Great Expectations by Charles Dickens - Chapter 53

hardly broad enough to hold the red large moon. In a few minutes she had ascended out of that clear field. In among the piled mountains of cloud. There was a melancholy wind, and the marshes were very dismal. A stranger would have found them insupportable, and even to me they were so oppressive that I hesitated, half inclined to go back. But I knew them well, and could have found my way on a far darker night, and had no excuse

for returning being there. So, having come there against my inclination, I went on against it. The direction that I took was not that in which my old home lay, nor that in which we had pursued the convicts. My back was turned towards the distant hulks as I walked on, and though I could see the old lights away on the spits of sand, I saw them over my shoulder.

I knew the lime kiln as well as I knew the old battery, but they were miles apart, so that if a light had been burning at each point that night, there would have been a long strip of the blank horizon between the two bright specks. At first I had to shut some gates after me, and now and then to stand still while the cattle that were lying in the banked up pathway arose and blundered down among the

grass and reeds. But after a little while, while I seemed to have the whole flats to myself, it was another half hour before I drew near to the kiln. The line was burning with a sluggish, stifling smell, but the fires were made up and left, and no workmen were visible. Hard by was a small stone quarry. It lay directly in my way and had been worked that day, as I saw by the tools and barrows that were

lying about coming up again to the marsh level. Out of this excavation for the rude path lay through it. I saw a light in the old sluice house. I quickened my pace and knocked at the door with my hand,

waiting for some reply. I looked about me, noticing how the sluice was abandoned and broken, and how the house of wood with a tiled roof would not be proof against the weather much longer if it were so even now, and how the mud and ooze were coated with lime, and how the choking vapor of the kiln crept in a ghostly way towards me. Still there was no answer, and I knocked again. No answer still, and I tried to latch. It rose under my hand and the door yielded.

Looking in I saw a lighted candle on a table, a bench, and a mattress on a truckle bedstead. As there was a loft above. I called is any one here? But no voice answered. Then I looked at my watch, and, finding that it was past nine, called again is there any one here? There being still no answer, I went out at the door, irresolute what to do. It was

beginning to rain fast. Seeing nothing save what I had seen already, I turned back into the house and stood just within the shelter of the doorway, looking out into the night. While I was considering that some one must have been there lately. I must soon be coming back, or the candle would not be burning, it came into my head to look if the wick were long. I turned round to do so, and had taken up the candle in my hand when it was extinguished by some

violent shock. And the next thing I comprehended was that I had been caught in a strong running noose thrown over my head from behind. Now, said a suppressed voice, with an oath. I've got you. What is this? I cried, struggling, who is it? Help? Help, Help? Not only were my arms pulled close to my sides, but the pressure on my bad arm caused me exquisite pain. Sometimes a strong man's hand, sometimes a strong man's breast, was set against

my mouth to deaden my cries. And with a hot breath always close to me, I struggled ineffectually in the dark while I was fastened tight to the wall. And now said the suppressed voice, with another oath, Call out again, and I'll make short work of you. Faint and sick with the pain of my injured arm, bewildered by the suppor, and yet conscious how easily this threat could be put in execution. I desisted and tried to ease my armward ever so little, but it was bound too tight for that.

I felt as if, having been burnt before, it was now being broiled. The sudden exclusion of the night, and the substitution of black darkness in its place, warned me that the man had closed a shutter. After groping about for a little, he found the flint and steel he wanted,

and began to strike a light. I strained my sight upon the sparks that fell among the tinder, and upon which he breathed, and breathed, match in hand, but I could only see his lips and the blue point of the match, even those, but fitfully the tinder was damp. No wonder there, and one after another the sparks died out. The man was in no hurry and struck again with

the flint and steel. As the sparks fell thick and bright about him, I could see his hands and touches of his face, and could make out that he was seated and bending over the table, but nothing more. Presently I saw his blue lips again breathing on the tinder, and then a flare of light flashed up and showed me Porlick, whom I had looked for. I don't know, I had not looked for him. Seeing him, I felt that I was in a dangerous strait, indeed, and I

kept my eyes upon him. He lighted the candle from the flaring match with great deliberation, and dropped the match and trotted out. Then he put the candle away from him on the table so that he could see me, and sat with his arms folded on the table and looked at me. I made out that I was fastened to a stout perpendicular ladder a few inches from the wall, a fixture there the means of ascent to the loft above. Now, said he, when we had surveyed one another for some time,

I've got you unbind me. Let me go, ah, he returned. I'll let you go. I'll let you go to the moon. I'll let you go to the stars, all in good time. Why have you lured me here, don't you know? Said he, with a deadly look. Why have you set upon me in the dark? Because I mean to do it all myself. One keeps a secret better than two. Oh, you enemy,

you enemy. His enjoyment of the spectacle I furnished as he sat with his arms folded on the table, shaking his head at me and hugging himself, had a malignity in it that made me tremble as I watched him in silence. He put his hand into the corner at his side and took up a gun with a brass bound stock. Do you know this, said he, making as if he would take aim at me. Do you know where you saw it? A four speak wolf? Yes, I answered, You cost me that place you did speak? What else

could I do? You did that, and that would be enough without more? How dared you to come betwixt me and a young woman I liked? When? Did I? When didn't you? It was you, as always give old orlick a bad name to her. You gave it to yourself. You gained it for yourself. I could have done you no harm if you had done yourself none. You're a liar, and you'll take any pains and spend any money to drive me out of this country, will you? Said he, repeating my words to Biddy in the last interview I

had with her. Now I'll tell you a piece of information. It was never so well worth your while to get me out of this country as it is tonight. Ah, if it was all your money twenty times told to the last brass farthing. As he shook his heavy hand at me, with his mouth snarling like a tiger's, I felt that it was true. What are you going to do to me? I'm a goin, said he, bringing his fist down upon the table with a heavy blow, and rising as the blow fell to give it greater force.

I'm a going to have your life. He leaned forward, staring at me, slowly, unclenched his hand and drew it across his mouth, as if his mouth watered for me, and sat down again. You was always in old orlex ways, ever since you was a child. You goes out of his way. This present night, he'll have no more on you. You're dead. I felt that I had come to the brink of my grave. For a moment I looked wildly round my trap for any chance of escape, but there was none more than that, said he, holding his arms

on the table again. I won't have a rag of you. I won't have a bone of you left on earth. I'll put your body in the kiln. I'd carry two such to it on my shoulders, and let people suppose what they may of you. They shall never know nothing. My mind, with inconceivable rapidity, followed out all the consequences of such a death. Estella's father would believe I had

deserted him, would be taken, would die accusing me. Even Herbert would doubt me when he compared the letter I had left for him with the fact that I'd called at Miss Havisham's gate for only a moment. Joe and Biddy would never know how sorry I had been that night. None would ever know what I had suffered, how true I had meant to be, what an agony I had passed through. The death close before me was terrible. But far more terrible than death was the dread of being

misremembered after death. And so quick were my thoughts that I saw myself despised by unborn generations as Stella's children and their children. While the wretch's words were yet on his lips, now Wolf said he afore, I kill you like any other beast, which is what I mean to do, and what I have tied you up for. I'll have a good look at you, and have a good goad

at you, oh, you enemy. It had passed through my thoughts to cry out for help again, though few could know better than I the solitary nature of the spot and the hopelessness of aid. But as he sat gloating over me, I was supported by a scornful detestation of him that sealed my lips. Above all things. I resolved that I would not entreat him, and that I would die,

making some last poor resistance to him. Softened as my thoughts of all the rest of men were in that dire extremity, humbly beseeching pardon as I did of Heaven, melt it at heart as I was by the thought that I had taken no farewell, and never now could take farewell of those who were dear to me, or could explain myself to them, or ask for their compassion on my miserable errors. Still, if I could have killed him, even in dying, I would have done it. He had

been drinking, and his eyes were red and bloodshot. Around his neck was slung a tinged bottle, as I had often seen his meat and drink slung about him in other days. He brought the bottle to his lips and took a fiery drink from it. And I smelt the strong spirits that I saw flash into his face, wolf said, he folding his arms again, Old or Alexa, going to tell you something. It was you, as did for your

shrewd sister. Again, my mind, with its former inconceivable rapidity, had exhausted the whole subject of the attack upon my sister, her illness and her before his slow and hesitating speech had formed these words. It was you, villain, said I I tell you it was your doing. I tell you it was done through you. He retorted, catching up the gun and making a blow with the stock at the vacant air between us. I come upon her from behind, as they come upon you to night. I give it her.

I had left her for dead, And if there had been a lime kiln as nigh her as there is now nigh you, she shouldn't have come to life again. But it warn't Old orlick As did it. It was you. You was favored, and he was bullied and beat Old or like bullied and beat eh. Now you pays for it. You done it. Now you pays for it. He drank again and became more ferocious. I saw by his tilting of the bottle that there was no great quantity left

in it. I distinctly understood that he was working himself up with its contents to make an end of me. I knew that every drop it held was a drop of my life. I knew that when I was changed into a part of the vapor that crept towards me but a little while before, like my own warning ghost, he would do as he had done in my sister's case, make all haste to the town and be seen slouching

about there, drinking at the ale houses. My rapid mind pursued him to the town, made a picture of the street with him in it, and contrasted its lights and life with the lonely marsh and the white vapor creeping over it into which I should have dissolved. It was not only that I could have summed up years and years and years while he said a dozen words, but that what he did say presented pictures to me, and

not mere words. In the excited and exalted state of my brain, I could not think of a place without seeing it, or of persons without seeing the them. It is impossible to overstate the vividness of these images. And yet I was so intent all the time upon him himself, who would not be intent on the tiger crouching to spring? That I knew of the slightest action of his fingers. When he had drunk the second time, he rose from the bench on which he sat, and pushed the table aside.

Then he took up the candle, and shading it with his murderous hand so as to throw its light on me, stood before me, looking at me and enjoying the sight. Wulf, I'll tell you something more. It was old or like. As you tumbled over on your stairs that night, I saw the staircase with its extinguished lamps. I saw the shadows of the heavy stair rails thrown by the watchman's lantern on the wall. I saw the rooms that I

was never to see again. Here a door half open, there a door closed, all the articles of furniture around, And why was old orlick there? I'll tell you something more, Wolf, You and her have pretty well hunted me out of this country, so far as getting an easy living in it goes. And I've took up with new companions and new masters, some of them, writes my letters. When I once some wrote, do you mind? Writes my letters wolf, They writes fifty hands. They're not like sneaking you, as

writes but one. I've a firm mind and a firm will to have your life. Since she was down here at your sister's burying, I hadn't seen a way to get you safe, And I've looked out of you to know your ins and outs. Four says old Orlick to himself somehow or another. I'll have him what when it

looks for you? I find your uncle, proves say mill pond bank, and Chink's basin, and the old green copper rope walk, all so clear and plain, provis in his rooms, the signal whose use was over, Pretty Clara, the good motherly woman, Old Bill Barley on his back, all drifting by as on the swift stream of my life, fast

running out to see you with an uncle too. Why I knowed you at Gargrey's when you was so small a wolf, that I could have took your weason betwixt this finger and thumb and chucked you away dead, as I'd thoughts of doin odd times. When I see you loitering amongst the pollards on a Sunday, and you hadn't

found no uncles, then, no, not you. But when Old Orleck come for to hear that your uncle Provis had most like wore the leg iron, what Old Orleck had picked up filed asunder on these marshes ever so many year ago, and what he kept by him till he dropped your sister with it like a bullet, as he means to drop you. Hey, when he come for to hear that, Hey, in his savage taunting, he flared the candle so close at me that I turned my face

aside to save it from the flame. Ah, he cried, laughing after doing it again, the burnt child dreads the fire. Old Orleck knowed you was burnt. Old Orleck knowed you was smuggling your uncle Provis away. Old Orleck's a match for you, and knowed you'd come tonight. Now I'll tell you something more, wolf, and this ends it. There's them that's as good a match for your uncle Provis as Old Orleck has been for you. Let him wear them

when he's lost his nevy. Let him wear them when no man can't find a rag of his dear relations clothes, nor yet a bone of his body. There's them that can't and that won't have Magwitch. Yes, I know the name alive and the same land with them, and that's had such sure information of him when he was alive in another land, as that he couldn't and shouldn't leave

it unbeknown and put them in danger. Perhaps it's them that writes fifty hands, and that's not like sneaking you as rights, but one where compysin Magwitch and the gallows. He flared the candle at me again, smoking my face and hair, and for an instant blinding me, and turned his powerful back as he replaced the light on the table. I had thought a prayer, and had been with Joe and Biddy and Herbert before he turned towards me again. There was a clear space of a few feet between

the table and the opposite wall. Within this space he now slouched backwards and forwards. His great strength seemed to sit stronger upon him than ever before. As he did this, with his hands hanging loose and heavy at his sides, and with his eyes scowling at me, I had no grain of hope left wild as my inward hurry was, and wonderful the force of the pictures that rushed by

me instead of thoughts. I could yet clearly understand that unless he had resolved that I was within a few moments of surely perishing out of all human knowledge, he would never have told me what he had told of. A sudden he stopped, took the cork out of his bottle, and tossed it away. Light as it was, I heard it fall like a plummet. He swallowed, slowly, tilting up the bottle by little and little, and now he looked at me no more. The last few drops of liquor

he poured into the palm of his hand and licked up. Then, with a sudden hurry of violence, and swearing horribly, he threw the bottle from him and stooped, and I saw in his hand a stone hammer with a long, heavy handle. The resolution I had made did not desert me, for without uttering one vain word of appeal to him, I shouted out with all my might, and struggled with all

my might. It was only my head and my legs that I could move, But to that extent I struggled with all the force until then unknown that was within me. In the same instant, I heard responsive shouts, saw figures and a gleam of light dashing at the door, heard voices and tumult, and saw orlick emerge from a struggle of men, as if it were tumbling water, clear the table at a leap, and fly out into the night. After a blank, I found that I was lying unbound on the floor in the same place, with my head

on some one's knee. My eyes were fixed on the ladder against the wall. When I came to myself had opened on it before my mind saw it, And thus, as I recovered consciousness, I knew that I was in the place where I had lost it two. Indifferent at first even to look round and ascertain who supported me. I was lying looking at the ladder when there came between me and it a face, the face of Trab's boy. I think he's all right, said TRAbs Boy in a

sober voice. But ain't he just pale? Though at these words, the face of him who supported me looked over into mine, and I saw my supporter to be Herbert Great Heaven softly, said Herbert gently, handle don't be too eager, and our old comrade star Top I cried, as he too bent over me. Remember what he is going to assist us in, said Herbert, and be calm. The illusion made me spring up, though I dropped again from the pain in my arm. The time has not gone by, Herbert, has it? What

night is to night? How long have I been here? I had a strange and strong misgiving that I had been lying there a long time, a day and a night, two days and nights more. The time has not gone by. It is still Monday night, thank God. And you have all tomorrow Tuesday to rest in, said Herbert. But you can't help groaning, my dear handel. What hurt have you got? Can you stand? Yes? Yes, said I. I can walk. I have no hurt. But in this throbbing arm. They

laid it bare and did what they could. It was violently swollen and inflamed, and I could scarcely endure to have it touched. But they tore up their handkerchiefs to make fresh bandages, and carefully replaced it in the sling until we could get to the town and obtain some cooling lotion to put upon it. In a little while, we had shut the door of the dark and empty sluice house and were passing through the quarry on our

way back TRAbs. Boy Trab's overgrown young man now went before us with a lantern, which was the light I had seen come in at the door. But the moon was a good two hours higher than when I had last seen the sky, and the night, though rainy, was much lighter. The white vapor of the kiln was passing from us as we went by, and as I had

thought a prayer before, I thought a thanksgiving. Now entreating Herbert to tell me how he had come to my rescue, which at first he had flatly refused to do, but had insisted on my remaining quiet, I learned that I had, in my hurry dropped the letter open in our chambers, where he coming home to bring with him Star Top, whom he had met in the street on his way to me, found it very soon after I was gone.

Its tone made him uneasy, and the more so because of the inconsistency between it and the hasty letter I had left for him, his uneasiness increasing. Instead of subsiding, after a quarter of an hour's consideration, he set off for the coach office with Startop, who volunteered his company to make inquiry when the next coach went down, Finding that the afternoon coach was gone, and, finding that his uneasiness grew into positive alarm as obstacles came in his way,

he resolved to follow in a post chaise. So he and Startop arrived at the Blue Boar, fully expecting there to find me or tidings of me, but finding neither, went on to miss Havisham's, where they lost me. Hereupon they went back to the hotel, doubtless at about the time when I was hearing the popular local version of my own story, to refresh themselves and get someone to

guide them out upon the marshes. Among the loungers under the Boer's archway happened to be traps Boy, true to his ancient habit of happening to be everywhere where he had no business, And Trab's Boy had seen me passing from his Havishams in the direction of my dining place. Thus Trab's Boy became their guide, and with him they went out to the Sluice House, though by the town

way to the marshes, which I had avoided. Now. As they went along, Herbert reflected that I might, after all have been brought there on some genuine and serviceable errand, tending to provis his safety, and bethinking himself that in that case interruption must be mischievous, left his guide and startop on the edge of the quarry, and went on by himself, and stole round the house two or three times, endeavoring to ascertain whether all was right within, as he

could hear nothing but indistinct sounds of one deep, rough voice. This was while my mind was so busy. He even at last began to doubt whether I was there, when suddenly I cried out loudly, and he answered the criesushin, closely followed by the other two. When I told Herbert what had passed within the house, he was for our immediately going before a magistrate in the town, late at

night as it was, and getting out a warrant. But I had already considered that such a course, by detaining us there or binding us to come back, might be fatal to provis There was no gainsaying this difficulty, and we relinquished all thoughts of pursuing orlick at that time.

For the present, Under the circumstances, we deemed it prudent to make rather light of the matter to Trap's boy, who I am convinced would have been much affected by disappointment if he had known that his intervention saved me from the lime kiln. Not that traps Boy was of a malignant nature, but that he had too much spare of vivacity, and that it was in his constitution to

want variety and excitement at anybody's expense. When we parted, I presented him with two guineas which seemed to meet his views, and told him that I was sorry ever to have had an ill opinion of him, which made no impression on him at all. Wednesday, being so close upon us, we determined to go back to London that night three in the post jaise the rather as we should then be clear away before the night's adventure began

to be talked of. Herbert got a large bottle of stuff from my arm, and by dint of having this stuff dropped over it all the night through, I was just able to bear its pain. On the journey. It was daylight when we reached the temple, and I went at once to bed and lay in bed all day. My terror as I lay there, of falling ill and being unfitted for tomorrow was so besetting that I wonder

it did not disable me of itself. It would have done so pretty surely, in conjunction with the mental wear and tear I had suffered, but for the unnatural strain upon me that tomorrow was so anxiously looked forward to, charged with such consequences, its results so impenetrably hidden though so near, No precaution could have been more obvious than our refraining from communication with him that day. Yet this

again increased my restlessness. I started at every footstep and every sound, believing that he was discovered and taken, and this was the messenger to tell me. So I persuaded myself that I knew he was taken, that there was something more upon my mind than a fear or a presentiment, that the fact had occurred, and I had a mysterious knowledge of it. As the days wore on and no ill news came, as the day closed in and darkness fell, my overshadowing dread of being disabled by illness before tomorrow

morning altogether mastered me. My burning arm throbbed and my burning head throbbed, and I fancied I was beginning to wander. I counted up to high numbers to make sure of myself and repeated passages that I knew in prose and verse. It happened sometimes that, in the mere escape of a fatigued mind, I dozed for some moments or forgot. Then I would say to myself with a start, Now it has come, and I am turning delirious. They kept me very quiet all day, and kept my arm constantly dressed,

and gave me cooling drinks. Whenever I fell asleep, I awoke with the notion I had had in the sluice house that a long time had elapsed and the opportunity to save him was gone. About midnight I got out of bed and went to Herbert with a conviction that I had been asleep for four and twenty hours and that Wednesday was past. It was the last self exhausting effort of my fretfulness, for after that I slept soundly. Wednesday morning was dawning. When I looked out of window,

the winking lights upon the bridges were already pale. The coming sun was like a marsh of fire on the horizon. The river, still dark and mysterious, was spanned by bridges that were turning coldly gray, with here and there at top a warm touch from the burning in the sky. As I looked along the clustered roofs, with church towers and spires shooting into the unusually clear air, the sun rose up, and a veil seemed to be drawn from the river, and millions of sparkles burst out upon its waters.

From me, too, a veil seemed to be drawn, and I felt strong and well. Herbert lay asleep in his bed, and our old fellow student lay asleep on the sofa. I could not dress myself without help, but I made up the fire, which was still burning, and got some coffee ready for them. In good time they two started up strong and well, and we admitted the sharp morning air at the windows and looked at the tide that

was still flowing towards us. When it turns at nine o'clock, said Herbert, cheerfully, look out for us, and stand ready you over there at mill pond bank. End of chapter