Chương Chương 2 · My sister, Mrs. Joe Gargery, was more than twenty years older than I,

. 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.

My sister, Mrs. Joe, with black hair and eyes, had such a prevailing

redness of skin that I sometimes used to wonder whether it was possible

she washed herself with a nutmeg-grater instead of soap. She was tall

and bony, and almost always wore a coarse apron, fastened over her

figure behind with two loops, and having a square impregnable bib in

front, that was stuck full of pins and needles. She made it a powerful

merit in herself, and a strong reproach against Joe, that she wore this

apron so much. Though I really see no reason why she should have worn

it at all; or why, if she did wear it at all, she should not have taken

it off, every day of her life.

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. Joe and I being fellow-sufferers, and

having confidences as such, Joe imparted a confidence to me, the moment

I raised the latch of the door and peeped in at him opposite to it,

sitting in the chimney corner.

“Mrs. Joe has been out a dozen times, looking for you, Pip. And she’s

out now, making it a baker’s dozen.”

“Is she?”

“Yes, Pip,” 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 wax-ended piece of cane, worn smooth by collision with my tickled

frame.

“She sot down,” said Joe, “and she got up, and she made a grab at

Tickler, and she Ram-paged out. That’s what she did,” said Joe, slowly

clearing the fire between the lower bars with the poker, and looking at

it; “she Ram-paged out, Pip.”

“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 you

was fifty Pips, and he was five hundred Gargerys.”

“I have only been to the churchyard,” said I, from my stool, crying and

rubbing myself.

“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 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 young man, the file, the food, and the dreadful pledge I was

under to commit a larceny on those sheltering premises, rose before me

in the avenging coals.

“Hah!” said Mrs. Joe, restoring Tickler to his station. “Churchyard,

indeed! You may well say churchyard, you two.” One of us, by the by,

had not said it at all. “You’ll drive _me_ to the churchyard betwixt

you, one of these days, and O, a pr-r-recious pair you’d be without

me!”

As she applied herself to set the tea-things, Joe peeped down at me

over his leg, as if he were mentally casting me and himself up, and

calculating what kind of pair we practically should make, under the

grievous circumstances foreshadowed. After that, he sat feeling his

right-side flaxen curls and whisker, and following Mrs. Joe about with

his blue eyes, as his manner always was at squally times.

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 plaster,—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 plaster, 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, and his ally the still more dreadful young man. 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.

And it was made the more difficult by the unconscious Joe. In our

already-mentioned freemasonry as fellow-sufferers, and in his

good-natured companionship with me, it was our evening habit to compare

the way we bit through our slices, by silently holding them up to each

other’s admiration now and then,—which stimulated us to new exertions.

To-night, Joe several times invited me, by the display of his fast

diminishing slice, to enter upon our usual friendly competition; but he

found me, each time, with my yellow mug of tea on one knee, and my

untouched bread and butter on the other. 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.

Joe was evidently made uncomfortable by what he supposed to be my loss

of appetite, and took a thoughtful bite out of his slice, which he

didn’t seem to enjoy. He turned it about in his mouth much longer than

usual, pondering over it a good deal, and after all gulped it down like

a pill. He was about to take another 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.”

“What’s the matter now?” repeated my sister, more sharply than before.

“If you can cough any trifle on it up, Pip, I’d recommend you to do

it,” said Joe, all aghast. “Manners is manners, but still your elth’s

your elth.”

By this time, my sister was quite desperate, so she pounced on Joe,

and, taking him by the two whiskers, knocked his head for a little

while against the wall behind him, while I sat in the corner, looking

guiltily on.

“Now, perhaps you’ll mention what’s the matter,” said my sister, out of

breath, “you staring great stuck pig.”

Joe looked at her in a helpless way, then took a helpless bite, and

looked at me again.

“You know, Pip,” said Joe, solemnly, with his last bite in his cheek,

and speaking in a confidential voice, as if we two were quite alone,

“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, 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 bootjack. 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.

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

young man who was with so much difficulty restrained from imbruing his

hands in me should yield to a constitutional impatience, or should

mistake the time, and should think himself 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 seven to eight by the Dutch clock. I tried it with

the load upon my leg (and that made me think afresh of the man with the

load on _his_ leg), and found the tendency of exercise to bring the

bread and butter out at my ankle, quite unmanageable. 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 great

guns, Joe?”

“Ah!” said Joe. “There’s another conwict off.”

“What does that mean, Joe?” said I.

Mrs. Joe, who always took explanations upon herself, said, snappishly,

“Escaped. Escaped.” Administering the definition like Tar-water.

While Mrs. Joe sat with her head bending over her needlework, I put my

mouth into the forms of saying to Joe, “What’s a convict?” Joe put

_his_ mouth into the forms of returning such a highly elaborate answer,

that I could make out nothing of it but the single word “Pip.”

“There was a conwict off last night,” said Joe, aloud, “after

sunset-gun. And they fired warning of him. And now it appears they’re

firing warning of another.”

“_Who’s_ firing?” said I.

“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.

At this point Joe greatly augmented my curiosity by taking the utmost

pains to open his mouth very wide, and to put it into the form of a

word that looked to me like “sulks.” Therefore, I naturally pointed to

Mrs. Joe, and put my mouth into the form of saying, “her?” But Joe

wouldn’t hear of that, at all, and again opened his mouth very wide,

and shook the form of a most emphatic word out of it. But I could make

nothing of the word.

“Mrs. Joe,” said I, as a last resort, “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-h!” said I, looking at Joe. “Hulks!”

Joe gave a reproachful cough, as much as to say, “Well, I told you so.”

“And please, what’s Hulks?” said I.

“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 prison-ships,

right ’cross th’ meshes.” We always used that name for marshes, in our

country.

“I wonder who’s put into prison-ships, and why they’re put there?” 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 murder, and because they rob,

and forge, and do all sorts of bad; and they always begin by asking

questions. 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. I had begun by asking

questions, and I was going to rob Mrs. Joe.

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 young man who wanted my heart and liver; I was in

mortal terror of my interlocutor with the iron 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 pirate

calling out to me through a speaking-trumpet, as I passed the

gibbet-station, that I had better come ashore and be hanged there at

once, and not put it off. 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

pirate 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 downstairs; 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 (which I

tied up in my pocket-handkerchief with my last night’s slice), some

brandy from a stone bottle (which I decanted into a glass bottle I had

secretly used for making that intoxicating fluid,

Spanish-liquorice-water, up in my room: diluting the stone bottle from

a jug in the kitchen cupboard), a meat bone with very little on it, and

a beautiful round compact pork pie. I was nearly going away without the

pie, but I was tempted to mount upon a shelf, to look what it was that

was put away so carefully in a covered earthenware dish in a corner,

and I found it was the pie, and I took it 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 file from among Joe’s tools.

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.