drink, he hammered away at my mother, most onmerciful. It were a’most the only hammering he did, indeed, ’xcepting at myself. And he hammered at me with a wigour only to be equalled by the wigour with which he didn’t hammer at his anwil. – You’re a listening and understanding, Pip?”
“Yes, Joe.”
“’Consequence, my mother and me we ran away from my father, several times; and then my mother she’d go out to work, and she’d say, ‘Joe,’ she’d say, ‘now, please God, you shall have some schooling, child,’ and she’d put me to school. But my father were that good in his hart that he couldn’t abear to be without us. So, he’d come with a most tremenjous crowd and make such a row at the doors of the houses where we was, that they used to be obligated to have no more to do with us and to give us up to him. And then he took us home and hammered us. Which, you see, Pip,” said Joe, pausing in his meditative raking of the fire, and looking at me, “were a draw-back on my learning.”
“Certainly, poor Joe!”
“Though mind you, Pip,” said Joe, with a judicial touch or two of the poker on the top bar, “rendering unto all their doo, and maintaining equal justice betwixt man and man, my father were that good in his hart, don’t you see?”
I didn’t see; but I didn’t say so.
“Well!” Joe pursued, “somebody must keep the pot a biling, Pip, or the pot won’t bile, don’t you know.”
I saw that, and said so.
“’Consequence, my father didn’t make objections to my going to work; so I went to work at my present calling, which were his too, if he would have followed it, and I worked tolerable hard, I assure you, Pip. In time I were able to keep him, and I kep him till he went off in a purple leptic fit. And it were my intentions to have had put upon his tombstone that Whatsume’er the failings on his part, Remember reader he were that good in his hart.”
Joe recited this couplet with such manifest pride and careful perspicuity, that I asked him if he had made it himself?
“I made it,” said Joe, “my own self. I made it in a moment. It was like striking out a horseshoe complete, in a single blow. I never was so much surprised in all my life – couldn’t credit my own ed – to tell you the truth, hardly believed it were my own ed. As I was saying, Pip, it were my intentions to have had it cut over him; but poetry costs money, cut it how you will, small or large, and it were not done. Not to mention bearers, all the money that could be spared were wanted for my mother. She were in poor elth, and quite broke. She weren’t long of following, poor soul, and her share of peace come round at last.”
Joe’s blue eyes turned a little watery; he rubbed, first one of them, and then the other, in a most uncongenial and uncomfortable manner, with the round knob on the top of the poker.
“It were but lonesome then,” said Joe, “living here alone, and I got acquainted with your sister. Now, Pip;” Joe looked firmly at me, as if he knew I was not going to agree with him; “your sister is a fine figure of a woman.”
I could not help looking at the fire, in an obvious state of doubt.
“Whatever family opinions, or whatever the world’s opinions, on that subject may be, Pip, your sister is,” Joe tapped the top bar with the poker after every word following “a – fine – figure – of – a – woman!”
I could think of nothing better to say than “I am glad you think so, Joe.”
“So am I,” returned Joe, catching me up. “I am glad I think so, Pip. A little redness, or a little matter of Bone, here or there, what does it signify to Me?”
I sagaciously observed, if it didn’t signify to him, to whom did it signify?
“Certainly!” assented Joe. “That’s it. You’re right, old chap! When I got acquainted with your sister, it were the talk how she was bringing you up by hand. Very kind of her too, all the folks said, and I said, along with all the folks. As to you,” Joe pursued, with a countenance expressive of seeing something very nasty indeed: “if you could have been aware how small and flabby and mean you was, dear me, you’d have formed the most contemptible opinions of yourself!”
Not exactly relishing this, I said, “Never mind me, Joe.”
“But I did mind you, Pip,” he returned with tender simplicity. “When I offered to your sister to keep company, and to be asked in church at such times as she was willing and ready to come to the forge, I said to her, ‘And bring the poor little child. God bless the poor little child,’ I said to your sister, ‘there’s room for him at the forge!’”
I broke out crying and begging pardon, and hugged Joe round the neck: who dropped the poker to hug me, and to say, “Ever the best of friends; an’t us, Pip? Don’t cry, old chap!”
When this little interruption was over, Joe resumed:
“Well, you see, Pip, and here we are! That’s about where it lights; here we are! Now, when you take me in hand in my learning, Pip (and I tell you beforehand I am awful dull, most awful dull), Mrs. Joe mustn’t see too much of what we’re up to. It must be done, as I may say, on the sly. And why on the sly? I’ll tell you why, Pip.”
He had taken up the poker again; without which, I doubt if he could have proceeded in his demonstration.
“Your sister is given to government.”
“Given to government, Joe?” I was startled, for I had some shadowy idea (and I am afraid I must add, hope) that Joe had divorced her in favour of the Lords of the Admiralty, or Treasury.
“Given to government,” said Joe. “Which I meantersay the government of you and myself.”
“Oh!”
“And she an’t over partial to having scholars on the premises,” Joe continued, “and in partickler would not be over partial to my being a scholar, for fear as I might rise. Like a sort of rebel, don’t you see?”
I was going to retort with an inquiry, and had got as far as “Why—” when Joe stopped me.
“Stay a bit. I know what you’re a going to say, Pip; stay a bit! I don’t deny that your sister comes the Mo-gul over us, now and again. I don’t deny that she do throw us back-falls, and that she do drop down upon us heavy. At such times as when your sister is on the Ram-page, Pip,” Joe sank his voice to a whisper and glanced at the door, “cander compels fur to admit that she is a Buster.”
Joe pronounced this word, as if it began with at least twelve capital Bs.
“Why don’t I rise? That were your obserwation when I broke it off, Pip?”
“Yes, Joe.”
“Well,” said Joe, passing the poker into his left hand, that he might feel his whisker; and I had no hope of him whenever he took to that placid occupation; “your sister’s a master-mind. A master-mind.”
“What’s that?” I asked, in some hope of bringing him to a stand. But, Joe was readier with his definition than I had expected, and completely stopped me by arguing circularly, and answering with a fixed look, “Her.”
“And I an’t a master-mind,” Joe resumed, when he had unfixed his look, and got back to his whisker. “And last of all, Pip – and this I want to say very serous to you, old chap – I see so much in my poor mother, of a woman drudging and slaving and breaking her honest hart and never getting no peace in her mortal days, that I’m dead afeerd of going wrong in the way of not doing what’s right by a woman, and I’d fur rather of the two go wrong the t’other way, and be a little ill-conwenienced myself. I wish it was only me that got put out, Pip; I wish there warn’t no Tickler for you, old chap; I wish I could take it all on myself; but this is the up-and-down-and-straight on it, Pip, and I hope you’ll overlook short-comings.”
Young as I was, I believe that I dated a new admiration of Joe from that night. We were equals