Great Expectations - Charles Dickens (i want to read a book .txt) 📗
- Author: Charles Dickens
- Performer: 0141439564
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then, when Wemmick anticipated me.
“I know your engagements,” said he, “and I know you are out of
sorts, Mr. Pip. But if you could oblige me, I should take it as a
kindness. It ain’t a long walk, and it’s an early one. Say it might
occupy you (including breakfast on the walk) from eight to twelve.
Couldn’t you stretch a point and manage it?”
He had done so much for me at various times, that this was very
little to do for him. I said I could manage it,—would manage it,—
and he was so very much pleased by my acquiescence, that I was
pleased too. At his particular request, I appointed to call for him
at the Castle at half past eight on Monday morning, and so we
parted for the time.
Punctual to my appointment, I rang at the Castle gate on the Monday
morning, and was received by Wemmick himself, who struck me as
looking tighter than usual, and having a sleeker hat on. Within,
there were two glasses of rum and milk prepared, and two biscuits.
The Aged must have been stirring with the lark, for, glancing into
the perspective of his bedroom, I observed that his bed was empty.
When we had fortified ourselves with the rum and milk and biscuits,
and were going out for the walk with that training preparation on
us, I was considerably surprised to see Wemmick take up a
fishing-rod, and put it over his shoulder. “Why, we are not going
fishing!” said I. “No,” returned Wemmick, “but I like to walk with
one.”
I thought this odd; however, I said nothing, and we set off. We
went towards Camberwell Green, and when we were thereabouts,
Wemmick said suddenly,—
“Halloa! Here’s a church!”
There was nothing very surprising in that; but again, I was rather
surprised, when he said, as if he were animated by a brilliant
idea,—
“Let’s go in!”
We went in, Wemmick leaving his fishing-rod in the porch, and
looked all round. In the mean time, Wemmick was diving into his
coat-pockets, and getting something out of paper there.
“Halloa!” said he. “Here’s a couple of pair of gloves! Let’s put
‘em on!”
As the gloves were white kid gloves, and as the post-office was
widened to its utmost extent, I now began to have my strong
suspicions. They were strengthened into certainty when I beheld the
Aged enter at a side door, escorting a lady.
“Halloa!” said Wemmick. “Here’s Miss Skiffins! Let’s have a
wedding.”
That discreet damsel was attired as usual, except that she was now
engaged in substituting for her green kid gloves a pair of white.
The Aged was likewise occupied in preparing a similar sacrifice for
the altar of Hymen. The old gentleman, however, experienced so much
difficulty in getting his gloves on, that Wemmick found it
necessary to put him with his back against a pillar, and then to
get behind the pillar himself and pull away at them, while I for my
part held the old gentleman round the waist, that he might present
and equal and safe resistance. By dint of this ingenious scheme,
his gloves were got on to perfection.
The clerk and clergyman then appearing, we were ranged in order at
those fatal rails. True to his notion of seeming to do it all
without preparation, I heard Wemmick say to himself, as he took
something out of his waistcoat-pocket before the service began,
“Halloa! Here’s a ring!”
I acted in the capacity of backer, or best-man, to the bridegroom;
while a little limp pew-opener in a soft bonnet like a baby’s, made
a feint of being the bosom friend of Miss Skiffins. The
responsibility of giving the lady away devolved upon the Aged,
which led to the clergyman’s being unintentionally scandalized, and
it happened thus. When he said, “Who giveth this woman to be
married to this man?” the old gentlemen, not in the least knowing
what point of the ceremony we had arrived at, stood most amiably
beaming at the ten commandments. Upon which, the clergyman said
again, “WHO giveth this woman to be married to this man?” The old
gentleman being still in a state of most estimable unconsciousness,
the bridegroom cried out in his accustomed voice, “Now Aged P. you
know; who giveth?” To which the Aged replied with great briskness,
before saying that he gave, “All right, John, all right, my boy!”
And the clergyman came to so gloomy a pause upon it, that I had
doubts for the moment whether we should get completely married that
day.
It was completely done, however, and when we were going out of
church Wemmick took the cover off the font, and put his white
gloves in it, and put the cover on again. Mrs. Wemmick, more heedful
of the future, put her white gloves in her pocket and assumed her
green. “Now, Mr. Pip,” said Wemmick, triumphantly shouldering the
fishing-rod as we came out, “let me ask you whether anybody would
suppose this to be a wedding-party!”
Breakfast had been ordered at a pleasant little tavern, a mile or
so away upon the rising ground beyond the green; and there was a
bagatelle board in the room, in case we should desire to unbend our
minds after the solemnity. It was pleasant to observe that Mrs.
Wemmick no longer unwound Wemmick’s arm when it adapted itself to
her figure, but sat in a high-backed chair against the wall, like a
violoncello in its case, and submitted to be embraced as that
melodious instrument might have done.
We had an excellent breakfast, and when any one declined anything
on table, Wemmick said, “Provided by contract, you know; don’t be
afraid of it!” I drank to the new couple, drank to the Aged, drank
to the Castle, saluted the bride at parting, and made myself as
agreeable as I could.
Wemmick came down to the door with me, and I again shook hands with
him, and wished him joy.
“Thankee!” said Wemmick, rubbing his hands. “She’s such a manager
of fowls, you have no idea. You shall have some eggs, and judge for
yourself. I say, Mr. Pip!” calling me back, and speaking low. “This
is altogether a Walworth sentiment, please.”
“I understand. Not to be mentioned in Little Britain,” said I.
Wemmick nodded. “After what you let out the other day, Mr. Jaggers
may as well not know of it. He might think my brain was softening,
or something of the kind.”
He lay in prison very ill, during the whole interval between his
committal for trial and the coming round of the Sessions. He had
broken two ribs, they had wounded one of his lungs, and he breathed
with great pain and difficulty, which increased daily. It was a
consequence of his hurt that he spoke so low as to be scarcely
audible; therefore he spoke very little. But he was ever ready to
listen to me; and it became the first duty of my life to say to
him, and read to him, what I knew he ought to hear.
Being far too ill to remain in the common prison, he was removed,
after the first day or so, into the infirmary. This gave me
opportunities of being with him that I could not otherwise have
had. And but for his illness he would have been put in irons, for
he was regarded as a determined prison-breaker, and I know not what
else.
Although I saw him every day, it was for only a short time; hence,
the regularly recurring spaces of our separation were long enough
to record on his face any slight changes that occurred in his
physical state. I do not recollect that I once saw any change in it
for the better; he wasted, and became slowly weaker and worse, day
by day, from the day when the prison door closed upon him.
The kind of submission or resignation that he showed was that of a
man who was tired out. I sometimes derived an impression, from his
manner or from a whispered word or two which escaped him, that he
pondered over the question whether he might have been a better man
under better circumstances. But he never justified himself by a
hint tending that way, or tried to bend the past out of its eternal
shape.
It happened on two or three occasions in my presence, that his
desperate reputation was alluded to by one or other of the people
in attendance on him. A smile crossed his face then, and he turned
his eyes on me with a trustful look, as if he were confident that I
had seen some small redeeming touch in him, even so long ago as when
I was a little child. As to all the rest, he was humble and
contrite, and I never knew him complain.
When the Sessions came round, Mr. Jaggers caused an application to
be made for the postponement of his trial until the following
Sessions. It was obviously made with the assurance that he could
not live so long, and was refused. The trial came on at once, and,
when he was put to the bar, he was seated in a chair. No objection
was made to my getting close to the dock, on the outside of it, and
holding the hand that he stretched forth to me.
The trial was very short and very clear. Such things as could be
said for him were said,—how he had taken to industrious habits,
and had thriven lawfully and reputably. But nothing could unsay
the fact that he had returned, and was there in presence of the
Judge and Jury. It was impossible to try him for that, and do
otherwise than find him guilty.
At that time, it was the custom (as I learnt from my terrible
experience of that Sessions) to devote a concluding day to the
passing of Sentences, and to make a finishing effect with the
Sentence of Death. But for the indelible picture that my
remembrance now holds before me, I could scarcely believe, even as
I write these words, that I saw two-and-thirty men and women put
before the Judge to receive that sentence together. Foremost among
the two-and-thirty was he; seated, that he might get breath enough
to keep life in him.
The whole scene starts out again in the vivid colors of the
moment, down to the drops of April rain on the windows of the
court, glittering in the rays of April sun. Penned in the dock, as
I again stood outside it at the corner with his hand in mine, were
the two-and-thirty men and women; some defiant, some stricken with
terror, some sobbing and weeping, some covering their faces, some
staring gloomily about. There had been shrieks from among the women
convicts; but they had been stilled,and a hush had succeeded. The
sheriffs with their great chains and nosegays, other civic gewgaws
and monsters, criers, ushers, a great gallery full of people,—a
large theatrical audience,—looked on, as the two-and-thirty and
the Judge were solemnly confronted. Then the Judge addressed them.
Among the wretched creatures before him whom he must single out for
special address was one who almost from his infancy had been an
offender against the laws; who, after repeated imprisonments and
punishments, had been at length sentenced to exile for a term of
years; and who, under circumstances of great violence and daring,
had made his escape and been re-sentenced to exile for life. That
miserable man would seem for a time to have become convinced of his
errors, when far removed from the scenes of his old offences, and
to have lived a peaceable and honest life. But in a fatal moment,
yielding to those propensities and passions, the indulgence of
which had so long rendered him a scourge to society, he had quitted
his haven
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