Chapter 4

Ifully expected to find a Constable in the kitchen, waiting to take me
up. But not only was there no Constable there, but no discovery had yet been
made of the robbery. Mrs. Joe was prodigiously busy in getting the house ready
for the festivities of the day, and Joe had been put upon the kitchen doorstep
to keep him out of the dust-pan,—an article into which his destiny always led
him, sooner or later, when my sister was vigorously reaping the floors of her
establishment.

"And where the deuce ha’ you been?"
was Mrs. Joe’s Christmas salutation, when I and my conscience showed ourselves.

I said I had been down to hear the Carols. "Ah! well!" observed Mrs. Joe. "You
might ha’ done worse." Not a doubt of that I thought.

"Perhaps if I warn’t a blacksmith’s wife, and (what’s the same thing) a slave
with her apron never off, I should
have been to hear the Carols," said Mrs. Joe. "I’m rather partial to Carols,
myself, and that’s the best of reasons for my never hearing any."

Joe, who had ventured into the kitchen after me as the dustpan had retired
before us, drew the back of his hand across his nose with a conciliatory air,
when Mrs. Joe darted a look at him, and, when her eyes were withdrawn, secretly
crossed his two forefingers, and exhibited them to me, as our token that Mrs.
Joe was in a cross temper. This was so much her normal state, that Joe and I
would often, for weeks together, be, as to our fingers, like monumental
Crusaders as to their legs.

We were to have a superb dinner, consisting of a leg of pickled pork and greens,
and a pair of roast stuffed fowls. A handsome mince-pie had been made yesterday
morning (which accounted for the mincemeat not being missed), and the pudding
was already on the boil. These extensive arrangements occasioned us to be cut
off unceremoniously in respect of breakfast; "for I ain’t," said Mrs. Joe,—"I
ain’t a going to have no formal cramming and busting and washing up now, with
what I’ve got before me, I promise you!"

So, we had our slices served out, as if we were two thousand troops on a forced
march instead of a man and boy at home; and we took gulps of milk and water,
with apologetic countenances, from a jug on the dresser. In the meantime, Mrs.
Joe put clean white curtains up, and tacked a new flowered flounce across the
wide chimney to replace the old one, and uncovered the little state parlor
across the passage, which was never uncovered at any other time, but passed the
rest of the year in a cool haze of silver paper, which even extended to the four
little white crockery poodles on the mantel-shelf, each with a black nose and a
basket of flowers in his mouth, and each the counterpart of the other. Mrs. Joe
was a very clean housekeeper, but had an exquisite art of making her cleanliness
more uncomfortable and unacceptable than dirt itself. Cleanliness is next to
Godliness, and some people do the same by their religion.

My sister, having so much to do, was going to church vicariously, that is to
say, Joe and I were going. In his working-clothes, Joe was a well-knit
characteristic-looking blacksmith; in his holiday clothes, he was more like a
scarecrow in good circumstances, than anything else. Nothing that he wore then
fitted him or seemed to belong to him; and everything that he wore then grazed
him. On the present festive occasion he emerged from his room, when the blithe
bells were going, the picture of misery, in a full suit of Sunday penitentials.
As to me, I think my sister must have had some general idea that I was a young
offender whom an Accoucheur Policeman had taken up (on my birthday) and
delivered over to her, to be dealt with according to the outraged majesty of the
law. I was always treated as if I had insisted on being born in opposition to
the dictates of reason, religion, and morality, and against the dissuading
arguments of my best friends. Even when I was taken to have a new suit of
clothes, the tailor had orders to make them like a kind of Reformatory, and on
no account to let me have the free use of my limbs.

Joe and I going to church, therefore, must have been a moving spectacle for
compassionate minds. Yet, what I suffered outside was nothing to what I
underwent within. The terrors that had assailed me whenever Mrs. Joe had gone
near the pantry, or out of the room, were only to be equalled by the remorse
with which my mind dwelt on what my hands had done. Under the weight of my
wicked secret, I pondered whether the Church would be powerful enough to shield
me from the vengeance of the terrible young man, if I divulged to that
establishment. I conceived the idea that the time when the banns were read and
when the clergyman said, "Ye are now to declare it!" would be the time for me to
rise and propose a private conference in the vestry. I am far from being sure
that I might not have astonished our small congregation by resorting to this
extreme measure, but for its being Christmas Day and no Sunday.

Mr. Wopsle, the clerk at church, was to dine with us; and Mr. Hubble the
wheelwright and Mrs. Hubble; and Uncle Pumblechook (Joe’s uncle, but Mrs. Joe
appropriated him), who was a well-to-do cornchandler in the nearest town, and
drove his own chaise-cart. The dinner hour was half-past one. When Joe and I got
home, we found the table laid, and Mrs. Joe dressed, and the dinner dressing,
and the front door unlocked (it never was at any other time) for the company to
enter by, and everything most splendid. And still, not a word of the robbery.

The time came, without bringing with it any relief to my feelings, and the
company came. Mr. Wopsle, united to a Roman nose and a large shining bald
forehead, had a deep voice which he was uncommonly proud of; indeed it was
understood among his acquaintance that if you could only give him his head, he
would read the clergyman into fits; he himself confessed that if the Church was
"thrown open," meaning to competition, he would not despair of making his mark
in it. The Church not being "thrown open," he was, as I have said, our clerk.
But he punished the Amens tremendously; and when he gave out the psalm,—always
giving the whole verse,—he looked all round the congregation first, as much as
to say, "You have heard my friend overhead; oblige me with your opinion of this
style!"

I opened the door to the company,—making believe that it was a habit of ours to
open that door,—and I opened it first to Mr. Wopsle, next to Mr. and Mrs.
Hubble, and last of all to Uncle Pumblechook. N.B. I was
not allowed to call him uncle, under the severest penalties.

"Mrs. Joe," said Uncle Pumblechook, a large hard-breathing middle-aged slow man,
with a mouth like a fish, dull staring eyes, and sandy hair standing upright on
his head, so that he looked as if he had just been all but choked, and had that
moment come to, "I have brought you as the compliments of the season—I have
brought you, Mum, a bottle of sherry wine—and I have brought you, Mum, a bottle
of port wine."

Every Christmas Day he presented himself, as a profound novelty, with exactly
the same words, and carrying the two bottles like dumb-bells. Every Christmas
Day, Mrs. Joe replied, as she now replied, "O, Un—cle Pum-ble—chook! This is kind!"
Every Christmas Day, he retorted, as he now retorted, "It’s no more than your
merits. And now are you all bobbish, and how’s Sixpennorth of halfpence?"
meaning me.

We dined on these occasions in the kitchen, and adjourned, for the nuts and
oranges and apples to the parlor; which was a change very like Joe’s change from
his working-clothes to his Sunday dress. My sister was uncommonly lively on the
present occasion, and indeed was generally more gracious in the society of Mrs.
Hubble than in other company. I remember Mrs. Hubble as a little curly
sharp-edged person in sky-blue, who held a conventionally juvenile position,
because she had married Mr. Hubble,—I don’t know at what remote period,—when she
was much younger than he. I remember Mr Hubble as a tough, high-shouldered,
stooping old man, of a sawdusty fragrance, with his legs extraordinarily wide
apart: so that in my short days I always saw some miles of open country between
them when I met him coming up the lane.

Among this good company I should have felt myself, even if I hadn’t robbed the
pantry, in a false position. Not because I was squeezed in at an acute angle of
the tablecloth, with the table in my chest, and the Pumblechookian elbow in my
eye, nor because I was not allowed to speak (I didn’t want to speak), nor
because I was regaled with the scaly tips of the drumsticks of the fowls, and
with those obscure corners of pork of which the pig, when living, had had the
least reason to be vain. No; I should not have minded that, if they would only
have left me alone. But they wouldn’t leave me alone. They seemed to think the
opportunity lost, if they failed to point the conversation at me, every now and
then, and stick the point into me. I might have been an unfortunate little bull
in a Spanish arena, I got so smartingly touched up by these moral goads.

It began the moment we sat down to dinner. Mr. Wopsle said grace with theatrical
declamation,—as it now appears to me, something like a religious cross of the
Ghost in Hamlet with Richard the Third,—and ended with the very proper
aspiration that we might be truly grateful. Upon which my sister fixed me with
her eye, and said, in a low reproachful voice, "Do you hear that? Be grateful."

"Especially," said Mr. Pumblechook, "be grateful, boy, to them which brought you
up by hand."

Mrs. Hubble shook her head, and contemplating me with a mournful presentiment
that I should come to no good, asked, "Why is it that the young are never
grateful?" This moral mystery seemed too much for the company until Mr. Hubble
tersely solved it by saying, "Naterally wicious." Everybody then murmured
"True!" and looked at me in a particularly unpleasant and personal manner.

Joe’s station and influence were something feebler (if possible) when there was
company than when there was none. But he always aided and comforted me when he
could, in some way of his own, and he always did so at dinner-time by giving me
gravy, if there were any. There being plenty of gravy to-day, Joe spooned into
my plate, at this point, about half a pint.

A little later on in the dinner, Mr. Wopsle reviewed the sermon with some
severity, and intimated—in the usual hypothetical case of the Church being
"thrown open"—what kind of sermon he would
have given them. After favoring them with some heads of that discourse, he
remarked that he considered the subject of the day’s homily, ill chosen; which
was the less excusable, he added, when there were so many subjects "going
about."

"True again," said Uncle Pumblechook. "You’ve hit it, sir! Plenty of subjects
going about, for them that know how to put salt upon their tails. That’s what’s
wanted. A man needn’t go far to find a subject, if he’s ready with his
salt-box." Mr. Pumblechook added, after a short interval of reflection, "Look at
Pork alone. There’s a subject! If you want a subject, look at Pork!"

"True, sir. Many a moral for the young," returned Mr. Wopsle,—and I knew he was
going to lug me in, before he said it; "might be deduced from that text."

("You listen to this," said my sister to me, in a severe parenthesis.)

Joe gave me some more gravy.

"Swine," pursued Mr. Wopsle, in his deepest voice, and pointing his fork at my
blushes, as if he were mentioning my Christian name,—"swine were the companions
of the prodigal. The gluttony of Swine is put before us, as an example to the
young." (I thought this pretty well in him who had been praising up the pork for
being so plump and juicy.) "What is detestable in a pig is more detestable in a
boy."

"Or girl," suggested Mr. Hubble.

"Of course, or girl, Mr. Hubble," assented Mr. Wopsle, rather irritably, "but
there is no girl present."

"Besides," said Mr. Pumblechook, turning sharp on me, "think what you’ve got to
be grateful for. If you’d been born a Squeaker—"

"He was, if ever a child was,"
said my sister, most emphatically.

Joe gave me some more gravy.

"Well, but I mean a four-footed Squeaker," said Mr. Pumblechook. "If you had
been born such, would you have been here now? Not you—"

"Unless in that form," said Mr. Wopsle, nodding towards the dish.

"But I don’t mean in that form, sir," returned Mr. Pumblechook, who had an
objection to being interrupted; "I mean, enjoying himself with his elders and
betters, and improving himself with their conversation, and rolling in the lap
of luxury. Would he have been doing that? No, he wouldn’t. And what would have
been your destination?" turning on me again. "You would have been disposed of
for so many shillings according to the market price of the article, and
Dunstable the butcher would have come up to you as you lay in your straw, and he
would have whipped you under his left arm, and with his right he would have
tucked up his frock to get a penknife from out of his waistcoat-pocket, and he
would have shed your blood and had your life. No bringing up by hand then. Not a
bit of it!"

Joe offered me more gravy, which I was afraid to take.

"He was a world of trouble to you, ma’am," said Mrs. Hubble, commiserating my
sister.

"Trouble?" echoed my sister; "trouble?" and then entered on a fearful catalogue
of all the illnesses I had been guilty of, and all the acts of sleeplessness I
had committed, and all the high places I had tumbled from, and all the low
places I had tumbled into, and all the injuries I had done myself, and all the
times she had wished me in my grave, and I had contumaciously refused to go
there.

I think the Romans must have aggravated one another very much, with their noses.
Perhaps, they became the restless people they were, in consequence. Anyhow, Mr.
Wopsle’s Roman nose so aggravated me, during the recital of my misdemeanours,
that I should have liked to pull it until he howled. But, all I had endured up
to this time was nothing in comparison with the awful feelings that took
possession of me when the pause was broken which ensued upon my sister’s
recital, and in which pause everybody had looked at me (as I felt painfully
conscious) with indignation and abhorrence.

"Yet," said Mr. Pumblechook, leading the company gently back to the theme from
which they had strayed, "Pork—regarded as biled—is rich, too; ain’t it?"

"Have a little brandy, uncle," said my sister.

O Heavens, it had come at last! He would find it was weak, he would say it was
weak, and I was lost! I held tight to the leg of the table under the cloth, with
both hands, and awaited my fate.

My sister went for the stone bottle, came back with the stone bottle, and poured
his brandy out: no one else taking any. The wretched man trifled with his
glass,—took it up, looked at it through the light, put it down,—prolonged my
misery. All this time Mrs. Joe and Joe were briskly clearing the table for the
pie and pudding.

I couldn’t keep my eyes off him. Always holding tight by the leg of the table
with my hands and feet, I saw the miserable creature finger his glass playfully,
take it up, smile, throw his head back, and drink the brandy off. Instantly
afterwards, the company were seized with unspeakable consternation, owing to his
springing to his feet, turning round several times in an appalling spasmodic
whooping-cough dance, and rushing out at the door; he then became visible
through the window, violently plunging and expectorating, making the most
hideous faces, and apparently out of his mind.

I held on tight, while Mrs. Joe and Joe ran to him. I didn’t know how I had done
it, but I had no doubt I had murdered him somehow. In my dreadful situation, it
was a relief when he was brought back, and surveying the company all round as if they had
disagreed with him, sank down into his chair with the one significant gasp,
"Tar!"

I had filled up the bottle from the tar-water jug. I knew he would be worse by
and by. I moved the table, like a Medium of the present day, by the vigor of my
unseen hold upon it.

"Tar!" cried my sister, in amazement. "Why, how ever could Tar come there?"

But, Uncle Pumblechook, who was omnipotent in that kitchen, wouldn’t hear the
word, wouldn’t hear of the subject, imperiously waved it all away with his hand,
and asked for hot gin and water. My sister, who had begun to be alarmingly
meditative, had to employ herself actively in getting the gin the hot water, the
sugar, and the lemon-peel, and mixing them. For the time being at least, I was
saved. I still held on to the leg of the table, but clutched it now with the
fervor of gratitude.

By degrees, I became calm enough to release my grasp and partake of pudding. Mr.
Pumblechook partook of pudding. All partook of pudding. The course terminated,
and Mr. Pumblechook had begun to beam under the genial influence of gin and
water. I began to think I should get over the day, when my sister said to Joe,
"Clean plates,—cold."

I clutched the leg of the table again immediately, and pressed it to my bosom as
if it had been the companion of my youth and friend of my soul. I foresaw what
was coming, and I felt that this time I really was gone.

"You must taste," said my sister, addressing the guests with her best grace—"you
must taste, to finish with, such a delightful and delicious present of Uncle
Pumblechook’s!"

Must they! Let them not hope to taste it!

"You must know," said my sister, rising, "it’s a pie; a savory pork pie."

The company murmured their compliments. Uncle Pumblechook, sensible of having
deserved well of his fellow-creatures, said,—quite vivaciously, all things
considered,—"Well, Mrs. Joe, we’ll do our best endeavors; let us have a cut at
this same pie."

My sister went out to get it. I heard her steps proceed to the pantry. I saw Mr.
Pumblechook balance his knife. I saw reawakening appetite in the Roman nostrils
of Mr. Wopsle. I heard Mr. Hubble remark that "a bit of savory pork pie would
lay atop of anything you could mention, and do no harm," and I heard Joe say,
"You shall have some, Pip." I have never been absolutely certain whether I
uttered a shrill yell of terror, merely in spirit, or in the bodily hearing of
the company. I felt that I could bear no more, and that I must run away. I
released the leg of the table, and ran for my life.

But I ran no farther than the house door, for there I ran head-foremost into a
party of soldiers with their muskets, one of whom held out a pair of handcuffs
to me, saying, "Here you are, look sharp, come on!"