Chapter 8, Part 5

I took the opportunity of being alone in the court-yard, to look at my coarse hands and my common boots. My opinion of those accessories was not favorable. They had never troubled me before, but they troubled me now, as vulgar appendages. I determined to ask Joe why he had ever taught me to call those the monsters, Howlers, which ought to be called Howl Beasts. I wished Joe had been rather more genteelly brought up, and then I should have been so too. I wished, too, that Joe had been willing to teach me more of combat, so that Estella could not have tossed me as a rag-doll.

When she was gone, I looked about me for a place to hide my face in, and got behind one of the gates in the brewery-lane, and leaned my sleeve against the wall there, and leaned my forehead on it and cried. As I cried, I kicked the wall, and took a hard twist at my hair; so bitter were my feelings, and so sharp was the smart without a name, that needed counteraction.

My sister's bringing up had made me sensitive. In the little world in which children have their existence whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt, as injustice. It may be only small injustice that the child can be exposed to; but the child is small, and its world is small, and its rocking-horse stands as many hands high, according to scale, as a big-boned Irish hunter. Within myself, I had sustained, from my babyhood, a perpetual conflict with injustice. I had known, from the time when I could speak, that my sister, in her capricious and violent coercion, was unjust to me. I had cherished a profound conviction that her bringing me up by hand, gave her no right to bring me up by jerks. Much in the same way, I knew that the Hunters’ bloodlust in the marshes that Christmas was dishonorable and cruel, as it was all those years before when Joe witnessed the same. And I knew that no matter how wretched and vicious a creature, or how coarse and thick a boy’s hands and boots, neither deserved brutality for its own sake.

I got rid of my injured feelings for the time, by kicking them into the brewery wall, and twisting them out of my hair, and then I smoothed my face with my sleeve, and came from behind the gate.

I saw Estella approaching with the keys, to let me out. She would have some fair reason for looking down upon me, I thought, if she saw me frightened; and she would have no fair reason.

She gave me a triumphant glance in passing me, as if she rejoiced that my hands were so coarse and my boots were so thick, and she opened the gate, and stood holding it. I was passing out without looking at her, when she touched me with a taunting hand.

"Why don't you cry?"

"Because I don't want to."

"You do," said she. "You have been crying till you are half blind, and you are near crying again now."

She laughed contemptuously, pushed me out, and locked the gate upon me. I went straight to Mr. Pumblechook's, and was immensely relieved to find him not at home. So, leaving word with the shopman on what day I was wanted at Miss Havisham's again, I set off on the four-mile walk to our forge; pondering, as I went along, on all I had seen, and deeply revolving that I was a common laboring-boy; that my hands were coarse; that my boots were thick; that I had fallen into a despicable habit of calling Howl Beasts Howlers; that I was much more weak and ignorant than I had considered myself last night, and generally that I was in a low-lived bad way.

Chapter 8, Part 4

I reluctantly accepted the blade, which was as long as my small forearm. Only in later years would I come to appreciate that the dagger was worth more than the combined value of Mrs. Joe’s house, the forge, and every object inside them. Such weapons were the only effective means of destroying a Howl Beast, and yet neither Joe nor any of the Brutal Hunters had ever handled one or any like it. And now, I, a scared and embarrassed boy was to use this precious object to chase a beautiful but awful girl in a silly game for the “sick fancy” of a withered old woman.

Seeing no alternative, I gave chase – slowly at first, for I did not want to alarm my prey. But, I soon found how agile and elusive Estella could be, and realized it would be no use holding back. As we scurried about the chamber, I began to understand that everything in the room had stopped, like the watch and the clock, a long time ago. Without this arrest of everything, this standing still of all the pale decayed objects, not even the withered bridal dress on the collapsed from could have looked so like grave-clothes, or the long veil so like a shroud.

Estella ran behind a curtain, but when I pulled it away, she was gone. I looked around but could find no trace of her. Suddenly, I felt a hand on my shoulder. Before I could react, it spun me around, slapped the dagger out of my hand, and pushed me to the ground in what seemed to be one fell motion.

She won the game. I was slow and weak, even when I knew she was lying in wait for me; and she denounced me for being a stupid, clumsy laboring-boy.

"You say nothing of her," remarked Miss Havisham to me, as she looked on. "She says many hard things of you, but you say nothing of her. What do you think of her?"

"I don't like to say," I stammered.

"Tell me in my ear," said Miss Havisham, bending down.

"I think she is very fast," I replied, in a whisper.

"Anything else?"

"I think she is very pretty."

"Anything else?"

"I think she is very insulting." (She was looking at me then with a look of supreme aversion.)

"Anything else?"

"I think I should like to go home."

"And never see her again, though she is so pretty?"

"I am not sure that I shouldn't like to see her again, but I should like to go home now."

"You shall go soon," said Miss Havisham, aloud. "When shall I have you here again? Let me think."

I was beginning to remind her that to-day was Wednesday, when she checked me with her former impatient movement of the fingers of her right hand.

"There, there! I know nothing of days of the week; I know nothing of weeks of the year. Come again after six days. You hear?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Estella, take him down. Let him roam and look about. Go, Pip."

I followed the candle down, as I had followed the candle up, and she stood it in the place where we had found it. Until she opened the side entrance, I had fancied, without thinking about it, that it must necessarily be night-time. The rush of the daylight quite confounded me, and made me feel as if I had been in the candlelight of the strange room many hours.

"You are to wait here, you boy," said Estella; and disappeared and closed the door.

Chapter 8, Part 3

"I am tired," said Miss Havisham. "I want diversion, and I have done with men and women. Play."

"I sometimes have sick fancies," she went on, "and I have a sick fancy that I want to see some play. There there!" with an impatient movement of the fingers of her right hand; "play, play, play!"

For a moment, with the fear of my sister's working me before my eyes, I had a desperate idea of starting round the room in the assumed character of Mr. Pumblechook's chaise-cart. But, I felt myself so unequal to the performance that I gave it up, and stood looking at Miss Havisham in what I suppose she took for a dogged manner, inasmuch as she said, when we had taken a good look at each other:

"Are you sullen and obstinate?"

"No, ma'am, I am very sorry for you, and very sorry I can't play just now. If you complain of me I shall get into trouble with my sister, so I would do it if I could; but it's so new here, and so strange, and so fine - and melancholy--." I stopped, fearing I might say too much, or had already said it, and we took another look at each other.

Before she spoke again, she turned her eyes from me, and looked at the dress she wore, and at the dressing-table, and finally at herself in the looking-glass.

"So new to him," she muttered, "so old to me; so strange to him, so familiar to me; so melancholy to both of us! Call Estella. You can do that. Call Estella. At the door."

To stand in the dark in a mysterious passage of an unknown house, bawling Estella to a scornful young lady neither visible nor responsive, and feeling it a dreadful liberty so to roar out her name, was almost as bad as playing to order. But, she answered at last, and her light came along the dark passage like a star.

Miss Havisham beckoned her to come close: “Let me see you play with this boy."

"With this boy? Why, he is a common labouring-boy!"

I thought I overheard Miss Havisham answer - only it seemed so unlikely - "Well? You can tear out his heart."

"What shall we play, boy?" asked Estella of myself, with the greatest disdain.

"Perhaps we could play at Hunter-Howler, miss"

Estella scoffed: “A chase game? How dreadfully common. And did you hear: He calls Howl Beasts, ‘Howlers’, this boy! And what coarse hands he has! And what thick boots!"

I had never thought of being ashamed of my hands before; but I began to consider them a very indifferent pair. Her contempt for me was so strong, that it became infectious, and I caught it.

“Do it,” Miss Havisham reproached, taking a shining dagger from the table and inspecting it. It was the brightest metal I had seen, and in the candlelight it appeared as a gleaming shard of the moon. “Silver,” she said, “beautiful and powerful.” She reached out toward me: “Take it. Let me see you chase her.”

Chapter 8, Part 2

I entered and found myself in a pretty large room, well lighted with wax candles. No glimpse of daylight was to be seen in it. It was a dressing-room, as I supposed from the furniture, though much of it was of forms and uses then quite unknown to me. But prominent in it was a draped table with a gilded looking-glass, and that I made out at first sight to be a fine lady's dressing-table.

Whether I should have made out this object so soon, if there had been no fine lady sitting at it, I cannot say. In an arm-chair, with an elbow resting on the table and her head leaning on that hand, sat the strangest lady I have ever seen, or shall ever see.

She was dressed in rich materials - satins, and lace, and silks - all of white, though her dress had great tears in it. She had a long white veil dependent from her hair, and she had bridal flowers in her hair, but her hair was white. Dresses, less splendid than the dress she wore, and half-packed trunks, were scattered about. She had not quite finished dressing, for her veil was but half arranged, her watch and chain were not put on, and some lace for her bosom lay with those trinkets, and with her handkerchief, and gloves, and some flowers, and a prayer-book, all confusedly heaped about the looking-glass.

It was not in the first few moments that I saw all these things, though I saw more of them in the first moments than might be supposed. But, I saw that everything within my view which ought to be white, had been white long ago, and had lost its lustre, and was faded and yellow. I saw that the bride within the bridal dress had withered like the dress, and like the flowers, and had no brightness left but the brightness of her sunken eyes. I saw that the dress had been put upon the rounded figure of a young woman, and that the figure upon which it now hung loose, had shrunk to skin and bone. My first thought was that the lady resembled the ghastly gray Howl Beast I had seen in the marshes the prior year – like a beastly skeleton in the tatters of a rich dress. I should have cried out, if I could.

"Who is it?" said the lady at the table.

"Pip, ma'am."

"Pip?"

"Mr. Pumblechook's boy, ma'am. Come - to play."

"Come nearer; let me look at you. Come close."

It was when I stood before her, avoiding her eyes, that I took note of the surrounding objects in detail, and saw that her watch had stopped at twenty minutes to nine, and that a clock in the room had stopped at twenty minutes to nine.

"Look at me," said Miss Havisham. "You are not afraid of a woman who has never seen the sun since you were born?"

I regret to state that I was not afraid of telling the enormous lie comprehended in the answer "No."

"Do you know what I touch here?" she said, laying her hands, one upon the other, on her left side.

"Yes, ma'am."

"What do I touch?"

"Your heart."

"Torn from me!"

She uttered the words with an eager look, and with strong emphasis, and with a weird smile that had a kind of boast in it. Afterwards, she kept her hands there for a little while, and slowly took them away as if they were heavy.

Chapter 8, Part 1

I considered Mr. Pumblechook wretched company, and I was very glad when the next morning came and we started for Miss Havisham's; though I was not at all at my ease regarding the manner in which I should acquit myself under that lady's roof. Within a quarter of an hour we came to Miss Havisham's house, which was of old brick, and dismal, and had a great many iron bars to it. Some of the windows had been walled up; of those that remained, all the lower were rustily barred. There was a court-yard in front, and that was barred; so, we had to wait, after ringing the bell, until some one should come to open it. While we waited at the gate, I peeped in and saw that at the side of the house there was a large brewery. No brewing was going on in it, and none seemed to have gone on for a long long time.

A window was raised, and a clear voice demanded "What name?" To which my conductor replied, "Pumblechook." The voice returned, "Quite right," and the window was shut again, and a young lady came across the court-yard, with keys in her hand.

"This," said Mr. Pumblechook, "is Pip."

"This is Pip, is it?" returned the young lady, who was very pretty and seemed very proud; "come in, Pip."

Mr. Pumblechook was coming in also, when she stopped him with the gate.

"Oh!" she said. "Did you wish to see Miss Havisham?"

"If Miss Havisham wished to see me," returned Mr. Pumblechook, discomfited.

"Ah!" said the girl; "but you see she don't."

She said it so finally, and in such an undiscussible way, that Mr. Pumblechook, though in a condition of ruffled dignity, could not protest. But he eyed me severely - as if I had done anything to him! - and departed with the words reproachfully delivered: "Boy! Let your behaviour here be a credit unto them which brought you up by hand!"

My young conductress locked the gate, and we went across the court-yard. It was paved and clean, but grass was growing in every crevice. The brewery buildings had a little lane of communication with it, and the wooden gates of that lane stood open, and all the brewery beyond, stood open, away to the high enclosing wall; and all was empty and disused. The cold wind seemed to blow colder there, than outside the gate; and it made a shrill noise in howling in and out at the open sides of the brewery, like the noise of wind in the rigging of a ship at sea.

She saw me looking at it, and she said, "Better not try to brew beer there now, or it would turn out sour, boy; don't you think so?"

"It looks like it, miss."

"Not that anybody means to try," she added, "for that's all done with, and the place will stand as idle as it is, till it falls. As to strong beer, there's enough of it in the cellars already, to drown the Manor House."

"Is that the name of this house, miss?"

"One of its names, boy. Its other name was Satis; which is Greek, or Latin, or Hebrew, or all three - or all one to me - for enough."

"Enough House," said I; "that's a curious name, miss."

"Yes," she replied; "but it meant more than it said. It meant, when it was given, that whoever had this house, could want nothing else. They must have been easily satisfied in those days, I should think. But don't loiter, boy."

Though she called me "boy" so often, and with a carelessness that was far from complimentary, she was of about my own age. She seemed much older than I, of course, being a girl, and beautiful and self-possessed; and she was as scornful of me as if she had been one-and-twenty, and a queen.

We went into the house by a side door - the great front entrance had two chains across it outside - and the first thing I noticed was, that the passages were all dark, and that she had left a candle burning there. She took it up, and we went through more passages and up a staircase, and still it was all dark, and only the candle lighted us.

At last we came to the door of a room, and she said, "Go in."

I answered, more in shyness than politeness, "After you, miss."

To this, she returned: "Don't be ridiculous, boy; I am not going in." And scornfully walked away, and - what was worse - took the candle with her. This was very uncomfortable, and I was half afraid. However, the only thing to be done being to knock at the door, I knocked, and was told from within to enter.

Chapter 7, Part 3

Though I felt, at this moment, closer to Joe than I ever had or ever would, it was cut short by the sounds of hooves upon the road. "Holloa," said Joe, rising out of his melancholy; "Here comes the mare, ringing like a peal of bells!"

Mrs. Joe made occasional trips with Uncle Pumblechook on market-days, to assist him in buying such household stuffs and goods as required a woman's judgment; Uncle Pumblechook being a bachelor and reposing no confidences in his domestic servant. This was market-day, and Mrs. Joe was out on one of these expeditions.

We ran out of the forge into the house-proper. It was a dry cold night, and the wind blew keenly, and the frost was white and hard. A man would die to-night of lying out on the marshes, I thought. And then I looked at the stars, and considered how awful if would be for a man to turn his face up to them as he froze to death, and see no help or pity in all the glittering multitude.

The sound of the iron shoes upon the hard road was quite musical, as the mare came along at a much brisker trot than usual. We got a chair out, ready for Mrs. Joe's alighting, and stirred up the fire that they might see a bright window, and took a final survey of the kitchen that nothing might be out of its place. When we had completed these preparations, they drove up, wrapped to the eyes. Mrs. Joe was soon landed, and Uncle Pumblechook was soon down too, covering the mare with a cloth, and we were soon all in the kitchen, carrying so much cold air in with us that it seemed to drive all the heat out of the fire.

"Now," said Mrs. Joe, unwrapping herself with haste and excitement, and throwing her bonnet back on her shoulders where it hung by the strings: "if this boy an't grateful this night, he never will be!"

I looked as grateful as any boy possibly could, who was wholly uninformed why he ought to assume that expression.

"It's only to be hoped," said my sister, "that he won't be pampered. But I have my fears."

"Miss Havisham an't in that line, Mum," said Mr. Pumblechook. "She knows better."

"Miss Havisham, up town?" said Joe, wholly unwelcome in the exchange.

"Is there any Miss Havisham down town?" returned my sister. "She wants this boy to go and play there. And of course he's going. And he had better play there," said my sister, shaking her head at me as an encouragement to be extremely light and sportive, "or I'll work him."

I had heard of Miss Havisham up town - everybody for miles round, had heard of Miss Havisham up town - as an immensely rich and grim lady who lived in a large and dismal house barricaded against Howl Beasts, and who led a life of seclusion.

"Well to be sure!" said Joe, astounded. "I wonder how she come to know Pip!"

"Noodle!" cried my sister. "Who said she knew him? Couldn't she ask Uncle Pumblechook if he knew of a boy to go and play there? Isn't it just barely possible that Uncle Pumblechook may be a tenant of hers, and that he may sometimes - we won't say quarterly or half-yearly, for that would be requiring too much of you - but sometimes - go there to pay his rent? And couldn't she then ask Uncle Pumblechook if he knew of a boy to go and play there? And couldn't Uncle Pumblechook, being always considerate and thoughtful for us - though you may not think it, Joseph," in a tone of the deepest reproach, as if he were the most callous of nephews, "then mention this boy, standing prancing here" - which I solemnly declare I was not doing - "that I have for ever been a willing slave to?"

With that, she pounced upon me, like an eagle on a lamb, and my face was squeezed into wooden bowls in sinks, and my head was put under taps of water-butts, and I was soaped, and kneaded, and toweled, and thumped, and harrowed, and rasped, until I really was quite beside myself.

When my ablutions were completed, I was put into clean linen of the stiffest character, like a young penitent into sackcloth, and was trussed up in my tightest and fearfulest suit. I was then delivered over to Mr. Pumblechook, who formally received me as if he were the Sheriff, and who let off upon me the speech that I knew he had been dying to make all along: "Boy, be for ever grateful to all friends, but especially unto them which brought you up by hand!"

"Good-bye, Joe!"

"God bless you, Pip, old chap!"

I had never parted from him before, and what with my feelings and what with soap-suds, I could at first see no stars from the chaise-cart. But they twinkled out one by one, without throwing any light on the questions why on earth I was going to play at Miss Havisham's, and what on earth I was expected to play at.

Chapter 7, Part 2

"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.

Chapter 7, Part 1

When I was old enough, I was to be apprenticed to Joe. Therefore, I was not only odd-boy about the forge, but also had to familiarize myself with the use of the various weapons he made. Proper instruction, however, was in short supply.

Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt kept an evening school of combat in the village; that is to say, she was a ridiculous old woman of limited means and unlimited infirmity, who used to go to sleep from six to seven every evening, in the society of youth who paid twopence per week each, for the improving opportunity of seeing her do it. There was a fiction that Mr. Wopsle "examined" the young warriors once a quarter. What he did on those occasions was to turn up his cuffs, stick up his hair, and give us Mark Anthony's oration over the body of Caesar. This was always followed by free-for-all battle, during which the students would aimlessly have at one another with sticks.

The only assistance I received in the martial arts came from Biddy, who was Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt's granddaughter. She was an orphan like myself; and like me, too, had been brought up by hand. She was hardly noticeable, I thought, with the exception that, in our practice sessions, she assumed an unnatural grace, possessing proficiency far beyond her years.

Much of my unassisted self, and more by the help of Biddy, I struggled through Stamwick’s Forms of Combat as if it had been a bramble-bush; getting considerably worried and scratched by every new thrust or parry. But, at last I began, in a purblind groping way, to hold a practice sword properly.

One night, I was practicing alone in Joe’s forge, expending great efforts to recreate the correct sequence of stances pictured in the manual. I think it must have been a full year after the Hunt upon the marshes, for it was a long time after, and it was winter and a hard frost.

Weary from practice, I took an errant step backward into a rack heavy with spike-swords, sending the lot of them tumbling on top of me. Rather than succumbing to the blanket of sharp steel, I rolled to the side. The tumult freed a spear from its high stand, which happenstance seemed fit to aim directly at my head. Having no time to dodge, I set my legs to absorb the impact and used my practice stick shunt the spear aside.

"I say, Pip, old chap!" cried Joe, who had been watching me through the window, and was now stepping inside. "What a battler you are! An't you?"

"I should like to be," said I, glancing at the rack of weapons with a misgiving that the Brutal Hunt was not the sort of battle I wanted to be a part of.

"Why, there was a perfect quat’re parry,” said Joe. “An’ a good stance to boot!”

I had never heard Joe speak of proper combat, aside from the brief exchanges with the Hunters concerning weapons he mended. And, judging from the way he let my sister pummel him, one would think he never knew that he could raise his hands at all. Wishing to embrace the present occasion of finding out whether Joe had anything to teach me, I asked, "But how could I counter one that came at me from the left?”

"The left, eh, Pip?" said Joe, looking about with a slowly searching eye, "I’ll show you.” He found in the corner of a forge a small broom. Taking it in hand, bristles facing outwards, he showed me the positions: “One, two, three. Why, here's three steps and there it is, Pip!"

I mimicked the steps.

"Astonishing!" said Joe, when I had finished. "You ARE a battler." Joe pronounced this word, as if it began with at least twelve capital Bs.

"And how do you go up against a Howl Beast, Joe?" I asked him, giddily.

His jovial manner changed in an instant, becoming sullen and reserved: "Oh, Pip. I don't at all."

"But supposing you did?"

"It can't be supposed," said Joe. “I wouldn’t have it.”

I could not understand how this could be. Pursuing the subject, I inquired:

"But you make the best weapons of anyone. Don’t you like seeing them used to put down the Howl Beasts?"

"No, Pip," said Joe.

“Why not?”

“Never had much of a stomach for it, I guess.”

Whatever puzzled expression my face took, it seemed encouragement enough for Joe to elaborate.

Chapter 6

My state of mind regarding the pilfering from which I had been so unexpectedly exonerated, did not impel me to frank disclosure; but I hope it had some dregs of good at the bottom of it.

I do not recall that I felt any tenderness of conscience in reference to Mrs. Joe, when the fear of being found out was lifted off me. But I loved Joe - perhaps for no better reason in those early days than because the dear fellow let me love him - and, as to him, my inner self was not so easily composed. It was much upon my mind (particularly when I first saw him looking about for his dirk-saw) that I ought to tell Joe the whole truth. Yet I did not, and for the reason that I mistrusted that if I did, he would think me worse than I was. The fear of losing Joe's confidence, and of thenceforth sitting in the chimney-corner at night staring drearily at my for ever lost companion and friend, tied up my tongue. In a word, I was too cowardly to do what I knew to be right, as I had been too cowardly to avoid doing what I knew to be wrong. I had had no intercourse with the world at that time, and I imitated none of its many inhabitants who act in this manner. Quite an untaught genius, I made the discovery of the line of action for myself.

By the time we got home, I was staggering on the kitchen floor like a little drunkard, through having been newly set upon my feet, and through having been fast asleep, and through waking in the heat and lights and noise of tongues. Though it was only mid-day, the previous night’s sleeplessness coupled with the morning’s events and the exertion of travel proved too much for my faculties. As I came to myself (with the aid of a heavy thump between the shoulders, and the restorative exclamation "Yah! Was there ever such a boy as this!" from my sister), I found Joe telling them about my fugitive’s confession, and all the visitors suggesting different ways by which he had got into the pantry.

This was all I heard before my sister clutched me, as a slumberous offense to the company's eyesight, and assisted me up to bed with such a strong hand that I seemed to have fifty boots on, and to be dangling them all against the edges of the stairs. My state of mind, as I have described it, began before I was up in the morning, and lasted long after the subject had died out, and had ceased to be mentioned saving on exceptional occasions.

Chapter 5, Part 6

After an hour or so of this traveling, we came to a rough wooden hut and a landing-place. There was a guard in the hut, and they challenged, and the lead Hunter answered. Then, we went into the hut where there was a smell of tobacco and whitewash, and a bright fire, and a lamp, and a stand of weapons, and a drum of ale, and a low wooden bedstead, like an overgrown mangle without the machinery, capable of holding about a dozen men all at once. Three or four Hunters who lay upon it in their great-coats, were not much interested in us, but just lifted their heads and took a boozy stare, and then lay down again.

My fugitive never looked at me, except that once. While we stood in the hut, he stood before the fire looking thoughtfully at it, or putting up his feet by turns upon the hob, and looking thoughtfully at them as if he pitied them for their recent adventures. Suddenly, he turned to the lead Hunter, and remarked:

"I wish to say something respecting this escape. It may prevent some persons laying under suspicion alonger me."

“Keep it quick,” returned the lead Hunter, standing hotly looking at him with his arms folded.

“A man can't starve; at least I can't. I took some wittles, up at the willage over yonder - where the church stands a'most out on the marshes."

"You mean stole, mangy thief," said the leader.

"And I'll tell you where from. From the blacksmith's. It was some broken wittles - that's what it was - and a dram of liquor, and a pie."

"You ‘appened to miss a pie, smithee?" asked the lead Hunter, confidentially.

"My wife did, at the very moment when you came in. Don't you know, Pip?"

"So," said my fugitive, turning his eyes on Joe in a moody manner, and without the least glance at me; "so you're the blacksmith, are you? Then I'm sorry to say, I've eat your pie."

"God knows you're welcome to it - so far as it was ever mine," returned Joe, with a saving remembrance of Mrs. Joe. "We wouldn't have you starved to death, poor miserable fellow-creature. - Would us, Pip?"

The something that I had noticed before, clicked in the man's throat again, and he turned his back. The boat had returned, and his Hunter was ready, so we followed him to the landing-place made of rough stakes and stones, and saw him put into the boat, which was rowed by a crew of captives like himself. No one seemed surprised to see him, or interested in seeing him, or glad to see him, or sorry to see him, or spoke a word, except that somebody in the boat growled as if to dogs, "Give way, you!" which was the signal for the dip of the oars. We saw the black Hulk lying out a little way from the mud of the shore, like a wicked Noah's ark. Cribbed and barred and moored by massive rusty chains, the prison-ship seemed in my young eyes to be ironed like the prisoners. We saw the boat go alongside, and we saw him taken up the side and disappear.

Chapter 5, Part 5

"Mind!" coughed my fugitive, wiping blood from his face with his forearm: "I took him! I give him up to you! Mind that!"

"Don’t matter much," said the lead Hunter; "it'll do you small good, you wretch, being in the same cursed condition yourself. Cuffs there!"

"I don't expect it to do me any good. I don't want it to do me more good than it does now," said my fugitive, with a greedy laugh. "I took him. He knows it. That's enough for me."

I looked back to see that the other Howl Beast had turned back to a man as well. He was livid to look at, and, in addition to a gaunt and rather pallid frame, seemed to be bruised and torn all over. He could not so much as get his breath to speak, until they were both separately handcuffed, but leaned upon a Hunter to keep himself from falling.

"Take notice, man - he tried to murder me," were his first words. “He was the one who bit me- who turned me. I was but an innocent man.”

"Tried to murder him?" said my fugitive, disdainfully. "Try, and not do it? I took him, and giv' him up; that's what I done. I not only prevented him getting off the marshes, but I dragged him here - dragged him this far on his way back. He's a gentleman, if you please, this villain. Now, the Hulks has got its gentleman again, through me. Bite him? Bah! Couldn’t I nor nobody done to him what hadn’t already been done.”

The other one still gasped, "He tried - he tried - to - murder me. He made me turn. He created this - this monster. Bear - bear witness."

"Lookee here!" said my fugitive to the lead Hunter. "Single-handed I got clear of the prison-ship; I made a dash and I done it. I could ha' got clear of these death-cold flats likewise - look at my leg: you won't find much iron on it - if I hadn't made the discovery that he was here. Let him go free? Let him kill an’ ram-page and turn loose on this here willage? No, no, no. If I had died in these marshes;" and he made an emphatic swing around with his manacled hands; "I'd have held to him with that grip, that you should have been safe to find him in my hold."

The other fugitive, who was evidently in extreme horror of his companion, repeated, “He tried to murder me. I was but a wanderer in these marshes before he came up.”

"He lies!" said my convict, with fierce energy. "He's a liar born, and he'll die a liar. Look at his face; ain't it written there? Let him turn those eyes of his on me. I defy him to do it.”

The other, with an effort at a scornful smile - which could not, however, collect the nervous working of his mouth into any set expression - looked at the Hunters, and looked about at the marshes and at the sky, but certainly did not look at the speaker.

"Do you see him?" pursued my convict. "Do you see what a villain he is? Do you see those groveling and wandering eyes?”

"Enough a’ this parley," said the lead Hunter. "Get them chains on."

At this point, my convict looked round for the first time, and saw me. I had alighted from Joe's back when we came up, but had not moved since. I looked at him eagerly when he looked at me, and slightly moved my hands and shook my head. I had been waiting for him to see me, that I might try to assure him of my innocence. It was not at all expressed to me that he even comprehended my intention, for he gave me a look that I did not understand, and it all passed in a moment. But if he had looked at me for an hour or for a day, I could not have remembered his face ever afterwards, as having been more attentive.

"All right," said the lead Hunter. "March."

We had not gone far when three cannon were fired ahead of us with a sound that seemed to burst something inside my ear. "You are expected on board," said the leader to my fugitive; "they’s know you’re coming. Don' straggle, you dog. Close up ‘ere."

The two were kept apart, and each was led a separate Hunter, holding a chain secured to their handcuffs. I had hold of Joe's hand now. Mr. Wopsle had been for going back, but Joe was resolved to see it out, so we went on with the party. There was a reasonably good path now, mostly on the edge of the river, with a divergence here and there where a dyke came, with a miniature windmill on it and a muddy sluice-gate. We could not go fast, because of the fugitives’ injuries; and they were so spent, that two or three times they collapsed onto the ground. The Hunters made their displeasure known by viciously yanking the chains and even dragging the miserable men for stretches at a time.

Chapter 5, Part 4

It was a cruel scene we had come upon, but I soon realized my pity was premature. As one the Hunters was driving a pike toward the eye of the Howl Beast, it bit down on the shaft and, with a violent twist of its head, tore the weapon from the man’s grip. With another turn, it sent the pike hurtling toward the men holding one end of the chain. They scrambled to avoid it, but the pike hit both of them at a spin. One of the chain’s ends now free, the Howl Beast took it in hand and wielded it like a great bullwhip, lashing the razor-covered steel at the Hunters around him. One unenviable Hunter wearing a heavy helmet took a blow directly to his head, creating a sonorous clank that rang through the marshes - and, I imagine more painfully, the man’s skull. The Hunters had by now ceased hooting and were feebly barking conflicting orders at one another in hopes of remedying the situation. Seeing a clear gap in the ring of men, the Howl Beast sprang toward the breach in an attempt to escape.

“’Nough of that!” grumbled the lead Hunter. He shouldered his now reloaded spear-driver and fired at the Beast. The spear sank into its hind leg, evoking a sharp wince and slowing the Beast considerably. Moving closer, the lead Hunter fired a second spear, which sailed through a hoop on the end of the chain, staking it into the ground, and jerking the creature to a stop. Before the Howl Beast could recover to its feet, the lead Hunter was upon it. Brandishing his newly tipped spike-sword, he drove the full length of the weapon into the Beast’s back. It cried out in pain, and the lead Hunter withdrew the sword, leaving five spikes gouged in its flesh. Soon the rest of the Hunters surrounded the defeated creature and began to bludgeon it as it lay on the ground bleeding.

As they backed away, I ran up to see its great form convulsing as if it were undergoing a transformation from within. I could see the hair receding and the bones rearranging from their unnatural settings. The process seemed to the cause the Howl Beast more pain than any of the weapons that had been put to it. When it was over, I saw before me the man from the marshes, naked and bleeding and crying out for mercy. The spikes in his back had fallen out, and the wounds seemed lesser than expected, yet atrocious still.

Chapter 5, Part 3

We were joined by no stragglers from the village, for the weather was cold and threatening, the way dreary, the footing bad, and the people had good fires in-doors and were keeping the day. A few faces hurried to windows and looked after us, but none came out. We passed the finger-post, and held straight on to the churchyard.

Now that we were out upon the dismal wilderness where they little thought I had been within three or four hours, I considered for the first time, with great dread, if we should come upon him, would my particular fugitive suppose that it was I who had brought the soldiers there? He had asked me if I was a deceiving imp, and he had said I should be a fierce young wolf if I joined the Hunt against him. Would he believe that I was both imp and wolf in treacherous earnest, and had betrayed him?

It was of no use asking myself this question now. There I was, on Joe's back, and there was Joe beneath me, charging at the ditches like a Hunter himself, and stimulating Mr. Wopsle not to tumble on his Roman nose, and to keep up with us. The Hunters were in front of us, extending into a pretty wide line with an interval between man and man. We were taking the course I had begun with, and from which I had diverged in the mist, which appeared to have been dispelled by the wind. Under the pale glare of the hidden sun, the beacon, and the gibbet, and the mound of the Battery, and the opposite shore of the river, were plain, though all of a watery lead colour.

The Hunters were moving on in the direction of the old Battery, and we were moving on a little way behind them, when, all of a sudden, we all stopped. For, there had reached us on the wings of the wind and rain, a long howl. It was repeated. It was at a distance towards the east, but it was long and loud. Nay, there seemed to be two or more howls raised together - if one might judge from a confusion in the sound. So we slanted to the right (where the East was), and Joe pounded away so wonderfully, that I had to hold on tight to keep my seat.

Down banks and up banks, and over gates, and splashing into dykes, and breaking among coarse rushes. As we came nearer to the howling, we could clearly hear men’s voices as well, hooting and hollering unrepeatable slurs and insults. We finally came upon a ring of men, who had formed the periphery of a sort of arena around two Howl Beasts. One, it appeared to me the gray sickly one I saw earlier, lay in a heap of bone and fur, chained to the ground. Its patched hide, what was left of it, was matted with blood, which oozed from open wounds formed by spikes and harpoons still stuck into the creature.

I looked quizzically at Joe who whispered to me, “Them Howlers can heal any wound made by a weapon, ‘sept a silver one a’course, but only the Nobles got those. So Brutes ‘ave to use weapons that stick and stay stuck. Keeps them wounds from closing up. Sorry sight to see, ain’t it, Pip, old chap.”

In the center of the ring, stood another Howl Beast. It was larger than the other, and covered in brown and black fur. A length of razor’d chain was wrapped around its waist, each end of which was being pulled by two Hunters, struggling to keep the creature in place. Each time the four Hunters pulled at the chain, tightening the coils around his midsection, the Beast let out a deafening howl. Those Hunters not handling the chain stood around at a distance, shouting at the Beast, hurling rocks, and sticking it with long steel-tipped pikes.

Chapter 5, Part 2

Joe had got his coat and waistcoat and cravat off, and his leather apron on, and passed into the forge. He opened its wooden windows, lighted the fire, and turned to at the bellows, as the rest stood round the blaze, which was soon roaring. Then Joe began to hammer and clink, hammer and clink, and we all looked on.

While they waited, they enjoyed, a bit too much perhaps, swigs from a cask of beer Mrs. Joe brought for them. As I watched them while they all stood clustering about the forge, enjoying themselves so much, I began to worry for my friend on the marshes. It seems two Howl Beasts escaped from the Hulks last night, so, already accounting for the one I witnessed in the fog, where had the other been? Suddenly, my mind began to conjure up images - the man’s chains, his savage contortions, his bulging eyes, his doggish eating – and piece them into one unthinkable picture. His cryptic and terrifying words swirled in my head, settling only when I said to myself, or perhaps even audibly, “He is one of them.”

But rather than fear or anger, all I could summon for the man was remorse. The Hunters were all in lively anticipation of "the two Beasts" being taken, and when the bellows seemed to roar for the fugitives, the fire to flare for them, the smoke to hurry away in pursuit of them, Joe to hammer and clink for them, and all the murky shadows on the wall to shake at them in menace as the blaze rose and sank and the red-hot sparks dropped and died, the morn outside, almost seemed in my pitying young fancy to have turned pale on their account, poor wretches.

At last, Joe's job was done, and the ringing and roaring stopped. As Joe got on his coat, he mustered courage to propose that some of us should go down with the Hunters. Mr. Pumblechook and Mr. Hubble declined, on the plea of a pipe and ladies' society; but Mr. Wopsle said he would go, if Joe would. Joe said he was agreeable, and would take me, if Mrs. Joe approved. We never should have got leave to go, I am sure, but for Mrs. Joe's curiosity to know all about it and how it ended. As it was, she merely stipulated, "If you bring the boy back with his head torn off by a Howler, don't look to me to sew it back on.”

The sergeant took an overly polite leave of the ladies, and parted from Mr. Pumblechook with a sneer. His men resumed their newly wrought weapons and fell in. Mr. Wopsle, Joe, and I, received strict charge to keep in the rear, and to speak no word. When we were all out in the raw air and were steadily moving towards our business, I treasonably whispered to Joe, "I hope, Joe, we shan't find them." Joe looked down at me, and to my great surprise, responded with a muted smile.

Chapter 5, Part 1

They were Brutal Hunters if ever such existed. Tall, heavy-set men (some more heavy than set), covered in leather and what scraps of armor’d plating they could attach to their clothing. Some wore thick helmets that did not appear to leave much in the way of sight. Those whose faces were visible had a hungry, agitated way about them, their cracked, yellow teeth gnashing and bloodshot eyes twitching. By the look of their torn costumes and broken weaponry, they had recently battled.

The apparition of a file of Hunters ringing down their heavy boots on our door-step caused the breakfast-party to rise from table in confusion, and caused Mrs. Joe re-entering the kitchen empty-handed, to stop short and stare, in her wondering lament of "Gracious goodness gracious me, what's gone - with the - pie!"

The apparent leader of the band and I were in the kitchen when Mrs. Joe stood staring; at which crisis I partially recovered the use of my senses. It was the leader who had spoken to me, and he was now looking round at the company, with his spiked handcuffs invitingly extended towards them in his right hand, and his left on my shoulder.

"S’cuse me," said the lead Hunter, "but as I told this one" (his hand on my shoulder grew heavier), "we’s in middle of a hunt, and we want the weap’ner."

"And pray what might you want with him?" retorted my sister, quick to resent Joe being wanted at all - probably more so than the intrusion.

"Lass," returned the gruff leader, "speaking for m’self, I should say, the pleasure of his fine wife's warm acquaintance for an ev’ning; speaking for the Hunt, I answer, a little job done."

The guests recoiled at his manner, but all knew better than to speak their displeasure to this Brutal Hunter, who commanded respect well beyond his comportment.

"You see, smithee," said the leader, who had by this time picked out Joe with his eye, "we’ve been ‘avin a bit of trouble on the night’s Hunt. Seems our weapons got spent before the job’s done. The other half of our party’s subduing some Howlers now, an’ we need some replacements."

"Still!?" exclaimed Uncle Pumblechoock. Then, looking to the Dutch-clock: "But, at this hour - "

"Ling’ring effects of last night’s moon, I ‘spect," replied the lead Hunter, not sounding particularly sure of himself. “I’ve never seen it ‘appen before, but there’s rumours. The two we got now’s a lively pair, but we ‘ope to wait ‘em out ‘til they turn back. Then, back the ‘ulks with ‘em,” his lips cracked into a slimy grin, "if they’s still breathing."

As the Mrs. Joe and the guests pondered this information, Joe threw his eye over their gear, and pronounced that he could refit their spike-swords, bone drills, spear drivers, and other ghastly contraptions I had never seen, but the job would necessitate the lighting of his forge fire. "Then will you set about it at once, smithee, the others can’t keep ‘em down forever." said the lead Hunter. "As it's on our noble service, mind if my men make themselves comf’table in the meanwhile?"

With that, he called to his men, who came trooping into the kitchen one after another, and piled their arms in a corner. Mud was everywhere, and they descended upon our table and pantry like a swarm of locusts, stopping their chewing only to spit stiffly onto the floor.

Chapter 4, Part 3

My sister went for the stone bottle, came back with it, and poured his brandy out: no one else taking any. The wretched man trifled with his glass - took it up, looked at it through the light, put it down - prolonged my misery. All this time, Mrs. Joe and Joe were briskly clearing the table for the pie and pudding.

I couldn't keep my eyes off him. Always holding tight by the leg of the table with my hands and feet, I saw the miserable creature finger his glass playfully, take it up, smile, throw his head back, and drink the brandy off. Instantly afterwards, the company were seized with unspeakable consternation, owing to his springing to his feet, turning round several times in an appalling spasmodic whooping-cough dance, and rushing out at the door; he then became visible through the window, violently plunging and expectorating, making the most hideous faces, and apparently out of his mind.

I held on tight, while Mrs. Joe and Joe ran to him. I didn't know how I had done it, but I had no doubt I had murdered him somehow. In my dreadful situation, it was a relief when he was brought back, and, surveying the company all round as if they had disagreed with him, sank down into his chair with the one significant gasp, "Tar!"

I had filled up the bottle from the tar-water jug. I knew he would be worse by-and-by. I moved the table, like a Medium of the present day, by the vigour of my unseen hold upon it.

"Tar!" cried my sister, in amazement. "Why, how ever could Tar come there?"

But, Uncle Pumblechook, who was omnipotent in that kitchen, wouldn't hear the word, wouldn't hear of the subject, imperiously waved it all away with his hand, and asked for hot gin-and-water. My sister, who had begun to be alarmingly meditative, had to employ herself actively in getting the gin, the hot water, the sugar, and the lemon-peel, and mixing them. For the time being at least, I was saved. I still held on to the leg of the table, but clutched it now with the fervour of gratitude.

By degrees, I became calm enough to release my grasp and partake of pudding. Mr. Pumblechook partook of pudding. All partook of pudding. The course terminated, and Mr. Pumblechook had begun to beam under the genial influence of gin-and-water. I began to think I should get over the day, when my sister said to Joe, "Clean plates - cold."

I clutched the leg of the table again immediately, and pressed it to my bosom as if it had been the companion of my youth and friend of my soul. I foresaw what was coming, and I felt that this time I really was gone.

"You must taste," said my sister, addressing the guests with her best grace, "You must taste, to finish with, such a delightful and delicious present of Uncle Pumblechook's!"

Must they! Let them not hope to taste it!

"You must know," said my sister, rising, "it's a pie; a savoury pork pie."

My sister went out to get it. I heard her steps proceed to the pantry. I have never been absolutely certain whether I uttered a shrill yell of terror, merely in spirit, or in the bodily hearing of the company. I felt that I could bear no more, and that I must run away. I released the leg of the table, and ran for my life.

But, I ran no further than the house door, for there I ran head foremost into a party of Brutal Hunters: one of whom held out a pair of great spiked handcuffs to me, saying, "Push aside, brat!"

Chapter 4, Part 2

It began the moment we sat down to breakfast. Mr. Wopsle said grace with theatrical declamation - as it now appears to me, something like a religious cross of the Ghost in Hamlet with Richard the Third - and ended with the very proper aspiration that we might be truly grateful. Upon which my sister fixed me with her eye, and said, in a low reproachful voice, "Do you hear that? Be grateful."

"Especially," said Mr. Pumblechook, "be grateful, boy, to them which brought you up by hand and kept you from the Beasts." Everybody then murmured "True!" and looked at me in a particularly unpleasant and personal manner.

Joe's station and influence were something feebler (if possible) when there was company, than when there was none. But he always aided and comforted me when he could, in some way of his own, and he always did so at dinner-time by giving me gravy, if there were any. There being plenty of gravy to-day, Joe spooned into my plate, at this point, about half a pint.

"True, sir, and true again,” pursued Mr. Wopsle in his deepest voice, and pointing his fork at my blushes, as if he were mentioning my Christian name. “Many a moral for the young in those loathsome creatures. Howl Beasts were the companions of the archangel. The godlessness of Howl Beasts is put before us, as an example to the young. What is detestable in a Howl Beast, is more detestable in a boy.”

"Or girl," suggested Mr. Hubble.

"Of course, or girl, Mr. Hubble," assented Mr. Wopsle, rather irritably, "but there is no girl present."

"Besides," said Mr. Pumblechook, turning sharp on me, "think what you've got to be grateful for. If you'd been born a Howler--"

"He was, if ever a child was," said my sister, most emphatically.

Joe gave me some more gravy.

"Well, but I mean a razor-clawed, steel-fanged Howler," said Mr. Pumblechook. "If he had been born such, would he have been here now? Not enjoying himself with his elders and betters, and improving himself with their conversation, and rolling in the lap of luxury. Would he have been doing that? No, he wouldn't. And what would have been your destination?" turning on me again. "You would have been shredded by iron and shackled in the same aboard a great ship, and the master would have come up to you as you lay in your filth, and he would have pierced your heart with a silver dagger and shed your blood and had your life. No bringing up by hand then. Not a bit of it!"

Joe offered me more gravy, which I was afraid to take.

There was a long pause, which Mrs. Joe did not find a welcomed addition to her proper holiday breakfast. "Have a little brandy, uncle," said my sister to Mr. Pumblechook.

O Heavens, it had come at last! He would find it was weak, he would say it was weak, and I was lost! I held tight to the leg of the table under the cloth, with both hands, and awaited my fate.

Chapter 4, Part 1

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 up earlier than expected, prodigiously busy in getting the house ready for the festivities of the day, and Joe had been put upon the kitchen door-step 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 searching for discarded Hunt weapons for Joe. "Ah! well!" observed Mrs. Joe. "You might ha' done worse." Not a doubt of that, I thought.

We were to have a superb breakfast, 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.

I opened the door to the company at half-past ten - making believe that it was a habit of ours to open that door - and I opened it first to Mr. Wopsle, the clerk at the church. As he passed, I pondered whether the Church would be powerful enough to shield me from the vengeance of the Howl Beast in the marshes, if I divulged to that establishment. The thought did not linger, being quickly interrupted by the bustle of Mr. Hubble, a retired Hunter, and Mrs. Hubble. I remember Mr Hubble as a tough high-shouldered stooping old man, of a leathery fragrance, with his legs extraordinarily wide apart: so that in my short days I always saw some miles of open country between them when I met him coming up the lane.

Last of all entered Uncle Pumblechook, a well-to-do corn-chandler in the nearest town, who drove his own chaise-cart, and who I was not allowed to call uncle, under the severest penalties. He was a large hard-breathing middle-aged slow man, with a mouth like a fish, dull staring eyes, and sandy hair standing upright on his head, so that he looked as if he had just been all but choked.

Among this good company I should have felt myself, even if I hadn't robbed the pantry, in a false position. Not because I was squeezed in at an acute angle of the table-cloth, with the table in my chest, and the Pumblechookian elbow in my eye, nor because I was not allowed to speak (I didn't want to speak), nor because I was regaled with the scaly tips of the drumsticks of the fowls, and with those obscure corners of pork of which the pig, when living, had had the least reason to be vain. No; I should not have minded that, if they would only have left me alone. But they wouldn't leave me alone. They seemed to think the opportunity lost, if they failed to point the conversation at me, every now and then, and stick the point into me. I might have been an unfortunate Howl Beast in a Spanish arena (when they still made sport of such a thing), I got so smartingly touched up by these moral spears.

Chapter 3, Part 3

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 that you won't leave any for it," 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, and it may be angry." It was the certainty of this fact that impelled me to offer the hint.

"Leave any for it? Who's it?" said my friend, stopping in his crunching of pie-crust.

"The Howl Beast. That you spoke of. That was hid with you."

"Oh ah!" he returned, with something like a gruff laugh. "That? Yes, yes! He don't want no wittles."

"I thought he looked as if it - he did," said I, correcting myself.

The man stopped eating, and regarded me with the keenest scrutiny and the greatest surprise.

"Looked? When?"

"Just now."

"Where?"

"Yonder," said I, pointing.

He held me by the collar and stared at me so, that I began to think his first idea about tearing out my throat had revived.

“There’s one out in the marshes as you said there would be. 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 further 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 Hunters, with their iron spike-drivers shined up by the torches carried afore, closing in round him. Hears his number called, hears himself challenged, hears the rattle of the razor’d chains, hears the orders, and is laid hands on - and there's nothin'! Why, if I see one hunting party last night - coming up in order, Damn 'em, with their tramp, tramp, clank, clank - I see a hundred. And as to firing! Why, I see the mist shake with the cannon, arter it was broad day - But this Howler;" he had said all the rest, as if he had forgotten my being there; "did you notice anything in him?"

"He had a nasty limp," said I, recalling what I hardly knew I knew.

"Not here?" exclaimed the man, striking his right leg mercilessly, with the flat of his hand.

"Yes, there!"

"Where is he?" He crammed what little food was left, into the breast of his grey 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 dirk-saw, boy."

I indicated in what direction the mist had shrouded the Howl Beast, and he looked up at it for an instant. But he was down on the rank wet grass, sawing 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 saw. 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 dirk-saw was still going.

Chapter 3, Part 2

I was soon at the Battery, and there was the 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 dirk-saw 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.

"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 an animal 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 perk up his ear and 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 wolf indeed, if at your time of life you could help to hunt a wretched beast, hunted as near death and dunghill as this poor wretched beast 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."

Chapter 3, Part 1

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, as made my way through the village, 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.

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 dykes and banks came bursting at me through the mist, as if they cried as plainly as could be, "A boy with Somebody-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, "Holloa, 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!

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 an immense figure some ways before me. Its back was towards me, and I could see that its skin was covered in ragged gray fur, torn and stretched thin over a great protruding spine. The creature looked a vile, sickly thing and hunched forward, as if it bore a great stone round its neck. I locked every muscle into place and stood exquisitely still, as I watched my first Howl Beast vanish into the opaque fog, a pronounced limp in its right leg.

My eyes rolled upward in their sockets – the night’s moon had already set. It was as the man said! Here, the Howl Beast had stood before me in the gray dawn, mocking the moonless sky with his very existence. This revelation, now planted, began to grow and sprout unthinkable questions, the answers to which had heretofore seemed settled. I wanted to fly home and relate to Joe what I had witnessed, but my fear - both of the man waiting in the sopping marshes and of Mrs. Joe waiting by her burgled pantry - had got the better of my curiosity.

Chapter 2, Part 4

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 Howl Beast who wanted my heart and liver; I was in mortal terror of my interlocutor with the ironed 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 Howl Beast calling out to me through a long low wail, as I passed the gibbet-station. 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 Beast himself rattling his chains.

As soon as the great black velvet pall outside my little window was shot with grey, 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, some brandy from a stone bottle, a meat bone with very little on it, and a beautiful round compact pork pie 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 dirk-saw from among Joe’s weapons rack. 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 2, Part 3

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 Howl Beast who was with so much difficulty restrained from imbruing its fangs in me, should yield to a constitutional impatience, or should mistake the time, and should think itself 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 eight to nine by the Dutch clock. 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 a howl followed by great guns, Joe?"

"Ah!" said Joe. "The moon's on, so there's another Howler off."

"But who's firing?" said I, quite puzzled.

"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.

"Mrs. Joe," said I, "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!" said I, looking at Joe. "Hulks! And please what's Hulks?"

"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 Howler prison-ships, right 'cross th' meshes." We always used that name for marshes, in our country.

"I wonder how they get those Howl Beasts into ships?" 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’s the Howlers, see? You don’t think them beasties appear out of the moon, do you? They are men, twisted and turned by the moonlight, and in their demon hides they rob us of our cattle and stalk and murder little boys.”

“They chain ‘em up, Pip ol’ chap,” said Joe, “so’s that way, when they turn, they can’t cause no trouble for the rest of us folks. 'Course they don' always stay put.”

“But how does a man become a Howl Beast?” I asked slowly.

“They always begin by asking questions,” snapped Mrs. Joe. “Now, you get along to bed!"

I was never allowed a candle to light me to bed, and, as I went upstairs 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 – and to becoming a Howl Beast myself. I had begun by asking questions, and I was going to rob Mrs. Joe.

Chapter 2, Part 2

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 plaister - 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 plaister, 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. 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. 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.

He was about to take a 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. 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 for warding off Howl Beasts and any other purpose one wished to ascribe to it, 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 boot-jack. 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.

Chapter 2, Part 1

My sister, Mrs. Joe Gargery, was more than twenty years older than I, and had established a great reputation with herself and the neighbours 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. An oddity it was that he earned his keep fabricating the most vicious Howl Beast weapons one could fathom for the village Hunters - Brutes of course, as Nobles preferred fancier weapons wrought of silver. I would lend what little assistance I could, roaming the fields the mornings after Brutal Hunts, as they were called, and recollecting the broken weapons.

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

“Mrs. Joe has been out a dozen times, looking for you, Pip.” Said Joe. “And she's out now, making it a baker's dozen.”

"Is she?"

"Yes, Pip, you know how she gets on moon's night" 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 barbed lance – one of Joe’s creations, discontinued due to its inadequate lethality – now worn smooth by collision with my tickled frame.

"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 he was five hundred Howlers. Don't you know what tonight is?"

"I was back before moon's rise." said I, from my stool, crying and rubbing myself. "I have only been to the churchyard."

"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 den 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 Howl Beast, the dirk-saw, the food, and the dreadful pledge I was under to commit a larceny on those sheltering premises, rose before me in the avenging coals.

Chapter 1, Part 3

In an instant he was animated, and as quickly did he seem to collapse into himself. His eyes shut, his fists clenched, and his brow formed deep furrows that channeled rivulets of his sweat, as if he required the greatest of effort to keep from turning inside out. It seemed an eternity that he remained there, attempting regain control of his faculties.

His fever not fully passed, he turned his dark attentions toward the great chain upon his leg, clawing at it with broken nails and smashing his gnarled hands against the clasp. So awful and desperate was his flailing that I could scarcely move and stood there frozen even as he came closer to my tombstone. Once more losing himself, he 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 shouted in a hideous double voice, "the question being whether you're to be let to live. You know what a dirk-saw is?"

"Yes, sir. A toothed knife for slicing Howl Beast flesh."

His eyes bulged and appeared to yellow. "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 dirk-saw." 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 weather-cock. 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 dirk-saw 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 monster hid about, in comparison with that devil I am a Angel. You know of what monster I speak. You might think them Howlers only come out with the moon, but this one has a secret way pecooliar to himself, of getting at a boy, and at his heart, and at his liver at whats’ever time he wishes. It is in wain for a boy to attempt to hide himself from this one. A boy may surround himself with silver pikes, may walk about in the brightest day, may think himself comfortable and safe, but this Howler will claw his way to him and tear him to parts. I am a-keeping him from harming you at the present moment with great difficulty. I find it wery hard to hold that devil off of your inside. Now, what do you say?"

I said that I would get him the dirk-saw, 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 more calmly, "you remember what you've undertook, and you remember that Howler, and you get home!"

"Goo-good night, sir," I faltered.

"Much of that!" said he almost to himself, glancing about him over the cold wet flat. "I’d a’rather been a frog. Or a eel!"

At the same time, he hugged his shuddering body in both his arms - clasping himself as before, 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 claws of the dead people, stretching up cautiously out of their graves, to get a twist upon his ankle and pull him 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 dead Howl Beast as a warning to the rest. The man was limping on towards this latter, as if he were the Beast 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 hidden Howl Beast, and could see no signs of it. But, now the moon was rising and I was frightened again, and ran home without stopping.

Chapter 1, Part 2

Instinctively, though foolishly, I scanned the gray skies for any trace of a silver globe. I was certain that tonight's moon was hours from rising, but it now seemed that my short life would be kept short by a simple misreading of Mrs. Joe's almanac. Thankfully, there was no moon to be seen yet, and I quickly realized that my reaction was a foolish one, as I said, for in my fear I had forgotten that Howl Beasts, mindless demons that they are, could not speak as men. Indeed, I knew well their namesake howls, which crept through the village and never failed to keep me from soft slumber on full moon nights. And so, seeing no moon and hearing intelligible - though still terrifying - words, I turned round, knowing that if I were at this moment to be united with my father and mother, it would be at the hands of a man.

He was a fearful man, all in coarse grey, with a great iron on his leg. A man with no hat, and with shoes ripped forward at the toes, 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.

"O! Don't tear out 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."

"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 bounded toward the spot, 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.

"Yes, sir," said I, "a maker of Hunt weapons in the village."

His horrid face contorted, as if he were struggling to keep his massive jaw from dislodging, as if a madness stripped from him all sense and emotion, leaving but agony and rage.

Chapter 1, Part 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 a blacksmith specializing in Brutal Hunt weaponry. 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.

Ours was the Howl Beast 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 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 the dark flat wilderness beyond the churchyard, intersected with dykes and mounds and gates, with scattered fed-upon cattle, was the marshes; and that the low leaden line beyond, was the river; and that the distant savage lair from which the wind howled, 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 black figure started up from among the graves at the side of the church porch. "Keep still, you little devil, or I'll tear out your throat!"