It was a very dark night, and when it was all over, I set out for home and the forge. Doubtless Mrs. Joe would accuse me of putting her through unspeakable anguish for my carelessness. Beyond town, I found a heavy mist out, and it fell wet and thick. The turnpike lamp was a blur, quite out of the lamp's usual place apparently, and its rays looked solid substance on the fog. I was noticing this, and thinking how the mist rose with a change of wind from a certain quarter of our marshes, when I came upon a man, slouching under the lee of the turnpike house.
"Halloa!" I said, stopping. "Orlick, there?"
"Ah!" he answered, slouching out. "I was standing by, a minute, on the chance of company."
"You are late," I remarked.
Orlick not unnaturally answered, "Well? And you're late."
"I had," I paused and selected my next words carefully, "I had indulged, Mr. Orlick, in an intellectual evening up-town."
Old Orlick growled, as if he had nothing to say about that, and we went on together. I asked him presently whether he had been spent his half-holiday up and down town?
"Yes," said he, "all of it. I come in behind yourself. I didn't see you, but I must have been pretty close behind you. By-the-bye, the guns gone again last night."
"At the Hulks?" said I.
"Ay! Some of the birds flown from the cages."
The subject was a suggestive one to me, and I thought about it in silence. Orlick, with his hands in his pockets, slouched heavily at my side. It was still a very grey, very wet, very muddy, and so we splashed along.
Thus, we came to the village, which I was surprised to find - it being only 9 o'clock - in a state of commotion. Presently, I saw Mr. Wopsle running straight toward me.
"There's something wrong," said he, without stopping, "up at your place, Pip. Run all!"
"What is it?" I asked, keeping up with him. So did Orlick, at my side.
"I can't quite understand. The house seems to have been violently entered when Joe Gargery was out. Supposed by Howlers. Somebody has been attacked and hurt."
We were running too fast to admit of more being said, and we made no stop until we got into our kitchen. It was full of people; the whole village was there, or in the yard; and there was a surgeon, and there was Joe, and there was a group of women, all on the floor in the midst of the kitchen. The unemployed bystanders drew back when they saw me, and so I became aware of my sister - lying against the wall without sense or movement in puddle of drying blood.
She had been slashed all over her body, and one could scarcely find any portion of her that did not bear some mark of the attack. It had further appeared from the stain above her that she had been hurled into the walled and sustained a tremendous blow on the back of the head - destined never to be on the Ram-page again, while she was the wife of Joe.
