My first care was to close the shutters, so that no light might beseen from without, and then to close and make fast the doors. WhileI did so, he stood at the table drinking rum and eating biscuit;and when I saw him thus engaged, I saw my convict on the marshes athis meal again. It almost seemed to me as if he must stoop downpresently, to file at his leg.

When I had gone into Herbert's room, and had shut off any othercommunication between it and the staircase than through the room inwhich our conversation had been held, I asked him if he would go tobed? He said yes, but asked me for some of my "gentleman's linen"to put on in the morning. I brought it out, and laid it ready forhim, and my blood again ran cold when he again took me by bothhands to give me good night.

I got away from him, without knowing how I did it, and mended thefire in the room where we had been together, and sat down by it,afraid to go to bed. For an hour or more, I remained too stunned tothink; and it was not until I began to think, that I began fully toknow how wrecked I was, and how the ship in which I had sailed wasgone to pieces.

Miss Havisham's intentions towards me, all a mere dream; Estellanot designed for me; I only suffered in Satis House as aconvenience, a sting for the greedy relations, a model with amechanical heart to practise on when no other practice was at hand;those were the first smarts I had. But, sharpest and deepest painof all - it was for the convict, guilty of I knew not what crimes,and liable to be taken out of those rooms where I sat thinking, andhanged at the Old Bailey door, that I had deserted Joe.

I would not have gone back to Joe now, I would not have gone backto Biddy now, for any consideration: simply, I suppose, because mysense of my own worthless conduct to them was greater than everyconsideration. No wisdom on earth could have given me the comfortthat I should have derived from their simplicity and fidelity; butI could never, never, undo what I had done.

In every rage of wind and rush of rain, I heard pursuers. Twice, Icould have sworn there was a knocking and whispering at the outerdoor. With these fears upon me, I began either to imagine or recallthat I had had mysterious warnings of this man's approach. That,for weeks gone by, I had passed faces in the streets which I hadthought like his. That, these likenesses had grown more numerous,as he, coming over the sea, had drawn nearer. That, his wickedspirit had somehow sent these messengers to mine, and that now onthis stormy night he was as good as his word, and with me.

Crowding up with these reflections came the reflection that I hadseen him with my childish eyes to be a desperately violent man;that I had heard that other convict reiterate that he had tried tomurder him; that I had seen him down in the ditch tearing andfighting like a wild beast. Out of such remembrances I brought intothe light of the fire, a half-formed terror that it might not besafe to be shut up there with him in the dead of the wild solitarynight. This dilated until it filled the room, and impelled me totake a candle and go in and look at my dreadful burden.

He had rolled a handkerchief round his head, and his face was setand lowering in his sleep. But he was asleep, and quietly too,though he had a pistol lying on the pillow. Assured of this, Isoftly removed the key to the outside of his door, and turned it onhim before I again sat down by the fire. Gradually I slipped fromthe chair and lay on the floor. When I awoke, without having partedin my sleep with the perception of my wretchedness, the clocks ofthe Eastward churches were striking five, the candles were wastedout, the fire was dead, and the wind and rain intensified the thickblack darkness.

THIS IS THE END OF THE SECOND STAGE OF PIP'S EXPECTATIONS.

Chapter 40

It was fortunate for me that I had to take precautions to ensure(so far as I could) the safety of my dreaded visitor; for, thisthought pressing on me when I awoke, held other thoughts in aconfused concourse at a distance.

The impossibility of keeping him concealed in the chambers wasself-evident. It could not be done, and the attempt to do it wouldinevitably engender suspicion. True, I had no Avenger in my servicenow, but I was looked after by an inflammatory old female, assistedby an animated rag-bag whom she called her niece, and to keep aroom secret from them would be to invite curiosity andexaggeration. They both had weak eyes, which I had long attributedto their chronically looking in at keyholes, and they were alwaysat hand when not wanted; indeed that was their only reliablequality besides larceny. Not to get up a mystery with these people,I resolved to announce in the morning that my uncle hadunexpectedly come from the country.

This course I decided on while I was yet groping about in thedarkness for the means of getting a light. Not stumbling on themeans after all, I was fain to go out to the adjacent Lodge and getthe watchman there to come with his lantern. Now, in groping my waydown the black staircase I fell over something, and that somethingwas a man crouching in a corner.

As the man made no answer when I asked him what he did there, buteluded my touch in silence, I ran to the Lodge and urged thewatchman to come quickly: telling him of the incident on the wayback. The wind being as fierce as ever, we did not care to endangerthe light in the lantern by rekindling the extinguished lamps onthe staircase, but we examined the staircase from the bottom to thetop and found no one there. It then occurred to me as possible thatthe man might have slipped into my rooms; so, lighting my candle atthe watchman's, and leaving him standing at the door, I examinedthem carefully, including the room in which my dreaded guest layasleep. All was quiet, and assuredly no other man was in thosechambers.

It troubled me that there should have been a lurker on the stairs,on that night of all nights in the year, and I asked the watchman,on the chance of eliciting some hopeful explanation as I handed hima dram at the door, whether he had admitted at his gate anygentleman who had perceptibly been dining out? Yes, he said; atdifferent times of the night, three. One lived in Fountain Court,and the other two lived in the Lane, and he had seen them all gohome. Again, the only other man who dwelt in the house of which mychambers formed a part, had been in the country for some weeks; andhe certainly had not returned in the night, because we had seen hisdoor with his seal on it as we came up-stairs.

"The night being so bad, sir," said the watchman, as he gave meback my glass, "uncommon few have come in at my gate. Besides themthree gentlemen that I have named, I don't call to mind anothersince about eleven o'clock, when a stranger asked for you."

"My uncle," I muttered. "Yes."

"You saw him, sir?"

"Yes. Oh yes."

"Likewise the person with him?"

"Person with him!" I repeated.

"I judged the person to be with him," returned the watchman. "Theperson stopped, when he stopped to make inquiry of me, and theperson took this way when he took this way."

"What sort of person?"

The watchman had not particularly noticed; he should say a workingperson; to the best of his belief, he had a dust-coloured kind ofclothes on, under a dark coat. The watchman made more light of thematter than I did, and naturally; not having my reason forattaching weight to it.

When I had got rid of him, which I thought it well to do withoutprolonging explanations, my mind was much troubled by these twocircumstances taken together. Whereas they were easy of innocentsolution apart - as, for instance, some diner-out or diner-at-home,who had not gone near this watchman's gate, might have strayed tomy staircase and dropped asleep there - and my nameless visitormight have brought some one with him to show him the way - still,joined, they had an ugly look to one as prone to distrust and fearas the changes of a few hours had made me.

I lighted my fire, which burnt with a raw pale flare at that timeof the morning, and fell into a doze before it. I seemed to havebeen dozing a whole night when the clocks struck six. As there wasfull an hour and a half between me and daylight, I dozed again;now, waking up uneasily, with prolix conversations about nothing,in my ears; now, making thunder of the wind in the chimney; atlength, falling off into a profound sleep from which the daylightwoke me with a start.

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 wasgreatly dejected and distressed, but in an incoherent wholesalesort of way. As to forming any plan for the future, I could as soonhave formed an elephant. When I opened the shutters and looked outat the wet wild morning, all of a leaden hue; when I walked fromroom to room; when I sat down again shivering, before the fire,waiting for my laundress to appear; I thought how miserable I was,but hardly knew why, or how long I had been so, or on what day ofthe week I made the reflection, or even who I was that made it.

At last, the old woman and the niece came in - the latter with ahead not easily distinguishable from her dusty broom - andtestified surprise at sight of me and the fire. To whom I impartedhow my uncle had come in the night and was then asleep, and how thebreakfast preparations were to be modified accordingly. Then, Iwashed and dressed while they knocked the furniture about and madea dust; and so, in a sort of dream or sleep-waking, I found myselfsitting by the fire again, waiting for - Him - to come tobreakfast.

By-and-by, his door opened and he came out. I could not bringmyself to bear the sight of him, and I thought he had a worse lookby daylight.

"I do not even know," said I, speaking low as he took his seat atthe table, "by what name to call you. I have given out that you aremy uncle."

"That's it, dear boy! Call me uncle."

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

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

"Do you mean to keep that name?"

"Why, yes, dear boy, it's as good as another - unless you'd likeanother."

"What is your real name?" I asked him in a whisper.

"Magwitch," he answered, in the same tone; "chrisen'd Abel."

"What were you brought up to be?"

"A warmint, dear boy."

He answered quite seriously, and used the word as if it denotedsome profession.

"When you came into the Temple last night--" said I, pausing towonder whether that could really have been last night, which seemedso long ago.

"Yes, dear boy?"

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

"With me? No, dear boy."

"But there was some one there?"

"I didn't take particular notice," he said, dubiously, "not knowingthe ways of the place. But I think there was a person, too, come inalonger me."

"Are you known in London?"

"I hope not!" said he, giving his neck a jerk with his forefingerthat made me turn hot and sick.

"Were you known in London, once?"

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

"Were you - tried - in London?"

"Which time?" said he, with a sharp look.

"The last time."

He nodded. "First knowed Mr. Jaggers that way. Jaggers was for me."

It was on my lips to ask him what he was tried for, but he took upa knife, gave it a flourish, and with the words, "And what I doneis worked out and paid for!" fell to at his breakfast.

He ate in a ravenous way that was very disagreeable, and all hisactions were uncouth, noisy, and greedy. Some of his teeth hadfailed him since I saw him eat on the marshes, and as he turned hisfood in his mouth, and turned his head sideways to bring hisstrongest fangs to bear upon it, he looked terribly like a hungry olddog. If I had begun with any appetite, he would have taken it away,and I should have sat much as I did - repelled from him by aninsurmountable aversion, and gloomily looking at the cloth.

"I'm a heavy grubber, dear boy," he said, as a polite kind ofapology when he made an end of his meal, "but I always was. If ithad been in my constitution to be a lighter grubber, I might ha'got into lighter trouble. Similarly, I must have my smoke. When Iwas first hired out as shepherd t'other side the world, it's mybelief I should ha' turned into a molloncolly-mad sheep myself, ifI hadn't a had my smoke."

As he said so, he got up from the table, and putting his hand into thebreast of the pea-coat he wore, brought out a short black pipe, anda handful of loose tobacco of the kind that is called Negro-head.Having filled his pipe, he put the surplus tobacco back again, asif his pocket were a drawer. Then, he took a live coal from thefire with the tongs, and lighted his pipe at it, and then turnedround on the hearth-rug with his back to the fire, and went throughhis favourite action of holding out both his hands for mine.

"And this," said he, dandling my hands up and down in his, as hepuffed at his pipe; "and this is the gentleman what I made! Thereal genuine One! It does me good fur to look at you, Pip. All Istip'late, is, to stand by and look at you, dear boy!"

I released my hands as soon as I could, and found that I wasbeginning slowly to settle down to the contemplation of mycondition. What I was chained to, and how heavily, becameintelligible to me, as I heard his hoarse voice, and sat looking upat his furrowed bald head with its iron grey hair at the sides.

"I mustn't see my gentleman a footing it in the mire of thestreets; there mustn't be no mud on his boots. My gentleman musthave horses, Pip! Horses to ride, and horses to drive, and horsesfor his servant to ride and drive as well. Shall colonists havetheir horses (and blood 'uns, if you please, good Lord!) and not myLondon gentleman? No, no. We'll show 'em another pair of shoes thanthat, Pip; won't us?"

Title: Great Expectations
Author: Charles Dickens
Viewed 202587 times

...																																										...
...	28	29	30	31	32	33	34	35	36	37	38	39	40	41	42	43	44	45	46	47	48	49	50	51	52	53	54	55	56	57	58	59	60	61	62	63	64	65	66	67	68	...