times, if the neighbourhood shouldn’t complain, and that cannon of mine should prove equal to the pressure. However, this is not London talk. Where do you think I am going to?


To the office?


Next thing to it. I am going to Newgate. We are in a banker’s-parcel case just at present, and I have been down the road taking a squint at the scene of action, and thereupon must have a word or two with our client.


Did your client commit the robbery?


Bless your soul and body, no. But he is accused of it. So might you or I be. Either of us might be accused of it, you know.


Only neither of us is,


Yah! you’re a deep one, Mr. Pip! Would you like to have a look at Newgate? Have you time to spare?


What, Captain Tom? Are you there? Ah, indeed! Is that Black Bill behind the cistern? Why I didn’t look for you these two months; how do you find yourself?


it’s no use, my boy. I’m only a subordinate. I can’t take it. Don’t go on in that way with a subordinate. If you are unable to make up your quantum, my boy, you had better address yourself to a principal; there are plenty of principals in the profession, you know, and what is not worth the while of one, may be worth the while of another; that’s my recommendation to you, speaking as a subordinate. Don’t try on useless measures. Why should you? Now, who’s next? Notice the man I shall shake hands with.


Colonel, to you! how are you, Colonel?


All right, Mr. Wemmick.


Everything was done that could be done, but the evidence was too strong for us, Colonel.


Yes, it was too strong, sir,—but I don’t care.


No, no, you don’t care. Served His Majesty this man. Was a soldier in the line and bought his discharge.


Indeed?


I think I shall be out of this on Monday, sir,


Perhaps,


Perhaps, but there’s no knowing.


I am glad to have the chance of bidding you good-bye, Mr. Wemmick,


Thankye. Thankye. Same to you, Colonel.


If what I had upon me when taken had been real, Mr. Wemmick, I should have asked the favour of your wearing another ring—in acknowledgment of your attentions.


I’ll accept the will for the deed. By the by; you were quite a pigeon-fancier. I am told you had a remarkable breed of tumblers. Could you commission any friend of yours to bring me a pair, if you’ve no further use for ’em?


It shall be done, sir.


All right, they shall be taken care of. Good-afternoon, Colonel. Good-bye! A Coiner, a very good workman. The Recorder’s report is made to-day, and he is sure to be executed on Monday. Still you see, as far as it goes, a pair of pigeons are portable property all the same.


Well, Mr. Wemmick, what’s Mr. Jaggers going to do with that water-side murder? Is he going to make it manslaughter, or what’s he going to make of it?


Why don’t you ask him?


O yes, I dare say!


Now, that’s the way with them here, Mr. Pip. They don’t mind what they ask of me, the subordinate; but you’ll never catch ’em asking any questions of my principal.


Is this young gentleman one of the ’prentices or articled ones of your office?


There he goes again, you see! I told you so! Asks another question of the subordinate before his first is dry! Well, supposing Mr. Pip is one of them?


Why then. Why then, he knows what Mr. Jaggers is.


Yah! you’re dumb as one of your own keys when you have to do with my principal, you know you are. Let us out, you old fox, or I’ll get him to bring an action against you for false imprisonment. Mind you, Mr. Pip. I don’t know that Mr. Jaggers does a better thing than the way in which he keeps himself so high. He’s always so high. His constant height is of a piece with his immense abilities. That Colonel durst no more take leave of him, than that turnkey durst ask him his intentions respecting a case. Then, between his height and them, he slips in his subordinate,—don’t you see?—and so he has ’em, soul and body.


I am going to Richmond. Our lesson is, that there are two Richmonds, one in Surrey and one in Yorkshire, and that mine is the Surrey Richmond. The distance is ten miles. I am to have a carriage, and you are to take me. This is my purse, and you are to pay my charges out of it. O, you must take the purse! We have no choice, you and I, but to obey our instructions. We are not free to follow our own devices, you and I.


A carriage will have to be sent for, Estella. Will you rest here a little?


Yes, I am to rest here a little, and I am to drink some tea, and you are to take care of me the while.


Where are you going to, at Richmond?


I am going to live, at a great expense, with a lady there, who has the power—or says she has—of taking me about, and introducing me, and showing people to me and showing me to people.


I suppose you will be glad of variety and admiration?


Yes, I suppose so.


You speak of yourself as if you were some one else.


Where did you learn how I speak of others? Come, come, you must not expect me to go to school to you; I must talk in my own way. How do you thrive with Mr. Pocket?


I live quite pleasantly there; at least—


At least?


As pleasantly as I could anywhere, away from you.


You silly boy, how can you talk such nonsense? Your friend Mr. Matthew, I believe, is superior to the rest of his family?


Very superior indeed. He is nobody’s enemy—


Don’t add but his own, for I hate that class of man. But he really is disinterested, and above small jealousy and spite, I have heard?


I am sure I have every reason to say so.


You have not every reason to say so of the rest of his people, for they beset Miss Havisham with reports and insinuations to your disadvantage. They watch you, misrepresent you, write letters about you (anonymous sometimes), and you are the torment and the occupation of their lives. You can scarcely realise to yourself the hatred those people feel for you.


They do me no harm, I hope? I hope I may suppose that you would not be amused if they did me any harm.


No, no you may be sure of that. You may be certain that I laugh because they fail. O, those people with Miss Havisham, and the tortures they undergo! It is not easy for even you. to know what satisfaction it gives me to see those people thwarted, or what an enjoyable sense of the ridiculous I have when they are made ridiculous. For you were not brought up in that strange house from a mere baby. I was. You had not your little wits sharpened by their intriguing against you, suppressed and defenceless, under the mask of sympathy and pity and what not that is soft and soothing. I had. You did not gradually open your round childish eyes wider and wider to the discovery of that impostor of a woman who calculates her stores of peace of mind for when she wakes up in the night. I did. Two things I can tell you. First, notwithstanding the proverb that constant dropping will wear away a stone, you may set your mind at rest that these people never will—never would in a hundred years—impair your ground with Miss Havisham, in any particular, great or small. Second, I am beholden to you as the cause of their being so busy and so mean in vain, and there is my hand upon it. You ridiculous boy, will you never take warning? Or do you kiss my hand in the same spirit in which I once let you kiss my cheek?


What spirit was that?


I must think a moment. A spirit of contempt for the fawners and plotters.


If I say yes, may I kiss the cheek again?


You should have asked before you touched the hand. But, yes, if you like. Now, you are to take care that I have some tea, and you are to take me to Richmond.


What place is that? Wretches!


Mr. Jaggers, has the reputation of being more in the secrets of that dismal place than any man in London.


He is more in the secrets of every place, I think,


You have been accustomed to see him often, I suppose?


I have been accustomed to see him at uncertain intervals, ever since I can remember. But I know him no better now, than I did before I could speak plainly. What is your own experience of him? Do you advance with him?


Once habituated to his distrustful manner. I have done very well.


Are you intimate?


I have dined with him at his private house.


I fancy, that must be a curious place.


It is a curious place.


God forbid!


O yes, you are to see me; you are to come when you think proper; you are to be mentioned to the family; indeed you are already mentioned. No; there are only two; mother and daughter. The mother is a lady of some station, though not averse to increasing her income.


I wonder Miss Havisham could part with you again so soon.


It is a part of Miss Havisham’s plans for me, Pip. I am to write to her constantly and see her regularly and report how I go on,—I and the jewels,—for they are nearly all mine now.


Gentlemen, may the present promotion of good feeling ever reign predominant among the Finches of the Grove.


For. I find the truth to be, Handel, that an opening won’t come to one, but one must go to it,—so I have been.


not unwholly unconnected,


with jewelery,


My dear Herbert, we are getting on badly.


My dear Handel, if you will believe me, those very words were on my lips, by a strange coincidence.


Then, Herbert, let us look into our affairs.


They are mounting up, Handel, upon my life, they are mounting up.


Be firm, Herbert. Look the thing in the face. Look into your affairs. Stare them out of countenance.


So I would, Handel, only they are staring me out of countenance.


Then, Herbert, estimate; estimate it in round numbers, and put it down.


What a fellow of resource you are! Really your business powers are very remarkable.


Leave a margin, and put them down at two hundred.


It’s for you, Handel, and I hope there is nothing the matter.


Dear Joe, how are you?


Pip, old chap, you knowed her when she were a fine figure of a—


May I, dear sir?


Which I meantersay, Pip, which I meantersay, sir, as I would in preference have carried her to the church myself, along with three or four friendly ones wot come to it with willing harts and arms, but it were considered wot the neighbours would look down on such and would be of opinions as it were wanting in respect.


Pocket-handkerchiefs out, all! Pocket-handkerchiefs out! We are ready!


Here they come!


Here they are!


Biddy,


I think you might have written to me about these sad matters.


Do you, Mr. Pip? I should have written if I had thought that.


Don’t suppose that I mean to be unkind, Biddy, when I say I consider that you ought to have thought that.


Do you, Mr. Pip?


I suppose it will be difficult for you to remain here now, Biddy dear?


Oh! I can’t do so, Mr. Pip. I have been speaking to Mrs. Hubble, and I am going to her to-morrow. I hope we shall be able to take some care of Mr. Gargery, together, until he settles down.


How are you going to live, Biddy? If you want any mo—


How am I going to live? I’ll tell you, Mr. Pip. I am going to try to get the place of mistress in the new school nearly finished here. I can be well recommended by all the neighbours, and I hope I can be industrious and patient, and teach myself while I teach others. You know, Mr. Pip, the new schools are not like the old, but I learnt a good deal from you after that time, and have had time since then to improve.


I think you would always improve, Biddy, under any circumstances.


Ah! Except in my bad side of human nature. They are very slight, poor thing. She had been in one of her bad states—though they had got better of late, rather than worse—for four days, when she came out of it in the evening, just at tea-time, and said quite plainly, ‘Joe.’ As she had never said any word for a long while, I ran and fetched in Mr. Gargery from the forge. She made signs to me that she wanted him to sit down close to her, and wanted me to put her arms round his neck. So I put them round his neck, and she laid her head down on his shoulder quite content and satisfied. And so she presently said ‘Joe’ again, and once ‘Pardon,’ and once ‘Pip.’ And so she never lifted her head up any more, and it was just an hour later when we laid it down on her own bed, because we found she was gone. Nothing.


Do you know what is become of Orlick?


I should think from the colour of his clothes that he is working in the quarries.


Of course you have seen him then?—Why are you looking at that dark tree in the lane?


I saw him there, on the night she died.


That was not the last time either, Biddy?


No; I have seen him there, since we have been walking here.—It is of no use,


Biddy,


you know I would not deceive you; he was not there a minute, and he is gone.


Indeed, it would be hard to say too much for him, and Biddy, we must often speak of these things, for of course I shall be often down here now. I am not going to leave poor Joe alone. Biddy, don’t you hear me?


Yes, Mr. Pip.


Not to mention your calling me Mr. Pip,—which appears to me to be in bad taste, Biddy,—what do you mean?


What do I mean?


By this?


Now, don’t echo,


Used not! O Mr. Pip! Used!


Biddy. I made a remark respecting my coming down here often, to see Joe, which you received with a marked silence. Have the goodness, Biddy, to tell me why.


Are you quite sure, then, that you WILL come to see him often?


O dear me! This really is a very bad side of human nature! Don’t say any more, if you please, Biddy. This shocks me very much.


Good-bye, dear Joe!—No, don’t wipe it off—for God’s sake, give me your blackened hand!—I shall be down soon and often.


Never too soon, sir, and never too often, Pip!


Biddy. I am not angry, but I am hurt.


No, don’t be hurt, let only me be hurt, if I have been ungenerous.


Well, Pip. I must call you Mr. Pip to-day. Congratulations, Mr. Pip.


Now my young friend. I am going to have a word or two with you.


If you please, sir.


What do you suppose, what do you suppose you are living at the rate of? At, the—rate—of? I thought so! Now, I have asked you a question, my friend. Have you anything to ask me?


Of course it would be a great relief to me to ask you several questions, sir; but I remember your prohibition.


Ask one,


Is my benefactor to be made known to me to-day?


No. Ask another.


Is that confidence to be imparted to me soon?


Waive that, a moment,


Have-I—anything to receive, sir?


I thought we should come to it! Now, Mr. Pip, attend, if you please. You have been drawing pretty freely here; your name occurs pretty often in Wemmick’s cash-book; but you are in debt, of course?


I am afraid I must say yes, sir.


You know you must say yes; don’t you? I don’t ask you what you owe, because you don’t know; and if you did know, you wouldn’t tell me; you would say less. Yes, yes, my friend, it’s likely enough that you think you wouldn’t, but you would. You’ll excuse me, but I know better than you. Now, take this piece of paper in your hand. You have got it? Very good. Now, unfold it and tell me what it is.


This is a bank-note,


That is a bank-note, for five hundred pounds. And a very handsome sum of money too, I think. You consider it so?


How could I do otherwise!


Ah! But answer the question,


Undoubtedly.


You consider it, undoubtedly, a handsome sum of money. Now, that handsome sum of money, Pip, is your own. It is a present to you on this day, in earnest of your expectations. And at the rate of that handsome sum of money per annum, and at no higher rate, you are to live until the donor of the whole appears. That is to say, you will now take your money affairs entirely into your own hands, and you will draw from Wemmick one hundred and twenty-five pounds per quarter, until you are in communication with the fountain-head, and no longer with the mere agent. As I have told you before, I am the mere agent. I execute my instructions, and I am paid for doing so. I think them injudicious, but I am not paid for giving any opinion on their merits. I am not paid, Pip, to carry your words to any one;


There was a question just now, Mr. Jaggers, which you desired me to waive for a moment. I hope I am doing nothing wrong in asking it again?


What is it?


Is it likely. Will soon what? Will soon come to London, or summon me anywhere else?


Now, here, we must revert to the evening when we first encountered one another in your village. What did I tell you then, Pip?


You told me, Mr. Jaggers, that it might be years hence when that person appeared.


Just so, that’s my answer.


Do you suppose it will still be years hence, Mr. Jaggers?


Come! I’ll be plain with you, my friend Pip. That’s a question I must not be asked. You’ll understand that better, when I tell you it’s a question that might compromise me. Come! I’ll go a little further with you; I’ll say something more. When that person discloses, you and that person will settle your own affairs. When that person discloses, my part in this business will cease and determine. When that person discloses, it will not be necessary for me to know anything about it. And that’s all I have got to say.


If that is all you have to say, sir, there can be nothing left for me to say.


Mr. Wemmick. I want to ask your opinion. I am very desirous to serve a friend. This friend, is trying to get on in commercial life, but has no money, and finds it difficult and disheartening to make a beginning. Now I want somehow to help him to a beginning.


With money down?


With some money down, with some money down, and perhaps some anticipation of my expectations.


Mr. Pip. I should like just to run over with you on my fingers, if you please, the names of the various bridges up as high as Chelsea Reach. Let’s see; there’s London, one; Southwark, two; Blackfriars, three; Waterloo, four; Westminster, five; Vauxhall, six. There’s as many as six, you see, to choose from.


I don’t understand you,


Choose your bridge, Mr. Pip, and take a walk upon your bridge, and pitch your money into the Thames over the centre arch of your bridge, and you know the end of it. Serve a friend with it, and you may know the end of it too,—but it’s a less pleasant and profitable end.


This is very discouraging,


Meant to be so,


Then is it your opinion, that a man should never—


—Invest portable property in a friend? Certainly he should not. Unless he wants to get rid of the friend,—and then it becomes a question how much portable property it may be worth to get rid of him.


And that, is your deliberate opinion, Mr. Wemmick?


That, is my deliberate opinion in this office.


Ah! but would that be your opinion at Walworth?


Mr. Pip. Walworth is one place, and this office is another. Much as the Aged is one person, and Mr. Jaggers is another. They must not be confounded together. My Walworth sentiments must be taken at Walworth; none but my official sentiments can be taken in this office.


Very well, then I shall look you up at Walworth, you may depend upon it.


Mr. Pip, you will be welcome there, in a private and personal capacity.


My son, sir, rather had it in his mind that you might happen to drop in, and he left word that he would soon be home from his afternoon’s walk. He is very regular in his walks, is my son. Very regular in everything, is my son. You made acquaintance with my son, sir, at his office, I expect? Hah! I have heerd that my son is a wonderful hand at his business, sir? Yes; so they tell me. His business is the Law? Which makes it more surprising in my son, for he was not brought up to the Law, but to the Wine-Coopering. No, to be sure; you’re right. No, the warehousing, the warehousing. First, over yonder; and then in the City of London here. However, having an infirmity—for I am hard of hearing, sir— —Yes, hard of hearing; having that infirmity coming upon me, my son he went into the Law, and he took charge of me, and he by little and little made out this elegant and beautiful property. But returning to what you said, you know, what I say is, No to be sure; you’re right. My son’s come home!


Well, you know, they’re both pleasant and useful to the Aged. And by George, sir, it’s a thing worth mentioning, that of all the people who come to this gate, the secret of those pulls is only known to the Aged, Miss Skiffins, and me!


And Mr. Wemmick made them, with his own hands out of his own head.


I can’t help confiding in you, though I know it must be troublesome to you; but that is your fault, in having ever brought me here.


Well you know, Mr. Pip, I must tell you one thing. This is devilish good of you.


Say you’ll help me to be good then,


Ecod, that’s not my trade.


Nor is this your trading-place,


You are right. You hit the nail on the head. Mr. Pip, I’ll put on my considering-cap, and I think all you want to do may be done by degrees. Skiffins (that’s her brother) is an accountant and agent. I’ll look him up and go to work for you.


I thank you ten thousand times.


On the contrary. I thank you, for though we are strictly in our private and personal capacity, still it may be mentioned that there are Newgate cobwebs about, and it brushes them away.


Now, Aged Parent, tip us the paper. I won’t offer an apology, for he isn’t capable of many pleasures—are you, Aged P.?


All right, John, all right,


Only tip him a nod every now and then when he looks off his paper, and he’ll be as happy as a king. We are all attention, Aged One.


All right, John, all right!


Pip, Pip, will you never take warning?


Of what?


Of me.


Warning not to be attracted by you, do you mean, Estella?


Do I mean! If you don’t know what I mean, you are blind.


At any rate. I have no warning given me just now, for you wrote to me to come to you, this time.


That’s true. The time has come round when Miss Havisham wishes to have me for a day at Satis. You are to take me there, and bring me back, if you will. She would rather I did not travel alone, and objects to receiving my maid, for she has a sensitive horror of being talked of by such people. Can you take me?


Can I take you, Estella!


You can then? The day after to-morrow, if you please. You are to pay all charges out of my purse. You hear the condition of your going?


And must obey,


How does she use you, Pip; how does she use you?


What! are you tired of me?


Only a little tired of myself,


Speak the truth, you ingrate! you are tired of me. You stock and stone! You cold, cold heart!


What? do you reproach me for being cold? You?


Are you not?


You should know. I am what you have made me. Take all the praise, take all the blame; take all the success, take all the failure; in short, take me.


O, look at her, look at her! Look at her so hard and thankless, on the hearth where she was reared! Where I took her into this wretched breast when it was first bleeding from its stabs, and where I have lavished years of tenderness upon her!


At least I was no party to the compact, for if I could walk and speak, when it was made, it was as much as I could do. But what would you have? You have been very good to me, and I owe everything to you. What would you have?


Love,


You have it.


I have not,


Mother by adoption, mother by adoption, I have said that I owe everything to you. All I possess is freely yours. All that you have given me, is at your command to have again. Beyond that, I have nothing. And if you ask me to give you, what you never gave me, my gratitude and duty cannot do impossibilities.


Did I never give her love! Did I never give her a burning love, inseparable from jealousy at all times, and from sharp pain, while she speaks thus to me! Let her call me mad, let her call me mad!


Why should I call you mad. I, of all people? Does any one live, who knows what set purposes you have, half as well as I do? Does any one live, who knows what a steady memory you have, half as well as I do? I who have sat on this same hearth on the little stool that is even now beside you there, learning your lessons and looking up into your face, when your face was strange and frightened me!


Soon forgotten! Times soon forgotten!


No, not forgotten, not forgotten, but treasured up in my memory. When have you found me false to your teaching? When have you found me unmindful of your lessons? When have you found me giving admission here, to anything that you excluded? Be just to me.


So proud, so proud!


Who taught me to be proud? Who praised me when I learnt my lesson?


So hard, so hard!


Who taught me to be hard? Who praised me when I learnt my lesson?


But to be proud and hard to me! Estella, Estella, Estella, to be proud and hard to me!


I cannot think, why you should be so unreasonable when I come to see you after a separation. I have never forgotten your wrongs and their causes. I have never been unfaithful to you or your schooling. I have never shown any weakness that I can charge myself with.


Would it be weakness to return my love? But yes, yes, she would call it so!


I begin to think, that I almost understand how this comes about. If you had brought up your adopted daughter wholly in the dark confinement of these rooms, and had never let her know that there was such a thing as the daylight by which she had never once seen your face,—if you had done that, and then, for a purpose had wanted her to understand the daylight and know all about it, you would have been disappointed and angry? Or, which is a nearer case,—if you had taught her, from the dawn of her intelligence, with your utmost energy and might, that there was such a thing as daylight, but that it was made to be her enemy and destroyer, and she must always turn against it, for it had blighted you and would else blight her;—if you had done this, and then, for a purpose, had wanted her to take naturally to the daylight and she could not do it, you would have been disappointed and angry? So. I must be taken as I have been made. The success is not mine, the failure is not mine, but the two together make me.


Estella!


Estella who?


Never you mind,


Estella of where? You are bound to say of where.


Of Richmond, gentlemen, and a peerless beauty.


I know that lady,


Do you?


And so do I,


Do you? O, Lord!


I could not but regard it as being like the honourable Finch’s impudence to come down to that Grove,—we always talked about coming down to that Grove, as a neat Parliamentary turn of expression,—down to that Grove, proposing a lady of whom he knew nothing. I believe he knew where I was to be found.


Are you tired, Estella?


Rather, Pip.


You should be.


Say rather, I should not be; for I have my letter to Satis House to write, before I go to sleep.


Recounting to-night’s triumph? Surely a very poor one, Estella.


What do you mean? I didn’t know there had been any.


Estella, do look at that fellow in the corner yonder, who is looking over here at us.


Why should I look at him? What is there in that fellow in the corner yonder,—to use your words,—that I need look at?


Indeed, that is the very question I want to ask you. For he has been hovering about you all night.


Moths, and all sorts of ugly creatures, hover about a lighted candle. Can the candle help it?


No, but cannot the Estella help it?


Well! perhaps. Yes. Anything you like.


But, Estella, do hear me speak. It makes me wretched that you should encourage a man so generally despised as Drummle. You know he is despised.


Well?


You know he is as ungainly within as without. A deficient, ill-tempered, lowering, stupid fellow.


You know he has nothing to recommend him but money and a ridiculous roll of addle-headed predecessors; now, don’t you?


Well! Then, that is why it makes me wretched.


Pip, don’t be foolish about its effect on you. It may have its effect on others, and may be meant to have. It’s not worth discussing.


Yes it is, because I cannot bear that people should say, ‘she throws away her graces and attractions on a mere boor, the lowest in the crowd.’


I can bear it,


Oh! don’t be so proud, Estella, and so inflexible.


Calls me proud and inflexible in this breath! And in his last breath reproached me for stooping to a boor!


There is no doubt you do, for I have seen you give him looks and smiles this very night, such as you never give to—me.


Do you want me then, to deceive and entrap you?


Do you deceive and entrap him, Estella?


Yes, and many others,—all of them but you. Here is Mrs. Brandley. I’ll say no more.


There is some one down there, is there not?


Yes,


What floor do you want?


The top. Mr. Pip.


That is my name.—There is nothing the matter?


Nothing the matter,


Pray what is your business?


My business? Ah! Yes. I will explain my business, by your leave.


Do you wish to come in?


Yes. I wish to come in, master.


What do you mean?


It’s disapinting to a man, arter having looked for’ard so distant, and come so fur; but you’re not to blame for that,—neither on us is to blame for that. I’ll speak in half a minute. Give me half a minute, please.


There’s no one nigh,


is there?


Why do you, a stranger coming into my rooms at this time of the night, ask that question?


You’re a game one,


I’m glad you’ve grow’d up, a game one! But don’t catch hold of me. You’d be sorry arterwards to have done it.


You was a-saying,


that surely I must understand. What, surely must I understand?


That I cannot wish to renew that chance intercourse with you of long ago, under these different circumstances. I am glad to believe you have repented and recovered yourself. I am glad to tell you so. I am glad that, thinking I deserve to be thanked, you have come to thank me. But our ways are different ways, none the less. You are wet, and you look weary. Will you drink something before you go?


I think,


that I will drink (I thank you) afore I go.


I hope, that you will not think I spoke harshly to you just now. I had no intention of doing it, and I am sorry for it if I did. I wish you well and happy! How are you living?


I’ve been a sheep-farmer, stock-breeder, other trades besides, away in the new world,


many a thousand mile of stormy water off from this.


I hope you have done well?


I’ve done wonderfully well. There’s others went out alonger me as has done well too, but no man has done nigh as well as me. I’m famous for it.


I am glad to hear it.


I hope to hear you say so, my dear boy.


Have you ever seen a messenger you once sent to me, since he undertook that trust?


Never set eyes upon him. I warn’t likely to it.


He came faithfully, and he brought me the two one-pound notes. I was a poor boy then, as you know, and to a poor boy they were a little fortune. But, like you, I have done well since, and you must let me pay them back. You can put them to some other poor boy’s use.


May I make so bold,


as ask you how you have done well, since you and me was out on them lone shivering marshes?


How?


Ah!


Might a mere warmint ask what property?


I don’t know.


Might a mere warmint ask whose property?


Could I make a guess, I wonder,


at your income since you come of age! As to the first figure now. Five?


Concerning a guardian,


There ought to have been some guardian, or such-like, whiles you was a minor. Some lawyer, maybe. As to the first letter of that lawyer’s name now. Would it be J?


Put it,


as the employer of that lawyer whose name begun with a J, and might be Jaggers,—put it as he had come over sea to Portsmouth, and had landed there, and had wanted to come on to you. ‘However, you have found me out,’ you says just now. Well! However, did I find you out? Why, I wrote from Portsmouth to a person in London, for particulars of your address. That person’s name? Why, Wemmick.


Yes, Pip, dear boy, I’ve made a gentleman on you! It’s me wot has done it! I swore that time, sure as ever I earned a guinea, that guinea should go to you. I swore arterwards, sure as ever I spec’lated and got rich, you should get rich. I lived rough, that you should live smooth; I worked hard, that you should be above work. What odds, dear boy? Do I tell it, fur you to feel a obligation? Not a bit. I tell it, fur you to know as that there hunted dunghill dog wot you kep life in, got his head so high that he could make a gentleman,—and, Pip, you’re him!


Look’ee here, Pip. I’m your second father. You’re my son,—more to me nor any son. I’ve put away money, only for you to spend. When I was a hired-out shepherd in a solitary hut, not seeing no faces but faces of sheep till I half forgot wot men’s and women’s faces wos like, I see yourn. I drops my knife many a time in that hut when I was a-eating my dinner or my supper, and I says, ‘Here’s the boy again, a looking at me whiles I eats and drinks!’ I see you there a many times, as plain as ever I see you on them misty marshes. ‘Lord strike me dead!’ I says each time,—and I goes out in the air to say it under the open heavens,—‘but wot, if I gets liberty and money, I’ll make that boy a gentleman!’ And I done it. Why, look at you, dear boy! Look at these here lodgings of yourn, fit for a lord! A lord? Ah! You shall show money with lords for wagers, and beat ’em!


Look’ee here!


a gold ’un and a beauty: that’s a gentleman’s, I hope! A diamond all set round with rubies; that’s a gentleman’s, I hope! Look at your linen; fine and beautiful! Look at your clothes; better ain’t to be got! And your books too,


mounting up, on their shelves, by hundreds! And you read ’em; don’t you? I see you’d been a reading of ’em when I come in. Ha, ha, ha! You shall read ’em to me, dear boy! And if they’re in foreign languages wot I don’t understand, I shall be just as proud as if I did.


Don’t you mind talking, Pip,


you can’t do better nor keep quiet, dear boy. You ain’t looked slowly forward to this as I have; you wosn’t prepared for this as I wos. But didn’t you never think it might be me?


O no, no, no. Never, never!


Well, you see it wos me, and single-handed. Never a soul in it but my own self and Mr. Jaggers.


Was there no one else?


No,


who else should there be? And, dear boy, how good looking you have growed! There’s bright eyes somewheres—eh? Isn’t there bright eyes somewheres, wot you love the thoughts on?


They shall be yourn, dear boy, if money can buy ’em. Not that a gentleman like you, so well set up as you, can’t win ’em off of his own game; but money shall back you! Let me finish wot I was a telling you, dear boy. From that there hut and that there hiring-out, I got money left me by my master (which died, and had been the same as me), and got my liberty and went for myself. In every single thing I went for, I went for you. ‘Lord strike a blight upon it,’ I says, wotever it was I went for, ‘if it ain’t for him!’ It all prospered wonderful. As I giv’ you to understand just now, I’m famous for it. It was the money left me, and the gains of the first few year wot I sent home to Mr. Jaggers—all for you—when he first come arter you, agreeable to my letter.


And then, dear boy, it was a recompense to me, look’ee here, to know in secret that I was making a gentleman. The blood horses of them colonists might fling up the dust over me as I was walking; what do I say? I says to myself, ‘I’m making a better gentleman nor ever you’ll be!’ When one of ’em says to another, ‘He was a convict, a few year ago, and is a ignorant common fellow now, for all he’s lucky,’ what do I say? I says to myself, ‘If I ain’t a gentleman, nor yet ain’t got no learning, I’m the owner of such. All on you owns stock and land; which on you owns a brought-up London gentleman?’ This way I kep myself a-going. And this way I held steady afore my mind that I would for certain come one day and see my boy, and make myself known to him, on his own ground.


It warn’t easy, Pip, for me to leave them parts, nor yet it warn’t safe. But I held to it, and the harder it was, the stronger I held, for I was determined, and my mind firm made up. At last I done it. Dear boy, I done it!


Where will you put me?


I must be put somewheres, dear boy.


To sleep?


Yes. And to sleep long and sound,


for I’ve been sea-tossed and sea-washed, months and months.


My friend and companion, is absent; you must have his room.


He won’t come back to-morrow; will he?


No, not to-morrow.


Because, look’ee here, dear boy,


caution is necessary.


How do you mean? Caution?


By G——, it’s Death!


What’s death?


I was sent for life. It’s death to come back. There’s been overmuch coming back of late years, and I should of a certainty be hanged if took.


The night being so bad, sir, uncommon few have come in at my gate. Besides them three gentlemen that I have named, I don’t call to mind another since about eleven o’clock, when a stranger asked for you.


My uncle. Yes.


You saw him, sir?


Yes. Oh yes.


Likewise the person with him?


Person with him!


I judged the person to be with him. The person stopped, when he stopped to make inquiry of me, and the person took this way when he took this way.


What sort of person?


I do not even know, by what name to call you. I have given out that you are my uncle.


That’s it, dear boy! Call me uncle.


You assumed some name, I suppose, on board ship?


Yes, dear boy. I took the name of Provis.


Do you mean to keep that name?


Why, yes, dear boy, it’s as good as another,—unless you’d like another.


What is your real name?


Magwitch,


chrisen’d Abel.


What were you brought up to be?


A warmint, dear boy.


When you came into the Temple last night—


Yes, dear boy?


When you came in at the gate and asked the watchman the way here, had you any one with you?


With me? No, dear boy.


But there was some one there?


I didn’t take particular notice,


not knowing the ways of the place. But I think there was a person, too, come in alonger me.


Are you known in London?


I hope not!


Were you known in London, once?


Not over and above, dear boy. I was in the provinces mostly.


Were you—tried—in London?


Which time?


The last time.


First knowed Mr. Jaggers that way. Jaggers was for me.


And what I done is worked out and paid for!


I’m a heavy grubber, dear boy,


but I always was. If it had been in my constitution to be a lighter grubber, I might ha’ got into lighter trouble. Similarly, I must have my smoke. When I was first hired out as shepherd t’other side the world, it’s my belief I should ha’ turned into a molloncolly-mad sheep myself, if I hadn’t a had my smoke.


And this,


and this is the gentleman what I made! The real genuine One! It does me good fur to look at you, Pip. All I stip’late, is, to stand by and look at you, dear boy!


I mustn’t see my gentleman a footing it in the mire of the streets; there mustn’t be no mud on his boots. My gentleman must have horses, Pip! Horses to ride, and horses to drive, and horses for his servant to ride and drive as well. Shall colonists have their horses (and blood ’uns, if you please, good Lord!) and not my London gentleman? No, no. We’ll show ’em another pair of shoes than that, Pip; won’t us?


There’s something worth spending in that there book, dear boy. It’s yourn. All I’ve got ain’t mine; it’s yourn. Don’t you be afeerd on it. There’s more where that come from. I’ve come to the old country fur to see my gentleman spend his money like a gentleman. That’ll be my pleasure. My pleasure ’ull be fur to see him do it. And blast you all!


blast you every one, from the judge in his wig, to the colonist a stirring up the dust, I’ll show a better gentleman than the whole kit on you put together!


Stop! I want to speak to you. I want to know what is to be done. I want to know how you are to be kept out of danger, how long you are going to stay, what projects you have.


Look’ee here, Pip, first of all, look’ee here. I forgot myself half a minute ago. What I said was low; that’s what it was; low. Look’ee here, Pip. Look over it. I ain’t a-going to be low.


First, what precautions can be taken against your being recognised and seized?


No, dear boy, that don’t go first. Lowness goes first. I ain’t took so many year to make a gentleman, not without knowing what’s due to him. Look’ee here, Pip. I was low; that’s what I was; low. Look over it, dear boy.


I have looked over it. In Heaven’s name, don’t harp upon it!


Yes, but look’ee here. Dear boy, I ain’t come so fur, not fur to be low. Now, go on, dear boy. You was a saying—


How are you to be guarded from the danger you have incurred?


Well, dear boy, the danger ain’t so great. Without I was informed agen, the danger ain’t so much to signify. There’s Jaggers, and there’s Wemmick, and there’s you. Who else is there to inform?


Is there no chance person who might identify you in the street?


Well, there ain’t many. Nor yet I don’t intend to advertise myself in the newspapers by the name of A.M. come back from Botany Bay; and years have rolled away, and who’s to gain by it? Still, look’ee here, Pip. If the danger had been fifty times as great, I should ha’ come to see you, mind you, just the same.


And how long do you remain?


How long? I’m not a-going back. I’ve come for good.


Where are you to live? What is to be done with you? Where will you be safe?


Dear boy, there’s disguising wigs can be bought for money, and there’s hair powder, and spectacles, and black clothes,—shorts and what not. Others has done it safe afore, and what others has done afore, others can do agen. As to the where and how of living, dear boy, give me your own opinions on it.


You take it smoothly now, but you were very serious last night, when you swore it was Death.


And so I swear it is Death, and Death by the rope, in the open street not fur from this, and it’s serious that you should fully understand it to be so. What then, when that’s once done? Here I am. To go back now ’ud be as bad as to stand ground—worse. Besides, Pip, I’m here, because I’ve meant it by you, years and years. As to what I dare, I’m a old bird now, as has dared all manner of traps since first he was fledged, and I’m not afeerd to perch upon a scarecrow. If there’s Death hid inside of it, there is, and let him come out, and I’ll face him, and then I’ll believe in him and not afore. And now let me have a look at my gentleman agen.


And even then, dear boy, we’ll have him on his oath.


Now, Pip, be careful.


I will, sir,


Don’t commit yourself, and don’t commit any one. You understand—any one. Don’t tell me anything: I don’t want to know anything; I am not curious.


I merely want, Mr. Jaggers, to assure myself that what I have been told is true. I have no hope of its being untrue, but at least I may verify it.


But did you say ‘told’ or ‘informed’? Told would seem to imply verbal communication. You can’t have verbal communication with a man in New South Wales, you know.


I will say, informed, Mr. Jaggers.


Good.


I have been informed by a person named Abel Magwitch, that he is the benefactor so long unknown to me.


That is the man, in New South Wales.


And only he? And only he? I am not so unreasonable, sir, as to think you at all responsible for my mistakes and wrong conclusions; but I always supposed it was Miss Havisham.


As you say, Pip. I am not at all responsible for that.


And yet it looked so like it, sir. I pleaded with a downcast heart.


Not a particle of evidence, Pip. Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence. There’s no better rule.


I have no more to say. I have verified my information, and there’s an end.


And Magwitch—in New South Wales—having at last disclosed himself, you will comprehend, Pip, how rigidly throughout my communication with you, I have always adhered to the strict line of fact. There has never been the least departure from the strict line of fact. You are quite aware of that?


Quite, sir.


I communicated to Magwitch—in New South Wales—when he first wrote to me—from New South Wales—the caution that he must not expect me ever to deviate from the strict line of fact. I also communicated to him another caution. He appeared to me to have obscurely hinted in his letter at some distant idea he had of seeing you in England here. I cautioned him that I must hear no more of that; that he was not at all likely to obtain a pardon; that he was expatriated for the term of his natural life; and that his presenting himself in this country would be an act of felony, rendering him liable to the extreme penalty of the law. I gave Magwitch that caution. I wrote it to New South Wales. He guided himself by it, no doubt.


No doubt,


I have been informed by Wemmick, that he has received a letter, under date Portsmouth, from a colonist of the name of Purvis, or—


Or Provis,


Or Provis—thank you, Pip. Perhaps it is Provis? Perhaps you know it’s Provis?


Yes,


You know it’s Provis. A letter, under date Portsmouth, from a colonist of the name of Provis, asking for the particulars of your address, on behalf of Magwitch. Wemmick sent him the particulars, I understand, by return of post. Probably it is through Provis that you have received the explanation of Magwitch—in New South Wales?


It came through Provis,


Good day, Pip, glad to have seen you. In writing by post to Magwitch—in New South Wales—or in communicating with him through Provis, have the goodness to mention that the particulars and vouchers of our long account shall be sent to you, together with the balance; for there is still a balance remaining. Good-day, Pip!


Handel, my dear fellow, how are you, and again how are you, and again how are you? I seem to have been gone a twelvemonth! Why, so I must have been, for you have grown quite thin and pale! Handel, my—Halloa! I beg your pardon.


It’s all right, dear boy! Take it in your right hand. Lord strike you dead on the spot, if ever you split in any way sumever! Kiss it! Now you’re on your oath, you know. And never believe me on mine, if Pip shan’t make a gentleman on you!


Though, look’ee here, Pip’s comrade,


I know very well that once since I come back—for half a minute—I’ve been low. I said to Pip, I knowed as I had been low. But don’t you fret yourself on that score. I ain’t made Pip a gentleman, and Pip ain’t a-going to make you a gentleman, not fur me not to know what’s due to ye both. Dear boy, and Pip’s comrade, you two may count upon me always having a genteel muzzle on. Muzzled I have been since that half a minute when I was betrayed into lowness, muzzled I am at the present time, muzzled I ever will be.


Certainly,


What, what is to be done?


My poor dear Handel. I am too stunned to think.


So was I, Herbert, when the blow first fell. Still, something must be done. He is intent upon various new expenses,—horses, and carriages, and lavish appearances of all kinds. He must be stopped somehow.


You mean that you can’t accept—


How can I? Think of him! Look at him! Yet I am afraid the dreadful truth is, Herbert, that he is attached to me, strongly attached to me. Was there ever such a fate!


My poor dear Handel,


Then, after all, stopping short here, never taking another penny from him, think what I owe him already! Then again: I am heavily in debt,—very heavily for me, who have now no expectations,—and I have been bred to no calling, and I am fit for nothing.


Well, well, well! Don’t say fit for nothing.


What am I fit for? I know only one thing that I am fit for, and that is, to go for a soldier. And I might have gone, my dear Herbert, but for the prospect of taking counsel with your friendship and affection.


Anyhow, my dear Handel, soldiering won’t do. If you were to renounce this patronage and these favours, I suppose you would do so with some faint hope of one day repaying what you have already had. Not very strong, that hope, if you went soldiering! Besides, it’s absurd. You would be infinitely better in Clarriker’s house, small as it is. I am working up towards a partnership, you know. But there is another question. This is an ignorant, determined man, who has long had one fixed idea. More than that, he seems to me (I may misjudge him) to be a man of a desperate and fierce character.


I know he is. Let me tell you what evidence I have seen of it.


See, then, think of this! He comes here at the peril of his life, for the realisation of his fixed idea. In the moment of realisation, after all his toil and waiting, you cut the ground from under his feet, destroy his idea, and make his gains worthless to him. Do you see nothing that he might do, under the disappointment?


I have seen it, Herbert, and dreamed of it, ever since the fatal night of his arrival. Nothing has been in my thoughts so distinctly as his putting himself in the way of being taken.


Then you may rely upon it, that there would be great danger of his doing it. That is his power over you as long as he remains in England, and that would be his reckless course if you forsook him.


The first and the main thing to be done, is to get him out of England. You will have to go with him, and then he may be induced to go.


But get him where I will, could I prevent his coming back?


My good Handel, is it not obvious that with Newgate in the next street, there must be far greater hazard in your breaking your mind to him and making him reckless, here, than elsewhere? If a pretext to get him away could be made out of that other convict, or out of anything else in his life, now.


There, again! I know nothing of his life. It has almost made me mad to sit here of a night and see him before me, so bound up with my fortunes and misfortunes, and yet so unknown to me, except as the miserable wretch who terrified me two days in my childhood!


Handel, you feel convinced that you can take no further benefits from him; do you?


Fully. Surely you would, too, if you were in my place?


And you feel convinced that you must break with him?


Herbert, can you ask me?


And you have, and are bound to have, that tenderness for the life he has risked on your account, that you must save him, if possible, from throwing it away. Then you must get him out of England before you stir a finger to extricate yourself. That done, extricate yourself, in Heaven’s name, and we’ll see it out together, dear old boy.


Now, Herbert, with reference to gaining some knowledge of his history. There is but one way that I know of. I must ask him point blank.


Yes. Ask him, when we sit at breakfast in the morning.


After you were gone last night, I told my friend of the struggle that the soldiers found you engaged in on the marshes, when we came up. You remember?


Remember!


I think so!


We want to know something about that man—and about you. It is strange to know no more about either, and particularly you, than I was able to tell last night. Is not this as good a time as another for our knowing more?


Well!


You’re on your oath, you know, Pip’s comrade?


Assuredly,


As to anything I say, you know,


The oath applies to all.


I understand it to do so.


And look’ee here! Wotever I done is worked out and paid for,


So be it.


Dear boy and Pip’s comrade. I am not a-going fur to tell you my life like a song, or a story-book. But to give it you short and handy, I’ll put it at once into a mouthful of English. In jail and out of jail, in jail and out of jail, in jail and out of jail. There, you’ve got it. That’s my life pretty much, down to such times as I got shipped off, arter Pip stood my friend.


I’ve been done everything to, pretty well—except hanged. I’ve been locked up as much as a silver tea-kittle. I’ve been carted here and carted there, and put out of this town, and put out of that town, and stuck in the stocks, and whipped and worried and drove. I’ve no more notion where I was born than you have—if so much. I first become aware of myself down in Essex, a thieving turnips for my living. Summun had run away from me—a man—a tinker—and he’d took the fire with him, and left me wery cold.


I know’d my name to be Magwitch, chrisen’d Abel. How did I know it? Much as I know’d the birds’ names in the hedges to be chaffinch, sparrer, thrush. I might have thought it was all lies together, only as the birds’ names come out true, I supposed mine did.


So fur as I could find, there warn’t a soul that see young Abel Magwitch, with us little on him as in him, but wot caught fright at him, and either drove him off, or took him up. I was took up, took up, took up, to that extent that I reg’larly grow’d up took up.


This is the way it was, that when I was a ragged little creetur as much to be pitied as ever I see (not that I looked in the glass, for there warn’t many insides of furnished houses known to me), I got the name of being hardened. ‘This is a terrible hardened one,’ they says to prison wisitors, picking out me. ‘May be said to live in jails, this boy.’ Then they looked at me, and I looked at them, and they measured my head, some on ’em,—they had better a measured my stomach,—and others on ’em giv me tracts what I couldn’t read, and made me speeches what I couldn’t understand. They always went on agen me about the Devil. But what the Devil was I to do? I must put something into my stomach, mustn’t I?—Howsomever, I’m a getting low, and I know what’s due. Dear boy and Pip’s comrade, don’t you be afeerd of me being low.


Tramping, begging, thieving, working sometimes when I could,—though that warn’t as often as you may think, till you put the question whether you would ha’ been over-ready to give me work yourselves,—a bit of a poacher, a bit of a labourer, a bit of a wagoner, a bit of a haymaker, a bit of a hawker, a bit of most things that don’t pay and lead to trouble, I got to be a man. A deserting soldier in a Traveller’s Rest, what lay hid up to the chin under a lot of taturs, learnt me to read; and a travelling Giant what signed his name at a penny a time learnt me to write. I warn’t locked up as often now as formerly, but I wore out my good share of key-metal still.


At Epsom races, a matter of over twenty years ago, I got acquainted wi’ a man whose skull I’d crack wi’ this poker, like the claw of a lobster, if I’d got it on this hob. His right name was Compeyson; and that’s the man, dear boy, what you see me a pounding in the ditch, according to what you truly told your comrade arter I was gone last night.


He set up fur a gentleman, this Compeyson, and he’d been to a public boarding-school and had learning. He was a smooth one to talk, and was a dab at the ways of gentlefolks. He was good-looking too. It was the night afore the great race, when I found him on the heath, in a booth that I know’d on. Him and some more was a sitting among the tables when I went in, and the landlord (which had a knowledge of me, and was a sporting one) called him out, and said, ‘I think this is a man that might suit you,’—meaning I was. I think this is a man that might suit you,


To judge from appearances, you’re out of luck,


Yes, master, and I’ve never been in it much.


Luck changes, perhaps yours is going to change.


I hope it may be so. There’s room.


What can you do?


Eat and drink,


if you’ll find the materials.


I went to Compeyson next night, same place, and Compeyson took me on to be his man and pardner. And what was Compeyson’s business in which we was to go pardners? Compeyson’s business was the swindling, handwriting forging, stolen bank-note passing, and such-like. All sorts of traps as Compeyson could set with his head, and keep his own legs out of and get the profits from and let another man in for, was Compeyson’s business. He’d no more heart than a iron file, he was as cold as death, and he had the head of the Devil afore mentioned.


There was another in with Compeyson, as was called Arthur,—not as being so chrisen’d, but as a surname. He was in a Decline, and was a shadow to look at. Him and Compeyson had been in a bad thing with a rich lady some years afore, and they’d made a pot of money by it; but Compeyson betted and gamed, and he’d have run through the king’s taxes. So, Arthur was a dying, and a dying poor and with the horrors on him, and Compeyson’s wife (which Compeyson kicked mostly) was a having pity on him when she could, and Compeyson was a having pity on nothing and nobody.


I might a took warning by Arthur, but I didn’t; and I won’t pretend I was partick’ler—for where ’ud be the good on it, dear boy and comrade? So I begun wi’ Compeyson, and a poor tool I was in his hands.


Sally, she really is upstairs alonger me, now, and I can’t get rid of her. She’s all in white, wi’ white flowers in her hair, and she’s awful mad, and she’s got a shroud hanging over her arm, and she says she’ll put it on me at five in the morning.


Why, you fool, don’t you know she’s got a living body? And how should she be up there, without coming through the door, or in at the window, and up the stairs?


I don’t know how she’s there, but she’s standing in the corner at the foot of the bed, awful mad. And over where her heart’s broke—you broke it!—there’s drops of blood.


Go up alonger this drivelling sick man, and Magwitch, lend her a hand, will you?


Why look at her! She’s a shaking the shroud at me! Don’t you see her? Look at her eyes! Ain’t it awful to see her so mad? She’ll put it on me, and then I’m done for! Take it away from her, take it away! O, she’s gone! Has her keeper been for her?


Yes,


Did you tell him to lock her and bar her in?


Yes.


And to take that ugly thing away from her?


Yes, yes, all right.


You’re a good creetur, don’t leave me, whatever you do, and thank you! Here she is! She’s got the shroud again. She’s unfolding it. She’s coming out of the corner. She’s coming to the bed. Hold me, both on you—one of each side—don’t let her touch me with it. Hah! she missed me that time. Don’t let her throw it over my shoulders. Don’t let her lift me up to get it round me. She’s lifting me up. Keep me down!


Not to go into the things that Compeyson planned, and I done—which ’ud take a week—I’ll simply say to you, dear boy, and Pip’s comrade, that that man got me into such nets as made me his black slave. I was always in debt to him, always under his thumb, always a working, always a getting into danger. He was younger than me, but he’d got craft, and he’d got learning, and he overmatched me five hundred times told and no mercy. My Missis as I had the hard time wi’—Stop though! I ain’t brought her in— There ain’t no need to go into it. Did I tell you as I was tried, alone, for misdemeanor, while with Compeyson? I was tried, alone, for misdemeanor, while with Compeyson?


No.


Well! I was. I was, and got convicted. I was, and got convicted. As to took up on suspicion, that was twice or three times in the four or five year that it lasted; but evidence was wanting. At last, me and Compeyson was both committed for felony,—on a charge of putting stolen notes in circulation,—and there was other charges behind. Compeyson says to me, ‘Separate defences, no communication,’ and that was all. And I was so miserable poor, that I sold all the clothes I had, except what hung on my back, afore I could get Jaggers.


My lord and gentlemen, here you has afore you, side by side, two persons as your eyes can separate wide; one, the younger, well brought up, who will be spoke to as such; one, the elder, ill brought up, who will be spoke to as such; one, the younger, seldom if ever seen in these here transactions, and only suspected; t’other, the elder, always seen in ’em and always wi’ his guilt brought home. Can you doubt, if there is but one in it, which is the one, and, if there is two in it, which is much the worst one?


Gentlemen, this man at my side is a most precious rascal Once out of this court, I’ll smash that face of yourn!


I ain’t a-going to be low, dear boy! I had said to Compeyson that I’d smash that face of his, and I swore Lord smash mine! to do it. We was in the same prison-ship, but I couldn’t get at him for long, though I tried. At last I come behind him and hit him on the cheek to turn him round and get a smashing one at him, when I was seen and seized. The black-hole of that ship warn’t a strong one, to a judge of black-holes that could swim and dive. I escaped to the shore, and I was a hiding among the graves there, envying them as was in ’em and all over, when I first see my boy! And now, as the worst thing I can do, caring nothing for myself, I’ll drag you back.


Is he dead?


Is who dead, dear boy?


Compeyson.


He hopes I am, if he’s alive, you may be sure. I never heerd no more of him.


Young Havisham’s name was Arthur. Compeyson is the man who professed to be Miss Havisham’s lover.


Why should I pause to ask how much of my shrinking from Provis might be traced to Estella? Why should I loiter on my road, to compare the state of mind in which I had tried to rid myself of the stain of the prison before meeting her at the coach-office, with the state of mind in which I now reflected on the abyss between Estella in her pride and beauty, and the returned transport whom I harboured? The road would be none the smoother for it, the end would be none the better for it, he would not be helped, nor I extenuated.


Never had I breathed, and never would I breathe—or so I resolved—a word of Estella to Provis.


I resolved to go out to Richmond next day, and I went.


Where?


To Satis House, as usual.


Not as usual,


Is this a cut?


Oh! it’s you, is it? How do you do? I was wondering who it was, who kept the fire off.


You have just come down?


Yes,


Beastly place. Your part of the country, I think?


Yes. I am told it’s very like your Shropshire.


Not in the least like it,


Have you been here long?


Long enough to be tired of it,


Do you stay here long?


Can’t say. Do you?


Can’t say,


Large tract of marshes about here, I believe?


Yes. Yes. What of that?


Oh!


Are you amused, Mr. Drummle?


No, not particularly. I am going out for a ride in the saddle. I mean to explore those marshes for amusement. Out-of-the-way villages there, they tell me. Curious little public-houses—and smithies—and that. Waiter!


Yes, sir.


Is that horse of mine ready?


Brought round to the door, sir.


I say. Look here, you sir. The lady won’t ride to-day; the weather won’t do.


Very good, sir.


And I don’t dine, because I’m going to dine at the lady’s.


Have you been to the Grove since?


No. I had quite enough of the Finches the last time I was there.


Was that when we had a difference of opinion?


Yes. I replied, very shortly.


Come, come! They let you off easily enough. You shouldn’t have lost your temper.


Mr. Drummle, you are not competent to give advice on that subject. When I lose my temper (not that I admit having done so on that occasion), I don’t throw glasses.


I do,


Mr. Drummle, I did not seek this conversation, and I don’t think it an agreeable one.


I am sure it’s not. I don’t think anything about it.


And therefore, with your leave, I will suggest that we hold no kind of communication in future.


Quite my opinion, and what I should have suggested myself, or done—more likely—without suggesting. But don’t lose your temper. Haven’t you lost enough without that?


What do you mean, sir?


Waiter! Look here, you sir. You quite understand that the young lady don’t ride to-day, and that I dine at the young lady’s?


Quite so, sir!


And what wind, blows you here, Pip? Miss Havisham,


I went to Richmond yesterday, to speak to Estella; and finding that some wind had blown her here, I followed. What I had to say to Estella, Miss Havisham, I will say before you, presently—in a few moments. It will not surprise you, it will not displease you. I am as unhappy as you can ever have meant me to be.


It is not your secret, but another’s. Well?


When you first caused me to be brought here, Miss Havisham, when I belonged to the village over yonder, that I wish I had never left, I suppose I did really come here, as any other chance boy might have come,—as a kind of servant, to gratify a want or a whim, and to be paid for it?


Ay, Pip, you did.


And that Mr. Jaggers—


Mr. Jaggers, had nothing to do with it, and knew nothing of it. His being my lawyer, and his being the lawyer of your patron is a coincidence. He holds the same relation towards numbers of people, and it might easily arise. Be that as it may, it did arise, and was not brought about by any one.


But when I fell into the mistake I have so long remained in, at least you led me on?


Yes. I let you go on.


Was that kind?


who am I, for God’s sake, that I should be kind? Well, well, well! What else?


I was liberally paid for my old attendance here, in being apprenticed, and I have asked these questions only for my own information. What follows has another (and I hope more disinterested) purpose. In humouring my mistake, Miss Havisham, you punished—practised on—perhaps you will supply whatever term expresses your intention, without offence—your self-seeking relations?


I did. Why, they would have it so! So would you. What has been my history, that I should be at the pains of entreating either them or you not to have it so! You made your own snares. I never made them.


I have been thrown among one family of your relations, Miss Havisham, and have been constantly among them since I went to London. I know them to have been as honestly under my delusion as I myself. And I should be false and base if I did not tell you, whether it is acceptable to you or no, and whether you are inclined to give credence to it or no, that you deeply wrong both Mr. Matthew Pocket and his son Herbert, if you suppose them to be otherwise than generous, upright, open, and incapable of anything designing or mean.


They are your friends,


They made themselves my friends, when they supposed me to have superseded them; and when Sarah Pocket, Miss Georgiana, and Mistress Camilla were not my friends, I think.


What do you want for them?