Great Expectations

At this dismal time we were evidently all possessed by the idea that

we were followed. As the tide made, it flapped heavily at irregular

intervals against the shore; and whenever such a sound came, one or

other of us was sure to start, and look in that direction. Here and

there, the set of the current had worn down the bank into a little

creek, and we were all suspicious of such places, and eyed them

nervously. Sometimes, "What was that ripple?" one of us would say in a

low voice. Or another, "Is that a boat yonder?" And afterwards we would

fall into a dead silence, and I would sit impatiently thinking with what

an unusual amount of noise the oars worked in the thowels.

At length we descried a light and a roof, and presently afterwards ran

alongside a little causeway made of stones that had been picked up hard

by. Leaving the rest in the boat, I stepped ashore, and found the light

to be in a window of a public-house. It was a dirty place enough, and I

dare say not unknown to smuggling adventurers; but there was a good

fire in the kitchen, and there were eggs and bacon to eat, and various

liquors to drink. Also, there were two double-bedded rooms,--"such as

they were," the landlord said. No other company was in the house than

the landlord, his wife, and a grizzled male creature, the "Jack" of the

little causeway, who was as slimy and smeary as if he had been low-water

mark too.

With this assistant, I went down to the boat again, and we all came

ashore, and brought out the oars, and rudder and boat-hook, and all

else, and hauled her up for the night. We made a very good meal by the

kitchen fire, and then apportioned the bedrooms: Herbert and Startop

were to occupy one; I and our charge the other. We found the air as

carefully excluded from both, as if air were fatal to life; and there

were more dirty clothes and bandboxes under the beds than I should have

thought the family possessed. But we considered ourselves well off,

notwithstanding, for a more solitary place we could not have found.

While we were comforting ourselves by the fire after our meal, the

Jack--who was sitting in a corner, and who had a bloated pair of shoes

on, which he had exhibited while we were eating our eggs and bacon, as

interesting relics that he had taken a few days ago from the feet of

a drowned seaman washed ashore--asked me if we had seen a four-oared

galley going up with the tide? When I told him No, he said she must have

gone down then, and yet she "took up too," when she left there.