it may be so. There’s room.’
“‘What can you do?’ says Compeyson.
“‘Eat and drink,’ I says; ‘if you’ll find the materials.’
“Compeyson laughed, looked at me again very noticing, giv me five shillings, and appointed me for next night. Same place.
“I went to Compeyson next night, same place, and Compeyson took me on to be his man and pardner. And what was Compeyson’s business in which we was to go pardners? Compeyson’s business was the swindling, handwriting forging, stolen banknote passing, and suchlike. All sorts of traps as Compeyson could set with his head, and keep his own legs out of and get the profits from and let another man in for, was Compeyson’s business. He’d no more heart than a iron file, he was as cold as death, and he had the head of the Devil afore mentioned.
“There was another in with Compeyson, as was called Arthur, — not as being so chrisen’d, but as a surname. He was in a Decline, and was a shadow to look at. Him and Compeyson had been in a bad thing with a rich lady some years afore, and they’d made a pot of money by it; but Compeyson betted and gamed, and he’d have run through the king’s taxes. So, Arthur was a dying, and a dying poor and with the horrors on him, and Compeyson’s wife (which Compeyson kicked mostly) was a having pity on him when she could, and Compeyson was a having pity on nothing and nobody.
“I might a took warning by Arthur, but I didn’t; and I won’t pretend I was partick’ler — for where ‘ud be the good on it, dear boy and comrade? So I begun wi’ Compeyson, and a poor tool I was in his hands. Arthur lived at the top of Compeyson’s house (over nigh Brentford it was), and Compeyson kept a careful account agen him for board and lodging, in case he should ever get better to work it out. But Arthur soon settled the account. The second or third time as ever I see him, he come a tearing down into Compeyson’s parlor late at night, in only a flannel gown, with his hair all in a sweat, and he says to Compeyson’s wife, ‘Sally, she really is upstairs alonger me, now, and I can’t get rid of her. She’s all in white,’ he says, ‘wi’ white flowers in her hair, and she’s awful mad, and she’s got a shroud hanging over her arm, and she says she’ll put it on me at five in the morning.’
“Says Compeyson: ‘Why, you fool, don’t you know she’s got a living body? And how should she be up there, without coming through the door, or in at the window, and up the stairs?’
“‘I don’t know how she’s there,’ says Arthur, shivering dreadful with the horrors, ‘but she’s standing in the corner at the foot of the bed, awful mad. And over where her heart’s broke — you broke it! — there’s drops of blood.’
“Compeyson spoke hardy, but he was always a coward. ‘Go up alonger this drivelling sick man,’ he says to his wife, ‘and Magwitch, lend her a hand, will you?’ But he never come nigh himself.
“Compeyson’s wife and me took him up to bed agen, and he raved most dreadful. ‘Why look at her!’ he cries out. ‘She’s a shaking the shroud at me! Don’t you see her? Look at her eyes! Ain’t it awful to see her so mad?’ Next he cries, ‘She’ll put it on me, and then I’m done for! Take it away from her, take it away!’ And then he catched hold of us, and kep on a talking to her, and answering of her, till I half believed I see her myself.
“Compeyson’s wife, being used to him, giv him some liquor to get the horrors off, and by and by he quieted. ‘O, she’s gone! Has her keeper been for her?’ he says. ‘Yes,’ says Compeyson’s wife. ‘Did you tell him to lock her and bar her in?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘And to take that ugly thing away from her?’ ‘Yes, yes, all right.’ ‘You’re a good creetur,’ he says, ‘don’t leave me, whatever you do, and thank you!’
“He rested pretty quiet till it might want a few minutes of five, and then he starts up with a scream, and screams out, ‘Here she is! She’s got the shroud again. She’s unfolding it. She’s coming out of the corner. She’s coming to the bed. Hold me, both on you — one of each side — don’t let her touch me with it. Hah! she missed me that time. Don’t let her throw it over my shoulders. Don’t let her lift me up to get it round me. She’s lifting me up. Keep me down!’ Then he lifted himself up hard, and was dead.
“Compeyson took it easy as a good riddance for both sides. Him and me was soon busy, and first he swore me (being ever artful) on my own book, — this here little black book, dear boy, what I swore your comrade on.
“Not to go into the things that Compeyson planned, and I done — which ‘ud take a week — I’ll simply say to you, dear boy, and Pip’s comrade, that that man got me into such nets as made me his black slave. I was always in debt to him, always under his thumb, always a working, always a getting into danger. He was younger than me, but he’d got craft, and he’d got learning, and he overmatched me five hundred times told and no mercy. My Missis as I had the hard time wi’ — Stop though! I ain’t brought her in — ”
He looked about him in a confused way, as if he had lost his place in the book of his remembrance; and he turned his face to the fire, and spread his hands broader on his knees, and lifted them off and put them on again.
“There ain’t no need to go into it,” he said, looking round once more. “The time wi’ Compeyson was a’most as hard a time as ever I had; that said, all’s said. Did I tell you as I was tried, alone, for misdemeanor, while with Compeyson?”
I answered, No.
“Well!” he said, “I was, and got convicted. As to took up on suspicion, that was twice or three times in the four or five year that it lasted; but evidence was wanting. At last, me and Compeyson was both committed for felony, — on a charge of putting stolen notes in circulation, — and there was other charges behind. Compeyson says to me, ‘Separate defences, no communication,’ and that was all. And I was so miserable poor, that I sold all the clothes I had, except what hung on my back, afore I could get Jaggers.
“When we was put in the dock, I noticed first of all what a gentleman Compeyson looked, wi’ his curly hair and his black clothes and his white pockethandkercher, and what a common sort of a wretch I looked. When the prosecution opened and the evidence was put short, aforehand, I noticed how heavy it all bore on me, and how light on him. When the evidence was giv in the box, I noticed how it was always me that had come for’ard, and could be swore to, how it was always me that the money had been paid to, how it was always me that had seemed to work the thing and get the profit. But when the defence come on, then I see the plan plainer; for, says the counsellor for Compeyson, ‘My lord and gentlemen, here you has afore you, side by side, two persons as your eyes can separate wide; one, the younger, well brought up, who will be spoke to as such; one, the elder, ill brought up, who will be spoke to as such; one, the younger, seldom if ever seen in these here transactions, and only suspected; t’other, the elder, always seen in ‘em and always wi’his guilt brought home. Can you doubt, if there is but one in it, which is the one, and, if there is two in it, which is much the worst one?’ And suchlike. And when it come to character, warn’t it Compeyson as had been to the school, and warn’t it his schoolfellows as was in this position and in that, and warn’t it him as had been know’d by witnesses in such clubs and societies, and nowt to his disadvantage? And warn’t it me as had been tried afore, and as had been know’d up hill and down dale in Bridewells and Lock-Ups! And when it come to speech-making, warn’t it Compeyson as could speak to ‘em wi’ his face dropping every now and then into his white pockethandkercher, — ah! and wi’ verses in his speech, too, — and warn’t it me as could only say, ‘Gentlemen, this man at my side is a most precious rascal’? And when the verdict come, warn’t it Compeyson as was recommended to mercy on account of good character and bad company, and giving up all the information he could agen me, and warn’t it me as got never a word but Guilty? And when I says to Compeyson, ‘Once out of this court, I’ll smash that face of yourn!’ ain’t it Compeyson as prays the Judge to be protected, and gets two turnkeys stood betwixt us? And when we’re sentenced, ain’t it him as gets seven year, and me fourteen, and ain’t it him as the Judge is sorry for, because he might a done so well, and ain’t it me as the Judge perceives