Firstno101.Pdf (12.32Mb)
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
" THE STORY OF OUR LIVES FROM YEAR TO YEAR,"—SHAKESPEAHE. ALL THE YEAR ROUND A WEEKLY JOURNAL. CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED HOUSEHOLD WORDS. N°- 101.] SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 1861, [PXIICE Id. bell with an unsteady hand, I turned my back GEEAT EXPECTATIONS. upon the gate, while 1 tried to get my breath BY CHAKLES DICKENS. and keep the beating of my heart moderately ^ quiet. I heard the side door open and steps come across the court-yard; but I pretended not CHAPTER XXIX. to hear, even wlien the gate swung on its rusty BETIMES in the morning I was np and out. It hinges. was too early yet to go to Miss Havisham's, Being at last touched on the shoulder, I so I loitered into the country on Miss Havi- started and turned. I started much more na sham's side of town—which was not Joe's side ; turally tlien, to find myself confronted by a I conld go there to-morrow—thinking about my man in a sober grey dress. The last man I patroness, and painting brilliant pictures of her should have expected to see in that place of plans for me. porter at Miss llavisham's door. She had adopted Estella, she had as good as "Orlick!" adopted me, and it could not fail to be her in "Ah, young master, there's more changes tention to briug us together. She reserved it than yours. But come in, come in. It's op for me to restore the desolate house, admit the posed to my orders to hold the gate open.'* sunshine into the dark rooms, set the clocks I entered and he swung it, and locked it, and a going and the cold hearths a blazing, tear took the key out. " Yes!" said he, facing round, down the cobwebs, destroy tlie vermin—in short, after doggealy preceding me a few steps towards do all the shining deeds of the young Knight of the house. "Here I am!" romance, and marry the Princess. I had stopped " How did you come here ?'' to look at the house as I passed; and its seared " I come here," he retorted, "on ray legs. 1 red brick walls, blocked windows, and strong had my box brought alongside me in a barrow." green ivy clasping even the stacks of chimneys "Are you here for good?'^ with its twigs and tendons, as if with sinewy " I ain't here for harm, young master, I old arms, had made up a rich attractive mystery, suppose ?" of which I was the liero, Estella was the in I was not so sure of that. I had leisure to spiration of it, and the heart of it, of course. entertain the retort in my mind, while he slowly But, though she had taken such strong possession lifted his heavy glance from the pavement, up of me, though my fancy and my hope were so set my legs and arms, to my face. upon her, though her influence on my boyish " Then you have left the forge ?" I said. life and character had ^been all-powerful, I did " Do this look like a forge ?" replied Orlick, not, even that romantic morning, invest her sending his glance all round him with an air of with any attributes save those she possessed. injury. " Now, do it look like it ?" I mention this in this place, of a fixed pur I asked him how long he had left Gargery's pose, because it is the clue by which I am forsre ? to be followed into my poor labyrinth. Ac " One day is so like another here," he replied, cording to my experience, the conventional no "that I don't know without casting it up. tion of a lover cannot be always true. The However, I come here some time since you unqualified truth is, that when I loved Es left." tella with the love of a man, I loved her be "I could have told you that, Orlick." cause I found her irresistible. Once for all; I " Ah!" said he, dryly. " But then you've got knew to my sorrow, often and often, if not al to be a scholar." ways, that I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against Bv this time we had come to the house, where happiness, against all discouragement that could I found his room to be one just within the side be. Once for all; I loved her none the less door, with a little window in it looking on the because I knew it, and it had no more influence court-yard. In its small proportions, it was not in restraining me, than if I had devoutly be unlike the kind of place usually assigned to a lieved her to be human perfection. gate-porter in Paris. Certain keys were hang ing on the wall, to which he now added the gate I so shaped out my walk as to arrive at the key; and his patchwork-covered bed was in a little gate at my old time. When I had rung at the inner division or recess. The whole had a slo- VOL V, 101 ^"" JIL Lll JUIlUIIL,.5raSB9T5W 2 [March 30, ISfil.] ALL THE YEAR KOUND. [Conducted by venly confined and sleepy look, like a cage for a a loss, "that you were so kind as to wish me to human dormouse: while he, looming dark and come and see you, and I came directly." heavy in the shadow of a corner by the \vindow, "Well?" looked like the human donnouse for whom it The lady whom I had never seen before, was fitted up—as indeed he was. lifted up her eyes and looked archly at me, and "I never saw this room before," I remarked; then T saw that the eyes were Estella's eyes. "but there used to be no Porter here." But she was so much changed, was so much "No," said he; "not till it got about that more beautiful, so much more womanly, in all there was no protection on the premises, and it things winning admiration had made such come to be considered dangerous, with convicts wonderful advance, that I seemed to have made and Tag and Bag and Bobtail going up and none. I fancied, as I looked at her, that I slipped down. And then I was recommended to the place hopelessly back into the coarse and common as a man who could give another man as good boy again. O the sense of distance and dis as he brought, and I took it. It's easier than parity that came upon me, and the inaccessibility bellowsing and hammering.—That's loaded, that that came about her ! She gave me her hand. I stammered some My eye had been caught by a gun with a thing about the pleasure I felt in seeing her brass-bound stock over the chimney-piece, and again, and about my having looked forward to it his eye had followed mine. for a long, long time. "Well," said I, not desirous of more con "Do you find her much changed, Pip?" asked versation, "shall I go up to Miss Havisham?" Miss Havisham with her greedy look, and strik "Burn me, if I know!" he retorted, first ing her stick upon a chair that stood between stretching himself and then shaking himself; them, as a sign to me to sit down there. " my orders ends here, young master. I give this "When I came in, Miss Havisham, I thought here bell a rap with this liere hammer, and you there was nothing of Estella in the face or figure; go on along the passage till you meet some- but now it all settles down so curiously into the .7 old " "I am expected, I believe ?" "What? You are not going to say, into the "Burn me twice over, if I can say!" said old Estella?" Miss Havisham interrupted. "She he. was proud and insulting and you wanted to go Upon that, I turned down the long passage away from her. Don't you remember ?" which I had first trodden in my thick boots, and I said confusedly that that was long ago, and he made his bell sound. At the end of the that I knew no better then, and the like. Estella passage, while the bell was still reverberating, smiled with perfect composure, and said she had I found Sarah Pocket: who appeared to have no doubt of my having been quite right, and of now become constitutionally green and yellow her having been very disagreeable. bv reason of me. "Is he changed?" Miss Havisham asked ^ " Oh 1" said she. "You, is it, Mr. Pip?" her. "It is, Miss Pocket. I am glad to tell you "Very much," said Estella, looking at me. that Mr. Pocket and family are all well." "Less coarse and common?" said Miss Havi " Are they any vnser ?" said Sarah, with a sham, playing with Estella's hair. dismal shake of the head; " they had better be Estella laughed, and looked at the shoe in her wiser, than well. Ah, Matthew, Matthew! hand, and laughed again, and looked at me, and You know your way, sir ?" put the shoe down. She treated me as a boy Tolerably, for I had gone up the staircase in still, but she lured me on. the dark, many a time. I ascended it now, in We sat in the dreamy room among the old lighter boots than of yore, and tapped in my old strange influences which had so wrought upon "wajr at the door of Miss Havisham's room.