Great Expectations quotes

My father’s family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip.

So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip.

As I never saw my father or my mother, and never saw any likeness of either of them (for their days were long before the days of photographs), my first fancies regarding what they were like were unreasonably derived from their tombstones.

The shape of the letters on my father’s, gave me an odd idea that he was a square, stout, dark man, with curly black hair.

From the character and turn of the inscription, “Also Georgiana Wife of the Above,” I drew a childish conclusion that my mother was freckled and sickly.

The shape of the letters on my father’s, gave me an odd idea that he was a square, stout, dark man, with curly black hair.

From the character and turn of the inscription, “Also Georgiana Wife of the Above,” I drew a childish conclusion that my mother was freckled and sickly.

To five little stone lozenges, each about a foot and a half long, which were arranged in a neat row beside their grave, and were sacred to the memory of five little brothers of mine—who gave up trying to get a living, exceedingly early in …

I am a keeping that young man from harming of you at the present moment, with great difficulty.

I find it wery hard to hold that young man off of your inside.

Now, what do you say?”

“Much of that!” said he, glancing about him over the cold wet flat. “

I wish I was a frog. Or a eel!

”

… what the expression meant, and knowing her to have a hard and heavy hand, and to be much in the habit of laying it upon her husband as well as upon me, I supposed that Joe Gargery and I were both brought up by hand.

She was not a good-looking woman, my sister; and I had a general impression that she must have made Joe Gargery marry her by hand.

Joe was a fair man, with curls of flaxen hair on each side of his smooth face, and with eyes of such a very undecided blue that they seemed to have somehow got mixed with their own whites.

He was a mild, good-natured, sweet-tempered, easygoing, foolish, dear fellow—a sort of Hercules in strength, and also in weakness.

My sister, Mrs. Joe, with black hair and eyes, had such a prevailing redness of skin that I sometimes used to wonder whether it was possible she washed herself with a nutmeg grater instead of soap.

She was tall and bony, and almost always wore a coarse apron, fastened over her figure behind with two loops, and having a square impregnable bib in front, that was stuck full of pins and needles.

but was made to swallow that (much to his disturbance, as he sat slowly munching and meditating before the fire), “because he had had a turn.” Judging from myself, I should say he certainly had a turn afterwards, if he had had none before.

Conscience is a dreadful thing when it accuses man or boy; but when, in the case of a boy, that secret burden cooperates with another secret burden down the leg of his trousers, it is (as I can testify) a great punishment.

The guilty knowledge that I was going to rob Mrs.

… I thought, What if the young man who was with so much difficulty restrained from imbruing his hands in me should yield to a constitutional impatience, or should mistake the time, and should think himself accredited to my heart and liver tonight, instead of tomorrow!

If ever anybody’s hair stood on end with terror, mine must have done so then. But, perhaps, nobody’s ever did?

It was Christmas Eve, and I had to stir the pudding for next day, with a copper stick, from seven to eight by the Dutch clock.

“Drat that boy,” interposed my sister, frowning at me over her work, “what a questioner he is.

Ask no questions, and you’ll be told no lies.

”

I was clearly on my way there. I had begun by asking questions, and I was going to rob Mrs. Joe.

Since that time, which is far enough away now, I have often thought that few people know what secrecy there is in the young under terror.

No matter how unreasonable the terror, so that it be terror. I was in mortal terror of the young man who wanted my heart and liver; I was in mortal terror of my interlocutor with the iron leg;

It was a rimy morning, and very damp.

I had seen the damp lying on the outside of my little window, as if some goblin had been crying there all night, and using the window for a pocket handkerchief.

Now, I saw the damp lying on the bare hedges and spare grass, like a coarser sort of spiders’ webs; hanging itself from twig to twig and blade to blade.

Then, as I looked up at it, while it dripped, it seemed to my oppressed conscience like a phantom devoting me to the hulks.

The mist was heavier yet when I got out upon the marshes, so that instead of my running at everything, everything seemed to run at me.

This was very disagreeable to a guilty mind. The gates and dikes and banks came bursting at me through the mist, as if they cried as plainly as could be, “A boy with somebody else’s pork pie! Stop him!”

… rest of the year in a cool haze of silver paper, which even extended to the four little white crockery poodles on the mantel shelf, each with a black nose and a basket of flowers in his mouth, and each the counterpart of the other.

Mrs. Joe was a very clean housekeeper, but had an exquisite art of making her cleanliness more uncomfortable and unacceptable than dirt itself.

Cleanliness is next to Godliness, and some people do the same by their religion.

Mrs. Joe was a very clean housekeeper, but had an exquisite art of making her cleanliness more uncomfortable and unacceptable than dirt itself.

Cleanliness is next to Godliness, and some people do the same by their religion.

My sister, having so much to do, was going to church vicariously, that is to say, Joe and I were going. In his working-clothes, Joe was a well-knit characteristic-looking blacksmith;

My sister, having so much to do, was going to church vicariously, that is to say, Joe and I were going.

In his working-clothes, Joe was a well-knit characteristic-looking blacksmith; in his holiday clothes, he was more like a scarecrow in good circumstances, than anything else.

Nothing that he wore then fitted him or seemed to belong to him; and everything that he wore then grazed him.

… to me, I think my sister must have had some general idea that I was a young offender whom an Accoucheur Policeman had taken up (on my birthday) and delivered over to her, to be dealt with according to the outraged majesty of the law.

I was always treated as if I had insisted on being born in opposition to the dictates of reason, religion, and morality, and against the dissuading arguments of my best friends.

Even when I was taken to have a new suit of clothes, the tailor had orders to make them like a kind of Reformatory, and on no account to let me have the free use of my limbs.

But they wouldn’t leave me alone. They seemed to think the opportunity lost, if they failed to point the conversation at me, every now and then, and stick the point into me.

I might have been an unfortunate little bull in a Spanish arena, I got so smartingly touched up by these moral goads.

It began the moment we sat down to dinner. Mr.

Mrs. Hubble shook her head, and contemplating me with a mournful presentiment that I should come to no good, asked, “Why is it that the young are never grateful?”

This moral mystery seemed too much for the company until Mr. Hubble tersely solved it by saying, “Naterally wicious.”

Everybody then murmured “True!” and looked at me in a particularly unpleasant and personal manner.

… and all the high places I had tumbled from, and all the low places I had tumbled into, and all the injuries I had done myself, and all the times she had wished me in my grave, and I had contumaciously refused to go there.

I think the Romans must have aggravated one another very much, with their noses. Perhaps, they became the restless people they were, in consequence.

Anyhow, Mr. Wopsle’s Roman nose so aggravated me, during the recital of my misdemeanours, that I should have liked to pull it until he howled.

That, if Joe knew it, and at any subsequent period of our joint domestic life remarked that his beer was flat or thick, the conviction that he suspected tar in it, would bring a rush of blood to my face.

In a word, I was too cowardly to do what I knew to be right, as I had been too cowardly to avoid doing what I knew to be wrong.

I had had no intercourse with the world at that time, and I imitated none of its many inhabitants who act in this manner. Quite an untaught genius, I made the discovery of the line of action for myself.

I had had no intercourse with the world at that time, and I imitated none of its many inhabitants who act in this manner.

Quite an untaught genius, I made the discovery of the line of action for myself.

As I was sleepy before we were far away from the prison-ship, Joe took me on his back again and carried me home. He must have had a tiresome journey of it, for Mr.

She was most noticeable, I thought, in respect of her extremities; for, her hair always wanted brushing, her hands always wanted washing, and her shoes always wanted mending and pulling up at heel. This description must be received with a weekday limitation.

On Sundays, she went to church elaborated.

Much of my unassisted self, and more by the help of Biddy than of Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt, I struggled through the alphabet as if it had been a bramble-bush; getting considerably worried and scratched by every letter.

for, her hair always wanted brushing, her hands always wanted washing, and her shoes always wanted mending and pulling up at heel. This description must be received with a weekday limitation. On Sundays, she went to church elaborated.

Much of my unassisted self, and more by the help of Biddy than of Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt, I struggled through the alphabet as if it had been a bramble-bush; getting considerably worried and scratched by every letter.

After that I fell among those thieves, the nine figures, who seemed every evening to do something new to disguise themselves and baffle recognition. But, at last I began, in a purblind groping way, to read, write, and cipher, on the very smallest scale.

Lord!” he continued, after rubbing his knees a little, “when you do come to a J and a O, and says you, ‘Here, at last, is a J-O, Joe,’ how interesting reading is!”

I derived from this, that Joe’s education, like Steam, was yet in its infancy.

Pursuing the subject, I inquired—

“

Your sister is given to government.

”

It was a dry cold night, and the wind blew keenly, and the frost was white and hard. A man would die tonight of lying out on the marshes, I thought.

And then I looked at the stars, and considered how awful it would be for a man to turn his face up to them as he froze to death, and see no help or pity in all the glittering multitude.

“Here comes the mare,” said Joe, “ringing like a peal of bells!”

“Look at me,” said Miss Havisham. “

You are not afraid of a woman who has never seen the sun since you were born?

”

“Look at me,” said Miss Havisham. “You are not afraid of a woman who has never seen the sun since you were born?”

I regret to state that I was not afraid of telling the enormous lie comprehended in the answer “No.”

“Do you know what I touch here?” she said, laying her hands, one upon the other, on her left side.

She uttered the word with an eager look, and with strong emphasis, and with a weird smile that had a kind of boast in it. Afterwards she kept her hands there for a little while, and slowly took them away as if they were heavy.

“I am tired,” said Miss Havisham. “I want diversion, and I have done with men and women. Play.”

I think it will be conceded by my most disputatious reader, that she could hardly have directed an unfortunate boy to do anything in the wide world more difficult to be done under the circumstances.

Before she spoke again, she turned her eyes from me, and looked at the dress she wore, and at the dressing-table, and finally at herself in the looking glass.

“So new to him,” she muttered, “so old to me; so strange to him, so familiar to me; so melancholy to both of us! Call Estella.”

As she was still looking at the reflection of herself, I thought she was still talking to herself, and kept quiet.

“He calls the knaves Jacks, this boy!” said Estella with disdain, before our first game was out. “And what coarse hands he has! And what thick boots!”

I had never thought of being ashamed of my hands before; but I began to consider them a very indifferent pair.

Her contempt for me was so strong, that it became infectious, and I caught it.

I had never thought of being ashamed of my hands before; but I began to consider them a very indifferent pair.

Her contempt for me was so strong, that it became infectious, and I caught it.

She won the game, and I dealt. I misdealt, as was only natural, when I knew she was lying in wait for me to do wrong; and she denounced me for a stupid, clumsy laboring-boy.

My opinion of those accessories was not favorable. They had never troubled me before, but they troubled me now, as vulgar appendages. I determined to ask Joe why he had ever taught me to call those picture-cards Jacks, which ought to be called knaves.

I wished Joe had been rather more genteelly brought up, and then I should have been so too.

She came back, with some bread and meat and a little mug of beer.

My sister’s bringing up had made me sensitive.

In the little world in which children have their existence whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt as injustice.

It may be only small injustice that the child can be exposed to; but the child is small, and its world is small, and its rocking horse stands as many hands high, according to scale, as a big-boned Irish hunter.

Within myself, I had sustained, from my babyhood, a perpetual conflict with injustice. I had known, from the time when I could speak, that my sister, in her capricious and violent coercion, was unjust to me.

I had cherished a profound conviction that her bringing me up by hand gave her no right to bring me up by jerks.

Through all my punishments, disgraces, fasts, and vigils, and other penitential performances, I had nursed this assurance;

“Pretty well?” Mr. Pumblechook repeated. “Pretty well is no answer. Tell us what you mean by pretty well, boy?”

Whitewash on the forehead hardens the brain into a state of obstinacy perhaps.

Anyhow, with whitewash from the wall on my forehead, my obstinacy was adamantine. I reflected for some time, and then answered as if I had discovered a new idea, “I mean pretty well.”

“There’s one thing you may be sure of, Pip,” said Joe, after some rumination, “namely, that lies is lies.

Howsever they come, they didn’t ought to come, and they come from the father of lies, and work round to the same.

Don’t you tell no more of ’em, Pip. That ain’t the way to get out of being common, old chap. And as to being common, I don’t make it out at all clear. You are oncommon in some things. You’re oncommon small.

and that’s a thing not to be thought of as being done intentional. Lookee here, Pip, at what is said to you by a true friend. Which this to you the true friend say.

If you can’t get to be oncommon through going straight, you’ll never get to do it through going crooked.

So don’t tell no more on ’em, Pip, and live well and die happy.”

That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how different its course would have been.

Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.

The educational scheme or course established by Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt may be resolved into the following synopsis.

The pupils ate apples and put straws down one another’s backs, until Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt collected her energies, and made an indiscriminate totter at them with a birch rod.

After receiving the charge with every mark of derision, the pupils formed in line and buzzingly passed a ragged book from hand to hand.

When this horrible din had lasted a certain time, it mechanically awoke Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt, who staggered at a boy fortuitously, and pulled his ears.

This was understood to terminate the course for the evening, and we emerged into the air with shrieks of intellectual victory.

It is fair to remark that there was no prohibition against any pupil’s entertaining himself with a slate or even with the ink (when there was any), but that it was not easy to pursue that branch of study in the winter season, on account …

There were three ladies in the room and one gentleman.

Before I had been standing at the window five minutes, they somehow conveyed to me that they were all toadies and humbugs, but that each of them pretended not to know that the others were toadies and humbugs: because the admission that he or she did know it, would have made him or her out to be a toady and humbug.

They all had a listless and dreary air of waiting somebody’s pleasure, and the most talkative of the ladies had to speak quite rigidly to repress a yawn.

This lady, whose name was Camilla, very much reminded me of my sister, with the difference that she was older, and (as I found when I caught sight of her) of a blunter cast of features.

Indeed, when I knew her better I began to think it was a Mercy she had any features at all, so very blank and high was the dead wall of her face.

“Poor dear soul!” said this lady, with an abruptness of manner quite my sister’s. “Nobody’s enemy but his own!”

“Because I’ll never cry for you again,” said I.

Which was, I suppose, as false a declaration as ever was made; for I was inwardly crying for her then, and I know what I know of the pain she cost me afterwards.

We went on our way upstairs after this episode; and, as we were going up, we met a gentleman groping his way down.

I heard the mice too, rattling behind the panels, as if the same occurrence were important to their interests.

But the black beetles took no notice of the agitation, and groped about the hearth in a ponderous elderly way, as if they were shortsighted and hard of hearing, and not on terms with one another.

These crawling things had fascinated my attention, and I was watching them from a distance, when Miss Havisham laid a hand upon my shoulder.

“On this day of the year, long before you were born, this heap of decay,” stabbing with her crutched stick at the pile of cobwebs on the table, but not touching it, “was brought here. It and I have worn away together.

The mice have gnawed at it, and sharper teeth than teeth of mice have gnawed at me.

”

“Halloa!” said he, “young fellow!”

Halloa being a general observation which I had usually observed to be best answered by itself, I said, “Halloa!” politely omitting young fellow.

“Who let you in?” said he.

But, he was on his feet directly, and after sponging himself with a great show of dexterity began squaring again.

The second greatest surprise I have ever had in my life was seeing him on his back again, looking up at me out of a black eye.

His spirit inspired me with great respect. He seemed to have no strength, and he never once hit me hard, and he was always knocked down;

I kissed her cheek as she turned it to me. I think I would have gone through a great deal to kiss her cheek. But

I felt that the kiss was given to the coarse common boy as a piece of money might have been, and that it was worth nothing.

What with the birthday visitors, and what with the cards, and what with the fight, my stay had lasted so long, that when I neared home the light on the spit of sand off the point on the marshes was gleaming against a black night-sky, …

The more I thought of the fight, and recalled the pale young gentleman on his back in various stages of puffy and incrimsoned countenance, the more certain it appeared that something would be done to me.

I felt that the pale young gentleman’s blood was on my head, and that the Law would avenge it.

Without having any definite idea of the penalties I had incurred, it was clear to me that village boys could not go stalking about the country, ravaging the houses of gentlefolks and pitching into the studious youth of England, without laying themselves open to severe …

And sometimes, when her moods were so many and so contradictory of one another that I was puzzled what to say or do, Miss Havisham would embrace her with lavish fondness, murmuring something in her ear that sounded like “

Break their hearts my pride and hope, break their hearts and have no mercy!

”

therefore, I said nothing of him. Besides, that shrinking from having Miss Havisham and Estella discussed, which had come upon me in the beginning, grew much more potent as time went on.

I reposed complete confidence in no one but Biddy; but I told poor Biddy everything.

Why it came natural to me to do so, and why Biddy had a deep concern in everything I told her, I did not know then, though I think I know now.

“Oh!” said she to Joe. “You are the husband of the sister of this boy?”

I could hardly have imagined dear old Joe looking so unlike himself or so like some extraordinary bird; standing as he did speechless, with his tuft of feathers ruffled, and his mouth open as if he wanted a worm.

“You are the husband,” repeated Miss Havisham, “of the sister of this boy?”

“It’s more than that, then,” said Joe.

That fearful Impostor, Pumblechook, immediately nodded, and said, as he rubbed the arms of his chair, “It’s more than that, Mum.”

“Why, you don’t mean to say—” began my sister.

Finally, I remember that when I got into my little bedroom, I was truly wretched, and had a strong conviction on me that I should never like Joe’s trade.

I had liked it once, but once was not now.

It is a most miserable thing to feel ashamed of home.

There may be black ingratitude in the thing, and the punishment may be retributive and well deserved; but that it is a miserable thing, I can testify.

It is a most miserable thing to feel ashamed of home. There may be black ingratitude in the thing, and the punishment may be retributive and well deserved; but that it is a miserable thing, I can testify.

Home had never been a very pleasant place to me, because of my sister’s temper. But, Joe had sanctified it, and I had believed in it.

I had believed in the best parlor as a most elegant saloon; I had believed in the front door, as a mysterious portal of the Temple of State whose solemn opening was attended with a sacrifice of roast fowls;

How much of my ungracious condition of mind may have been my own fault, how much Miss Havisham’s, how much my sister’s, is now of no moment to me or to anyone.

The change was made in me; the thing was done.

Well or ill done, excusably or inexcusably, it was done.

It was not because I had a strong sense of the virtue of industry, but because Joe had a strong sense of the virtue of industry, that I worked with tolerable zeal against the grain.

It is not possible to know how far the influence of any amiable honest-hearted duty-doing man flies out into the world; but it is very possible to know how it has touched one’s self in going by, and I know right well that any good that intermixed itself with my apprenticeship came of plain contented Joe, and not of restlessly aspiring discontented me.

What I wanted, who can say? How can I say, when I never knew?

For, though it includes what I proceed to add, all the merit of what I proceed to add was Joe’s.

It was not because I was faithful, but because Joe was faithful, that I never ran away and went for a soldier or a sailor.

It was not because I had a strong sense of the virtue of industry, but because Joe had a strong sense of the virtue of industry, that I worked with tolerable zeal against the grain.

but it is very possible to know how it has touched one’s self in going by, and I know right well that any good that intermixed itself with my apprenticeship came of plain contented Joe, and not of restlessly aspiring discontented me.

What I wanted, who can say? How can I say, when I never knew?

What I dreaded was, that in some unlucky hour I, being at my grimiest and commonest, should lift up my eyes and see Estella looking in at one of the wooden windows of the forge.

When I became Joe’s ’prentice, Orlick was perhaps confirmed in some suspicion that I should displace him; howbeit, he liked me still less. Not that he ever said anything, or did anything, openly importing hostility;

I only noticed that he always beat his sparks in my direction, and that whenever I sang Old Clem, he came in out of time.

Dolge Orlick was at work and present, next day, when I reminded Joe of my half-holiday. He said nothing at the moment, for he and Joe had just got a piece of hot iron between them, and I was at the bellows;

Wopsle got into Newgate, I thought he never would go to the scaffold, he became so much slower than at any former period of his disgraceful career.

I thought it a little too much that he should complain of being cut short in his flower after all, as if he had not been running to seed, leaf after leaf, ever since his course began.

This, however, was a mere question of length and wearisomeness. What stung me, was the identification of the whole affair with my unoffending self. When Barnwell began to go wrong, I declare that I felt positively apologetic, Pumblechook’s indignant stare so taxed me with it.

Having made this lunatic confession, I began to throw my torn-up grass into the river, as if I had some thoughts of following it.

“Do you want to be a gentleman, to spite her or to gain her over?” Biddy quietly asked me, after a pause.

“I don’t know,” I moodily answered.

Exactly what I myself had thought, many times. Exactly what was perfectly manifest to me at the moment.

But how could I, a poor dazed village lad, avoid that wonderful inconsistency into which the best and wisest of men fall every day?

“It may be all quite true,” said I to Biddy, “but I admire her dreadfully.”

There was a group assembled round the fire at the Three Jolly Bargemen, attentive to Mr. Wopsle as he read the newspaper aloud. Of that group I was one.

A highly popular murder had been committed, and Mr. Wopsle was imbrued in blood to the eyebrows.

He gloated over every abhorrent adjective in the description, and identified himself with every witness at the Inquest. He faintly moaned, “I am done for,” as the victim, and he barbarously bellowed, “I’ll serve you out,” as the murderer.

“There is a certain tutor, of whom I have some knowledge, who I think might suit the purpose,” said Mr. Jaggers. “

I don’t recommend him, observe; because I never recommend anybody.

The gentleman I speak of is one Mr. Matthew Pocket.”

Joe laid his hand upon my shoulder with the touch of a woman.

I have often thought him since, like the steam-hammer that can crush a man or pat an eggshell, in his combination of strength with gentleness.

“Pip is that hearty welcome,” said Joe, “to go free with his services, to honor and fortun’, as no words can tell him.

I never could have believed it without experience, but as Joe and Biddy became more at their cheerful ease again, I became quite gloomy.

Dissatisfied with my fortune, of course I could not be; but it is possible that I may have been, without quite knowing it, dissatisfied with myself.

Anyhow, I sat with my elbow on my knee and my face upon my hand, looking into the fire, as those two talked about my going away, and about what they should do without me, and all that.

I said he might, and he shook hands with me again, and emptied his glass and turned it upside down.

I did the same; and if I had turned myself upside down before drinking, the wine could not have gone more direct to my head.

Mr. Pumblechook helped me to the liver wing, and to the best slice of tongue (none of those out-of-the-way No Thoroughfares of Pork now), and took, comparatively speaking, no care of himself at all. “Ah! poultry, poultry! You little thought,” said Mr.

It began to be unnecessary to repeat the form of saying he might, so he did it at once.

How he ever did it so often without wounding himself with my knife, I don’t know.

“And your sister,” he resumed, after a little steady eating, “which had the honor of bringing you up by hand! It’s a sad picter, to reflect that she’s no longer equal to fully understanding the honor. May—”

Pumblechook’s, to put on my new clothes and pay my visit to Miss Havisham. Mr. Pumblechook’s own room was given up to me to dress in, and was decorated with clean towels expressly for the event. My clothes were rather a disappointment, of course.

Probably every new and eagerly expected garment ever put on since clothes came in, fell a trifle short of the wearer’s expectation.

But after I had had my new suit on some half an hour, and had gone through an immensity of posturing with Mr. Pumblechook’s very limited dressing-glass, in the futile endeavor to see my legs, it seemed to fit me better.

It was by the finger-post at the end of the village, and I laid my hand upon it, and said, “Goodbye, O my dear, dear friend!”

Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts.

I was better after I had cried than before—more sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle. If I had cried before, I should have had Joe with me then.

We changed again, and yet again, and it was now too late and too far to go back, and I went on.

And the mists had all solemnly risen now, and the world lay spread before me.

This is the end of the first stage of Pip’s expectations.

Pip,” said my guardian, whose flask of sherry smelt like a whole caskful, as he hastily refreshed himself, “but I shall by this means be able to check your bills, and to pull you up if I find you outrunning the constable.

Of course you’ll go wrong somehow, but that’s no fault of mine.

”

I noticed, too, that several rings and seals hung at his watch-chain, as if he were quite laden with remembrances of departed friends. He had glittering eyes—small, keen, and black—and thin wide mottled lips.

He had had them, to the best of my belief, from forty to fifty years.

“So you were never in London before?” said Mr. Wemmick to me.

… as we went along, to see what he was like in the light of day, I found him to be a dry man, rather short in stature, with a square wooden face, whose expression seemed to have been imperfectly chipped out with a dull-edged chisel.

There were some marks in it that might have been dimples, if the material had been softer and the instrument finer, but which, as it was, were only dints.

The chisel had made three or four of these attempts at embellishment over his nose, but had given them up without an effort to smooth them off.

“

You may get cheated, robbed, and murdered in London. But there are plenty of people anywhere, who’ll do that for you.

”

He wore his hat on the back of his head, and looked straight before him: walking in a self-contained way as if there were nothing in the streets to claim his attention.

His mouth was such a post office of a mouth that he had a mechanical appearance of smiling.

We had got to the top of Holborn Hill before I knew that it was merely a mechanical appearance, and that he was not smiling at all.

My depression was not alleviated by the announcement, for, I had supposed that establishment to be an hotel kept by Mr. Barnard, to which the Blue Boar in our town was a mere public house.

Whereas I now found Barnard to be a disembodied spirit, or a fiction, and his inn the dingiest collection of shabby buildings ever squeezed together in a rank corner as a club for Tomcats.

We entered this haven through a wicket-gate, and were disgorged by an introductory passage into a melancholy little square that looked to me like a flat burying-ground.

I had never seen anyone then, and I have never seen anyone since, who more strongly expressed to me, in every look and tone, a natural incapacity to do anything secret and mean.

There was something wonderfully hopeful about his general air, and something that at the same time whispered to me he would never be very successful or rich.

I don’t know how this was. I became imbued with the notion on that first occasion before we sat down to dinner, but I cannot define by what means.

because it is a principle of his that no man who was not a true gentleman at heart ever was, since the world began, a true gentleman in manner.

He says, no varnish can hide the grain of the wood; and that the more varnish you put on, the more the grain will express itself.

Well! This man pursued Miss Havisham closely, and professed to be devoted to her. I believe she had not shown much susceptibility up to that time; but all the susceptibility she possessed certainly came out then, and she passionately loved him.

This had lasted but a very short time, when Mrs. Pocket issued summary orders that they were all to be taken into the house for a nap.

Thus I made the second discovery on that first occasion, that the nurture of the little Pockets consisted of alternately tumbling up and lying down.

Under these circumstances, when Flopson and Millers had got the children into the house, like a little flock of sheep, and Mr. Pocket came out of it to make my acquaintance, I was not much surprised to find that Mr.

Pocket that his wife was “a treasure for a Prince.” Mr. Pocket had invested the Prince’s treasure in the ways of the world ever since, and it was supposed to have brought him in but indifferent interest. Still,

Mrs. Pocket was in general the object of a queer sort of respectful pity, because she had not married a title; while Mr. Pocket was the object of a queer sort of forgiving reproach, because he had never got one.

Mr. Pocket took me into the house and showed me my room: which was a pleasant one, and so furnished as that I could use it with comfort for my own private sitting room.

“—That it is hard,” said Mrs. Coiler, “to have dear Mr. Pocket’s time and attention diverted from dear Mrs. Pocket.”

I could not help thinking that it might be harder if the butcher’s time and attention were diverted from dear Mrs. Pocket; but I said nothing, and indeed had enough to do in keeping a bashful watch upon my company manners.

It came to my knowledge, through what passed between Mrs.

“I will not allow anybody to interfere,” said Mrs. Pocket. “I am surprised, Matthew, that you should expose me to the affront of interference.”

“Good God!” cried Mr. Pocket, in an outbreak of desolate desperation. “Are infants to be nut-crackered into their tombs, and is nobody to save them?”

“I will not be interfered with by Jane,” said Mrs. Pocket, with a majestic glance at that innocent little offender. “I hope I know my poor grandpapa’s position. Jane, indeed!”

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

Mr. Jaggers never laughed; but he wore great bright creaking boots, and, in poising himself on these boots, with his large head bent down and his eyebrows joined together, awaiting an answer, he sometimes caused the boots to creak, as if they laughed in a dry and suspicious way.

As he happened to go out now, and as Wemmick was brisk and talkative, I said to Wemmick that I hardly knew what to make of Mr. Jaggers’s manner.

Bentley Drummle, who was so sulky a fellow that he even took up a book as if its writer had done him an injury, did not take up an acquaintance in a more agreeable spirit.

Heavy in figure, movement, and comprehension—in the sluggish complexion of his face, and in the large, awkward tongue that seemed to loll about in his mouth as he himself lolled about in a room—he was idle, proud, niggardly, reserved, and suspicious.

When I had been in Mr. Pocket’s family a month or two, Mr. and Mrs. Camilla turned up. Camilla was Mr. Pocket’s sister. Georgiana, whom I had seen at Miss Havisham’s on the same occasion, also turned up.

She was a cousin⁠—an indigestive single woman, who called her rigidity religion, and her liver love.

These people hated me with the hatred of cupidity and disappointment. As a matter of course, they fawned upon me in my prosperity with the basest meanness. Towards Mr.

and Mrs. Camilla turned up. Camilla was Mr. Pocket’s sister. Georgiana, whom I had seen at Miss Havisham’s on the same occasion, also turned up. She was a cousin—an indigestive single woman, who called her rigidity religion, and her liver love.

These people hated me with the hatred of cupidity and disappointment.

As a matter of course, they fawned upon me in my prosperity with the basest meanness. Towards Mr. Pocket, as a grown-up infant with no notion of his own interests, they showed the complacent forbearance I had heard them express. Mrs.

“Never seen it,” said Wemmick. “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 anyway disagreeable to you, you’ll oblige me by doing the same. I don’t wish it professionally spoken about.”

I asked him where we should come to (for I had no idea where he lived), and I believe it was in his general objection to make anything like an admission, that he replied, “Come here, and I’ll take you home with me.”

I embrace this opportunity of remarking that he washed his clients off, as if he were a surgeon or a dentist.

He had a closet in his room, fitted up for the purpose, which smelt of the scented soap like a perfumer’s shop.

I had little objection to his being seen by Herbert or his father, for both of whom I had a respect; but I had the sharpest sensitiveness as to his being seen by Drummle, whom I held in contempt.

So, throughout life, our worst weaknesses and meannesses are usually committed for the sake of the people whom we most despise.

I had begun to be always decorating the chambers in some quite unnecessary and inappropriate way or other, and very expensive those wrestles with Barnard proved to be.

was afflicted with such remarkable coughs; sat so far from the table, and dropped so much more than he ate, and pretended that he hadn’t dropped it; that I was heartily glad when Herbert left us for the City.

I had neither the good sense nor the good feeling to know that this was all my fault, and that if I had been easier with Joe, Joe would have been easier with me.

I felt impatient of him and out of temper with him; in which condition he heaped coals of fire on my head.

“

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 today, it’s mine. You and me is not two figures to be together in London;

I should be an inconvenience at Joe’s; I was not expected, and my bed would not be ready; I should be too far from Miss Havisham’s, and she was exacting and mightn’t like it.

All other swindlers upon earth are nothing to the self-swindlers, and with such pretences did I cheat myself.

Surely a curious thing. That I should innocently take a bad half-crown of somebody else’s manufacture is reasonable enough; but that I should knowingly reckon the spurious coin of my own make as good money!

Does the thought-contracted brow of the local Sage or the lustrous eye of local Beauty inquire whose fortunes? We believe that Quintin Matsys was the Blacksmith of Antwerp. Verb. Sap.

I entertain a conviction, based upon large experience, that if in the days of my prosperity I had gone to the North Pole, I should have met somebody there, wandering Eskimo or civilized man, who would have told me that Pumblechook was my earliest patron and the founder of my fortunes.

According to my experience, the conventional notion of a lover cannot be always true. The unqualified truth is, that when I loved Estella with the love of a man, I loved her simply because I found her irresistible.

Once for all; I knew to my sorrow, often and often, if not always, that I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be.

Once for all; I loved her none the less because I knew it, and it had no more influence in restraining me than if I had devoutly believed her to be human perfection.

Before I could answer (if I could have answered so difficult a question at all) she repeated, “

Love her, love her, love her! If she favors 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!”

And when he and I were left alone together, he sat with an air upon him of general lying by in consequence of information he possessed, that really was too much for me.

He cross-examined his very wine when he had nothing else in hand.

He held it between himself and the candle, tasted the port, rolled it in his mouth, swallowed it, looked at his glass again, smelt the port, tried it, drank it, filled again, and cross-examined the glass again, until I was as nervous as if I …

To have struggled with him in the street, or to have exacted any lower recompense from him than his heart’s best blood, would have been futile and degrading.

Moreover, he was a boy whom no man could hurt; an invulnerable and dodging serpent who, when chased into a corner, flew out again between his captor’s legs, scornfully yelping.

I wrote, however, to Mr. Trabb by next day’s post, to say that Mr.

“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.

It was visiting time when Wemmick took me in, and a potman was going his rounds with beer; and the prisoners, behind bars in yards, were buying beer, and talking to friends; and a frowzy, ugly, disorderly, depressing scene it was.

It struck me that Wemmick walked among the prisoners much as a gardener might walk among his plants.

This was first put into my head by his seeing a shoot that had come up in the night, and saying, “What, Captain Tom? Are you there? Ah, indeed!” and also, “Is that Black Bill behind the cistern?

As I am now generalizing a period of my life with the object of clearing my way before me, I can scarcely do so better than by at once completing the description of our usual manners and customs at Barnard’s Inn.

We spent as much money as we could, and got as little for it as people could make up their minds to give us.

We were always more or less miserable, and most of our acquaintance were in the same condition. There was a gay fiction among us that we were constantly enjoying ourselves, and a skeleton truth that we never did.

We spent as much money as we could, and got as little for it as people could make up their minds to give us. We were always more or less miserable, and most of our acquaintance were in the same condition.

There was a gay fiction among us that we were constantly enjoying ourselves, and a skeleton truth that we never did.

To the best of my belief, our case was in the last aspect a rather common one.

and I do not remember that I ever saw him do anything else but look about him.

If we all did what we undertake to do, as faithfully as Herbert did, we might live in a Republic of the Virtues.

He had nothing else to do, poor fellow, except at a certain hour of every afternoon to “go to Lloyd’s”—in observance of a ceremony of seeing his principal, I think.

The sound of our pens going refreshed us exceedingly, insomuch that I sometimes found it difficult to distinguish between this edifying business proceeding and actually paying the money.

In point of meritorious character, the two things seemed about equal.

When we had written a little while, I would ask Herbert how he got on? Herbert probably would have been scratching his head in a most rueful manner at the sight of his accumulating figures.

It was the first time that a grave had opened in my road of life, and the gap it made in the smooth ground was wonderful.

The figure of my sister in her chair by the kitchen fire, haunted me night and day. That the place could possibly be, without her, was something my mind seemed unable to compass;

“You should know,” said Estella. “

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.

”

“So,” said Estella, “

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.

”

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.

I would not have gone back to Joe now, I would not have gone back to Biddy now, for any consideration; simply, I suppose, because my sense of my own worthless conduct to them was greater than every consideration.

No wisdom on earth could have given me the comfort that I should have derived from their simplicity and fidelity; but I could never, never, undo what I had done.

In every rage of wind and rush of rain, I heard pursuers. Twice, I could have sworn there was a knocking and whispering at the outer door.

True, I had no Avenger in my service now, but I was looked after by an inflammatory old female, assisted by an animated ragbag whom she called her niece, and to keep a room secret from them would be to invite curiosity and exaggeration.

They both had weak eyes, which I had long attributed to their chronically looking in at keyholes, and they were always at hand when not wanted; indeed that was their only reliable quality besides larceny.

Not to get up a mystery with these people, I resolved to announce in the morning that my uncle had unexpectedly come from the country.

All this time I had never been able to consider my own situation, nor could I do so yet. I had not the power to attend to it. I was greatly dejected and distressed, but in an incoherent wholesale sort of way.

As to forming any plan for the future, I could as soon have formed an elephant.

When I opened the shutters and looked out at the wet wild morning, all of a leaden hue; when I walked from room to room; when I sat down again shivering, before the fire, waiting for my laundress to appear;

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.”

As he was at present dressed in a seafaring slop suit, in which he looked as if he had some parrots and cigars to dispose of, I next discussed with him what dress he should wear.

He cherished an extraordinary belief in the virtues of “shorts” as a disguise, and had in his own mind sketched a dress for himself that would have made him something between a dean and a dentist.

It was with considerable difficulty that I won him over to the assumption of a dress more like a prosperous farmer’s; and we arranged that he should cut his hair close, and wear a little powder.

“Not a particle of evidence, Pip,” said Mr. Jaggers, shaking his head and gathering up his skirts. “

Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence. There’s no better rule.

”

I doubt if a ghost could have been more terrible to me, up in those lonely rooms in the long evenings and long nights, with the wind and the rain always rushing by.

A ghost could not have been taken and hanged on my account, and the consideration that he could be, and the dread that he would be, were no small addition to my horrors.

When he was not asleep, or playing a complicated kind of Patience with a ragged pack of cards of his own—a game that I never saw before or since, and in which he recorded his winnings by sticking his jackknife into the table—when he was …

“Dear boy and Pip’s comrade. I am not a going fur to tell you my life like a song, or a storybook. 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 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 …

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.

Compeyson’s business was the swindling, handwriting forging, stolen banknote passing, and suchlike. 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.

“It seems,” said Estella, very calmly, “that there are sentiments, fancies—I don’t know how to call them—which I am not able to comprehend. When you say you love me, I know what you mean, as a form of words; but nothing more.

You address nothing in my breast, you touch nothing there.

I don’t care for what you say at all. I have tried to warn you of this; now, have I not?”

“Out of my thoughts!

You are part of my existence, part of myself.

You have been in every line I have ever read since I first came here, the rough common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then.

The stones of which the strongest London buildings are made are not more real, or more impossible to be displaced by your hands, than your presence and influence have been to me, there and everywhere, and will be.

Estella, to the last hour of my life, you cannot choose but remain part of my character, part of the little good in me, part of the evil.

But, in this separation, I associate you only with the good; and I will faithfully hold you to that always, for you must have done me far more good than harm, let me feel now what sharp distress I may.

In what ecstasy of unhappiness I got these broken words out of myself, I don’t know.

The rhapsody welled up within me, like blood from an inward wound, and gushed out.

I held her hand to my lips some lingering moments, and so I left her.

When I had got into bed, and lay there footsore, weary, and wretched,

I found that I could no more close my own eyes than I could close the eyes of this foolish Argus.

And thus, in the gloom and death of the night, we stared at one another.

“He was puzzled what to do; not the less, because I gave him my opinion that it was not safe to try to get Tom, Jack, or Richard too far out of the way at present. Mr. Pip, I’ll tell you something.

Under existing circumstances, there is no place like a great city when you are once in it.

Don’t break cover too soon. Lie close. Wait till things slacken, before you try the open, even for foreign air.”

“Ahoy! Bless your eyes, here’s old Bill Barley. Here’s old Bill Barley, bless your eyes. Here’s old Bill Barley on the flat of his back, by the Lord.

Lying on the flat of his back like a drifting old dead flounder, here’s your old Bill Barley, bless your eyes.

Ahoy! Bless you.”

Herbert had sometimes said to me that he found it pleasant to stand at one of our windows after dark, when the tide was running down, and to think that it was flowing, with everything it bore, towards Clara.

But I thought with dread that it was flowing towards Magwitch, and that any black mark on its surface might be his pursuers, going swiftly, silently, and surely, to take him.

Why I hoarded up this last wretched little rag of the robe of hope that was rent and given to the winds, how do I know?

Why did you who read this, commit that not dissimilar inconsistency of your own last year, last month, last week?

It was an unhappy life that I lived; and its one dominant anxiety, towering over all its other anxieties, like a high mountain above a range of mountains, never disappeared from my view. Still, no new cause for fear arose.

“My name is on the first leaf.

If you can ever write under my name, ‘I forgive her,’ though ever so long after my broken heart is dust pray do it!

”

“But as she grew, and promised to be very beautiful, I gradually did worse, and with my praises, and with my jewels, and with my teachings, and with this figure of myself always before her, a warning to back and point my lessons,

I stole her heart away, and put ice in its place.

”

I had never been struck at so keenly, for my thanklessness to Joe, as through the brazen impostor Pumblechook.

The falser he, the truer Joe; the meaner he, the nobler Joe.

My heart was deeply and most deservedly humbled as I mused over the fire for an hour or more.

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.

For the present, under the circumstances, we deemed it prudent to make rather light of the matter to Trabb’s boy; who, I am convinced, would have been much affected by disappointment, if he had known that his intervention saved me from the limekiln.

Not that Trabb’s boy was of a malignant nature, but that he had too much spare vivacity, and that it was in his constitution to want variety and excitement at anybody’s expense.

When we parted, I presented him with two guineas (which seemed to meet his views), and told him that I was sorry ever to have had an ill opinion of him (which made no impression on him at all).

Not that Trabb’s boy was of a malignant nature, but that he had too much spare vivacity, and that it was in his constitution to want variety and excitement at anybody’s expense.

When we parted, I presented him with two guineas (which seemed to meet his views), and told him that I was sorry ever to have had an ill opinion of him (which made no impression on him at all).

Wednesday being so close upon us, we determined to go back to London that night, three in the post-chaise; the rather, as we should then be clear away before the night’s adventure began to be talked of.

It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.

We had our peacoats with us, and I took a bag. Of all my worldly possessions I took no more than the few necessaries that filled the bag.

“Ay, I s’pose I think so, dear boy. We’d be puzzled to be more quiet and easygoing than we are at present. But—it’s a flowing so soft and pleasant through the water, p’raps, as makes me think it—

I was a thinking through my smoke just then, that we can no more see to the bottom of the next few hours than we can see to the bottom of this river what I catches hold of.

Nor yet we can’t no more hold their tide than I can hold this. And it’s run through my fingers and gone, you see!” holding up his dripping hand.

In the infinite meaning of his reply and his boundless confidence in his views, the Jack took one of his bloated shoes off, looked into it, knocked a few stones out of it on the kitchen floor, and put it on again.

He did this with the air of a Jack who was so right that he could afford to do anything.

“Why, what do you make out that they done with their buttons then, Jack?” asked the landlord, vacillating weakly.

“Why, what do you make out that they done with their buttons then, Jack?” asked the landlord, vacillating weakly.

“Done with their buttons?” returned the Jack. “Chucked ’em overboard. Swallered ’em. Sowed ’em, to come up small salad. Done with their buttons!”

“Don’t be cheeky, Jack,” remonstrated the landlord, in a melancholy and pathetic way.

and in the hunted, wounded, shackled creature who held my hand in his, I only saw a man who had meant to be my benefactor, and who had felt affectionately, gratefully, and generously, towards me with great constancy through a series of years.

I only saw in him a much better man than I had been to Joe.

His breathing became more difficult and painful as the night drew on, and often he could not repress a groan. I tried to rest him on the arm I could use, in any easy position;

“We shall lose a fine opportunity if I put off going to Cairo, and I am very much afraid I must go, Handel, when you most need me.”

“Herbert, I shall always need you, because I shall always love you; but my need is no greater now than at another time.”

“You will be so lonely.”

“I am afraid that must be admitted,” said Herbert; “and then I shall come back for the dear little thing, and the dear little thing and I will walk quietly into the nearest church.

Remember! The blessed darling comes of no family, my dear Handel, and never looked into the red book, and hasn’t a notion about her grandpapa. What a fortune for the son of my mother!

”

Within, there were two glasses of rum and milk prepared, and two biscuits. The Aged must have been stirring with the lark, for, glancing into the perspective of his bedroom, I observed that his bed was empty.

When we had fortified ourselves with the rum and milk and biscuits, and were going out for the walk with that training preparation on us, I was considerably surprised to see Wemmick take up a fishing-rod, and put it over his shoulder.

“Why, we are not going fishing!” said I. “No,” returned Wemmick, “but I like to walk with one.”

As the gloves were white kid gloves, and as the post office was widened to its utmost extent, I now began to have my strong suspicions. They were strengthened into certainty when I beheld the Aged enter at a side door, escorting a lady.

“Halloa!” said Wemmick. “Here’s Miss Skiffins! Let’s have a wedding.”

That discreet damsel was attired as usual, except that she was now engaged in substituting for her green kid gloves a pair of white. The Aged was likewise occupied in preparing a similar sacrifice for the altar of Hymen.

Mrs. Wemmick, more heedful of the future, put her white gloves in her pocket and assumed her green.

“Now, Mr. Pip,” said Wemmick, triumphantly shouldering the fishing-rod as we came out, “let me ask you whether anybody would suppose this to be a wedding-party!”

Breakfast had been ordered at a pleasant little tavern, a mile or so away upon the rising ground beyond the green; and there was a bagatelle board in the room, in case we should desire to unbend our minds after the solemnity.

Breakfast had been ordered at a pleasant little tavern, a mile or so away upon the rising ground beyond the green; and there was a bagatelle board in the room, in case we should desire to unbend our minds after the solemnity.

It was pleasant to observe that Mrs. Wemmick no longer unwound Wemmick’s arm when it adapted itself to her figure, but sat in a high-backed chair against the wall, like a violoncello in its case, and submitted to be embraced as that melodious instrument might have done.

We had an excellent breakfast, and when anyone declined anything on table, Wemmick said, “Provided by contract, you know; don’t be afraid of it!”

I sometimes derived an impression, from his manner or from a whispered word or two which escaped him, that he pondered over the question whether he might have been a better man under better circumstances.

But he never justified himself by a hint tending that way, or tried to bend the past out of its eternal shape.

It happened on two or three occasions in my presence, that his desperate reputation was alluded to by one or other of the people in attendance on him.

Rising for a moment, a distinct speck of face in this way of light, the prisoner said,

“My Lord, I have received my sentence of Death from the Almighty, but I bow to yours,”

and sat down again. There was some hushing, and the Judge went on with what he had to say to the rest.

In this unreasonable restlessness and pain of mind I would roam the streets of an evening, wandering by those offices and houses where I had left the petitions.

To the present hour, the weary western streets of London on a cold, dusty spring night, with their ranges of stern, shut-up mansions, and their long rows of lamps, are melancholy to me from this association.

The daily visits I could make him were shortened now, and he was more strictly kept.

“Thank’ee dear boy, thank’ee. God bless you! You’ve never deserted me, dear boy.”

I pressed his hand in silence, for I could not forget that I had once meant to desert him.

“And what’s the best of all,” he said, “you’ve been more comfortable alonger me, since I was under a dark cloud, than when the sun shone. That’s best of all.”

I pressed his hand in silence, for I could not forget that I had once meant to desert him.

“And what’s the best of all,” he said, “you’ve been more comfortable alonger me, since I was under a dark cloud, than when the sun shone. That’s best of all.”

He lay on his back, breathing with great difficulty. Do what he would, and love me though he did, the light left his face ever and again, and a film came over the placid look at the white ceiling.

“What is to be done?”

“You had better come to my house,” said the man. “I keep a very nice house.”

I made some attempt to get up and dress myself. When I next attended to them, they were standing a little off from the bed, looking at me. I still lay there.