The World's Greatest Books_ Volume 3 Part 17

It was arrested by a cry--a wild, loud, loving, rapturous cry, and he saw his daughter.

"Papa! Dearest papa!"

Unchanged still. Of all the world unchanged.

He tottered to his chair. He felt her draw his arms about her neck. He felt her kisses on his face, he felt--oh, how deeply!--all that he had done.

She laid his face, now covered with his hands, against the heart that he had almost broken, and said, sobbing, "Papa, love, I am a mother. Papa, dear, oh, say G.o.d bless me and my little child!"

His head, now grey, was encircled by her arm, and he groaned to think that never, never had it rested so before.

"My little child was born at sea, papa. I prayed to G.o.d to spare me that I might come. The moment I could land I came to you. Never let us be parted any more, papa!"

He kissed her on the lips, and lifting up his eyes, said, "Oh, my G.o.d, forgive me, for I need it very much!"

Great Expectations

"Great Expectations," first published as a serial in "All the Year Round," in 1861, is one of d.i.c.kens's finest works. It is rounded off so completely and the characters are so admirably drawn that, as a finished work of art, it is hard to say where the genius of its author has surpa.s.sed it. If there is less of the exuberance of "Pickwick," there is also less of the characteristic exaggeration of d.i.c.kens; and the pathos of the ex-convict's return is far deeper than the pathos of children's death-beds, so frequently exhibited by the author.

"Great Expectations," for all its rare qualities, has never achieved the wide popularity of the novels of Charles d.i.c.kens that preceded it. We are not generally familiar with any name in the story, as we are with at least one name in all the other novels. Yet, Pip, as a study of child-life, youth, and early manhood, is as excellent as anything in the whole range of English fiction.

_I.--In the Marshes_

My father's family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, I called myself with my infant tongue Pip, and came to be called Pip.

My first most vivid impression of things seems to me to have been gained on a memorable raw afternoon, one Christmas Eve. Ours was the marsh country, down the river, within twenty miles of the sea; and I had wandered into a bleak place overgrown with nettles called a churchyard.

"Hold your noise," cried a terrible voice, as a man started up from among the graves at the side of the church porch. "Keep still, you little devil, or I'll cut your throat!"

A fearful man, all in coa.r.s.e grey, with a great iron on his leg. A man who had been soaked in water, and smothered in mud, and cut by stones; who limped and s.h.i.+vered, and glared and growled.

"Oh! don't cut my throat, sir," I pleaded in terror. "Pray don't do it, sir."

"Tell us your name! quick!"

"Pip, sir."

"Show us where you live," said the man. "P'int out the place. Who d'ye live with?"

I pointed to where our village was, and said, "With my sister, sir--Mrs.

Joe Gargery--wife of Joe Gargery, the blacksmith, sir."

"Blacksmith, eh?" said he, and looked down at his leg. Then he took me by the arms. "Now lookee here. You know what a file is?"

"Yes, sir."

"And you know what wittles is?"

"Yes, sir."

"You get me a file, and you get me wittles. You bring 'em both to me, or I'll have your heart and liver out. You bring the lot to me, to-morrow morning early, that file and them wittles you bring the lot to me at that old battery over yonder. You do it, and you never dare to say a word concerning your having seen me, and you shall be let to live. You fail, or you go from my words in any partickler, no matter how small it is, and your heart and your liver shall be tore out, roasted, and ate.

Now what do you say?"

I said that I would get him the file, and I would get him what broken bits of food I could, and I would come to him at the Battery, early in the morning.

As soon as the darkness outside my little window was shot with grey, I got up and went downstairs. I stole some bread, some rind of cheese, about half a jar of mincemeat (which I tied up in my pocket handkerchief), some brandy from a stone bottle (which I decanted into a gla.s.s bottle I had used for Spanish liquorice water up in my room), a meat bone with very little on it, and a beautiful round pork pie.

There was a door in the kitchen communicating with the forge; I unlocked and unbolted that door, got a file from among Joe's tools, put the fastenings as I had found them, and ran for the marshes.

It was a rainy morning, and very damp. I knew my way to the Battery, for I had been down there on a Sunday with Joe, and had just scrambled up the mound beyond the ditch when I saw the man sitting before me--with his back toward me.

I touched him on the shoulder, and he instantly jumped up, and it was not the same man, but another man--dressed in coa.r.s.e grey, too, with a great iron on his leg.

He aimed a blow at me, and then ran into the mist, stumbling as he went, and I lost him.

I was soon at the Battery after that, and there was the right man waiting for me. He was awfully cold. And his eyes looked awfully hungry.

He devoured the food, mincemeat, meatbone, bread, cheese, and pork pie, all at once--more like a man who was putting it away somewhere in a violent hurry, than a man who was eating it, only stopping from time to time to listen.

"You're not a deceiving imp? You brought no one with you?"

"No, sir! No!"

"Well," said he, "I believe you. You'd be but a fierce young hound indeed if at your time of life you could help to hunt a wretched varmint, hunted as near death and dunghill as this poor wretched varmint is."

While he was eating I mentioned that I had just seen another man dressed like him, and with a badly bruised face.

"Not here?" he exclaimed, striking his left cheek.

"Yes, there!"

He swore he would pull him down like a bloodhound, and then crammed what little food was left into the breast of his grey jacket, and began to file at his iron like a madman; so I thought the best thing that I could do was to slip off home.

_II.--I Meet Estella_

I must have been about ten years old when I went to Miss Havisham's, and first met Estella.

My uncle Pumblechook, who kept a cornchandler's shop in the high-street of the town, took me to the large old, dismal house, which had all its windows barred. For miles round everybody had heard of Miss Havisham as an immensely rich and grim lady who led a life of seclusion; and everybody soon knew that Mr. Pumblechook had been commissioned to bring her a boy.