Great Expectations

e she had brought me up `by hand'. Having at that time to find out for myself what the expression meant, and knowing her to have a hard and heavy

with curls of flaxen hair on each side of his smooth face, and with eyes of such a very undecided blue that they seemed to have somehow got mixed with

and almost always wore a coarse apron, fastened over her figure behind with two loops, and having a square impregnable bib in front, that was stuck full of pins and needles. She made it a powerful merit in herself, and a

e from the churchyard, the forge was shut up, and Joe was sitting alone in the kitchen. Joe and I being fellow-sufferers, and having confidences as

, looking for you, Pip. And she's o

sh

and what's worse, she's

ound and round, and looked in great depression at the fire. Tickler was

she Ram-paged out. That's what she did,' said Joe, slowly clearing the fire bet

ys treated him as a larger species of

Ram-page, this last spell, about five minutes, Pip. She's a coming!

cause, and applied Tickler to its further investigation. She concluded by throwing me - I often served as a connubial missile -

rectly what you've been doing to wear me away with fret and fright and worrit, or I'd

chyard,' said I, from my stoo

for me you'd have been to the churchyard long ag

id,' s

I should like to know?

ed, `I do

ay I've never had this apron of mine off, since born you were. It's bad enou

n the marshes with the ironed leg, the mysterious young man, the file, the food, and the dreadful pled

churchyard, you two.' One of us, by-the-bye, had not said it at all. `You'll drive me to th

nd calculating what kind of pair we practically should make, under the grievous circumstances foreshadowed. After that, he sat feelin

nto our mouths. Then she took some butter (not too much) on a knife and spread it on the loaf, in an apothecary kind of way, as if she were making a plaister - using both sides of the knife with a slapping dexterity, and trimming and moulding the butter

intance, and his ally the still more dreadful young man. I knew Mrs. Joe's housekeeping to be of the strictest kind, and that my larcenous

nionship with me, it was our evening habit to compare the way we bit through out slices, by silently holding them up to each other's admiration now and then - which stimulated us to new exertions. To-night, Joe several times invited me, by the display of his fast-diminishing slice, to enter upon our usual friendly competition; but he found me, each time, wi

enjoy. He turned it about in his mouth much longer than usual, pondering over it a good deal, and after all gulped it down like a pill. He was about to t

d on the threshold of his bite and stared at me, w

?' said she, smartly,

y serious remonstrance. `Pip, old chap! You'll do yourself a m

' repeated my sister, m

ecommend you to do it,' said Joe, all aghast. `Ma

taking him by the two whiskers, knocked his head for a little while aga

the matter,' said my sister, out of

ss way; then took a helpless

two were quite alone, `you and me is always friends, and I'd be the last to tell upon you, any time. But such a--' h

s food, has he?'

cheek, `I Bolted, myself, when I was your age - frequent - and as a boy I've been among a many

up by the hair: saying nothing more than th

rative, that I was conscious of going about, smelling like a new fence. On this particular evening the urgency of my case demanded a pint of this mixture, which was poured down my throat, for my greater comfort, while Mrs Joe held my head under her arm, as a boot would be held i

ecessity of always keeping one hand on my bread-and-butter as I sat, or when I was ordered about the kitchen on any small errand, almost drove me out of my mind. Then, as the marsh winds made the fire glow and flare, I thought I heard the voice outside, of the man with the iron on his leg who had sworn me to secrecy, declaring that he couldn't and wouldn't starve until to-morrow, but must be fed

h the load upon my leg (and that made me think afresh of the man with the load on his leg), and found the tendency of exercise to bring the

as taking a final warm in the chimney corner befor

`There's anoth

that mean,

erself, said, snappishly, `Escaped. Escaped.

s of saying to Joe, `What's a convict?' Joe put his mouth into the forms of returning suc

, `after sun-set-gun. And they fired warning of him.

firing?

at me over her work, `what a questioner he is.

at I should be told lies by her, even if I did ask quest

hat looked to me like `sulks.' Therefore, I naturally pointed to Mrs Joe, and put my mouth into the form of saying `her?' But Joe wouldn't hear o

I should like to know - if you wouldn't

er, as if she didn't quite mean that, b

I, looking at

cough, as much as to sa

what's Hul

and shaking her head at me. `Answer him one question, and he'll ask you a dozen directly. Hulks

nd why they're put there?' said I, in a

badger people's lives out. It would be blame to me, and not praise, if I had. People are put in the Hulks because they murder,

imble having played the tambourine upon it, to accompany her last words - I felt fearfully sensible of the great convenience th

I was in mortal terror of the young man who wanted my heart and liver; I was in mortal terror of my interlocutor with the ironed leg; I was in mortal terror of myself, from whom an awful promise had

, that I had better come ashore and be hanged there at once, and not put it off. I was afraid to sleep, even if I had been inclined, for I knew that at the first faint dawn of morning I must rob the pantry. There was

winking. I had no time for verification, no time for selection, no time for anything, for I had no time to spare. I stole some bread, some rind of cheese, about half a jar of mincemeat (which I tied up in my pocket-handkerchief with my last night's slice), some brandy from a stone bottle (which I decanted into a glass bottle I had secretly used for making that intoxicating fluid, Spanish-liquorice-water, up in my room: diluting the

and got a file from among Joe's tools. Then, I put the fastenings as I had found them, opened th