CHAPTER 1
My
father’s family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant
tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I
called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip.
I
give Pirrip as my father’s family name, on the authority of his tombstone and
my sister — Mrs. Joe Gargery, who married the blacksmith. As I never saw my
father or my mother, and never saw any likeness of either of them (for their
days were long before the days of photographs), my first fancies regarding what
they were like, were unreasonably derived from their tombstones. The shape of
the letters on my father’s, gave me an odd idea that he was a square, stout,
dark man, with curly black hair. From the character and turn of the
inscription, “Also Georgiana Wife of the Above,” I drew a childish conclusion
that my mother was freckled and sickly. To five little stone lozenges, each
about a foot and a half long, which were arranged in a neat row beside their
grave, and were sacred to the memory of five little brothers of mine — who gave
up trying to get a living, exceedingly early in that universal struggle — I am
indebted for a belief I religiously entertained that they had all been born on
their backs with their hands in their trousers—pockets, and had never taken
them out in this state of existence.
Ours
was the marsh country, down by the river, within, as the river wound, twenty
miles of the sea. My first most vivid and broad impression of the identity of
things, seems to me to have been gained on a memorable raw afternoon towards
evening. At such a time I found out for certain, that this bleak place
overgrown with nettles was the churchyard; and that Philip Pirrip, late of this
parish, and also Georgiana wife of the above, were dead and buried; and that
Alexander, Bartholomew, Abraham, Tobias, and Roger, infant children of the aforesaid,
were also dead and buried; and that the dark flat wilderness beyond the
churchyard, intersected with dykes and mounds and gates, with scattered cattle
feeding on it, was the marshes; and that the low leaden line beyond, was the
river; and that the distant savage lair from which the wind was rushing, was
the sea; and that the small bundle of shivers growing afraid of it all and
beginning to cry, was Pip.
“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 coarse grey, with a great iron on his leg. A man with no
hat, and with broken shoes, and with an old rag tied round his head. A man who
had been soaked in water, and smothered in mud, and lamed by stones, and cut by
flints, and stung by nettles, and torn by briars; who limped, and shivered, and
glared and growled; and whose teeth chattered in his head as he seized me by
the chin.
“O!
Don’t cut my throat, sir,” I pleaded in terror. “Pray don’t do it, sir.”
“Tell
us your name!” said the man. “Quick!”
“Pip,
sir.”
“Once
more,” said the man, staring at me. “Give it mouth!”
“Pip.
Pip, sir.”
“Show
us where you live,” said the man. “Pint out the place!”
I
pointed to where our village lay, on the flat in—shore among the alder—trees
and pollards, a mile or more from the church.
The
man, after looking at me for a moment, turned me upside down, and emptied my
pockets. There was nothing in them but a piece of bread. When the church came
to itself — for he was so sudden and strong that he made it go head over heels
before me, and I saw the steeple under my feet — when the church came to
itself, I say, I was seated on a high tombstone, trembling, while he ate the
bread ravenously.
“You
young dog,” said the man, licking his lips, “what fat cheeks you ha’ got.”
I
believe they were fat, though I was at that time undersized for my years, and
not strong.
“Darn
me if I couldn’t eat em,” said the man, with a threatening shake of his head,
“and if I han’t half a mind to’t!”
I
earnestly expressed my hope that he wouldn’t, and held tighter to the tombstone
on which he had put me; partly, to keep myself upon it; partly, to keep myself
from crying.
“Now
lookee here!” said the man. “Where’s your mother?”
“There,
sir!” said I.
He
started, made a short run, and stopped and looked over his shoulder.
“There,
sir!” I timidly explained. “Also Georgiana. That’s my mother.”
“Oh!”
said he, coming back. “And is that your father alonger your mother?”
“Yes,
sir,” said I; “him too; late of this parish.”
“Ha!”
he muttered then, considering. “Who d’ye live with — supposin’ you’re kindly
let to live, which I han’t made up my mind about?”
“My
sister, sir — Mrs. Joe Gargery — wife of Joe Gargery, the blacksmith, sir.”
“Blacksmith,
eh?” said he. And looked down at his leg.
After
darkly looking at his leg and me several times, he came closer to my tombstone,
took me by both arms, and tilted me back as far as he could hold me; so that
his eyes looked most powerfully down into mine, and mine looked most helplessly
up into his.
“Now
lookee here,” he said, “the question being whether you’re to be let to live.
You know what a file is?”
“Yes,
sir.”
“And
you know what wittles is?”
“Yes,
sir.”
After
each question he tilted me over a little more, so as to give me a greater sense
of helplessness and danger.
“You
get me a file.” He tilted me again. “And you get me wittles.” He tilted me
again. “You bring ‘em both to me.” He tilted me again. “Or I’ll have your heart
and liver out.” He tilted me again.
I
was dreadfully frightened, and so giddy that I clung to him with both hands,
and said, “If you would kindly please to let me keep upright, sir, perhaps I
shouldn’t be sick, and perhaps I could attend more.”
He
gave me a most tremendous dip and roll, so that the church jumped over its own
weather—cock. Then, he held me by the arms, in an upright position on the top
of the stone, and went on in these fearful terms:
“You
bring 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 or dare to make a sign concerning your having seen such a person as
me, or any person sumever, 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, I ain’t alone, as you may
think I am. There’s a young man hid with me, in comparison with which young man
I am a Angel. That young man hears the words I speak. That young man has a
secret way pecooliar to himself, of getting at a boy, and at his heart, and at
his liver. It is in wain for a boy to attempt to hide himself from that young
man. A boy may lock his door, may be warm in bed, may tuck himself up, may draw
the clothes over his head, may think himself comfortable and safe, but that
young man will softly creep and creep his way to him and tear him open. I am
a—keeping that young man from harming of you at the present moment, with great
difficulty. I find it wery hard to hold that young man off of your inside. 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.
“Say
Lord strike you dead if you don’t!” said the man.
I
said so, and he took me down.
“Now,”
he pursued, “you remember what you’ve undertook, and you remember that young
man, and you get home!”
“Goo—good
night, sir,” I faltered.
“Much
of that!” said he, glancing about him over the cold wet flat. “I wish I
was a frog. Or a eel!”
At
the same time, he hugged his shuddering body in both his arms — clasping
himself, as if to hold himself together — and limped towards the low church
wall. As I saw him go, picking his way among the nettles, and among the
brambles that bound the green mounds, he looked in my young eyes as if he were
eluding the hands of the dead people, stretching up cautiously out of their
graves, to get a twist upon his ankle and pull him in.
When
he came to the low church wall, he got over it, like a man whose legs were
numbed and stiff, and then turned round to look for me. When I saw him turning,
I set my face towards home, and made the best use of my legs. But presently I
looked over my shoulder, and saw him going on again towards the river, still
hugging himself in both arms, and picking his way with his sore feet among the
great stones dropped into the marshes here and there, for stepping—places when
the rains were heavy, or the tide was in.
The
marshes were just a long black horizontal line then, as I stopped to look after
him; and the river was just another horizontal line, not nearly so broad nor
yet so black; and the sky was just a row of long angry red lines and dense
black lines intermixed. On the edge of the river I could faintly make out the
only two black things in all the prospect that seemed to be standing upright;
one of these was the beacon by which the sailors steered — like an unhooped
cask upon a pole — an ugly thing when you were near it; the other a gibbet,
with some chains hanging to it which had once held a pirate. The man was
limping on towards this latter, as if he were the pirate come to life, and come
down, and going back to hook himself up again. It gave me a terrible turn when
I thought so; and as I saw the cattle lifting their heads to gaze after him, I
wondered whether they thought so too. I looked all round for the horrible young
man, and could see no signs of him. But, now I was frightened again, and ran
home without stopping.
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