Great Expectations

"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!"