Join Host Bree Carlile as she reads the fifteenth chapter of Great Expectations.

Come with us as we release one bite a day of one of your favorite classic novels, plays & short stories. Bree reads these classics like she reads to her daughter, one chapter a day. If you love books or audiobooks and want something to listen to as you're getting ready, driving to work, or as you're getting ready for bed, check out Bite at a Time Books!

Follow, rate, and review Bite at a Time Books where we read you your favorite classics, one bite at a time. Available wherever you listen to podcasts.

Check out our website, or join our Facebook Group!

Get exclusive Behind the Scenes content on our YouTube!

We are now part of the Bite at a Time Books Productions network!

If you ever wondered what inspired your favorite classic novelist to write their stories, what was happening in their lives or the world at the time, check out Bite at a Time Books Behind the Story wherever you listen to podcasts.

Follow us on all the socials: Instagram - Twitter - Facebook - TikTok

Follow Bree at: Instagram - Twitter - Facebook

San the book and let's see what we can find.

Take it chapter by chapter, One bite at a time so many adventures and mountains we can climb take it word for word like by line.

One bite at a time.

My name is Brie Carlyle and I love to read and wanted to share my passion with listeners like you.

If you want to know what's coming next and vote on upcoming books, sign up for our newsletter@byetatimebooks.com you'll also find our new T shirts in the shop, including podcast shirts and quote shirts from your favorite classic novels.

Be sure to follow my show on your favorite podcast platform so you get all the new episodes.

You can find most of our links in the show notes, but also our website, Bytetimebooks.com, includes all of the links for our show, including to our Patreon to support the show and YouTube, where we have special behind the narration of the episodes.

We're part of the Bite at a Time Books Productions network.

If you'd also like to hear what inspired your favorite classic authors to write their novels and what was going on in the world at the time, check out the bite at a Time Books behind the Story podcast.

Wherever you listen to podcasts, please note, while we try to keep the text as close to the original as possible, some words have been changed to honor the marginalized communities who've identified the words as harmful and to stay in alignment with bite at a time book's brand values.

Today we'll be continuing great Expectations by Charles Dickens Chapter 15 As I was getting too big for Mr.

Wapsel's Great Aunt's Room, my education under that preposterous female terminated.

Not, however, until Bidy had imparted to me everything she knew, from the little catalog of prices to a comic song she had once bought for a half penny, although the only coherent part of the latter piece of literature were the opening lines when I went to London town.

Sirs Two Rule, Lou Rule, Two Rule, Lou, Rule Wasn't I done very brown?

Sirs Two Rule, Lou Rule, Two Rule, Lou, Rule Still, in my Desire to be Wiser, I got this composition by heart with the utmost gravity.

Nor do I recollect that I questioned its merit, except that I thought, as I still do, the amount of two rule.

Somewhat in excess of the poetry.

In my hunger for information, I made proposals to Mr.

Wapsel to bestow some intellectual crumbs upon me, with which he kindly complied.

As it turned out, however, that he only wanted me for a dramatic lay figure to be contradicted and embraced and wept over, and bullied and clutched and stabbed and knocked about in a variety of ways.

I soon declined that course of instruction, though not until Mr.

Wapsel and his poetic fury had severely mauled me.

Whatever I acquired, I tried to impart to Joe.

The statement sounds so well that I cannot in my conscience let it pass unexplained.

I wanted to make Joe less ignorant and common, that he might be worthier of my society and less open to Estella's reproach.

The old battery out on the marshes was our place of study, and the broken slate and a short piece of slate pencil were our educational implements, to which Joe always added a pipe of tobacco.

I never knew Joe to remember anything from one Sunday to another, or to acquire under my tuition any piece of information whatever.

Yet he would smoke his pipe at the battery with a far more sagacious air than anywhere else, even with a learned air.

As if he considered himself to be advancing immensely.

Dear fellow, I hope he did.

It was pleasant and quiet out there, with the sails on the river passing beyond the earthwork, and sometimes when the tide was low, looking as if they belonged to sunken ships that were still sailing at the bottom of the water.

Whenever I watched the vessels standing out to sea with their white sails spread, I somehow thought of Miss Havisham and Estella.

And whenever the light struck a slant afar off, upon a cloud or sail or green hillside or waterline, it was just the same Miss Havisham and Estella in the strange house and the strange life appeared to have something to do with everything that was picturesque.

One sundAy, when Joe, greatly enjoying his pipe, had so plumed himself on being most awful dull that I'd given him up for the day, I lay on the earthwork for some time with my chin on my hand, describing traces of Miss Havisham and Estella all over the prospect, in the sky and in the water, until at last I resolved to mention a thought concerning them that had been much in my head, Joe said I don't you think I ought to make Miss Havisham a visit?

Well, Pip, returned Joe slowly, considering what for.

What for, Joe?

What is any visit made for?

There is some visits, perhaps, said Joe, as forever remains open to the question, Pip.

But in regard to visiting Miss Havisham, she might think you wanted something, expected something of her.

Don't you think I might say that I did not, Joe?

You might, old chap, said Joe, and she might credit it similarly.

She mightn't.

Joe felt, as I did, that he had made a point there, and he pulled hard at his pipe to keep himself from weakening it by repetition.

You see, Pip, Joe pursued as soon as he was past that danger, Miss.

Havisham done the handsome thing by you.

When Miss Havisham done the handsome thing by you, she called me back to say to me, as that were all.

Yes, Joe, I heard her.

All.

Joe repeated very emphatically.

Yes, Joe, I tell you I heard her.

Which I mean to say, Pip, it might be that her meaning were make an end on it, as he was me to the north and you to the south Keepin thunders.

I had thought of that too, and it was very far from comforting to me to find that he had thought of it, for it seemed to render it more probable.

But Joe yes, old chap, here I.

Am getting on in the first year of my time, and since the day of my being bound, I've never thanked Miss Havisham or asked after her, or shown that I remember her.

That's true, Pip.

And unless you was to turn her out, a set of shoes all four round, and which I mean to say as even a set of shoes all four round might not be acceptable as a present in a total vacancy of hooves.

I don't mean that sort of remembrance, Joe, I don't mean a present.

But Joe had got the idea of a present in his head, and must harp upon it.

Or even, said he, if you was helped to knocking her up a new chain for the front door, or, say, a gross or two of shark headed screws for general use, or some light fancy articles, such as a toasting fork when she took her muffins, or grid iron when she took a sprout, or such like.

I don't mean any present at all, Joe, I interposed.

Well, said Joe, still harping on it as though I had particularly pressed it.

If I was yourself, Pip, I wouldn't.

No, I would not.

For what's a door chain when she's got one always up, and sharkheaders is open to misrepresentations.

And if it was a toasting fork you'd go into brass and do yourself no credit, and the uncommonest workman can't show himself uncommon in a grid iron.

For a grid iron is a grid.

Iron, said Joe, steadfastly impressing it upon me, as if he were endeavoring to rouse me from a fixed illusion.

And you might haim at what you like, but a grid iron it will come out either by your leave, or again your leave, and you can't help.

Yourself, my dear Joe, I cried in desperation, taking hold of his coat.

Don't go on in that way.

I never thought of making Miss Havisham any present.

No, Pip, Joe assented, as if he had been contending for that all along.

And what I say to you is you are right, Pip.

Yes, Joe, but what I wanted to say was that, as we are rather slack just now, if you would give me a half holiday tomorrow, I think I would go uptown and make a call on Miss S.

Havisham, which her.

Name, said Joe Gravely, ain't Estavisham, Pip, unless she have been rechristened.

I know, Joe, I know.

It was a slip of mine.

What do you think of it, Joe?

In brief, Joe thought that if I thought well of it, he thought well of it.

But he was particular in stipulating that if I were not received as cordiality, or if I were not encouraged to repeat my visit as a visit which had no ulterior object but was simply one of gratitude for a favor received, then this experimental trip should have no successor.

By these conditions I promised to abide.

Now Joe kept a journeyman at weekly wages, whose name was Orlick.

He pretended that his Christian name was Dolge a clear impossibility but he was a fellow of that obstinate disposition that I believe him to have been the prey of no delusion in this particular, but willfully to have imposed that name upon the village as an affront to its understanding.

He was a broad shouldered, loose limbed, swarthy fellow of great strength, never in a hurry and always slouching.

He never even seemed to come to his work on purpose, but would slouch in as if by mere accident.

And when he went to the jolly bargeman to eat his dinner or went away at night, he would slouch out like Cain or the wandering Jew, as if he had no idea where he was going and no intention of ever coming back.

He lodged at his sluice keepers out on the marshes, and on working days would come slouching from his hermitage with his hands in his pockets and his dinner loosely tied in a bundle round his neck and dangling on his back.

On Sundays he mostly lay all day on the sluice gates, or stood against Ricks and barns.

He always slouched locomotively with his eyes on the ground, and when accosted or otherwise required to raise them, he looked up in a half resentful, half puzzled way, as though the only thought he ever had was that it was rather an Od and injurious fact that he should never be thinking this morose journeyman had no liking for me when I was very small and timid.

He gave me to understanding that the devil lived in a black corner of the forge, and that he knew the fiend very well also that it was necessary to make up the fire once in seven years with a live boy, and that I might consider myself fuel.

When I became Joe's apprentice, Orlick was perhaps confirmed in some suspicion that I should displace him, albeit he liked me still less.

Not that he ever said anything or did anything openly importing hostility.

I only noticed that he always beat his sparks in my direction, and that whenever I sang old Clem he came in out of time.

Dolge Orlich was at work and present next day when I reminded Joe of my half holiday.

He said nothing at the moment, for he and Joe had just got a piece of hot iron between them and I was at the Bellows.

But by and by, he said, leaning.

On his hammer, now, master, sure you're not going to favor only one of us?

If young Pip has a half holiday, do as much for Old Orlich.

I suppose he was about five and 20, but he usually spoke of himself as ancient person.

Why, what'll you do with a half holiday if you get it?

Said Joe.

What'll I do with it?

What'll he do with it?

I'll do as much with it as him, said Ehrlich.

As to Pip, he is going uptown, said Joe.

Well then, as to Old Orlich, he's going uptown.

Retorted that worthy two can go uptown, Taint only one watt can go uptown.

Don't lose your temper, said Joe.

Shall if I like, growled Orlick.

Some in there uptowning now, master, come.

No favoring in this shop.

Be a man.

The master refusing to entertain the subject until the journeyman was in a better temper, Orlick plunged at the furnace, drew out a red hot bar made at me with it, as if he were going to run it through my body, whisked it round my head, laid it on the anvil, hammered it out as if it were I, I thought, and the sparks were my spurting blood, and finally said, when he had hammered himself hot in the iron cold, and he again leaned on his hammer.

Now, master, are you all right now?

Demanded Joe.

I am all right, said gruffled Orlick.

Then as in general you stick to your work as well as most men, said Joe.

Let it be a half holiday for all.

My sister had been standing silent in the yard within hearing.

She was the most unscrupulous spy and listener, and she instantly looked in at one of the windows.

Like you, you fool, said Cheetah Joe, giving holidays to great idle hulkers like that.

You are rich man.

Upon my life to waste wages in that way.

I wish I was his master.

You'd be everybody's master if you durst.

Retorted Orlick with an ill favored grin.

Let her alone, said Joe.

I'd be a match for all noodles and all rogues, returned my sister beginning to work herself into a mighty rage.

And I couldn't be a match for the noodles without being a match for your master, who's the dunderheaded king of the Noodles.

And I couldn't be a match for the Rogues without being a match for you, who are the blackest looking in the worst rogue between this and France now you're a foul shrew, Mother Gardery, growled the journeyman.

If that makes a judge of rogues, you ought to be a gooden.

Let her alone, will you?

Said Joe.

What did you say?

Cried my sister, beginning to scream.

What did you say?

What did that fellow Orlich say to me, Pip?

What did he call me with my husband standing by?

Oh.

Oh.

Each of these exclamations was a shriek, and I must remark of my sister what is equally true of all the violent women I've ever seen.

That passion was no excuse for her, because it is undeniable that instead of lapsing into passion, she consciously and deliberately took extraordinary pains to force herself into it, and became blindly furious by regular stages.

What was the name he gave me before the baseman who swore to defend me?

Oh, hold me.

Oh.

Growled the journeyman between his teeth.

I'd hold you if you was my wife.

I'd hold you under the pump and choke it out of you, I tell you.

Let her alone, said Joe.

Oh, to hear him.

Cried my sister with a clap of her hands and a scream together, which was her next stage to hear the names.

He's giving me that Orlich in my own house.

Me, a married woman with my husband standing by.

Oh.

Whoa.

Hear my sister, after a fit of clappings and screamings, beat her hands upon her bosom and upon her knees, and threw her cap off and pulled her hair down, which were the last stages on a road to frenzy.

Being by this time a perfect fury and a complete success, she made a dash at the door, which I had fortunately locked.

What could the wretched Joe do now, after his disregarded parenthetical interruptions, but stand up to his journeyman and ask him what he meant by interfering betwixt himself and MrS.

Joe, and further, whether he was man enough to come on.

Old Orlick felt that the situation admitted of nothing less than coming on, and was on his defense straight away.

So without much as pulling off their singed and burnt aprons, they went at one another like two giants.

But if any man in that neighborhood could stand up long against Joe, I never saw the man.

Orlick, as if he had been of no more account than the pale young gentleman, was very soon among the coal dust, and in no hurry to come out of it.

Then Joe unlocked the door, and picked up my sister, who had dropped insensible at the window, but who had seen the fight first, I think, and who was carried into the house and laid down, and who was recommended to revive, and when do nothing but struggle and clench her hands in Joe's hair.

Then came that singular calm and silence which succeeded all uproars, and then with the vague sensation which I've always connected, was such a lull, namely, that it was Sunday, and somebody was dead.

I went upstairs to dress myself.

When I came down again, I found Joe and Orlick sweeping up, without any other traces of discomposure than a slit in one of Orlick's nostrils, which was neither expressive nor ornamental.

A pot of beer had appeared from the Jolly Bargeman, and they were sharing it by turns in a peaceable manner.

The lull had a sedative and philosophical influence on Joe, who followed me out into the road to say, as a parting observation that might do me good.

On the rampage pip.

And off the rampage pip.

Such as life, with what absurd emotions, for we think the feelings that are very serious in a man, quite comical in a boy.

I found myself again going to Miss Havisham's matters little here, nor how I passed and repassed the gate many times before I could make up my mind to ring, nor how I debated whether I should go away without ringing, nor how I should undoubtedly have gone, if my time had been my own, to come back.

Miss Sarah Pocket came to the gate.

No, Estella.

How then you here again?

Said Miss Pocket.

WhAt do you want?

When I said that I only came to see how Miss Havisham was, Sarah evidently deliberated whether or not she should send me about my business.

But unwilling to hazard the responsibility, she Let me in, and presently brought the sharp message that I was to come up.

Everything was unchanged, and Miss Havisham was alone.

Well, said she, fixing her eyes upon me, I hope you want nothing.

You'll get nothing.

No, indeed, Miss Havisham.

I only wanted you to know that I'm doing very well in my apprenticeship and am always much obliged to you.

There with the old restless fingers.

Come now and then.

Come on your birthday.

Hi.

She cried suddenly turning herself in her chair towards me.

You are looking round for Estella?

Hey?

I had been looking round, in fact, for Estella, and I stammered that I hoped she was well.

Abroad, said Miss Havisham.

Educating for a lady far out of reach, prettier than ever admired by all who see her.

Do you feel that you have lost her?

There was such a malignant enjoyment in her utterance of the last words, and she broke into such a disagreeable laugh that I was at a loss what to say.

She spared me the trouble of considering by dismissing me when the gate was closed upon me.

By Sarah of the walnut shall countenance.

I felt more than ever dissatisfied with my home and with my trade and with everything.

And that was all I took by that motion as I was loitering along the high street, looking in disconsolately at the shop windows, and thinking what I would buy if I were a gentleman who should come out of the bookshop.

But Mr.

Wapsel.

Mr.

Wapsel had in his hand the affecting tragedy of George Barnwell, in which he had that moment invested sixpence with the view of heaping every word of it on the head of Pumblechuk, 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 apprentice in his way to be read at.

And he laid hold of me, and insisting on my accompanying him to the Pumblechukian parlor, 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 Pumblechuks just as the street in 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 09:30 o'clock that night, and that when Mr.

Wapsel 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 at 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.

Pumblechuk's indignant stare so taxed me with it.

Wapsel, 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 and my master's daughter to care a button for me, and all I can say from 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 Wapsel had closed the book, Pumblechuk sat staring at me and shaking his head and saying, take warning, boy, take warning, as if it were a well known fact that 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.

Wapsel 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.

Hello, we said, stopping Orlich there.

Ah, he answered, slouching out.

I was standing by a minute on the chance of company.

You're late, I remarked.

Orlich, not unnaturally, answered.

Well, and you're late.

We have been, said Mr.

Wobsel, exalted with his late performance.

We have been indulging Mr.

Orlich in an intellectual evening.

Old Orlich growled as if he had nothing to say about that, and we all went on together.

I asked him presently whether he'd been spending his half holiday up and downtown.

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.

Aye.

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'd 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 jailbird on the wing tonight.

The subject was a suggestive one to me, and I thought about it in silence.

Mr.

Wobsel, as the ill requited uncle of the evening's tragedy, felt him meditating aloud in his garden at Camberwell.

Orlick, with his hands in its 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.

Wapsel 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'd 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 11:00 in a state of commotion, with the door wide open and unwanted lights that had been hastily caught up and put down scattered about.

Mr.

Wapsel 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 Gardrey was out, supposed by convicts.

Somebody's 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 was a group of women, all on the floor in the midst of the kitchen.

The unemployed bystanders drew back when they saw me, and so I became aware of my sister lying without sense or movement on the bare boards, where she'd been knocked down by a tremendous blow on the back of the head, dealt by some unknown hand when her face was turned towards the fire, destined never to be on the rampage again while she was the wife of Joe.

Thank you for joining bite at a time books today while we read a bite of one of your favorite classics again.

My name is Brie Carlyle.

And I hope you come back tomorrow for the next bite of great expectations.

Don't forget to sign up for our newsletter@bytetimebooks.com, and check out the shop.

You can check out the show notes or our website, byteathimebooks.com, for the rest of the links for our show.

We'd love to hear from you on social media as well.

Take a look and a book, and let's see what we can find.

Taking chapter by chapter, one at a time.

Rain.

So many adventures and mountains we can climb.

Take it word for word, line by line, one bite at a time.

Close.