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

Saturday night. There was a group assembled round the fire at the

Three Jolly Bargemen, attentive to Mr. Wopsle as he read the

newspaper aloud. Of that group I was one.

A highly popular murder had been committed, and Mr. Wopsle was

imbrued in blood to the eyebrows. He gloated over every abhorrent

adjective in the description, and identified himself with every

witness at the Inquest. He faintly moaned, “I am done for,” as the

victim, and he barbarously bellowed, “I’ll serve you out,” as the

murderer. He gave the medical testimony, in pointed imitation of

our local practitioner; and he piped and shook, as the aged

turnpike-keeper who had heard blows, to an extent so very paralytic

as to suggest a doubt regarding the mental competency of that

witness. The coroner, in Mr. Wopsle’s hands, became Timon of Athens;

the beadle, Coriolanus. He enjoyed himself thoroughly, and we all

enjoyed ourselves, and were delightfully comfortable. In this cosey

state of mind we came to the verdict Wilful Murder.

Then, and not sooner, I became aware of a strange gentleman leaning

over the back of the settle opposite me, looking on. There was an

expression of contempt on his face, and he bit the side of a great

forefinger as he watched the group of faces.

“Well!” said the stranger to Mr. Wopsle, when the reading was done,

“you have settled it all to your own satisfaction, I have no

doubt?”

Everybody started and looked up, as if it were the murderer. He

looked at everybody coldly and sarcastically.

“Guilty, of course?” said he. “Out with it. Come!”

“Sir,” returned Mr. Wopsle, “without having the honor of your

acquaintance, I do say Guilty.” Upon this we all took courage to

unite in a confirmatory murmur.

“I know you do,” said the stranger; “I knew you would. I told you

so. But now I’ll ask you a question. Do you know, or do you not

know, that the law of England supposes every man to be innocent,

until he is proved-proved—to be guilty?”

“Sir,” Mr. Wopsle began to reply, “as an Englishman myself, I—”

“Come!” said the stranger, biting his forefinger at him. “Don’t

evade the question. Either you know it, or you don’t know it. Which

is it to be?”

He stood with his head on one side and himself on one side, in a

Bullying, interrogative manner, and he threw his forefinger at Mr.

Wopsle,—as it were to mark him out—before biting it again.

“Now!” said he. “Do you know it, or don’t you know it?”

“Certainly I know it,” replied Mr. Wopsle.

“Certainly you know it. Then why didn’t you say so at first? Now,

I’ll ask you another question,”—taking possession of Mr. Wopsle, as

if he had a right to him,—“do you know that none of these witnesses

have yet been cross-examined?”

Mr. Wopsle was beginning, “I can only say—” when the stranger

stopped him.

“What? You won’t answer the question, yes or no? Now, I’ll try you

again.” Throwing his finger at him again. “Attend to me. Are you

aware, or are you not aware, that none of these witnesses have yet

been cross-examined? Come, I only want one word from you. Yes, or

no?”

Mr. Wopsle hesitated, and we all began to conceive rather a poor

opinion of him.

“Come!” said the stranger, “I’ll help you. You don’t deserve help,

but I’ll help you. Look at that paper you hold in your hand. What

is it?”

“What is it?” repeated Mr. Wopsle, eyeing it, much at a loss.

“Is it,” pursued the stranger in his most sarcastic and suspicious

manner, “the printed paper you have just been reading from?”

“Undoubtedly.”

“Undoubtedly. Now, turn to that paper, and tell me whether it

distinctly states that the prisoner expressly said that his legal

advisers instructed him altogether to reserve his defence?”

“I read that just now,” Mr. Wopsle pleaded.

“Never mind what you read just now, sir; I don’t ask you what you

read just now. You may read the Lord’s Prayer backwards, if you

like,—and, perhaps, have done it before to-day. Turn to the paper.

No, no, no my friend; not to the top of the column; you know better

than that; to the bottom, to the bottom.” (We all began to think Mr.

Wopsle full of subterfuge.) “Well? Have you found it?”

“Here it is,” said Mr. Wopsle.

“Now, follow that passage with your eye, and tell me whether it

distinctly states that the prisoner expressly said that he was

instructed by his legal advisers wholly to reserve his defence?

Come! Do you make that of it?”

Mr. Wopsle answered, “Those are not the exact words.”

“Not the exact words!” repeated the gentleman bitterly. “Is that

the exact substance?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Wopsle.

“Yes,” repeated the stranger, looking round at the rest of the

company with his right hand extended towards the witness, Wopsle.

“And now I ask you what you say to the conscience of that man who,

with that passage before his eyes, can lay his head upon his pillow

after having pronounced a fellow-creature guilty, unheard?”

We all began to suspect that Mr. Wopsle was not the man we had

thought him, and that he was beginning to be found out.

“And that same man, remember,” pursued the gentleman, throwing his

finger at Mr. Wopsle heavily,—“that same man might be summoned as a

juryman upon this very trial, and, having thus deeply committed

himself, might return to the bosom of his family and lay his head

upon his pillow, after deliberately swearing that he would well and

truly try the issue joined between Our Sovereign Lord the King and

the prisoner at the bar, and would a true verdict give according to

the evidence, so help him God!”

We were all deeply persuaded that the unfortunate Wopsle had gone

too far, and had better stop in his reckless career while there was

yet time.

The strange gentleman, with an air of authority not to be disputed,

and with a manner expressive of knowing something secret about

every one of us that would effectually do for each individual if he

chose to disclose it, left the back of the settle, and came into

the space between the two settles, in front of the fire, where he

remained standing, his left hand in his pocket, and he biting the

forefinger of his right.

“From information I have received,” said he, looking round at us as

we all quailed before him, “I have reason to believe there is a

blacksmith among you, by name Joseph—or Joe—Gargery. Which is

the man?”

“Here is the man,” said Joe.

The strange gentleman beckoned him out of his place, and Joe went.

“You have an apprentice,” pursued the stranger, “commonly known as

Pip? Is he here?”

“I am here!” I cried.

The stranger did not recognize me, but I recognized him as the

gentleman I had met on the stairs, on the occasion of my second

visit to Miss Havisham. I had known him the moment I saw him

looking over the settle, and now that I stood confronting him with

his hand upon my shoulder, I checked off again in detail his large

head, his dark complexion, his deep-set eyes, his bushy black

eyebrows, his large watch-chain, his strong black dots of beard and

whisker, and even the smell of scented soap on his great hand.

“I wish to have a private conference with you two,” said he, when

he had surveyed me at his leisure. “It will take a little time.

Perhaps we had better go to your place of residence. I prefer not

to anticipate my communication here; you will impart as much or as

little of it as you please to your friends afterwards; I have

nothing to do with that.”

Amidst a wondering silence, we three walked out of the Jolly

Bargemen, and in a wondering silence walked home. While going

along, the strange gentleman occasionally looked at me, and

occasionally bit the side of his finger. As we neared home, Joe

vaguely acknowledging the occasion as an impressive and ceremonious

one, went on ahead to open the front door. Our conference was held

in the state parlor, which was feebly lighted by one candle.

It began with the strange gentleman’s sitting down at the table,

drawing the candle to him, and looking over some entries in his

pocket-book. He then put up the pocket-book and set the candle a

little aside, after peering round it into the darkness at Joe and

me, to ascertain which was which.

“My name,” he said, “is Jaggers, and I am a lawyer in London. I am

pretty well known. I have unusual business to transact with you,

and I commence by explaining that it is not of my originating. If

my advice had been asked, I should not have been here. It was not

asked, and you see me here. What I have to do as the confidential

agent of another, I do. No less, no more.”

Finding that he could not see us very well from where he sat, he

got up, and threw one leg over the back of a chair and leaned upon

it; thus having one foot on the seat of the chair, and one foot on

the ground.

“Now, Joseph Gargery, I am the bearer of an offer to relieve you of

this young fellow your apprentice. You would not object to cancel

his indentures at his request and for his good? You would want

nothing for so doing?”

“Lord forbid that I should want anything for not standing in Pip’s

way,” said Joe, staring.

“Lord forbidding is pious, but not to the purpose,” returned Mr.

Jaggers. “The question is, Would you want anything? Do you want

anything?”

“The answer is,” returned Joe, sternly, “No.”

I thought Mr. Jaggers glanced at Joe, as if he considered him a fool

for his disinterestedness. But I was too much bewildered between

breathless curiosity and surprise, to be sure of it.

“Very well,” said Mr. Jaggers. “Recollect the admission you have

made, and don’t try to go from it presently.”

“Who’s a going to try?” retorted Joe.

“I don’t say anybody is. Do you keep a dog?”

“Yes, I do keep a dog.”

“Bear in mind then, that Brag is a good dog, but Holdfast is a

better. Bear that in mind, will you?” repeated Mr. Jaggers, shutting

his eyes and nodding his head at Joe, as if he were forgiving him

something. “Now, I return to this young fellow. And the

communication I have got to make is, that he has Great

Expectations.”

Joe and I gasped, and looked at one another.

“I am instructed to communicate to him,” said Mr. Jaggers, throwing

his finger at me sideways, “that he will come into a handsome

property. Further, that it is the desire of the present possessor

of that property, that he be immediately removed from his present

sphere of life and from this place, and be brought up as a

gentleman,—in a word, as a young fellow of great expectations.”

My dream was out; my wild fancy was surpassed by sober reality;

Miss Havisham was going to make my fortune on a grand scale.

“Now, Mr. Pip,” pursued the lawyer, “I address the rest of what I

have to say, to you. You are to understand, first, that it is the

request of the person from whom I take my instructions that you

always bear the name of Pip. You will have no objection, I dare

say, to your great expectations being encumbered with that easy

condition. But if you have any objection, this is the time to

mention it.”

My heart was beating so fast, and there was such a singing in my

ears, that I could scarcely stammer I had no objection.

“I should think not! Now you are to understand, secondly, Mr. Pip,

that