My father's family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip,
　　 my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more
　　 explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called
　　 Pip.
　　 I give Pirrip as my father's family name, on the authority of his
　　 tombstone and my sister,--Mrs. Joe Gargery, who married the
　　 blacksmith. As I never saw my father or my mother, and never saw
　　 any likeness of either of them (for their days were long before the
　　 days of photographs), my first fancies regarding what they were
　　 like were unreasonably derived from their tombstones. The shape of
　　 the letters on my father's, gave me an odd idea that he was a
　　 square, stout, dark man, with curly black hair. From the character
　　 and turn of the inscription, "Also Georgiana Wife of the Above," I
　　 drew a childish conclusion that my mother was freckled and sickly.
　　 To five little stone lozenges, each about a foot and a half long,
　　 which were arranged in a neat row beside their grave, and were
　　 sacred to the memory of five little brothers of mine,--who gave up
　　 trying to get a living, exceedingly early in that universal
　　 struggle,--I am indebted for a belief I religiously entertained
　　 that they had all been born on their backs with their hands in
　　 their trousers-pockets, and had never taken them out in this state
　　 of existence.
　　 Ours was the marsh country, down by the river, within, as the river
　　 wound, twenty miles of the sea. My first most vivid and broad
　　 impression of the identity of things seems to me to have been
　　 gained on a memorable raw afternoon towards evening. At such a time
　　 I found out for certain that this bleak place overgrown with
　　 nettles was the churchyard; and that Philip Pirrip, late of this
　　 parish, and also Georgiana wife of the above, were dead and buried;
　　 and that Alexander, Bartholomew, Abraham, Tobias, and Roger, infant
　　 children of the aforesaid, were also dead and buried; and that the
　　 dark flat wilderness beyond the churchyard, intersected with dikes
　　 and mounds and gates, with scattered cattle feeding on it, was the
　　 marshes; and that the low leaden line beyond was the river; and
　　 that the distant savage lair from which the wind was rushing was
　　 the sea; and that the small bundle of shivers growing afraid of it
　　 all and beginning to cry, was Pip.
　　 "Hold your noise!" cried a terrible voice, as a man started up from
　　 among the graves at the side of the church porch. "Keep still, you
　　 little devil, or I'll cut your throat!"
　　 A fearful man, all in coarse gray, with a great iron on his leg. A
　　 man with no hat, and with broken shoes, and with an old rag tied
　　 round his head. A man who had been soaked in water, and smothered
　　 in mud, and lamed by stones, and cut by flints, and stung by
　　 nettles, and torn by briars; who limped, and shivered, and glared,
　　 and growled; and whose teeth chattered in his head as he seized me
　　 by the chin.
　　 "Oh! Don't cut my throat, sir," I pleaded in terror. "Pray don't do
　　 it, sir."
　　 "Tell us your name!" said the man. "Quick!"
　　 "Pip, sir."
　　 "Once more," said the man, staring at me. "Give it mouth!"
　　 "Pip. Pip, sir."
　　 "Show us where you live," said the man. "Pint out the place!"
　　 I pointed to where our village lay, on the flat in-shore among the
　　 alder-trees and pollards, a mile or more from the church.
　　 The man, after looking at me for a moment, turned me upside down,
　　 and emptied my pockets. There was nothing in them but a piece of
　　 bread. When the church came to itself,--for he was so sudden and
　　 strong that he made it go head over heels before me, and I saw the
　　 steeple under my feet,--when the church came to itself, I say, I
　　 was seated on a high tombstone, trembling while he ate the bread
　　 ravenously.
　　 "You young dog," said the man, licking his lips, "what fat cheeks
　　 you ha' got."
　　 I believe they were fat, though I was at that time undersized for
　　 my years, and not strong.
　　 "Darn me if I couldn't eat em," said the man, with a threatening
　　 shake of his head, "and if I han't half a mind to't!"
　　 I earnestly expressed my hope that he wouldn't, and held tighter to
　　 the tombstone on which he had put me; partly, to keep myself upon
　　 it; partly, to keep myself from crying.
　　 "Now lookee here!" said the man. "Where's your mother?"
　　 "There, sir!" said I.
　　 He started, made a short run, and stopped and looked over his
　　 shoulder.
　　 "There, sir!" I timidly explained. "Also Georgiana. That's my
　　 mother."
　　 "Oh!" said he, coming back. "And is that your father alonger your
　　 mother?"
　　 "Yes, sir," said I; "him too; late of this parish."
　　 "Ha!" he muttered then, considering. "Who d'ye live with,--
　　 supposin' you're kindly let to live, which I han't made up my mind
　　 about?"
　　 "My sister, sir,--Mrs. Joe Gargery,--wife of Joe Gargery, the
　　 blacksmith, sir."
　　 "Blacksmith, eh?" said he. And looked down at his leg.
　　 After darkly looking at his leg and me several times, he came
　　 closer to my tombstone, took me by both arms, and tilted me back as
　　 far as he could hold me; so that his eyes looked most powerfully
　　 down into mine, and mine looked most helplessly up into his.
　　 "Now lookee here," he said, "the question being whether you're to
　　 be let to live. You know what a file is?"
　　 "Yes, sir."
　　 "And you know what wittles is?"
　　 "Yes, sir."
　　 After each question he tilted me over a little more, so as to give
　　 me a greater sense of helplessness and danger.
　　 "You get me a file." He tilted me again. "And you get me wittles."
　　 He tilted me again. "You bring 'em both to me." He tilted me again.
　　 "Or I'll have your heart and liver out." He tilted me again.
　　 I was dreadfully frightened, and so giddy that I clung to him with
　　 both hands, and said, "If you would kindly please to let me keep
　　 upright, sir, perhaps I shouldn't be sick, and perhaps I could
　　 attend more."
　　 He gave me a most tremendous dip and roll, so that the church
　　 jumped over its own weathercock. Then, he held me by the arms, in
　　 an upright position on the top of the stone, and went on in these
　　 fearful terms:--
　　 "You bring me, to-morrow morning early, that file and them wittles.
　　 You bring the lot to me, at that old Battery over yonder. You do
　　 it, and you never dare to say a word or dare to make a sign
　　 concerning your having seen such a person as me, or any person
　　 sumever, and you shall be let to live. You fail, or you go from my
　　 words in any partickler, no matter how small it is, and your heart
　　 and your liver shall be tore out, roasted, and ate. Now, I ain't
　　 alone, as you may think I am. There's a young man hid with me, in
　　 comparison with which young man I am a Angel. That young man hears
　　 the words I speak. That young man has a secret way pecooliar to
　　 himself, of getting at a boy, and at his heart, and at his liver.
　　 It is in wain for a boy to attempt to hide himself from that young
　　 man. A boy may lock his door, may be warm in bed, may tuck himself
　　 up, may draw the clothes over his head, may think himself
　　 comfortable and safe, but that young man will softly creep and
　　 creep his way to him and tear him open. I am a keeping that young
　　 man from harming of you at the present moment, with great
　　 difficulty. I find it wery hard to hold that young man off of your
　　 inside. Now, what do you say?"
　　 I said that I would get him the file, and I would get him what
　　 broken bits of food I could, and I would come to him at the
　　 Battery, early in the morning.
　　 "Say Lord strike you dead if you don't!" said the man.
　　 I said so, and he took me down.
　　 "Now," he pursued, "you remember what you've undertook, and you
　　 remember that young man, and you get home!"
　　 "Goo-good night, sir," I faltered.
　　 "Much of that!" said he, glancing about him over the cold wet flat.
　　 "I wish I was a frog. Or a eel!"
　　 At the same time, he hugged his shuddering body in both his arms,--
　　 clasping himself, as if to hold himself together,--and limped
　　 towards the low church wall. As I saw him go, picking his way among
　　 the nettles, and among the brambles that bound the green mounds, he
　　 looked in my young eyes as if he were eluding the hands of the dead
　　 people, stretching up cautiously out of their graves, to get a
　　 twist upon his ankle and pull him in.
　　 When he came to the low church wall, he got over it, like a man
　　 whose legs were numbed and stiff, and then turned round to look for
　　 me. When I saw him turning, I set my face towards home, and made
　　 the best use of my legs. But presently I looked over my shoulder,
　　 and saw him going on again towards the river, still hugging himself
　　 in both arms, and picking his way with his sore feet among the
　　 great stones dropped into the marshes here and there, for
　　 stepping-places when the rains were heavy or the tide was in.
　　 The marshes were just a long black horizontal line then, as I
　　 stopped to look after him; and the river was just another
　　 horizontal line, not nearly so broad nor yet so black; and the sky
　　 was just a row of long angry red lines and dense black lines
　　 intermixed. On the edge of the river I could faintly make out the
　　 only two black things in all the prospect that seemed to be
　　 standing upright; one of these was the beacon by which the sailors
　　 steered,--like an unhooped cask upon a pole,--an ugly thing when
　　 you were near it; the other, a gibbet, with some chains hanging to
　　 it which had once held a pirate. The man was limping on towards
　　 this latter, as if he were the pirate come to life, and come down,
　　 and going back to hook himself up again. It gave me a terrible turn
　　 when I thought so; and as I saw the cattle lifting their heads to
　　 gaze after him, I wondered whether they thought so too. I looked
　　 all round for the horrible young man, and could see no signs of
　　 him. But now I was frightened again, and ran home without
　　 stopping.

　　My sister, Mrs. Joe Gargery, was more than twenty years older than
　　 I, and had established a great reputation with herself and the
　　 neighbors 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 Joe
　　 Gargery and I were both brought up by hand.
　　 She was not a good-looking woman, my sister; and I had a general
　　 impression that she must have made Joe Gargery marry her by hand.
　　 Joe was a fair man, with curls of flaxen hair on each side of his
　　 smooth face, and with eyes of such a very undecided blue that they
　　 seemed to have somehow got mixed with their own whites. He was a
　　 mild, good-natured, sweet-tempered, easy-going, foolish, dear
　　 fellow,--a sort of Hercules in strength, and also in weakness.
　　 My sister, Mrs. Joe, with black hair and eyes, had such a prevailing
　　 redness of skin that I sometimes used to wonder whether it was
　　 possible she washed herself with a nutmeg-grater instead of soap.
　　 She was tall and bony, and almost always wore a coarse apron,
　　 fastened over her figure behind with two loops, and having a square
　　 impregnable bib in front, that was stuck full of pins and needles.
　　 She made it a powerful merit in herself, and a strong reproach
　　 against Joe, that she wore this apron so much. Though I really see
　　 no reason why she should have worn it at all; or why, if she did
　　 wear it at all, she should not have taken it off, every day of her
　　 life.
　　 Joe's forge adjoined our house, which was a wooden house, as many
　　 of the dwellings in our country were,--most of them, at that time.
　　 When I ran home from the churchyard, the forge was shut up, and Joe
　　 was sitting alone in the kitchen. Joe and I being fellow-sufferers,
　　 and having confidences as such, Joe imparted a confidence to me,
　　 the moment I raised the latch of the door and peeped in at him
　　 opposite to it, sitting in the chimney corner.
　　 "Mrs. Joe has been out a dozen times, looking for you, Pip. And
　　 she's out now, making it a baker's dozen."
　　 "Is she?"
　　 "Yes, Pip," said Joe; "and what's worse, she's got Tickler with
　　 her."
　　 At this dismal intelligence, I twisted the only button on my
　　 waistcoat round and round, and looked in great depression at the
　　 fire. Tickler was a wax-ended piece of cane, worn smooth by
　　 collision with my tickled frame.
　　 "She sot down," said Joe, "and she got up, and she made a grab at
　　 Tickler, and she Ram-paged out. That's what she did," said Joe,
　　 slowly clearing the fire between the lower bars with the poker, and
　　 looking at it; "she Ram-paged out, Pip."
　　 "Has she been gone long, Joe?" I always treated him as a larger
　　 species of child, and as no more than my equal.
　　 "Well," said Joe, glancing up at the Dutch clock, "she's been on
　　 the Ram-page, this last spell, about five minutes, Pip. She's a
　　 coming! Get behind the door, old chap, and have the jack-towel
　　 betwixt you."
　　 I took the advice. My sister, Mrs. Joe, throwing the door wide open,
　　 and finding an obstruction behind it, immediately divined the
　　 cause, and applied Tickler to its further investigation. She
　　 concluded by throwing me--I often served as a connubial missile--
　　 at Joe, who, glad to get hold of me on any terms, passed me on into
　　 the chimney and quietly fenced me up there with his great leg.
　　 "Where have you been, you young monkey?" said Mrs. Joe, stamping her
　　 foot. "Tell me directly 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 was fifty Pips, and he was five hundred Gargerys."
　　 "I have only been to the churchyard," said I, from my stool, crying
　　 and rubbing myself.
　　 "Churchyard!" repeated my sister. "If it warn't for me you'd have
　　 been to the churchyard long ago, and stayed there. Who brought you
　　 up by hand?"
　　 "You did," said I.
　　 "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 born you
　　 were. It's bad enough to be a blacksmith's wife (and him a Gargery)
　　 without being your mother."
　　 My thoughts strayed from that question as I looked disconsolately
　　 at the fire. For the fugitive out on the marshes with the ironed
　　 leg, the mysterious young man, the file, the food, and the dreadful
　　 pledge I was under to commit a larceny on those sheltering
　　 premises, rose before me in the avenging coals.
　　 "Hah!" said Mrs. Joe, restoring Tickler to his station. "Churchyard,
　　 indeed! You may well say churchyard, you two." One of us,
　　 by the by, had not said it at all. "You'll drive me to the
　　 churchyard betwixt you, one of these days, and O, a pr-r-recious
　　 pair you'd be without me!"
　　 As she applied herself to set the tea-things, Joe peeped down at me
　　 over his leg, as if he were mentally casting me and himself up, and
　　 calculating what kind of pair we practically should make, under the
　　 grievous circumstances foreshadowed. After that, he sat feeling his
　　 right-side flaxen curls and whisker, and following Mrs. Joe about
　　 with his blue eyes, as his manner always was at squally times.
　　 My sister had a trenchant way of cutting our bread and butter for
　　 us, that never varied. First, with her left hand she jammed the
　　 loaf hard and fast against her bib,--where it sometimes got a pin
　　 into it, and sometimes a needle, which we afterwards got into our
　　 mouths. Then she took some butter (not too much) on a knife and
　　 spread it on the loaf, in an apothecary kind of way, as if she were
　　 making a plaster,--using both sides of the knife with a slapping
　　 dexterity, and trimming and moulding the butter off round the
　　 crust. Then, she gave the knife a final smart wipe on the edge of
　　 the plaster, and then sawed a very thick round off the loaf: which
　　 she finally, before separating from the loaf, hewed into two
　　 halves, of which Joe got one, and I the other.
　　 On the present occasion, though I was hungry, I dared not eat my
　　 slice. I felt that I must have something in reserve for my dreadful
　　 acquaintance, and his ally the still more dreadful young man. I
　　 knew Mrs. Joe's housekeeping to be of the strictest kind, and that
　　 my larcenous researches might find nothing available in the safe.
　　 Therefore I resolved to put my hunk of bread and butter down the
　　 leg of my trousers.
　　 The effort of resolution necessary to the achievement of this
　　 purpose I found to be quite awful. It was as if I had to make up
　　 my mind to leap from the top of a high house, or plunge into a
　　 great depth of water. And it was made the more difficult by the
　　 unconscious Joe. In our already-mentioned freemasonry as
　　 fellow-sufferers, and in his good-natured companionship with me, it
　　 was our evening habit to compare the way we bit through our slices,
　　 by silently holding them up to each other's admiration now and then,
　　 --which stimulated us to new exertions. To-night, Joe several times
　　 invited me, by the display of his fast diminishing slice, to enter
　　 upon our usual friendly competition; but he found me, each time,
　　 with my yellow mug of tea on one knee, and my untouched
　　 bread and butter on the other. At last, I desperately considered
　　 that the thing I contemplated must be done, and that it had best be
　　 done in the least improbable manner consistent with the
　　 circumstances. I took advantage of a moment when Joe had just
　　 looked at me, and got my bread and butter down my leg.
　　 Joe was evidently made uncomfortable by what he supposed to be my
　　 loss of appetite, and took a thoughtful bite out of his slice,
　　 which he didn't seem to enjoy. He turned it about in his mouth much
　　 longer than usual, pondering over it a good deal, and after all
　　 gulped it down like a pill. He was about to take another bite, and
　　 had just got his head on one side for a good purchase on it, when
　　 his eye fell on me, and he saw that my bread and butter was gone.
　　 The wonder and consternation with which Joe stopped on the
　　 threshold of his bite and stared at me, were too evident to escape
　　 my sister's observation.
　　 "What's the matter now?" said she, smartly, as she put down her
　　 cup.
　　 "I say, you know!" muttered Joe, shaking his head at me in very
　　 serious remonstrance. "Pip, old chap! You'll do yourself a
　　 mischief. It'll stick somewhere. You can't have chawed it, Pip."
　　 "What's the matter now?" repeated my sister, more sharply than
　　 before.
　　 "If you can cough any trifle on it up, Pip, I'd recommend you to do
　　 it," said Joe, all aghast. "Manners is manners, but still your
　　 elth's your elth."
　　 By this time, my sister was quite desperate, so she pounced on Joe,
　　 and, taking him by the two whiskers, knocked his head for a little
　　 while against the wall behind him, while I sat in the corner,
　　 looking guiltily on.
　　 "Now, perhaps you'll mention what's the matter," said my sister,
　　 out of breath, "you staring great stuck pig."
　　 Joe looked at her in a helpless way, then took a helpless bite, and
　　 looked at me again.
　　 "You know, Pip," said Joe, solemnly, with his last bite in his
　　 cheek, and speaking in a confidential voice, as if we two were quite
　　 alone, "you and me is always friends, and I'd be the last to tell
　　 upon you, any time. But such a--" he moved his chair and looked
　　 about the floor between us, and then again at me--"such a most
　　 oncommon Bolt as that!"
　　 "Been bolting his food, has he?" cried my sister.
　　 "You know, old chap," said Joe, looking at me, and not at Mrs. Joe,
　　 with his bite still in his cheek, "I Bolted, myself, when I was
　　 your age--frequent--and as a boy I've been among a many Bolters;
　　 but I never see your Bolting equal yet, Pip, and it's a mercy you
　　 ain't Bolted dead."
　　 My sister made a dive at me, and fished me up by the hair, saying
　　 nothing more than the awful words, "You come along and be dosed."
　　 Some medical beast had revived Tar-water in those days as a fine
　　 medicine, and Mrs. Joe always kept a supply of it in the cupboard;
　　 having a belief in its virtues correspondent to its nastiness. At
　　 the best of times, so much of this elixir was administered to me as
　　 a choice restorative, that I was conscious of going about, smelling
　　 like a new fence. On this particular evening the urgency of my case
　　 demanded a pint of this mixture, which was poured down my throat,
　　 for my greater comfort, while Mrs. Joe held my head under her arm,
　　 as a boot would be held in a bootjack. Joe got off with half a
　　 pint; but was made to swallow that (much to his disturbance, as he
　　 sat slowly munching and meditating before the fire), "because he had
　　 had a turn." Judging from myself, I should say he certainly had a
　　 turn afterwards, if he had had none before.
　　 Conscience is a dreadful thing when it accuses man or boy; but
　　 when, in the case of a boy, that secret burden co-operates with
　　 another secret burden down the leg of his trousers, it is (as I can
　　 testify) a great punishment. The guilty knowledge that I was going
　　 to rob Mrs. Joe--I never thought I was going to rob Joe, for I
　　 never thought of any of the housekeeping property as his--united
　　 to the necessity of always keeping one hand on my bread and butter
　　 as I sat, or when I was ordered about the kitchen on any small
　　 errand, almost drove me out of my mind. Then, as the marsh winds
　　 made the fire glow and flare, I thought I heard the voice outside,
　　 of the man with the iron on his leg who had sworn me to secrecy,
　　 declaring that he couldn't and wouldn't starve until to-morrow, but
　　 must be fed now. At other times, I thought, What if the young man
　　 who was with so much difficulty restrained from imbruing his hands
　　 in me should yield to a constitutional impatience, or should
　　 mistake the time, and should think himself accredited to my heart
　　 and liver to-night, instead of to-morrow! If ever anybody's hair
　　 stood on end with terror, mine must have done so then. But,
　　 perhaps, nobody's ever did?
　　 It was Christmas Eve, and I had to stir the pudding for next day,
　　 with a copper-stick, from seven to eight by the Dutch clock. I
　　 tried it with the load upon my leg (and that made me think afresh
　　 of the man with the load on his leg), and found the tendency of
　　 exercise to bring the bread and butter out at my ankle, quite
　　 unmanageable. Happily I slipped away, and deposited that part of
　　 my conscience in my garret bedroom.
　　 "Hark!" said I, when I had done my stirring, and was taking a final
　　 warm in the chimney corner before being sent up to bed; "was that
　　 great guns, Joe?"
　　 "Ah!" said Joe. "There's another conwict off."
　　 "What does that mean, Joe?" said I.
　　 Mrs. Joe, who always took explanations upon herself, said,
　　 snappishly, "Escaped. Escaped." Administering the definition like
　　 Tar-water.
　　 While Mrs. Joe sat with her head bending over her needlework, I put
　　 my mouth into the forms of saying to Joe, "What's a convict?" Joe
　　 put his mouth into the forms of returning such a highly elaborate
　　 answer, that I could make out nothing of it but the single word
　　 "Pip."
　　 "There was a conwict off last night," said Joe, aloud, "after
　　 sunset-gun. And they fired warning of him. And now it appears
　　 they're firing warning of another."
　　 "Who's firing?" said I.
　　 "Drat that boy," interposed my sister, frowning at me over her
　　 work, "what a questioner he is. Ask no questions, and you'll be
　　 told no lies."
　　 It was not very polite to herself, I thought, to imply that I should
　　 be told lies by her even if I did ask questions. But she never was
　　 polite unless there was company.
　　 At this point Joe greatly augmented my curiosity by taking the
　　 utmost pains to open his mouth very wide, and to put it into the
　　 form of a word that looked to me like "sulks." Therefore, I
　　 naturally pointed to Mrs. Joe, and put my mouth into the form of
　　 saying, "her?" But Joe wouldn't hear of that, at all, and again
　　 opened his mouth very wide, and shook the form of a most emphatic
　　 word out of it. But I could make nothing of the word.
　　 "Mrs. Joe," said I, as a last resort, "I should like to know--if
　　 you wouldn't much mind--where the firing comes from?"
　　 "Lord bless the boy!" exclaimed my sister, as if she didn't quite
　　 mean that but rather the contrary. "From the Hulks!"
　　 "Oh-h!" said I, looking at Joe. "Hulks!"
　　 Joe gave a reproachful cough, as much as to say, "Well, I told you
　　 so."
　　 "And please, what's Hulks?" said I.
　　 "That's the way with this boy!" exclaimed my sister, pointing me
　　 out with her needle and thread, and shaking her head at me. "Answer
　　 him one question, and he'll ask you a dozen directly. Hulks are
　　 prison-ships, right 'cross th' meshes." We always used that name
　　 for marshes, in our country.
　　 "I wonder who's put into prison-ships, and why they're put there?"
　　 said I, in a general way, and with quiet desperation.
　　 It was too much for Mrs. Joe, who immediately rose. "I tell you
　　 what, young fellow," said she, "I didn't bring you up by hand to
　　 badger people's lives out. It would be blame to me and not praise,
　　 if I had. People are put in the Hulks because they murder, and
　　 because they rob, and forge, and do all sorts of bad; and they
　　 always begin by asking questions. Now, you get along to bed!"
　　 I was never allowed a candle to light me to bed, and, as I went
　　 up stairs in the dark, with my head tingling,--from Mrs. Joe's
　　 thimble having played the tambourine upon it, to accompany her last
　　 words,--I felt fearfully sensible of the great convenience that the
　　 hulks were handy for me. I was clearly on my way there. I had begun
　　 by asking questions, and I was going to rob Mrs. Joe.
　　 Since that time, which is far enough away now, I have often thought
　　 that few people know what secrecy there is in the young under
　　 terror. No matter how unreasonable the terror, so that it be
　　 terror. I was in mortal terror of the young man who wanted my heart
　　 and liver; I was in mortal terror of my interlocutor with the
　　 iron leg; I was in mortal terror of myself, from whom an awful
　　 promise had been extracted; I had no hope of deliverance through my
　　 all-powerful sister, who repulsed me at every turn; I am afraid to
　　 think of what I might have done on requirement, in the secrecy of
　　 my terror.
　　 If I slept at all that night, it was only to imagine myself
　　 drifting down the river on a strong spring-tide, to the Hulks; a
　　 ghostly pirate calling out to me through a speaking-trumpet, as I
　　 passed the gibbet-station, that I had better come ashore and be
　　 hanged there at once, and not put it off. I was afraid to sleep,
　　 even if I had been inclined, for I knew that at the first faint
　　 dawn of morning I must rob the pantry. There was no doing it in the
　　 night, for there was no getting a light by easy friction then; to
　　 have got one I must have struck it out of flint and steel, and
　　 have made a noise like the very pirate himself rattling his chains.
　　 As soon as the great black velvet pall outside my little window was
　　 shot with gray, I got up and went down stairs; every board upon the
　　 way, and every crack in every board calling after me, "Stop
　　 thief!" and "Get up, Mrs. Joe!" In the pantry, which was far more
　　 abundantly supplied than usual, owing to the season, I was very
　　 much alarmed by a hare hanging up by the heels, whom I rather
　　 thought I caught when my back was half turned, winking. I had no
　　 time for verification, no time for selection, no time for anything,
　　 for I had no time to spare. I stole some bread, some rind of
　　 cheese, about half a jar of mincemeat (which I tied up in my
　　 pocket-handkerchief with my last night's slice), some brandy from a
　　 stone bottle (which I decanted into a glass bottle I had secretly
　　 used for making that intoxicating fluid, Spanish-liquorice-water,
　　 up in my room: diluting the stone bottle from a jug in the kitchen
　　 cupboard), a meat bone with very little on it, and a beautiful
　　 round compact pork pie. I was nearly going away without the pie,
　　 but I was tempted to mount upon a shelf, to look what it was that
　　 was put away so carefully in a covered earthen ware dish in a
　　 corner, and I found it was the pie, and I took it in the hope that
　　 it was not intended for early use, and would not be missed for some
　　 time.
　　 There was a door in the kitchen, communicating with the forge; I
　　 unlocked and unbolted that door, and got a file from among Joe's
　　 tools. Then I put the fastenings as I had found them, opened the
　　 door at which I had entered when I ran home last night, shut it,
　　 and ran for the misty marshes.