It was a green arboreous village and on two sides by the dark, gloomy wilderness intersected with hillocks and dykes, was the

Great Expectations I

A Classic retold, replete with all the feminine muscles of yesteryears.

It was a green arboreous village and on two sides by the dark, gloomy wilderness intersected with hillocks and dykes, was the marshes; and towards the south was the river; and the distant savage rocks from which the wind rushed, was the sea. It was a sparse, sleepy country where I lived with my sister and her husband. I had never known my parents and my sister never talked about them.

My sister, Mrs. Olivia Brooke, was twelve 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 Jake Brooke and I were both brought up by hand.

She was a good-looking woman, my sister; but I still had a suspicion that she must have made Jake Brooke marry her by hand. Jake was a fair man, with curls of flaxen hair on each side of his smooth face. He was a mild, good-natured, sweet-tempered, easy-going kind of man.

My sister, Olivia Brooke, with black hair and eyes, was tall and stringy, and almost always wore a coarse apron, fastened over her strong figure. She made it a powerful merit in herself, and a strong reproach against Jake, that she wore this apron so much.

Jake's smithy adjoined our house, which was a brick-house, as many of the dwellings in our country were. When I returned home from the churchyard, the forge was shut up, and Jake was sitting alone in the kitchen.

'Mrs. Jake has been out a dozen times, looking for you, Luke. And she's out now, making it a baker's dozen.'

'Is she?'

'Yes, Luke,' said Jake, 'and what's worse, she's got a wooden cane with her.'

'Has she been gone long, Jake?' I always treated him as a larger species of child, and as no more than my equal.

'Well,' said Jake, glancing up at the Dutch clock, 'It has been eight minutes, Luke.'

Suddenly the door was thrown open carelessly. My sister, Mrs. Jake having coolly observed me for a few minutes rolled up her sleeves revealing broad wrists and unusually thick forearms for a slender person. I saw her palm gripping the cane tightly as thick blue veins appeared on her forearms. Three well connected swings were all it took to bring tears in my eyes. She concluded by gripping my left arm and raising my entire body off the ground with just her right arm. As I choked back tears which were rushing out, she threw me - I often served as a connubial missile - at Jake, who caught me before I hit the ground and placed me at a stool behind him shielding me from my sister's ire.

'Where have you been, you young monkey?' asked Mrs. Jake, stamping her foot. 'Tell me quickly what you've been doing to wear me away with fret and fright and worrit, or I'd have you out of that corner if you were fifty Lukes, and he was five hundred Brookes.'

'I have only been to the churchyard,' said I, from my stool, crying and rubbing my arm where she had grabbed me.

'Churchyard!' repeated my sister. 'If it wasn't for me you'd have been to the churchyard long ago, and stayed there. Who brought you up by hand?'

'You did,' I said.

'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 you were born. It's bad enough to be a blacksmith's wife (and him a Brooke) without being your mother.'

'He was only at the churchyard-,' said Jake before Mrs. Jake interrupted him.

'Hah!' said Mrs. Jake, restoring the cane to its station. 'Churchyard, indeed! You may well say churchyard. You'll drive me to the churchyard between the two of you, one of these days, and oh, a precious pair you'd be without me!'

***

Jake made the fire and swept the hearth, and then we went to the door to listen for the chaise-cart. It was a dry cold night as the wind blew keenly, and the frost was white and hard. A man would die to-night of lying out on the marshes, I thought. And then I looked at the stars, and considered how awful if would be for a man to turn his face up to them as he froze to death, and see no help or pity in all the glittering multitude.

'Here comes the mare,' said Jake, 'ringing like a peal of bells!'

The sound of her iron shoes upon the hard road was quite musical, as she came along at a much brisker trot than usual. We got a chair out, ready for Mrs. Jake's alighting, and stirred up the fire that they might see a bright window, and took a final survey of the kitchen that nothing might be out of its place. When we had completed these preparations, they drove up, wrapped to the eyes. Mrs. Jake was soon landed, and Uncle Henry was soon down too, covering the mare with a cloth, and we were soon all in the kitchen, carrying so much cold air in with us that it seemed to drive all the heat out of the fire.

'Now,' said Mrs. Jake, unwrapping herself with haste and excitement, and throwing her bonnet back on her shoulders where it hung by the strings: 'if this boy isn't grateful this night, he never will be!' I looked as grateful as any boy possibly could, who was wholly uninformed why he ought to assume that expression. 'It's only to be hoped,' said my sister, 'that he won't be Pomp-eyed. But I have my fears.'

Then she turned towards Jake. 'Miss Calvert wants this boy to go and play there. And of course he's going. And he had better play there,' said my sister, shaking her head at me as an encouragement to be extremely light and sportive, 'or I'll work him.'

I had heard of Miss Calvert, everybody for miles round, had heard of Miss Calvert, - as an immensely rich and grim lady who lived in a large and dismal house barricaded against robbers, and who led a life of seclusion.

'Well to be sure!' said Jake, astounded. 'I wonder how she come to know Luke!'

'Noodle!' cried my sister. 'Who said she knew him?'

' - Which some individual,' Jake politely hinted, 'mentioned that she wanted him to go and play there.'

'And couldn't she ask Uncle Henry if he knew of a boy to go and play there? Isn't it just barely possible that Uncle Henry may be a tenant of hers, and that he may sometimes - we won't say quarterly or half-yearly, for that would be requiring too much of you - but sometimes - go there to pay his rent? And couldn't she then ask Uncle Henry if he knew of a boy to go and play there? And couldn't Uncle Henry, being always considerate and thoughtful for us - though you may not think it, Jake,' in a tone of the deepest reproach, as if he were the most callous of nephews, 'then mention this boy, standing prancing here' - which I solemnly declare I was not doing - 'that I have for ever been a willing slave to?'

'Good again!' cried Uncle Henry. 'Well put! Prettily pointed! Good indeed! Now Jake, you know the case.'

I was put into clean linen of the stiffest character, like a young penitent into sackcloth, and was trussed up in a dark and tight suit. I was then delivered over to Mr. Henry, who formally received me as if he were the Sheriff, and who let off upon me the speech that I knew he had been dying to make all along: 'Boy, be forever grateful to all friends, but especially unto them which brought you up by hand!'

'Good-bye, Jake!'

'God bless you, Luke, old chap!'

I had never parted from Jake before, and what with my feelings and what with soap-suds, I could at first see no stars from the chaise-cart. But they twinkled out one by one, without throwing any light on the questions why on earth I was going to play at Miss Calvert's, and what on earth I was expected to play at.

Next morning, Mr. Henry and I breakfasted at eight o'clock in the parlour behind the shop, while the shop man took his mug of tea and hunch of bread-and-butter on a sack of peas in the front premises. I considered Mr. Henry wretched company. Besides being possessed by my sister's idea that a mortifying and penitential character ought to be imparted to my diet - besides giving me as much crumb as possible in combination with as little butter, and putting such a quantity of warm water into my milk that it would have been more candid to have left the milk out altogether - his conversation consisted of nothing but arithmetic. On my politely bidding him Good morning, he said, pompously, 'Seven times nine, boy?' And how should I be able to answer, dodged in that way, in a strange place, on an empty stomach! I was hungry, but before I had swallowed a morsel, he began a running sum that lasted all through the breakfast.

For such reasons I was very glad when ten o'clock came and we started for Miss Calvert's; though I was not at all at my ease regarding the manner in which I should acquit myself under that lady's roof. Within a quarter of an hour we came to Miss Calvert's house, which was of old brick, and dismal, and had a great many iron bars to it. Some of the windows had been walled up; of those that remained, all the lower were rustily barred. There was a court-yard in front, and that was barred; so, we had to wait, after ringing the bell, until some one should come to open it. While we waited at the gate, I peeped in (even then Mr. Henry said, 'And fourteen times four?' but I pretended not to hear him), and saw that at the side of the house there was a large brewery. No brewing was going on in it, and none seemed to have gone on for a long long time.

A window was raised, and a clear voice demanded. 'What is your name?' To which my conductor replied, 'Henry.' The voice returned, 'Quite right,' and the window was shut again, and a young lady came across the court-yard, with keys in her hand.

'This,' said Mr. Henry, 'is Luke.'

'This is Luke, is it?' returned the young lady, who was incredibly pretty and seemed very proud; 'come in, Luke.'

Mr. Henry was coming in also, when she stopped him with the gate. 'Oh!' she said. 'Did you wish to see Miss Calvert?'

'If Miss Calvert wished to see me,' returned Mr. Henry, discomfited.

'Ah!' said the girl; 'but you see she doesn't.' She said it so finally, and in such a way, that Mr. Henry, though in a condition of ruffled dignity, could not protest. But he eyed me severely - as if I had done anything to him! - and departed with the words reproachfully delivered: 'Boy! Let your behaviour here be a credit unto them which brought you up by hand!' I was not free from apprehension that he would come back to propound through the gate, 'And sixteen times five?'

But he didn't.

My young guide locked the gate, and we went across the court-yard. It was paved and clean, but grass was growing in every crevice. The brewery buildings had a little lane of communication with it, and the wooden gates of that lane stood open, and the entire brewery beyond stood open, away to the high enclosing wall; and all was empty and disused. The cold wind seemed to blow colder there, than outside the gates; and it made a shrill noise in howling in and out at the open sides of the brewery, like the noise of wind in the rigging of a ship at sea.

She saw me looking at it and said, 'You could drink without hurt all the strong beer that's brewed there now, boy.'

'I should think I could, miss,' said I, in a shy way.

'Better not try to brew beer there now, or it would turn out sour, boy; don't you think so?'

'It looks like it, miss.'

'Not that anybody means to try,' she added, 'for that's all done with, and the place will stand as idle as it is, till it falls. As to strong beer, there's enough of it in the cellars already, to drown the Manor House.'

'Is that the name of this house, miss?'

'One of its names, boy.'

'It has more than one, then, Miss?'

'One more. Its other name was Satis; which is Greek, or Latin, or Hebrew, or all three - or all one to me - for enough.'

'Enough House,' said I; 'that's a curious name, miss.'

'Yes,' she replied; 'but it meant more than it said. It meant, when it was given, that whoever had this house, could want nothing else. They must have been easily satisfied in those days, I should think. But don't loiter, boy.'

Though she called me 'boy' so often, and with a carelessness that was far from complimentary. She seemed quite mature though and being a girl, and a beautiful and self-possessed at that; she was as scornful of me as if she had been twenty-one, and a queen.

We went into the house by a side door - the great front entrance had two chains across it outside - and the first thing I noticed was, that the passages were all dark, and that she had left a candle burning there. She took it up, and we went through more passages and up a staircase, and still it was all dark, and only the candle lighted us. At last we came to the door of a room, and she said, 'Go in.'

I answered, more in shyness than politeness, 'After you, miss.'

To this, she returned: 'Don't be ridiculous, boy; I am not going in.' and scornfully walked away, and - what was worse - took the candle with her. This was very uncomfortable, and I was half afraid. However, the only thing to be done being to knock at the door, I knocked, and was told from within to enter. I entered, therefore, and found myself in a large room, well lighted with wax candles. No glimpse of daylight was to be seen in it. It was a dressing-room, as I supposed from the furniture, though much of it was of forms and uses then quite unknown to me. But prominent in it was a draped table with a gilded looking-glass, and that I made out at first sight to be a fine lady's dressing-table.

Whether I should have made out this object so soon, if there had been no fine lady sitting at it, I cannot say. In an arm-chair, with an elbow resting on the table and her head leaning on that hand, sat the strangest lady I have ever seen, or shall ever see. She was dressed in rich materials - satins, and lace, and silks - all of white. Her shoes were small and white. And she had a long white veil dependent from her hair, and she had bridal flowers in her hair, but her hair was white. Some bright jewels sparkled on her neck and on her hands, and some other jewels lay sparkling on the table. Dresses, less splendid than the dress she wore, and half-packed trunks, were scattered about. She had not quite finished dressing, for she had but one shoe on - the other was on the table near her hand - her veil was but half arranged, her watch and chain were not put on, and some lace for her bosom lay with those trinkets, and with her handkerchief, and gloves, and some flowers, and a prayer-book, all confusedly heaped about the looking-glass.

'Who is it?' said the lady at the table.

'Luke, ma'am.'

'Luke?'

'Mr. Henry's boy, ma'am. Come - to play.'

'Come nearer; let me look at you. Come close.'

It was when I stood before her, avoiding her eyes, that I took note of the surrounding objects in detail, and saw that her watch had stopped at twenty minutes to nine, and that a clock in the room had stopped at twenty minutes to nine.

'Look at me,' said Miss Calvert. 'You are not afraid of a woman who has never seen the sun since you were born?'

I regret to state that I was not afraid of telling the enormous lie comprehended in the answer 'No.'

'Do you know what I touch here?' she said, laying her hands, one upon the other, on her left side.

'Yes, ma'am.'

'What do I touch?'

'Your heart.'

'Broken!'

She uttered the word with an eager look, and with strong emphasis, and with a weird smile that had a kind of boast in it. Afterwards, she kept her hands there for a little while, and slowly took them away as if they were heavy.

'I am tired,' said Miss Calvert. 'I want diversion, and I have done with men and women. Play!'

When I just stood there gaping at her, she continued, 'I sometimes have sick fancies, and I have a sick fancy that I want to see some play. There there!' with an impatient movement of the long, sturdy fingers of her right hand; 'play, play, play!'

For a moment, with the fear of my sister's working me before my eyes, I had a desperate idea of starting round the room in the assumed character of Mr. Henry's chaise-cart. But, I felt myself so unequal to the performance that I gave it up, and stood looking at Miss Calvert in what I suppose she took for a dogged manner, in as much as she said, when we had taken a good look at each other:

'Are you sullen and obstinate?'

'No, ma'am, I am very sorry for you, and very sorry I can't play just now. If you complain of me I shall get into trouble with my sister, so I would do it if I could; but it's so new here, and so strange, and so fine - and melancholy'.' I stopped, fearing I might say too much, or had already said it, and we took another look at each other.

Before she spoke again, she turned her eyes from me, and looked at the dress she wore, and at the dressing-table, and finally at herself in the looking-glass. 'So new to him,' she muttered, 'so old to me; so strange to him, so familiar to me; so melancholy to both of us! Call Estella.'

As she was still looking at the reflection of herself, I thought she was still talking to herself, and kept quiet.

'Call Estella,' she repeated, flashing a look at me. 'You can do that. Call Estella. At the door.'

To stand in the dark in a mysterious passage of an unknown house, bawling Estella to a scornful young lady neither visible nor responsive, and feeling it a dreadful liberty so to roar out her name, was almost as bad as playing to order. But, she answered at last, and her light came along the dark passage like a star.

Miss Calvert beckoned her to come close, and took up a jewel from the table, and tried its effect upon her fair young bosom and against her pretty blonde hair. 'Your own, one day, my dear, and you will use it well. Let me see you play cards with this boy.'

'With this boy? Why, he is a common labouring-boy!'

I thought I overheard Miss Calvert answer - only it seemed so unlikely - 'Well? You can break his heart.'

'What do you play, boy?' asked Estella of myself, with the greatest disdain.

'Nothing but beggar my neighbour, miss.'

'Beggar him,' said Miss Calvert to Estella. So we sat down to cards.

'He calls the knaves, Jacks, this boy!' said Estella with disdain, before our first game was out. 'And what poor hands he has!'

I had never thought of being ashamed of my hands before; but I began to consider them a very indifferent pair. Her contempt for me was so strong, that it became infectious, and I caught it. She won the game, and I dealt. I misdealt, as was only natural, when I knew she was lying in wait for me to do wrong; and she denounced me for a stupid, clumsy labouring-boy.

'You say nothing of her,' remarked Miss Calvert to me, as she looked on. 'She says many hard things of you, but you say nothing of her. What do you think of her?'

'I don't like to say,' I stammered.

'Tell me in my ear,' said Miss Calvert, bending down.

'I think she is very proud,' I replied, in a whisper.

'Anything else?'

'I think she is very pretty.'

'Anything else?'

'I think she is very insulting.' (She was looking at me then with a look of supreme aversion.)

'Anything else?'

'I think I should like to go home.'

'And never see her again, though she is so pretty?'

'I am not sure that I shouldn't like to see her again, but I should like to go home now.'

'You shall go soon,' said Miss Calvert, aloud. 'Play the game out.'

I played the game to an end with Estella, and she beggared me. She threw the cards down on the table when she had won them all, as if she despised them for having been won of me.

'Estella, take him down. Let him have something to eat, and let him roam and look about him while he eats. Go, Luke.'

I followed the candle down, as I had followed the candle up, and she stood it in the place where we had found it. Until she opened the side entrance, I had fancied, without thinking about it, that it must necessarily be night-time. The rush of the daylight quite confounded me, and made me feel as if I had been in the candlelight of the strange room many hours.

'You are to wait here, you boy,' said Estella; and disappeared and closed the door.

I took the opportunity of being alone in the court-yard, to look at my poor hands and my common boots. My opinion of those accessories was not favourable. They had never troubled me before, but they troubled me now, as vulgar appendages. I determined to ask Jake why he had ever taught me to call those picture-cards, Jacks, which ought to be called knaves. I wished Jake had been rather more genteelly brought up, and then I should have been so too.

She came back, with some bread and meat and a little mug of beer. She put the mug down on the stones of the yard, and gave me the bread and meat without looking at me, as insolently as if I were a dog in disgrace. I was so humiliated, hurt, spurned, offended, angry, sorry - I cannot hit upon the right name for the smart - God knows what its name was - that tears started to my eyes. The moment they sprang there, the girl looked at me with a quick delight in having been the cause of them. This gave me power to keep them back and to look at her: so, she gave a contemptuous toss - but with a sense, I thought, of having made too sure that I was so wounded - and left me.

But, when she was gone, I looked about me for a place to hide my face in, and got behind one of the gates in the brewery-lane, and leaned my sleeve against the wall there and cried. As I cried, I kicked the wall; so bitter were my feelings. My sister's bringing up had made me sensitive. In the little world in which children have their existence whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt, as injustice. It may be only small injustice that the child can be exposed to; but the child is small, and its world is small. Within myself, I had sustained, from my babyhood, a perpetual conflict with injustice. I had known, from the time when I could speak, that my sister, in her capricious and violent coercion, was unjust to me. I had cherished a profound conviction that her bringing me up by hand, gave her no right to bring me up by jerks. Through all my punishments, disgraces, fasts and vigils, and other penitential performances, I had nursed this assurance; and to my communing so much with it, in a solitary and unprotected way, I in great part refer the fact that I was morally timid and very sensitive. I got rid of my injured feelings for the time, by kicking them into the brewery wall, and twisting them out of my hair, and then I smoothed my face with my sleeve, and came from behind the gate. The bread and meat were acceptable, and the beer was warming and tingling, and I was soon in spirits to look about me.

To be sure, it was a deserted place, down to the pigeon-house in the brewery-yard, which had been blown crooked on its pole by some high wind, and would have made the pigeons think themselves at sea, if there had been any pigeons there to be rocked by it. But, there were no pigeons in the dove-cot, no horses in the stable, no pigs in the sty, no malt in the store-house, no smells of grains and beer in the copper or the vat. All the uses and scents of the brewery might have evaporated with its last reek of smoke. In a by-yard, there was a wilderness of empty casks, which had a certain sour remembrance of better days lingering about them; but it was too sour to be accepted as a sample of the beer that was gone - and in this respect I remember those recluses as being like most others.

It was in this place, and at this moment, that a strange thing happened to my fancy. I thought it a strange thing then, and I thought it a stranger thing long afterwards. I turned my eyes - a little dimmed by looking up at the frosty light - towards a great wooden beam in a low nook of the building near me on my right hand, and I saw a figure hanging there by the neck. A figure all in yellow white, with one shoe on the feet, that I could see that the faded trimmings of the dress were like earthy paper, and that the face was Miss Calvert's, with a movement going over the whole countenance as if she were trying to call to me. In the terror of seeing the figure, and in the terror of being certain that it had not been there a moment before, I at first ran from it, and then ran towards it. And my terror was greatest of all, when I found no figure there. Nothing less than the frosty light of the cheerful sky, the sight of people passing beyond the bars of the court-yard gate, and the reviving influence of the rest of the bread and meat and beer, would have brought me round. Even with those aids, I might not have come to myself as soon as I did, but that I saw Estella approaching with the keys, to let me out. She would have some fair reason for looking down upon me, I thought, if she saw me frightened; and she would have no fair reason. She gave me a triumphant glance as she passed me. She opened the gate, and stood holding it. I was passing out without looking at her, when she touched me with a taunting hand.

'Why don't you cry?'

'Because I don't want to.'

'You do,' said she. 'You have been crying till you are half blind, and you are near crying again now.'

She laughed contemptuously, pushed me out with surprising strength, and locked the gate. I went straight to Mr. Henry's, and was immensely relieved to find him not at home. So, leaving word with the shop man on what day I was wanted at Miss Calvert's again, I set off on the four-mile walk to our forge.

When I reached home, my sister was very curious to know all about Miss Calvert's, and asked a number of questions. And I soon found myself getting heavily bumped from behind in the nape of the neck and the small of the back, and having my face ignominiously shoved against the kitchen wall, because I did not answer those questions at sufficient length. To add insult to injury, I heard Mr. Henry's footsteps at our door.

He came in pompously and stooped up on his toes to kiss Mrs. Jake. My sister was quite tall and Mr. Henry barely came to her ears. Having kissed her, he turned sharply and stood facing me.

'Boy! What is Miss Calvert like?' Mr. Henry began.

'He just won't answer,' butted in Mrs. Jake.

'Well, well, well! Let's see,' he said pompously. 'I'll ask you again, my boy. (And you better answer or I'll start asking arithmetic again.) What is Miss Calvert like?'

'Very tall and dark,' I told him.

'Is she, uncle?' asked my sister.

Mr. Henry winked assent; from which I at once inferred that he had never seen Miss Calvert, for she was nothing of the kind.

'Good!' said Mr. Henry conceitedly.

'Now, boy! What was she doing, when you went in today?' asked Mr. Henry.

'She was sitting,' I answered, 'in a black velvet coach.'

Mr. Henry and Mrs. Jake stared at one another - as they well might - and both repeated, 'In a black velvet coach?'

'And you better not be lying Luke or you know what I'll do to you,' continued my sister rolling her sleeves up and threatening me by flexing her left arm. Mr. Henry stared at it hungrily as her lustrous arm swelled into a large mound of muscle. For a moment it seemed like Mr. Henry would jump and grab my sister's bare arms and start kissing it but he sobered quickly as she shook her arm and lowered the sleeves.

'I swear I'm telling the truth,' I said. 'And Miss Estella - that's her niece, handed her in cake and wine at the coach-window, on a gold plate. And we all had cake and wine on gold plates. And I got up behind the coach to eat mine, because she told me to.'

'Was anybody else there?' asked Mr. Henry.

'Four dogs.'

'Large or small?'

'Immense,' I said. 'And they fought for veal cutlets out of a silver basket.'

Mr. Henry and Mrs. Jake stared at one another again, in utter amazement. I was perfectly frantic - a reckless witness under the torture - and would have told them anything.

'Where was this coach, in the name of God?' asked my sister.

'In Miss Calvert's room.' They stared again. 'But there weren't any horses to it.' I added this saving clause, in the moment of rejecting four richly caparisoned coursers which I had had wild thoughts of harnessing.

'Can this be possible, uncle?' asked Mrs. Jake. 'What can the boy mean?'

'I'll tell you, Olive,' said Mr. Henry. 'My opinion is, it's a sedan-chair. She's flighty, you know - very flighty - quite flighty enough to pass her days in a sedan-chair.'

'Did you ever see her in it, uncle?' asked Mrs. Jake.

'How could I,' he returned, forced to the admission, 'when I've never seen her in my life? Never clapped eyes upon her!'

'Goodness, uncle! And yet you have spoken to her?'

'Why, don't you know,' said Mr. Henry, testily, 'that when I have been there, I have been taken up to the outside of her door, and the door has stood ajar, and she has spoken to me that way. Don't say you don't know that, Olive. However, the boy went there to play. What did you play at, boy?'

'We played with flags,' I said. (I beg to observe that I think of myself with amazement, when I recall the lies I told on this occasion.)

'Flags!' echoed my sister.

'Yes, Estella waved a blue flag, and I waved a red one, and Miss Calvert waved one sprinkled all over with little gold stars, out at the coach-window. And then we all waved our swords and hurrahed.'

'Swords!' repeated my sister. 'Where did you get swords from?'

'Out of a cupboard,' I replied. 'And I saw pistols in it - and jam - and pills. And there was no daylight in the room, but it was all lighted up with candles.'

'That's true, Olive,' said Mr. Henry, with a sanctimonious nod. 'That's the state of the case, for that much I've seen myself.' And then they both stared at me, and I, with an obtrusive show of artlessness on my countenance, stared at them, and plaited the right leg of my trousers with my right hand.

***

I passed into the common room at the end of the passage in the bar, where there was a bright large kitchen fire, and where Jake was smoking his pipe in the company of Mr. Wopsle and a stranger. Jake greeted me as usual with 'Halloa, Luke, old chap!' and the moment he said that, the stranger turned his head and looked at me.

He was a shady-looking man whom I had never seen before. His head was all on one side, and one of his eyes was half shut up, as if he were taking aim at something with an invisible gun. He had a pipe in his mouth, and he took it out, and, after slowly blowing all his smoke away and looking hard at me all the time, nodded. So, I nodded, and then he nodded again, and made room on the settle beside him that I might sit down there.

'He's a likely young parcel of bones that', he said still staring at me. 'What is it you call him?'

'Luke,' said Jake.

'Christened Luke?'

'No, not christened Luke.'

'Surname Luke?'

'No,' said Jake, 'it's a kind of family name what he gave himself when a infant, and is called by.'

'Son of yours?'

'Well,' said Jake, meditatively - not, of course, that it could be in anywise necessary to consider about it, but because it was the way at the bar to seem to consider deeply about everything that was discussed over pipes; 'well - no. No, he ain't.'

'Nephew?' inquired the strange man.

'Well,' said Jake, with the same appearance of profound cogitation, 'he is not - no, not to deceive you, he is not - my nephew.'

'What the Blue Blazes is he?' asked the stranger. Which appeared to me to be an inquiry of unnecessary strength. Mr. Wopsle struck in upon that; as one who knew all about relationships, having professional occasion to bear in mind what female relations a man might not marry; and expounded the ties between Jake and me. Having his hand in, Mr. Wopsle finished off with a most terrifically snarling passage from Richard the Third, and seemed to think he had done quite enough to account for it when he added, - 'as the poet says.'

All this while, the strange man looked at nobody but me, and looked at me as if he were determined to have a shot at me at last, and bring me down. But he said nothing after offering his Blue Blazes observation, until the glasses of rum-and-water were brought; and then he made his shot, and a most extraordinary shot it was.

It was not a verbal remark, but a proceeding in dump show, and was pointedly addressed to me. He stirred his rum-and-water pointedly at me, and he tasted his rum-and-water pointedly at me. And he stirred it and he tasted it: not with a spoon that was brought to him, but with a 'file'.

There was a delicious sense of cleaning-up and making a quiet pause before going on in life afresh, in our village on Saturday nights, which stimulated Jake to dare to stay out half an hour longer on Saturdays than at other times. The half hour and the rum-and-water running out together, Jake got up to go, and took me by the hand.

'Stop half a moment, Mr. Brooke,' said the strange man. 'I think I've got a bright new shilling somewhere in my pocket, and if I have, the boy shall have it.'

He looked it out from a handful of small change, folded it in some crumpled paper, and gave it to me. 'Yours!' said he. 'Mind! Your own.'

I thanked him, staring at him far beyond the bounds of good manners, and holding tight to Jake. He gave Jake good-night, and he gave Mr. Wopsle good-night (who went out with us), and he gave me only a look with his aiming eye - no, not a look, for he shut it up, but wonders may be done with an eye by hiding it.

My sister was not in a very bad temper when we presented ourselves in the kitchen, and Jake was encouraged by that unusual circumstance to tell her about the bright shilling. 'A bad un, I'll be bound;' said Mrs. Jake triumphantly, 'or he wouldn't have given it to the boy! Let's look at it.'

I took it out of the paper, and it proved to be a good one. 'But what's this?' said Mrs. Jake, throwing down the shilling and catching up the paper. 'Two One-Pound notes?'

Nothing less than two fat sweltering one-pound notes that seemed to have been on terms of the warmest intimacy with all the cattle markets in the county. Jake caught up his hat again, and ran with them to the bar to restore them to their owner. While he was gone, I sat down on my usual stool and looked vacantly at my sister, feeling pretty sure that the man would not be there.

My sister meanwhile was washing the plates, having rolled up her sleeves right to her shoulders. Her arms were shining against the candle light as they flexed and relaxed with her hand movements. I stared at the way her muscular arms filled with blood as they worked hoping they don't start torturing me again.

Presently, Jake came back, saying that the man was gone, but that he, Jake, had left word at the Three Jolly Bargemen concerning the notes. Then my sister sealed them up in a piece of paper, and put them under some dried rose-leaves in an ornamental tea-pot on the top of a press in the state parlour. There they remained, a nightmare to me, many and many a night and day.

I had sadly broken sleep when I got to bed, through thinking of the strange man taking aim at me with his invisible gun. I was haunted by the file too. I coaxed myself to sleep by thinking of Miss Calvert's, next Wednesday; and in my sleep I saw the file coming at me out of a door, without seeing who held it, and I screamed myself awake.

***

At the appointed time I returned to Miss Calvert's, and my hesitating ring at the gate brought out Estella. She was looking beautiful as usual, dresses in a pink floral frock which ended a little below her knees. I was once again surprised at the ease with which she threw open the heavy iron gate and locked it after admitting me, as she had done before, and again preceded me into the dark passage where her candle stood. She took no notice of me until she had the candle in her hand, when she looked over her shoulder, superciliously saying, 'You are to come this way today,' and took me to quite another part of the house.

The passage was a long one, and seemed to pervade the whole square basement of the Manor House. As we were going with our candle along the dark passage, Estella stopped all of a sudden, and, facing round, said in her taunting manner with her face quite close to mine:

'Well?'

'Well, miss?' I answered, almost falling over her and checking myself.

She stood looking at me, and, of course, I stood looking at her.

'Am I pretty?'

'Yes; I think you are very pretty.'

'Am I insulting?'

'Not so much so as you were last time,' said I.

'Not so much so?'

'No.'

She fired when she asked the last question, and she slapped my face with such force that my knees went weak and I almost fell over.

'Now?' said she. 'You little coarse monster, what do you think of me now?'

'I shall not tell you.'

'Because you are going to tell, up-stairs. Is that it?'

'No,' said I, 'that's not it.'

'Why don't you cry again, you little wretch?'

'Because I'll never cry for you again,' said I. Which was, I suppose, as false a declaration as ever was made; for I was inwardly crying for her then, and I know what I know of the pain she cost me afterwards.

We went on our way up-stairs after this episode and, as we were going up, we met a gentleman groping his way down.

'Whom have we here?' asked the gentleman, stopping and looking at me.

'A boy,' said Estella.

He was a burly man of an exceedingly dark complexion, with an exceedingly large head and a corresponding large hand. He took my chin in his large hand and turned up my face to have a look at me by the light of the candle. He was prematurely bald on the top of his head, and had bushy black eyebrows that wouldn't lie down but stood up bristling. His eyes were set very deep in his head, and were disagreeably sharp and suspicious. He had a large watch chain, and strong black dots where his beard and whiskers would have been if he had let them. He was nothing to me, and I could have had no foresight then, that he ever would be anything to me, but it happened that I had this opportunity of observing him well.

'Boy of the neighbourhood? Hey?' said he.

'Yes, sir,' said I.

'And what are you doing here?'

'Miss Calvert sent for me, sir,' I explained.

'Well! Behave yourself. I have a pretty large experience of boys, and you're a bad set of fellows. Now mind!' said he, biting the side of his great forefinger as he frowned at me, 'you behave yourself!'

With those words, he released me - which I was glad of, for his hand smelt of scented soap - and went his way down-stairs. I wondered whether he could be a doctor; but no, I thought; he couldn't be a doctor, or he would have a quieter and more persuasive manner. There was not much time to consider the subject, for we were soon in Miss Calvert's room, where she and everything else were just as I had left them. Estella left me standing near the door, and I stood there until Miss Calvert cast her eyes upon me from the dressing-table.

'So!' she said, without being startled or surprised; 'the days have worn away, have they?'

'Yes, ma'am. To-day is''

'There, there, there!' with the impatient movement of her fingers. 'I don't want to know. Are you ready to play?'

I was obliged to answer in some confusion, 'I don't think I am, ma'am.'

'Not at cards again?' she demanded, with a searching look.

'Yes, ma'am; I could do that, if I was wanted.'

'Since this house strikes you old and grave, boy,' said Miss Calvert, impatiently, 'and you are unwilling to play, are you willing to work?'

I could answer this inquiry with a better heart than I had been able to find for the other question, and I said I was quite willing.

'Then go into that opposite room,' said she, pointing at the door behind me with her withered hand, 'and wait there till I come.'

I crossed the staircase landing, and entered the room she indicated. From that room, too, the daylight was completely excluded, and it had an airless smell that was oppressive. A fire had been lately kindled in the damp old-fashioned grate, and it was more disposed to go out than to burn up, and the reluctant smoke which hung in the room seemed colder than the clearer air - like our own marsh mist. The most prominent object was a long table with a tablecloth spread on it, as if a feast had been in preparation when the house and the clocks all stopped together.

Miss Calvert laid a hand upon my shoulder. In her other hand she had a crutch-headed stick on which she leaned, and she looked like the Witch of the place.

'This,' said she, pointing to the long table with her stick, 'is where I will be laid when I am dead. They shall come and look at me here.'

With some vague misgiving that she might get upon the table then and there and die at once, the complete realisation of the ghastly waxwork at the Fair, I shrank under her touch.

'What do you think that is?' she asked me, again pointing with her stick; 'that, where those cobwebs are?'

'I can't guess what it is, ma'am.'

'It's a great cake. A bride-cake. Mine!'

She looked all round the room in a glaring manner, and then said, leaning on me while her hand twitched my shoulder, 'Come, come, come! Walk me, walk me!'

I made out from this, that the work I had to do, was to walk Miss Calvert round and round the room. Accordingly, I started at once, and she leaned upon my shoulder, and we went away at a pace that might have been an imitation (founded on my first impulse under that roof) of Mr. Henry's chaise-cart. She was not physically strong, and after a little time said, 'Slower!' Still, we went at an impatient fitful speed, and as we went, she twitched the hand upon my shoulder, and worked her mouth, and led me to believe that we were going fast because her thoughts went fast.

After a while she said, 'Call Estella!' so I went out on the landing and roared that name as I had done on the previous occasion. When her light appeared, I returned to Miss Calvert, and we started away again round and round the room.

'Today is my birthday, Luke. On this day of the year, long before you were born, this heap of decay,' stabbing with her crutched stick at the pile of cobwebs on the table but not touching it, 'was brought here. It and I have worn away together. The mice have gnawed at it, and sharper teeth than teeth of mice have gnawed at me.'

She held the head of her stick against her heart as she stood looking at the table; she in her once white dress, all yellow and withered; the once white cloth all yellow and withered; everything around, in a state to crumble under a touch.

'When the ruin is complete,' said she, with a ghastly look, 'and when they lay me dead, in my bride's dress on the bride's table - which shall be done, and which will be the finished curse upon him - so much the better if it is done on this day!'

She stood looking at the table as if she stood looking at her own figure lying there. I remained quiet. Estella returned, and she too remained quiet. It seemed to me that we continued thus for a long time. In the heavy air of the room, and the heavy darkness that brooded in its remoter corners, I even had an alarming fancy that Estella and I might presently begin to decay.

At length, not coming out of her distraught state by degrees, but in an instant, Miss Calvert said, 'Let me see you two play cards; why have you not begun?' With that, we returned to her room, and sat down as before; I was beggared, as before; and again, as before, Miss Calvert watched us all the time, directed my attention to Estella's beauty, and made me notice it the more by trying her jewels on Estella's breast and hair.

Estella, for her part, likewise treated me as before; except that she did not condescend to speak. When we had played some half dozen games, Miss Calvert said, 'How old are you, Luke?'

'Thirteen!'

'Do you know, how old Estella is?'

'No, Miss.'

'She is twelve, a year younger than you. And yet, she beats you.'

'She is very intelligent, Miss.'

'Yes, she is. She is also very beautiful, isn't she?'

'Yes!'

'Do you think she is strong?'

'In what way, Miss?'

She laughed at my question. Even Estella had a smile on her lovely lips. 'In what way, he asks! Do you think she is stronger than you physically?' Miss Calvert asked.

'No, I don't think so.' I said.

'Estella, go change into the white dress, Miss Lavern brought yesterday.'

Estella got to her feet gracefully and left the room.

So, you think you are a strong boy, Luke.' Miss Calvert asked, albeit in an amused tone.

'Yes, Miss Calvert. I help Jake at his smithy.'

'We shall see,' she said. It was five minutes before Estella rejoined us in the gloomy room. I was struck anew by her beauty as she entered draped in a white satin dress, which was snugly fitted accentuating her young breasts. It was also sleeveless as I chanced my eyes upon her fair, smooth arms for the first time.

'Why don't the two of you test the strength of your arms first? Estella, place your elbow on the table and Luke you do the same after removing the cards from it.'

We did as were told. 'Now clasp your hands,' said Miss Calvert.

My first surprise as we clasped hands was to learn that Estella's hand was as big as mine yet very feminine. The next surprise was how hard her palm was. I had never expected a girl's hand to be so firm, even though I had been struck with terrible force by Estella only an hour ago. For a second, I was reminded of my sister's arm, but then I forgot about it as Miss Calvert asked us to start.

She twisted my arm suddenly. This caused muscles to ripple down her forearm. I was alarmed to see how dramatically her fair arm grew. As she pulled, her arm muscles swelled shaped like an egg. A round mass of muscle stood out on her upper arm with two veins extending down the inside to her elbow. Seeing a shocked expression on my face, she smiled cockily and eased out on me as if daring me to test her power.

I gritted my teeth and pulled with all my strength. I was starting to expect a tough battle with Estella and I wanted her to pay for her overconfidence. But she reacted quickly to my sudden assault. Her arm muscles hardened again and she met my efforts with ease. Suddenly I didn't feel all that strong anymore. I had committed a grave error in undermining Estella's physical prowess. But then who can be blamed into underestimating the strength of a girl as beautiful and as intelligent as Estella.

My eyes widened at my own shaking arm being humiliated by the young girl's swelling muscle. I fought for all I was worth, but Estella turned her wrist, blew me an impertinent kiss and pressed my shaking arm on the table-top.