Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (best ereader under 100 TXT) 📖

Chapter LVIII

The tidings of my high fortunes having had a heavy fall had got

down to my native place and its neighborhood before I got there.

I found the Blue Boar in possession of the intelligence, and I

found that it made a great change in the Boar’s demeanour. Whereas

the Boar had cultivated my good opinion with warm assiduity when I

was coming into property, the Boar was exceedingly cool on the

subject now that I was going out of property.

It was evening when I arrived, much fatigued by the journey I had

so often made so easily. The Boar could not put me into my usual

bedroom, which was engaged (probably by some one who had

expectations), and could only assign me a very indifferent chamber

among the pigeons and post-chaises up the yard. But I had as sound

a sleep in that lodging as in the most superior accommodation the

Boar could have given me, and the quality of my dreams was about

the same as in the best bedroom.

Early in the morning, while my breakfast was getting ready, I

strolled round by Satis House. There were printed bills on the

gate and on bits of carpet hanging out of the windows, announcing

a sale by auction of the Household Furniture and Effects, next

week. The House itself was to be sold as old building materials, and

pulled down. LOT 1 was marked in whitewashed knock-knee letters on

the brew house; LOT 2 on that part of the main building which had

been so long shut up. Other lots were marked off on other parts of

the structure, and the ivy had been torn down to make room for the

inscriptions, and much of it trailed low in the dust and was

withered already. Stepping in for a moment at the open gate, and

looking around me with the uncomfortable air of a stranger who had

no business there, I saw the auctioneer’s clerk walking on the

casks and telling them off for the information of a catalogue-compiler, pen in hand, who made a temporary desk of the wheeled

chair I had so often pushed along to the tune of Old Clem.

When I got back to my breakfast in the Boar’s coffee-room, I found

Mr. Pumblechook conversing with the landlord. Mr. Pumblechook (not

improved in appearance by his late nocturnal adventure) was waiting

for me, and addressed me in the following terms:—

“Young man, I am sorry to see you brought low. But what else could

be expected! what else could be expected!”

As he extended his hand with a magnificently forgiving air, and as

I was broken by illness and unfit to quarrel, I took it.

“William,” said Mr. Pumblechook to the waiter, “put a muffin on

table. And has it come to this! Has it come to this!”

I frowningly sat down to my breakfast. Mr. Pumblechook stood over me

and poured out my tea—before I could touch the teapot—with the

air of a benefactor who was resolved to be true to the last.

“William,” said Mr. Pumblechook, mournfully, “put the salt on. In

happier times,” addressing me, “I think you took sugar? And did you

take milk? You did. Sugar and milk. William, bring a watercress.”

“Thank you,” said I, shortly, “but I don’t eat watercresses.”

“You don’t eat ‘em,” returned Mr. Pumblechook, sighing and nodding

his head several times, as if he might have expected that, and as

if abstinence from watercresses were consistent with my downfall.

“True. The simple fruits of the earth. No. You needn’t bring any,

William.”

I went on with my breakfast, and Mr. Pumblechook continued to stand

over me, staring fishily and breathing noisily, as he always did.

“Little more than skin and bone!” mused Mr. Pumblechook, aloud. “And

yet when he went from here (I may say with my blessing), and I

spread afore him my humble store, like the Bee, he was as plump as

a Peach!”

This reminded me of the wonderful difference between the servile

manner in which he had offered his hand in my new prosperity,

saying, “May I?” and the ostentatious clemency with which he had

just now exhibited the same fat five fingers.

“Hah!” he went on, handing me the bread and butter. “And air you

a going to Joseph?”

“In heaven’s name,” said I, firing in spite of myself, “what does

it matter to you where I am going? Leave that teapot alone.”

It was the worst course I could have taken, because it gave

Pumblechook the opportunity he wanted.

“Yes, young man,” said he, releasing the handle of the article in

question, retiring a step or two from my table, and speaking for

the behoof of the landlord and waiter at the door, “I will leave

that teapot alone. You are right, young man. For once you are

right. I forgit myself when I take such an interest in your

breakfast, as to wish your frame, exhausted by the debilitating

effects of prodigygality, to be stimilated by the ‘olesome

nourishment of your forefathers. And yet,” said Pumblechook,

turning to the landlord and waiter, and pointing me out at arm’s

length, “this is him as I ever sported with in his days of happy

infancy! Tell me not it cannot be; I tell you this is him!”

A low murmur from the two replied. The waiter appeared to be

particularly affected.

“This is him,” said Pumblechook, “as I have rode in my shay-cart.

This is him as I have seen brought up by hand. This is him untoe

the sister of which I was uncle by marriage, as her name was

Georgiana M’ria from her own mother, let him deny it if he can!”

The waiter seemed convinced that I could not deny it, and that it

gave the case a black look.

“Young man,” said Pumblechook, screwing his head at me in the old

fashion, “you air a going to Joseph. What does it matter to me, you

ask me, where you air a going? I say to you, Sir, you air a going

to Joseph.”

The waiter coughed, as if he modestly invited me to get over that.

“Now,” said Pumblechook, and all this with a most exasperating air

of saying in the cause of virtue what was perfectly convincing and

conclusive, “I will tell you what to say to Joseph. Here is Squires

of the Boar present, known and respected in this town, and here is

William, which his father’s name was Potkins if I do not deceive

myself.”

“You do not, sir,” said William.

“In their presence,” pursued Pumblechook, “I will tell you, young

man, what to say to Joseph. Says you, “Joseph, I have this day seen

my earliest benefactor and the founder of my fortun’s. I will name

no names, Joseph, but so they are pleased to call him up town, and

I have seen that man.”

“I swear I don’t see him here,” said I.

“Say that likewise,” retorted Pumblechook. “Say you said that, and

even Joseph will probably betray surprise.”

“There you quite mistake him,” said I. “I know better.”

“Says you,” Pumblechook went on, “‘Joseph, I have seen that man, and

that man bears you no malice and bears me no malice. He knows your

character, Joseph, and is well acquainted with your pig-headedness

and ignorance; and he knows my character, Joseph, and he knows my

want of gratitoode. Yes, Joseph,’ says you,” here Pumblechook shook

his head and hand at me, “‘he knows my total deficiency of common

human gratitoode. He knows it, Joseph, as none can. You do not know

it, Joseph, having no call to know it, but that man do.’”

Windy donkey as he was, it really amazed me that he could have the

face to talk thus to mine.

“Says you, ‘Joseph, he gave me a little message, which I will now

repeat. It was that, in my being brought low, he saw the finger of

Providence. He knowed that finger when he saw Joseph, and he

saw it plain. It pinted out this writing, Joseph. Reward of

ingratitoode to his earliest benefactor, and founder of fortun’s.

But that man said he did not repent of what he had done, Joseph.

Not at all. It was right to do it, it was kind to do it, it was

benevolent to do it, and he would do it again.’”

“It’s pity,” said I, scornfully, as I finished my interrupted

breakfast, “that the man did not say what he had done and would do

again.”

“Squires of the Boar!” Pumblechook was now addressing the landlord,

“and William! I have no objections to your mentioning, either

up town or down town, if such should be your wishes, that it was

right to do it, kind to do it, benevolent to do it, and that I

would do it again.”

With those words the Impostor shook them both by the hand, with an

air, and left the house; leaving me much more astonished than

delighted by the virtues of that same indefinite “it.” “I was not

long after him in leaving the house too, and when I went down the

High Street I saw him holding forth (no doubt to the same effect)

at his shop door to a select group, who honored me with very

unfavorable glances as I passed on the opposite side of the way.

But, it was only the pleasanter to turn to Biddy and to Joe, whose

great forbearance shone more brightly than before, if that could

be, contrasted with this brazen pretender. I went towards them

slowly, for my limbs were weak, but with a sense of increasing

relief as I drew nearer to them, and a sense of leaving arrogance

and untruthfulness further and further behind.

The June weather was delicious. The sky was blue, the larks were

soaring high over the green corn, I thought all that countryside

more beautiful and peaceful by far than I had ever known it to be

yet. Many pleasant pictures of the life that I would lead there,

and of the change for the better that would come over my character

when I had a guiding spirit at my side whose simple faith and clear

home wisdom I had proved, beguiled my way. They awakened a tender

emotion in me; for my heart was softened by my return, and such a

change had come to pass, that I felt like one who was toiling home

barefoot from distant travel, and whose wanderings had lasted many

years.

The schoolhouse where Biddy was mistress I had never seen; but,

the little roundabout lane by which I entered the village, for

quietness’ sake, took me past it. I was disappointed to find that

the day was a holiday; no children were there, and Biddy’s house

was closed. Some hopeful notion of seeing her, busily engaged in her

daily duties, before she saw me, had been in my mind and was

defeated.

But the forge was a very