Great Expectations by Charles Dickens - HTML preview

 

drive me out of this country, will you?" said he, repeating my

 

words to Biddy in the last interview I had with her. "Now, I'll

 

tell you a piece of information. It was never so well worth your

 

while to get me out of this country as it is to-night. Ah! If it

 

was all your money twenty times told, to the last brass farden!" As

 

he shook his heavy hand at me, with his mouth snarling like a

 

tiger's, I felt that it was true.

 

"What are you going to do to me?"

 

"I'm a going," said he, bringing his fist down upon the table with a

 

heavy blow, and rising as the blow fell to give it greater force,--

 

"I'm a going to have your life!"

 

He leaned forward staring at me, slowly unclenched his hand and

 

drew it across his mouth as if his mouth watered for me, and sat

 

down again.

 

"You was always in Old Orlick's way since ever you was a child. You

 

goes out of his way this present night. He'll have no more on you. You're dead."

 

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

 

looked wildly round my trap for any chance of escape; but there was

 

none.

 

"More than that," said he, folding his arms on the table again, "I

 

won't have a rag of you, I won't have a bone of you, left on earth.

 

I'll put your body in the kiln,--I'd carry two such to it, on my

 

Shoulders,--and, let people suppose what they may of you, they

 

shall never know nothing."

 

My mind, with inconceivable rapidity followed out all the

 

consequences of such a death. Estella's father would believe I had

 

deserted him, would be taken, would die accusing me; even Herbert

 

would doubt me, when he compared the letter I had left for him

 

with the fact that I had called at Miss Havisham's gate for only a

 

moment; Joe and Biddy would never know how sorry I had been that

 

night, none would ever know what I had suffered, how true I had

 

meant to be, what an agony I had passed through. The death close

 

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

 

dread of being misremembered after death. And so quick were my

 

thoughts, that I saw myself despised by unborn generations,--

 

Estella's children, and their children,--while the wretch's words

 

were yet on his lips. "Now, wolf," said he, "afore I kill you like any other beast,--

 

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

 

have a good look at you and a good goad at you. O you enemy!"

 

It had passed through my thoughts to cry out for help again; though

 

few could know better than I, the solitary nature of the spot, and

 

the hopelessness of aid. But as he sat gloating over me, I was

 

supported by a scornful detestation of him that sealed my lips.

 

Above all things, I resolved that I would not entreat him, and that

 

I would die making some last poor resistance to him. Softened as my

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

could take farewell of those who were dear to me, or could explain

 

myself to them, or ask for their compassion on my miserable errors,--

 

still, if I could have killed him, even in dying, I would have done

 

it.

 

He had been drinking, and his eyes were red and bloodshot. Around

 

his neck was slung a tin bottle, as I had often seen his meat and

 

drink slung about him in other days. He brought the bottle to his

 

lips, and took a fiery drink from it; and I smelt the strong

 

spirits that I saw flash into his face. "Wolf!" said he, folding his arms again, "Old Orlick's a going to

 

tell you somethink. It was you as did for your shrew sister."

 

Again my mind, with its former inconceivable rapidity, had

 

exhausted the whole subject of the attack upon my sister, her

 

illness, and her death, before his slow and hesitating speech had

 

formed these words.

 

"It was you, villain," said I.

 

"I tell you it was your doing,--I tell you it was done through

 

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

 

stock at the vacant air between us. "I come upon her from behind,

 

as I come upon you to-night. I giv' it her! I left her for dead,

 

and if there had been a limekiln as nigh her as there is now nigh

 

you, she shouldn't have come to life again. But it warn't Old

 

Orlick as did it; it was you. You was favored, and he was bullied

 

and beat. Old Orlick bullied and beat, eh? Now you pays for it. You

 

done it; now you pays for it."

 

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

 

the bottle that there was no great quantity left in it. I

 

distinctly understood that he was working himself up with its

 

contents to make an end of me. I knew that every drop it held was

 

a drop of my life. I knew that when I was changed into a part of the vapor that had crept towards me but a little while before,

 

like my own warning ghost, he would do as he had done in my

 

sister's case,--make all haste to the town, and be seen slouching

 

about there drinking at the alehouses. My rapid mind pursued him

 

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

 

contrasted its lights and life with the lonely marsh and the white

 

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

 

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

 

years while he said a dozen words, but that what he did say

 

presented pictures to me, and not mere words. In the excited and

 

exalted state of my brain, I could not think of a place without

 

seeing it, or of persons without seeing them. It is impossible to

 

overstate the vividness of these images, and yet I was so intent,

 

all the time, upon him himself,--who would not be intent on the

 

tiger crouching to spring!--that I knew of the slightest action of

 

his fingers.

 

When he had drunk this second time, he rose from the bench on which

 

he sat, and pushed the table aside. Then, he took up the candle,

 

and, shading it with his murderous hand so as to throw its light on

 

me, stood before me, looking at me and enjoying the sight.

 

"Wolf, I'll tell you something more. It was Old Orlick as you

 

tumbled over on your stairs that night." I saw the staircase with its extinguished lamps. I saw the shadows

 

of the heavy stair-rails, thrown by the watchman's lantern on the

 

wall. I saw the rooms that I was never to see again; here, a door

 

half open; there, a door closed; all the articles of furniture

 

around.

 

"And why was Old Orlick there? I'll tell you something more, wolf.

 

You and her have pretty well hunted me out of this country, so far

 

as getting a easy living in it goes, and I've took up with new

 

companions, and new masters. Some of 'em writes my letters when I

 

wants 'em wrote,--do you mind?--writes my letters, wolf! They

 

writes fifty hands; they're not like sneaking you, as writes but

 

one. I've had a firm mind and a firm will to have your life, since

 

you was down here at your sister's burying. I han't seen a way to

 

get you safe, and I've looked arter you to know your ins and outs.

 

For, says Old Orlick to himself, 'Somehow or another I'll have

 

him!' What! When I looks for you, I finds your uncle Provis, eh?"

 

Mill Pond Bank, and Chinks's Basin, and the Old Green Copper

 

Ropewalk, all so clear and plain! Provis in his rooms, the signal

 

whose use was over, pretty Clara, the good motherly woman, old Bill

 

Barley on his back, all drifting by, as on the swift stream of my

 

life fast running out to sea! "You with a uncle too! Why, I know'd you at Gargery's when you was

 

so small a wolf that I could have took your weazen betwixt this

 

finger and thumb and chucked you away dead (as I'd thoughts o'

 

doing, odd times, when I see you loitering amongst the pollards on

 

a Sunday), and you hadn't found no uncles then. No, not you! But

 

when Old Orlick come for to hear that your uncle Provis had

 

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

 

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

 

him till he dropped your sister with it, like a bullock, as he

 

means to drop you--hey?--when he come for to hear that--hey?"

 

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

 

turned my face aside to save it from the flame.

 

"Ah!" he cried, laughing, after doing it again, "the burnt child

 

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

 

you was smuggling your uncle Provis away, Old Orlick's a match for

 

you and know'd you'd come to-night! Now I'll tell you something

 

more, wolf, and this ends it. There's them that's as good a match

 

for your uncle Provis as Old Orlick has been for you. Let him 'ware

 

them, when he's lost his nevvy! Let him 'ware them, when no man

 

can't find a rag of his dear relation's clothes, nor yet a bone of

 

his body. There's them that can't and that won't have Magwitch,--

 

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

 

that's had such sure information of him when he was alive in another land, as that he couldn't and shouldn't leave it unbeknown

 

and put them in danger. P'raps it's them that writes fifty hands,

 

and that's not like sneaking you as writes but one. 'Ware

 

Compeyson, Magwitch, and the gallows!"

 

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

 

an instant blinding me, and turned his powerful back as he replaced

 

the light on the table. I had thought a prayer, and had been with

 

Joe and Biddy and Herbert, before he turned towards me again.

 

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

 

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

 

forwards. His great strength seemed to sit stronger upon him than

 

ever before, as he did this with his hands hanging loose and heavy

 

at his sides, and with his eyes scowling at me. I had no grain of

 

hope left. Wild as my inward hurry was, and wonderful the force of

 

the pictures that rushed by me instead of thoughts, I could yet

 

clearly understand that, unless he had resolved that I was within a

 

few moments of surely perishing out of all human knowledge, he

 

would never have told me what he had told.

 

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

 

tossed it away. Light as it was, I heard it fall like a plummet. He

 

swallowed slowly, tilting up the bottle by little and little, and

 

now he looked at me no more. The last few drops of liquor he poured into the palm of his hand, and licked up. Then, with a sudden hurry

 

of violence and swearing horribly, he threw the bottle from him,

 

and stooped; and I saw in his hand a stone-hammer with a long heavy

 

handle.

 

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

 

one vain word of appeal to him, I shouted out with all my might,

 

and struggled with all my might. It was only my head and my legs

 

that I could move, but to that extent I struggled with all the

 

force, until then unknown, that was within me. In the same instant

 

I heard responsive shouts, saw figures and a gleam of light dash in

 

at the door, heard voices and tumult, and saw Orlick emerge from a

 

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

 

leap, and fly out into the night.

 

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

 

the same place, with my head on some one's knee. My eyes were fixed

 

on the ladder against the wall, when I came to myself,--had opened

 

on it before my mind saw it,--and thus as I recovered

 

consciousness, I knew that I was in the place where I had lost it.

 

Too indifferent at first, even to look round and ascertain who

 

supported me, I was lying looking at the ladder, when there came

 

between me and it a face. The face of Trabb's boy! "I think he's all right!" said Trabb's boy, in a sober voice; "but

 

ain't he just pale though!"

 

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

 

mine, and I saw my supporter to be--

 

"Herbert! Great Heaven!"

 

"Softly," said Herbert. "Gently, Handel. Don't be too eager."

 

"And our old comrade, Startop!" I cried, as he too bent over me.

 

"Remember what he is going to assist us in," said Herbert, "and be

 

calm."

 

The allusion made me spring up; though I dropped again from the

 

pain in my arm. "The time has not gone by, Herbert, has it? What

 

night is to-night? How long have I been here?" For, I had a strange

 

and strong misgiving that I had been lying there a long time - a

 

day and a night,--two days and nights,--more.

 

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

 

"Thank God!" "And you have all to-morrow, Tuesday, to rest in," said Herbert.

 

"But you can't help groaning, my dear Handel. What hurt have you

 

got? Can you stand?"

 

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

 

throbbing arm."

 

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

 

swollen and inflamed, and I could scarcely endure to have it

 

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

 

bandages, and carefully replaced it in the sling, until we could

 

get to the town and obtain some cooling lotion to put upon it. In a

 

little while we had shut the door of the dark and empty

 

sluice-house, and were passing through the quarry on our way back.

 

Trabb's boy--Trabb's overgrown young man now--went before us with

 

a lantern, which was the light I had seen come in at the door. But,

 

the moon was a good two hours higher than when I had last seen the

 

sky, and the night, though rainy, was much lighter. The white vapor

 

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

 

thought a prayer before, I thought a thanksgiving now.

 

Entreating Herbert to tell me how he had come to my rescue,--which

 

at first he had flatly refused to do, but had insisted on my

 

remaining quiet,--I learnt that I had in my hurry dropped the

 

letter, open, in our chambers, where he, coming home to bring with him Startop whom he had met in the street on his way to me, found

 

it, very soon after I was gone. Its tone made him uneasy, and the

 

more so because of the inconsistency between it and the hasty

 

letter I had left for him. His uneasiness increasing instead of

 

subsiding, after a quarter of an hour's consideration, he set off

 

for the coach-office with Startop, who volunteered his company, to

 

make inquiry when the next coach went down. Finding that the

 

afternoon coach was gone, and finding that his uneasiness grew into

 

positive alarm, as obstacles came in his way, he resolved to follow

 

in a post-chaise. So he and Startop arrived at the Blue Boar,

 

fully expecting there to find me, or tidings of me; but, finding

 

neither, went on to Miss Havisham's, where they lost me. Hereupon

 

they went back to the hotel (doubtless at about the time when I was

 

hearing the popular local version of my own story) to refresh

 

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

 

Among the loungers under the Boar's archway happened to be Trabb's

 

Boy,--true to his ancient habit of happening to be everywhere where

 

he had no business,--and Trabb's boy had seen me passing from Miss

 

Havisham's in the direction of my dining-place. Thus Trabb's boy

 

became their guide, and with him they went out to the sluice-house,

 

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

 

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

 

been brought there on some genuine and serviceable errand tending

 

to Provis's safety, and, bethinking himself that in that case

 

interruption must be mischievous, left his guide and Startop on the edge of the quarry, and went on by himself, and stole round the

 

house two or three times, endeavouring to ascertain whether all was

 

right within. As he could hear nothing but indistinct sounds of one

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

by the other two.

 

When I told Herbert what had passed within the house, he was for