"My father, Pip,” said Joe, settling himself against his anvil and aimlessly sweeping no things in particular about the floor, “he were in the trade: a Hunter you see. On moon’d nights he’d be out hammering the Howlers, but most a th’ time, he’d got nowheres to be and so was given to drink. When he were overtook with it, he hammered away at my mother, most onmerciful. It were a'most the only hammering I saw him do, indeed, 'xcepting at myself. And he hammered at me with a vigor only to be equaled by the vigour with which he hammered at the Howlers. - You're a-listening and understanding, Pip?"
"Yes, Joe."
“When I were a bit older than you are now, Pip, I’d asked to come on one of his Hunts – guess I were int’rested in seeing him hammer somebody else – but he’d have none a’ that. So I sneaked out one night, and I followed him. I found him and the other Hunters in a field. They’s were standing around a Howler, hammering it something awful. An’ I was proud, Pip, seeing him there all dressed up in his tremenjous armour.”
“Then,” he paused here for an uncomfortable while, “I saw the Howler turn. An’ you know what it were, Pip? A girl. Not maybe fifteen years of age. She were bleeding and crying. Sorriest sight I ever saw. Then my father, well he hammered her some more.” Joe let out a breath like a great bellows. “Whole ‘xperience put a bit a soreness in me ‘bout Hunters."
"Certainly, poor Joe!"
"Eventual, my father couldn’t hold a pike no more, so I went to work to work at my present calling. Didn’t mean to, Pip old chap, but my father had all his metal scraps lying round the house, and I started putting ‘em together and selling ‘em off to Hunters. I worked tolerable hard, I assure you, Pip, and learned ‘bout weapons and fighting. In time, I were able to keep him, and I kept him till he went off in a purple leptic fit. My mother, she weren't long of following, poor soul, and her share of peace come round at last.”
Joe's blue eyes turned a little watery; he rubbed, first one of them, and then the other, in a most uncongenial and uncomfortable manner, with the round end of the top of the broom.
“‘Course by then, making them weapons were the only thing I were good for, so I couldn’t well stop.”
I broke out crying and hugged Joe round the neck: who dropped the broom to hug me, and to say, "I still got you, don’t I? Ever the best of friends; an't us, Pip? Don't cry, old chap!"
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.
