Charles Dickens Best Novels
()
About this ebook
In this book, we have collected Dicken's nine best novels:
Great Expectations
Oliver Twist
Nicholas Nickleby
A Christmas Carol
David Copperfield
Bleak House
Little Dorrit
A Tale of Two Cities
The Pickwick Papers
We consider them to be the best because of the great success they've had.
A well-structured, easy-to-read book, suitable for any e-reader, tablet or computer. The reader will go from one novel to another one as quick as possible. In this collection, we have also included a detailed biography of Charles Dickens.
Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens nació en Portsmouth en 1812, segundo de los ocho hijos de un funcionario de la Marina. A los doce años, encarcelado el padre por deudas, tuvo que ponerse a trabajar en una fábrica de betún. Su educación fue irregular: aprendió por su cuenta taquigrafía, trabajó en el bufete de un abogado y finalmente fue corresponsal parlamentario de The Morning Chronicle. Sus artículos, luego recogidos en Bosquejos de Boz (1836-1837), tuvieron un gran éxito y, con la aparición en esos mismos años de los Papeles póstumos del club Pickwick, Dickens se convirtió en un auténtico fenómeno editorial. Novelas como Oliver Twist (1837), Nicholas Nickleby (1838-1839) o (1841) alcanzaron una enorme popularidad, así como algunas crónicas de viajes, como Estampas de Italia (1846; ALBA CLÁSICA núm. LVII). Con Dombey e hijo (1846-1848) inicia su época de madurez novelística, de la que son buenos ejemplos David Copperfield (1849-1850), su primera novela en primera persona, y su favorita, en la que elaboró algunos episodios autobiográficos, Casa desolada (1852-1853), La pequeña Dorrit (1855-1857), Historia de dos ciudades (1859; ALBA PRIMEROS CLÁSICOS núm. 5) y Grandes esperanzas (1860-1861; ALBA CLÁSICA MAIOR núm. I). Dickens murió en Londres en 1870.
Read more from Charles Dickens
Ghostly Tales: Spine-Chilling Stories of the Victorian Age Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Classic Children's Stories (Golden Deer Classics) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Vintage Christmas: A Collection of Classic Stories and Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLegal Loopholes: Credit Repair Tactics Exposed Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Charles Dickens Collection Volume One: Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, and Bleak House Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAmerican Notes: For General Circulation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Christmas Library: 250+ Essential Christmas Novels, Poems, Carols, Short Stories...by 100+ Authors Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Charles Dickens: The Complete Novels (Quattro Classics) (The Greatest Writers of All Time) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Gothic Novel Collection Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5David Copperfield (Centaur Classics) [The 100 greatest novels of all time - #64] Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Short Ghost Stories Of Charles Dickens Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Greatest Christmas Stories of All Time: Timeless Classics That Celebrate the Season Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Christmas Carol: Level 3 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBig Book of Christmas Tales: 250+ Short Stories, Fairytales and Holiday Myths & Legends Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Greatest Ghost and Horror Stories Ever Written: volume 1 (30 short stories) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Hard Times Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/550 Beautiful Christmas Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Charles Dickens Best Novels
Related ebooks
The Secrets of A True Lover Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Integrated Indian Public Library System Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsScenes from Tamil Classics Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Richard Wright's "The Man Who Was Almost a Man" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGreat-expectations-(illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCharles Dickens Biography: The Literary Luminary of the Victorian Era Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCharles Dickens: Four Novels Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCharles Dickens: His Life and Work Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCharles Dickens: His Life and Work Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCharles Dickens Miscellany Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTales from Dickens Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCharles Dickens: Three Novels (Barnes & Noble Collectible Editions) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Tale of Two Cities Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Oliver Twist Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Wicked Wit of Charles Dickens Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Dealings with the Firm of Dombey and Son: Wholesale, Retail and for Export Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5George Silverman’s Explanation Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUseful Charles Dickens Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDickens's London Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Wound and the Bow: Seven Studies in Literature Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Great Expectations (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsChristmas Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Christmas Carol Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hard Times - Dickens Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCharles Dickens, A Very Peculiar History Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Tale of Two Cities (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Delphi's Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCharles Dickens Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDickens English Men of Letters Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Historical Fiction For You
The House of Eve Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5We Have Always Lived in the Castle Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Invisible Hour: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Demon Copperhead: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cloud Cuckoo Land: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rebecca Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Island of Sea Women: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Paris Apartment: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Euphoria Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lady Tan's Circle of Women: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Quiet American Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Grapes of Wrath Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Rules of Magic: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hallowe'en Party: Inspiration for the 20th Century Studios Major Motion Picture A Haunting in Venice Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Crow Mary: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lost Journals of Sacajewea: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hang the Moon: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The House Is on Fire Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Yellow Wife: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Red Tent - 20th Anniversary Edition: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sold on a Monday: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Kitchen House: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I, Claudius Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Canterbury Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Carnegie's Maid: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This Tender Land: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book Woman's Daughter: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for Charles Dickens Best Novels
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Charles Dickens Best Novels - Charles Dickens
CHARLES DICKENS BEST NOVELS
Charles Dickens Best Novels published by Tsel editions. April 2020
INTRODUCTION
Charles John Huffam Dickens FRSA (7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime, and by the 20th century, critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories are still widely read today.
In this book, we have collected Dicken's nine best novels:
Great Expectations
Oliver Twist
Nicholas Nickleby
A Christmas Carol
David Copperfield
Bleak House
Little Dorrit
A Tale of Two Cities
The Pickwick Papers
We consider them to be the best because of the great success they've had.
A well-structured, easy-to-read book, suitable for any e-reader, tablet or computer. The reader will go from one novel to another one as quick as possible. In this collection, we have also included a detailed biography of Charles Dickens.
Detailed biography:
Charles John Huffam Dickens FRSA (7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime, and by the 20th century, critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories are still widely read today.
Born in Portsmouth, Dickens left school to work in a factory when his father was incarcerated in a debtors' prison. Despite his lack of formal education, he edited a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels, five novellas, hundreds of short stories and non-fiction articles, lectured and performed readings extensively, was an indefatigable letter writer, and campaigned vigorously for children's rights, education, and other social reforms.
Dickens's literary success began with the 1836 serial publication of The Pickwick Papers. Within a few years he had become an international literary celebrity, famous for his humour, satire, and keen observation of character and society. His novels, most published in monthly or weekly instalments, pioneered the serial publication of narrative fiction, which became the dominant Victorian mode for novel publication. Cliffhanger endings in his serial publications kept readers in suspense. The installment format allowed Dickens to evaluate his audience's reaction, and he often modified his plot and character development based on such feedback. For example, when his wife's chiropodist expressed distress at the way Miss Mowcher in David Copperfield seemed to reflect her disabilities, Dickens improved the character with positive features. His plots were carefully constructed, and he often wove elements from topical events into his narratives. Masses of the illiterate poor chipped in ha'pennies to have each new monthly episode read to them, opening up and inspiring a new class of readers.
His 1843 novella A Christmas Carol remains especially popular and continues to inspire adaptations in every artistic genre. Oliver Twist and Great Expectations are also frequently adapted and, like many of his novels, evoke images of early Victorian London. His 1859 novel A Tale of Two Cities (set in London and Paris) is his best-known work of historical fiction. The most famous celebrity of his era, he undertook in response to public demand, a series of public reading tours in the later part of his career. Dickens has been praised by many of his fellow writers—from Leo Tolstoy to George Orwell, G. K. Chesterton, and Tom Wolfe—for his realism, comedy, prose style, unique characterisations, and social criticism. However, Oscar Wilde, Henry James, and Virginia Woolf complained of a lack of psychological depth, loose writing, and a vein of sentimentalism.
The term Dickensian is used to describe something that is reminiscent of Dickens and his writings, such as poor social conditions or comically repulsive characters. His father was a clerk in the Navy Pay Office and was temporarily stationed in the district. He asked Christopher Huffam, rigger to His Majesty's Navy, gentleman, and head of an established firm, to act as godfather to Charles. Huffam is thought to be the inspiration for Paul Dombey, the owner of a shipping company in Dickens's novel Dombey and Son (1848).
In January 1815, John Dickens was called back to London, and the family moved to Norfolk Street, Fitzrovia. When Charles was four, they relocated to Sheerness, and thence to Chatham, Kent, where he spent his formative years until the age of 11. His early life seems to have been idyllic, though he thought himself a very small and not-over-particularly-taken-care-of boy
.
Charles spent time outdoors, but also read voraciously, including the picaresque novels of Tobias Smollett and Henry Fielding, as well as Robinson Crusoe and Gil Blas. He read and reread The Arabian Nights and the Collected Farces of Elizabeth Inchbald. He retained poignant memories of childhood, helped by an excellent memory of people and events, which he used in his writing. His father's brief work as a clerk in the Navy Pay Office afforded him a few years of private education, first at a dame school, and then at a school run by William Giles, a dissenter, in Chatham.
This period came to an end in June 1822, when John Dickens was recalled to Navy Pay Office headquarters at Somerset House, and the family (except for Charles, who stayed behind to finish his final term of work) moved to Camden Town in London. The family had left Kent amidst rapidly mounting debts, and, living beyond his means, John Dickens was forced by his creditors into the Marshalsea debtors' prison in Southwark, London in 1824. His wife and youngest children joined him there, as was the practice at the time. Charles, then 12 years old, boarded with Elizabeth Roylance, a family friend, at 112 College Place, Camden Town. Roylance was a reduced [impoverished] old lady, long known to our family
, whom Dickens later immortalised, with a few alterations and embellishments
, as Mrs Pipchin
in Dombey and Son. Later, he lived in a back-attic in the house of an agent for the Insolvent Court, Archibald Russell, a fat, good-natured, kind old gentleman... with a quiet old wife
and lame son, in Lant Street in Southwark. They provided the inspiration for the Garlands in The Old Curiosity Shop.
On Sundays—with his sister Frances, free from her studies at the Royal Academy of Music—he spent the day at the Marshalsea. Dickens later used the prison as a setting in Little Dorrit. To pay for his board and to help his family, Dickens was forced to leave school and work ten-hour days at Warren's Blacking Warehouse, on Hungerford Stairs, near the present Charing Cross railway station, where he earned six shillings a week pasting labels on pots of boot blacking. The strenuous and often harsh working conditions made a lasting impression on Dickens and later influenced his fiction and essays, becoming the foundation of his interest in the reform of socio-economic and labour conditions, the rigours of which he believed were unfairly borne by the poor. He later wrote that he wondered how I could have been so easily cast away at such an age
. As he recalled to John Forster (from The Life of Charles Dickens):
The blacking-warehouse was the last house on the left-hand side of the way, at old Hungerford Stairs. It was a crazy, tumble-down old house, abutting of course on the river, and literally overrun with rats. Its wainscoted rooms, and its rotten floors and staircase, and the old grey rats swarming down in the cellars, and the sound of their squeaking and scuffling coming up the stairs at all times, and the dirt and decay of the place, rise up visibly before me, as if I were there again. The counting-house was on the first floor, looking over the coal-barges and the river. There was a recess in it, in which I was to sit and work. My work was to cover the pots of paste-blacking; first with a piece of oil-paper, and then with a piece of blue paper; to tie them round with a string; and then to clip the paper close and neat, all round, until it looked as smart as a pot of ointment from an apothecary's shop. When a certain number of grosses of pots had attained this pitch of perfection, I was to paste on each a printed label, and then go on again with more pots. Two or three other boys were kept at similar duty down-stairs on similar wages. One of them came up, in a ragged apron and a paper cap, on the first Monday morning, to show me the trick of using the string and tying the knot. His name was Bob Fagin; and I took the liberty of using his name, long afterwards, in Oliver Twist.
When the warehouse was moved to Chandos Street in the smart, busy district of Covent Garden the boys worked in a room in which the window gave onto the street and little audiences gathered and watched them at work—in Dickens biographer Simon Callow's estimation, the public display was a new refinement added to his misery
.
The Marshalsea around 1897, after it had closed. Dickens based several of his characters on the experience of seeing his father in the debtors' prison, most notably Amy Dorrit from Little Dorrit.
A few months after his imprisonment, John Dickens's mother, Elizabeth Dickens, died and bequeathed him £450. On the expectation of this legacy, Dickens was released from prison. Under the Insolvent Debtors Act, Dickens arranged for payment of his creditors, and he and his family left Marshalsea, for the home of Mrs Roylance.
Charles's mother, Elizabeth Dickens, did not immediately support his removal from the boot-blacking warehouse. This influenced Dickens's view that a father should rule the family, and a mother find her proper sphere inside the home: I never afterwards forgot, I never shall forget, I never can forget, that my mother was warm for my being sent back
. His mother's failure to request his return was a factor in his dissatisfied attitude towards women.
Righteous indignation stemming from his own situation and the conditions under which working-class people lived became major themes of his works, and it was this unhappy period in his youth to which he alluded in his favourite, and most autobiographical, novel, David Copperfield: I had no advice, no counsel, no encouragement, no consolation, no assistance, no support, of any kind, from anyone, that I can call to mind, as I hope to go to heaven!
Dickens was eventually sent to the Wellington House Academy in Camden Town, where he remained until March 1827, having spent about two years there. He did not consider it to be a good school: Much of the haphazard, desultory teaching, poor discipline punctuated by the headmaster's sadistic brutality, the seedy ushers and general run-down atmosphere, are embodied in Mr Creakle's Establishment in David Copperfield.
Dickens worked at the law office of Ellis and Blackmore, attorneys, of Holborn Court, Gray's Inn, as a junior clerk from May 1827 to November 1828. He was a gifted mimic and impersonated those around him: clients, lawyers, and clerks. He went to theatres obsessively—he claimed that for at least three years he went to the theatre every single day. His favourite actor was Charles Mathews, and Dickens learnt his monopolylogues, (farces in which Mathews played every character), by heart. Then, having learned Gurney's system of shorthand in his spare time, he left to become a freelance reporter. A distant relative, Thomas Charlton, was a freelance reporter at Doctors' Commons, and Dickens was able to share his box there to report the legal proceedings for nearly four years. This education was to inform works such as Nicholas Nickleby, Dombey and Son, and especially Bleak House—whose vivid portrayal of the machinations and bureaucracy of the legal system did much to enlighten the general public and served as a vehicle for dissemination of Dickens's own views regarding, particularly, the heavy burden on the poor who were forced by circumstances to go to law
.
In 1830, Dickens met his first love, Maria Beadnell, thought to have been the model for the character Dora in David Copperfield. Maria's parents disapproved of the courtship and ended the relationship by sending her to school in Paris.
Great Expectations
Part 1
Chapter
1
My father’s family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip.
I give Pirrip as my father’s family name, on the authority of his tombstone and my sister,—Mrs. Joe Gargery, who married the blacksmith. As I never saw my father or my mother, and never saw any likeness of either of them (for their days were long before the days of photographs), my first fancies regarding what they were like were unreasonably derived from their tombstones. The shape of the letters on my father’s, gave me an odd idea that he was a square, stout, dark man, with curly black hair. From the character and turn of the inscription, Also Georgiana Wife of the Above,
I drew a childish conclusion that my mother was freckled and sickly. To five little stone lozenges, each about a foot and a half long, which were arranged in a neat row beside their grave, and were sacred to the memory of five little brothers of mine,—who gave up trying to get a living, exceedingly early in that universal struggle,—I am indebted for a belief I religiously entertained that they had all been born on their backs with their hands in their trousers-pockets, and had never taken them out in this state of existence.
Ours was the marsh country, down by the river, within, as the river wound, twenty miles of the sea. My first most vivid and broad impression of the identity of things seems to me to have been gained on a memorable raw afternoon towards evening. At such a time I found out for certain that this bleak place overgrown with nettles was the churchyard; and that Philip Pirrip, late of this parish, and also Georgiana wife of the above, were dead and buried; and that Alexander, Bartholomew, Abraham, Tobias, and Roger, infant children of the aforesaid, were also dead and buried; and that the dark flat wilderness beyond the churchyard, intersected with dikes and mounds and gates, with scattered cattle feeding on it, was the marshes; and that the low leaden line beyond was the river; and that the distant savage lair from which the wind was rushing was the sea; and that the small bundle of shivers growing afraid of it all and beginning to cry, was Pip.
Hold your noise!
cried a terrible voice, as a man started up from among the graves at the side of the church porch. Keep still, you little devil, or I’ll cut your throat!
A fearful man, all in coarse gray, with a great iron on his leg. A man with no hat, and with broken shoes, and with an old rag tied round his head. A man who had been soaked in water, and smothered in mud, and lamed by stones, and cut by flints, and stung by nettles, and torn by briars; who limped, and shivered, and glared, and growled; and whose teeth chattered in his head as he seized me by the chin.
Oh! Don’t cut my throat, sir,
I pleaded in terror. Pray don’t do it, sir.
Tell us your name!
said the man. Quick!
Pip, sir.
Once more,
said the man, staring at me. Give it mouth!
Pip. Pip, sir.
Show us where you live,
said the man. Pint out the place!
I pointed to where our village lay, on the flat in-shore among the alder-trees and pollards, a mile or more from the church.
The man, after looking at me for a moment, turned me upside down, and emptied my pockets. There was nothing in them but a piece of bread. When the church came to itself,—for he was so sudden and strong that he made it go head over heels before me, and I saw the steeple under my feet,—when the church came to itself, I say, I was seated on a high tombstone, trembling while he ate the bread ravenously.
You young dog,
said the man, licking his lips, what fat cheeks you ha’ got.
I believe they were fat, though I was at that time undersized for my years, and not strong.
Darn me if I couldn’t eat em,
said the man, with a threatening shake of his head, and if I han’t half a mind to’t!
I earnestly expressed my hope that he wouldn’t, and held tighter to the tombstone on which he had put me; partly, to keep myself upon it; partly, to keep myself from crying.
Now lookee here!
said the man. Where’s your mother?
There, sir!
said I.
He started, made a short run, and stopped and looked over his shoulder.
There, sir!
I timidly explained. Also Georgiana. That’s my mother.
Oh!
said he, coming back. And is that your father alonger your mother?
Yes, sir,
said I; him too; late of this parish.
Ha!
he muttered then, considering. Who d’ye live with,— supposin’ you’re kindly let to live, which I han’t made up my mind about?
My sister, sir,—Mrs. Joe Gargery,—wife of Joe Gargery, the blacksmith, sir.
Blacksmith, eh?
said he. And looked down at his leg.
After darkly looking at his leg and me several times, he came closer to my tombstone, took me by both arms, and tilted me back as far as he could hold me; so that his eyes looked most powerfully down into mine, and mine looked most helplessly up into his.
Now lookee here,
he said, the question being whether you’re to be let to live. You know what a file is?
Yes, sir.
And you know what wittles is?
Yes, sir.
After each question he tilted me over a little more, so as to give me a greater sense of helplessness and danger.
You get me a file.
He tilted me again. And you get me wittles.
He tilted me again. You bring ’em both to me.
He tilted me again. Or I’ll have your heart and liver out.
He tilted me again.
I was dreadfully frightened, and so giddy that I clung to him with both hands, and said, If you would kindly please to let me keep upright, sir, perhaps I shouldn’t be sick, and perhaps I could attend more.
He gave me a most tremendous dip and roll, so that the church jumped over its own weathercock. Then, he held me by the arms, in an upright position on the top of the stone, and went on in these fearful terms:—
You bring me, to-morrow morning early, that file and them wittles. You bring the lot to me, at that old Battery over yonder. You do it, and you never dare to say a word or dare to make a sign concerning your having seen such a person as me, or any person sumever, and you shall be let to live. You fail, or you go from my words in any partickler, no matter how small it is, and your heart and your liver shall be tore out, roasted, and ate. Now, I ain’t alone, as you may think I am. There’s a young man hid with me, in comparison with which young man I am a Angel. That young man hears the words I speak. That young man has a secret way pecooliar to himself, of getting at a boy, and at his heart, and at his liver. It is in wain for a boy to attempt to hide himself from that young man. A boy may lock his door, may be warm in bed, may tuck himself up, may draw the clothes over his head, may think himself comfortable and safe, but that young man will softly creep and creep his way to him and tear him open. I am a keeping that young man from harming of you at the present moment, with great difficulty. I find it wery hard to hold that young man off of your inside. Now, what do you say?
I said that I would get him the file, and I would get him what broken bits of food I could, and I would come to him at the Battery, early in the morning.
Say Lord strike you dead if you don’t!
said the man.
I said so, and he took me down.
Now,
he pursued, you remember what you’ve undertook, and you remember that young man, and you get home!
Goo-good night, sir,
I faltered.
Much of that!
said he, glancing about him over the cold wet flat.
I wish I was a frog. Or a eel!
At the same time, he hugged his shuddering body in both his arms,— clasping himself, as if to hold himself together,—and limped towards the low church wall. As I saw him go, picking his way among the nettles, and among the brambles that bound the green mounds, he looked in my young eyes as if he were eluding the hands of the dead people, stretching up cautiously out of their graves, to get a twist upon his ankle and pull him in.
When he came to the low church wall, he got over it, like a man whose legs were numbed and stiff, and then turned round to look for me. When I saw him turning, I set my face towards home, and made the best use of my legs. But presently I looked over my shoulder, and saw him going on again towards the river, still hugging himself in both arms, and picking his way with his sore feet among the great stones dropped into the marshes here and there, for stepping-places when the rains were heavy or the tide was in.
The marshes were just a long black horizontal line then, as I stopped to look after him; and the river was just another horizontal line, not nearly so broad nor yet so black; and the sky was just a row of long angry red lines and dense black lines intermixed. On the edge of the river I could faintly make out the only two black things in all the prospect that seemed to be standing upright; one of these was the beacon by which the sailors steered,—like an unhooped cask upon a pole,—an ugly thing when you were near it; the other, a gibbet, with some chains hanging to it which had once held a pirate. The man was limping on towards this latter, as if he were the pirate come to life, and come down, and going back to hook himself up again. It gave me a terrible turn when I thought so; and as I saw the cattle lifting their heads to gaze after him, I wondered whether they thought so too. I looked all round for the horrible young man, and could see no signs of him. But now I was frightened again, and ran home without stopping.
Chapter
2
My sister, Mrs. Joe Gargery, was more than twenty years older than I, and had established a great reputation with herself and the neighbors because she had brought me up by hand.
Having at that time to find out for myself what the expression meant, and knowing her to have a hard and heavy hand, and to be much in the habit of laying it upon her husband as well as upon me, I supposed that Joe Gargery and I were both brought up by hand.
She was not a good-looking woman, my sister; and I had a general impression that she must have made Joe Gargery marry her by hand. Joe was a fair man, with curls of flaxen hair on each side of his smooth face, and with eyes of such a very undecided blue that they seemed to have somehow got mixed with their own whites. He was a mild, good-natured, sweet-tempered, easy-going, foolish, dear fellow,—a sort of Hercules in strength, and also in weakness.
My sister, Mrs. Joe, with black hair and eyes, had such a prevailing redness of skin that I sometimes used to wonder whether it was possible she washed herself with a nutmeg-grater instead of soap. She was tall and bony, and almost always wore a coarse apron, fastened over her figure behind with two loops, and having a square impregnable bib in front, that was stuck full of pins and needles. She made it a powerful merit in herself, and a strong reproach against Joe, that she wore this apron so much. Though I really see no reason why she should have worn it at all; or why, if she did wear it at all, she should not have taken it off, every day of her life.
Joe’s forge adjoined our house, which was a wooden house, as many of the dwellings in our country were,—most of them, at that time. When I ran home from the churchyard, the forge was shut up, and Joe was sitting alone in the kitchen. Joe and I being fellow-sufferers, and having confidences as such, Joe imparted a confidence to me, the moment I raised the latch of the door and peeped in at him opposite to it, sitting in the chimney corner.
Mrs. Joe has been out a dozen times, looking for you, Pip. And she’s out now, making it a baker’s dozen.
Is she?
Yes, Pip,
said Joe; and what’s worse, she’s got Tickler with her.
At this dismal intelligence, I twisted the only button on my waistcoat round and round, and looked in great depression at the fire. Tickler was a wax-ended piece of cane, worn smooth by collision with my tickled frame.
She sot down,
said Joe, and she got up, and she made a grab at Tickler, and she Ram-paged out. That’s what she did,
said Joe, slowly clearing the fire between the lower bars with the poker, and looking at it; she Ram-paged out, Pip.
Has she been gone long, Joe?
I always treated him as a larger species of child, and as no more than my equal.
Well,
said Joe, glancing up at the Dutch clock, she’s been on the Ram-page, this last spell, about five minutes, Pip. She’s a coming! Get behind the door, old chap, and have the jack-towel betwixt you.
I took the advice. My sister, Mrs. Joe, throwing the door wide open, and finding an obstruction behind it, immediately divined the cause, and applied Tickler to its further investigation. She concluded by throwing me—I often served as a connubial missile— at Joe, who, glad to get hold of me on any terms, passed me on into the chimney and quietly fenced me up there with his great leg.
Where have you been, you young monkey?
said Mrs. Joe, stamping her foot. Tell me directly what you’ve been doing to wear me away with fret and fright and worrit, or I’d have you out of that corner if you was fifty Pips, and he was five hundred Gargerys.
I have only been to the churchyard,
said I, from my stool, crying and rubbing myself.
Churchyard!
repeated my sister. If it warn’t for me you’d have been to the churchyard long ago, and stayed there. Who brought you up by hand?
You did,
said I.
And why did I do it, I should like to know?
exclaimed my sister.
I whimpered, I don’t know.
I don’t!
said my sister. I’d never do it again! I know that. I may truly say I’ve never had this apron of mine off since born you were. It’s bad enough to be a blacksmith’s wife (and him a Gargery) without being your mother.
My thoughts strayed from that question as I looked disconsolately at the fire. For the fugitive out on the marshes with the ironed leg, the mysterious young man, the file, the food, and the dreadful pledge I was under to commit a larceny on those sheltering premises, rose before me in the avenging coals.
Hah!
said Mrs. Joe, restoring Tickler to his station. Churchyard, indeed! You may well say churchyard, you two.
One of us, by the by, had not said it at all. You’ll drive me to the churchyard betwixt you, one of these days, and O, a pr-r-recious pair you’d be without me!
As she applied herself to set the tea-things, Joe peeped down at me over his leg, as if he were mentally casting me and himself up, and calculating what kind of pair we practically should make, under the grievous circumstances foreshadowed. After that, he sat feeling his right-side flaxen curls and whisker, and following Mrs. Joe about with his blue eyes, as his manner always was at squally times.
My sister had a trenchant way of cutting our bread and butter for us, that never varied. First, with her left hand she jammed the loaf hard and fast against her bib,—where it sometimes got a pin into it, and sometimes a needle, which we afterwards got into our mouths. Then she took some butter (not too much) on a knife and spread it on the loaf, in an apothecary kind of way, as if she were making a plaster,—using both sides of the knife with a slapping dexterity, and trimming and moulding the butter off round the crust. Then, she gave the knife a final smart wipe on the edge of the plaster, and then sawed a very thick round off the loaf: which she finally, before separating from the loaf, hewed into two halves, of which Joe got one, and I the other.
On the present occasion, though I was hungry, I dared not eat my slice. I felt that I must have something in reserve for my dreadful acquaintance, and his ally the still more dreadful young man. I knew Mrs. Joe’s housekeeping to be of the strictest kind, and that my larcenous researches might find nothing available in the safe. Therefore I resolved to put my hunk of bread and butter down the leg of my trousers.
The effort of resolution necessary to the achievement of this purpose I found to be quite awful. It was as if I had to make up my mind to leap from the top of a high house, or plunge into a great depth of water. And it was made the more difficult by the unconscious Joe. In our already-mentioned freemasonry as fellow-sufferers, and in his good-natured companionship with me, it was our evening habit to compare the way we bit through our slices, by silently holding them up to each other’s admiration now and then, —which stimulated us to new exertions. To-night, Joe several times invited me, by the display of his fast diminishing slice, to enter upon our usual friendly competition; but he found me, each time, with my yellow mug of tea on one knee, and my untouched bread and butter on the other. At last, I desperately considered that the thing I contemplated must be done, and that it had best be done in the least improbable manner consistent with the circumstances. I took advantage of a moment when Joe had just looked at me, and got my bread and butter down my leg.
Joe was evidently made uncomfortable by what he supposed to be my loss of appetite, and took a thoughtful bite out of his slice, which he didn’t seem to enjoy. He turned it about in his mouth much longer than usual, pondering over it a good deal, and after all gulped it down like a pill. He was about to take another bite, and had just got his head on one side for a good purchase on it, when his eye fell on me, and he saw that my bread and butter was gone.
The wonder and consternation with which Joe stopped on the threshold of his bite and stared at me, were too evident to escape my sister’s observation.
What’s the matter now?
said she, smartly, as she put down her cup.
I say, you know!
muttered Joe, shaking his head at me in very serious remonstrance. Pip, old chap! You’ll do yourself a mischief. It’ll stick somewhere. You can’t have chawed it, Pip.
What’s the matter now?
repeated my sister, more sharply than before.
If you can cough any trifle on it up, Pip, I’d recommend you to do it,
said Joe, all aghast. Manners is manners, but still your elth’s your elth.
By this time, my sister was quite desperate, so she pounced on Joe, and, taking him by the two whiskers, knocked his head for a little while against the wall behind him, while I sat in the corner, looking guiltily on.
Now, perhaps you’ll mention what’s the matter,
said my sister, out of breath, you staring great stuck pig.
Joe looked at her in a helpless way, then took a helpless bite, and looked at me again.
You know, Pip,
said Joe, solemnly, with his last bite in his cheek, and speaking in a confidential voice, as if we two were quite alone, you and me is always friends, and I’d be the last to tell upon you, any time. But such a—
he moved his chair and looked about the floor between us, and then again at me—such a most oncommon Bolt as that!
Been bolting his food, has he?
cried my sister.
You know, old chap,
said Joe, looking at me, and not at Mrs. Joe, with his bite still in his cheek, I Bolted, myself, when I was your age—frequent—and as a boy I’ve been among a many Bolters; but I never see your Bolting equal yet, Pip, and it’s a mercy you ain’t Bolted dead.
My sister made a dive at me, and fished me up by the hair, saying nothing more than the awful words, You come along and be dosed.
Some medical beast had revived Tar-water in those days as a fine medicine, and Mrs. Joe always kept a supply of it in the cupboard; having a belief in its virtues correspondent to its nastiness. At the best of times, so much of this elixir was administered to me as a choice restorative, that I was conscious of going about, smelling like a new fence. On this particular evening the urgency of my case demanded a pint of this mixture, which was poured down my throat, for my greater comfort, while Mrs. Joe held my head under her arm, as a boot would be held in a bootjack. Joe got off with half a pint; but was made to swallow that (much to his disturbance, as he sat slowly munching and meditating before the fire), because he had had a turn.
Judging from myself, I should say he certainly had a turn afterwards, if he had had none before.
Conscience is a dreadful thing when it accuses man or boy; but when, in the case of a boy, that secret burden co-operates with another secret burden down the leg of his trousers, it is (as I can testify) a great punishment. The guilty knowledge that I was going to rob Mrs. Joe—I never thought I was going to rob Joe, for I never thought of any of the housekeeping property as his—united to the necessity of always keeping one hand on my bread and butter as I sat, or when I was ordered about the kitchen on any small errand, almost drove me out of my mind. Then, as the marsh winds made the fire glow and flare, I thought I heard the voice outside, of the man with the iron on his leg who had sworn me to secrecy, declaring that he couldn’t and wouldn’t starve until to-morrow, but must be fed now. At other times, I thought, What if the young man who was with so much difficulty restrained from imbruing his hands in me should yield to a constitutional impatience, or should mistake the time, and should think himself accredited to my heart and liver to-night, instead of to-morrow! If ever anybody’s hair stood on end with terror, mine must have done so then. But, perhaps, nobody’s ever did?
It was Christmas Eve, and I had to stir the pudding for next day, with a copper-stick, from seven to eight by the Dutch clock. I tried it with the load upon my leg (and that made me think afresh of the man with the load on his leg), and found the tendency of exercise to bring the bread and butter out at my ankle, quite unmanageable. Happily I slipped away, and deposited that part of my conscience in my garret bedroom.
Hark!
said I, when I had done my stirring, and was taking a final warm in the chimney corner before being sent up to bed; was that great guns, Joe?
Ah!
said Joe. There’s another conwict off.
What does that mean, Joe?
said I.
Mrs. Joe, who always took explanations upon herself, said, snappishly, Escaped. Escaped.
Administering the definition like Tar-water.
While Mrs. Joe sat with her head bending over her needlework, I put my mouth into the forms of saying to Joe, What’s a convict?
Joe put his mouth into the forms of returning such a highly elaborate answer, that I could make out nothing of it but the single word Pip.
There was a conwict off last night,
said Joe, aloud, after sunset-gun. And they fired warning of him. And now it appears they’re firing warning of another.
Who’s firing?
said I.
Drat that boy,
interposed my sister, frowning at me over her work, what a questioner he is. Ask no questions, and you’ll be told no lies.
It was not very polite to herself, I thought, to imply that I should be told lies by her even if I did ask questions. But she never was polite unless there was company.
At this point Joe greatly augmented my curiosity by taking the utmost pains to open his mouth very wide, and to put it into the form of a word that looked to me like sulks.
Therefore, I naturally pointed to Mrs. Joe, and put my mouth into the form of saying, her?
But Joe wouldn’t hear of that, at all, and again opened his mouth very wide, and shook the form of a most emphatic word out of it. But I could make nothing of the word.
Mrs. Joe,
said I, as a last resort, I should like to know—if you wouldn’t much mind—where the firing comes from?
Lord bless the boy!
exclaimed my sister, as if she didn’t quite mean that but rather the contrary. From the Hulks!
Oh-h!
said I, looking at Joe. Hulks!
Joe gave a reproachful cough, as much as to say, Well, I told you so.
And please, what’s Hulks?
said I.
That’s the way with this boy!
exclaimed my sister, pointing me out with her needle and thread, and shaking her head at me. Answer him one question, and he’ll ask you a dozen directly. Hulks are prison-ships, right ‘cross th’ meshes.
We always used that name for marshes, in our country.
I wonder who’s put into prison-ships, and why they’re put there?
said I, in a general way, and with quiet desperation.
It was too much for Mrs. Joe, who immediately rose. I tell you what, young fellow,
said she, I didn’t bring you up by hand to badger people’s lives out. It would be blame to me and not praise, if I had. People are put in the Hulks because they murder, and because they rob, and forge, and do all sorts of bad; and they always begin by asking questions. Now, you get along to bed!
I was never allowed a candle to light me to bed, and, as I went up stairs in the dark, with my head tingling,—from Mrs. Joe’s thimble having played the tambourine upon it, to accompany her last words,—I felt fearfully sensible of the great convenience that the hulks were handy for me. I was clearly on my way there. I had begun by asking questions, and I was going to rob Mrs. Joe.
Since that time, which is far enough away now, I have often thought that few people know what secrecy there is in the young under terror. No matter how unreasonable the terror, so that it be terror. I was in mortal terror of the young man who wanted my heart and liver; I was in mortal terror of my interlocutor with the iron leg; I was in mortal terror of myself, from whom an awful promise had been extracted; I had no hope of deliverance through my all-powerful sister, who repulsed me at every turn; I am afraid to think of what I might have done on requirement, in the secrecy of my terror.
If I slept at all that night, it was only to imagine myself drifting down the river on a strong spring-tide, to the Hulks; a ghostly pirate calling out to me through a speaking-trumpet, as I passed the gibbet-station, that I had better come ashore and be hanged there at once, and not put it off. I was afraid to sleep, even if I had been inclined, for I knew that at the first faint dawn of morning I must rob the pantry. There was no doing it in the night, for there was no getting a light by easy friction then; to have got one I must have struck it out of flint and steel, and have made a noise like the very pirate himself rattling his chains.
As soon as the great black velvet pall outside my little window was shot with gray, I got up and went down stairs; every board upon the way, and every crack in every board calling after me, Stop thief!
and Get up, Mrs. Joe!
In the pantry, which was far more abundantly supplied than usual, owing to the season, I was very much alarmed by a hare hanging up by the heels, whom I rather thought I caught when my back was half turned, winking. I had no time for verification, no time for selection, no time for anything, for I had no time to spare. I stole some bread, some rind of cheese, about half a jar of mincemeat (which I tied up in my pocket-handkerchief with my last night’s slice), some brandy from a stone bottle (which I decanted into a glass bottle I had secretly used for making that intoxicating fluid, Spanish-liquorice-water, up in my room: diluting the stone bottle from a jug in the kitchen cupboard), a meat bone with very little on it, and a beautiful round compact pork pie. I was nearly going away without the pie, but I was tempted to mount upon a shelf, to look what it was that was put away so carefully in a covered earthen ware dish in a corner, and I found it was the pie, and I took it in the hope that it was not intended for early use, and would not be missed for some time.
There was a door in the kitchen, communicating with the forge; I unlocked and unbolted that door, and got a file from among Joe’s tools. Then I put the fastenings as I had found them, opened the door at which I had entered when I ran home last night, shut it, and ran for the misty marshes.
Chapter
3
It was a rimy morning, and very damp. I had seen the damp lying on the outside of my little window, as if some goblin had been crying there all night, and using the window for a pocket-handkerchief. Now, I saw the damp lying on the bare hedges and spare grass, like a coarser sort of spiders’ webs; hanging itself from twig to twig and blade to blade. On every rail and gate, wet lay clammy, and the marsh mist was so thick, that the wooden finger on the post directing people to our village—a direction which they never accepted, for they never came there—was invisible to me until I was quite close under it. Then, as I looked up at it, while it dripped, it seemed to my oppressed conscience like a phantom devoting me to the Hulks.
The mist was heavier yet when I got out upon the marshes, so that instead of my running at everything, everything seemed to run at me. This was very disagreeable to a guilty mind. The gates and dikes and banks came bursting at me through the mist, as if they cried as plainly as could be, A boy with Somebody’s else’s pork pie! Stop him!
The cattle came upon me with like suddenness, staring out of their eyes, and steaming out of their nostrils, Halloa, young thief!
One black ox, with a white cravat on,—who even had to my awakened conscience something of a clerical air,—fixed me so obstinately with his eyes, and moved his blunt head round in such an accusatory manner as I moved round, that I blubbered out to him, I couldn’t help it, sir! It wasn’t for myself I took it!
Upon which he put down his head, blew a cloud of smoke out of his nose, and vanished with a kick-up of his hind-legs and a flourish of his tail.
All this time, I was getting on towards the river; but however fast I went, I couldn’t warm my feet, to which the damp cold seemed riveted, as the iron was riveted to the leg of the man I was running to meet. I knew my way to the Battery, pretty straight, for I had been down there on a Sunday with Joe, and Joe, sitting on an old gun, had told me that when I was ‘prentice to him, regularly bound, we would have such Larks there! However, in the confusion of the mist, I found myself at last too far to the right, and consequently had to try back along the river-side, on the bank of loose stones above the mud and the stakes that staked the tide out. Making my way along here with all despatch, I had just crossed a ditch which I knew to be very near the Battery, and had just scrambled up the mound beyond the ditch, when I saw the man sitting before me. His back was towards me, and he had his arms folded, and was nodding forward, heavy with sleep.
I thought he would be more glad if I came upon him with his breakfast, in that unexpected manner, so I went forward softly and touched him on the shoulder. He instantly jumped up, and it was not the same man, but another man!
And yet this man was dressed in coarse gray, too, and had a great iron on his leg, and was lame, and hoarse, and cold, and was everything that the other man was; except that he had not the same face, and had a flat broad-brimmed low-crowned felt that on. All this I saw in a moment, for I had only a moment to see it in: he swore an oath at me, made a hit at me,—it was a round weak blow that missed me and almost knocked himself down, for it made him stumble,—and then he ran into the mist, stumbling twice as he went, and I lost him.
It’s the young man!
I thought, feeling my heart shoot as I identified him. I dare say I should have felt a pain in my liver, too, if I had known where it was.
I was soon at the Battery after that, and there was the right Man,—hugging himself and limping to and fro, as if he had never all night left off hugging and limping,—waiting for me. He was awfully cold, to be sure. I half expected to see him drop down before my face and die of deadly cold. His eyes looked so awfully hungry too, that when I handed him the file and he laid it down on the grass, it occurred to me he would have tried to eat it, if he had not seen my bundle. He did not turn me upside down this time to get at what I had, but left me right side upwards while I opened the bundle and emptied my pockets.
What’s in the bottle, boy?
said he.
Brandy,
said I.
He was already handing mincemeat down his throat in the most curious manner,—more like a man who was putting it away somewhere in a violent hurry, than a man who was eating it,—but he left off to take some of the liquor. He shivered all the while so violently, that it was quite as much as he could do to keep the neck of the bottle between his teeth, without biting it off.
I think you have got the ague,
said I.
I’m much of your opinion, boy,
said he.
It’s bad about here,
I told him. You’ve been lying out on the meshes, and they’re dreadful aguish. Rheumatic too.
I’ll eat my breakfast afore they’re the death of me,
said he. I’d do that, if I was going to be strung up to that there gallows as there is over there, directly afterwards. I’ll beat the shivers so far, I’ll bet you.
He was gobbling mincemeat, meatbone, bread, cheese, and pork pie, all at once: staring distrustfully while he did so at the mist all round us, and often stopping—even stopping his jaws—to listen. Some real or fancied sound, some clink upon the river or breathing of beast upon the marsh, now gave him a start, and he said, suddenly,—
You’re not a deceiving imp? You brought no one with you?
No, sir! No!
Nor giv’ no one the office to follow you?
No!
Well,
said he, I believe you. You’d be but a fierce young hound indeed, if at your time of life you could help to hunt a wretched warmint hunted as near death and dunghill as this poor wretched warmint is!
Something clicked in his throat as if he had works in him like a clock, and was going to strike. And he smeared his ragged rough sleeve over his eyes.
Pitying his desolation, and watching him as he gradually settled down upon the pie, I made bold to say, I am glad you enjoy it.
Did you speak?
I said I was glad you enjoyed it.
Thankee, my boy. I do.
I had often watched a large dog of ours eating his food; and I now noticed a decided similarity between the dog’s way of eating, and the man’s. The man took strong sharp sudden bites, just like the dog. He swallowed, or rather snapped up, every mouthful, too soon and too fast; and he looked sideways here and there while he ate, as if he thought there was danger in every direction of somebody’s coming to take the pie away. He was altogether too unsettled in his mind over it, to appreciate it comfortably I thought, or to have anybody to dine with him, without making a chop with his jaws at the visitor. In all of which particulars he was very like the dog.
I am afraid you won’t leave any of it for him,
said I, timidly; after a silence during which I had hesitated as to the politeness of making the remark. There’s no more to be got where that came from.
It was the certainty of this fact that impelled me to offer the hint.
Leave any for him? Who’s him?
said my friend, stopping in his crunching of pie-crust.
The young man. That you spoke of. That was hid with you.
Oh ah!
he returned, with something like a gruff laugh. Him? Yes, yes! He don’t want no wittles.
I thought he looked as if he did,
said I.
The man stopped eating, and regarded me with the keenest scrutiny and the greatest surprise.
Looked? When?
Just now.
Where?
Yonder,
said I, pointing; over there, where I found him nodding asleep, and thought it was you.
He held me by the collar and stared at me so, that I began to think his first idea about cutting my throat had revived.
Dressed like you, you know, only with a hat,
I explained, trembling; and—and
—I was very anxious to put this delicately —and with—the same reason for wanting to borrow a file. Didn’t you hear the cannon last night?
Then there was firing!
he said to himself.
I wonder you shouldn’t have been sure of that,
I returned, for we heard it up at home, and that’s farther away, and we were shut in besides.
Why, see now!
said he. When a man’s alone on these flats, with a light head and a light stomach, perishing of cold and want, he hears nothin’ all night, but guns firing, and voices calling. Hears? He sees the soldiers, with their red coats lighted up by the torches carried afore, closing in round him. Hears his number called, hears himself challenged, hears the rattle of the muskets, hears the orders ‘Make ready! Present! Cover him steady, men!’ and is laid hands on—and there’s nothin’! Why, if I see one pursuing party last night—coming up in order, Damn ’em, with their tramp, tramp—I see a hundred. And as to firing! Why, I see the mist shake with the cannon, arter it was broad day,—But this man
; he had said all the rest, as if he had forgotten my being there; did you notice anything in him?
He had a badly bruised face,
said I, recalling what I hardly knew I knew.
Not here?
exclaimed the man, striking his left cheek mercilessly, with the flat of his hand.
Yes, there!
Where is he?
He crammed what little food was left, into the breast of his gray jacket. Show me the way he went. I’ll pull him down, like a bloodhound. Curse this iron on my sore leg! Give us hold of the file, boy.
I indicated in what direction the mist had shrouded the other man, and he looked up at it for an instant. But he was down on the rank wet grass, filing at his iron like a madman, and not minding me or minding his own leg, which had an old chafe upon it and was bloody, but which he handled as roughly as if it had no more feeling in it than the file. I was very much afraid of him again, now that he had worked himself into this fierce hurry, and I was likewise very much afraid of keeping away from home any longer. I told him I must go, but he took no notice, so I thought the best thing I could do was to slip off. The last I saw of him, his head was bent over his knee and he was working hard at his fetter, muttering impatient imprecations at it and at his leg. The last I heard of him, I stopped in the mist to listen, and the file was still going.
Chapter
4
I fully expected to find a Constable in the kitchen, waiting to take me up. But not only was there no Constable there, but no discovery had yet been made of the robbery. Mrs. Joe was prodigiously busy in getting the house ready for the festivities of the day, and Joe had been put upon the kitchen doorstep to keep him out of the dust-pan,—an article into which his destiny always led him, sooner or later, when my sister was vigorously reaping the floors of her establishment.
And where the deuce ha’ you been?
was Mrs. Joe’s Christmas salutation, when I and my conscience showed ourselves.
I said I had been down to hear the Carols. Ah! well!
observed Mrs. Joe. You might ha’ done worse.
Not a doubt of that I thought.
Perhaps if I warn’t a blacksmith’s wife, and (what’s the same thing) a slave with her apron never off, I should have been to hear the Carols,
said Mrs. Joe. I’m rather partial to Carols, myself, and that’s the best of reasons for my never hearing any.
Joe, who had ventured into the kitchen after me as the dustpan had retired before us, drew the back of his hand across his nose with a conciliatory air, when Mrs. Joe darted a look at him, and, when her eyes were withdrawn, secretly crossed his two forefingers, and exhibited them to me, as our token that Mrs. Joe was in a cross temper. This was so much her normal state, that Joe and I would often, for weeks together, be, as to our fingers, like monumental Crusaders as to their legs.
We were to have a superb dinner, consisting of a leg of pickled pork and greens, and a pair of roast stuffed fowls. A handsome mince-pie had been made yesterday morning (which accounted for the mincemeat not being missed), and the pudding was already on the boil. These extensive arrangements occasioned us to be cut off unceremoniously in respect of breakfast; for I ain’t,
said Mrs. Joe,—I ain’t a going to have no formal cramming and busting and washing up now, with what I’ve got before me, I promise you!
So, we had our slices served out, as if we were two thousand troops on a forced march instead of a man and boy at home; and we took gulps of milk and water, with apologetic countenances, from a jug on the dresser. In the meantime, Mrs. Joe put clean white curtains up, and tacked a new flowered flounce across the wide chimney to replace the old one, and uncovered the little state parlor across the passage, which was never uncovered at any other time, but passed the rest of the year in a cool haze of silver paper, which even extended to the four little white crockery poodles on the mantel-shelf, each with a black nose and a basket of flowers in his mouth, and each the counterpart of the other. Mrs. Joe was a very clean housekeeper, but had an exquisite art of making her cleanliness more uncomfortable and unacceptable than dirt itself. Cleanliness is next to Godliness, and some people do the same by their religion.
My sister, having so much to do, was going to church vicariously, that is to say, Joe and I were going. In his working—clothes, Joe was a well-knit characteristic-looking blacksmith; in his holiday clothes, he was more like a scarecrow in good circumstances, than anything else. Nothing that he wore then fitted him or seemed to belong to him; and everything that he wore then grazed him. On the present festive occasion he emerged from his room, when the blithe bells were going, the picture of misery, in a full suit of Sunday penitentials. As to me, I think my sister must have had some general idea that I was a young offender whom an Accoucheur Policeman had taken up (on my birthday) and delivered over to her, to be dealt with according to the outraged majesty of the law. I was always treated as if I had insisted on being born in opposition to the dictates of reason, religion, and morality, and against the dissuading arguments of my best friends. Even when I was taken to have a new suit of clothes, the tailor had orders to make them like a kind of Reformatory, and on no account to let me have the free use of my limbs.
Joe and I going to church, therefore, must have been a moving spectacle for compassionate