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

“here’s poor Clara’s supper, served out every night. Here’s her

allowance of bread, and here’s her slice of cheese, and here’s her

rum,—which I drink. This is Mr. Barley’s breakfast for tomorrow,

served out to be cooked. Two mutton-chops, three potatoes, some

split peas, a little flour, two ounces of butter, a pinch of salt,

and all this black pepper. It’s stewed up together, and taken hot,

and it’s a nice thing for the gout, I should think!”

There was something so natural and winning in Clara’s resigned way

of looking at these stores in detail, as Herbert pointed them out;

and something so confiding, loving, and innocent in her modest

manner of yielding herself to Herbert’s embracing arm; and

something so gentle in her, so much needing protection on Mill Pond

Bank, by Chinks’s Basin, and the Old Green Copper Ropewalk, with

Old Barley growling in the beam,—that I would not have undone the

engagement between her and Herbert for all the money in the

pocket-book I had never opened.

I was looking at her with pleasure and admiration, when suddenly

the growl swelled into a roar again, and a frightful bumping noise

was heard above, as if a giant with a wooden leg were trying to

bore it through the ceiling to come at us. Upon this Clara said to

Herbert, “Papa wants me, darling!” and ran away.

“There is an unconscionable old shark for you!” said Herbert. “What

do you suppose he wants now, Handel?”

“I don’t know,” said I. “Something to drink?”

“That’s it!” cried Herbert, as if I had made a guess of

extraordinary merit. “He keeps his grog ready mixed in a little tub

on the table. Wait a moment, and you’ll hear Clara lift him up to

take some. There he goes!” Another roar, with a prolonged shake

at the end. “Now,” said Herbert, as it was succeeded by silence,

“he’s drinking. Now,” said Herbert, as the growl resounded in the

beam once more, “he’s down again on his back!”

Clara returned soon afterwards, and Herbert accompanied me

up stairs to see our charge. As we passed Mr. Barley’s door, he was

heard hoarsely muttering within, in a strain that rose and fell

like wind, the following Refrain, in which I substitute good wishes

for something quite the reverse:—

“Ahoy! Bless your eyes, here’s old Bill Barley. Here’s old Bill

Barley, bless your eyes. Here’s old Bill Barley on the flat of his

back, by the Lord. Lying on the flat of his back like a drifting

old dead flounder, here’s your old Bill Barley, bless your eyes.

Ahoy! Bless you.”

In this strain of consolation, Herbert informed me the invisible

Barley would commune with himself by the day and night together;

Often, while it was light, having, at the same time, one eye at a

telescope which was fitted on his bed for the convenience of

sweeping the river.

In his two cabin rooms at the top of the house, which were fresh

and airy, and in which Mr. Barley was less audible than below, I

found Provis comfortably settled. He expressed no alarm, and seemed

to feel none that was worth mentioning; but it struck me that he

was softened,—indefinably, for I could not have said how, and could

never afterwards recall how when I tried, but certainly.

The opportunity that the day’s rest had given me for reflection

had resulted in my fully determining to say nothing to him

respecting Compeyson. For anything I knew, his animosity towards

the man might otherwise lead to his seeking him out and rushing on

his own destruction. Therefore, when Herbert and I sat down with

him by his fire, I asked him first of all whether he relied on

Wemmick’s judgment and sources of information?

“Ay, ay, dear boy!” he answered, with a grave nod, “Jaggers knows.”

“Then, I have talked with Wemmick,” said I, “and have come to tell

you what caution he gave me and what advice.”

This I did accurately, with the reservation just mentioned; and I

told him how Wemmick had heard, in Newgate prison (whether from

officers or prisoners I could not say), that he was under some

suspicion, and that my chambers had been watched; how Wemmick had

recommended his keeping close for a time, and my keeping away from

him; and what Wemmick had said about getting him abroad. I added,

that of course, when the time came, I should go with him, or should

follow close upon him, as might be safest in Wemmick’s judgment.

What was to follow that I did not touch upon; neither, indeed, was I

at all clear or comfortable about it in my own mind, now that I saw

him in that softer condition, and in declared peril for my sake. As

to altering my way of living by enlarging my expenses, I put it to

him whether in our present unsettled and difficult circumstances,

it would not be simply ridiculous, if it were no worse?

He could not deny this, and indeed was very reasonable throughout.

His coming back was a venture, he said, and he had always known it

to be a venture. He would do nothing to make it a desperate

venture, and he had very little fear of his safety with such good

help.

Herbert, who had been looking at the fire and pondering, here said

that something had come into his thoughts arising out of Wemmick’s

suggestion, which it might be worth while to pursue. “We are both

good watermen, Handel, and could take him down the river ourselves

when the right time comes. No boat would then be hired for the

purpose, and no boatmen; that would save at least a chance of

suspicion, and any chance is worth saving. Never mind the season;

don’t you think it might be a good thing if you began at once to

keep a boat at the Temple stairs, and were in the habit of rowing

up and down the river? You fall into that habit, and then who

notices or minds? Do it twenty or fifty times, and there is nothing

special in your doing it the twenty-first or fifty-first.”

I liked this scheme, and Provis was quite elated by it. We agreed

that it should be carried into execution, and that Provis should

never recognize us if we came below Bridge, and rowed past Mill Pond

Bank. But we further agreed that he should pull down the blind in

that part of his window which gave upon the east, whenever he saw

us and all was right.

Our conference being now ended, and everything arranged, I rose to

go; remarking to Herbert that he and I had better not go home

together, and that I would take half an hour’s start of him. “I

don’t like to leave you here,” I said to Provis, “though I cannot

doubt your being safer here than near me. Good by!”

“Dear boy,” he answered, clasping my hands, “I don’t know when we

may meet again, and I don’t like good by. Say good night!”

“Good night! Herbert will go regularly between us, and when the

time comes you may be certain I shall be ready. Good night, good

night!”

We thought it best that he should stay in his own rooms; and we

left him on the landing outside his door, holding a light over the

stair-rail to light us down stairs. Looking back at him, I thought

of the first night of his return, when our positions were reversed,

and when I little supposed my heart could ever be as heavy and

anxious at parting from him as it was now.

Old Barley was growling and swearing when we repassed his door,

with no appearance of having ceased or of meaning to cease. When we

got to the foot of the stairs, I asked Herbert whether he had

preserved the name of Provis. He replied, certainly not, and that

the lodger was Mr. Campbell. He also explained that the utmost known

of Mr. Campbell there was, that he (Herbert) had Mr. Campbell

consigned to him, and felt a strong personal interest in his being

well cared for, and living a secluded life. So, when we went into

the parlor where Mrs. Whimple and Clara were seated at work, I said

nothing of my own interest in Mr. Campbell, but kept it to myself.

When I had taken leave of the pretty, gentle, dark-eyed girl, and of

the motherly woman who had not outlived her honest sympathy with a

little affair of true love, I felt as if the Old Green Copper

Ropewalk had grown quite a different place. Old Barley might be as

old as the hills, and might swear like a whole field of troopers,

but there were redeeming youth and trust and hope enough in

Chinks’s Basin to fill it to overflowing. And then I thought of

Estella, and of our parting, and went home very sadly.

All things were as quiet in the Temple as ever I had seen them. The

windows of the rooms on that side, lately occupied by Provis, were

dark and still, and there was no lounger in Garden Court. I walked

past the fountain twice or thrice before I descended the steps that

were between me and my rooms, but I was quite alone. Herbert, coming

to my bedside when he came in,—for I went straight to bed,

dispirited and fatigued,—made the same report. Opening one of the

windows after that, he looked out into the moonlight, and told me

that the pavement was a solemnly empty as the pavement of any

cathedral at that same hour.

Next day I set myself to get the boat. It was soon done, and the

boat was brought round to the Temple stairs, and lay where I could

reach her within a minute or two. Then, I began to go out as for

training and practice: sometimes alone, sometimes with Herbert. I

was often out in cold, rain, and sleet, but nobody took much note

of me after I had been out a few times. At first, I kept above

Blackfriars Bridge; but as the hours of the tide changed, I took

towards London Bridge. It was Old London Bridge in those days, and

at certain states of the tide there was a race and fall of water

there which gave it a bad reputation. But I knew well enough how to

“shoot’ the bridge after seeing it done, and so began to row about

among the shipping in the Pool, and down to Erith. The first time I

passed Mill Pond Bank, Herbert and I were pulling a pair of oars;

and, both in going and returning, we saw the blind towards the east

come down. Herbert was rarely there less frequently than three

times in a week, and he never brought me a single word of

intelligence that was at all alarming. Still, I knew that there was

cause for alarm, and I could not get rid of the notion of being

watched. Once received, it is a haunting idea; how many undesigning

persons I suspected of watching me, it would be hard to calculate.

In short, I was always full of fears for the rash man who was in

hiding. Herbert had sometimes said to me that he found it pleasant

to stand at one of our windows after dark, when the tide was

running down, and to think that it was flowing, with everything it

bore, towards Clara. But I thought with dread that it was flowing

towards Magwitch, and that any black mark on its surface might be

his pursuers, going swiftly, silently, and surely, to take him.