Chapter 2

My sister, Mrs. Joe Gargery, was more than twenty years older than I, and
had established a great reputation with herself and the neighbors because 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 hand, and to be much
in the habit of laying it upon her husband as well as upon me, I supposed that
Joe Gargery and I were both brought up by hand.

She was not a good-looking woman, my sister; and I had a general impression that
she must have made Joe Gargery marry her by hand. Joe was a fair man, 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 their own whites.
He was a mild, good-natured, sweet-tempered, easy-going, foolish, dear fellow,—a
sort of Hercules in strength, and also in weakness.

My sister, Mrs. Joe, with black hair and eyes, had such a prevailing redness of
skin that I sometimes used to wonder whether it was possible she washed herself
with a nutmeg-grater instead of soap. She was tall and bony, 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 strong reproach against Joe, that she
wore this apron so much. Though I really see no reason why she should have worn
it at all; or why, if she did wear it at all, she should not have taken it off,
every day of her life.

Joe’s forge adjoined our house, which was a wooden house, as many of the
dwellings in our country were,—most of them, at that time. When I ran home 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 such, Joe imparted a
confidence to me, the moment I raised the latch of the door and peeped in at him
opposite to it, sitting in the chimney corner.

"Mrs. Joe has been out a dozen times, looking for you, Pip. And she’s out now,
making it a baker’s dozen."

"Is she?"

"Yes, Pip," said Joe; "and what’s worse, she’s got Tickler with her."

At this dismal intelligence, I twisted the only button on my waistcoat round and
round, and looked in great depression at the fire. Tickler was a wax-ended piece
of cane, worn smooth by collision with my tickled frame.

"She sot down," said Joe, "and she got up, and she made a grab at Tickler, and
she Ram-paged out. That’s what she did," said Joe, slowly clearing the fire
between the lower bars with the poker, and looking at it; "she Ram-paged out,
Pip."

"Has she been gone long, Joe?" I always treated him as a larger species of
child, and as no more than my equal.

"Well," said Joe, glancing up at the Dutch clock, "she’s been on the Ram-page,
this last spell, about five minutes, Pip. She’s a coming! Get behind the door,
old chap, and have the jack-towel betwixt you."

I took the advice. My sister, Mrs. Joe, throwing the door wide open, and finding
an obstruction behind it, immediately divined the cause, and applied Tickler to
its further investigation. She concluded by throwing me—I often served as a
connubial missile—at Joe, who, glad to get hold of me on any terms, passed me on
into the chimney and quietly fenced me up there with his great leg.

"Where have you been, you young monkey?" said Mrs. Joe, stamping her foot. "Tell
me directly what you’ve been doing to wear me away with fret and fright and
worrit, or I’d have you out of that corner if you was fifty Pips, and he was
five hundred Gargerys."

"I have only been to the churchyard," said I, from my stool, crying and rubbing
myself.

"Churchyard!" repeated my sister. "If it warn’t for me you’d have been to the
churchyard long ago, and stayed there. Who brought you up by hand?"

"You did," said I.

"And why did I do it, I should like to know?" exclaimed my sister.

I whimpered, "I don’t know."

"I don’t!" said my sister.
"I’d never do it again! I know that. I may truly say I’ve never had this apron
of mine off since born you were. It’s bad enough to be a blacksmith’s wife (and
him a Gargery) without being your mother."

My thoughts strayed from that question as I looked disconsolately at the fire.
For the fugitive out on the marshes with the ironed leg, the mysterious young
man, the file, the food, and the dreadful pledge I was under to commit a larceny
on those sheltering premises, rose before me in the avenging coals.

"Hah!" said Mrs. Joe, restoring Tickler to his station. "Churchyard, indeed! You
may well say churchyard, you two." One of us, by the by, had not said it at all.
"You’ll drive me to
the churchyard betwixt you, one of these days, and O, a pr-r-recious pair you’d
be without me!"

As she applied herself to set the tea-things, Joe peeped down at me over his
leg, as if he were mentally casting me and himself up, and calculating what kind
of pair we practically should make, under the grievous circumstances
foreshadowed. After that, he sat feeling his right-side flaxen curls and
whisker, and following Mrs. Joe about with his blue eyes, as his manner always
was at squally times.

My sister had a trenchant way of cutting our bread and butter for us, that never
varied. First, with her left hand she jammed the loaf hard and fast against her
bib,—where it sometimes got a pin into it, and sometimes a needle, which we
afterwards got into 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 plaster,—using both sides of the knife with a slapping dexterity, and
trimming and moulding the butter off round the crust. Then, she gave the knife a
final smart wipe on the edge of the plaster, and then sawed a very thick round
off the loaf: which she finally, before separating from the loaf, hewed into two
halves, of which Joe got one, and I the other.

On the present occasion, though I was hungry, I dared not eat my slice. I felt
that I must have something in reserve for my dreadful acquaintance, 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 researches might find nothing available in
the safe. Therefore I resolved to put my hunk of bread and butter down the leg
of my trousers.

The effort of resolution necessary to the achievement of this purpose I found to
be quite awful. It was as if I had to make up my mind to leap from the top of a
high house, or plunge into a great depth of water. And it was made the more
difficult by the unconscious Joe. In our already-mentioned freemasonry as
fellow-sufferers, and in his good-natured companionship with me, it was our
evening habit to compare the way we bit through our 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, with my yellow mug of tea on one knee, and my untouched bread and
butter on the other. At last, I desperately considered that the thing I
contemplated must be done, and that it had best be done in the least improbable
manner consistent with the circumstances. I took advantage of a moment when Joe
had just looked at me, and got my bread and butter down my leg.

Joe was evidently made uncomfortable by what he supposed to be my loss of
appetite, and took a thoughtful bite out of his slice, which he didn’t seem to
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 take
another bite, and had just got his head on one side for a good purchase on it,
when his eye fell on me, and he saw that my bread and butter was gone.

The wonder and consternation with which Joe stopped on the threshold of his bite
and stared at me, were too evident to escape my sister’s observation.

"What’s the matter now?" said
she, smartly, as she put down her cup.

"I say, you know!" muttered Joe, shaking his head at me in very serious
remonstrance. "Pip, old chap! You’ll do yourself a mischief. It’ll stick
somewhere. You can’t have chawed it, Pip."

"What’s the matter now?" repeated my sister, more sharply than before.

"If you can cough any trifle on it up, Pip, I’d recommend you to do it," said
Joe, all aghast. "Manners is manners, but still your elth’s your elth."

By this time, my sister was quite desperate, so she pounced on Joe, and, taking
him by the two whiskers, knocked his head for a little while against the wall
behind him, while I sat in the corner, looking guiltily on.

"Now, perhaps you’ll mention what’s the matter," said my sister, out of breath,
"you staring great stuck pig."

Joe looked at her in a helpless way, then took a helpless bite, and looked at me
again.

"You know, Pip," said Joe, solemnly, with his last bite in his cheek, and
speaking in a confidential voice, as if we 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—" he
moved his chair and looked about the floor between us, and then again at
me—"such a most oncommon Bolt as that!"

"Been bolting his food, has he?" cried my sister.

"You know, old chap," said Joe, looking at me, and not at Mrs. Joe, with his
bite still in his cheek, "I Bolted, myself, when I was your age—frequent—and as
a boy I’ve been among a many Bolters; but I never see your Bolting equal yet,
Pip, and it’s a mercy you ain’t Bolted dead."

My sister made a dive at me, and fished me up by the hair, saying nothing more
than the awful words, "You come along and be dosed."

Some medical beast had revived Tar-water in those days as a fine medicine, and
Mrs. Joe always kept a supply of it in the cupboard; having a belief in its
virtues correspondent to its nastiness. At the best of times, so much of this
elixir was administered to me as a choice restorative, 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 in a bootjack. Joe got off with half a pint; but was made to swallow
that (much to his disturbance, as he sat slowly munching and meditating before
the fire), "because he had had a turn." Judging from myself, I should say he
certainly had a turn afterwards, if he had had none before.

Conscience is a dreadful thing when it accuses man or boy; but when, in the case
of a boy, that secret burden co-operates with another secret burden down the leg
of his trousers, it is (as I can testify) a great punishment. The guilty
knowledge that I was going to rob Mrs. Joe—I never thought I was going to rob
Joe, for I never thought of any of the housekeeping property as his—united to
the necessity 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 now. At other times, I thought, What if the young man who was with
so much difficulty restrained from imbruing his hands in me should yield to a
constitutional impatience, or should mistake the time, and should think himself
accredited to my heart and liver to-night, instead of to-morrow! If ever
anybody’s hair stood on end with terror, mine must have done so then. But,
perhaps, nobody’s ever did?

It was Christmas Eve, and I had to stir the pudding for next day, with a
copper-stick, from seven to eight by the Dutch clock. I tried it with 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 bread and butter out at my
ankle, quite unmanageable. Happily I slipped away, and deposited that part of my
conscience in my garret bedroom.

"Hark!" said I, when I had done my stirring, and was taking a final warm in the
chimney corner before being sent up to bed; "was that great guns, Joe?"

"Ah!" said Joe. "There’s another conwict off."

"What does that mean, Joe?" said I.

Mrs. Joe, who always took explanations upon herself, said, snappishly, "Escaped.
Escaped." Administering the definition like Tar-water.

While Mrs. Joe sat with her head bending over her needlework, I put my mouth
into the forms of saying to Joe, "What’s a convict?" Joe put his mouth
into the forms of returning such a highly elaborate answer, that I could make
out nothing of it but the single word "Pip."

"There was a conwict off last night," said Joe, aloud, "after sunset-gun. And
they fired warning of him. And now it appears they’re firing warning of
another."

"Who’s firing?" said I.

"Drat that boy," interposed my sister, frowning at me over her work, "what a
questioner he is. Ask no questions, and you’ll be told no lies."

It was not very polite to herself, I thought, to imply that I should be told
lies by her even if I did ask questions. But she never was polite unless there
was company.

At this point Joe greatly augmented my curiosity by taking the utmost pains to
open his mouth very wide, and to put it into the form of a word that 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 of that, at all, and again
opened his mouth very wide, and shook the form of a most emphatic word out of
it. But I could make nothing of the word.

"Mrs. Joe," said I, as a last resort, "I should like to know—if you wouldn’t
much mind—where the firing comes from?"

"Lord bless the boy!" exclaimed my sister, as if she didn’t quite mean that but
rather the contrary. "From the Hulks!"

"Oh-h!" said I, looking at Joe. "Hulks!"

Joe gave a reproachful cough, as much as to say, "Well, I told you so."

"And please, what’s Hulks?" said I.

"That’s the way with this boy!" exclaimed my sister, pointing me out with her
needle and thread, and shaking her head at me. "Answer him one question, and
he’ll ask you a dozen directly. Hulks are prison-ships, right ’cross th’
meshes." We always used that name for marshes, in our country.

"I wonder who’s put into prison-ships, and why they’re put there?" said I, in a
general way, and with quiet desperation.

It was too much for Mrs. Joe, who immediately rose. "I tell you what, young
fellow," said she, "I didn’t bring you up by hand to 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, and because they rob, and forge, and do all sorts of bad;
and they always begin by asking questions. Now, you get along to bed!"

I was never allowed a candle to light me to bed, and, as I went up stairs in the
dark, with my head tingling,—from Mrs. Joe’s thimble having played the
tambourine upon it, to accompany her last words,—I felt fearfully sensible of
the great convenience that the hulks were handy for me. I was clearly on my way
there. I had begun by asking questions, and I was going to rob Mrs. Joe.

Since that time, which is far enough away now, I have often thought that few
people know what secrecy there is in the young under terror. No matter how
unreasonable the terror, so that it be terror. 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 iron leg; I was in mortal terror of myself, from whom an
awful promise had been extracted; I had no hope of deliverance through my
all-powerful sister, who repulsed me at every turn; I am afraid to think of what
I might have done on requirement, in the secrecy of my terror.

If I slept at all that night, it was only to imagine myself drifting down the
river on a strong spring-tide, to the Hulks; a ghostly pirate calling out to me
through a speaking-trumpet, as I passed the gibbet-station, 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 no doing it in the night, for there was
no getting a light by easy friction then; to have got one I must have struck it
out of flint and steel, and have made a noise like the very pirate himself
rattling his chains.

As soon as the great black velvet pall outside my little window was shot with
gray, I got up and went down stairs; every board upon the way, and every crack
in every board calling after me, "Stop thief!" and "Get up, Mrs. Joe!" In the
pantry, which was far more abundantly supplied than usual, owing to the season,
I was very much alarmed by a hare hanging up by the heels, whom I rather thought
I caught when my back was half turned, 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 stone
bottle from a jug in the kitchen cupboard), a meat bone with very little on it,
and a beautiful round compact pork pie. I was nearly going away without the pie,
but I was tempted to mount upon a shelf, to look what it was that was put away
so carefully in a covered earthen ware dish in a corner, and I found it was the
pie, and I took it in the hope that it was not intended for early use, and would
not be missed for some time.

There was a door in the kitchen, communicating with the forge; I unlocked and
unbolted that door, and got a file from among Joe’s tools. Then I put the
fastenings as I had found them, opened the door at which I had entered when I
ran home last night, shut it, and ran for the misty marshes.