"You acted noble, my boy," said he. "Noble, Pip! And I have neverforgot it!"

At a change in his manner as if he were even going to embrace me, Ilaid a hand upon his breast and put him away.

"Stay!" said I. "Keep off! If you are grateful to me for what I didwhen I was a little child, I hope you have shown your gratitude bymending your way of life. If you have come here to thank me, it wasnot necessary. Still, however you have found me out, there must besomething good in the feeling that has brought you here, and I willnot repulse you; but surely you must understand that - I--"

My attention was so attracted by the singularity of his fixed lookat me, that the words died away on my tongue.

"You was a saying," he observed, when we had confronted one anotherin silence, "that surely I must understand. What, surely must Iunderstand?"

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

He had replaced his neckerchief loosely, and had stood, keenlyobservant of me, biting a long end of it. "I think," he answered,still with the end at his mouth and still observant of me, "that Iwill drink (I thank you) afore I go."

There was a tray ready on a side-table. I brought it to the tablenear the fire, and asked him what he would have? He touched one ofthe bottles without looking at it or speaking, and I made him somehot rum-and-water. I tried to keep my hand steady while I did so,but his look at me as he leaned back in his chair with the longdraggled end of his neckerchief between his teeth - evidentlyforgotten - made my hand very difficult to master. When at last Iput the glass to him, I saw with amazement that his eyes were fullof tears.

Up to this time I had remained standing, not to disguise that Iwished him gone. But I was softened by the softened aspect of theman, and felt a touch of reproach. "I hope," said I, hurriedlyputting something into a glass for myself, and drawing a chair tothe table, "that you will not think I spoke harshly to you justnow. I had no intention of doing it, and I am sorry for it if Idid. I wish you well, and happy!"

As I put my glass to my lips, he glanced with surprise at the endof his neckerchief, dropping from his mouth when he opened it, andstretched out his hand. I gave him mine, and then he drank, anddrew his sleeve across his eyes and forehead.

"How are you living?" I asked him.

"I've been a sheep-farmer, stock-breeder, other trades besides,away in the new world," said he: "many a thousand mile of stormywater off from this."

"I hope you have done well?"

"I've done wonderfully well. There's others went out alonger me ashas done well too, but no man has done nigh as well as me. I'mfamous for it."

"I am glad to hear it."

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

Without stopping to try to understand those words or the tone inwhich they were spoken, I turned off to a point that had just comeinto my mind.

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

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

"He came faithfully, and he brought me the two one-pound notes. Iwas a poor boy then, as you know, and to a poor boy they were alittle fortune. But, like you, I have done well since, and you mustlet me pay them back. You can put them to some other poor boy'suse." I took out my purse.

He watched me as I laid my purse upon the table and opened it, andhe watched me as I separated two one-pound notes from its contents.They were clean and new, and I spread them out and handed them overto him. Still watching me, he laid them one upon the other, foldedthem long-wise, gave them a twist, set fire to them at the lamp,and dropped the ashes into the tray.

"May I make so bold," he said then, with a smile that was like afrown, and with a frown that was like a smile, "as ask you how youhave done well, since you and me was out on them lone shiveringmarshes?"

"How?"

"Ah!"

He emptied his glass, got up, and stood at the side of the fire,with his heavy brown hand on the mantelshelf. He put a foot up tothe bars, to dry and warm it, and the wet boot began to steam; but,he neither looked at it, nor at the fire, but steadily looked atme. It was only now that I began to tremble.

When my lips had parted, and had shaped some words that werewithout sound, I forced myself to tell him (though I could not doit distinctly), that I had been chosen to succeed to some property.

"Might a mere warmint ask what property?" said he.

I faltered, "I don't know."

"Might a mere warmint ask whose property?" said he.

I faltered again, "I don't know."

"Could I make a guess, I wonder," said the Convict, "at your incomesince you come of age! As to the first figure now. Five?"

With my heart beating like a heavy hammer of disordered action, Irose out of my chair, and stood with my hand upon the back of it,looking wildly at him.

"Concerning a guardian," he went on. "There ought to have been someguardian, or such-like, whiles you was a minor. Some lawyer, maybe.As to the first letter of that lawyer's name now. Would it be J?"

All the truth of my position came flashing on me; and itsdisappointments, dangers, disgraces, consequences of all kinds,rushed in in such a multitude that I was borne down by them and hadto struggle for every breath I drew.

"Put it," he resumed, "as the employer of that lawyer whose namebegun with a J, and might be Jaggers - put it as he had come oversea to Portsmouth, and had landed there, and had wanted to come onto you. 'However, you have found me out,' you says just now. Well!However, did I find you out? Why, I wrote from Portsmouth to aperson in London, for particulars of your address. That person'sname? Why, Wemmick."

I could not have spoken one word, though it had been to save mylife. I stood, with a hand on the chair-back and a hand on mybreast, where I seemed to be suffocating - I stood so, lookingwildly at him, until I grasped at the chair, when the room began tosurge and turn. He caught me, drew me to the sofa, put me upagainst the cushions, and bent on one knee before me: bringing theface that I now well remembered, and that I shuddered at, very nearto mine.

"Yes, Pip, dear boy, I've made a gentleman on you! It's me wot hasdone it! I swore that time, sure as ever I earned a guinea, thatguinea should go to you. I swore arterwards, sure as ever Ispec'lated and got rich, you should get rich. I lived rough, thatyou should live smooth; I worked hard, that you should be abovework. What odds, dear boy? Do I tell it, fur you to feel aobligation? Not a bit. I tell it, fur you to know as that therehunted dunghill dog wot you kep life in, got his head so high thathe could make a gentleman - and, Pip, you're him!"

The abhorrence in which I held the man, the dread I had of him, therepugnance with which I shrank from him, could not have beenexceeded if he had been some terrible beast.

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

In his heat and triumph, and in his knowledge that I had beennearly fainting, he did not remark on my reception of all this. Itwas the one grain of relief I had.

"Look'ee here!" he went on, taking my watch out of my pocket, andturning towards him a ring on my finger, while I recoiled from histouch as if he had been a snake, "a gold 'un and a beauty: that's agentleman's, I hope! A diamond all set round with rubies; that's agentleman's, I hope! Look at your linen; fine and beautiful! Lookat your clothes; better ain't to be got! And your books too,"turning his eyes round the room, "mounting up, on their shelves, byhundreds! And you read 'em; don't you? I see you'd been a readingof 'em when I come in. Ha, ha, ha! You shall read 'em to me, dearboy! And if they're in foreign languages wot I don't understand, Ishall be just as proud as if I did."

Again he took both my hands and put them to his lips, while myblood ran cold within me.

"Don't you mind talking, Pip," said he, after again drawing hissleeve over his eyes and forehead, as the click came in his throatwhich I well remembered - and he was all the more horrible to methat he was so much in earnest; "you can't do better nor keepquiet, dear boy. You ain't looked slowly forward to this as I have;you wosn't prepared for this, as I wos. But didn't you never thinkit might be me?"

"O no, no, no," I returned, "Never, never!"

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

"Was there no one else?" I asked.

"No," said he, with a glance of surprise: "who else should therebe? And, dear boy, how good looking you have growed! There's brighteyes somewheres - eh? Isn't there bright eyes somewheres, wot youlove the thoughts on?"

O Estella, Estella!

"They shall be yourn, dear boy, if money can buy 'em. Not that agentleman like you, so well set up as you, can't win 'em off of hisown game; but money shall back you! Let me finish wot I was a-telling you, dear boy. From that there hut and that therehiring-out, I got money left me by my master (which died, and hadbeen the same as me), and got my liberty and went for myself. Inevery single thing I went for, I went for you. 'Lord strike ablight upon it,' I says, wotever it was I went for, 'if it ain'tfor him!' It all prospered wonderful. As I giv' you to understandjust now, I'm famous for it. It was the money left me, and thegains of the first few year wot I sent home to Mr. Jaggers - all foryou - when he first come arter you, agreeable to my letter."

O, that he had never come! That he had left me at the forge - farfrom contented, yet, by comparison happy!

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

He laid his hand on my shoulder. I shuddered at the thought thatfor anything I knew, his hand might be stained with blood.

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

I tried to collect my thoughts, but I was stunned. Throughout, Ihad seemed to myself to attend more to the wind and the rain thanto him; even now, I could not separate his voice from those voices,though those were loud and his was silent.

"Where will you put me?" he asked, presently. "I must be putsomewheres, dear boy."

"To sleep?" said I.

"Yes. And to sleep long and sound," he answered; "for I've beensea-tossed and sea-washed, months and months."

"My friend and companion," said I, rising from the sofa, "isabsent; you must have his room."

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

"No," said I, answering almost mechanically, in spite of my utmostefforts; "not to-morrow."

"Because, look'ee here, dear boy," he said, dropping his voice, andlaying a long finger on my breast in an impressive manner, "cautionis necessary."

"How do you mean? Caution?"

"By G - , it's Death!"

"What's death?"

"I was sent for life. It's death to come back. There's beenovermuch coming back of late years, and I should of a certainty behanged if took."

Nothing was needed but this; the wretched man, after loadingwretched me with his gold and silver chains for years, had riskedhis life to come to me, and I held it there in my keeping! If I hadloved him instead of abhorring him; if I had been attracted to himby the strongest admiration and affection, instead of shrinkingfrom him with the strongest repugnance; it could have been noworse. On the contrary, it would have been better, for hispreservation would then have naturally and tenderly addressed myheart.

Title: Great Expectations
Author: Charles Dickens
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