with the view of heaping every word of it on
the head of Pumblechook, with whom he was
going to drink tea. No sooner did he see me,
than he appeared to consider that a special
Providence had put a 'prentice in his way to be read
at; and he laid hold of me, and insisted on
my accompanying him to the Pumblechookian
parlour. As I knew it would be miserable at
home, and as the nights were dark and the way
was dreary, and almost any companionship on
the road was better than none, I made no great
resistance ; consequently, we turned into
Pumblechook's just as the street and the shops were
lighting up.

As I never assisted at any other representation
of George Barnwell, I don't know how long
it may usually take; but I know very well that
it took until half-past nine o'clock that night,
and that when Mr. Wopsle got into Newgate, I
thought he never would go to the scaffold, he
became so much slower than at any former
period of his disgraceful career. I thought it
a little too much that he should complain of
being cut short in his flower after all, as if he
had not been running to seed, leaf after leaf,
ever since his course began. This, however,
was a mere question of length and wearisomeness.
What stung me, was the identification of
the whole affair with my unoffending self. When
Barnwell began to go wrong, I declare that I
felt positively apologetic, Pumblechook's
indignant stare so taxed me with it. Wopsle,
too, took pains to present me in the worst light.
At once ferocious and maudlin, I was made to
murder my uncle with no extenuating
circumstances whatever; Millwood put me down in
argument, on every occasion; it became sheer
monomania in my master's daughter to care a
button for me; and all I can say for my gasping
and procrastinating conduct on the fatal morning,
is, that it was worthy of the general feebleness of
my character. Even after I was happily hanged
and Wopsle had closed the book, Pumblechook
sat staring at me, and shaking his head,
and saying, " Take warning, boy, take warning!"
as if it were a well-known fact that in my
private capacity, I contemplated murdering a near
relation, provided I could only induce one to
have the weakness to become my benefactor.

It was a very dark night when it was all over,
and when I set out with Mr. Wopsle on the walk
home. Beyond town we found a heavy mist out,
and it fell wet and thick. The turnpike lamp
was a blur, quite out of the lamp's usual place
apparently, and its rays looked solid substance
on the fog. We were noticing this, and saying
how that the mist rose with a change of wind
from a certain quarter of our marshes, when we
came upon a man slouching under the lee of the
turnpike house.

"Halloa!" we said, stopping. "Orlick, there ?"

"Ah!" he answered, slouching out. " I was
standing by a minute, on the chance of com-
pany."

"You are late," I remarked.

Orlick not unnaturally answered, "Well? And
you're late."

"We have been," said Mr. Wopsle, exalted
with his late performance, " we have been indulging,
Mr. Orlick, in an intellectual evening."

Old Orlick growled, as if he had nothing to
say about that, and we all went on together. I
asked him presently whether he had been spending
his half-holiday up and down town?

"Yes," said he, " all of it. I come in behind
yourself. I didn't see you, but I must have
been pretty close behind you. By-the-by, the
guns is going again."

"At the Hulks?" said I.

"Ay! There's some of the birds flown from
the cages. The guns have been going since
dark, about. You'll hear one presently.'*

In effect, we had not walked many yards
further, when the well-remembered boom came
towards us, deadened by the mist, and heavily
rolled away along the low grounds by the river,
as if it were pursuing and threatening the
fugitives.

"A good night for cutting off in," said Orlick.
"We'd be puzzled how to bring down a jail-bird
on the wing, to-night."

The subject was a suggestive one to me, and
I thought about it in silence. Mr. Wopsle, as the
ill-requited uncle of the evening's tragedy, fell
to meditating aloud in his garden at Camberwell.
Orlick, with his hands in his pockets, slouched
heavily at my side. It was very dark, very wet,
very muddy, and so we splashed along. Now
and then the sound of the signal cannon broke
upon us again, and again rolled sulkily along
the course of the river. I kept myself to myself
and my thoughts. Mr. Wopsle died amiably at
Camberwell, and exceedingly game on Bosworth
Field, and in the greatest agonies at Glastonbury.
Orlick sometimes growled, " Beat it out,
beat it out— old Clem! With a clink for the
stout—old Clem!" I thought he had been drinking,
but he was not drunk.

Thus we came to the village. The way by
which we approached it, took us past the Three
Jolly Bargemen, which we were surprised to
find — it being eleven o'clock—in a state of
commotion, with the door wide open, and
unwonted lights that had been hastily caught up
and put down, scattered about. Mr. Wopsle
dropped in to ask what was the matter (surmising
that a convict had been taken), but came
running out in a great hurry.

"There's something wrong," said he, without
stopping, " up at your place, Pip. Run all!"

"What is it?" I asked, keeping up with him.
So did Orlick, at my side.

"I can't quite understand. The house seems
to have been violently entered when Joe was
out. Supposed by convicts. Somebody has
been attacked and hurt."

We were running too fast to admit of more
being said, and we made no stop until we got
into our kitchen. It was full of people; the
whole village was there, or in the yard; and
there was a surgeon, and there was Joe, and
there were a group of women, all on the floor
in the midst of the kitchen. The unemployed
bystanders drew back when they saw me, and