Chương Chương 16 · With my head full of George Barnwell, I was at first disposed to

. With my head full of George Barnwell, I was at first disposed to

believe that _I_ must have had some hand in the attack upon my sister,

or at all events that as her near relation, popularly known to be under

obligations to her, I was a more legitimate object of suspicion than

any one else. But when, in the clearer light of next morning, I began

to reconsider the matter and to hear it discussed around me on all

sides, I took another view of the case, which was more reasonable.

Joe had been at the Three Jolly Bargemen, smoking his pipe, from a

quarter after eight o’clock to a quarter before ten. While he was

there, my sister had been seen standing at the kitchen door, and had

exchanged Good Night with a farm-labourer going home. The man could not

be more particular as to the time at which he saw her (he got into

dense confusion when he tried to be), than that it must have been

before nine. When Joe went home at five minutes before ten, he found

her struck down on the floor, and promptly called in assistance. The

fire had not then burnt unusually low, nor was the snuff of the candle

very long; the candle, however, had been blown out.

Nothing had been taken away from any part of the house. Neither, beyond

the blowing out of the candle,—which stood on a table between the door

and my sister, and was behind her when she stood facing the fire and

was struck,—was there any disarrangement of the kitchen, excepting such

as she herself had made, in falling and bleeding. But, there was one

remarkable piece of evidence on the spot. She had been struck with

something blunt and heavy, on the head and spine; after the blows were

dealt, something heavy had been thrown down at her with considerable

violence, as she lay on her face. And on the ground beside her, when

Joe picked her up, was a convict’s leg-iron which had been filed

asunder.

Now, Joe, examining this iron with a smith’s eye, declared it to have

been filed asunder some time ago. The hue and cry going off to the

Hulks, and people coming thence to examine the iron, Joe’s opinion was

corroborated. They did not undertake to say when it had left the

prison-ships to which it undoubtedly had once belonged; but they

claimed to know for certain that that particular manacle had not been

worn by either of the two convicts who had escaped last night. Further,

one of those two was already retaken, and had not freed himself of his

iron.

Knowing what I knew, I set up an inference of my own here. I believed

the iron to be my convict’s iron,—the iron I had seen and heard him

filing at, on the marshes,—but my mind did not accuse him of having put

it to its latest use. For I believed one of two other persons to have

become possessed of it, and to have turned it to this cruel account.

Either Orlick, or the strange man who had shown me the file.

Now, as to Orlick; he had gone to town exactly as he told us when we

picked him up at the turnpike, he had been seen about town all the

evening, he had been in divers companies in several public-houses, and

he had come back with myself and Mr. Wopsle. There was nothing against

him, save the quarrel; and my sister had quarrelled with him, and with

everybody else about her, ten thousand times. As to the strange man; if

he had come back for his two bank-notes there could have been no

dispute about them, because my sister was fully prepared to restore

them. Besides, there had been no altercation; the assailant had come in

so silently and suddenly, that she had been felled before she could

look round.

It was horrible to think that I had provided the weapon, however

undesignedly, but I could hardly think otherwise. I suffered

unspeakable trouble while I considered and reconsidered whether I

should at last dissolve that spell of my childhood and tell Joe all the

story. For months afterwards, I every day settled the question finally

in the negative, and reopened and reargued it next morning. The

contention came, after all, to this;—the secret was such an old one

now, had so grown into me and become a part of myself, that I could not

tear it away. In addition to the dread that, having led up to so much

mischief, it would be now more likely than ever to alienate Joe from me

if he believed it, I had a further restraining dread that he would not

believe it, but would assort it with the fabulous dogs and veal-cutlets

as a monstrous invention. However, I temporized with myself, of

course—for, was I not wavering between right and wrong, when the thing

is always done?—and resolved to make a full disclosure if I should see

any such new occasion as a new chance of helping in the discovery of

the assailant.

The Constables and the Bow Street men from London—for, this happened in

the days of the extinct red-waistcoated police—were about the house for

a week or two, and did pretty much what I have heard and read of like

authorities doing in other such cases. They took up several obviously

wrong people, and they ran their heads very hard against wrong ideas,

and persisted in trying to fit the circumstances to the ideas, instead

of trying to extract ideas from the circumstances. Also, they stood

about the door of the Jolly Bargemen, with knowing and reserved looks

that filled the whole neighbourhood with admiration; and they had a

mysterious manner of taking their drink, that was almost as good as

taking the culprit. But not quite, for they never did it.

Long after these constitutional powers had dispersed, my sister lay

very ill in bed. Her sight was disturbed, so that she saw objects

multiplied, and grasped at visionary teacups and wineglasses instead of

the realities; her hearing was greatly impaired; her memory also; and

her speech was unintelligible. When, at last, she came round so far as

to be helped downstairs, it was still necessary to keep my slate always

by her, that she might indicate in writing what she could not indicate

in speech. As she was (very bad handwriting apart) a more than

indifferent speller, and as Joe was a more than indifferent reader,

extraordinary complications arose between them which I was always

called in to solve. The administration of mutton instead of medicine,

the substitution of Tea for Joe, and the baker for bacon, were among

the mildest of my own mistakes.

However, her temper was greatly improved, and she was patient. A

tremulous uncertainty of the action of all her limbs soon became a part

of her regular state, and afterwards, at intervals of two or three

months, she would often put her hands to her head, and would then

remain for about a week at a time in some gloomy aberration of mind. We

were at a loss to find a suitable attendant for her, until a

circumstance happened conveniently to relieve us. Mr. Wopsle’s

great-aunt conquered a confirmed habit of living into which she had

fallen, and Biddy became a part of our establishment.

It may have been about a month after my sister’s reappearance in the

kitchen, when Biddy came to us with a small speckled box containing the

whole of her worldly effects, and became a blessing to the household.

Above all, she was a blessing to Joe, for the dear old fellow was sadly

cut up by the constant contemplation of the wreck of his wife, and had

been accustomed, while attending on her of an evening, to turn to me

every now and then and say, with his blue eyes moistened, “Such a fine

figure of a woman as she once were, Pip!” Biddy instantly taking the

cleverest charge of her as though she had studied her from infancy; Joe

became able in some sort to appreciate the greater quiet of his life,

and to get down to the Jolly Bargemen now and then for a change that

did him good. It was characteristic of the police people that they had

all more or less suspected poor Joe (though he never knew it), and that

they had to a man concurred in regarding him as one of the deepest

spirits they had ever encountered.

Biddy’s first triumph in her new office, was to solve a difficulty that

had completely vanquished me. I had tried hard at it, but had made

nothing of it. Thus it was:—

Again and again and again, my sister had traced upon the slate, a

character that looked like a curious T, and then with the utmost

eagerness had called our attention to it as something she particularly

wanted. I had in vain tried everything producible that began with a T,

from tar to toast and tub. At length it had come into my head that the

sign looked like a hammer, and on my lustily calling that word in my

sister’s ear, she had begun to hammer on the table and had expressed a

qualified assent. Thereupon, I had brought in all our hammers, one

after another, but without avail. Then I bethought me of a crutch, the

shape being much the same, and I borrowed one in the village, and

displayed it to my sister with considerable confidence. But she shook

her head to that extent when she was shown it, that we were terrified

lest in her weak and shattered state she should dislocate her neck.

When my sister found that Biddy was very quick to understand her, this

mysterious sign reappeared on the slate. Biddy looked thoughtfully at

it, heard my explanation, looked thoughtfully at my sister, looked

thoughtfully at Joe (who was always represented on the slate by his

initial letter), and ran into the forge, followed by Joe and me.

“Why, of course!” cried Biddy, with an exultant face. “Don’t you see?

It’s _him_!”

Orlick, without a doubt! She had lost his name, and could only signify

him by his hammer. We told him why we wanted him to come into the

kitchen, and he slowly laid down his hammer, wiped his brow with his

arm, took another wipe at it with his apron, and came slouching out,

with a curious loose vagabond bend in the knees that strongly

distinguished him.

I confess that I expected to see my sister denounce him, and that I was

disappointed by the different result. She manifested the greatest

anxiety to be on good terms with him, was evidently much pleased by his

being at length produced, and motioned that she would have him given

something to drink. She watched his countenance as if she were

particularly wishful to be assured that he took kindly to his

reception, she showed every possible desire to conciliate him, and

there was an air of humble propitiation in all she did, such as I have

seen pervade the bearing of a child towards a hard master. After that

day, a day rarely passed without her drawing the hammer on her slate,

and without Orlick’s slouching in and standing doggedly before her, as

if he knew no more than I did what to make of it.