Chapter 15

As I was getting too big for Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt’s room, my education
under that preposterous female terminated. Not, however, until Biddy had
imparted to me everything she knew, from the little catalogue of prices, to a
comic song she had once bought for a half-penny. Although the only coherent part
of the latter piece of literature were the opening lines.

When I went to Lunnon town sirs, Too rul loo rul Too rul loo rul Wasn’t I done
very brown sirs? Too rul loo rul Too rul loo rul—still, in my desire to be
wiser, I got this composition by heart with the utmost gravity; nor do I
recollect that I questioned its merit, except that I thought (as I still do) the
amount of Too rul somewhat in excess of the poetry. In my hunger for
information, I made proposals to Mr. Wopsle to bestow some intellectual crumbs
upon me, with which he kindly complied. As it turned out, however, that he only
wanted me for a dramatic lay-figure, to be contradicted and embraced and wept
over and bullied and clutched and stabbed and knocked about in a variety of
ways, I soon declined that course of instruction; though not until Mr. Wopsle in
his poetic fury had severely mauled me.

Whatever I acquired, I tried to impart to Joe. This statement sounds so well,
that I cannot in my conscience let it pass unexplained. I wanted to make Joe
less ignorant and common, that he might be worthier of my society and less open
to Estella’s reproach.

The old Battery out on the marshes was our place of study, and a broken slate
and a short piece of slate-pencil were our educational implements: to which Joe
always added a pipe of tobacco. I never knew Joe to remember anything from one
Sunday to another, or to acquire, under my tuition, any piece of information
whatever. Yet he would smoke his pipe at the Battery with a far more sagacious
air than anywhere else,—even with a learned air,—as if he considered himself to
be advancing immensely. Dear fellow, I hope he did.

It was pleasant and quiet, out there with the sails on the river passing beyond
the earthwork, and sometimes, when the tide was low, looking as if they belonged
to sunken ships that were still sailing on at the bottom of the water. Whenever
I watched the vessels standing out to sea with their white sails spread, I
somehow thought of Miss Havisham and Estella; and whenever the light struck
aslant, afar off, upon a cloud or sail or green hillside or water-line, it was
just the same.—Miss Havisham and Estella and the strange house and the strange
life appeared to have something to do with everything that was picturesque.

One Sunday when Joe, greatly enjoying his pipe, had so plumed himself on being
"most awful dull," that I had given him up for the day, I lay on the earthwork
for some time with my chin on my hand, descrying traces of Miss Havisham and
Estella all over the prospect, in the sky and in the water, until at last I
resolved to mention a thought concerning them that had been much in my head.

"Joe," said I; "don’t you think I ought to make Miss Havisham a visit?"

"Well, Pip," returned Joe, slowly considering. "What for?"

"What for, Joe? What is any visit made for?"

"There is some wisits p’r’aps," said Joe, "as for ever remains open to the
question, Pip. But in regard to wisiting Miss Havisham. She might think you
wanted something,—expected something of her."

"Don’t you think I might say that I did not, Joe?"

"You might, old chap," said Joe. "And she might credit it. Similarly she
mightn’t."

Joe felt, as I did, that he had made a point there, and he pulled hard at his
pipe to keep himself from weakening it by repetition.

"You see, Pip," Joe pursued, as soon as he was past that danger, "Miss Havisham
done the handsome thing by you. When Miss Havisham done the handsome thing by
you, she called me back to say to me as that were all."

"Yes, Joe. I heard her."

"ALL," Joe repeated, very emphatically.

"Yes, Joe. I tell you, I heard her."

"Which I meantersay, Pip, it might be that her meaning were,—Make a end on
it!—As you was!—Me to the North, and you to the South!—Keep in sunders!"

I had thought of that too, and it was very far from comforting to me to find
that he had thought of it; for it seemed to render it more probable.

"But, Joe."

"Yes, old chap."

"Here am I, getting on in the first year of my time, and, since the day of my
being bound, I have never thanked Miss Havisham, or asked after her, or shown
that I remember her."

"That’s true, Pip; and unless you was to turn her out a set of shoes all four
round,—and which I meantersay as even a set of shoes all four round might not be
acceptable as a present, in a total wacancy of hoofs—"

"I don’t mean that sort of remembrance, Joe; I don’t mean a present."

But Joe had got the idea of a present in his head and must harp upon it. "Or
even," said he, "if you was helped to knocking her up a new chain for the front
door,—or say a gross or two of shark-headed screws for general use,—or some
light fancy article, such as a toasting-fork when she took her muffins,—or a
gridiron when she took a sprat or such like—"

"I don’t mean any present at all, Joe," I interposed.

"Well," said Joe, still harping on it as though I had particularly pressed it,
"if I was yourself, Pip, I wouldn’t. No, I would not.
For what’s a door-chain when she’s got one always up? And shark-headers is open
to misrepresentations. And if it was a toasting-fork, you’d go into brass and do
yourself no credit. And the oncommonest workman can’t show himself oncommon in a
gridiron,—for a gridiron IS a gridiron," said Joe, steadfastly impressing it
upon me, as if he were endeavouring to rouse me from a fixed delusion, "and you
may haim at what you like, but a gridiron it will come out, either by your leave
or again your leave, and you can’t help yourself—"

"My dear Joe," I cried, in desperation, taking hold of his coat, "don’t go on in
that way. I never thought of making Miss Havisham any present."

"No, Pip," Joe assented, as if he had been contending for that, all along; "and
what I say to you is, you are right, Pip."

"Yes, Joe; but what I wanted to say, was, that as we are rather slack just now,
if you would give me a half-holiday to-morrow, I think I would go up-town and
make a call on Miss Est—Havisham."

"Which her name," said Joe, gravely, "ain’t Estavisham, Pip, unless she have
been rechris’ened."

"I know, Joe, I know. It was a slip of mine. What do you think of it, Joe?"

In brief, Joe thought that if I thought well of it, he thought well of it. But,
he was particular in stipulating that if I were not received with cordiality, or
if I were not encouraged to repeat my visit as a visit which had no ulterior
object but was simply one of gratitude for a favor received, then this
experimental trip should have no successor. By these conditions I promised to
abide.

Now, Joe kept a journeyman at weekly wages whose name was Orlick. He pretended
that his Christian name was Dolge,—a clear Impossibility,—but he was a fellow of
that obstinate disposition that I believe him to have been the prey of no
delusion in this particular, but wilfully to have imposed that name upon the
village as an affront to its understanding. He was a broadshouldered
loose-limbed swarthy fellow of great strength, never in a hurry, and always
slouching. He never even seemed to come to his work on purpose, but would slouch
in as if by mere accident; and when he went to the Jolly Bargemen to eat his
dinner, or went away at night, he would slouch out, like Cain or the Wandering
Jew, as if he had no idea where he was going and no intention of ever coming
back. He lodged at a sluice-keeper’s out on the marshes, and on working-days
would come slouching from his hermitage, with his hands in his pockets and his
dinner loosely tied in a bundle round his neck and dangling on his back. On
Sundays he mostly lay all day on the sluice-gates, or stood against ricks and
barns. He always slouched, locomotively, with his eyes on the ground; and, when
accosted or otherwise required to raise them, he looked up in a half-resentful,
half-puzzled way, as though the only thought he ever had was, that it was rather
an odd and injurious fact that he should never be thinking.

This morose journeyman had no liking for me. When I was very small and timid, he
gave me to understand that the Devil lived in a black corner of the forge, and
that he knew the fiend very well: also that it was necessary to make up the
fire, once in seven years, with a live boy, and that I might consider myself
fuel. When I became Joe’s ’prentice, Orlick was perhaps confirmed in some
suspicion that I should displace him; howbeit, he liked me still less. Not that
he ever said anything, or did anything, openly importing hostility; I only
noticed that he always beat his sparks in my direction, and that whenever I sang
Old Clem, he came in out of time.

Dolge Orlick was at work and present, next day, when I reminded Joe of my
half-holiday. He said nothing at the moment, for he and Joe had just got a piece
of hot iron between them, and I was at the bellows; but by and by he said,
leaning on his hammer,—

"Now, master! Sure you’re not a going to favor only one of us. If Young Pip has
a half-holiday, do as much for Old Orlick." I suppose he was about
five-and-twenty, but he usually spoke of himself as an ancient person.

"Why, what’ll you do with a half-holiday, if you get it?" said Joe.

"What’ll I do
with it! What’ll he do
with it? I’ll do as much with it as him,"
said Orlick.

"As to Pip, he’s going up town," said Joe.

"Well then, as to Old Orlick, he’s
a going up town," retorted that worthy. "Two can go up town. Tain’t only one wot
can go up town.

"Don’t lose your temper," said Joe.

"Shall if I like," growled Orlick. "Some and their up-towning! Now, master!
Come. No favoring in this shop. Be a man!"

The master refusing to entertain the subject until the journeyman was in a
better temper, Orlick plunged at the furnace, drew out a red-hot bar, made at me
with it as if he were going to run it through my body, whisked it round my head,
laid it on the anvil, hammered it out,—as if it were I, I thought, and the
sparks were my spirting blood,—and finally said, when he had hammered himself
hot and the iron cold, and he again leaned on his hammer,—

"Now, master!"

"Are you all right now?" demanded Joe.

"Ah! I am all right," said gruff Old Orlick.

"Then, as in general you stick to your work as well as most men," said Joe, "let
it be a half-holiday for all."

My sister had been standing silent in the yard, within hearing,—she was a most
unscrupulous spy and listener,—and she instantly looked in at one of the
windows.

"Like you, you fool!" said she to Joe, "giving holidays to great idle hulkers
like that. You are a rich man, upon my life, to waste wages in that way. I wish I was
his master!"

"You’d be everybody’s master, if you durst," retorted Orlick, with an
ill-favored grin.

("Let her alone," said Joe.)

"I’d be a match for all noodles and all rogues," returned my sister, beginning
to work herself into a mighty rage. "And I couldn’t be a match for the noodles,
without being a match for your master, who’s the dunder-headed king of the
noodles. And I couldn’t be a match for the rogues, without being a match for
you, who are the blackest-looking and the worst rogue between this and France.
Now!"

"You’re a foul shrew, Mother Gargery," growled the journeyman. "If that makes a
judge of rogues, you ought to be a good’un."

("Let her alone, will you?" said Joe.)

"What did you say?" cried my sister, beginning to scream. "What did you say?
What did that fellow Orlick say to me, Pip? What did he call me, with my husband
standing by? Oh! oh! oh!" Each of these exclamations was a shriek; and I must
remark of my sister, what is equally true of all the violent women I have ever
seen, that passion was no excuse for her, because it is undeniable that instead
of lapsing into passion, she consciously and deliberately took extraordinary
pains to force herself into it, and became blindly furious by regular stages;
"what was the name he gave me before the base man who swore to defend me? Oh!
Hold me! Oh!"

"Ah-h-h!" growled the journeyman, between his teeth, "I’d hold you, if you was
my wife. I’d hold you under the pump, and choke it out of you."

("I tell you, let her alone," said Joe.)

"Oh! To hear him!" cried my sister, with a clap of her hands and a scream
together,—which was her next stage. "To hear the names he’s giving me! That
Orlick! In my own house! Me, a married woman! With my husband standing by! Oh!
Oh!" Here my sister, after a fit of clappings and screamings, beat her hands
upon her bosom and upon her knees, and threw her cap off, and pulled her hair
down,—which were the last stages on her road to frenzy. Being by this time a
perfect Fury and a complete success, she made a dash at the door which I had
fortunately locked.

What could the wretched Joe do now, after his disregarded parenthetical
interruptions, but stand up to his journeyman, and ask him what he meant by
interfering betwixt himself and Mrs. Joe; and further whether he was man enough
to come on? Old Orlick felt that the situation admitted of nothing less than
coming on, and was on his defence straightway; so, without so much as pulling
off their singed and burnt aprons, they went at one another, like two giants.
But, if any man in that neighborhood could stand uplong against Joe, I never saw
the man. Orlick, as if he had been of no more account than the pale young
gentleman, was very soon among the coal-dust, and in no hurry to come out of it.
Then Joe unlocked the door and picked up my sister, who had dropped insensible
at the window (but who had seen the fight first, I think), and who was carried
into the house and laid down, and who was recommended to revive, and would do
nothing but struggle and clench her hands in Joe’s hair. Then, came that
singular calm and silence which succeed all uproars; and then, with the vague
sensation which I have always connected with such a lull,—namely, that it was
Sunday, and somebody was dead,—I went up stairs to dress myself.

When I came down again, I found Joe and Orlick sweeping up, without any other
traces of discomposure than a slit in one of Orlick’s nostrils, which was
neither expressive nor ornamental. A pot of beer had appeared from the Jolly
Bargemen, and they were sharing it by turns in a peaceable manner. The lull had
a sedative and philosophical influence on Joe, who followed me out into the road
to say, as a parting observation that might do me good, "On the Rampage, Pip,
and off the Rampage, Pip:—such is Life!"

With what absurd emotions (for we think the feelings that are very serious in a
man quite comical in a boy) I found myself again going to Miss Havisham’s,
matters little here. Nor, how I passed and repassed the gate many times before I
could make up my mind to ring. Nor, how I debated whether I should go away
without ringing; nor, how I should undoubtedly have gone, if my time had been my
own, to come back.

Miss Sarah Pocket came to the gate. No Estella.

"How, then? You here again?" said Miss Pocket. "What do you want?"

When I said that I only came to see how Miss Havisham was, Sarah evidently
deliberated whether or no she should send me about my business. But unwilling to
hazard the responsibility, she let me in, and presently brought the sharp
message that I was to "come up."

Everything was unchanged, and Miss Havisham was alone.

"Well?" said she, fixing her eyes upon me. "I hope you want nothing? You’ll get
nothing."

"No indeed, Miss Havisham. I only wanted you to know that I am doing very well
in my apprenticeship, and am always much obliged to you."

"There, there!" with the old restless fingers. "Come now and then; come on your
birthday.—Ay!" she cried suddenly, turning herself and her chair towards me,
"You are looking round for Estella? Hey?"

I had been looking round,—in fact, for Estella,—and I stammered that I hoped she
was well.

"Abroad," said Miss Havisham; "educating for a lady; far out of reach; prettier
than ever; admired by all who see her. Do you feel that you have lost her?"

There was such a malignant enjoyment in her utterance of the last words, and she
broke into such a disagreeable laugh, that I was at a loss what to say. She
spared me the trouble of considering, by dismissing me. When the gate was closed
upon me by Sarah of the walnut-shell countenance, I felt more than ever
dissatisfied with my home and with my trade and with everything; and that was
all I took by that motion.

As I was loitering along the High Street, looking in disconsolately at the shop
windows, and thinking what I would buy if I were a gentleman, who should come
out of the bookshop but Mr. Wopsle. Mr. Wopsle had in his hand the affecting
tragedy of George Barnwell, in which he had that moment invested sixpence, with
the view of heaping every word of it on the head of Pumblechook, with whom he
was going to drink tea. No sooner did he see me, than he appeared to consider
that a special Providence had put a ’prentice in his way to be read at; and he
laid hold of me, and insisted on my accompanying him to the Pumblechookian
parlor. As I knew it would be miserable at home, and as the nights were dark and
the way was dreary, and almost any companionship on the road was better than
none, I made no great resistance; consequently, we turned into Pumblechook’s
just as the street and the shops were lighting up.

As I never assisted at any other representation of George Barnwell, I don’t know
how long it may usually take; but I know very well that it took until half-past
nine o’ clock that night, and that when Mr. Wopsle got into Newgate, I thought
he never would go to the scaffold, he became so much slower than at any former
period of his disgraceful career. I thought it a little too much that he should
complain of being cut short in his flower after all, as if he had not been
running to seed, leaf after leaf, ever since his course began. This, however,
was a mere question of length and wearisomeness. What stung me, was the
identification of the whole affair with my unoffending self. When Barnwell began
to go wrong, I declare that I felt positively apologetic, Pumblechook’s
indignant stare so taxed me with it. Wopsle, too, took pains to present me in
the worst light. At once ferocious and maudlin, I was made to murder my uncle
with no extenuating circumstances whatever; Millwood put me down in argument, on
every occasion; it became sheer monomania in my master’s daughter to care a
button for me; and all I can say for my gasping and procrastinating conduct on
the fatal morning, is, that it was worthy of the general feebleness of my
character. Even after I was happily hanged and Wopsle had closed the book,
Pumblechook sat staring at me, and shaking his head, and saying, "Take warning,
boy, take warning!" as if it were a well-known fact that I contemplated
murdering a near relation, provided I could only induce one to have the weakness
to become my benefactor.

It was a very dark night when it was all over, and when I set out with Mr.
Wopsle on the walk home. Beyond town, we found a heavy mist out, and it fell wet
and thick. The turnpike lamp was a blur, quite out of the lamp’s usual place
apparently, and its rays looked solid substance on the fog. We were noticing
this, and saying how that the mist rose with a change of wind from a certain
quarter of our marshes, when we came upon a man, slouching under the lee of the
turnpike house.

"Halloa!" we said, stopping. "Orlick there?"

"Ah!" he answered, slouching out. "I was standing by a minute, on the chance of
company."

"You are late," I remarked.

Orlick not unnaturally answered, "Well? And you’re
late."

"We have been," said Mr. Wopsle, exalted with his late performance,—"we have
been indulging, Mr. Orlick, in an intellectual evening."

Old Orlick growled, as if he had nothing to say about that, and we all went on
together. I asked him presently whether he had been spending his half-holiday up
and down town?

"Yes," said he, "all of it. I come in behind yourself. I didn’t see you, but I
must have been pretty close behind you. By the by, the guns is going again."

"At the Hulks?" said I.

"Ay! There’s some of the birds flown from the cages. The guns have been going
since dark, about. You’ll hear one presently."

In effect, we had not walked many yards further, when the well-remembered boom
came towards us, deadened by the mist, and heavily rolled away along the low
grounds by the river, as if it were pursuing and threatening the fugitives.

"A good night for cutting off in," said Orlick. "We’d be puzzled how to bring
down a jail-bird on the wing, to-night."

The subject was a suggestive one to me, and I thought about it in silence. Mr.
Wopsle, as the ill-requited uncle of the evening’s tragedy, fell to meditating
aloud in his garden at Camberwell. Orlick, with his hands in his pockets,
slouched heavily at my side. It was very dark, very wet, very muddy, and so we
splashed along. Now and then, the sound of the signal cannon broke upon us
again, and again rolled sulkily along the course of the river. I kept myself to
myself and my thoughts. Mr. Wopsle died amiably at Camberwell, and exceedingly
game on Bosworth Field, and in the greatest agonies at Glastonbury. Orlick
sometimes growled, "Beat it out, beat it out,—Old Clem! With a clink for the
stout,—Old Clem!" I thought he had been drinking, but he was not drunk.

Thus, we came to the village. The way by which we approached it took us past the
Three Jolly Bargemen, which we were surprised to find—it being eleven o’clock—in
a state of commotion, with the door wide open, and unwonted lights that had been
hastily caught up and put down scattered about. Mr. Wopsle dropped in to ask
what was the matter (surmising that a convict had been taken), but came running
out in a great hurry.

"There’s something wrong," said he, without stopping, "up at your place, Pip.
Run all!"

"What is it?" I asked, keeping up with him. So did Orlick, at my side.

"I can’t quite understand. The house seems to have been violently entered when
Joe Gargery was out. Supposed by convicts. Somebody has been attacked and hurt."

We were running too fast to admit of more being said, and we made no stop until
we got into our kitchen. It was full of people; the whole village was there, or
in the yard; and there was a surgeon, and there was Joe, and there were a group
of women, all on the floor in the midst of the kitchen. The unemployed
bystanders drew back when they saw me, and so I became aware of my sister,—lying
without sense or movement on the bare boards where she had been knocked down by
a tremendous blow on the back of the head, dealt by some unknown hand when her
face was turned towards the fire,—destined never to be on the Rampage again,
while she was the wife of Joe.