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I saw Mr. Pumblechook balance his knife. I felt that I could bear no more, and that I must run away. I ran for my life.

      But I ran no farther than the house door. There stood a party of soldiers with their muskets.

      Chapter 5

      The sergeant and I were in the kitchen when Mrs. Joe stood staring.

      “Excuse me, ladies and gentleman,” said the sergeant, “but I am on a chase in the name of the king, and I want the blacksmith.”

      “And pray what might you want with him?” retorted my sister.

      “Missis,” returned the gallant sergeant, “speaking for the king, I answer, a little job. You see, blacksmith, we have had an accident with handcuffs, and I find the lock of one of them goes wrong, and the coupling don’t act pretty. As they are wanted for immediate service, will you throw your eye over them?[21]”

      Joe threw his eye over them, and pronounced that the job would take two hours.

      “Would you give me the time?” said the sergeant, addressing himself to Mr. Pumblechook.

      “It’s just gone half past two.”

      “That’s not so bad,” said the sergeant, reflecting; “How far are the marshes? Not above a mile, I reckon?”

      “Just a mile,” said Mrs. Joe.

      “Convicts, sergeant?” asked Mr. Wopsle.

      “Ay!” returned the sergeant, “two. They are out on the marshes, and we are going to catch them.”

      At last, Joe’s job was done. As Joe got on his coat, he proposed that some of us should go down with the soldiers. Mr. Pumblechook and Mr. Hubble declined, but Mr. Wopsle said he would go, if Joe would. Joe said he was agreeable, and would take me, if Mrs. Joe approved. Mrs. Joe said, “If you bring the boy back with his head blown to bits by a musket, don’t ask me to put it together again.”

      When we were all out in the raw air and were steadily moving towards the marshs, I whispered to Joe, “I hope, Joe, we shan’t find them.” and Joe whispered to me, “I’d give a shilling if they had run, Pip.”

      The weather was cold and threatening, the way dreary, darkness coming on, and the people had good fires and were celebrating the day. A few faces hurried to glowing windows and looked after us, but none came out. Joe took me on his back. With my heart thumping, I looked all about for any sign of the convicts. Finally, I saw them both. The soldiers stopped.

      After that they began to run. After a while, we could hear one voice calling “Murder!” and another voice, “Convicts! Guard! This way for the runaway convicts!” The soldiers ran like deer, and Joe too.

      “Here are both men!” cried the sergeant. “Surrender, you two!”

      Water was splashing, and mud was flying.

      “Mind!” said my convict, wiping blood from his face with his ragged sleeves, and shaking torn hair from his fingers: “I took him! I give him up to you! Mind that!”

      The other was bruised and torn all over.

      “Take notice, guard – he tried to murder me,” were his first words.

      “Tried to murder him?” said my convict, disdainfully. “Try, and not do it? I took him; that’s what I done. dragged him here. He’s a gentleman, if you please, this villain. Now, the Hulks has got its gentleman again, through me!”

      The other one still gasped, “He tried – he tried to – murder me.”

      “Look here!” said my convict to the sergeant. “I tried to kill him? No, no, no.”

      The other fugitive, who was evidently in extreme horror of his companion, repeated, “He tried to murder me. I should have been a dead man if you had not come up.”

      “He lies!” said my convict, with fierce energy.

      My convict never looked at me, except that once. He turned to the sergeant, and remarked,

      “I wish to say something. It may prevent some persons laying under suspicion alonger me.[22]”

      “You can say what you like,” returned the sergeant, standing coolly looking at him with his arms folded, “but you’ll have opportunity enough to say about it, and hear about it, you know.”

      “A man can’t starve; at least I can’t. I took some wittles, at the village over there.”

      “You mean stole,” said the sergeant.

      “And I’ll tell you where from. From the blacksmith’s.”

      “Halloa!” said the sergeant, staring at Joe.

      “Halloa, Pip!” said Joe, staring at me.

      “It was some wittles – that’s what it was – and liquor, and a pie.”

      “You’re welcome,” returned Joe, “We don’t know what you have done, but we wouldn’t have you starved, poor miserable fellow. Would us, Pip?”

      Something clicked in the man’s throat, and he turned his back.

      Chapter 6

      The fear of losing Joe’s confidence, and of sitting in the chimney corner at night staring at my forever lost companion and friend, tied up my tongue. In a word, I was too cowardly to tell Joe the truth.

      As I was sleepy before we were far away from the prison-ship, Joe took me on his back again and carried me home.

      By that time, I was fast asleep, and through waking in the heat and lights and noise of tongues. As I came to myself (with the aid of a heavy thump between the shoulders), I found Joe telling them about the convict’s confession, and all the visitors suggesting different ways by which he had got into the pantry. Everybody agreed that it must be so.

      Chapter 7

      When I was old enough, I was to be apprenticed to Joe. Therefore, I was not only odd-boy about the forge, but if any neighbor happened to want an extra boy to frighten birds, or pick up stones, or do any such job, I was favoured with the employment.

      “Didn’t you ever go to school, Joe, when you were as little as me?” asked I one day.

      “No, Pip.”

      “Why didn’t you ever go to school?”

      “Well, Pip,” said Joe, taking up the poker, and settling himself to his usual occupation when he was thoughtful; “I’ll tell you. My father, Pip, liked to drink much. You’re listening and understanding, Pip?”

      “Yes, Joe.”

      “So my mother and me we ran away from my father several times. Sometimes my mother said, ‘Joe, you shall have some schooling, child,’ and she’d put me to school. But my father couldn’t live without us. So, he’d come with a crowd and took us from the houses where we were. He took us home and hammered us. You see, Pip, it was a drawback on my learning.[23]”

      “Certainly, poor Joe!”

      “My father didn’t make objections to my going to work; so I went to work. In time I was able to keep him, and I kept him till he went off.”

      Joe’s blue eyes turned a little watery; he rubbed first one of them, and then the other, in a most uncomfortable manner, with the round knob on the top of the poker.

      “I got acquainted with your sister,” said Joe, “living here alone. 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.Скачать книгу