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

Eight o’clock had struck before I got into the air, that was

scented, not disagreeably, by the chips and shavings of the

long-shore boat-builders, and mast, oar, and block makers. All that

water-side region of the upper and lower Pool below Bridge was

unknown ground to me; and when I struck down by the river, I found

that the spot I wanted was not where I had supposed it to be, and

was anything but easy to find. It was called Mill Pond Bank,

Chinks’s Basin; and I had no other guide to Chinks’s Basin than the

Old Green Copper Ropewalk.

It matters not what stranded ships repairing in dry docks I lost

myself among, what old hulls of ships in course of being knocked to

pieces, what ooze and slime and other dregs of tide, what yards of

ship-builders and ship-breakers, what rusty anchors blindly biting

into the ground, though for years off duty, what mountainous country

of accumulated casks and timber, how many ropewalks that were not

the Old Green Copper. After several times falling short of my

destination and as often overshooting it, I came unexpectedly

round a corner, upon Mill Pond Bank. It was a fresh kind of place,

all circumstances considered, where the wind from the river had

room to turn itself round; and there were two or three trees in it,

and there was the stump of a ruined windmill, and there was the Old

Green Copper Ropewalk,—whose long and narrow vista I could trace

in the moonlight, along a series of wooden frames set in the

ground, that looked like superannuated haymaking-rakes which had

grown old and lost most of their teeth.

Selecting from the few queer houses upon Mill Pond Bank a house

with a wooden front and three stories of bow-window (not

bay-window, which is another thing), I looked at the plate upon the

door, and read there, Mrs. Whimple. That being the name I wanted, I

knocked, and an elderly woman of a pleasant and thriving appearance

responded. She was immediately deposed, however, by Herbert, who

silently led me into the parlor and shut the door. It was an odd

sensation to see his very familiar face established quite at home

in that very unfamiliar room and region; and I found myself looking

at him, much as I looked at the corner-cupboard with the glass and

china, the shells upon the chimney-piece, and the colored

engravings on the wall, representing the death of Captain Cook, a

ship-launch, and his Majesty King George the Third in a

state coachman’s wig, leather-breeches, and top-boots, on the

terrace at Windsor.

“All is well, Handel,” said Herbert, “and he is quite satisfied,

though eager to see you. My dear girl is with her father; and if

you’ll wait till she comes down, I’ll make you known to her, and

then we’ll go up stairs. That’s her father.”

I had become aware of an alarming growling overhead, and had

probably expressed the fact in my countenance.

“I am afraid he is a sad old rascal,” said Herbert, smiling, “but I

have never seen him. Don’t you smell rum? He is always at it.”

“At rum?” said I.

“Yes,” returned Herbert, “and you may suppose how mild it makes his

gout. He persists, too, in keeping all the provisions up stairs in

his room, and serving them out. He keeps them on shelves over his

head, and will weigh them all. His room must be like a chandler’s

shop.”

While he thus spoke, the growling noise became a prolonged roar,

and then died away.

“What else can be the consequence,” said Herbert, in explanation,

“if he will cut the cheese? A man with the gout in his right hand—

and everywhere else—can’t expect to get through a Double

Gloucester without hurting himself.”

He seemed to have hurt himself very much, for he gave another

furious roar.

“To have Provis for an upper lodger is quite a godsend to Mrs.

Whimple,” said Herbert, “for of course people in general won’t

stand that noise. A curious place, Handel; isn’t it?”

It was a curious place, indeed; but remarkably well kept and clean.

“Mrs. Whimple,” said Herbert, when I told him so, “is the best of

housewives, and I really do not know what my Clara would do without

her motherly help. For, Clara has no mother of her own, Handel, and

no relation in the world but old Gruffandgrim.”

“Surely that’s not his name, Herbert?”

“No, no,” said Herbert, “that’s my name for him. His name is Mr.

Barley. But what a blessing it is for the son of my father and

mother to love a girl who has no relations, and who can never

bother herself or anybody else about her family!”

Herbert had told me on former occasions, and now reminded me, that

he first knew Miss Clara Barley when she was completing her

education at an establishment at Hammersmith, and that on her being

recalled home to nurse her father, he and she had confided their

affection to the motherly Mrs. Whimple, by whom it had been fostered

and regulated with equal kindness and discretion, ever since. It

was understood that nothing of a tender nature could possibly be

confided to old Barley, by reason of his being totally unequal to

the consideration of any subject more psychological than Gout, Rum,

and Purser’s stores.

As we were thus conversing in a low tone while Old Barley’s

sustained growl vibrated in the beam that crossed the ceiling, the

room door opened, and a very pretty, slight, dark-eyed girl of twenty

or so came in with a basket in her hand: whom Herbert tenderly

relieved of the basket, and presented, blushing, as “Clara.” She

really was a most charming girl, and might have passed for a

captive fairy, whom that truculent Ogre, Old Barley, had pressed

into his service.

“Look here,” said Herbert, showing me the basket, with a

compassionate and