I was a hired-out shepherd in a solitary hut, not
seeing no faces but faces of sheep till I half
forgot wot men's and women's faces wos like, I
see yourn. I drops my knife many a time in
that hut when I was a eating my dinner or my
supper, and I says, 'Here's the boy again, a
looking at me whiles I eats and drinks!' I see
you there, a many times, as plain as ever I see
you on them misty marshes. 'Lord strike me
dead!' I says each time—and I goes out in the
air to say it under the open heavens—but wot,
if I gets liberty and money, I'll make that boy
a gentleman!' And I done it. Why, look at
you, dear boy! Look at these here lodgings o'
yourn, fit for a lord! A lord? Ah! You shall
show money with lords for wagers, and beat
'em!"

In his heat and triumph, and in his knowledge
that I had been nearly fainting, he did
not remark on my reception of all this. It was
the one grain of relief I had.

"Look'ee here!" he went on, taking my watch
out of my pocket, and turning towards him a ring
on my finger, while I recoiled from his touch as if
he had been a snake, "a gold 'un and a beauty;
that's a gentleman's, I hope! A diamond, all set
round with rubies; that's a gentleman's, I hope!
Look at your linen; fine and beautiful! Look at
your clothes; better ain't to be got! And your
books too," turning his eyes round the room,
"mounting up, on their shelves, by hundreds!
And you read 'em; don't you? I see you'd
been a reading of 'em when I come in. Ha, ha,
ha! You shall read 'em to me, dear boy! And
if they're in foreign languages wot I don't
understand, I shall be just as proud as if I did."

Again he took both my hands and put them
to his lips, while my blood ran cold within me.

"Don't you mind talking, Pip," said he, after
again drawing his sleeve over his eyes and
forehead, as the click came in his throat which I well
remembered—and he was all the more horrible
to me that he was so much in earnest; "you
can't do better nor keep quiet, dear boy. You
ain't looked slowly forward to this as I have;
you wosn't prepared for this, as I wos. But
didn't you never think it might be me?"

"O no, no, no," I returned. "Never, never!"

"Well, you see it wos me, and single-handed.
Never a soul in it but my own self and Mr.
Jaggers."

"Was there no one else?" I asked.

"No," said he, with a glance of surprise;
"who else should there be? And, dear boy,
how good-looking you have growed! There's
bright eyes somewheres—eh? Isn't there bright
eyes somewheres, wot you love the thoughts
on?"

O Estella, Estella!

"They shall be yourn, dear boy, if money
can buy 'em. Not that a gentleman like you,
so well set up as you, can't win 'em off of his
own game; but money shall back you! Let
me finish wot I was a telling you, dear boy.
From that there hut and that there hiring-out,
I got money left me by my master (which died,
and had been the same as me), and got my
liberty and went for myself. In every single
thing I went for, I went for you. 'Lord
strike a blight upon it,' I says, wotever it was
I went for, 'if it ain't for him!' It all
prospered wonderful. As I giv' you to understand
just now, I'm famous for it. It was the money
left me, and the gains of the first few year wot
I sent home to Mr. Jaggers—all for you—when
he first come arter you, agreeable to my letter."

O, that he had never come! That he had
left me at the forge—far from contented, yet,
by comparison, happy!

"And then, dear boy, it was a recompense to
me, look'ee here, to know in secret that I was
making a gentleman. The blood horses of them
colonists might fling up the dust over me as I
was walking; what do I say? I says to myself,
'I'm making a better gentleman nor ever you'll
be!' When one of 'em says to another, 'He
was a convict, a few year ago, and is a ignorant
common fellow now, for all he's lucky,' what do
I say? I says to myself, 'If I ain't a gentleman,
nor yet ain't got no learning, I'm the
owner of such. All on you owns stock and
land; which on you owns a brought-up London
gentleman?' This way I kep' myself a going.
And this way I held steady afore my mind that
I would for certain come one day and see my
boy, and make myself known to him, on his own
ground."

He laid his hand on my shoulder. I shuddered
at the thought that for anything I knew, his hand
might be stained with blood.

"It warn't easy, Pip, for me to leave them
parts, nor yet it warn't safe. But I held to it,
and the harder it was, the stronger I held, for I
was determined, and my mind firm made up. At
last I done it. Dear boy, I done it!"

I tried to collect my thoughts, but I was
stunned. Throughout, I had seemed to myself
to attend more to the wind and rain than to him;
even now, I could not separate his voice from
those voices, though those were loud and his was
silent.

"Where will you put me?" he asked,
presently. "I must be put somewheres, dear boy."

"To sleep?" said I.

"Yes. And to sleep long and sound," he
answered; "for I've been sea-tossed and sea-
washed, months and months."

"My friend and companion," said I, rising
from the sofa, "is absent; you must have his
room."

"He won't come back to-morrow; will he?"

"No," said I, answering almost mechanically,
in spite of my utmost efforts; "not to-morrow."

"Because look'ee here, dear boy," he said,
dropping his voice, and laying a long finger on
my breast in an impressive manner, "caution is
necessary."

"How do you mean? Caution?"

"By G— , it's Death!"

"What's death?"

"I was sent for life. It's death to come
back. There's been overmuch coming back of
late years, and I should of a certainty be hanged
if took."