It was dark before we got down, and the journey seemed long anddreary to me who could see little of it inside, and who could notgo outside in my disabled state. Avoiding the Blue Boar, I put upat an inn of minor reputation down the town, and ordered somedinner. While it was preparing, I went to Satis House and inquiredfor Miss Havisham; she was still very ill, though consideredsomething better.

My inn had once been a part of an ancient ecclesiastical house, andI dined in a little octagonal common-room, like a font. As I wasnot able to cut my dinner, the old landlord with a shining baldhead did it for me. This bringing us into conversation, he was sogood as to entertain me with my own story - of course with thepopular feature that Pumblechook was my earliest benefactor and thefounder of my fortunes.

"Do you know the young man?" said I.

"Know him!" repeated the landlord. "Ever since he was - no heightat all."

"Does he ever come back to this neighbourhood?"

"Ay, he comes back," said the landlord, "to his great friends, nowand again, and gives the cold shoulder to the man that made him."

"What man is that?"

"Him that I speak of," said the landlord. "Mr. Pumblechook."

"Is he ungrateful to no one else?"

"No doubt he would be, if he could," returned the landlord, "but hecan't. And why? Because Pumblechook done everything for him."

"Does Pumblechook say so?"

"Say so!" replied the landlord. "He han't no call to say so."

"But does he say so?"

"It would turn a man's blood to white wine winegar to hear him tellof it, sir," said the landlord.

I thought, "Yet Joe, dear Joe, you never tell of it. Long-sufferingand loving Joe, you never complain. Nor you, sweet-tempered Biddy!"

"Your appetite's been touched like, by your accident," said thelandlord, glancing at the bandaged arm under my coat. "Try atenderer bit."

"No thank you," I replied, turning from the table to brood over thefire. "I can eat no more. Please take it away."

I had never been struck at so keenly, for my thanklessness to Joe,as through the brazen impostor Pumblechook. The falser he, thetruer Joe; the meaner he, the nobler Joe.

My heart was deeply and most deservedly humbled as I mused over thefire for an hour or more. The striking of the clock aroused me, butnot from my dejection or remorse, and I got up and had my coatfastened round my neck, and went out. I had previously sought in mypockets for the letter, that I might refer to it again, but I couldnot find it, and was uneasy to think that it must have been droppedin the straw of the coach. I knew very well, however, that theappointed place was the little sluice-house by the limekiln on themarshes, and the hour nine. Towards the marshes I now wentstraight, having no time to spare.

Chapter 53

It was a dark night, though the full moon rose as I left theenclosed lands, and passed out upon the marshes. Beyond their darkline there was a ribbon of clear sky, hardly broad enough to holdthe red large moon. In a few minutes she had ascended out of thatclear field, in among the piled mountains of cloud.

There was a melancholy wind, and the marshes were very dismal. Astranger would have found them insupportable, and even to me theywere so oppressive that I hesitated, half inclined to go back. But,I knew them well, and could have found my way on a far darkernight, and had no excuse for returning, being there. So, havingcome there against my inclination, I went on against it.

The direction that I took, was not that in which my old home lay,nor that in which we had pursued the convicts. My back was turnedtowards the distant Hulks as I walked on, and, though I could seethe old lights away on the spits of sand, I saw them over myshoulder. I knew the limekiln as well as I knew the old Battery,but they were miles apart; so that if a light had been burning ateach point that night, there would have been a long strip of theblank horizon between the two bright specks.

At first, I had to shut some gates after me, and now and then tostand still while the cattle that were lying in the banked-uppathway, arose and blundered down among the grass and reeds. Butafter a little while, I seemed to have the whole flats to myself.

It was another half-hour before I drew near to the kiln. The limewas burning with a sluggish stifling smell, but the fires were madeup and left, and no workmen were visible. Hard by, was a smallstone-quarry. It lay directly in my way, and had been worked thatday, as I saw by the tools and barrows that were lying about.

Coming up again to the marsh level out of this excavation - for therude path lay through it - I saw a light in the old sluice-house. Iquickened my pace, and knocked at the door with my hand. Waitingfor some reply, I looked about me, noticing how the sluice wasabandoned and broken, and how the house - of wood with a tiled roof- would not be proof against the weather much longer, if it were soeven now, and how the mud and ooze were coated with lime, and howthe choking vapour of the kiln crept in a ghostly way towards me.Still there was no answer, and I knocked again. No answer still,and I tried the latch.

It rose under my hand, and the door yielded. Looking in, I saw alighted candle on a table, a bench, and a mattress on a trucklebedstead. As there was a loft above, I called, "Is there any onehere?" but no voice answered. Then, I looked at my watch, and,finding that it was past nine, called again, "Is there any onehere?" There being still no answer, I went out at the door,irresolute what to do.

It was beginning to rain fast. Seeing nothing save what I had seenalready, I turned back into the house, and stood just within theshelter of the doorway, looking out into the night. While I wasconsidering that some one must have been there lately and must soonbe coming back, or the candle would not be burning, it came into myhead to look if the wick were long. I turned round to do so, andhad taken up the candle in my hand, when it was extinguished bysome violent shock, and the next thing I comprehended, was, that Ihad been caught in a strong running noose, thrown over my head frombehind.

"Now," said a suppressed voice with an oath, "I've got you!"

"What is this?" I cried, struggling. "Who is it? Help, help, help!"

Not only were my arms pulled close to my sides, but the pressure onmy bad arm caused me exquisite pain. Sometimes, a strong man'shand, sometimes a strong man's breast, was set against my mouth todeaden my cries, and with a hot breath always close to me, Istruggled ineffectually in the dark, while I was fastened tight tothe wall. "And now," said the suppressed voice with another oath,"call out again, and I'll make short work of you!"

Faint and sick with the pain of my injured arm, bewildered by thesurprise, and yet conscious how easily this threat could be put inexecution, I desisted, and tried to ease my arm were it ever solittle. But, it was bound too tight for that. I felt as if, havingbeen burnt before, it were now being boiled.

The sudden exclusion of the night and the substitution of blackdarkness in its place, warned me that the man had closed a shutter.After groping about for a little, he found the flint and steel hewanted, and began to strike a light. I strained my sight upon thesparks that fell among the tinder, and upon which he breathed andbreathed, match in hand, but I could only see his lips, and theblue point of the match; even those, but fitfully. The tinder wasdamp - no wonder there - and one after another the sparks died out.

The man was in no hurry, and struck again with the flint and steel.As the sparks fell thick and bright about him, I could see hishands, and touches of his face, and could make out that he wasseated and bending over the table; but nothing more. Presently Isaw his blue lips again, breathing on the tinder, and then a flareof light flashed up, and showed me Orlick.

Whom I had looked for, I don't know. I had not looked for him.Seeing him, I felt that I was in a dangerous strait indeed, and Ikept my eyes upon him.

He lighted the candle from the flaring match with greatdeliberation, and dropped the match, and trod it out. Then, he putthe candle away from him on the table, so that he could see me, andsat with his arms folded on the table and looked at me. I made outthat I was fastened to a stout perpendicular ladder a few inchesfrom the wall - a fixture there - the means of ascent to the loftabove.

"Now," said he, when we had surveyed one another for some time,"I've got you."

"Unbind me. Let me go!"

"Ah!" he returned, "I'll let you go. I'll let you go to the moon,I'll let you go to the stars. All in good time."

"Why have you lured me here?"

"Don't you know?" said he, with a deadly look

"Why have you set upon me in the dark?"

"Because I mean to do it all myself. One keeps a secret better thantwo. Oh you enemy, you enemy!"

His enjoyment of the spectacle I furnished, as he sat with his armsfolded on the table, shaking his head at me and hugging himself,had a malignity in it that made me tremble. As I watched him insilence, he put his hand into the corner at his side, and took up agun with a brass-bound stock.

"Do you know this?" said he, making as if he would take aim at me."Do you know where you saw it afore? Speak, wolf!"

"Yes," I answered.

"You cost me that place. You did. Speak!"

"What else could I do?"

"You did that, and that would be enough, without more. How daredyou to come betwixt me and a young woman I liked?"

"When did I?"

"When didn't you? It was you as always give Old Orlick a bad nameto her."

"You gave it to yourself; you gained it for yourself. I could havedone you no harm, if you had done yourself none."

"You're a liar. And you'll take any pains, and spend any money, todrive me out of this country, will you?" said he, repeating mywords to Biddy in the last interview I had with her. "Now, I'lltell you a piece of information. It was never so well worth yourwhile to get me out of this country as it is to-night. Ah! If itwas all your money twenty times told, to the last brass farden!" Ashe shook his heavy hand at me, with his mouth snarling like atiger's, I felt that it was true.

"What are you going to do to me?"

"I'm a-going," said he, bringing his fist down upon the table with aheavy blow, and rising as the blow fell, to give it greater force,"I'm a-going to have your life!"

He leaned forward staring at me, slowly unclenched his hand anddrew it across his mouth as if his mouth watered for me, and satdown again.

"You was always in Old Orlick's way since ever you was a child. Yougoes out of his way, this present night. He'll have no more on you.You're dead."

I felt that I had come to the brink of my grave. For a moment Ilooked wildly round my trap for any chance of escape; but there wasnone.

"More than that," said he, folding his arms on the table again, "Iwon't have a rag of you, I won't have a bone of you, left on earth.I'll put your body in the kiln - I'd carry two such to it, on myshoulders - and, let people suppose what they may of you, theyshall never know nothing."

My mind, with inconceivable rapidity, followed out all theconsequences of such a death. Estella's father would believe I haddeserted him, would be taken, would die accusing me; even Herbertwould doubt me, when he compared the letter I had left for him,with the fact that I had called at Miss Havisham's gate for only amoment; Joe and Biddy would never know how sorry I had been thatnight; none would ever know what I had suffered, how true I hadmeant to be, what an agony I had passed through. The death closebefore me was terrible, but far more terrible than death was thedread of being misremembered after death. And so quick were mythoughts, that I saw myself despised by unborn generations -Estella's children, and their children - while the wretch's wordswere yet on his lips.

"Now, wolf," said he, "afore I kill you like any other beast -which is wot I mean to do and wot I have tied you up for - I'llhave a good look at you and a good goad at you. Oh, you enemy!"

It had passed through my thoughts to cry out for help again; thoughfew could know better than I, the solitary nature of the spot, andthe hopelessness of aid. But as he sat gloating over me, I wassupported by a scornful detestation of him that sealed my lips.Above all things, I resolved that I would not entreat him, and thatI would die making some last poor resistance to him. Softened as mythoughts of all the rest of men were in that dire extremity; humblybeseeching pardon, as I did, of Heaven; melted at heart, as I was,by the thought that I had taken no farewell, and never never nowcould take farewell, of those who were dear to me, or could explainmyself to them, or ask for their compassion on my miserable errors;still, if I could have killed him, even in dying, I would have doneit.

He had been drinking, and his eyes were red and bloodshot. Aroundhis neck was slung a tin bottle, as I had often seen his meat anddrink slung about him in other days. He brought the bottle to hislips, and took a fiery drink from it; and I smelt the strongspirits that I saw flash into his face.

"Wolf!" said he, folding his arms again, "Old Orlick's a-going totell you somethink. It was you as did for your shrew sister."

Again my mind, with its former inconceivable rapidity, hadexhausted the whole subject of the attack upon my sister, herillness, and her death, before his slow and hesitating speech hadformed these words.

"It was you, villain," said I.

"I tell you it was your doing - I tell you it was done throughyou," he retorted, catching up the gun, and making a blow with thestock at the vacant air between us. "I come upon her from behind,as I come upon you to-night. I giv' it her! I left her for dead,and if there had been a limekiln as nigh her as there is now nighyou, she shouldn't have come to life again. But it warn't OldOrlick as did it; it was you. You was favoured, and he was bulliedand beat. Old Orlick bullied and beat, eh? Now you pays for it. Youdone it; now you pays for it."

Title: Great Expectations
Author: Charles Dickens
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