Great Expectations

It was a rimy morning, and very damp. I had seen the damp lying on the

outside of my little window, as if some goblin had been crying there all

night, and using the window for a pocket-handkerchief. Now, I saw the

damp lying on the bare hedges and spare grass, like a coarser sort of

spiders' webs; hanging itself from twig to twig and blade to blade. On

every rail and gate, wet lay clammy, and the marsh mist was so thick,

that the wooden finger on the post directing people to our village--a

direction which they never accepted, for they never came there--was

invisible to me until I was quite close under it. Then, as I looked up

at it, while it dripped, it seemed to my oppressed conscience like a

phantom devoting me to the Hulks.

The mist was heavier yet when I got out upon the marshes, so that

instead of my running at everything, everything seemed to run at me.

This was very disagreeable to a guilty mind. The gates and dikes and

banks came bursting at me through the mist, as if they cried as plainly

as could be, "A boy with Somebody's else's pork pie! Stop him!" The

cattle came upon me with like suddenness, staring out of their eyes,

and steaming out of their nostrils, "Halloa, young thief!" One black

ox, with a white cravat on,--who even had to my awakened conscience

something of a clerical air,--fixed me so obstinately with his eyes,

and moved his blunt head round in such an accusatory manner as I moved

round, that I blubbered out to him, "I couldn't help it, sir! It wasn't

for myself I took it!" Upon which he put down his head, blew a cloud of

smoke out of his nose, and vanished with a kick-up of his hind-legs and

a flourish of his tail.

All this time, I was getting on towards the river; but however fast I

went, I couldn't warm my feet, to which the damp cold seemed riveted, as

the iron was riveted to the leg of the man I was running to meet. I knew

my way to the Battery, pretty straight, for I had been down there on a

Sunday with Joe, and Joe, sitting on an old gun, had told me that when

I was 'prentice to him, regularly bound, we would have such Larks there!

However, in the confusion of the mist, I found myself at last too far to

the right, and consequently had to try back along the river-side, on the

bank of loose stones above the mud and the stakes that staked the tide

out. Making my way along here with all despatch, I had just crossed a

ditch which I knew to be very near the Battery, and had just scrambled

up the mound beyond the ditch, when I saw the man sitting before me.

His back was towards me, and he had his arms folded, and was nodding

forward, heavy with sleep.