Chapter 46


Eight o'clock had struck before I got into the air that was
scented, not disagreeably, by the chips and shavings of the
long-shore boatbuilders, and mast oar and block makers.  All that
water-side region of the upper and lower Pool below Bridge, was
unknown ground to me, and when I struck down by the river, I found
that the spot I wanted was not where I had supposed it to be, and
was anything but easy to find.  It was called Mill Pond Bank,
Chinks's Basin; and I had no other guide to Chinks's Basin than the
Old Green Copper Rope-Walk.

It matters not what stranded ships repairing in dry docks I lost
myself among, what old hulls of ships in course of being knocked to
pieces, what ooze and slime and other dregs of tide, what yards of
ship-builders and ship-breakers, what rusty anchors blindly biting
into the ground though for years off duty, what mountainous country
of accumulated casks and timber, how many rope-walks that were not
the Old Green Copper.  After several times falling short of my
destination and as often over-shooting it, I came unexpectedly
round a corner, upon Mill Pond Bank.  It was a fresh kind of place,
all circumstances considered, where the wind from the river had
room to turn itself round; and there were two or three trees in it,
and there was the stump of a ruined windmill, and there was the Old
Green Copper Rope-Walk - whose long and narrow vista I could trace
in the moonlight, along a series of wooden frames set in the
ground, that looked like superannuated haymaking-rakes which had
grown old and lost most of their teeth.

Selecting from the few queer houses upon Mill Pond Bank, a house
with a wooden front and three stories of bow-window (not
bay-window, which is another thing), I looked at the plate upon the
door, and read there, Mrs. Whimple.  That being the name I wanted, I
knocked, and an elderly woman of a pleasant and thriving appearance
responded.  She was immediately deposed, however, by Herbert, who
silently led me into the parlour and shut the door.  It was an odd
sensation to see his very familiar face established quite at home
in that very unfamiliar room and region; and I found myself looking
at him, much as I looked at the corner-cupboard with the glass and
china, the shells upon the chimney-piece, and the coloured
engravings on the wall, representing the death of Captain Cook, a
ship-launch, and his Majesty King George the Third in a
state-coachman's wig, leather-breeches, and top-boots, on the
terrace at Windsor.

"All is well, Handel," said Herbert, "and he is quite satisfied,
though eager to see you.  My dear girl is with her father; and if
you'll wait till she comes down, I'll make you known to her, and
then we'll go up-stairs.  - That's her father."

I had become aware of an alarming growling overhead, and had
probably expressed the fact in my countenance.

"I am afraid he is a sad old rascal," said Herbert, smiling, "but I
have never seen him.  Don't you smell rum?  He is always at it."

"At rum?" said I.

"Yes," returned Herbert, "and you may suppose how mild it makes his
gout.  He persists, too, in keeping all the provisions upstairs in
his room, and serving them out.  He keeps them on shelves over his
head, and will weigh them all.  His room must be like a chandler's
shop."

While he thus spoke, the growling noise became a prolonged roar,
and then died away.

"What else can be the consequence," said Herbert, in explanation,
"if he will cut the cheese?  A man with the gout in his right hand -
and everywhere else - can't expect to get through a Double
Gloucester without hurting himself."

He seemed to have hurt himself very much, for he gave another
furious roar.

"To have Provis for an upper lodger is quite a godsend to Mrs.
Whimple," said Herbert, "for of course people in general won't
stand that noise.  A curious place, Handel; isn't it?"

It was a curious place, indeed; but remarkably well kept and clean.

"Mrs. Whimple," said Herbert, when I told him so, "is the best of
housewives, and I really do not know what my Clara would do without
her motherly help.  For, Clara has no mother of her own, Handel, and
no relation in the world but old Gruffandgrim."

"Surely that's not his name, Herbert?"

"No, no," said Herbert, "that's my name for him.  His name is Mr.
Barley.  But what a blessing it is for the son of my father and
mother, to love a girl who has no relations, and who can never
bother herself, or anybody else, about her family!"

Herbert had told me on former occasions, and now reminded me, that
he first knew Miss Clara Barley when she was completing her
education at an establishment at Hammersmith, and that on her being
recalled home to nurse her father, he and she had confided their
affection to the motherly Mrs. Whimple, by whom it had been fostered
and regulated with equal kindness and discretion, ever since.  It
was understood that nothing of a tender nature could possibly be
confided to old Barley, by reason of his being totally unequal to
the consideration of any subject more psychological than Gout, Rum,
and Purser's stores.

As we were thus conversing in a low tone while Old Barley's
sustained growl vibrated in the beam that crossed the ceiling, the
room door opened, and a very pretty slight dark-eyed girl of twenty
or so, came in with a basket in her hand:  whom Herbert tenderly
relieved of the basket, and presented blushing, as "Clara."  She
really was a most charming girl, and might have passed for a
captive fairy, whom that truculent Ogre, Old Barley, had pressed
into his service.

"Look here," said Herbert, showing me the basket, with a
compassionate and tender smile after we had talked a little;
"here's poor Clara's supper, served out every night.  Here's her
allowance of bread, and here's her slice of cheese, and here's her
rum - which I drink.  This is Mr. Barley's breakfast for to-morrow,
served out to be cooked.  Two mutton chops, three potatoes, some
split peas, a little flour, two ounces of butter, a pinch of salt,
and all this black pepper.  It's stewed up together, and taken hot,
and it's a nice thing for the gout, I should think!"

There was something so natural and winning in Clara's resigned way
of looking at these stores in detail, as Herbert pointed them out,
- and something so confiding, loving, and innocent, in her modest
manner of yielding herself to Herbert's embracing arm - and
something so gentle in her, so much needing protection on Mill Pond
Bank, by Chinks's Basin, and the Old Green Copper Rope-Walk, with
Old Barley growling in the beam - that I would not have undone the
engagement between her and Herbert, for all the money in the
pocket-book I had never opened.

I was looking at her with pleasure and admiration, when suddenly
the growl swelled into a roar again, and a frightful bumping noise
was heard above, as if a giant with a wooden leg were trying to
bore it through the ceiling to come to us.  Upon this Clara said to
Herbert, "Papa wants me, darling!" and ran away.

"There is an unconscionable old shark for you!" said Herbert.  "What
do you suppose he wants now, Handel?"

"I don't know," said I.  "Something to drink?"

"That's it!" cried Herbert, as if I had made a guess of
extraordinary merit.  "He keeps his grog ready-mixed in a little tub
on the table.  Wait a moment, and you'll hear Clara lift him up to
take some.  - There he goes!"  Another roar, with a prolonged shake
at the end.  "Now," said Herbert, as it was succeeded by silence,
"he's drinking.  Now," said Herbert, as the growl resounded in the
beam once more, "he's down again on his back!"

Clara returned soon afterwards, and Herbert accompanied me
up-stairs to see our charge.  As we passed Mr. Barley's door, he was
heard hoarsely muttering within, in a strain that rose and fell
like wind, the following Refrain; in which I substitute good wishes
for something quite the reverse.

"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."

In this strain of consolation, Herbert informed me the invisible
Barley would commune with himself by the day and night together;
often while it was light, having, at the same time, one eye at a
telescope which was fitted on his bed for the convenience of
sweeping the river.

In his two cabin rooms at the top of the house, which were fresh
and airy, and in which Mr. Barley was less audible than below, I
found Provis comfortably settled.  He expressed no alarm, and seemed
to feel none that was worth mentioning; but it struck me that he
was softened - indefinably, for I could not have said how, and could
never afterwards recall how when I tried; but certainly.

The opportunity that the day's rest had given me for reflection,
had resulted in my fully determining to say nothing to him
respecting Compeyson.  For anything I knew, his animosity towards
the man might otherwise lead to his seeking him out and rushing on
his own destruction.  Therefore, when Herbert and I sat down with
him by his fire, I asked him first of all whether he relied on
Wemmick's judgment and sources of information?

"Ay, ay, dear boy!" he answered, with a grave nod, "Jaggers knows."

"Then, I have talked with Wemmick," said I, "and have come to tell
you what caution he gave me and what advice."

This I did accurately, with the reservation just mentioned; and I
told him how Wemmick had heard, in Newgate prison (whether from
officers or prisoners I could not say), that he was under some
suspicion, and that my chambers had been watched; how Wemmick had
recommended his keeping close for a time, and my keeping away from
him; and what Wemmick had said about getting him abroad.  I added,
that of course, when the time came, I should go with him, or should
follow close upon him, as might be safest in Wemmick's judgment.
What was to follow that, I did not touch upon; neither indeed was I
at all clear or comfortable about it in my own mind, now that I saw
him in that softer condition, and in declared peril for my sake.  As
to altering my way of living, by enlarging my expenses, I put it to
him whether in our present unsettled and difficult circumstances,
it would not be simply ridiculous, if it were no worse?

He could not deny this, and indeed was very reasonable throughout.
His coming back was a venture, he said, and he had always known it
to be a venture.  He would do nothing to make it a desperate
venture, and he had very little fear of his safety with such good
help.

Herbert, who had been looking at the fire and pondering, here said
that something had come into his thoughts arising out of Wemmick's
suggestion, which it might be worth while to pursue.  "We are both
good watermen, Handel, and could take him down the river ourselves
when the right time comes.  No boat would then be hired for the
purpose, and no boatmen; that would save at least a chance of
suspicion, and any chance is worth saving.  Never mind the season;
don't you think it might be a good thing if you began at once to
keep a boat at the Temple stairs, and were in the habit of rowing
up and down the river?  You fall into that habit, and then who
notices or minds?  Do it twenty or fifty times, and there is nothing
special in your doing it the twenty-first or fifty-first."

I liked this scheme, and Provis was quite elated by it.  We agreed
that it should be carried into execution, and that Provis should
never recognize us if we came below Bridge and rowed past Mill Pond
Bank.  But, we further agreed that he should pull down the blind in
that part of his window which gave upon the east, whenever he saw
us and all was right.

Our conference being now ended, and everything arranged, I rose to
go; remarking to Herbert that he and I had better not go home
together, and that I would take half an hour's start of him.  "I
don't like to leave you here," I said to Provis, "though I cannot
doubt your being safer here than near me.  Good-bye!"

"Dear boy," he answered, clasping my hands, "I don't know when we
may meet again, and I don't like Good-bye.  Say Good Night!"

"Good night!  Herbert will go regularly between us, and when the
time comes you may be certain I shall be ready.  Good night, Good
night!"

We thought it best that he should stay in his own rooms, and we
left him on the landing outside his door, holding a light over the
stair-rail to light us down stairs.  Looking back at him, I thought
of the first night of his return when our positions were reversed,
and when I little supposed my heart could ever be as heavy and
anxious at parting from him as it was now.

Old Barley was growling and swearing when we repassed his door,
with no appearance of having ceased or of meaning to cease.  When we
got to the foot of the stairs, I asked Herbert whether he had
preserved the name of Provis.  He replied, certainly not, and that
the lodger was Mr. Campbell.  He also explained that the utmost known
of Mr. Campbell there, was, that he (Herbert) had Mr. Campbell
consigned to him, and felt a strong personal interest in his being
well cared for, and living a secluded life.  So, when we went into
the parlour where Mrs. Whimple and Clara were seated at work, I said
nothing of my own interest in Mr. Campbell, but kept it to myself.

When I had taken leave of the pretty gentle dark-eyed girl, and of
the motherly woman who had not outlived her honest sympathy with a
little affair of true love, I felt as if the Old Green Copper
Rope-Walk had grown quite a different place.  Old Barley might be as
old as the hills, and might swear like a whole field of troopers,
but there were redeeming youth and trust and hope enough in
Chinks's Basin to fill it to overflowing.  And then I thought of
Estella, and of our parting, and went home very sadly.

All things were as quiet in the Temple as ever I had seen them.  The
windows of the rooms on that side, lately occupied by Provis, were
dark and still, and there was no lounger in Garden Court.  I walked
past the fountain twice or thrice before I descended the steps that
were between me and my rooms, but I was quite alone.  Herbert coming
to my bedside when he came in - for I went straight to bed,
dispirited and fatigued - made the same report.  Opening one of the
windows after that, he looked out into the moonlight, and told me
that the pavement was a solemnly empty as the pavement of any
Cathedral at that same hour.

Next day, I set myself to get the boat.  It was soon done, and the
boat was brought round to the Temple stairs, and lay where I could
reach her within a minute or two.  Then, I began to go out as for
training and practice:  sometimes alone, sometimes with Herbert.  I
was often out in cold, rain, and sleet, but nobody took much note
of me after I had been out a few times.  At first, I kept above
Blackfriars Bridge; but as the hours of the tide changed, I took
towards London Bridge.  It was Old London Bridge in those days, and
at certain states of the tide there was a race and fall of water
there which gave it a bad reputation.  But I knew well enough how to
"shoot" the bridge after seeing it done, and so began to row about
among the shipping in the Pool, and down to Erith.  The first time I
passed Mill Pond Bank, Herbert and I were pulling a pair of oars;
and, both in going and returning, we saw the blind towards the east
come down.  Herbert was rarely there less frequently than three
times in a week, and he never brought me a single word of
intelligence that was at all alarming.  Still, I knew that there was
cause for alarm, and I could not get rid of the notion of being
watched.  Once received, it is a haunting idea; how many undesigning
persons I suspected of watching me, it would be hard to calculate.

In short, I was always full of fears for the rash man who was in
hiding.  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.

Chapter 47


Some weeks passed without bringing any change.  We waited for
Wemmick, and he made no sign.  If I had never known him out of
Little Britain, and had never enjoyed the privilege of being on a
familiar footing at the Castle, I might have doubted him; not so
for a moment, knowing him as I did.

My worldly affairs began to wear a gloomy appearance, and I was
pressed for money by more than one creditor.  Even I myself began to
know the want of money (I mean of ready money in my own pocket),
and to relieve it by converting some easily spared articles of
jewellery into cash.  But I had quite determined that it would be a
heartless fraud to take more money from my patron in the existing
state of my uncertain thoughts and plans.  Therefore, I had sent him
the unopened pocket-book by Herbert, to hold in his own keeping,
and I felt a kind of satisfaction - whether it was a false kind or
a true, I hardly know - in not having profited by his generosity
since his revelation of himself.

As the time wore on, an impression settled heavily upon me that
Estella was married.  Fearful of having it confirmed, though it was
all but a conviction, I avoided the newspapers, and begged Herbert
(to whom I had confided the circumstances of our last interview)
never to speak of her to me.  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.  Let me start from my bed as I would, with the
terror fresh upon me that he was discovered; let me sit listening
as I would, with dread, for Herbert's returning step at night, lest
it should be fleeter than ordinary, and winged with evil news; for
all that, and much more to like purpose, the round of things went
on.  Condemned to inaction and a state of constant restlessness and
suspense, I rowed about in my boat, and waited, waited, waited, as
I best could.

There were states of the tide when, having been down the river, I
could not get back through the eddy-chafed arches and starlings of
old London Bridge; then, I left my boat at a wharf near the Custom
House, to be brought up afterwards to the Temple stairs.  I was not
averse to doing this, as it served to make me and my boat a
commoner incident among the water-side people there.  From this
slight occasion, sprang two meetings that I have now to tell of.

One afternoon, late in the month of February, I came ashore at the
wharf at dusk.  I had pulled down as far as Greenwich with the ebb
tide, and had turned with the tide.  It had been a fine bright day,
but had become foggy as the sun dropped, and I had had to feel my
way back among the shipping, pretty carefully.  Both in going and
returning, I had seen the signal in his window, All well.

As it was a raw evening and I was cold, I thought I would comfort
myself with dinner at once; and as I had hours of dejection and
solitude before me if I went home to the Temple, I thought I would
afterwards go to the play.  The theatre where Mr. Wopsle had achieved
his questionable triumph, was in that waterside neighbourhood (it
is nowhere now), and to that theatre I resolved to go.  I was aware
that Mr. Wopsle had not succeeded in reviving the Drama, but, on the
contrary, had rather partaken of its decline.  He had been ominously
heard of, through the playbills, as a faithful Black, in connexion
with a little girl of noble birth, and a monkey.  And Herbert had
seen him as a predatory Tartar of comic propensities, with a face
like a red brick, and an outrageous hat all over bells.

I dined at what Herbert and I used to call a Geographical
chop-house - where there were maps of the world in porter-pot rims
on every half-yard of the table-cloths, and charts of gravy on
every one of the knives - to this day there is scarcely a single
chop-house within the Lord Mayor's dominions which is not
Geographical - and wore out the time in dozing over crumbs, staring
at gas, and baking in a hot blast of dinners.  By-and-by, I roused
myself and went to the play.

There, I found a virtuous boatswain in his Majesty's service - a
most excellent man, though I could have wished his trousers not
quite so tight in some places and not quite so loose in others -
who knocked all the little men's hats over their eyes, though he
was very generous and brave, and who wouldn't hear of anybody's
paying taxes, though he was very patriotic.  He had a bag of money
in his pocket, like a pudding in the cloth, and on that property
married a young person in bed-furniture, with great rejoicings; the
whole population of Portsmouth (nine in number at the last Census)
turning out on the beach, to rub their own hands and shake
everybody else's, and sing "Fill, fill!"  A certain
dark-complexioned Swab, however, who wouldn't fill, or do anything
else that was proposed to him, and whose heart was openly stated
(by the boatswain) to be as black as his figure-head, proposed to
two other Swabs to get all mankind into difficulties; which was so
effectually done (the Swab family having considerable political
influence) that it took half the evening to set things right, and
then it was only brought about through an honest little grocer with
a white hat, black gaiters, and red nose, getting into a clock,
with a gridiron, and listening, and coming out, and knocking
everybody down from behind with the gridiron whom he couldn't
confute with what he had overheard.  This led to Mr. Wopsle's (who
had never been heard of before) coming in with a star and garter
on, as a plenipotentiary of great power direct from the Admiralty,
to say that the Swabs were all to go to prison on the spot, and
that he had brought the boatswain down the Union Jack, as a slight
acknowledgment of his public services.  The boatswain, unmanned for
the first time, respectfully dried his eyes on the Jack, and then
cheering up and addressing Mr. Wopsle as Your Honour, solicited
permission to take him by the fin.  Mr. Wopsle conceding his fin with
a gracious dignity, was immediately shoved into a dusty corner
while everybody danced a hornpipe; and from that corner, surveying
the public with a discontented eye, became aware of me.

The second piece was the last new grand comic Christmas pantomime,
in the first scene of which, it pained me to suspect that I
detected Mr. Wopsle with red worsted legs under a highly magnified
phosphoric countenance and a shock of red curtain-fringe for his
hair, engaged in the manufacture of thunderbolts in a mine, and
displaying great cowardice when his gigantic master came home (very
hoarse) to dinner.  But he presently presented himself under
worthier circumstances; for, the Genius of Youthful Love being in
want of assistance - on account of the parental brutality of an
ignorant farmer who opposed the choice of his daughter's heart, by
purposely falling upon the object, in a flour sack, out of the
firstfloor window - summoned a sententious Enchanter; and he,
coming up from the antipodes rather unsteadily, after an apparently
violent journey, proved to be Mr. Wopsle in a high-crowned hat, with
a necromantic work in one volume under his arm.  The business of
this enchanter on earth, being principally to be talked at, sung
at, butted at, danced at, and flashed at with fires of various
colours, he had a good deal of time on his hands.  And I observed
with great surprise, that he devoted it to staring in my direction
as if he were lost in amazement.

There was something so remarkable in the increasing glare of Mr.
Wopsle's eye, and he seemed to be turning so many things over in
his mind and to grow so confused, that I could not make it out.  I
sat thinking of it, long after he had ascended to the clouds in a
large watch-case, and still I could not make it out.  I was still
thinking of it when I came out of the theatre an hour afterwards,
and found him waiting for me near the door.

"How do you do?" said I, shaking hands with him as we turned down
the street together.  "I saw that you saw me."

"Saw you, Mr. Pip!" he returned.  "Yes, of course I saw you.  But who
else was there?"

"Who else?"

"It is the strangest thing," said Mr. Wopsle, drifting into his lost
look again; "and yet I could swear to him."

Becoming alarmed, I entreated Mr. Wopsle to explain his meaning.

"Whether I should have noticed him at first but for your being
there," said Mr. Wopsle, going on in the same lost way, "I can't be
positive; yet I think I should."

Involuntarily I looked round me, as I was accustomed to look round
me when I went home; for, these mysterious words gave me a chill.

"Oh!  He can't be in sight," said Mr. Wopsle.  "He went out, before I
went off, I saw him go."

Having the reason that I had, for being suspicious, I even
suspected this poor actor.  I mistrusted a design to entrap me into
some admission.  Therefore, I glanced at him as we walked on
together, but said nothing.

"I had a ridiculous fancy that he must be with you, Mr. Pip, till I
saw that you were quite unconscious of him, sitting behind you
there, like a ghost."

My former chill crept over me again, but I was resolved not to
speak yet, for it was quite consistent with his words that he might
be set on to induce me to connect these references with Provis.  Of
course, I was perfectly sure and safe that Provis had not been
there.

"I dare say you wonder at me, Mr. Pip; indeed I see you do.  But it
is so very strange!  You'll hardly believe what I am going to tell
you.  I could hardly believe it myself, if you told me."

"Indeed?" said I.

"No, indeed.  Mr. Pip, you remember in old times a certain Christmas
Day, when you were quite a child, and I dined at Gargery's, and
some soldiers came to the door to get a pair of handcuffs mended?"

"I remember it very well."

"And you remember that there was a chase after two convicts, and
that we joined in it, and that Gargery took you on his back, and
that I took the lead and you kept up with me as well as you could?"

"I remember it all very well."  Better than he thought - except the
last clause.

"And you remember that we came up with the two in a ditch, and that
there was a scuffle between them, and that one of them had been
severely handled and much mauled about the face, by the other?"

"I see it all before me."

"And that the soldiers lighted torches, and put the two in the
centre, and that we went on to see the last of them, over the black
marshes, with the torchlight shining on their faces - I am
particular about that; with the torchlight shining on their faces,
when there was an outer ring of dark night all about us?"

"Yes," said I.  "I remember all that."

"Then, Mr. Pip, one of those two prisoners sat behind you tonight.  I
saw him over your shoulder."

"Steady!" I thought.  I asked him then, "Which of the two do you
suppose you saw?"

"The one who had been mauled," he answered readily, "and I'll swear
I saw him!  The more I think of him, the more certain I am of him."

"This is very curious!" said I, with the best assumption I could
put on, of its being nothing more to me.  "Very curious indeed!"

I cannot exaggerate the enhanced disquiet into which this
conversation threw me, or the special and peculiar terror I felt at
Compeyson's having been behind me "like a ghost."  For, if he had
ever been out of my thoughts for a few moments together since the
hiding had begun, it was in those very moments when he was closest
to me; and to think that I should be so unconscious and off my
guard after all my care, was as if I had shut an avenue of a
hundred doors to keep him out, and then had found him at my elbow.
I could not doubt either that he was there, because I was there,
and that however slight an appearance of danger there might be
about us, danger was always near and active.

I put such questions to Mr. Wopsle as, When did the man come in?  He
could not tell me that; he saw me, and over my shoulder he saw the
man.  It was not until he had seen him for some time that he began
to identify him; but he had from the first vaguely associated him
with me, and known him as somehow belonging to me in the old
village time.  How was he dressed?  Prosperously, but not noticeably
otherwise; he thought, in black.  Was his face at all disfigured?
No, he believed not.  I believed not, too, for, although in my
brooding state I had taken no especial notice of the people behind
me, I thought it likely that a face at all disfigured would have
attracted my attention.

When Mr. Wopsle had imparted to me all that he could recall or I
extract, and when I had treated him to a little appropriate
refreshment after the fatigues of the evening, we parted.  It was
between twelve and one o'clock when I reached the Temple, and the
gates were shut.  No one was near me when I went in and went home.

Herbert had come in, and we held a very serious council by the
fire.  But there was nothing to be done, saving to communicate to
Wemmick what I had that night found out, and to remind him that we
waited for his hint.  As I thought that I might compromise him if I
went too often to the Castle, I made this communication by letter.
I wrote it before I went to bed, and went out and posted it; and
again no one was near me.  Herbert and I agreed that we could do
nothing else but be very cautious.  And we were very cautious indeed
- more cautious than before, if that were possible - and I for my
part never went near Chinks's Basin, except when I rowed by, and
then I only looked at Mill Pond Bank as I looked at anything else.

Chapter 48


The second of the two meetings referred to in the last chapter,
occurred about a week after the first.  I had again left my boat at
the wharf below Bridge; the time was an hour earlier in the
afternoon; and, undecided where to dine, I had strolled up into
Cheapside, and was strolling along it, surely the most unsettled
person in all the busy concourse, when a large hand was laid upon
my shoulder, by some one overtaking me.  It was Mr. Jaggers's hand,
and he passed it through my arm.

"As we are going in the same direction, Pip, we may walk together.
Where are you bound for?"

"For the Temple, I think," said I.

"Don't you know?" said Mr. Jaggers.

"Well," I returned, glad for once to get the better of him in
cross-examination, "I do not know, for I have not made up my mind."

"You are going to dine?" said Mr. Jaggers.  "You don't mind admitting
that, I suppose?"

"No," I returned, "I don't mind admitting that."

"And are not engaged?"

"I don't mind admitting also, that I am not engaged."

"Then," said Mr. Jaggers, "come and dine with me."

I was going to excuse myself, when he added, "Wemmick's coming."
So, I changed my excuse into an acceptance - the few words I had
uttered, serving for the beginning of either - and we went along
Cheapside and slanted off to Little Britain, while the lights were
springing up brilliantly in the shop windows, and the street
lamp-lighters, scarcely finding ground enough to plant their
ladders on in the midst of the afternoon's bustle, were skipping up
and down and running in and out, opening more red eyes in the
gathering fog than my rushlight tower at the Hummums had opened
white eyes in the ghostly wall.

At the office in Little Britain there was the usual letter-writing,
hand-washing, candle-snuffing, and safe-locking, that closed the
business of the day.  As I stood idle by Mr. Jaggers's fire, its
rising and falling flame made the two casts on the shelf look as if
they were playing a diabolical game at bo-peep with me; while the
pair of coarse fat office candles that dimly lighted Mr. Jaggers as
he wrote in a corner, were decorated with dirty winding-sheets, as
if in remembrance of a host of hanged clients.

We went to Gerrard-street, all three together, in a hackney coach:
and as soon as we got there, dinner was served.  Although I should
not have thought of making, in that place, the most distant
reference by so much as a look to Wemmick's Walworth sentiments,
yet I should have had no objection to catching his eye now and then
in a friendly way.  But it was not to be done.  He turned his eyes on
Mr. Jaggers whenever he raised them from the table, and was as dry
and distant to me as if there were twin Wemmicks and this was the
wrong one.

"Did you send that note of Miss Havisham's to Mr. Pip, Wemmick?" Mr.
Jaggers asked, soon after we began dinner.

"No, sir," returned Wemmick; "it was going by post, when you
brought Mr. Pip into the office.  Here it is."  He handed it to his
principal, instead of to me.

"It's a note of two lines, Pip," said Mr. Jaggers, handing it on,
"sent up to me by Miss Havisham, on account of her not being sure
of your address.  She tells me that she wants to see you on a little
matter of business you mentioned to her.  You'll go down?"

"Yes," said I, casting my eyes over the note, which was exactly in
those terms.

"When do you think of going down?"

"I have an impending engagement," said I, glancing at Wemmick, who
was putting fish into the post-office, "that renders me rather
uncertain of my time.  At once, I think."

"If Mr. Pip has the intention of going at once," said Wemmick to Mr.
Jaggers, "he needn't write an answer, you know."

Receiving this as an intimation that it was best not to delay, I
settled that I would go to-morrow, and said so.  Wemmick drank a
glass of wine and looked with a grimly satisfied air at Mr. Jaggers,
but not at me.

"So, Pip!  Our friend the Spider," said Mr. Jaggers, "has played his
cards.  He has won the pool."

It was as much as I could do to assent.

"Hah!  He is a promising fellow - in his way - but he may not have
it all his own way.  The stronger will win in the end, but the
stronger has to be found out first.  If he should turn to, and beat
her--"

"Surely," I interrupted, with a burning face and heart, "you do not
seriously think that he is scoundrel enough for that, Mr. Jaggers?"

"I didn't say so, Pip.  I am putting a case.  If he should turn to
and beat her, he may possibly get the strength on his side; if it
should be a question of intellect, he certainly will not.  It would
be chance work to give an opinion how a fellow of that sort will
turn out in such circumstances, because it's a toss-up between two
results."

"May I ask what they are?"

"A fellow like our friend the Spider," answered Mr. Jaggers, "either
beats, or cringes.  He may cringe and growl, or cringe and not
growl; but he either beats or cringes.  Ask Wemmick his opinion."

"Either beats or cringes," said Wemmick, not at all addressing
himself to me.

"So, here's to Mrs. Bentley Drummle," said Mr. Jaggers, taking a
decanter of choicer wine from his dumb-waiter, and filling for each
of us and for himself, "and may the question of supremacy be
settled to the lady's satisfaction!  To the satisfaction of the lady
and the gentleman, it never will be.  Now, Molly, Molly, Molly,
Molly, how slow you are to-day!"

She was at his elbow when he addressed her, putting a dish upon the
table.  As she withdrew her hands from it, she fell back a step or
two, nervously muttering some excuse.  And a certain action of her
fingers as she spoke arrested my attention.

"What's the matter?" said Mr. Jaggers.

"Nothing.  Only the subject we were speaking of," said I, "was
rather painful to me."

The action of her fingers was like the action of knitting.  She
stood looking at her master, not understanding whether she was free
to go, or whether he had more to say to her and would call her back
if she did go.  Her look was very intent.  Surely, I had seen exactly
such eyes and such hands, on a memorable occasion very lately!

He dismissed her, and she glided out of the room.  But she remained
before me, as plainly as if she were still there.  I looked at those
hands, I looked at those eyes, I looked at that flowing hair; and I
compared them with other hands, other eyes, other hair, that I knew
of, and with what those might be after twenty years of a brutal
husband and a stormy life.  I looked again at those hands and eyes
of the housekeeper, and thought of the inexplicable feeling that
had come over me when I last walked - not alone - in the ruined
garden, and through the deserted brewery.  I thought how the same
feeling had come back when I saw a face looking at me, and a hand
waving to me, from a stage-coach window; and how it had come back
again and had flashed about me like Lightning, when I had passed in
a carriage - not alone - through a sudden glare of light in a dark
street.  I thought how one link of association had helped that
identification in the theatre, and how such a link, wanting before,
had been riveted for me now, when I had passed by a chance swift
from Estella's name to the fingers with their knitting action, and
the attentive eyes.  And I felt absolutely certain that this woman
was Estella's mother.

Mr. Jaggers had seen me with Estella, and was not likely to have
missed the sentiments I had been at no pains to conceal.  He nodded
when I said the subject was painful to me, clapped me on the back,
put round the wine again, and went on with his dinner.

Only twice more, did the housekeeper reappear, and then her stay in
the room was very short, and Mr. Jaggers was sharp with her.  But her
hands were Estella's hands, and her eyes were Estella's eyes, and
if she had reappeared a hundred times I could have been neither
more sure nor less sure that my conviction was the truth.

It was a dull evening, for Wemmick drew his wine when it came
round, quite as a matter of business - just as he might have drawn
his salary when that came round - and with his eyes on his chief,
sat in a state of perpetual readiness for cross-examination.  As to
the quantity of wine, his post-office was as indifferent and ready
as any other post-office for its quantity of letters.  From my point
of view, he was the wrong twin all the time, and only externally
like the Wemmick of Walworth.

We took our leave early, and left together.  Even when we were
groping among Mr. Jaggers's stock of boots for our hats, I felt that
the right twin was on his way back; and we had not gone half a
dozen yards down Gerrard-street in the Walworth direction before I
found that I was walking arm-in-arm with the right twin, and that
the wrong twin had evaporated into the evening air.

"Well!" said Wemmick, "that's over!  He's a wonderful man, without
his living likeness; but I feel that I have to screw myself up when
I dine with him - and I dine more comfortably unscrewed."

I felt that this was a good statement of the case, and told him so.

"Wouldn't say it to anybody but yourself," he answered.  "I know
that what is said between you and me, goes no further."

I asked him if he had ever seen Miss Havisham's adopted daughter,
Mrs. Bentley Drummle?  He said no.  To avoid being too abrupt, I then
spoke of the Aged, and of Miss Skiffins.  He looked rather sly when
I mentioned Miss Skiffins, and stopped in the street to blow his
nose, with a roll of the head and a flourish not quite free from
latent boastfulness.

"Wemmick," said I, "do you remember telling me before I first went
to Mr. Jaggers's private house, to notice that housekeeper?"

"Did I?" he replied.  "Ah, I dare say I did.  Deuce take me," he
added, suddenly, "I know I did.  I find I am not quite unscrewed
yet."

"A wild beast tamed, you called her."

"And what do you call her?"

"The same.  How did Mr. Jaggers tame her, Wemmick?"

"That's his secret.  She has been with him many a long year."

"I wish you would tell me her story.  I feel a particular interest
in being acquainted with it.  You know that what is said between you
and me goes no further."

"Well!" Wemmick replied, "I don't know her story - that is, I don't
know all of it.  But what I do know, I'll tell you.  We are in our
private and personal capacities, of course."

"Of course."

"A score or so of years ago, that woman was tried at the Old Bailey
for murder, and was acquitted.  She was a very handsome young woman,
and I believe had some gipsy blood in her.  Anyhow, it was hot enough
when it was up, as you may suppose."

"But she was acquitted."

"Mr. Jaggers was for her," pursued Wemmick, with a look full of
meaning, "and worked the case in a way quite astonishing.  It was a
desperate case, and it was comparatively early days with him then,
and he worked it to general admiration; in fact, it may almost be
said to have made him.  He worked it himself at the police-office,
day after day for many days, contending against even a committal;
and at the trial where he couldn't work it himself, sat under
Counsel, and - every one knew - put in all the salt and pepper.  The
murdered person was a woman; a woman, a good ten years older, very
much larger, and very much stronger.  It was a case of jealousy.
They both led tramping lives, and this woman in Gerrard-street here
had been married very young, over the broomstick (as we say), to a
tramping man, and was a perfect fury in point of jealousy.  The
murdered woman - more a match for the man, certainly, in point of
years - was found dead in a barn near Hounslow Heath.  There had
been a violent struggle, perhaps a fight.  She was bruised and
scratched and torn, and had been held by the throat at last and
choked.  Now, there was no reasonable evidence to implicate any
person but this woman, and, on the improbabilities of her having
been able to do it, Mr. Jaggers principally rested his case.  You may
be sure," said Wemmick, touching me on the sleeve, "that he never
dwelt upon the strength of her hands then, though he sometimes does
now."

I had told Wemmick of his showing us her wrists, that day of the
dinner party.

"Well, sir!" Wemmick went on; "it happened - happened, don't you
see?  - that this woman was so very artfully dressed from the time
of her apprehension, that she looked much slighter than she really
was; in particular, her sleeves are always remembered to have been
so skilfully contrived that her arms had quite a delicate look.  She
had only a bruise or two about her - nothing for a tramp - but the
backs of her hands were lacerated, and the question was, was it
with finger-nails?  Now, Mr. Jaggers showed that she had struggled
through a great lot of brambles which were not as high as her face;
but which she could not have got through and kept her hands out of;
and bits of those brambles were actually found in her skin and put
in evidence, as well as the fact that the brambles in question were
found on examination to have been broken through, and to have
little shreds of her dress and little spots of blood upon them here
and there.  But the boldest point he made, was this.  It was
attempted to be set up in proof of her jealousy, that she was under
strong suspicion of having, at about the time of the murder,
frantically destroyed her child by this man - some three years old
- to revenge herself upon him.  Mr. Jaggers worked that, in this way.
"We say these are not marks of finger-nails, but marks of brambles,
and we show you the brambles.  You say they are marks of
finger-nails, and you set up the hypothesis that she destroyed her
child.  You must accept all consequences of that hypothesis.  For
anything we know, she may have destroyed her child, and the child
in clinging to her may have scratched her hands.  What then?  You are
not trying her for the murder of her child; why don't you?  As to
this case, if you will have scratches, we say that, for anything we
know, you may have accounted for them, assuming for the sake of
argument that you have not invented them!"  To sum up, sir," said
Wemmick, "Mr. Jaggers was altogether too many for the Jury, and they
gave in."

"Has she been in his service ever since?"

"Yes; but not only that," said Wemmick.  "She went into his service
immediately after her acquittal, tamed as she is now.  She has since
been taught one thing and another in the way of her duties, but she
was tamed from the beginning."

"Do you remember the sex of the child?"

"Said to have been a girl."

"You have nothing more to say to me to-night?"

"Nothing.  I got your letter and destroyed it.  Nothing."

We exchanged a cordial Good Night, and I went home, with new matter
for my thoughts, though with no relief from the old.

Chapter 49


Putting Miss Havisham's note in my pocket, that it might serve as
my credentials for so soon reappearing at Satis House, in case her
waywardness should lead her to express any surprise at seeing me, I
went down again by the coach next day.  But I alighted at the
Halfway House, and breakfasted there, and walked the rest of the
distance; for, I sought to get into the town quietly by the
unfrequented ways, and to leave it in the same manner.

The best light of the day was gone when I passed along the quiet
echoing courts behind the High-street.  The nooks of ruin where the
old monks had once had their refectories and gardens, and where the
strong walls were now pressed into the service of humble sheds and
stables, were almost as silent as the old monks in their graves.
The cathedral chimes had at once a sadder and a more remote sound
to me, as I hurried on avoiding observation, than they had ever had
before; so, the swell of the old organ was borne to my ears like
funeral music; and the rooks, as they hovered about the grey tower
and swung in the bare high trees of the priory-garden, seemed to
call to me that the place was changed, and that Estella was gone
out of it for ever.

An elderly woman whom I had seen before as one of the servants who
lived in the supplementary house across the back court-yard, opened
the gate.  The lighted candle stood in the dark passage within, as
of old, and I took it up and ascended the staircase alone.  Miss
Havisham was not in her own room, but was in the larger room across
the landing.  Looking in at the door, after knocking in vain, I saw
her sitting on the hearth in a ragged chair, close before, and lost
in the contemplation of, the ashy fire.

Doing as I had often done, I went in, and stood, touching the old
chimney-piece, where she could see me when she raised her eyes.
There was an air or utter loneliness upon her, that would have
moved me to pity though she had wilfully done me a deeper injury
than I could charge her with.  As I stood compassionating her, and
thinking how in the progress of time I too had come to be a part of
the wrecked fortunes of that house, her eyes rested on me.  She
stared, and said in a low voice, "Is it real?"

"It is I, Pip.  Mr. Jaggers gave me your note yesterday, and I have
lost no time."

"Thank you.  Thank you."

As I brought another of the ragged chairs to the hearth and sat
down, I remarked a new expression on her face, as if she were
afraid of me.

"I want," she said, "to pursue that subject you mentioned to me
when you were last here, and to show you that I am not all stone.
But perhaps you can never believe, now, that there is anything
human in my heart?"

When I said some reassuring words, she stretched out her tremulous
right hand, as though she was going to touch me; but she recalled
it again before I understood the action, or knew how to receive it.

"You said, speaking for your friend, that you could tell me how to
do something useful and good.  Something that you would like done,
is it not?"

"Something that I would like done very much."

"What is it?"

I began explaining to her that secret history of the partnership.  I
had not got far into it, when I judged from her looks that she was
thinking in a discursive way of me, rather than of what I said.  It
seemed to be so, for, when I stopped speaking, many moments passed
before she showed that she was conscious of the fact.

"Do you break off," she asked then, with her former air of being
afraid of me, "because you hate me too much to bear to speak to
me?"

"No, no," I answered, "how can you think so, Miss Havisham!  I
stopped because I thought you were not following what I said."

"Perhaps I was not," she answered, putting a hand to her head.
"Begin again, and let me look at something else.  Stay!  Now tell
me."

She set her hand upon her stick, in the resolute way that sometimes
was habitual to her, and looked at the fire with a strong
expression of forcing herself to attend.  I went on with my
explanation, and told her how I had hoped to complete the
transaction out of my means, but how in this I was disappointed.
That part of the subject (I reminded her) involved matters which
could form no part of my explanation, for they were the weighty
secrets of another.

"So!" said she, assenting with her head, but not looking at me.
"And how much money is wanting to complete the purchase?"

I was rather afraid of stating it, for it sounded a large sum.
"Nine hundred pounds."

"If I give you the money for this purpose, will you keep my secret
as you have kept your own?"

"Quite as faithfully."

"And your mind will be more at rest?"

"Much more at rest."

"Are you very unhappy now?"

She asked this question, still without looking at me, but in an
unwonted tone of sympathy.  I could not reply at the moment, for my
voice failed me.  She put her left arm across the head of her stick,
and softly laid her forehead on it.

"I am far from happy, Miss Havisham; but I have other causes of
disquiet than any you know of.  They are the secrets I have
mentioned."

After a little while, she raised her head and looked at the fire
again.

"It is noble in you to tell me that you have other causes of
unhappiness, Is it true?"

"Too true."

"Can I only serve you, Pip, by serving your friend?  Regarding that
as done, is there nothing I can do for you yourself?"

"Nothing.  I thank you for the question.  I thank you even more for
the tone of the question.  But, there is nothing."

She presently rose from her seat, and looked about the blighted
room for the means of writing.  There were non there, and she took
from her pocket a yellow set of ivory tablets, mounted in tarnished
gold, and wrote upon them with a pencil in a case of tarnished gold
that hung from her neck.

"You are still on friendly terms with Mr. Jaggers?"

"Quite.  I dined with him yesterday."

"This is an authority to him to pay you that money, to lay out at
your irresponsible discretion for your friend.  I keep no money
here; but if you would rather Mr. Jaggers knew nothing of the
matter, I will send it to you."

"Thank you, Miss Havisham; I have not the least objection to
receiving it from him."

She read me what she had written, and it was direct and clear, and
evidently intended to absolve me from any suspicion of profiting by
the receipt of the money.  I took the tablets from her hand, and it
trembled again, and it trembled more as she took off the chain to
which the pencil was attached, and put it in mine.  All this she
did, without looking at me.

"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!"

"O Miss Havisham," said I, "I can do it now.  There have been sore
mistakes; and my life has been a blind and thankless one; and I
want forgiveness and direction far too much, to be bitter with
you."

She turned her face to me for the first time since she had averted
it, and, to my amazement, I may even add to my terror, dropped on
her knees at my feet; with her folded hands raised to me in the
manner in which, when her poor heart was young and fresh and whole,
they must often have been raised to heaven from her mother's side.

To see her with her white hair and her worn face kneeling at my
feet, gave me a shock through all my frame.  I entreated her to
rise, and got my arms about her to help her up; but she only
pressed that hand of mine which was nearest to her grasp, and hung
her head over it and wept.  I had never seen her shed a tear before,
and, in the hope that the relief might do her good, I bent over her
without speaking.  She was not kneeling now, but was down upon the
ground.

"O!" she cried, despairingly.  "What have I done!  What have I done!"

"If you mean, Miss Havisham, what have you done to injure me, let
me answer.  Very little.  I should have loved her under any
circumstances.  - Is she married?"

"Yes."

It was a needless question, for a new desolation in the desolate
house had told me so.

"What have I done!  What have I done!"  She wrung her hands, and
crushed her white hair, and returned to this cry over and over
again.  "What have I done!"

I knew not how to answer, or how to comfort her.  That she had done
a grievous thing in taking an impressionable child to mould into
the form that her wild resentment, spurned affection, and wounded
pride, found vengeance in, I knew full well.  But that, in shutting
out the light of day, she had shut out infinitely more; that, in
seclusion, she had secluded herself from a thousand natural and
healing influences; that, her mind, brooding solitary, had grown
diseased, as all minds do and must and will that reverse the
appointed order of their Maker; I knew equally well.  And could I
look upon her without compassion, seeing her punishment in the ruin
she was, in her profound unfitness for this earth on which she was
placed, in the vanity of sorrow which had become a master mania,
like the vanity of penitence, the vanity of remorse, the vanity of
unworthiness, and other monstrous vanities that have been curses in
this world?

"Until you spoke to her the other day, and until I saw in you a
looking-glass that showed me what I once felt myself, I did not
know what I had done.  What have I done!  What have I done!"  And so
again, twenty, fifty times over, What had she done!

"Miss Havisham," I said, when her cry had died away, "you may
dismiss me from your mind and conscience.  But Estella is a
different case, and if you can ever undo any scrap of what you have
done amiss in keeping a part of her right nature away from her, it
will be better to do that, than to bemoan the past through a
hundred years."

"Yes, yes, I know it.  But, Pip - my Dear!"  There was an earnest
womanly compassion for me in her new affection.  "My Dear!  Believe
this:  when she first came to me, I meant to save her from misery
like my own.  At first I meant no more."

"Well, well!" said I.  "I hope so."

"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."

"Better," I could not help saying, "to have left her a natural
heart, even to be bruised or broken."

With that, Miss Havisham looked distractedly at me for a while, and
then burst out again, What had she done!

"If you knew all my story," she pleaded, "you would have some
compassion for me and a better understanding of me."

"Miss Havisham," I answered, as delicately as I could, "I believe I
may say that I do know your story, and have known it ever since I
first left this neighbourhood.  It has inspired me with great
commiseration, and I hope I understand it and its influences.  Does
what has passed between us give me any excuse for asking you a
question relative to Estella?  Not as she is, but as she was when
she first came here?"

She was seated on the ground, with her arms on the ragged chair,
and her head leaning on them.  She looked full at me when I said
this, and replied, "Go on."

"Whose child was Estella?"

She shook her head.

"You don't know?"

She shook her head again.

"But Mr. Jaggers brought her here, or sent her here?"

"Brought her here."

"Will you tell me how that came about?"

She answered in a low whisper and with caution:  "I had been shut up
in these rooms a long time (I don't know how long; you know what
time the clocks keep here), when I told him that I wanted a little
girl to rear and love, and save from my fate.  I had first seen him
when I sent for him to lay this place waste for me; having read of
him in the newspapers, before I and the world parted.  He told me
that he would look about him for such an orphan child.  One night he
brought her here asleep, and I called her Estella."

"Might I ask her age then?"

"Two or three.  She herself knows nothing, but that she was left an
orphan and I adopted her."

So convinced I was of that woman's being her mother, that I wanted
no evidence to establish the fact in my own mind.  But, to any mind,
I thought, the connection here was clear and straight.

What more could I hope to do by prolonging the interview?  I had
succeeded on behalf of Herbert, Miss Havisham had told me all she
knew of Estella, I had said and done what I could to ease her mind.
No matter with what other words we parted; we parted.

Twilight was closing in when I went down stairs into the natural
air.  I called to the woman who had opened the gate when I entered,
that I would not trouble her just yet, but would walk round the
place before leaving.  For, I had a presentiment that I should never
be there again, and I felt that the dying light was suited to my
last view of it.

By the wilderness of casks that I had walked on long ago, and on
which the rain of years had fallen since, rotting them in many
places, and leaving miniature swamps and pools of water upon those
that stood on end, I made my way to the ruined garden.  I went all
round it; round by the corner where Herbert and I had fought our
battle; round by the paths where Estella and I had walked.  So cold,
so lonely, so dreary all!

Taking the brewery on my way back, I raised the rusty latch of a
little door at the garden end of it, and walked through.  I was
going out at the opposite door - not easy to open now, for the damp
wood had started and swelled, and the hinges were yielding, and the
threshold was encumbered with a growth of fungus - when I turned my
head to look back.  A childish association revived with wonderful
force in the moment of the slight action, and I fancied that I saw
Miss Havisham hanging to the beam.  So strong was the impression,
that I stood under the beam shuddering from head to foot before I
knew it was a fancy - though to be sure I was there in an instant.

The mournfulness of the place and time, and the great terror of
this illusion, though it was but momentary, caused me to feel an
indescribable awe as I came out between the open wooden gates where
I had once wrung my hair after Estella had wrung my heart.  Passing
on into the front court-yard, I hesitated whether to call the woman
to let me out at the locked gate of which she had the key, or first
to go up-stairs and assure myself that Miss Havisham was as safe
and well as I had left her.  I took the latter course and went up.

I looked into the room where I had left her, and I saw her seated
in the ragged chair upon the hearth close to the fire, with her
back towards me.  In the moment when I was withdrawing my head to go
quietly away, I saw a great flaming light spring up.  In the same
moment, I saw her running at me, shrieking, with a whirl of fire
blazing all about her, and soaring at least as many feet above her
head as she was high.

I had a double-caped great-coat on, and over my arm another thick
coat.  That I got them off, closed with her, threw her down, and got
them over her; that I dragged the great cloth from the table for
the same purpose, and with it dragged down the heap of rottenness
in the midst, and all the ugly things that sheltered there; that we
were on the ground struggling like desperate enemies, and that the
closer I covered her, the more wildly she shrieked and tried to
free herself; that this occurred I knew through the result, but not
through anything I felt, or thought, or knew I did.  I knew nothing
until I knew that we were on the floor by the great table, and that
patches of tinder yet alight were floating in the smoky air, which,
a moment ago, had been her faded bridal dress.

Then, I looked round and saw the disturbed beetles and spiders
running away over the floor, and the servants coming in with
breathless cries at the door.  I still held her forcibly down with
all my strength, like a prisoner who might escape; and I doubt if I
even knew who she was, or why we had struggled, or that she had
been in flames, or that the flames were out, until I saw the
patches of tinder that had been her garments, no longer alight but
falling in a black shower around us.

She was insensible, and I was afraid to have her moved, or even
touched.  Assistance was sent for and I held her until it came, as
if I unreasonably fancied (I think I did) that if I let her go, the
fire would break out again and consume her.  When I got up, on the
surgeon's coming to her with other aid, I was astonished to see
that both my hands were burnt; for, I had no knowledge of it
through the sense of feeling.

On examination it was pronounced that she had received serious
hurts, but that they of themselves were far from hopeless; the
danger lay mainly in the nervous shock.  By the surgeon's
directions, her bed was carried into that room and laid upon the
great table:  which happened to be well suited to the dressing of
her injuries.  When I saw her again, an hour afterwards, she lay
indeed where I had seen her strike her stick, and had heard her say
that she would lie one day.

Though every vestige of her dress was burnt, as they told me, she
still had something of her old ghastly bridal appearance; for, they
had covered her to the throat with white cotton-wool, and as she
lay with a white sheet loosely overlying that, the phantom air of
something that had been and was changed, was still upon her.

I found, on questioning the servants, that Estella was in Paris,
and I got a promise from the surgeon that he would write to her by
the next post.  Miss Havisham's family I took upon myself; intending
to communicate with Mr. Matthew Pocket only, and leave him to do as
he liked about informing the rest.  This I did next day, through
Herbert, as soon as I returned to town.

There was a stage, that evening, when she spoke collectedly of what
had happened, though with a certain terrible vivacity.  Towards
midnight she began to wander in her speech, and after that it
gradually set in that she said innumerable times in a low solemn
voice, "What have I done!"  And then, "When she first came, I meant
to save her from misery like mine."  And then, "Take the pencil and
write under my name, 'I forgive her!'"  She never changed the order
of these three sentences, but she sometimes left out a word in one
or other of them; never putting in another word, but always leaving
a blank and going on to the next word.

As I could do no service there, and as I had, nearer home, that
pressing reason for anxiety and fear which even her wanderings
could not drive out of my mind, I decided in the course of the
night that I would return by the early morning coach:  walking on a
mile or so, and being taken up clear of the town.  At about six
o'clock of the morning, therefore, I leaned over her and touched
her lips with mine, just as they said, not stopping for being
touched, "Take the pencil and write under my name, 'I forgive
her.'"

Chapter 50


My hands had been dressed twice or thrice in the night, and again
in the morning.  My left arm was a good deal burned to the elbow,
and, less severely, as high as the shoulder; it was very painful,
but the flames had set in that direction, and I felt thankful it
was no worse.  My right hand was not so badly burnt but that I could
move the fingers.  It was bandaged, of course, but much less
inconveniently than my left hand and arm; those I carried in a
sling; and I could only wear my coat like a cloak, loose over my
shoulders and fastened at the neck.  My hair had been caught by the
fire, but not my head or face.

When Herbert had been down to Hammersmith and seen his father, he
came back to me at our chambers, and devoted the day to attending on
me.  He was the kindest of nurses, and at stated times took off the
bandages, and steeped them in the cooling liquid that was kept
ready, and put them on again, with a patient tenderness that I was
deeply grateful for.

At first, as I lay quiet on the sofa, I found it painfully
difficult, I might say impossible, to get rid of the impression of
the glare of the flames, their hurry and noise, and the fierce
burning smell.  If I dozed for a minute, I was awakened by Miss
Havisham's cries, and by her running at me with all that height of
fire above her head.  This pain of the mind was much harder to
strive against than any bodily pain I suffered; and Herbert, seeing
that, did his utmost to hold my attention engaged.

Neither of us spoke of the boat, but we both thought of it.  That
was made apparent by our avoidance of the subject, and by our
agreeing - without agreement - to make my recovery of the use of my
hands, a question of so many hours, not of so many weeks.

My first question when I saw Herbert had been of course, whether
all was well down the river?  As he replied in the affirmative, with
perfect confidence and cheerfulness, we did not resume the subject
until the day was wearing away.  But then, as Herbert changed the
bandages, more by the light of the fire than by the outer light, he
went back to it spontaneously.

"I sat with Provis last night, Handel, two good hours."

"Where was Clara?"

"Dear little thing!" said Herbert.  "She was up and down with
Gruffandgrim all the evening.  He was perpetually pegging at the
floor, the moment she left his sight.  I doubt if he can hold out
long though.  What with rum and pepper - and pepper and rum - I
should think his pegging must be nearly over."

"And then you will be married, Herbert?"

"How can I take care of the dear child otherwise? - Lay your arm
out upon the back of the sofa, my dear boy, and I'll sit down here,
and get the bandage off so gradually that you shall not know when
it comes.  I was speaking of Provis.  Do you know, Handel, he
improves?"

"I said to you I thought he was softened when I last saw him."

"So you did.  And so he is.  He was very communicative last night,
and told me more of his life.  You remember his breaking off here
about some woman that he had had great trouble with. - Did I hurt
you?"

I had started, but not under his touch.  His words had given me a
start.

"I had forgotten that, Herbert, but I remember it now you speak of
it."

"Well!  He went into that part of his life, and a dark wild part it
is.  Shall I tell you?  Or would it worry you just now?"

"Tell me by all means.  Every word."

Herbert bent forward to look at me more nearly, as if my reply had
been rather more hurried or more eager than he could quite account
for.  "Your head is cool?" he said, touching it.

"Quite," said I.  "Tell me what Provis said, my dear Herbert."

"It seems," said Herbert, " - there's a bandage off most
charmingly, and now comes the cool one - makes you shrink at first,
my poor dear fellow, don't it?  but it will be comfortable presently
- it seems that the woman was a young woman, and a jealous woman,
and a revengeful woman; revengeful, Handel, to the last degree."

"To what last degree?"

"Murder.  - Does it strike too cold on that sensitive place?"

"I don't feel it.  How did she murder?  Whom did she murder?" "Why,
the deed may not have merited quite so terrible a name," said
Herbert, "but, she was tried for it, and Mr. Jaggers defended her,
and the reputation of that defence first made his name known to
Provis.  It was another and a stronger woman who was the victim, and
there had been a struggle - in a barn.  Who began it, or how fair it
was, or how unfair, may be doubtful; but how it ended, is certainly
not doubtful, for the victim was found throttled."

"Was the woman brought in guilty?"

"No; she was acquitted. - My poor Handel, I hurt you!"

"It is impossible to be gentler, Herbert.  Yes?  What else?"

"This acquitted young woman and Provis had a little child:  a little
child of whom Provis was exceedingly fond.  On the evening of the
very night when the object of her jealousy was strangled as I tell
you, the young woman presented herself before Provis for one
moment, and swore that she would destroy the child (which was in
her possession), and he should never see it again; then, she
vanished.  - There's the worst arm comfortably in the sling once
more, and now there remains but the right hand, which is a far
easier job.  I can do it better by this light than by a stronger,
for my hand is steadiest when I don't see the poor blistered
patches too distinctly.  - You don't think your breathing is
affected, my dear boy?  You seem to breathe quickly."

"Perhaps I do, Herbert.  Did the woman keep her oath?"

"There comes the darkest part of Provis's life.  She did."

"That is, he says she did."

"Why, of course, my dear boy," returned Herbert, in a tone of
surprise, and again bending forward to get a nearer look at me.  "He
says it all.  I have no other information."

"No, to be sure."

"Now, whether," pursued Herbert, "he had used the child's mother
ill, or whether he had used the child's mother well, Provis doesn't
say; but, she had shared some four or five years of the wretched
life he described to us at this fireside, and he seems to have felt
pity for her, and forbearance towards her.  Therefore, fearing he
should be called upon to depose about this destroyed child, and so
be the cause of her death, he hid himself (much as he grieved for
the child), kept himself dark, as he says, out of the way and out
of the trial, and was only vaguely talked of as a certain man
called Abel, out of whom the jealousy arose.  After the acquittal
she disappeared, and thus he lost the child and the child's
mother."

"I want to ask--"

"A moment, my dear boy, and I have done.  That evil genius,
Compeyson, the worst of scoundrels among many scoundrels, knowing
of his keeping out of the way at that time, and of his reasons for
doing so, of course afterwards held the knowledge over his head as
a means of keeping him poorer, and working him harder.  It was clear
last night that this barbed the point of Provis's animosity."

"I want to know," said I, "and particularly, Herbert, whether he
told you when this happened?"

"Particularly?  Let me remember, then, what he said as to that.  His
expression was, 'a round score o' year ago, and a'most directly
after I took up wi' Compeyson.'  How old were you when you came upon
him in the little churchyard?"

"I think in my seventh year."

"Ay.  It had happened some three or four years then, he said, and
you brought into his mind the little girl so tragically lost, who
would have been about your age."

"Herbert," said I, after a short silence, in a hurried way, "can
you see me best by the light of the window, or the light of the
fire?"

"By the firelight," answered Herbert, coming close again.

"Look at me."

"I do look at you, my dear boy."

"Touch me."

"I do touch you, my dear boy."

"You are not afraid that I am in any fever, or that my head is much
disordered by the accident of last night?"

"N-no, my dear boy," said Herbert, after taking time to examine me.
"You are rather excited, but you are quite yourself."

"I know I am quite myself.  And the man we have in hiding down the
river, is Estella's Father."

Chapter 51


What purpose I had in view when I was hot on tracing out and
proving Estella's parentage, I cannot say.  It will presently be
seen that the question was not before me in a distinct shape, until
it was put before me by a wiser head than my own.

But, when Herbert and I had held our momentous conversation, I was
seized with a feverish conviction that I ought to hunt the matter
down - that I ought not to let it rest, but that I ought to see Mr.
Jaggers, and come at the bare truth.  I really do not know whether I
felt that I did this for Estella's sake, or whether I was glad to
transfer to the man in whose preservation I was so much concerned,
some rays of the romantic interest that had so long surrounded her.
Perhaps the latter possibility may be the nearer to the truth.

Any way, I could scarcely be withheld from going out to
Gerrard-street that night.  Herbert's representations that if I did,
I should probably be laid up and stricken useless, when our
fugitive's safety would depend upon me, alone restrained my
impatience.  On the understanding, again and again reiterated, that
come what would, I was to go to Mr. Jaggers to-morrow, I at length
submitted to keep quiet, and to have my hurts looked after, and to
stay at home.  Early next morning we went out together, and at the
corner of Giltspur-street by Smithfield, I left Herbert to go his
way into the City, and took my way to Little Britain.

There were periodical occasions when Mr. Jaggers and Wemmick went
over the office accounts, and checked off the vouchers, and put all
things straight.  On these occasions Wemmick took his books and
papers into Mr. Jaggers's room, and one of the up-stairs clerks came
down into the outer office.  Finding such clerk on Wemmick's post
that morning, I knew what was going on; but, I was not sorry to
have Mr. Jaggers and Wemmick together, as Wemmick would then hear
for himself that I said nothing to compromise him.

My appearance with my arm bandaged and my coat loose over my
shoulders, favoured my object.  Although I had sent Mr. Jaggers a
brief account of the accident as soon as I had arrived in town, yet
I had to give him all the details now; and the speciality of the
occasion caused our talk to be less dry and hard, and less strictly
regulated by the rules of evidence, than it had been before.  While
I described the disaster, Mr. Jaggers stood, according to his wont,
before the fire.  Wemmick leaned back in his chair, staring at me,
with his hands in the pockets of his trousers, and his pen put
horizontally into the post.  The two brutal casts, always
inseparable in my mind from the official proceedings, seemed to be
congestively considering whether they didn't smell fire at the
present moment.

My narrative finished, and their questions exhausted, I then
produced Miss Havisham's authority to receive the nine hundred
pounds for Herbert.  Mr. Jaggers's eyes retired a little deeper into
his head when I handed him the tablets, but he presently handed
them over to Wemmick, with instructions to draw the cheque for his
signature.  While that was in course of being done, I looked on at
Wemmick as he wrote, and Mr. Jaggers, poising and swaying himself on
his well-polished boots, looked on at me.  "I am sorry, Pip," said
he, as I put the cheque in my pocket, when he had signed it, "that
we do nothing for you."

"Miss Havisham was good enough to ask me," I returned, "whether she
could do nothing for me, and I told her No."

"Everybody should know his own business," said Mr. Jaggers.  And I
saw Wemmick's lips form the words "portable property."

"I should not have told her No, if I had been you," said Mr
Jaggers; "but every man ought to know his own business best."

"Every man's business," said Wemmick, rather reproachfully towards
me, "is portable property."

As I thought the time was now come for pursuing the theme I had at
heart, I said, turning on Mr. Jaggers:

"I did ask something of Miss Havisham, however, sir.  I asked her to
give me some information relative to her adopted daughter, and she
gave me all she possessed."

"Did she?" said Mr. Jaggers, bending forward to look at his boots
and then straightening himself.  "Hah!  I don't think I should have
done so, if I had been Miss Havisham.  But she ought to know her own
business best."

"I know more of the history of Miss Havisham's adopted child, than
Miss Havisham herself does, sir.  I know her mother."

Mr. Jaggers looked at me inquiringly, and repeated "Mother?"

"I have seen her mother within these three days."

"Yes?" said Mr. Jaggers.

"And so have you, sir.  And you have seen her still more recently."

"Yes?" said Mr. Jaggers.

"Perhaps I know more of Estella's history than even you do," said
I.  "I know her father too."

A certain stop that Mr. Jaggers came to in his manner - he was too
self-possessed to change his manner, but he could not help its
being brought to an indefinably attentive stop - assured me that he
did not know who her father was.  This I had strongly suspected from
Provis's account (as Herbert had repeated it) of his having kept
himself dark; which I pieced on to the fact that he himself was not
Mr. Jaggers's client until some four years later, and when he could
have no reason for claiming his identity.  But, I could not be sure
of this unconsciousness on Mr. Jaggers's part before, though I was
quite sure of it now.

"So!  You know the young lady's father, Pip?" said Mr. Jaggers.

"Yes," I replied, "and his name is Provis - from New South Wales."

Even Mr. Jaggers started when I said those words.  It was the
slightest start that could escape a man, the most carefully
repressed and the soonest checked, but he did start, though he made
it a part of the action of taking out his pocket-handkerchief.  How
Wemmick received the announcement I am unable to say, for I was
afraid to look at him just then, lest Mr. Jaggers's sharpness should
detect that there had been some communication unknown to him
between us.

"And on what evidence, Pip," asked Mr.  Jaggers, very coolly, as he
paused with his handkerchief half way to his nose, "does Provis
make this claim?"

"He does not make it," said I, "and has never made it, and has no
knowledge or belief that his daughter is in existence."

For once, the powerful pocket-handkerchief failed.  My reply was so
unexpected that Mr. Jaggers put the handkerchief back into his
pocket without completing the usual performance, folded his arms,
and looked with stern attention at me, though with an immovable
face.

Then I told him all I knew, and how I knew it; with the one
reservation that I left him to infer that I knew from Miss Havisham
what I in fact knew from Wemmick.  I was very careful indeed as to
that.  Nor, did I look towards Wemmick until I had finished all I
had to tell, and had been for some time silently meeting Mr.
Jaggers's look.  When I did at last turn my eyes in Wemmick's
direction, I found that he had unposted his pen, and was intent
upon the table before him.

"Hah!" said Mr. Jaggers at last, as he moved towards the papers on
the table, " - What item was it you were at, Wemmick, when Mr. Pip
came in?"

But I could not submit to be thrown off in that way, and I made a
passionate, almost an indignant, appeal to him to be more frank and
manly with me.  I reminded him of the false hopes into which I had
lapsed, the length of time they had lasted, and the discovery I had
made:  and I hinted at the danger that weighed upon my spirits.  I
represented myself as being surely worthy of some little confidence
from him, in return for the confidence I had just now imparted.  I
said that I did not blame him, or suspect him, or mistrust him, but
I wanted assurance of the truth from him.  And if he asked me why I
wanted it and why I thought I had any right to it, I would tell
him, little as he cared for such poor dreams, that I had loved
Estella dearly and long, and that, although I had lost her and must
live a bereaved life, whatever concerned her was still nearer and
dearer to me than anything else in the world.  And seeing that Mr.
Jaggers stood quite still and silent, and apparently quite
obdurate, under this appeal, I turned to Wemmick, and said,
"Wemmick, I know you to be a man with a gentle heart.  I have seen
your pleasant home, and your old father, and all the innocent
cheerful playful ways with which you refresh your business life.
And I entreat you to say a word for me to Mr. Jaggers, and to
represent to him that, all circumstances considered, he ought to be
more open with me!"

I have never seen two men look more oddly at one another than Mr.
Jaggers and Wemmick did after this apostrophe.  At first, a
misgiving crossed me that Wemmick would be instantly dismissed from
his employment; but, it melted as I saw Mr. Jaggers relax into
something like a smile, and Wemmick become bolder.

"What's all this?" said Mr. Jaggers.  "You with an old father, and
you with pleasant and playful ways?"

"Well!" returned Wemmick.  "If I don't bring 'em here, what does it
matter?"

"Pip," said Mr. Jaggers, laying his hand upon my arm, and smiling
openly, "this man must be the most cunning impostor in all London."

"Not a bit of it," returned Wemmick, growing bolder and bolder.  "I
think you're another."

Again they exchanged their former odd looks, each apparently still
distrustful that the other was taking him in.

"You with a pleasant home?" said Mr. Jaggers.

"Since it don't interfere with business," returned Wemmick, "let it
be so.  Now, I look at you, sir, I shouldn't wonder if you might be
planning and contriving to have a pleasant home of your own, one of
these days, when you're tired of all this work."

Mr. Jaggers nodded his head retrospectively two or three times, and
actually drew a sigh.  "Pip," said he, "we won't talk about 'poor
dreams;' you know more about such things than I, having much
fresher experience of that kind.  But now, about this other matter.
I'll put a case to you.  Mind!  I admit nothing."

He waited for me to declare that I quite understood that he
expressly said that he admitted nothing.

"Now, Pip," said Mr. Jaggers, "put this case.  Put the case that a
woman, under such circumstances as you have mentioned, held her
child concealed, and was obliged to communicate the fact to her
legal adviser, on his representing to her that he must know, with
an eye to the latitude of his defence, how the fact stood about
that child.  Put the case that at the same time he held a trust to
find a child for an eccentric rich lady to adopt and bring up."

"I follow you, sir."

"Put the case that he lived in an atmosphere of evil, and that all
he saw of children, was, their being generated in great numbers for
certain destruction.  Put the case that he often saw children
solemnly tried at a criminal bar, where they were held up to be
seen; put the case that he habitually knew of their being
imprisoned, whipped, transported, neglected, cast out, qualified in
all ways for the hangman, and growing up to be hanged.  Put the case
that pretty nigh all the children he saw in his daily business
life, he had reason to look upon as so much spawn, to develop into
the fish that were to come to his net - to be prosecuted, defended,
forsworn, made orphans, bedevilled somehow."

"I follow you, sir."

"Put the case, Pip, that here was one pretty little child out of
the heap, who could be saved; whom the father believed dead, and
dared make no stir about; as to whom, over the mother, the legal
adviser had this power:  "I know what you did, and how you did it.
You came so and so, this was your manner of attack and this the
manner of resistance, you went so and so, you did such and such
things to divert suspicion.  I have tracked you through it all, and
I tell it you all.  Part with the child, unless it should be
necessary to produce it to clear you, and then it shall be
produced.  Give the child into my hands, and I will do my best to
bring you off.  If you are saved, your child is saved too; if you
are lost, your child is still saved."  Put the case that this was
done, and that the woman was cleared."

"I understand you perfectly."

"But that I make no admissions?"

"That you make no admissions."  And Wemmick repeated, "No
admissions."

"Put the case, Pip, that passion and the terror of death had a
little shaken the woman's intellect, and that when she was set at
liberty, she was scared out of the ways of the world and went to
him to be sheltered.  Put the case that he took her in, and that he
kept down the old wild violent nature whenever he saw an inkling of
its breaking out, by asserting his power over her in the old way.
Do you comprehend the imaginary case?"

"Quite."

"Put the case that the child grew up, and was married for money.
That the mother was still living.  That the father was still living.
That the mother and father unknown to one another, were dwelling
within so many miles, furlongs, yards if you like, of one another.
That the secret was still a secret, except that you had got wind of
it.  Put that last case to yourself very carefully."

"I do."

"I ask Wemmick to put it to himself very carefully."

And Wemmick said, "I do."

"For whose sake would you reveal the secret?  For the father's?  I
think he would not be much the better for the mother.  For the
mother's?  I think if she had done such a deed she would be safer
where she was.  For the daughter's?  I think it would hardly serve
her, to establish her parentage for the information of her husband,
and to drag her back to disgrace, after an escape of twenty years,
pretty secure to last for life.  But, add the case that you had
loved her, Pip, and had made her the subject of those 'poor dreams'
which have, at one time or another, been in the heads of more men
than you think likely, then I tell you that you had better - and
would much sooner when you had thought well of it - chop off that
bandaged left hand of yours with your bandaged right hand, and then
pass the chopper on to Wemmick there, to cut that off, too."

I looked at Wemmick, whose face was very grave.  He gravely touched
his lips with his forefinger.  I did the same.  Mr. Jaggers did the
same.  "Now, Wemmick," said the latter then, resuming his usual
manner, "what item was it you were at, when Mr. Pip came in?"

Standing by for a little, while they were at work, I observed that
the odd looks they had cast at one another were repeated several
times:  with this difference now, that each of them seemed
suspicious, not to say conscious, of having shown himself in a weak
and unprofessional light to the other.  For this reason, I suppose,
they were now inflexible with one another; Mr. Jaggers being highly
dictatorial, and Wemmick obstinately justifying himself whenever
there was the smallest point in abeyance for a moment.  I had never
seen them on such ill terms; for generally they got on very well
indeed together.

But, they were both happily relieved by the opportune appearance of
Mike, the client with the fur cap and the habit of wiping his nose
on his sleeve, whom I had seen on the very first day of my
appearance within those walls.  This individual, who, either in his
own person or in that of some member of his family, seemed to be
always in trouble (which in that place meant Newgate), called to
announce that his eldest daughter was taken up on suspicion of
shop-lifting.  As he imparted this melancholy circumstance to
Wemmick, Mr. Jaggers standing magisterially before the fire and
taking no share in the proceedings, Mike's eye happened to twinkle
with a tear.

"What are you about?" demanded Wemmick, with the utmost
indignation.  "What do you come snivelling here for?"

"I didn't go to do it, Mr. Wemmick."

"You did," said Wemmick.  "How dare you?  You're not in a fit state
to come here, if you can't come here without spluttering like a bad
pen.  What do you mean by it?"

"A man can't help his feelings, Mr. Wemmick," pleaded Mike.

"His what?" demanded Wemmick, quite savagely.  "Say that again!"

"Now, look here my man," said Mr. Jaggers, advancing a step, and
pointing to the door.  "Get out of this office.  I'll have no
feelings here.  Get out."

"It serves you right," said Wemmick, "Get out."

So the unfortunate Mike very humbly withdrew, and Mr. Jaggers and
Wemmick appeared to have re-established their good understanding,
and went to work again with an air of refreshment upon them as if
they had just had lunch.

Chapter 52


From Little Britain, I went, with my cheque in my pocket, to Miss
Skiffins's brother, the accountant; and Miss Skiffins's brother,
the accountant, going straight to Clarriker's and bringing
Clarriker to me, I had the great satisfaction of concluding that
arrangement.  It was the only good thing I had done, and the only
completed thing I had done, since I was first apprised of my great
expectations.

Clarriker informing me on that occasion that the affairs of the
House were steadily progressing, that he would now be able to
establish a small branch-house in the East which was much wanted
for the extension of the business, and that Herbert in his new
partnership capacity would go out and take charge of it, I found
that I must have prepared for a separation from my friend, even
though my own affairs had been more settled.  And now indeed I felt
as if my last anchor were loosening its hold, and I should soon be
driving with the winds and waves.

But, there was recompense in the joy with which Herbert would come
home of a night and tell me of these changes, little imagining that
he told me no news, and would sketch airy pictures of himself
conducting Clara Barley to the land of the Arabian Nights, and of
me going out to join them (with a caravan of camels, I believe),
and of our all going up the Nile and seeing wonders.  Without being
sanguine as to my own part in these bright plans, I felt that
Herbert's way was clearing fast, and that old Bill Barley had but
to stick to his pepper and rum, and his daughter would soon be
happily provided for.

We had now got into the month of March.  My left arm, though it
presented no bad symptoms, took in the natural course so long to
heal that I was still unable to get a coat on.  My right arm was
tolerably restored; - disfigured, but fairly serviceable.

On a Monday morning, when Herbert and I were at breakfast, I
received the following letter from Wemmick by the post.

"Walworth.  Burn this as soon as read.  Early in the week, or say
Wednesday, you might do what you know of, if you felt disposed to
try it.  Now burn."

When I had shown this to Herbert and had put it in the fire - but
not before we had both got it by heart - we considered what to do.
For, of course my being disabled could now be no longer kept out of
view.

"I have thought it over, again and again," said Herbert, "and I
think I know a better course than taking a Thames waterman.  Take
Startop.  A good fellow, a skilled hand, fond of us, and
enthusiastic and honourable."

I had thought of him, more than once.

"But how much would you tell him, Herbert?"

"It is necessary to tell him very little.  Let him suppose it a mere
freak, but a secret one, until the morning comes:  then let him know
that there is urgent reason for your getting Provis aboard and
away.  You go with him?"

"No doubt."

"Where?"

It had seemed to me, in the many anxious considerations I had given
the point, almost indifferent what port we made for - Hamburg,
Rotterdam, Antwerp - the place signified little, so that he was got
out of England.  Any foreign steamer that fell in our way and would
take us up, would do.  I had always proposed to myself to get him
well down the river in the boat; certainly well beyond Gravesend,
which was a critical place for search or inquiry if suspicion were
afoot.  As foreign steamers would leave London at about the time of
high-water, our plan would be to get down the river by a previous
ebb-tide, and lie by in some quiet spot until we could pull off to
one.  The time when one would be due where we lay, wherever that
might be, could be calculated pretty nearly, if we made inquiries
beforehand.

Herbert assented to all this, and we went out immediately after
breakfast to pursue our investigations.  We found that a steamer for
Hamburg was likely to suit our purpose best, and we directed our
thoughts chiefly to that vessel.  But we noted down what other
foreign steamers would leave London with the same tide, and we
satisfied ourselves that we knew the build and colour of each.  We
then separated for a few hours; I, to get at once such passports as
were necessary; Herbert, to see Startop at his lodgings.  We both
did what we had to do without any hindrance, and when we met again
at one o'clock reported it done.  I, for my part, was prepared with
passports; Herbert had seen Startop, and he was more than ready to
join.

Those two should pull a pair of oars, we settled, and I would
steer; our charge would be sitter, and keep quiet; as speed was not
our object, we should make way enough.  We arranged that Herbert
should not come home to dinner before going to Mill Pond Bank that
evening; that he should not go there at all, to-morrow evening,
Tuesday; that he should prepare Provis to come down to some Stairs
hard by the house, on Wednesday, when he saw us approach, and not
sooner; that all the arrangements with him should be concluded that
Monday night; and that he should be communicated with no more in
any way, until we took him on board.

These precautions well understood by both of us, I went home.

On opening the outer door of our chambers with my key, I found a
letter in the box, directed to me; a very dirty letter, though not
ill-written.  It had been delivered by hand (of course since I left
home), and its contents were these:

"If you are not afraid to come to the old marshes to-night or
tomorrow night at Nine, and to come to the little sluice-house by
the limekiln, you had better come.  If you want information
regarding your uncle Provis, you had much better come and tell no
one and lose no time.  You must come alone.  Bring this with you."

I had had load enough upon my mind before the receipt of this
strange letter.  What to do now, I could not tell.  And the worst
was, that I must decide quickly, or I should miss the afternoon
coach, which would take me down in time for to-night.  To-morrow
night I could not think of going, for it would be too close upon
the time of the flight.  And again, for anything I knew, the
proffered information might have some important bearing on the
flight itself.

If I had had ample time for consideration, I believe I should still
have gone.  Having hardly any time for consideration - my watch
showing me that the coach started within half an hour - I resolved
to go.  I should certainly not have gone, but for the reference to
my Uncle Provis; that, coming on Wemmick's letter and the morning's
busy preparation, turned the scale.

It is so difficult to become clearly possessed of the contents of
almost any letter, in a violent hurry, that I had to read this
mysterious epistle again, twice, before its injunction to me to be
secret got mechanically into my mind.  Yielding to it in the same
mechanical kind of way, I left a note in pencil for Herbert,
telling him that as I should be so soon going away, I knew not for
how long, I had decided to hurry down and back, to ascertain for
myself how Miss Havisham was faring.  I had then barely time to get
my great-coat, lock up the chambers, and make for the coach-office
by the short by-ways.  If I had taken a hackney-chariot and gone by
the streets, I should have missed my aim; going as I did, I caught
the coach just as it came out of the yard.  I was the only inside
passenger, jolting away knee-deep in straw, when I came to myself.

For, I really had not been myself since the receipt of the letter;
it had so bewildered me ensuing on the hurry of the morning.  The
morning hurry and flutter had been great, for, long and anxiously
as I had waited for Wemmick, his hint had come like a surprise at
last.  And now, I began to wonder at myself for being in the coach,
and to doubt whether I had sufficient reason for being there, and
to consider whether I should get out presently and go back, and to
argue against ever heeding an anonymous communication, and, in
short, to pass through all those phases of contradiction and
indecision to which I suppose very few hurried people are
strangers.  Still, the reference to Provis by name, mastered
everything.  I reasoned as I had reasoned already without knowing it
- if that be reasoning - in case any harm should befall him through
my not going, how could I ever forgive myself!

It was dark before we got down, and the journey seemed long and
dreary to me who could see little of it inside, and who could not
go outside in my disabled state.  Avoiding the Blue Boar, I put up
at an inn of minor reputation down the town, and ordered some
dinner.  While it was preparing, I went to Satis House and inquired
for Miss Havisham; she was still very ill, though considered
something better.

My inn had once been a part of an ancient ecclesiastical house, and
I dined in a little octagonal common-room, like a font.  As I was
not able to cut my dinner, the old landlord with a shining bald
head did it for me.  This bringing us into conversation, he was so
good as to entertain me with my own story - of course with the
popular feature that Pumblechook was my earliest benefactor and the
founder of my fortunes.

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

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

"Does he ever come back to this neighbourhood?"

"Ay, he comes back," said the landlord, "to his great friends, now
and 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 he
can'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 tell
of it, sir," said the landlord.

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

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

"No thank you," I replied, turning from the table to brood over the
fire.  "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, 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.  The striking of the clock aroused me, but
not from my dejection or remorse, and I got up and had my coat
fastened round my neck, and went out.  I had previously sought in my
pockets for the letter, that I might refer to it again, but I could
not find it, and was uneasy to think that it must have been dropped
in the straw of the coach.  I knew very well, however, that the
appointed place was the little sluice-house by the limekiln on the
marshes, and the hour nine.  Towards the marshes I now went
straight, having no time to spare.

Chapter 53


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

There was a melancholy wind, and the marshes were very dismal.  A
stranger would have found them insupportable, and even to me they
were so oppressive that I hesitated, half inclined to go back.  But,
I knew them well, and could have found my way on a far darker
night, and had no excuse for returning, being there.  So, having
come 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 turned
towards the distant Hulks as I walked on, and, though I could see
the old lights away on the spits of sand, I saw them over my
shoulder.  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 at
each point that night, there would have been a long strip of the
blank horizon between the two bright specks.

At first, I had to shut some gates after me, and now and then to
stand still while the cattle that were lying in the banked-up
pathway, arose and blundered down among the grass and reeds.  But
after 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 lime
was burning with a sluggish stifling smell, but the fires were made
up and left, and no workmen were visible.  Hard by, was a small
stone-quarry.  It lay directly in my way, and had been worked that
day, as I saw by the tools and barrows that were lying about.

Coming up again to the marsh level out of this excavation - for the
rude path lay through it - I saw a light in the old sluice-house.  I
quickened my pace, and knocked at the door with my hand.  Waiting
for some reply, I looked about me, noticing how the sluice was
abandoned and broken, and how the house - of wood with a tiled roof
- would not be proof against the weather much longer, if it were so
even now, and how the mud and ooze were coated with lime, and how
the 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 a
lighted candle on a table, a bench, and a mattress on a truckle
bedstead.  As there was a loft above, I called, "Is there any one
here?" but no voice answered.  Then, I looked at my watch, and,
finding that it was past nine, called again, "Is there any one
here?"  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 seen
already, I turned back into the house, and stood just within the
shelter of the doorway, looking out into the night.  While I was
considering that some one must have been there lately and must soon
be coming back, or the candle would not be burning, it came into my
head to look if the wick were long.  I turned round to do so, and
had taken up the candle in my hand, when it was extinguished by
some violent shock, and the next thing I comprehended, was, that I
had been caught in a strong running noose, thrown over my head from
behind.

"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 on
my bad arm caused me exquisite pain.  Sometimes, a strong man's
hand, sometimes a strong man's breast, was set against my mouth to
deaden my cries, and with a hot breath always close to me, I
struggled ineffectually in the dark, while I was fastened tight to
the 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 the
surprise, and yet conscious how easily this threat could be put in
execution, I desisted, and tried to ease my arm were it ever so
little.  But, it was bound too tight for that.  I felt as if, having
been burnt before, it were now being boiled.

The sudden exclusion of the night and the substitution of black
darkness in its place, warned me that the man had closed a shutter.
After groping about for a little, he found the flint and steel he
wanted, and began to strike a light.  I strained my sight upon the
sparks that fell among the tinder, and upon which he breathed and
breathed, match in hand, but I could only see his lips, and the
blue point of the match; even those, but fitfully.  The tinder was
damp - 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 his
hands, and touches of his face, and could make out that he was
seated and bending over the table; but nothing more.  Presently I
saw his blue lips again, breathing on the tinder, and then a flare
of 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 I
kept my eyes upon him.

He lighted the candle from the flaring match with great
deliberation, and dropped the match, and trod it out.  Then, he put
the candle away from him on the table, so that he could see me, and
sat with his arms folded on the table and looked at me.  I made out
that I was fastened to a stout perpendicular ladder a few inches
from the wall - a fixture there - the means of ascent to the loft
above.

"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 than
two.  Oh you enemy, you enemy!"

His enjoyment of the spectacle I furnished, as he sat with his arms
folded on the table, shaking his head at me and hugging himself,
had a malignity in it that made me tremble.  As I watched him in
silence, he put his hand into the corner at his side, and took up a
gun 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 dared
you 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 name
to her."

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

"You're a liar.  And you'll take any pains, and spend any money, to
drive me out of this country, will you?" said he, repeating my
words to Biddy in the last interview I had with her.  "Now, I'll
tell you a piece of information.  It was never so well worth your
while to get me out of this country as it is to-night.  Ah!  If it
was all your money twenty times told, to the last brass farden!"  As
he shook his heavy hand at me, with his mouth snarling like a
tiger'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 a
heavy 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 and
drew it across his mouth as if his mouth watered for me, and sat
down again.

"You was always in Old Orlick's way since ever you was a child.  You
goes 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 I
looked wildly round my trap for any chance of escape; but there was
none.

"More than that," said he, folding his arms on the table again, "I
won'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 my
shoulders - and, let people suppose what they may of you, they
shall never know nothing."

My mind, with inconceivable rapidity, followed out all the
consequences of such a death.  Estella's father would believe I had
deserted him, would be taken, would die accusing me; even Herbert
would 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 a
moment; 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.

"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'll
have 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; though
few could know better than I, the solitary nature of the spot, and
the hopelessness of aid.  But as he sat gloating over me, I was
supported by a scornful detestation of him that sealed my lips.
Above all things, I resolved that I would not entreat him, and that
I would die making some last poor resistance to him.  Softened as my
thoughts of all the rest of men were in that dire extremity; humbly
beseeching pardon, as I did, of Heaven; melted at heart, as I was,
by the thought that I had taken no farewell, and never never now
could take farewell, of those who were dear to me, or could explain
myself to them, or ask for their compassion on my miserable errors;
still, if I could have killed him, even in dying, I would have done
it.

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

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

Again my mind, with its former inconceivable rapidity, had
exhausted the whole subject of the attack upon my sister, her
illness, and her death, before his slow and hesitating speech had
formed these words.

"It was you, villain," said I.

"I tell you it was your doing - I tell you it was done through
you," he retorted, catching up the gun, and making a blow with the
stock 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 nigh
you, she shouldn't have come to life again.  But it warn't Old
Orlick as did it; it was you.  You was favoured, and he was bullied
and beat.  Old Orlick bullied and beat, eh?  Now you pays for it.  You
done it; now you pays for it."

He drank again, and became more ferocious.  I saw by his tilting of
the bottle that there was no great quantity left in it.  I
distinctly understood that he was working himself up with its
contents, to make an end of me.  I knew that every drop it held, was
a drop of my life.  I knew that when I was changed into a part of
the vapour that had crept towards me but a little while before,
like my own warning ghost, he would do as he had done in my
sister's case - make all haste to the town, and be seen slouching
about there, drinking at the ale-houses.  My rapid mind pursued him
to the town, made a picture of the street with him in it, and
contrasted its lights and life with the lonely marsh and the white
vapour creeping over it, into which I should have dissolved.

It was not only that I could have summed up years and years and
years while he said a dozen words, but that what he did say
presented pictures to me, and not mere words.  In the excited and
exalted state of my brain, I could not think of a place without
seeing it, or of persons without seeing them.  It is impossible to
over-state the vividness of these images, and yet I was so intent,
all the time, upon him himself - who would not be intent on the
tiger crouching to spring! - that I knew of the slightest action of
his fingers.

When he had drunk this second time, he rose from the bench on which
he sat, and pushed the table aside.  Then, he took up the candle,
and shading it with his murderous hand so as to throw its light on
me, stood before me, looking at me and enjoying the sight.

"Wolf, I'll tell you something more.  It was Old Orlick as you
tumbled over on your stairs that night."

I saw the staircase with its extinguished lamps.  I saw the shadows
of the heavy stair-rails, thrown by the watchman's lantern on the
wall.  I saw the rooms that I was never to see again; here, a door
half open; there, a door closed; all the articles of furniture
around.

"And why was Old Orlick there?  I'll tell you something more, wolf.
You and her have pretty well hunted me out of this country, so far
as getting a easy living in it goes, and I've took up with new
companions, and new masters.  Some of 'em writes my letters when I
wants 'em wrote - do you mind?  - writes my letters, wolf!  They
writes fifty hands; they're not like sneaking you, as writes but
one.  I've had a firm mind and a firm will to have your life, since
you was down here at your sister's burying.  I han't seen a way to
get you safe, and I've looked arter you to know your ins and outs.
For, says Old Orlick to himself, 'Somehow or another I'll have
him!'  What!  When I looks for you, I finds your uncle Provis, eh?"

Mill Pond Bank, and Chinks's Basin, and the Old Green Copper
Rope-Walk, all so clear and plain!  Provis in his rooms, the signal
whose use was over, pretty Clara, the good motherly woman, old Bill
Barley on his back, all drifting by, as on the swift stream of my
life fast running out to sea!

"You with a uncle too!  Why, I know'd you at Gargery's when you was
so small a wolf that I could have took your weazen betwixt this
finger and thumb and chucked you away dead (as I'd thoughts o'
doing, odd times, when I see you loitering amongst the pollards on
a Sunday), and you hadn't found no uncles then.  No, not you!  But
when Old Orlick come for to hear that your uncle Provis had
mostlike wore the leg-iron wot Old Orlick had picked up, filed
asunder, on these meshes ever so many year ago, and wot he kep by
him till he dropped your sister with it, like a bullock, as he
means to drop you - hey?  - when he come for to hear that - hey?--"

In his savage taunting, he flared the candle so close at me, that I
turned my face aside, to save it from the flame.

"Ah!" he cried, laughing, after doing it again, "the burnt child
dreads the fire!  Old Orlick knowed you was burnt, Old Orlick knowed
you was smuggling your uncle Provis away, Old Orlick's a match for
you and know'd you'd come to-night!  Now I'll tell you something
more, wolf, and this ends it.  There's them that's as good a match
for your uncle Provis as Old Orlick has been for you.  Let him 'ware
them, when he's lost his nevvy!  Let him 'ware them, when no man
can't find a rag of his dear relation's clothes, nor yet a bone of
his body.  There's them that can't and that won't have Magwitch -
yes, I know the name! - alive in the same land with them, and
that's had such sure information of him when he was alive in
another land, as that he couldn't and shouldn't leave it unbeknown
and put them in danger.  P'raps it's them that writes fifty hands,
and that's not like sneaking you as writes but one.  'Ware
Compeyson, Magwitch, and the gallows!"

He flared the candle at me again, smoking my face and hair, and for
an instant blinding me, and turned his powerful back as he replaced
the light on the table.  I had thought a prayer, and had been with
Joe and Biddy and Herbert, before he turned towards me again.

There was a clear space of a few feet between the table and the
opposite wall.  Within this space, he now slouched backwards and
forwards.  His great strength seemed to sit stronger upon him than
ever before, as he did this with his hands hanging loose and heavy
at his sides, and with his eyes scowling at me.  I had no grain of
hope left.  Wild as my inward hurry was, and wonderful the force of
the pictures that rushed by me instead of thoughts, I could yet
clearly understand that unless he had resolved that I was within a
few moments of surely perishing out of all human knowledge, he
would never have told me what he had told.

Of a sudden, he stopped, took the cork out of his bottle, and
tossed it away.  Light as it was, I heard it fall like a plummet.  He
swallowed slowly, tilting up the bottle by little and little, and
now he looked at me no more.  The last few drops of liquor he poured
into the palm of his hand, and licked up.  Then, with a sudden hurry
of violence and swearing horribly, he threw the bottle from him,
and stooped; and I saw in his hand a stone-hammer with a long heavy
handle.

The resolution I had made did not desert me, for, without uttering
one vain word of appeal to him, I shouted out with all my might,
and struggled with all my might.  It was only my head and my legs
that I could move, but to that extent I struggled with all the
force, until then unknown, that was within me.  In the same instant
I heard responsive shouts, saw figures and a gleam of light dash in
at the door, heard voices and tumult, and saw Orlick emerge from a
struggle of men, as if it were tumbling water, clear the table at a
leap, and fly out into the night.

After a blank, I found that I was lying unbound, on the floor, in
the same place, with my head on some one's knee.  My eyes were fixed
on the ladder against the wall, when I came to myself - had opened
on it before my mind saw it - and thus as I recovered
consciousness, I knew that I was in the place where I had lost it.

Too indifferent at first, even to look round and ascertain who
supported me, I was lying looking at the ladder, when there came
between me and it, a face.  The face of Trabb's boy!

"I think he's all right!" said Trabb's boy, in a sober voice; "but
ain't he just pale though!"

At these words, the face of him who supported me looked over into
mine, and I saw my supporter to be--

"Herbert!  Great Heaven!"

"Softly," said Herbert.  "Gently, Handel.  Don't be too eager."

"And our old comrade, Startop!" I cried, as he too bent over me.

"Remember what he is going to assist us in," said Herbert, "and be
calm."

The allusion made me spring up; though I dropped again from the
pain in my arm.  "The time has not gone by, Herbert, has it?  What
night is to-night?  How long have I been here?"  For, I had a strange
and strong misgiving that I had been lying there a long time - a
day and a night - two days and nights - more.

"The time has not gone by.  It is still Monday night."

"Thank God!"

"And you have all to-morrow, Tuesday, to rest in," said Herbert.
"But you can't help groaning, my dear Handel.  What hurt have you
got?  Can you stand?"

"Yes, yes," said I, "I can walk.  I have no hurt but in this
throbbing arm."

They laid it bare, and did what they could.  It was violently
swollen and inflamed, and I could scarcely endure to have it
touched.  But, they tore up their handkerchiefs to make fresh
bandages, and carefully replaced it in the sling, until we could
get to the town and obtain some cooling lotion to put upon it.  In a
little while we had shut the door of the dark and empty
sluice-house, and were passing through the quarry on our way back.
Trabb's boy - Trabb's overgrown young man now - went before us with
a lantern, which was the light I had seen come in at the door.  But,
the moon was a good two hours higher than when I had last seen the
sky, and the night though rainy was much lighter.  The white vapour
of the kiln was passing from us as we went by, and, as I had
thought a prayer before, I thought a thanksgiving now.

Entreating Herbert to tell me how he had come to my rescue - which
at first he had flatly refused to do, but had insisted on my
remaining quiet - I learnt that I had in my hurry dropped the
letter, open, in our chambers, where he, coming home to bring with
him Startop whom he had met in the street on his way to me, found
it, very soon after I was gone.  Its tone made him uneasy, and the
more so because of the inconsistency between it and the hasty
letter I had left for him.  His uneasiness increasing instead of
subsiding after a quarter of an hour's consideration, he set off
for the coach-office, with Startop, who volunteered his company, to
make inquiry when the next coach went down.  Finding that the
afternoon coach was gone, and finding that his uneasiness grew into
positive alarm, as obstacles came in his way, he resolved to follow
in a post-chaise.  So, he and Startop arrived at the Blue Boar,
fully expecting there to find me, or tidings of me; but, finding
neither, went on to Miss Havisham's, where they lost me.  Hereupon
they went back to the hotel (doubtless at about the time when I was
hearing the popular local version of my own story), to refresh
themselves and to get some one to guide them out upon the marshes.
Among the loungers under the Boar's archway, happened to be Trabb's
boy - true to his ancient habit of happening to be everywhere where
he had no business - and Trabb's boy had seen me passing from Miss
Havisham's in the direction of my dining-place.  Thus, Trabb's boy
became their guide, and with him they went out to the sluice-house:
though by the town way to the marshes, which I had avoided.  Now, as
they went along, Herbert reflected, that I might, after all, have
been brought there on some genuine and serviceable errand tending
to Provis's safety, and, bethinking himself that in that case
interruption must be mischievous, left his guide and Startop on the
edge of the quarry, and went on by himself, and stole round the
house two or three times, endeavouring to ascertain whether all was
right within.  As he could hear nothing but indistinct sounds of one
deep rough voice (this was while my mind was so busy), he even at
last began to doubt whether I was there, when suddenly I cried out
loudly, and he answered the cries, and rushed in, closely followed
by the other two.

When I told Herbert what had passed within the house, he was for
our immediately going before a magistrate in the town, late at
night as it was, and getting out a warrant.  But, I had already
considered that such a course, by detaining us there, or binding us
to come back, might be fatal to Provis.  There was no gainsaying
this difficulty, and we relinquished all thoughts of pursuing
Orlick at that time.  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).

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.  Herbert got a large bottle of stuff for my arm, and by
dint of having this stuff dropped over it all the night through, I
was just able to bear its pain on the journey.  It was daylight when
we reached the Temple, and I went at once to bed, and lay in bed
all day.

My terror, as I lay there, of falling ill and being unfitted for
tomorrow, was so besetting, that I wonder it did not disable me of
itself.  It would have done so, pretty surely, in conjunction with
the mental wear and tear I had suffered, but for the unnatural
strain upon me that to-morrow was.  So anxiously looked forward to,
charged with such consequences, its results so impenetrably hidden
though so near.

No precaution could have been more obvious than our refraining from
communication with him that day; yet this again increased my
restlessness.  I started at every footstep and every sound,
believing that he was discovered and taken, and this was the
messenger to tell me so.  I persuaded myself that I knew he was
taken; that there was something more upon my mind than a fear or a
presentiment; that the fact had occurred, and I had a mysterious
knowledge of it.  As the day wore on and no ill news came, as the
day closed in and darkness fell, my overshadowing dread of being
disabled by illness before to-morrow morning, altogether mastered
me.  My burning arm throbbed, and my burning head throbbed, and I
fancied I was beginning to wander.  I counted up to high numbers, to
make sure of myself, and repeated passages that I knew in prose and
verse.  It happened sometimes that in the mere escape of a fatigued
mind, I dozed for some moments or forgot; then I would say to
myself with a start, "Now it has come, and I am turning delirious!"

They kept me very quiet all day, and kept my arm constantly
dressed, and gave me cooling drinks.  Whenever I fell asleep, I
awoke with the notion I had had in the sluice-house, that a long
time had elapsed and the opportunity to save him was gone.  About
midnight I got out of bed and went to Herbert, with the conviction
that I had been asleep for four-and-twenty hours, and that
Wednesday was past.  It was the last self-exhausting effort of my
fretfulness, for, after that, I slept soundly.

Wednesday morning was dawning when I looked out of window.  The
winking lights upon the bridges were already pale, the coming sun
was like a marsh of fire on the horizon.  The river, still dark and
mysterious, was spanned by bridges that were turning coldly grey,
with here and there at top a warm touch from the burning in the
sky.  As I looked along the clustered roofs, with Church towers and
spires shooting into the unusually clear air, the sun rose up, and
a veil seemed to be drawn from the river, and millions of sparkles
burst out upon its waters.  From me too, a veil seemed to be drawn,
and I felt strong and well.

Herbert lay asleep in his bed, and our old fellow-student lay
asleep on the sofa.  I could not dress myself without help, but I
made up the fire, which was still burning, and got some coffee
ready for them.  In good time they too started up strong and well,
and we admitted the sharp morning air at the windows, and looked at
the tide that was still flowing towards us.

"When it turns at nine o'clock," said Herbert, cheerfully, "look
out for us, and stand ready, you over there at Mill Pond Bank!"

Chapter 54


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 out pea-coats with us, and I took a bag.  Of all my
worldly possessions I took no more than the few necessaries that
filled the bag.  Where I might go, what I might do, or when I might
return, were questions utterly unknown to me; nor did I vex my mind
with them, for it was wholly set on Provis's safety.  I only
wondered for the passing moment, as I stopped at the door and
looked back, under what altered circumstances I should next see
those rooms, if ever.

We loitered down to the Temple stairs, and stood loitering there,
as if we were not quite decided to go upon the water at all.  Of
course I had taken care that the boat should be ready and
everything in order.  After a little show of indecision, which there
were none to see but the two or three amphibious creatures
belonging to our Temple stairs, we went on board and cast off;
Herbert in the bow, I steering.  It was then about high-water -
half-past eight.

Our plan was this.  The tide, beginning to run down at nine, and
being with us until three, we intended still to creep on after it
had turned, and row against it until dark.  We should then be well
in those long reaches below Gravesend, between Kent and Essex,
where the river is broad and solitary, where the waterside
inhabitants are very few, and where lone public-houses are
scattered here and there, of which we could choose one for a
resting-place.  There, we meant to lie by, all night.  The steamer
for Hamburg, and the steamer for Rotterdam, would start from London
at about nine on Thursday morning.  We should know at what time to
expect them, according to where we were, and would hail the first;
so that if by any accident we were not taken abroad, we should have
another chance.  We knew the distinguishing marks of each vessel.

The relief of being at last engaged in the execution of the
purpose, was so great to me that I felt it difficult to realize the
condition in which I had been a few hours before.  The crisp air,
the sunlight, the movement on the river, and the moving river
itself - the road that ran with us, seeming to sympathize with us,
animate us, and encourage us on - freshened me with new hope.  I
felt mortified to be of so little use in the boat; but, there were
few better oarsmen than my two friends, and they rowed with a
steady stroke that was to last all day.

At that time, the steam-traffic on the Thames was far below its
present extent, and watermen's boats were far more numerous.  Of
barges, sailing colliers, and coasting traders, there were perhaps
as many as now; but, of steam-ships, great and small, not a tithe
or a twentieth part so many.  Early as it was, there were plenty of
scullers going here and there that morning, and plenty of barges
dropping down with the tide; the navigation of the river between
bridges, in an open boat, was a much easier and commoner matter in
those days than it is in these; and we went ahead among many skiffs
and wherries, briskly.

Old London Bridge was soon passed, and old Billingsgate market with
its oyster-boats and Dutchmen, and the White Tower and Traitor's
Gate, and we were in among the tiers of shipping.  Here, were the
Leith, Aberdeen, and Glasgow steamers, loading and unloading goods,
and looking immensely high out of the water as we passed alongside;
here, were colliers by the score and score, with the coal-whippers
plunging off stages on deck, as counterweights to measures of coal
swinging up, which were then rattled over the side into barges;
here, at her moorings was to-morrow's steamer for Rotterdam, of
which we took good notice; and here to-morrow's for Hamburg, under
whose bowsprit we crossed.  And now I, sitting in the stern, could
see with a faster beating heart, Mill Pond Bank and Mill Pond
stairs.

"Is he there?" said Herbert.

"Not yet."

"Right!  He was not to come down till he saw us.  Can you see his
signal?"

"Not well from here; but I think I see it. - Now, I see him!  Pull
both.  Easy, Herbert.  Oars!"

We touched the stairs lightly for a single moment, and he was on
board and we were off again.  He had a boat-cloak with him, and a
black canvas bag, and he looked as like a river-pilot as my heart
could have wished.  "Dear boy!" he said, putting his arm on my
shoulder as he took his seat.  "Faithful dear boy, well done.
Thankye, thankye!"

Again among the tiers of shipping, in and out, avoiding rusty
chain-cables frayed hempen hawsers and bobbing buoys, sinking for
the moment floating broken baskets, scattering floating chips of
wood and shaving, cleaving floating scum of coal, in and out, under
the figure-head of the John of Sunderland making a speech to the
winds (as is done by many Johns), and the Betsy of Yarmouth with a
firm formality of bosom and her nobby eyes starting two inches out
of her head, in and out, hammers going in shipbuilders'yards, saws
going at timber, clashing engines going at things unknown, pumps
going in leaky ships, capstans going, ships going out to sea, and
unintelligible sea-creatures roaring curses over the bulwarks at
respondent lightermen, in and out - out at last upon the clearer
river, where the ships' boys might take their fenders in, no longer
fishing in troubled waters with them over the side, and where the
festooned sails might fly out to the wind.

At the Stairs where we had taken him abroad, and ever since, I had
looked warily for any token of our being suspected.  I had seen
none.  We certainly had not been, and at that time as certainly we
were not, either attended or followed by any boat.  If we had been
waited on by any boat, I should have run in to shore, and have
obliged her to go on, or to make her purpose evident.  But, we held
our own, without any appearance of molestation.

He had his boat-cloak on him, and looked, as I have said, a natural
part of the scene.  It was remarkable (but perhaps the wretched life
he had led, accounted for it), that he was the least anxious of any
of us.  He was not indifferent, for he told me that he hoped to live
to see his gentleman one of the best of gentlemen in a foreign
country; he was not disposed to be passive or resigned, as I
understood it; but he had no notion of meeting danger half way.
When it came upon him, he confronted it, but it must come before he
troubled himself.

"If you knowed, dear boy," he said to me, "what it is to sit here
alonger my dear boy and have my smoke, arter having been day by day
betwixt four walls, you'd envy me.  But you don't know what it is."

"I think I know the delights of freedom," I answered.

"Ah," said he, shaking his head gravely.  "But you don't know it
equal to me.  You must have been under lock and key, dear boy, to
know it equal to me - but I ain't a-going to be low."

It occurred to me as inconsistent, that for any mastering idea, he
should have endangered his freedom and even his life.  But I
reflected that perhaps freedom without danger was too much apart
from all the habit of his existence to be to him what it would be
to another man.  I was not far out, since he said, after smoking a
little:

"You see, dear boy, when I was over yonder, t'other side the world,
I was always a-looking to this side; and it come flat to be there,
for all I was a-growing rich.  Everybody knowed Magwitch, and
Magwitch could come, and Magwitch could go, and nobody's head would
be troubled about him.  They ain't so easy concerning me here, dear
boy - wouldn't be, leastwise, if they knowed where I was."

"If all goes well," said I, "you will be perfectly free and safe
again, within a few hours."

"Well," he returned, drawing a long breath, "I hope so."

"And think so?"

He dipped his hand in the water over the boat's gunwale, and said,
smiling with that softened air upon him which was not new to me:

"Ay, I s'pose I think so, dear boy.  We'd be puzzled to be more
quiet and easy-going 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.

"But for your face, I should think you were a little despondent,"
said I.

"Not a bit on it, dear boy!  It comes of flowing on so quiet, and of
that there rippling at the boat's head making a sort of a Sunday
tune.  Maybe I'm a-growing a trifle old besides."

He put his pipe back in his mouth with an undisturbed expression of
face, and sat as composed and contented as if we were already out
of England.  Yet he was as submissive to a word of advice as if he
had been in constant terror, for, when we ran ashore to get some
bottles of beer into the boat, and he was stepping out, I hinted
that I thought he would be safest where he was, and he said.  "Do
you, dear boy?" and quietly sat down again.

The air felt cold upon the river, but it was a bright day, and the
sunshine was very cheering.  The tide ran strong, I took care to
lose none of it, and our steady stroke carried us on thoroughly
well.  By imperceptible degrees, as the tide ran out, we lost more
and more of the nearer woods and hills, and dropped lower and lower
between the muddy banks, but the tide was yet with us when we were
off Gravesend.  As our charge was wrapped in his cloak, I purposely
passed within a boat or two's length of the floating Custom House,
and so out to catch the stream, alongside of two emigrant ships,
and under the bows of a large transport with troops on the
forecastle looking down at us.  And soon the tide began to slacken,
and the craft lying at anchor to swing, and presently they had all
swung round, and the ships that were taking advantage of the new
tide to get up to the Pool, began to crowd upon us in a fleet, and
we kept under the shore, as much out of the strength of the tide
now as we could, standing carefully off from low shallows and
mudbanks.

Our oarsmen were so fresh, by dint of having occasionally let her
drive with the tide for a minute or two, that a quarter of an
hour's rest proved full as much as they wanted.  We got ashore among
some slippery stones while we ate and drank what we had with us,
and looked about.  It was like my own marsh country, flat and
monotonous, and with a dim horizon; while the winding river turned
and turned, and the great floating buoys upon it turned and turned,
and everything else seemed stranded and still.  For, now, the last
of the fleet of ships was round the last low point we had headed;
and the last green barge, straw-laden, with a brown sail, had
followed; and some ballast-lighters, shaped like a child's first
rude imitation of a boat, lay low in the mud; and a little squat
shoal-lighthouse on open piles, stood crippled in the mud on stilts
and crutches; and slimy stakes stuck out of the mud, and slimy
stones stuck out of the mud, and red landmarks and tidemarks stuck
out of the mud, and an old landing-stage and an old roofless building
slipped into the mud, and all about us was stagnation and mud.

We pushed off again, and made what way we could.  It was much harder
work now, but Herbert and Startop persevered, and rowed, and rowed,
and rowed, until the sun went down.  By that time the river had
lifted us a little, so that we could see above the bank.  There was
the red sun, on the low level of the shore, in a purple haze, fast
deepening into black; and there was the solitary flat marsh; and
far away there were the rising grounds, between which and us there
seemed to be no life, save here and there in the foreground a
melancholy gull.

As the night was fast falling, and as the moon, being past the
full, would not rise early, we held a little council:  a short one,
for clearly our course was to lie by at the first lonely tavern we
could find.  So, they plied their oars once more, and I looked out
for anything like a house.  Thus we held on, speaking little, for
four or five dull miles.  It was very cold, and, a collier coming by
us, with her galley-fire smoking and flaring, looked like a
comfortable home.  The night was as dark by this time as it would be
until morning; and what light we had, seemed to come more from the
river than the sky, as the oars in their dipping struck at a few
reflected stars.

At this dismal time we were evidently all possessed by the idea that
we were followed.  As the tide made, it flapped heavily at irregular
intervals against the shore; and whenever such a sound came, one or
other of us was sure to start and look in that direction.  Here and
there, the set of the current had worn down the bank into a little
creek, and we were all suspicious of such places, and eyed them
nervously.  Sometimes, "What was that ripple?" one of us would say
in a low voice.  Or another, "Is that a boat yonder?"  And
afterwards, we would fall into a dead silence, and I would sit
impatiently thinking with what an unusual amount of noise the oars
worked in the thowels.

At length we descried a light and a roof, and presently afterwards
ran alongside a little causeway made of stones that had been picked
up hard by.  Leaving the rest in the boat, I stepped ashore, and
found the light to be in a window of a public-house.  It was a dirty
place enough, and I dare say not unknown to smuggling adventurers;
but there was a good fire in the kitchen, and there were eggs and
bacon to eat, and various liquors to drink.  Also, there were two
double-bedded rooms - "such as they were," the landlord said.  No
other company was in the house than the landlord, his wife, and a
grizzled male creature, the "Jack" of the little causeway, who was
as slimy and smeary as if he had been low-water mark too.

With this assistant, I went down to the boat again, and we all came
ashore, and brought out the oars, and rudder, and boat-hook, and
all else, and hauled her up for the night.  We made a very good meal
by the kitchen fire, and then apportioned the bedrooms:  Herbert and
Startop were to occupy one; I and our charge the other.  We found
the air as carefully excluded from both, as if air were fatal to
life; and there were more dirty clothes and bandboxes under the
beds than I should have thought the family possessed.  But, we
considered ourselves well off, notwithstanding, for a more solitary
place we could not have found.

While we were comforting ourselves by the fire after our meal, the
Jack - who was sitting in a corner, and who had a bloated pair of
shoes on, which he had exhibited while we were eating our eggs and
bacon, as interesting relics that he had taken a few days ago from
the feet of a drowned seaman washed ashore - asked me if we had
seen a four-oared galley going up with the tide?  When I told him
No, he said she must have gone down then, and yet she "took up
too," when she left there.

"They must ha' thought better on't for some reason or another,"
said the Jack, "and gone down."

"A four-oared galley, did you say?" said I.

"A four," said the Jack, "and two sitters."

"Did they come ashore here?"

"They put in with a stone two-gallon jar, for some beer.  I'd
ha'been glad to pison the beer myself," said the Jack, "or put some
rattling physic in it."

"Why?"

"I know why," said the Jack.  He spoke in a slushy voice, as if much
mud had washed into his throat.

"He thinks," said the landlord:  a weakly meditative man with a pale
eye, who seemed to rely greatly on his Jack:  "he thinks they was,
what they wasn't."

"I knows what I thinks," observed the Jack.

"You thinks Custum 'Us, Jack?" said the landlord.

"I do," said the Jack.

"Then you're wrong, Jack."

"Am I!"

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.

"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.

"A Custum 'Us officer knows what to do with his Buttons," said the
Jack, repeating the obnoxious word with the greatest contempt,
"when they comes betwixt him and his own light.  A Four and two
sitters don't go hanging and hovering, up with one tide and down
with another, and both with and against another, without there
being Custum 'Us at the bottom of it."  Saying which he went out in
disdain; and the landlord, having no one to reply upon, found it
impracticable to pursue the subject.

This dialogue made us all uneasy, and me very uneasy.  The dismal
wind was muttering round the house, the tide was flapping at the
shore, and I had a feeling that we were caged and threatened.  A
four-oared galley hovering about in so unusual a way as to attract
this notice, was an ugly circumstance that I could not get rid of.
When I had induced Provis to go up to bed, I went outside with my
two companions (Startop by this time knew the state of the case),
and held another council.  Whether we should remain at the house
until near the steamer's time, which would be about one in the
afternoon; or whether we should put off early in the morning; was
the question we discussed.  On the whole we deemed it the better
course to lie where we were, until within an hour or so of the
steamer's time, and then to get out in her track, and drift easily
with the tide.  Having settled to do this, we returned into the
house and went to bed.

I lay down with the greater part of my clothes on, and slept well
for a few hours.  When I awoke, the wind had risen, and the sign of
the house (the Ship) was creaking and banging about, with noises
that startled me.  Rising softly, for my charge lay fast asleep, I
looked out of the window.  It commanded the causeway where we had
hauled up our boat, and, as my eyes adapted themselves to the light
of the clouded moon, I saw two men looking into her.  They passed by
under the window, looking at nothing else, and they did not go down
to the landing-place which I could discern to be empty, but struck
across the marsh in the direction of the Nore.

My first impulse was to call up Herbert, and show him the two men
going away.  But, reflecting before I got into his room, which was
at the back of the house and adjoined mine, that he and Startop had
had a harder day than I, and were fatigued, I forbore.  Going back
to my window, I could see the two men moving over the marsh.  In
that light, however, I soon lost them, and feeling very cold, lay
down to think of the matter, and fell asleep again.

We were up early.  As we walked to and fro, all four together,
before breakfast, I deemed it right to recount what I had seen.
Again our charge was the least anxious of the party.  It was very
likely that the men belonged to the Custom House, he said quietly,
and that they had no thought of us.  I tried to persuade myself that
it was so - as, indeed, it might easily be.  However, I proposed
that he and I should walk away together to a distant point we could
see, and that the boat should take us aboard there, or as near
there as might prove feasible, at about noon.  This being considered
a good precaution, soon after breakfast he and I set forth, without
saying anything at the tavern.

He smoked his pipe as we went along, and sometimes stopped to clap
me on the shoulder.  One would have supposed that it was I who was
in danger, not he, and that he was reassuring me.  We spoke very
little.  As we approached the point, I begged him to remain in a
sheltered place, while I went on to reconnoitre; for, it was
towards it that the men had passed in the night.  He complied, and I
went on alone.  There was no boat off the point, nor any boat drawn
up anywhere near it, nor were there any signs of the men having
embarked there.  But, to be sure the tide was high, and there might
have been some footprints under water.

When he looked out from his shelter in the distance, and saw that I
waved my hat to him to come up, he rejoined me, and there we
waited; sometimes lying on the bank wrapped in our coats, and
sometimes moving about to warm ourselves:  until we saw our boat
coming round.  We got aboard easily, and rowed out into the track of
the steamer.  By that time it wanted but ten minutes of one o'clock,
and we began to look out for her smoke.

But, it was half-past one before we saw her smoke, and soon
afterwards we saw behind it the smoke of another steamer.  As they
were coming on at full speed, we got the two bags ready, and took
that opportunity of saying good-bye to Herbert and Startop.  We had
all shaken hands cordially, and neither Herbert's eyes nor mine
were quite dry, when I saw a four-oared galley shoot out from under
the bank but a little way ahead of us, and row out into the same
track.

A stretch of shore had been as yet between us and the steamer's
smoke, by reason of the bend and wind of the river; but now she was
visible, coming head on.  I called to Herbert and Startop to keep
before the tide, that she might see us lying by for her, and I
adjured Provis to sit quite still, wrapped in his cloak.  He
answered cheerily, "Trust to me, dear boy," and sat like a statue.
Meantime the galley, which was very skilfully handled, had crossed
us, let us come up with her, and fallen alongside.  Leaving just
room enough for the play of the oars, she kept alongside, drifting
when we drifted, and pulling a stroke or two when we pulled.  Of the
two sitters one held the rudder lines, and looked at us attentively
- as did all the rowers; the other sitter was wrapped up, much as
Provis was, and seemed to shrink, and whisper some instruction to
the steerer as he looked at us.  Not a word was spoken in either
boat.

Startop could make out, after a few minutes, which steamer was
first, and gave me the word "Hamburg," in a low voice as we sat
face to face.  She was nearing us very fast, and the beating of her
peddles grew louder and louder.  I felt as if her shadow were
absolutely upon us, when the galley hailed us.  I answered.

"You have a returned Transport there," said the man who held the
lines.  "That's the man, wrapped in the cloak.  His name is Abel
Magwitch, otherwise Provis.  I apprehend that man, and call upon him
to surrender, and you to assist."

At the same moment, without giving any audible direction to his
crew, he ran the galley abroad of us.  They had pulled one sudden
stroke ahead, had got their oars in, had run athwart us, and were
holding on to our gunwale, before we knew what they were doing.
This caused great confusion on board the steamer, and I heard them
calling to us, and heard the order given to stop the paddles, and
heard them stop, but felt her driving down upon us irresistibly.  In
the same moment, I saw the steersman of the galley lay his hand on
his prisoner's shoulder, and saw that both boats were swinging
round with the force of the tide, and saw that all hands on board
the steamer were running forward quite frantically.  Still in the
same moment, I saw the prisoner start up, lean across his captor,
and pull the cloak from the neck of the shrinking sitter in the
galley.  Still in the same moment, I saw that the face disclosed,
was the face of the other convict of long ago.  Still in the same
moment, I saw the face tilt backward with a white terror on it that
I shall never forget, and heard a great cry on board the steamer
and a loud splash in the water, and felt the boat sink from under
me.

It was but for an instant that I seemed to struggle with a thousand
mill-weirs and a thousand flashes of light; that instant past, I
was taken on board the galley.  Herbert was there, and Startop was
there; but our boat was gone, and the two convicts were gone.

What with the cries aboard the steamer, and the furious blowing off
of her steam, and her driving on, and our driving on, I could not
at first distinguish sky from water or shore from shore; but, the
crew of the galley righted her with great speed, and, pulling
certain swift strong strokes ahead, lay upon their oars, every man
looking silently and eagerly at the water astern.  Presently a dark
object was seen in it, bearing towards us on the tide.  No man
spoke, but the steersman held up his hand, and all softly backed
water, and kept the boat straight and true before it.  As it came
nearer, I saw it to be Magwitch, swimming, but not swimming freely.
He was taken on board, and instantly manacled at the wrists and
ankles.

The galley was kept steady, and the silent eager look-out at the
water was resumed.  But, the Rotterdam steamer now came up, and
apparently not understanding what had happened, came on at speed.
By the time she had been hailed and stopped, both steamers were
drifting away from us, and we were rising and falling in a troubled
wake of water.  The look-out was kept, long after all was still
again and the two steamers were gone; but, everybody knew that it
was hopeless now.

At length we gave it up, and pulled under the shore towards the
tavern we had lately left, where we were received with no little
surprise.  Here, I was able to get some comforts for Magwitch -
Provis no longer - who had received some very severe injury in the
chest and a deep cut in the head.

He told me that he believed himself to have gone under the keel of
the steamer, and to have been struck on the head in rising.  The
injury to his chest (which rendered his breathing extremely
painful) he thought he had received against the side of the galley.
He added that he did not pretend to say what he might or might not
have done to Compeyson, but, that in the moment of his laying his
hand on his cloak to identify him, that villain had staggered up
and staggered back, and they had both gone overboard together; when
the sudden wrenching of him (Magwitch) out of our boat, and the
endeavour of his captor to keep him in it, had capsized us.  He told
me in a whisper that they had gone down, fiercely locked in each
other's arms, and that there had been a struggle under water, and
that he had disengaged himself, struck out, and swum away.

I never had any reason to doubt the exact truth of what he thus
told me.  The officer who steered the galley gave the same account
of their going overboard.

When I asked this officer's permission to change the prisoner's wet
clothes by purchasing any spare garments I could get at the
public-house, he gave it readily:  merely observing that he must
take charge of everything his prisoner had about him.  So the
pocketbook which had once been in my hands, passed into the
officer's.  He further gave me leave to accompany the prisoner to
London; but, declined to accord that grace to my two friends.

The Jack at the Ship was instructed where the drowned man had gone
down, and undertook to search for the body in the places where it
was likeliest to come ashore.  His interest in its recovery seemed
to me to be much heightened when he heard that it had stockings on.
Probably, it took about a dozen drowned men to fit him out
completely; and that may have been the reason why the different
articles of his dress were in various stages of decay.

We remained at the public-house until the tide turned, and then
Magwitch was carried down to the galley and put on board.  Herbert
and Startop were to get to London by land, as soon as they could.
We had a doleful parting, and when I took my place by Magwitch's
side, I felt that that was my place henceforth while he lived.

For now, my repugnance to him had all melted away, 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; but, it was dreadful to
think that I could not be sorry at heart for his being badly hurt,
since it was unquestionably best that he should die.  That there
were, still living, people enough who were able and willing to
identify him, I could not doubt.  That he would be leniently
treated, I could not hope.  He who had been presented in the worst
light at his trial, who had since broken prison and had been tried
again, who had returned from transportation under a life sentence,
and who had occasioned the death of the man who was the cause of
his arrest.

As we returned towards the setting sun we had yesterday left behind
us, and as the stream of our hopes seemed all running back, I told
him how grieved I was to think that he had come home for my sake.

"Dear boy," he answered, "I'm quite content to take my chance.  I've
seen my boy, and he can be a gentleman without me."

No.  I had thought about that, while we had been there side by side.
No.  Apart from any inclinations of my own, I understood Wemmick's
hint now.  I foresaw that, being convicted, his possessions would be
forfeited to the Crown.

"Lookee here, dear boy," said he "It's best as a gentleman should
not be knowed to belong to me now.  Only come to see me as if you
come by chance alonger Wemmick.  Sit where I can see you when I am
swore to, for the last o' many times, and I don't ask no more."

"I will never stir from your side," said I, "when I am suffered to
be near you.  Please God, I will be as true to you, as you have been
to me!"

I felt his hand tremble as it held mine, and he turned his face
away as he lay in the bottom of the boat, and I heard that old
sound in his throat - softened now, like all the rest of him.  It
was a good thing that he had touched this point, for it put into my
mind what I might not otherwise have thought of until too late:
That he need never know how his hopes of enriching me had perished.

Chapter 55


He was taken to the Police Court next day, and would have been
immediately committed for trial, but that it was necessary to send
down for an old officer of the prison-ship from which he had once
escaped, to speak to his identity.  Nobody doubted it; but,
Compeyson, who had meant to depose to it, was tumbling on the
tides, dead, and it happened that there was not at that time any
prison officer in London who could give the required evidence.  I
had gone direct to Mr. Jaggers at his private house, on my arrival
over night, to retain his assistance, and Mr. Jaggers on the
prisoner's behalf would admit nothing.  It was the sole resource,
for he told me that the case must be over in five minutes when the
witness was there, and that no power on earth could prevent its
going against us.

I imparted to Mr. Jaggers my design of keeping him in ignorance of
the fate of his wealth.  Mr. Jaggers was querulous and angry with me
for having "let it slip through my fingers," and said we must
memorialize by-and-by, and try at all events for some of it.  But,
he did not conceal from me that although there might be many cases
in which the forfeiture would not be exacted, there were no
circumstances in this case to make it one of them.  I understood
that, very well.  I was not related to the outlaw, or connected with
him by any recognizable tie; he had put his hand to no writing or
settlement in my favour before his apprehension, and to do so now
would be idle.  I had no claim, and I finally resolved, and ever
afterwards abided by the resolution, that my heart should never be
sickened with the hopeless task of attempting to establish one.

There appeared to be reason for supposing that the drowned informer
had hoped for a reward out of this forfeiture, and had obtained
some accurate knowledge of Magwitch's affairs.  When his body was
found, many miles from the scene of his death, and so horribly
disfigured that he was only recognizable by the contents of his
pockets, notes were still legible, folded in a case he carried.
Among these, were the name of a banking-house in New South Wales
where a sum of money was, and the designation of certain lands of
considerable value.  Both these heads of information were in a list
that Magwitch, while in prison, gave to Mr. Jaggers, of the
possessions he supposed I should inherit.  His ignorance, poor
fellow, at last served him; he never mistrusted but that my
inheritance was quite safe, with Mr. Jaggers's aid.

After three days' delay, during which the crown prosecution stood
over for the production of the witness from the prison-ship, the
witness came, and completed the easy case.  He was committed to take
his trial at the next Sessions, which would come on in a month.

It was at this dark time of my life that Herbert returned home one
evening, a good deal cast down, and said:

"My dear Handel, I fear I shall soon have to leave you."

His partner having prepared me for that, I was less surprised than
he thought.

"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 have not leisure to think of that," said I.  "You know that I am
always with him to the full extent of the time allowed, and that I
should be with him all day long, if I could.  And when I come away
from him, you know that my thoughts are with him."

The dreadful condition to which he was brought, was so appalling to
both of us, that we could not refer to it in plainer words.

"My dear fellow," said Herbert, "let the near prospect of our
separation - for, it is very near - be my justification for
troubling you about yourself.  Have you thought of your future?"

"No, for I have been afraid to think of any future."

"But yours cannot be dismissed; indeed, my dear dear Handel, it
must not be dismissed.  I wish you would enter on it now, as far as
a few friendly words go, with me."

"I will," said I.

"In this branch house of ours, Handel, we must have a--"

I saw that his delicacy was avoiding the right word, so I said, "A
clerk."

"A clerk.  And I hope it is not at all unlikely that he may expand
(as a clerk of your acquaintance has expanded) into a partner.  Now,
Handel - in short, my dear boy, will you come to me?"

There was something charmingly cordial and engaging in the manner
in which after saying "Now, Handel," as if it were the grave
beginning of a portentous business exordium, he had suddenly given
up that tone, stretched out his honest hand, and spoken like a
schoolboy.

"Clara and I have talked about it again and again," Herbert
pursued, "and the dear little thing begged me only this evening,
with tears in her eyes, to say to you that if you will live with us
when we come together, she will do her best to make you happy, and
to convince her husband's friend that he is her friend too.  We
should get on so well, Handel!"

I thanked her heartily, and I thanked him heartily, but said I
could not yet make sure of joining him as he so kindly offered.
Firstly, my mind was too preoccupied to be able to take in the
subject clearly.  Secondly - Yes!  Secondly, there was a vague
something lingering in my thoughts that will come out very near the
end of this slight narrative.

"But if you thought, Herbert, that you could, without doing any
injury to your business, leave the question open for a little
while--"

"For any while," cried Herbert.  "Six months, a year!"

"Not so long as that," said I.  "Two or three months at most."

Herbert was highly delighted when we shook hands on this
arrangement, and said he could now take courage to tell me that he
believed he must go away at the end of the week.

"And Clara?" said I.

"The dear little thing," returned Herbert, "holds dutifully to her
father as long as he lasts; but he won't last long.  Mrs. Whimple
confides to me that he is certainly going."

"Not to say an unfeeling thing," said I, "he cannot do better than
go."

"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!"

On the Saturday in that same week, I took my leave of Herbert -
full of bright hope, but sad and sorry to leave me - as he sat on
one of the seaport mail coaches.  I went into a coffee-house to
write a little note to Clara, telling her he had gone off, sending
his love to her over and over again, and then went to my lonely
home - if it deserved the name, for it was now no home to me, and I
had no home anywhere.

On the stairs I encountered Wemmick, who was coming down, after an
unsuccessful application of his knuckles to my door.  I had not seen
him alone, since the disastrous issue of the attempted flight; and
he had come, in his private and personal capacity, to say a few
words of explanation in reference to that failure.

"The late Compeyson," said Wemmick, "had by little and little got
at the bottom of half of the regular business now transacted, and
it was from the talk of some of his people in trouble (some of his
people being always in trouble) that I heard what I did.  I kept my
ears open, seeming to have them shut, until I heard that he was
absent, and I thought that would be the best time for making the
attempt.  I can only suppose now, that it was a part of his policy,
as a very clever man, habitually to deceive his own instruments.
You don't blame me, I hope, Mr. Pip?  I am sure I tried to serve you,
with all my heart."

"I am as sure of that, Wemmick, as you can be, and I thank you most
earnestly for all your interest and friendship."

"Thank you, thank you very much.  It's a bad job," said Wemmick,
scratching his head, "and I assure you I haven't been so cut up for
a long time.  What I look at, is the sacrifice of so much portable
property.  Dear me!"

"What I think of, Wemmick, is the poor owner of the property."

"Yes, to be sure," said Wemmick.  "Of course there can be no
objection to your being sorry for him, and I'd put down a
five-pound note myself to get him out of it.  But what I look at, is
this.  The late Compeyson having been beforehand with him in
intelligence of his return, and being so determined to bring him to
book, I do not think he could have been saved.  Whereas, the
portable property certainly could have been saved.  That's the
difference between the property and the owner, don't you see?"

I invited Wemmick to come up-stairs, and refresh himself with a
glass of grog before walking to Walworth.  He accepted the
invitation.  While he was drinking his moderate allowance, he said,
with nothing to lead up to it, and after having appeared rather
fidgety:

"What do you think of my meaning to take a holiday on Monday, Mr.
Pip?"

"Why, I suppose you have not done such a thing these twelve
months."

"These twelve years, more likely," said Wemmick.  "Yes.  I'm going to
take a holiday.  More than that; I'm going to take a walk.  More than
that; I'm going to ask you to take a walk with me."

I was about to excuse myself, as being but a bad companion just
then, when Wemmick anticipated me.

"I know your engagements," said he, "and I know you are out of
sorts, Mr. Pip.  But if you could oblige me, I should take it as a
kindness.  It ain't a long walk, and it's an early one.  Say it might
occupy you (including breakfast on the walk) from eight to twelve.
Couldn't you stretch a point and manage it?"

He had done so much for me at various times, that this was very
little to do for him.  I said I could manage it - would manage it -
and he was so very much pleased by my acquiescence, that I was
pleased too.  At his particular request, I appointed to call for him
at the Castle at half-past eight on Monday morning, and so we
parted for the time.

Punctual to my appointment, I rang at the Castle gate on the Monday
morning, and was received by Wemmick himself:  who struck me as
looking tighter than usual, and having a sleeker hat on.  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."

I thought this odd; however, I said nothing, and we set off.  We
went towards Camberwell Green, and when we were thereabouts,
Wemmick said suddenly:

"Halloa!  Here's a church!"

There was nothing very surprising in that; but a gain, I was rather
surprised, when he said, as if he were animated by a brilliant
idea:

"Let's go in!"

We went in, Wemmick leaving his fishing-rod in the porch, and
looked all round.  In the mean time, Wemmick was diving into his
coat-pockets, and getting something out of paper there.

"Halloa!" said he.  "Here's a couple of pair of gloves!  Let's put
'em on!"

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.  The old gentleman, however, experienced so much
difficulty in getting his gloves on, that Wemmick found it
necessary to put him with his back against a pillar, and then to
get behind the pillar himself and pull away at them, while I for my
part held the old gentleman round the waist, that he might present
and equal and safe resistance.  By dint of this ingenious Scheme,
his gloves were got on to perfection.

The clerk and clergyman then appearing, we were ranged in order at
those fatal rails.  True to his notion of seeming to do it all
without preparation, I heard Wemmick say to himself as he took
something out of his waistcoat-pocket before the service began,
"Halloa!  Here's a ring!"

I acted in the capacity of backer, or best-man, to the bridegroom;
while a little limp pew opener in a soft bonnet like a baby's, made
a feint of being the bosom friend of Miss Skiffins.  The
responsibility of giving the lady away, devolved upon the Aged,
which led to the clergyman's being unintentionally scandalized, and
it happened thus.  When he said, "Who giveth this woman to be
married to this man?" the old gentlemen, not in the least knowing
what point of the ceremony we had arrived at, stood most amiably
beaming at the ten commandments.  Upon which, the clergyman said
again, "WHO giveth this woman to be married to this man?"  The old
gentleman being still in a state of most estimable unconsciousness,
the bridegroom cried out in his accustomed voice, "Now Aged P.  you
know; who giveth?"  To which the Aged replied with great briskness,
before saying that he gave, "All right, John, all right, my boy!"
And the clergyman came to so gloomy a pause upon it, that I had
doubts for the moment whether we should get completely married that
day.

It was completely done, however, and when we were going out of
church, Wemmick took the cover off the font, and put his white
gloves in it, and put the cover on again.  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.  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 any one declined anything
on table, Wemmick said, "Provided by contract, you know; don't be
afraid of it!"  I drank to the new couple, drank to the Aged, drank
to the Castle, saluted the bride at parting, and made myself as
agreeable as I could.

Wemmick came down to the door with me, and I again shook hands with
him, and wished him joy.

"Thankee!" said Wemmick, rubbing his hands.  "She's such a manager
of fowls, you have no idea.  You shall have some eggs, and judge for
yourself.  I say, Mr. Pip!" calling me back, and speaking low.  "This
is altogether a Walworth sentiment, please."

"I understand.  Not to be mentioned in Little Britain," said I.

Wemmick nodded.  "After what you let out the other day, Mr. Jaggers
may as well not know of it.  He might think my brain was softening,
or something of the kind."