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G16 ‘ OHARLES DIOKEJYS.’ ‘TVORKS.
to the inquisitive bore who leads that piece of music in
a most impertinent manner, .by wanting to know all
about everybody’s private affairs) that he was the man
with his white locks flowing, and that he was upon, the
whole the weakest pilgrim going. g , . I .
Finally, I remember thatwhen I got into my little bed-
room I was truly wretched, and had a strong conviction
on me that I should never like J oe’s trade. I had liked it
once, but once was not now. . , .
' CHAPTER XIV. ,
Ir is a most miserable thing , to feel ashamed of home.
’l‘here may be black ingratitude in the thing, and the
punishment may be retributive ;and well deserved ; but,
that it is a miserable thing, I can testify. , lg , Z
Home had never been a verypleasant place to me.
because of my sister’s temper. But, Joehad sanctified it,
and I believed. in it. I had believed in the best parlour
as amost elegant saloon; I had believed in the front
door as a mysterious portal of the Temple of State whose
solemn opening was attended with a sacrifice of roast
fowls ; I had believed in the kitchen as a chaste though
not magnificent apartment; I had believed in the forge
as the glowing road to manhood and independence.
‘Within a single year all this was changed. Now, it was
all coarse and common, and I would not have had. Miss
Ilavisham and Estella see it on any account.
. How much of my uugracious condition of mind may
have been my own fault, how much Miss Havisham’s,
how much my sister's, is nowlof no moment to me or to
any one. The change was made in me ; the thing was
done. IVell or ill done, excusably or inexcusably, it
was done. . ,
Once, it had seemed to me that when I should at last
roll up my shirt-sleeves and go into the forge, J oe’s
’prentice, Ishould be distin uislied and happy. Now
t iereality was in my hold, only felt that I was dusty
with the dust of small-coal, and that I had a weight
upon my daily remembrance to which the anvil was a
feather. There have been occasions in my later life (I
suppose as in most lives) when Ihave felt for a time as
if athick curtain had fallen on all its interest and romance,
to shut me out from anything save dull endurance any
more.” Never has that curtain dropped soiheav ' and
blank, as when my way in life lay stretched out straight
before me through the newly entered road of apprentice-
ship to J oe. V
I remember that at a later period of my “ time ” Iused
to stand about the churchyard on Sunday evenings, when
night ‘was falling, comparing my own perspective with
the windy marsh view, and making out some likeness
IJOtW-8011 them bytliiuking how flat and low both were,
and now on both there came an unknown way and a dark
mist and then the sea. I was quite as dejected on the
first working-day of my apprenticeship as in that after-
time; but I am glad to know, that I.never breathed a
murmur to Joe while my indentures lasted. It is about
the only thing I am glad to know of myself in that con.
nexion.
For, though it includes what I proceed to add, all the
merit of what I proceed to add was J oc’s. It was not be-
cause Iwas faithful, but because Joe was faithful, that
I never ran away and went for a soldier or a sailor. It
was not because I had a strong sense of the virtue of in-
dustry, but because Joe had a strong senseof the virtue
of industry, that I worked with tolerable zeal against the
grain. It is not possible to know how far the influence
of any amiable honest-hearted duty-doing man files out
into the world ; but it is very possible to know how it
has touched one’s self in goin by, and I know right well
that any good that intermixe itself with my apprentice.
ship came of plain contented Joe, and not of restless as-
piring discontented me. i
What I wanted, who can say? How can I say, when
I never knew? VVliat I dreaded was, that in some un-
lucky hour I, being at my grimicst and commonest,
should lift up my eyes and see Estella looking in at one
of the wooded windows of the forge. I was haunted by
the fear that she would, sooner or later, find me out,
with a black face and hands, doing the coarsest part of
my work, and would exult over me and despise me.
Often after dark, when I was pulling the bellows for
Joe, and we .were singing Ol Clem, and-when the
thought how we used to sing it at.,Miss Havisham’s
would seem to show me,E'ste1la’s .face,in the tire, with
her pretty hair fluttering in the wind and her eyes scorn-
iug me,-often at such a time I-would look towards
those pannels of black night in the wall which the
wooden windows thenwere, and would fancy that I saw
her just drawing her face away, and would believe that
she hadcome at last. ,, it H ;,.,m
After that, when we went into supper, the place and
the meal would have a more homely look than ever, and
Iwould feel more ashamed of homethan ever, in my
own ungracious breast.‘ ' i . . .
' ‘mm . .y
CHAPTER XV.
As I was getting toobig for Mr. 'Wopsle’s great-aunt’s
room, my education under that preposterous female ter-
minated. Not,4however,,until Biddy had imparted to
me everything she knew, from the little catalogue of
prices, to a comic song she had once bought for a half-
penny. Although the only coherent -part of the latter
piece of literature were the opening lines, I = - 3 v
When I went to Lunnon town‘ sirs, '
Too rnl loo rul
Too rnl loo rul
Wasn’t I done very brown sirs ?
Too rnl loo ml
Too rnl loo rul
-still, in my desire to be wiser, I got this composition
by heart with the utmost gravity ; nor do I recollect that
I uestioned its merit, except that I thought (as I still
ddh the amount of Too rnl somewhat in excess of the
poetry. In my hunger for information. Iinade proposals
to Mr. VVopsle to bestow some intellectual crumbs upon
me : with which he kindly complied. As itturned out,
however, that he only wanted me for a dramatic lay-
figure, to be contradicted and embraced and wept over
and bullied and clutched and stabbed and knocked about
in a variety of ways, I soon declined that course of in-
struction; though not until Mr. VVopsle in his poetic
fury had severely mauled me. .- . .
VVhatevcr I acquired, I tried to impartto Joe." ‘This
statement sounds so well, that I cannot in my conscience
let it pass unexplained. I wanted to make Joe less ignor-
ant and common, that he might be worthicr of my so-
ciety and less open to Estella’s reproach.’ . ,
The old Battery out o'ri5 the marshes was our place of
study, and a broken slate and a short piece of slate pen-
cil were our educational implements: to which Joe al-
ways added a pipe of tobacco. I never knew Joe to re-
member anything from one Sunday to another, or to
acquire, under my tuition, any piece, of information
whatever. let he would smoke his pipe at the Battery,
with a far more sagacious air than anywhere else-even
with a learned air-as if he considered himself to be ad- ‘
vancing immensely. Dear fellow, I hope he did, ,
It was pleasant and quiet, out there with the sails on
the river passing beyond the earthwork, and sometimes,
when the tide was low, looking as if the belonged to
sunken ships that were still sailing onntgho bottom of
the water. lVhenever I watched the vessels standing
out to sea with their white sails spread, I somehow
thought of Miss Ilavisham and Estella; and whenever
the light struck aslant, afar off, upon a cloud or sail or
8 1'99? hill-Side, or water-line, it was just the same.--M155
Ilavlshain and Estella and the strange house and the
strange life appeared to have something to do with
everything that was picturesque. ‘
One Sunday, when Joe, greatly enjoying his pipe, had
so plumed himself on being “most awful dull,” that I
had given him up for the day, I lay on the earthwork
for some time with my chin on my hand, dcscrying traces
of Miss Havisham and Estella all over the prospect in
the sky and in the water, until at last I resolved tome?-
tion a thought concerning them that had been much 111
my head. '
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