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, maythink 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 handsof 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.Chapter 2
My sister, Mrs. Joe Gargery, was more than twenty
years older than I, and had established a great reputation
with herself and the neighbours because she had brought
me up 'by hand.' Having at that time to find out for
myself what the expression meant, and knowing her to
have a hard and heavy hand, and to be much in the habit
of laying it upon her husband as well as upon me, I
supposed that Joe Gargery and I were both brought up by
hand.
She was not a good-looking woman, my sister; and I
had a general impression that she must have made Joe
Gargery marry her by hand. Joe was a fair man, with curls
of flaxen hair on each side of his smooth face, and with
eyes of such a very undecided blue that they seemed to
have somehow got mixed with their own whites. He was
a mild, good-natured, sweet-tempered, easy-going,
foolish, dear fellow - a sort of Hercules in strength, and
also in weakness.
My sister, Mrs. Joe, with black hair and eyes, had such
a prevailing redness of skin that I sometimes used to
wonder whether it was possible she washed herself with anutmeg-grater instead of soap. She was tall and bony, and
almost always wore a coarse apron, fastened over her
figure behind with two loops, and having a square
impregnable bib in front, that was stuck full of pins and
needles. She made it a powerful merit in herself, and a
strong reproach against Joe, that she wore this apron so
much. Though I really see no reason why she should have
worn it at all: or why, if she did wear it at all, she should
not have taken it off, every day of her life.
Joe's forge adjoined our house, which was a wooden
house, as many of the dwellings in our country were -
most of them, at that time. When I ran home from the
churchyard, the forge was shut up, and Joe was sitting
alone in the kitchen. Joe and I being fellow-sufferers, and
having confidences as such, Joe imparted a confidence to
me, the moment I raised the latch of the door and peeped
in at him opposite to it, sitting in the chimney corner.
'Mrs. Joe has been out a dozen times, looking for you,
Pip. And she's out now, making it a baker's dozen.'
'Is she?'
'Yes, Pip,' said Joe; 'and what's worse, she's got Tickler
with her.'
At this dismal intelligence, I twisted the only button on
my waistcoat round and round, and looked in great depression at the fire. Tickler was a wax-ended piece of
cane, worn smooth by collision with my tickled frame.
'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, orI'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-bye, had not said it at all. 'You'll drive me to the churchyard betwixt you, one of these
days, and oh, a pr-r-recious pair you'd be without me!'
As she applied herself to set the tea-things, Joe peeped
down at me over his leg, as if he were mentally casting me
and himself up, and calculating what kind of pair we
practically should make, under the grievous circumstances
foreshadowed. After that, he sat feeling his right-side
flaxen curls and whisker, and following Mrs. Joe about
with his blue eyes, as his manner always was at squally
times.
My sister had a trenchant way of cutting our bread-
and-butter for us, that never varied. First, with her left
hand she jammed the loaf hard and fast against her bib -
where it sometimes got a pin into it, and sometimes a
needle, which we afterwards got into our mouths. Then
she took some butter (not too much) on a knife and
spread it on the loaf, in an apothecary kind of way, as if
she were making a plaister - using both sides of the knife
with a slapping dexterity, and trimming and moulding the
butter off round the crust. Then, she gave the knife a final
smart wipe on the edge of the plaister, and then sawed a
very thick round off the loaf: which she finally, before
separating from the loaf, hewed into two halves, of which
Joe got one, and I the other.On the present occasion, though I was hungry, I dared
not eat my slice. I felt that I must have something in
reserve for my dreadful acquaintance, and his ally the still
more dreadful young man. I knew Mrs. Joe's
housekeeping to be of the strictest kind, and that my
larcenous researches might find nothing available in the
safe. Therefore I resolved to put my hunk of bread-and-
butter down the leg of my trousers.
The effort of resolution necessary to the achievement
of this purpose, I found to be quite awful. It was as if I had
to make up my mind to leap from the top of a high house,
or plunge into a great depth of water. And it was made the
more difficult by the unconscious Joe. In our already-
mentioned freemasonry as fellow-sufferers, and in his
good-natured companionship with me, it was our evening
habit to compare the way we bit through our slices, by
silently holding them up to each other's admiration now
and then - which stimulated us to new exertions. To-
night, Joe several times invited me, by the display of his
fast-diminishing slice, to enter upon our usual friendly
competition; but he found me, each time, with my yellow
mug of tea on one knee, and my untouched bread-and-
butter on the other. At last, I desperately considered that
the thing I contemplated must be done, and that it hadbest be done in the least improbable manner consistent
with the circumstances. I took advantage of a moment
when Joe had just looked at me, and got my bread-and-
butter down my leg.
Joe was evidently made uncomfortable by what he
supposed to be my loss of appetite, and took a thoughtful
bite out of his slice, which he didn't seem to enjoy. He
turned it about in his mouth much longer than usual,
pondering over it a good deal, and after all gulped it down
like a pill. He was about to take another bite, and had just
got his head on one side for a good purchase on it, when
his eye fell on me, and he saw that my bread-and-butter
was gone.
The wonder and consternation with which Joe stopped
on the threshold of his bite and stared at me, were too
evident to escape my sister's observation.
'What's the matter now?' said she, smartly, as she put
down her cup.
'I say, you know!' muttered Joe, shaking his head at me
in very serious remonstrance. 'Pip, old chap! You'll do
yourself a mischief. It'll stick somewhere. You can't have
chawed it, Pip.'
'What's the matter now?' repeated my sister, more
sharply than before.'If you can cough any trifle on it up, Pip, I'd
recommend you to do it,' said Joe, all aghast. 'Manners is
manners, but still your elth's your elth.'
By this time, my sister was quite desperate, so she
pounced on Joe, and, taking him by the two whiskers,
knocked his head for a little while against the wall behind
him: while I sat in the corner, looking guiltily on.
'Now, perhaps you'll mention what's the matter,' said
my sister, out of breath, 'you staring great stuck pig.'
Joe looked at her in a helpless way; then took a helpless
bite, and looked at me again.
'You know, Pip,' said Joe, solemnly, with his last bite
in his cheek and speaking in a confidential voice, as if we
two were quite alone, 'you and me is always friends, and
I'd be the last to tell upon you, any time. But such a—' he
moved his chair and looked about the floor between us,
and then again at me - 'such a most oncommon Bolt as
that!'
'Been bolting his food, has he?' cried my sister.
'You know, old chap,' said Joe, looking at me, and not
at Mrs. Joe, with his bite still in his cheek, 'I Bolted,
myself, when I was your age - frequent - and as a boy I've
been among a many Bolters; but I never see your Bolting
equal yet, Pip, and it's a mercy you ain't Bolted dead.'My sister made a dive at me, and fished me up by the
hair: saying nothing more than the awful words, 'You
come along and be dosed.'
Some medical beast had revived Tar-water in those
days as a fine medicine, and Mrs. Joe always kept a supply
of it in the cupboard; having a belief in its virtues
correspondent to its nastiness. At the best of times, so
much of this elixir was administered to me as a choice
restorative, that I was conscious of going about, smelling
like a new fence. On this particular evening the urgency
of my case demanded a pint of this mixture, which was
poured down my throat, for my greater comfort, while
Mrs. Joe held my head under her arm, as a boot would be
held in a boot-jack. Joe got off with half a pint; but was
made to swallow that (much to his disturbance, as he sat
slowly munching and meditating before the fire), 'because
he had had a turn.' Judging from myself, I should say he
certainly had a turn afterwards, if he had had none before.
Conscience is a dreadful thing when it accuses man or
boy; but when, in the case of a boy, that secret burden co-
operates with another secret burden down the leg of his
trousers, it is (as I can testify) a great punishment. The
guilty knowledge that I was going to rob Mrs. Joe - I
never thought I was going to rob Joe, for I never thoughtof any of the housekeeping property as his - united to the
necessity of always keeping one hand on my bread-and-
butter as I sat, or when I was ordered about the kitchen on
any small errand, almost drove me out of my mind. Then,
as the marsh winds made the fire glow and flare, I thought
I heard the voice outside, of the man with the iron on his
leg who had sworn me to secrecy, declaring that he
couldn't and wouldn't starve until to-morrow, but must
be fed now. At other times, I thought, What if the young
man who was with so much difficulty restrained from
imbruing his hands in me, should yield to a constitutional
impatience, or should mistake the time, and should think
himself accredited to my heart and liver to-night, instead
of to-morrow! If ever anybody's hair stood on end with
terror, mine must have done so then. But, perhaps,
nobody's ever did?
It was Christmas Eve, and I had to stir the pudding for
next day, with a copper-stick, from seven to eight by the
Dutch clock. I tried it with the load upon my leg (and that
made me think afresh of the man with the load on his leg),
and found the tendency of exercise to bring the bread-
and-butter out at my ankle, quite unmanageable. Happily,
I slipped away, and deposited that part of my conscience
in my garret bedroom.'Hark!' said I, when I had done my stirring, and was
taking a final warm in the chimney corner before being
sent up to bed; 'was that great guns, Joe?'
'Ah!' said Joe. 'There's another conwict off.'
'What does that mean, Joe?' said I.
Mrs. Joe, who always took explanations upon herself,
said, snappishly, 'Escaped. Escaped.' Administering the
definition like Tar-water.
While Mrs. Joe sat with her head bending over her
needlework, I put my mouth into the forms of saying to
Joe, 'What's a convict?' Joe put his mouth into the forms
of returning such a highly elaborate answer, that I could
make out nothing of it but the single word 'Pip.'
'There was a conwict off last night,' said Joe, aloud,
'after sun-set-gun. And they fired warning of him. And
now, it appears they're firing warning of another.'
'Who's firing?' said I.
'Drat that boy,' interposed my sister, frowning at me
over her work, 'what a questioner he is. Ask no questions,
and you'll be told no lies.'
It was not very polite to herself, I thought, to imply
that I should be told lies by her, even if I did ask
questions. But she never was polite, unless there was
company.At this point, Joe greatly augmented my curiosity by
taking the utmost pains to open his mouth very wide, and
to put it into the form of a word that looked to me like
'sulks.' Therefore, I naturally pointed to Mrs. Joe, and put
my mouth into the form of saying 'her?' But Joe wouldn't
hear of that, at all, and again opened his mouth very wide,
and shook the form of a most emphatic word out of it.
But I could make nothing of the word.
'Mrs. Joe,' said I, as a last resort, 'I should like to know
- if you wouldn't much mind - where the firing comes
from?'
'Lord bless the boy!' exclaimed my sister, as if she
didn't quite mean that, but rather the contrary. 'From the
Hulks!'
'Oh-h!' said I, looking at Joe. 'Hulks!'
Joe gave a reproachful cough, as much as to say, 'Well,
I told you so.'
'And please what's Hulks?' said I.
'That's the way with this boy!' exclaimed my sister,
pointing me out with her needle and thread, and shaking
her head at me. 'Answer him one question, and he'll ask
you a dozen directly. Hulks are prison-ships, right 'cross
th' meshes.' We always used that name for marshes, in our
country. 'I wonder who's put into prison-ships, and why they're
put there?' said I, in a general way, and with quiet
desperation.
It was too much for Mrs. Joe, who immediately rose. 'I
tell you what, young fellow,' said she, 'I didn't bring you
up by hand to badger people's lives out. It would be blame
to me, and not praise, if I had. People are put in the Hulks
because they murder, and because they rob, and forge, and
do all sorts of bad; and they always begin by asking
questions. Now, you get along to bed!'
I was never allowed a candle to light me to bed, and, as
I went upstairs in the dark, with my head tingling - from
Mrs. Joe's thimble having played the tambourine upon it,
to accompany her last words - I felt fearfully sensible of
the great convenience that the Hulks were handy for me. I
was clearly on my way there. I had begun by asking
questions, and I was going to rob Mrs. Joe.
Since that time, which is far enough away now, I have
often thought that few people know what secrecy there is
in the young, under terror. No matter how unreasonable
the terror, so that it be terror. I was in mortal terror of the
young man who wanted my heart and liver; I was in
mortal terror of my interlocutor with the ironed leg; I was
in mortal terror of myself, from whom an awful promisehad been extracted; I had no hope of deliverance through
my all-powerful sister, who repulsed me at every turn; I
am afraid to think of what I might have done, on
requirement, in the secrecy of my terror.
If I slept at all that night, it was only to imagine myself
drifting down the river on a strong spring-tide, to the
Hulks; a ghostly pirate calling out to me through a
speaking-trumpet, as I passed the gibbet-station, that I had
better come ashore and be hanged there at once, and not
put it off. I was afraid to sleep, even if I had been inclined,
for I knew that at the first faint dawn of morning I must
rob the pantry. There was no doing it in the night, for
there was no getting a light by easy friction then; to have
got one, I must have struck it out of flint and steel, and
have made a noise like the very pirate himself rattling his
chains.
As soon as the great black velvet pall outside my little
window was shot with grey, I got up and went down
stairs; every board upon the way, and every crack in every
board, calling after me, 'Stop thief!' and 'Get up, Mrs.
Joe!' In the pantry, which was far more abundantly
supplied than usual, owing to the season, I was very much
alarmed, by a hare hanging up by the heels, whom I rather
thought I caught, when my back was half turned,winking. I had no time for verification, no time for
selection, no time for anything, for I had no time to spare.
I stole some bread, some rind of cheese, about half a jar of
mincemeat (which I tied up in my pocket-handkerchief
with my last night's slice), some brandy from a stone bottle
(which I decanted into a glass bottle I had secretly used for
making that intoxicating fluid, Spanish-liquorice-water, up
in my room: diluting the stone bottle from a jug in the
kitchen cupboard), a meat bone with very little on it, and
a beautiful round compact pork pie. I was nearly going
away without the pie, but I was tempted to mount upon a
shelf, to look what it was that was put away so carefully in
a covered earthen ware dish in a corner, and I found it was
the pie, and I took it, in the hope that it was not intended
for early use, and would not be missed for some time.
There was a door in the kitchen, communicating with
the forge; I unlocked and unbolted that door, and got a
file from among Joe's tools. Then, I put the fastenings as I
had found them, opened the door at which I had entered
when I ran home last night, shut it, and ran for the misty
marshes.