Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (speed reading book TXT) 📕

Pip?”

“Yes, Joe.”

“Well,” said Joe, passing the poker into his left hand, that he

might feel his whisker; and I had no hope of him whenever he took

to that placid occupation; “your sister’s a master-mind. A

master-mind.”

“What’s that?” I asked, in some hope of bringing him to a stand.

But Joe was readier with his definition than I had expected, and

completely stopped me by arguing circularly, and answering with a

fixed look, “Her.”

“And I ain’t a master-mind,” Joe resumed, when he had unfixed his

look, and got back to his whisker. “And last of all, Pip,—and this

I want to say very serious to you, old chap,—I see so much in my

poor mother, of a woman drudging and slaving and breaking her

honest hart and never getting no peace in her mortal days, that I’m

dead afeerd of going wrong in the way of not doing what’s right by

a woman, and I’d fur rather of the two go wrong the t’other way,

and be a little ill-conwenienced myself. I wish it was only me that

got put out, Pip; I wish there warn’t no Tickler for you, old chap;

I wish I could take it all on myself; but this is the

up-and-down-and-straight on it, Pip, and I hope you’ll overlook

shortcomings.”

Young as I was, I believe that I dated a new admiration of Joe from

that night. We were equals afterwards, as we had been before; but,

afterwards at quiet times when I sat looking at Joe and thinking

about him, I had a new sensation of feeling conscious that I was

looking up to Joe in my heart.

“However,” said Joe, rising to replenish the fire; “here’s the

Dutch-clock a working himself up to being equal to strike Eight of

‘em, and she’s not come home yet! I hope Uncle Pumblechook’s mare

mayn’t have set a forefoot on a piece o’ ice, and gone down.”

Mrs. Joe made occasional trips with Uncle Pumblechook on

market-days, to assist him in buying such household stuffs and

goods as required a woman’s judgment; Uncle Pumblechook being a

bachelor and reposing no confidences in his domestic servant. This

was market-day, and Mrs. Joe was out on one of these expeditions.

Joe made the fire and swept the hearth, and then we went to the

door to listen for the chaise-cart. It was a dry cold night, and

the wind blew keenly, and the frost was white and hard. A man would

die tonight of lying out on the marshes, I thought. And then I

looked at the stars, and considered how awful if would be for a man

to turn his face up to them as he froze to death, and see no help

or pity in all the glittering multitude.

“Here comes the mare,” said Joe, “ringing like a peal of bells!”

The sound of her iron shoes upon the hard road was quite musical,

as she came along at a much brisker trot than usual. We got a chair

out, ready for Mrs. Joe’s alighting, and stirred up the fire that

they might see a bright window, and took a final survey of the

kitchen that nothing might be out of its place. When we had

completed these preparations, they drove up, wrapped to the eyes.

Mrs. Joe was soon landed, and Uncle Pumblechook was soon down too,

covering the mare with a cloth, and we were soon all in the

kitchen, carrying so much cold air in with us that it seemed to

drive all the heat out of the fire.

“Now,” said Mrs. Joe, unwrapping herself with haste and excitement,

and throwing her bonnet back on her shoulders where it hung by the

strings, “if this boy ain’t grateful this night, he never will be!”

I looked as grateful as any boy possibly could, who was wholly

uninformed why he ought to assume that expression.

“It’s only to be hoped,” said my sister, “that he won’t be

Pompeyed. But I have my fears.”

“She ain’t in that line, Mum,” said Mr. Pumblechook. “She knows

better.”

She? I looked at Joe, making the motion with my lips and eyebrows,

“She?” Joe looked at me, making the motion with his lips and

eyebrows, “She?” My sister catching him in the act, he drew the

back of his hand across his nose with his usual conciliatory air on

such occasions, and looked at her.

“Well?” said my sister, in her snappish way. “What are you staring

at? Is the house afire?”

“—Which some individual,” Joe politely hinted, “mentioned—she.”

“And she is a she, I suppose?” said my sister. “Unless you call

Miss Havisham a he. And I doubt if even you’ll go so far as that.”

“Miss Havisham, up town?” said Joe.

“Is there any Miss Havisham down town?” returned my sister.

“She wants this boy to go and play there. And of course he’s going.

And he had better play there,” said my sister, shaking her head at

me as an encouragement to be extremely light and sportive, “or I’ll

work him.”

I had heard of Miss Havisham up town,—everybody for miles round

had heard of Miss Havisham up town,—as an immensely rich and grim

lady who lived in a large and dismal house barricaded against

robbers, and who led a life of seclusion.

“Well to be sure!” said Joe, astounded. “I wonder how she come to

know Pip!”

“Noodle!” cried my sister. “Who said she knew him?”

“—Which some individual,” Joe again politely hinted, “mentioned

that she wanted him to go and play there.”

“And couldn’t she ask Uncle Pumblechook if he knew of a boy to go

and play there? Isn’t it just barely possible that Uncle

Pumblechook may be a tenant of hers, and that he may sometimes—we

won’t say quarterly or half-yearly, for that would be requiring too

much of you—but sometimes—go there to pay his rent? And

couldn’t she then ask Uncle Pumblechook if he knew of a boy to go

and play there? And couldn’t Uncle Pumblechook, being always

considerate and thoughtful for us—though you may not think it,

Joseph,” in a tone of the deepest reproach, as if he were the most

callous of nephews, “then mention this boy, standing Prancing here”

—which I solemnly declare I was not doing—“that I have for ever

been a willing slave to?”

“Good again!” cried Uncle Pumblechook. “Well put! Prettily pointed!

Good indeed! Now Joseph, you know the case.”

“No, Joseph,” said my sister, still in a reproachful manner, while

Joe apologetically drew the back of his hand across and across his

nose, “you do not yet—though you may not think it—know the

case. You may consider that you do, but you do not, Joseph. For you

do not know that Uncle Pumblechook, being sensible that for

anything we can tell, this boy’s fortune may be made by his going

to Miss Havisham’s, has offered to take him into town tonight in

his own chaise-cart, and to keep him tonight, and to take him with

his own hands to Miss Havisham’s tomorrow morning. And Lor-a-mussy

me!” cried my sister, casting off her bonnet in sudden desperation,

“here I stand talking to mere Mooncalfs, with Uncle Pumblechook

waiting, and the mare catching cold at the door, and the boy grimed

with crock and dirt from the hair of his head to the sole of his

foot!”

With that, she pounced upon me, like an eagle on a lamb, and my

face was squeezed into wooden bowls in sinks, and my head was put

under taps of water-butts, and I was soaped, and kneaded, and

towelled, and thumped, and harrowed, and rasped, until I really was

quite beside myself. (I may here remark that I suppose myself to be

better acquainted than any living authority, with the ridgy effect

of a wedding-ring, passing unsympathetically over the human

countenance.)

When my ablutions were completed, I was put into clean linen of the

stiffest character, like a young penitent into sackcloth, and was

trussed up in my tightest and fearfullest suit. I was then

delivered over to Mr. Pumblechook, who formally received me as if he

were the Sheriff, and who let off upon me the speech that I knew he

had been dying to make all along: “Boy, be forever grateful to all

friends, but especially unto them which brought you up by hand!”

“Good-bye, Joe!”

“God bless you, Pip, old chap!”

I had never parted from him before, and what with my feelings and

what with soapsuds, I could at first see no stars from the

chaise-cart. But they twinkled out one by one, without throwing any

light on the questions why on earth I was going to play at Miss

Havisham’s, and what on earth I was expected to play at.