Chapter V: Part 5

But this was sure. He did not think that he had lost her. He had no suspicion of the truth that she had fled away from him. He had lived too long shut up in his pride, seeing her a patient, gentle creature in his path, to have any fear of that. And so he waited, day by day, until she should make her appearance on the stairs or at the table as before.

But the days dragged slowly by and she did not come.

The sea had ebbed and flowed through a whole year. Through a whole year the winds and clouds had come and gone; the ceaseless work of Time had been performed, in storm and sunshine. Through a whole year the famous House of Dombey and Son had fought a fight for life, against doubtful rumors, unsuccessful ventures, and most of all, against the bad judgment of its head, who would not contract its enterprises by a hair's breadth, and would not listen to a word of warning that the ship he strained so hard against the storm was weak, and could not bear it.

For Mr. Dombey had grown strangely indifferent and reckless, and plunged blindly into speculation.

The year was out, and the great House was down.

One summer afternoon there was a buzz and whisper, about the streets of London, of a great failure. A certain cold, proud man, well known there, was not there, nor was he represented there. Next day it was noised abroad that Dombey and Son had stopped, and next night there was a list of bankrupts published, headed by that name.

Nobody's opinion stayed the misfortune, lightened it, or made it heavier. It was understood that the affairs of the House were to be wound up as they best could be; that Mr. Dombey freely resigned everything he had, and asked for no favor from any one. That any resumption of the business was out of the question, as he would listen to no friendly negotiation having that compromise in view; that he had relinquished every post of trust or distinction he had held as a man respected among merchants; and that he was a broken man.

The old home where Paul had died and whence Florence had fled away was now empty and deserted--a wreck of what it had been. All the furniture and hangings had been sold to satisfy Mr. Dombey's creditors; and he now lived there alone in one cheerless room--a man without friends, without hope.

But at last he began to come to his senses; to see what a treasure he had cast away in Florence; to recall his own injustice and cruelty toward her.

In the miserable night he thought of it; in the dreary day, the wretched dawn, the ghostly, memory-haunted twilight, he remembered. In agony, in sorrow, in remorse, in despair!

"Papa! papa!" He heard the words again, and saw the face. He saw it fall upon the trembling hands, and heard the one prolonged, low cry go upward.

Oh! He did remember it! The rain that fell upon the roof, the wind that mourned outside the door, had foreknowledge in their melancholy sound. He knew now what he had done. He knew now that he had called down that upon his head, which bowed it lower than the heaviest stroke of fortune. He knew now what it was to be rejected and deserted; now, when every loving blossom he had withered in his innocent daughter's heart was snowing down in ashes on him.

He thought of her as she had been that night when he and his bride came home. He thought of her as she had been in all the home events of the abandoned house. He thought now that of all around him, she alone had never changed. His boy had faded into dust, his proud wife had deserted him, his flatterer and friend had been transformed into the worst of villains, his riches had melted away, the very walls that sheltered him looked on him as a stranger; she alone had turned the same mild, gentle look upon him always. Yes, to the latest and the last. She had never changed to him--nor had he ever changed to her--and she was lost.

As, one by one, they fell away before his mind--his baby hope, his wife, his friend, his fortune--oh, how the mist through which he had seen her cleared, and showed him her true self! How much better than this that he had loved her as he had his boy, and lost her as he had his boy, and laid them in their early grave together!

As the days dragged by, it seemed to him that he should go mad with remorse and longing. He haunted Paul's room and Florence's room--so empty now--as though they were his only dwelling-place. He had meant to go away, but clung to this tie in the house as the last and only thing left to him. He would go to-morrow. To-morrow came. He would go to-morrow. Every night, within the knowledge of no human creature, he came forth, and wandered through the despoiled house like a ghost. Many a morning when the day broke, with altered face drooping behind the closed blind in his window, he pondered on the loss of his two children. It was one child no more. He reunited them in his thoughts, and they were never asunder.

Then, one day, when strange fancies oppressed him more than usual, he paused at Florence's door and gazed wildly down as though suddenly awakened from a dream.

He heard a cry--a loving, pleading voice--and there at his knees knelt Florence herself.

"Papa! Dearest papa! I have come back to ask forgiveness. I never can be happy more, without it!"

Unchanged still. Of all the world, unchanged. Raising the same face to his as on that miserable night. Asking _his_ forgiveness!

"Dear papa, oh, don't look strangely on me! I never meant to leave you. I never thought of it, before or afterwards. I was frightened when I went away and could not think. Papa, dear, I am changed. I am penitent. I know my fault. I know my duty better now. Papa, don't cast me off or I shall die!"

He tottered to his chair. He felt her draw his arms about her neck: he felt her put her own round his; he felt her kisses on his face; he felt her wet cheek laid against his own; he felt--oh, how deeply!--all that he had done.

Upon the breast that he had bruised, against the heart that he had almost broken, she laid his face, now covered with his hands, and said, sobbing,--

"I have been far away, dear papa, and could not come back before this. I have been across the seas, and I have a home of my own over there now. Oh, I want you to see it! I want to take you there; for my home is _your_ home--always, always! Say you will pardon me, will come to me!"

He would have said it if he could. He would have raised his hands and besought _her_ for pardon, but she caught them in her own and put them down hurriedly.

"You will come, I know, dear papa! And I will know by that that you forgive me. And we will never talk about what is past and forgotten; never again!"

As she clung closer to him, in another burst of tears, he kissed her on the lips, and, lifting up his eyes, said, "Oh, my God, forgive me, for I need it very much!"

With that he dropped his head again, lamenting over and caressing her, and there was not a sound in all the house for a long, long time; they remaining clasped in one another's arms, in the glorious sunshine that had crept in with Florence.

*THE STORY OF PIP AS TOLD BY HIMSELF*

*I. HOW PIP HELPED THE CONVICT*

My father's family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer than Pip. So I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip.

I give Pirrip as my father's family name, on the authority of his tombstone and my sister--Mrs. Joe Gargery, who married the blacksmith. As I never saw my father or my mother, my first fancies regarding what they were like were unreasonably derived from their tombstones.

Ours was the marsh country down by the river, within twenty miles of the sea. My most vivid memory of these early days was of a raw evening about dusk. At such a time I found out for certain that this bleak spot where I chanced to be wandering all alone was the churchyard; that the low, leaden line beyond was the river; and that the small bundle of shivers growing afraid of it all and beginning to cry was myself--Pip.

"Hold your noise!" cried a terrible voice, as a man started up from among the graves at the side of the church porch.

He was a fearful looking man, clad in coarse gray, covered with mud and brambles, and with a great clanking chain upon his leg.

"Tell us your name!" said the man.

"Quick!"

"Pip, sir."

"Show us where you live," said the man. "P'int out the place!"

I pointed to where our village lay, on the flat in-shore among the trees a mile or more from the church.

The man, after looking at me for a moment, turned me upside-down and emptied my pockets. There was nothing in them but a piece of bread. When the church came to itself--for he was so sudden and strong that he made it go head-over-heels before me, and I saw the steeple under my feet--when the church came to itself, I say, I was seated on a high tombstone, trembling, while he ate the bread ravenously.

"You young dog," said the man, licking his lips, "what fat cheeks you ha' got."

I believe they were fat, though I was at that time undersized for my years, and not strong.

"Darn _me_ if I couldn't eat 'em," said the man, with a threatening shake of his head, "and if I ha'nt half a mind to't!"

I earnestly expressed my hope that he wouldn't, and held tighter to the tombstone on which he had put me; partly to keep myself upon it; partly to keep myself from crying.

"Now lookee here!" said the man. "Where's your mother?"

"There, sir!" said I.

He started, made a short run, and stopped and looked over his shoulder.

"There, sir!" I timidly explained, pointing to an inscription on a stone; "that's my mother."

"Oh!" said he, coming back. "And is that your father alonger your mother?"

"Yes, sir," said I; "him too; 'late of this parish.'"

"Ha!" he muttered then, considering. "Who d' ye live with--supposin' you're kindly let to live, which I ha'nt made up my mind about?"

"My sister, sir--Mrs. Joe Gargery--wife of Joe Gargery, the blacksmith, sir."

"Blacksmith, eh?" said he, and looked down at his leg.

After darkly looking at his leg and at me several times, he came closer to my tombstone, took me by both arms, and tilted me back as far as he could hold me, so that his eyes looked most powerfully down into mine, and mine looked most helplessly up into his.

"Now lookee here," he said, "the question being whether you're to be let to live. You know what a file is?"

"Yes, sir."

"And you know what wittles is?"

"Yes, sir."

After each question he tilted me over a little more, so as to give me a greater sense of helplessness and danger.

"You get me a file." He tilted me again. "And you get me some wittles. If you don't--!"

He tilted me again and shook me till my teeth chattered.

"In--indeed--I will, sir," said I, "if you will only let me go. I'll run all the way home."

"Well, see that you come back. But to-morrow morning will do--early--before day. I'll wait for you here."

As he released me, I needed no second bidding, but scurried away as fast as I could, and soon reached the blacksmith shop.

My sister, Mrs. Joe Gargery, was more than twenty years older than I, and had established a great reputation with herself and the neighbors because she had brought me up "by hand." Having at that time to find out for myself 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, easy-going, 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 behind with two loops, and having a bib in front that was stuck full of pins and needles.

Joe's forge adjoined our house, which was a wooden house, as many of the dwellings in our country were--most of them, at that time. When I ran home from the churchyard the forge was shut up, and Joe was sitting alone in the kitchen. Joe and I being fellow-sufferers, and having confidences as such, Joe imparted a confidence to me the moment I raised the latch of the door and peeped in at him opposite to it, sitting in the chimney corner.

"Mrs. Joe has been out a dozen times looking for you, Pip. And she's out now, making it a baker's dozen."

"Is she?"

"Yes, Pip," said Joe; "and what's worse, she's got Tickler with her."

At this dismal intelligence, I twisted the only button on my waistcoat round and round, and looked in great depression at the fire. Tickler was a wax-ended piece of cane, worn smooth by collision with my tickled frame.

"She sot down," said Joe, "and she got up, and she made a grab at Tickler, and she Rampaged out. That's what she did," said Joe, slowly clearing the fire between the lower bars with the poker, and looking at it; "she Rampaged out, Pip."

"Has she been gone long, Joe?" I always treated him as no more than my equal.

"Well," said Joe, glancing up at the Dutch clock, "she's been on the Rampage, this last spell, about five minutes, Pip. She's a coming! Get behind the door, old chap, and have the jack-towel betwixt you."

I took the advice. My sister, Mrs. Joe, throwing the door wide open, and finding an obstruction behind it, immediately divined the cause, and applied Tickler to its farther investigation.

"Where have you been?" she demanded, between tickles.

"I have only been to the churchyard," said I, crying and rubbing myself.

"Churchyard!" repeated my sister. "If it warn't for me you'd been to the churchyard long ago, and stayed there! Who brought you up by hand?"

My thoughts strayed from that question as I looked disconsolately at the fire. For the fugitive out on the marshes with the ironed leg, the file, the food, and the dreadful pledge I was under to steal, from under my sister's very roof, rose before me in the avenging coals.

"Ha!" said Mrs. Joe, restoring Tickler to his station. "Churchyard, indeed! You may well say churchyard, you two." (One of us, by the by, had not said it at all.) "You'll drive _me_ to the churchyard betwixt you, one of these days, and oh, a pr-r-recious pair you'd be without me!"

As she applied herself to set the tea-things, Joe peeped down at me over his leg, as if he were mentally calculating what kind of pair we should make, under such circumstances. After that, he sat feeling his right-side flaxen curls and whisker, and following Mrs. Joe about with his blue eyes, as his manner always was at squally times.

My sister had a sudden, severe way of cutting and buttering bread, which never varied. Now she ripped me off a section of loaf, bidding me eat and be thankful. Though I was hungry, I dared not eat; for she was a strict housekeeper who would miss any further slices, and I must not let that dreadful man out in the churchyard go hungry. So I resolved to put my hunk of bread and butter down the leg of my trousers--a plan which I presently found the chance to carry out.

It was Christmas Eve, and I had to stir the pudding for next day with a copper-stick. I tried it with the load upon my leg (and that made me think afresh of the man with the load on _his_ leg), and found the tendency of exercise to bring the bread-and-butter out at my ankle quite unmanageable. Happily, I slipped away and deposited that part of my conscience in my garret bedroom.

"Hark!" said I, when I had done my stirring, and was taking a final warm in the chimney corner before being sent up to bed; "was that great guns, Joe?"

"Ah!" said Joe. "There's another conwict off."

"What does that mean, Joe?" said I.

Mrs. Joe, who always took explanations upon herself, said snappishly, "Escaped. Escaped."

"There was a conwict off last night," added Joe, "after sunset-gun. And they fired warning of him. And now it appears they're firing warning of another."

"Who's firing?" said I.

"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."

It was not very polite to herself, I thought, as she always answered. But she never was polite, unless there was company.

Presently Joe said to me in a quiet kind of whisper. "Hulks, Pip; prison ships. They're firing because one of the thieves on the hulks is got away."

Thieves! Prison ships! And here I was planning to rob my sister of the bread and butter; and honest Joe of a file! Truly conscience is a fearful thing, yet there was no turning back for me.

That night the rest of the dreadful deed was done. Just before daybreak I crept out, carrying the file which I had found among Joe's tools, the slice of bread, and a pie which was too convenient in the pantry, and which I took in the hope it was not intended for early use and would not be missed for some time.

I found the man with the iron waiting for me, crouched behind a tombstone.

"Are you alone?" he asked hoarsely.

"Yes, sir."

"No one following you?"

"No, sir."

"Well," said he, "I believe you. Give me them wittles, quick."

I had often watched a large dog of ours eating his food; and I now noticed a decided similarity between the dog's way of eating and the man's. The man took strong, sharp, sudden bites, just like the dog. He swallowed, or rather snapped up, every mouthful, too soon and too fast; and he looked sideways here and there while he ate, as if he thought there was danger in every direction of somebody's coming to take the pie away.

"Now give us hold of the file, boy," he said, when he had finished swallowing.

I did so, and he bent to the iron like a madman, and began filing it away in quick, fierce rasps. I judged this a good time to slip away, and he paid no further attention to me. The last I heard of him, the file was still going.

"And where the mischief ha' you been?" was Mrs. Joe's Christmas salutation, when I and my conscience showed ourselves.

I said I had been down to hear the chimes.

"Ah, well!" observed Mrs. Joe. "You might ha' done worse."

Not a doubt of that, I thought.

We were to have a superb dinner--so Joe slyly told me--consisting of a leg of pork and greens, a pair of roast stuffed fowls, and a handsome pie which had been baked the day before.

I started when he spoke about the pie, but his blue eyes beamed upon me kindly.

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. On the present festive occasion he emerged from his room, when the blithe bells were ringing, the picture of misery, in a full suit of Sunday penitentials. As to me, I think my sister must have had some general idea that I was a young offender who must be punished each holy-day by being put into clothes so tight that I could on no account move my arms and legs without danger of something bursting.

Joe and I going to church, therefore, must have been a moving spectacle for compassionate minds. Yet, what I suffered outside was nothing to what I underwent within. The terrors that had assailed me whenever Mrs. Joe had gone near the pantry, or out of the room, were only to be equalled by the remorse with which my mind dwelt on what my hands had done. Under the weight of my wicked secret, I pondered whether even the Church would be powerful enough to shield me from the wrath to come.

Mr. Wopsle, the clerk at church, was to dine with us; and Mr. Hubble, the wheelwright, and Mrs. Hubble; and Uncle Pumblechook (Joe's uncle, but Mrs. Joe appropriated him), who was a well-to-do cornchandler in the nearest town, and drove his own chaise-cart. The dinner hour was half-past one.

When Joe and I got home, we found the table laid, and Mrs. Joe dressed, and the dinner dressing, and the front door unlocked (it never was at any other time) for the company to enter by, and everything most splendid. And still, not a word of the robbery.

Oh, the agony of that festive dinner! During each helping of my plate I ate mechanically, hardly daring to lift my eyes, and clutching frantically at the leg of the table for support. With each mouthful we drew nearer to that pie--and discovery! But as they chattered away, I felt a faint hope that they might perhaps forget the pie.

They did not, for presently my sister said to Joe, "Clean plates--cold."

I got a fresh hold on the table leg. I foresaw I was doomed.

"You must taste," said my sister, addressing the guests with her best grace, "you must finish with a pie, in honor of Uncle Pumblechook."

The company murmured their compliments. Uncle Pumblechook, sensible of having deserved well of his fellow-creatures, said,--quite vivaciously, all things considered,--"Well, Mrs. Joe, we'll do our best endeavors; let us have a cut at this same pie."

My sister went out to get it. I heard her steps proceed to the pantry. I saw Mr. Pumblechook balance his knife. I saw reawakening appetite in the Roman nostrils of Mr. Wopsle. I heard Mr. Hubble remark that "a bit of savory pie would lay atop of anything you could mention, and do no harm," and I heard Joe say "you shall have some, Pip." I have never been absolutely certain whether I uttered a shrill yell of terror, merely in spirit, or in the bodily hearing of the company. I felt that I could bear no more, and that I must run away. I released the leg of the table, and ran for my life.

But I ran no farther than the house door, for there I ran headforemost into a party of soldiers with their muskets, one of whom held out a pair of handcuffs to me, saying, "Here you are, look sharp, come on!"

The vision of a file of soldiers caused the dinner party to rise from the table in confusion, and caused Mrs. Joe, re-entering the kitchen empty-handed, to stop short and stare, in her wondering lament of "Gracious goodness, gracious me, what's gone--with the--pie!"

"Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen," said the sergeant, "but as I have mentioned at the door to this smart young shaver" (which he hadn't), "I am on a chase in the name of the king, and I want the blacksmith."

"And pray, what might you want with him?" retorted my sister, quick to resent his being wanted at all.

"Missis," returned the gallant sergeant, "speaking for myself, I should reply, the honor and pleasure of his fine wife's acquaintance; speaking for the king, I answer, a little job done."

This was received as rather neat in the sergeant; insomuch that Mr. Pumblechook cried audibly, "Good again!"

"You see, blacksmith," said the sergeant, who had by this time picked out Joe with his eye, "we have had an accident with these, and I find the lock of one of 'em goes wrong, and the coupling don't act pretty. As they are wanted for immediate service, will you throw your eye over them?"

Joe threw his eye over them, and pronounced that the job would necessitate the lighting of his forge fire, and would take nearer two hours than one.

"Will it? Then will you set about it at once, blacksmith," said the off-hand sergeant, "as it's on his Majesty's service. And if my men can bear a hand anywhere, they'll make themselves useful." With that, he called to his men, who came trooping into the kitchen one after another, and piled their arms in a corner.

All these things I saw without then knowing that I saw them, for I was in an agony of apprehension. But, beginning to perceive that the handcuffs were not for me, and that the military had so far got the better of the pie as to put it in the background, I collected a little more of my scattered wits.

The soldiers were out hunting for the convicts that had escaped. And as soon as Joe had mended the handcuffs, they fell in line and started again for the marshes. Joe caught an appealing look from me, and timidly asked if he and I might go along with them. The consent was given and away we went.

After a rough journey over bogs and through briars, a loud shout from the soldiers in front announced that one of the fugitives had been caught. We ran hastily up and peered into a ditch. It was my convict.

He was hustled into the handcuffs and hustled up a hill where stood a rough hut or sentry-box, and here we halted to rest.

My convict never looked at me, except once. While we were in the hut, he stood before the fire looking thoughtfully at it, or putting up his feet by turns upon the hob. Suddenly he turned to the sergeant and remarked:

"I wish to say something respecting this escape. It may prevent some persons laying under suspicion alonger me."

"You can say what you like," returned the sergeant, standing coolly looking at him with his arms folded, "but you have no call to say it here. You'll have opportunity enough to say about it, and hear about it, before it's done with, you know."

"I know, but this is another p'int, a separate matter. A man can't starve; at least _I_ can't. I took some wittles, up at the village over yonder--where the church stands a'most out on the marshes."

"You mean stole," said the sergeant.

"And I'll tell you where from. From the blacksmith's."

"Hallo!" said the sergeant, staring at Joe.

"Hallo, Pip!" said Joe, staring at me.

"It was some broken wittle--that's what it was--and a dram of liquor, and a pie."

"Have you happened to miss such an article as a pie, blacksmith?" asked the sergeant, confidentially.

"My wife did, at the very moment when you came in. Don't you know, Pip?"

"So," said my convict, turning his eyes on Joe in a moody manner, and without the least glance at me; "so you're the blacksmith, are you? Then I'm sorry to say I've eat your pie."

"God knows you're welcome to it--so far as it was ever mine," returned Joe, with a saving remembrance of Mrs. Joe. "We don't know what you have done, but we wouldn't have you starve to death for it, poor miserable fellow-creatur. Would us, Pip?"

Something that I had noticed before clicked in the man's throat again, and he turned his back. The boat had returned, and his guard were ready, so we followed him to the landing-place made of rough stakes and stones, and saw him put into the boat, which was rowed by a crew of convicts like himself. No one seemed surprised to see him, but they looked at him stolidly and rowed him back to the hulks as a matter of course.

My state of mind regarding the pie was curious. I do not recall that I felt any tenderness of conscience in reference to Mrs. Joe, when the fear of being found out was lifted off me. But I loved Joe--perhaps for no better reason in those early days than because the dear fellow let me love him--and, as to him, my inner self was not so easily composed. It was much upon my mind (particularly when I first saw him looking about for his file) that I ought to tell Joe the whole truth. Yet I did not, and for the reason that I mistrusted that if I did he would think me worse than I was. The fear of losing Joe's confidence and of thenceforth sitting in the chimney corner at night staring drearily at my forever lost companion and friend, tied up my tongue. And so the whole truth never came out.

*II. PIP AND ESTELLA*

At this time I was only an errand boy around the forge, and my education was limited to spelling out the names on the tombstones. So in the evenings they sent me to school to Mr. Wopsle's aunt, a worthy woman who used to go to sleep regularly from six to seven while her small class was supposed to study.

But I was lucky enough to find a friend in her granddaughter, Biddy. She was about my own age, and, while her shoes were generally untied and her hands sometimes dirty, her heart was in the right place and she had a good head. So with her help I struggled through my letters as if they had been a bramble-bush, getting considerably worried and scratched by each letter in turn. Then came the dreaded nine figures to add to my troubles. But at last I learned to read and cipher.

I do not know which was the prouder, Joe or I, when I wrote him my first letter (which was hardly needed, as he sat beside me while I wrote it).

"I say, Pip, old chap!" he cried, opening his eyes very wide, "what a scholar you are! Ain't you?"

"I should like to be," I answered, looking at the slate with satisfaction.

Mrs. Joe made occasional trips with Uncle Pumblechook on market-days, to assist him in buying such household stuffs and goods as required a woman's judgment; Uncle Pumblechook being a bachelor and reposing no confidences in his domestic servant. On this particular evening she came home from such a trip, bringing Uncle Pumblechook with her.

"Now," said she, unwrapping herself with haste and excitement, and throwing her bonnet back on her shoulders where it hung by the strings, "if this boy ain't grateful this night, he never will be!"

I looked as grateful as any boy possibly could, who was wholly uninformed why he ought to assume that expression.

"You have heard of Miss Havisham up town, haven't you?" continued my sister, addressing Joe. "She wants this boy to go and play there. And of course he's going. And he had _better_ play there," said my sister, shaking her head at me as an encouragement to be extremely light and sportive, "or I'll work him!"

I had heard of Miss Havisham up town--everybody for miles round had heard of Miss Havisham up town--as an immensely rich and grim lady who lived in a large and dismal house barricaded against robbers, and who led a life of seclusion.

"Well to be sure!" said Joe, astounded. "I wonder how she come to know Pip!"

"Noodle!" cried my sister. "Who said she knew him? Couldn't she ask Uncle Pumblechook if he knew of a boy to go and play there? And couldn't Uncle Pumblechook, being always considerate and thoughtful of us, mention this boy that I have been a willing slave to? And couldn't Uncle Pumblechook, being sensible that for anything we can tell, this boy's fortune may be made by his going to Miss Havisham's, offer to take him into town to-night in his own chaise-cart, and to keep him to-night, and to take him with his own hands to Miss Havisham's to-morrow morning? And Lor-a-mussy me!" cried my sister, casting off her bonnet in sudden desperation, "here I stand talking to mere Mooncalfs, with Uncle Pumblechook waiting, and the mare catching cold at the door, and the boy grimed with dirt from the hair of his head to the sole of his foot!"

With that, she pounced on me, like an eagle on a lamb, and my face was squeezed into wooden bowls in sinks, and my head was put under taps of water-butts, and I was soaped and kneaded, and towelled, and thumped, and harrowed, and rasped, until I really was quite beside myself.

When my ablutions were completed, I was put into clean linen of the stiffest character, like a young penitent into sackcloth, and was trussed up in my tightest and fearfullest suit. I was then delivered over to Mr. Pumblechook, who formally received me as if he were the Sheriff, saying pompously, "Boy, be forever grateful to all friends, but especially unto them which brought you up by hand!"

"Good-bye, Joe!"

"God bless you, Pip, old chap!"

I had never parted from him before, and what with my feelings and what with soap-suds, I could at first see no stars from the chaise-cart. But they twinkled out one by one, without throwing any light on the questions as to why on earth I was going to play at Miss Havisham's, and what on earth I was expected to play at.

I spent the night at Uncle Pumblechook's, and the next morning after breakfast we proceeded to Miss Havisham's. It was a dismal looking house with a great many iron bars to it. Some of the windows had been walled up, and the others were rustily barred. There was a courtyard in front, which was also barred; so we had to wait, after ringing the bell, for some one to open it.

Presently a window was raised, and a clear voice demanded, "What name?"

"Pumblechook," was the reply.

The voice returned, "Quite right," and the window was shut again, and a young lady came across the courtyard, with keys in her hand.

"This," said Mr. Pumblechook, "is Pip."

"This is Pip, is it?" returned the young lady, who was very pretty and seemed very proud; "come in, Pip."

Mr. Pumblechook was coming in also, when she stopped him with the gate.

"Oh!" she said. "Did you wish to see Miss Havisham?"

"If Miss Havisham wished to see me," returned Mr. Pumblechook, discomfited.

"Ah!" said the girl; "but you see she don't."

She said it so finally, and in such an undiscussible way, that Mr. Pumblechook, though in a condition of ruffled dignity, could not protest.

We went into the house by a side door--the great front entrance had two chains across it outside--and the first thing I noticed was that the passages were all dark, and that she had left a candle burning there. She took it up, and we went through more passages and up a staircase, and still it was all dark, and only the candle lighted us.

At last we came to the door of a room and she said, "Go in."

I answered, more in shyness than politeness, "After you, miss."

To this she returned, "Don't be ridiculous, boy; I am not going in." And scornfully walked away, and--what was worse--took the candle with her.

This was very uncomfortable, and I was half afraid. However, the only thing to do being to knock at the door, I knocked, and was told from within to enter. I entered, therefore, and found myself in a pretty large room, well lighted with wax candles. No glimpse of daylight was to be seen in it. It was a dressing-room, as I supposed from the furniture, though much of it was of forms and uses then quite unknown to me. But prominent in it was a draped table with a gilded looking-glass, and that I made out at first sight to be a fine lady's dressing-table.

In an arm-chair, with an elbow resting on the table and her head leaning on that hand, sat the strangest lady I have ever seen, or shall ever see.

She was dressed in rich materials,--satins and lace and silks,--all of white. Her shoes were white. And she had a long white veil dependent from her hair, and she had bridal flowers in her hair, but her hair was white. Some bright jewels sparkled on her neck and on her hands, and some other jewels lay sparkling on the table. Dresses, less splendid than the dress she wore, and half-packed trunks, were scattered about. She had not quite finished dressing, for she had but one shoe on,--the other was on the table near her hand,--her veil was but half arranged, her watch and chain were not put on, and her handkerchief, gloves, some flowers, and a prayer-book lay confusedly heaped about the looking-glass.

"Who is it?" said the lady at the table.

"Pip, ma'am."

"Pip?"

"Mr. Pumblechook's boy, ma'am. Come--to play."

"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."

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

I looked foolish and bewildered, not knowing what to do.

"I sometimes have sick fancies," she went on, "and I have a sick fancy that I want to see some play. There, there!" with an impatient movement of the fingers of her right hand; "play, play, play!"

For a moment, with the fear of my sister's working me before my eyes, I had a desperate idea of starting round the room in the assumed character of Mr. Pumblechook's chaise-cart. But I felt myself so unequal to the performance that I gave it up, and stood looking at Miss Havisham in what I suppose she took for a dogged manner, inasmuch as she said, when we had taken a good look at each other,

"Are you sullen and obstinate?"

"No, ma'am, I am very sorry for you, and very sorry I can't play just now. If you complain of me I shall get into trouble with my sister, so I would do it if I could; but it's so new here, and so strange, and so fine, and melancholy--" I stopped, fearing I might say too much.

"Call Estella," she commanded, looking at me. "You can do that."

To stand in a strange house calling a scornful young lady by her first name was almost as bad as playing to order. But she answered at last.

"My dear," said Miss Havisham, "let me see you play cards with this boy."

"What do you play, boy?" asked Estella, with the greatest disdain.

"Nothing but 'beggar my neighbor,' Miss."

"Beggar him," said Miss Havisham to Estella. So we sat down to cards.

It was then I began to understand that everything in the room had stopped, with the watch and the clock, a long time ago. I noticed that Miss Havisham put down the jewel exactly on the spot from which she had taken it up. As Estella dealt the cards, I glanced at the dressing-table again, and saw that the shoe upon it, once white, now yellow, had never been worn.

"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 now I began to consider them. Her contempt for me was so strong that 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.

"You say nothing of her," remarked Miss Havisham to me, as she looked on. "She says many hard things of you, but you say nothing of her. What do you think of her?"

"I don't like to say," I stammered.

"Tell me in my ear," said Miss Havisham, bending down.

"I think she is very proud," I replied, in a whisper.

"Anything else?"

"I think she is very pretty."

"Anything else?"

"I think she is very insulting." (She was looking at me then with a look of supreme aversion.)

"Anything else?"

"I think I should like to go home."

"You shall go soon," said Miss Havisham aloud; "play the game out."

I played the game to an end with Estella, and she beggared me. She threw the cards down on the table when she had won them all, as if she despised them for having been won of me.

"When shall I have you here again?" said Miss Havisham. "Let me think. I know nothing of days of the week, or of weeks of the year. Come again after six days. You hear?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Estella, take him down. Let him have something to eat, and let him roam and look about him while he eats. Go, Pip."

I followed the candle down, as I had followed the candle up, and she stood it in the place where we had found it. Until she opened the side entrance, I had fancied, without thinking about it, that it must necessarily be night-time. The rush of the daylight quite confounded me, and made me feel as if I had been in the candle-light of the strange room many hours.

When I reached home, my sister was very curious to know all about Miss Havisham and what I had seen and done at her house. Uncle Pumblechook, too, came hurrying over, armed with many questions.

I was naturally a truthful boy--as boys go--but I knew instinctively that I could not make myself understood about that strange visit. So I didn't try. When he fired his first question, as to What was Miss Havisham like?

"Very tall and dark," I told him.

"Is she, uncle?" asked my sister.

Mr. Pumblechook winked assent; from which I at once inferred that he had never seen Miss Havisham, for she was nothing of the kind.

"Good!" said Mr. Pumblechook conceitedly. "Now, boy! What was she a doing of when you went in to-day?" he continued.

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

Mr. Pumblechook and Mrs. Joe stared at one another--as they well might--and both repeated, "In a black velvet coach?"

"Yes," said I. "And Miss Estella--that's her niece, I think--handed her in cake and wine at the coach-window, on a gold plate. And we all had cake and wine on gold plates. And I got up behind the coach to eat mine, because she told me to."

"Was anybody else there?" asked Mr. Pumblechook.

"Four dogs," said I.

"Large or small?"

"Immense," said I. "And they fought for veal cutlets out of a silver basket."

Mr. Pumblechook and Mrs. Joe stared at one another again in utter amazement. I was perfectly frantic--a reckless witness under the torture--and would have told them anything.

"Where _was_ this coach, in the name of gracious?" asked my sister.

"In Miss Havisham's room." They stared again. "But there weren't any horses to it." I added this saving clause, in the moment of rejecting four richly caparisoned coursers which I had had wild thoughts of harnessing.

"Can this be possible, uncle?" asked Mrs. Joe. "What can the boy mean?"

"I'll tell you, Mum," said Mr. Pumblechook. "My opinion is, it's a sedan-chair. She's flighty, you know--very flighty--quite flighty enough to pass her days in a sedan-chair."

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

"How could I?" he returned, forced to the admission, "when I never see her in my life. Never clapped eyes upon her!"

"Goodness, uncle! And yet you have spoken to her!"

"Just through the door," he replied testily. "Now, boy, what did you play?"

"We played with flags."

"Flags!" echoed my sister.

"Yes," said I. "Estella waved a blue flag, and I waved a red one, and Miss Havisham waved one sprinkled all over with little gold stars, out at the coach-window. And then we all waved our swords and hurrahed."

"Swords!" repeated my sister. "Where did you get swords from?"

"Out of a cupboard," said I. "And I saw pistols in it--and jam--and pills. And there was no daylight in the room, but it was all lighted up with candles."

"That's true, Mum," said Mr. Pumblechook, with a grave nod. "That's the state of the case, for that much I've seen myself." And then they both stared at me, and I at them, and plaited the right leg of my trousers with my right hand.

If they had asked me any more questions I should undoubtedly have betrayed myself, for I was even then on the point of mentioning that there was a balloon in the yard, and should have hazarded the statement but for my invention being divided between that phenomenon and a bear. They were so much occupied, however, in discussing the marvels I had already presented for their consideration, that I escaped. The subject still held them when Joe came in from his work to have a cup of tea. To whom my sister, more for the relief of her own mind than for the gratification of his, related my pretended experiences.

Now, when I saw Joe open his blue eyes and roll them all round the kitchen in helpless amazement, I was overtaken by penitence; but only as regarded him--not in the least as regarded the other two. Towards Joe, and Joe only, I considered myself a young monster, while they sat debating what results would come to me from Miss Havisham's acquaintance and favor. They had no doubt that Miss Havisham would "do something" for me; their doubts related to the form that something would take. My sister stood out for "property." Mr. Pumblechook was in favor of a handsome premium for binding me apprentice to some genteel trade,--say, the corn and seed trade, for instance. Joe fell into the deepest disgrace with both, for offering the bright suggestion that I might only be presented with one of the dogs who had fought for the veal cutlets. "If a fool's head can't express better opinions than that," said my sister, "and you have got any work to do, you had better go and do it." So he went.

After Mr. Pumblechook had driven off, and when my sister was washing up, I stole into the forge to Joe, and remained by him until he had done for the night. Then I said, "Before the fire goes out, Joe, I should like to tell you something."

"Should you, Pip?" said Joe, drawing his shoeing-stool near the forge. "Then tell us. What is it, Pip?"

"Joe," said I, taking hold of his rolled-up shirt sleeve, and twisting it between my finger and thumb, "you remember all that about Miss Havisham's?"

"Remember?" said Joe. "I believe you! Wonderful!"

"It's a terrible thing, Joe; it ain't true."

"What are you telling of, Pip?" cried Joe, falling back in the greatest amazement. "You don't mean to say it's--"

"Yes, I do; it's lies, Joe."

"But not all of it? Why sure you don't mean to say, Pip, that there was no black welwet co--ch?" For, I stood shaking my head. "But at least there was dogs, Pip? Come, Pip," said Joe persuasively, "if there warn't no weal cutlets, at least there was dogs?"

"No, Joe."

"_A_ dog?" said Joe. "A puppy? Come?"

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

As I fixed my eyes hopelessly on Joe, Joe contemplated me in dismay. "Pip, old chap! This won't do, old fellow! I say! Where do you expect to go to?"

"It's terrible, Joe; ain't it?"

"Terrible?" cried Joe. "Awful! What possessed you?"

"I don't know what possessed me, Joe," I replied, letting his shirt sleeve go, and sitting down in the ashes at his feet, hanging my head; "but I wish you hadn't taught me to call knaves at cards, Jacks; and I wish my boots weren't so thick nor my hands so coarse."

And then I told Joe that I felt very miserable, and that I hadn't been able to explain myself to Mrs. Joe and Pumblechook, and that there had been a beautiful young lady at Miss Havisham's who was dreadfully proud, and that she had said I was common, and much more to that effect.

"There's one thing you maybe 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. Likewise you're a oncommon scholar."

"No, I am ignorant and backward, Joe."

"Why, see what a letter you wrote last night. Wrote in print even! I've seen letters--Ah! and from gentlefolks!--that I'll swear weren't wrote in print," said Joe.

"I have learnt next to nothing, Joe. You think much of me. It's only that."

"Well, Pip," said Joe, "be it so or be it son't, you must be a common scholar afore you can be a oncommon one, I should hope! The king upon his throne, with his crown upon his 'ed, can't sit and write his acts of Parliament in print, without having begun, when he were a unpromoted prince, with the alphabet--Ah!" added Joe, with a shake of the head that was full of meaning, "and begun at A too, and worked his way to Z!"

There was some hope in this piece of wisdom, and it rather encouraged me.

"You're not angry with me, Joe?"

"No, old chap. But you might bear in mind about them dog fights and weal cutlets when you say your prayers to-night. That's all, old chap, and don't never do it no more."

*III. HOW PIP FELL HEIR TO GREAT EXPECTATIONS*

The happy idea occurred to me a morning or two later when I woke, that the best step I could take towards making myself uncommon was to get out of Biddy everything she knew. In pursuance of this idea, I mentioned to Biddy, when I went to Mr. Wopsle's aunt's at night, that I had a particular reason for wishing to get on in life, and that I should feel very much obliged to her if she would impart all her learning to me. Biddy, who was the most obliging of girls, immediately said she would, and indeed began to carry out her promise within five minutes.

The books at the school were few and ragged, but we attacked them all valiantly during the course of the winter, and even refreshed our budding minds with newspaper scraps. And with every new piece of knowledge I could fancy myself saying to Miss Estella, "Now am I common?"

At the appointed time I returned to Miss Havisham's, and my hesitating ring at the gate brought out Estella.

"You are to come this way to-day," she said after admitting me, and took me to quite another part of the house.

We went in at a door, which stood open, and into a gloomy room with a low ceiling on the ground floor at the back. There was some company in the room, and Estella said to me as she joined it, "You are to go and stand there, boy, till you are wanted." "There," being the window, I crossed to it, and stood "there," in a very uncomfortable state of mind, looking out.