Dreams

3

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‘Hark!’ said I, when I had done my stirring, and was tak-

ing 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 nee-

dlework, I put my mouth into the forms of saying to Joe,

‘What’s a convict?’ Joe put his mouth into the forms of re-

turning 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

sun-set-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 tak-

ing 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 18 Great Expectations

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, point-

ing me out with her needle and thread, and shaking her head

at me. ‘Answer him one question, and he’ll ask you a doz-

en 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 despera-

tion.

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 be-

cause 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 Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com 19

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 mor-

tal terror of my interlocutor with the ironed 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 my-

self drifting down the river on a strong spring-tide, to the

Hulks; a ghostly pirate calling out to me through a speak-

ing-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 down stairs;

every board upon the way, and every c***k in every board,

calling after me, ‘Stop thief!’ and ‘Get up, Mrs. Joe!’ In the 20 Great Expectations

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 earthen ware 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.