Great Expectations

had been crying there all night, and using the window for a pocket-handkerchief. Now, I saw the damp lying on the ba

ur village - a direction which they never accepted, for they never came there - was invisible to me until I was quite close under

-else's port pie! Stop his!' The cattle came upon me with like suddenness, staring out of their eyes, and steaming out of their nostrils, `Holloa, young thief!' One black ox, with a white cravat on - who even had to my awakened conscience something of a clerical air - fixed me so obstinately with his eyes, a

ing on an old gun, had told me that when I was 'prentice to him regularly bound, we would have such Larks there! However, in the confusion of the mist, I found myself at last too far to the right, and consequently had to try back along the river-side, on the bank of loose stones above the mud and the stakes that sta

hat unexpected manner, so I went forward softly and touched him on the shou

had not the same face, and had a flat broad-brimmed low-crowned felt that on. All this, I saw in a moment, for I had only a moment to see it in: he swore an oath at me, made a h

ot as I identified him. I dare say I should have felt

be sure. I half expected to see him drop down before my face and die of deadly cold. His eyes looked so awfully hungry, too, that when I handed him the file and he laid it down on the grass, it occurred to m

he bottle, b

dy,'

re in a violent hurry, than a man who was eating it - but he left off to take some of the liquor. He shivered all the while,

have got the

your opinion,

've been lying out on the meshes, and t

hat, if I was going to be strung up to that there gallows as there is ove

d so at the mist all round us, and often stopping - even stopping his jaws - to listen. Some real or fancied sou

ving imp? You broug

sir

ne the office

N

eed, if at your time of life you could help to hunt a wretched warmint

in him like a clock, and was going to strike. And

he gradually settled down upon the pie, I

you s

as glad you

, my boy

ather snapped up, every mouthful, too soon and too fast; and he looked sideways here and there while he ate, as if he thought there was danger in every direction, of somebody's coming to take the pie away. He was altogeth

ich I had hesitated as to the politeness of making the remark. `There's no more to be got w

?' said my friend, stopping i

t you spoke of. Tha

ing like a gruff laugh. `Him? Yes

looked as if h

garded me with the keenest scr

ed? W

st

he

there, where I found him nodding

me so, that I began to think his first

- and' - I was very anxious to put this delicately - `and with - the same

s firing!' he s

I returned, `for we heard it up at home, and th

ried afore, closing in round him. Hears his number called, hears himself challenged, hears the rattle of the muskets, hears the orders """Make ready! Present! Cover him steady, men!" and is laid hands on - and there's nothin'! Why, if I see one pursuing party last night -

ace,' said I, recalling w

striking his left cheek mercile

, th

his grey jacket. `Show me the way he went. I'll pull him down, like a bl

ndled as roughly as if it had no more feeling in it than the file. I was very much afraid of him again, now that he had worked himself into this fierce hurry, and I was likewise very much afraid of keeping away from home any longer. I told him I must go, but he took no notice, so I t