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708 CHARLES DI 01t'EN;S" IVORKS.
and shoe-leather, but wealth were not it 'object'on his
part, and marriage were the great wish of his hart-”
“It is so delightful to hear you, Joe I But I interrupt
you in what you said to Biddy.” , i -
" VVhicli it were,” said Joe, “ that how you might be
amongst strangers, and that how you and me having been
ever friends, a wisit at such a moment might not prove
unacceptabobble. Andi Biddy, her word were, ‘ Go to
him, without loss of time.’ 'l‘liat,’? said Joe, summing up
with his judicial air, “ were the word of Biddy. ‘ Go to
him.’ Biddy say, ‘ without loss of time.’ In short, I
shouldn’t greatly deceive you,” Joe added, after a little
grave reflection, “ if‘ I represented to you that the word
of that young woman were, ' without a minute’s loss of
time.’ ” i .
There Joe cut himself short, and informed me that I
was to be talked to in great moderation, and that I was
to take a little nourishment at stated frequent times,
whether I felt inclined for it or not, and that I was to
submit myself to all his orders. So, I kissed his hand,
and lay quiet, while he proceeded to indito a note to
Biddy, with my love in it. .
Evidently, Biddy had taught Joe to write. As I lay
in bed looking at him. it made me in my weak state, cry
again with pleasure to see the pride with which he set
about his letter. My bedstead, divested of its curtains,
had been removed, with me upon it, into the sitting-
room, as the airiest and largest, and the carpet had been
taken away, and the room kept always fresh and whole-
some night and day. At my own writing-table, pushed
into a corner and cumbered with little bottles, Joe now hart
sat down to his great work, first choosing a. pen from the
pen-tray as if it were a chest of large tools, and tucking
up his sleeves as if he were going to wield a crowbar or
sledge-hammer. It was necessary for Joe to hold on
heavily to the table with his left elbow, and to get his
right leg well out behind him, before he could begin,
and when he did begin he Inade every down-stroke, so
slowly that it might have been six feet long, while at
every up-stroke I could hear his pen spluttering exten-
sively. He had a curious idea that the inkstaiid was on
the side of him where it was not, and constantly dipped
his pen into space, and seemed quite. satisfied with the
result. Occasionally, he was tripped up by some ortho-
graphical stumbling-bloclr, but on the whole he got on
very well indeed, and when he had signed his name, and
had removed a finishing blot from the paper to the crown
of his head with his two forelingers, hegot up and hovered
about the table, trying the effect of his performance from
various points of view as it lay there, with unbounded
satisfaction.
Not to make Joe, uneasy by talking too much, even if
I had been able to talk mucli,I deferred asking him
about Miss Havisham until next day. He shook his head
when I then asked him if she had recovered?
“ Is she dead, Joe ‘I”'
.“ VVhy you see, old chap,” said Joe, in a tone. of re-
monstrance, and by way of getting at it by degrees, “ I
wouldn’t go so far as to say that, for that’s a deal to say;
but she ain’t--”
“ Living, Joe ‘E ”
“That’s nigher where it is,” said Joe ; “she ain't
living.”
“ Did she linger long, Joe ‘I ”
“ Arter you was took ill, pretty much about what you
might call (if you was put to it) a. week,” said Joe ; still
determined, on my account, to come at everything by
degrees.
“ Dear Joe, have you heard what becomes of her
property?” -
“ VVell, old chap,” said Joe, “it do appear that she
had settled the most of it, which I meantersay tied it up,
on Miss Estella. But she had wrote out a little coddle-
shell in her own hand a day or two afore the accident,
leavin a cool four thousand to Mr. Matthew Pocket.
And wiy, do you suppose, above all things, Pip, sheleft
that cool four thousand unto him? ‘Because of Pip‘s
account of him the said Matthew.’ I am told by Biddy,
that air the writing,”, said Joe, repeating the legal turn
as if it did him infinite good, “.‘ account of him the said
Matthew.’ ‘And a cool four thousand, Pip l” ’ ,
I never discovered from whom Joe derived the conven-
tional temperature of the four thousand‘ pounds, but jg
appeared to make ‘the sum ‘of. nioney more to him,‘ and
he had a manifest relish in 1I1SlS.t1l1g" on its being cool; '
This account gave me great Joy, as it perfected the
only good thing I had done. I asl<ed.Joe whether he
had heard if any of the other relations had anyleg,-1.
cies ‘? ' - .
, “Miss Sarah,” said J oe, “ she have twenty-five pound
peranniuin fur to buy pills, on accountof being bilions,
Miss Georgiana, she have twenty pound down. mg,
what’s the name of them wildbeasts with, humps,
old chap?” . . ‘H,
“ Camels ?” said I, wondering why he could possibly
want to know. ‘ ‘ > -
Joe nodded. . “Mrs. Camels,” by which[I presently
understood he meant Camilla, “ she have five pound fur
to buy rushlights to put her in spirits when she woke up
in the night.” ‘ . ‘ 1 -
The accuracy of these. recitals was sufliciently obvious
to me, to give me great confidence in ‘Joe's information
“And now,” said Joe, “you ain’t that strong yet, 91d
chap, that youcan take in more nor one additional shov.
el-full to-day. Old Orlick he’s been a bustin"open a
dwelling-ousc." . I ,‘ , '>
“ VVhose‘2” said I. ‘ . A .
“ Not. I grant you, but what his manners is iven-to
blustei-ous,” said Joe, apologctically ; “still, ‘at nglish.
nian’s ouse is his Castle, and castles must not be busted
’cept when done in war time. And wotsurne’er the
failings on his part, he were a corn and seedsmaa in his
b“ Is: it Pumblechook's house that has been broken into,
ten’
“ That's it, Pip,” said Joe ; “ and they took his till,
and they took his cash-box, and they drinked hiswine,
and they artook of his wittles, and they slapped his
face, and t iey pulled his nose, and they tied him up to
his bedpust, and they giv’ him a dozen, and they stuffed
his mouth full of flowering annuals to prewent his cry-
ing taut: .1].3:.ll5 he knowed Orlick, and 0rliclr’s in the
coun y Jill . =
By these approaches we arrived at unrestricted con-
versation. I was slow to gain strength, but I did slowly
and surely become less weak, and Joe stayed with me,
and I fancied I was little Pip again. ' V ' , ' ,
For, the tenderness of Joe was so beautifully propor-
tioned to. my need, that I was like a child in his hands.
He would sit and talk to me in the old confidence, and
with the old simplicity, and in the -old unassertlve pro-
tectingiway, so that I would half believe that all my
life since the‘ days of the old kitchen was one of the
mental troubles of the fever that was gone.’ He did
everything for me except the household work, for vlliich
he had engaged a very decent ‘iVOIIlD.D,‘D.flC1‘ paying all
the laundress on his first arrival. “ “Fhich I do Msure
you, Pip,” he would, often, say, in explanation of that
liberty; “I foundlier a tapping the spare bed,-like ii
cask of beer, and drawing off the feathers in a bucket,
for sale. Which she would have tapped yourn next,
and draw’d'it off with you a laying on it. and was then
a carrying away the coals gradiwally in the soup-tureen
giprdlfvcgetable-dishes, and the wine and spirits in your
e ington boots.” , ‘ v
‘We looked forward to the day when I sho1ild'go out
for a ride, as we had once looked forward to the do of
my. apprenticeship. And when the day came, an an
open carriage was got into the Lane. Joe wrappcdmeup,
took me in is arms, carried me down to it, and put mo
in, as if I were still the same helpless creature to whom
he had so abundantly given of the wealth of his great
nature. ' ' ' '
And Joe got in beside me, and‘ we drove awayto other
into the country, where the rich summer growt i was
already on the. trees and on the grass, and sweet summer
scents filled all the air. The day happened to be Sun-
day, and when I looked on the loveliiicss around me, and
thought how it had grown and changed, and howtlle
littlc..wild flowers had been’ forming, and the voices of
the birds had been strengthening, b day’ and by night
under the sun‘ ‘aiid"under the stars, w iile poor I lay burn-
ing and tossingfon my bed‘, the mere remembrance of
having burned and tossed there, came like a check upon
v1
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