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

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Today we'll be continuing Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.

Chapter Four I fully expected to find a constable in the kitchen waiting to take me up, but not only was there no constable there, but no discovery had yet been made of the robbery.

Mrs.

Jo was prodigiously busy in getting the house ready for the festivities of the day, and Joe had been put upon the kitchen doorstep to keep him out of the dustpan.

An article into which his destiny always led him sooner or later, when my sister was vigorously reaping the floors of her establishment.

And where the deuce had you been?

Was Mrs.

Jo's Christmas salutation.

When I and my conscience showed ourselves, I said, I'd been down to hear the carols.

Ah, well observed, Mrs.

Jo.

You might have done worse, not a doubt of that.

I thought perhaps if I weren't a blacksmith's wife and what's the same thing a slave with her apron never off, I should have been to hear the carols, said Mrs.

Jo.

I'm rather partial to carols myself, and that's the best of reasons for my never hearing any.

Joe, who adventured into the kitchen after me as the dust pan had retired before us, drew the back of his hand across his nose with a conciliatory air when Mrs.

Joe darted a look at him, and when her eyes were withdrawn, secretly crossed its two forefingers and exhibited them to me as our token that Mrs.

Jo was in a cross temper.

This was so much her normal state that Joe and I would often for weeks together be as to our fingers like monumental crusaders as to their legs.

We were to have a superb dinner consisting of a leg of pickled pork and greens and a pair of roast stuffed fowls.

A handsome mince pie had been made yesterday morning, which accounted for the mince meat not being missed and the pudding was already on the boil.

These extensive arrangements occasioned us to be cut off unceremoniously in respective breakfast, for I ain't, said Mrs.

Jo, I ain't going to have no formal cramming and busting and washing up now with what I've got before me, I promise you.

So we had our slices served out as if we were 2000 troops on a forced march instead of a man and boy at home, and we took gulps of milk and water with apologetic countenances from a jug on the dresser.

In the meantime, Mrs.

Joe put clean, white curtains up and tacked a new flowered flounce across the wide chimney to replace the old one and uncovered the little state parlor across the passage, which was never uncovered at any.

Other time, but passed the rest of the year in a cool haze of silver paper which even extended to the four little white crockery poodles on the mantle shelf, each with a black nose and a basket of flowers in his mouth and each the counterpart of the other.

Mrs.

Jo was a very clean housekeeper, but had an exquisite art of making her cleanliness, more uncomfortable and unacceptable than dirt itself.

Cleanliness is next to Godliness, and some people do the same by their religion.

My sister, having so much to do, was going to church vicariously.

That is to say, Joe and I were going in his working clothes.

Joe was a well knit, characteristic looking blacksmith.

In his holiday clothes he was more like a scarecrow in good circumstances than anything else.

Nothing that he wore then fitted him or seemed to belong to him, and everything that he wore then grazed him.

On the present festive occasion, he emerged from his room when the blithe bells were going, a picture of misery, and a full suit of Sunday penitentials.

As to me, I think my sister must have had some general idea that I was a young offender whom an accuser policeman had taken up on my birthday and delivered over to her to be dealt with according to the outraged majesty of the law.

I was always treated as if I had insisted on being born in opposition to the dictates of reason, religion, morality, and against the dissuading arguments of my best friends.

Even when I was taken to have a new suit of clothes, the tailor had orders to make them like a kind of reformatory and on no account to let me have the free use of my limbs.

Joe and I going to church, therefore, must have been a moving spectacle for compassionate minds.

Yet what I suffered outside was nothing to what I underwent within.

The terrors that had assailed me whenever Mrs Joe had gone near the pantry or out of the room, were only to be equalled by the remorse with which my mind dwelt on what my hands had done.

Under the weight of my wicked secret, I pondered whether the church would be powerful enough to shield me from the vengeance of the terrible young man if I divulged to that establishment.

I conceived the idea that the time when the bands were read, and when the clergymen said year now to declare, it would be the time for me to rise and propose a private conference in the vestry.

I'm far from being sure that I might not have astonished our small congregation by resorting to this extreme measure.

But for it's being Christmas Day and no Sunday, mr Wapsel, the clerk at church, was to dine with us, and Mr Hubble, the wheelwright, and Mrs Hubble, and Uncle Pumblechuk, Joe's uncle.

But Mrs Joe appropriated him, who was the well to do corn chandler in the nearest town, and drove his own shay's cart.

The dinner hour was 01:30 when Joe and I got home.

We found the table laid, and Mrs Joe dressed and the dinner dressing, and the front door unlocked.

It never was at any other time for the company to enter by, and everything most splendid, and still not a word of the robbery.

The time came without bringing with it any relief to my feelings.

And the company came.

Mr Wapsel, united to a Roman nose and a large, shining bald forehead, had a deep voice, which he was uncommonly proud of.

Indeed, it was understood among his acquaintance that if you could only give him his head, he would read the clergyman into fits.

He himself confessed that if the church was thrown open, meaning the competition, he would not despair of making his mark in it.

The church not being thrown open, he was, as I've said, our clerk.

But he punished the Amens tremendously, and when he gave out the psalm, always giving the whole verse, he looked all round to the congregation first, as much as to say, you have heard my friend overhead oblige me with your opinion of this style.

I opened the door to the company, making believe that it was a habit of ours to open that door, and I opened it first to Mr Wapsel, next to Mr and Mrs Hubble, and last of all to Uncle Pumblechuk.

And B I was not allowed to call him uncle under the severest penalties.

Mrs Joe said Uncle Pumblechuk, a large, hard breathing, middle aged, slow man with a mouth like a fish, dull staring eyes and sandy hair, standing upright on his head, so that he looked as if he had just been all but choked, and had that moment come, too.

I've brought you as compliments of the season.

I've brought you, mom, a bottle of sherry wine, and I've brought you, mom, a bottle of port wine.

Every Christmas Day.

He presented himself as a profound novelty, with exactly the same words and carrying the two bottles like dumbbells.

Every Christmas Day, mrs.

Joe replied, as she now replied, oh, Uncle Pumblechuk, this is kind.

Every Christmas Day, he retorted, as he now retorted, it's no more than your merits.

And now are you all Bobbish and house, six and pin north of Halfpence, meaning me.

We dined on these occasions in the kitchen, and adjourned for the nuts and oranges and apples to the parlor, which was a charge very like Joe's change from his working clothes to his Sunday dress.

My sister was uncommonly lively on the present occasion, and indeed was generally more gracious in the society of Mrs.

Hubble than in other company.

I remember Mrs Hubble as a little curly, sharp edged person in sky blue, who held a conventionally juvenile position because she had married Mr Hubble I don't know at what remote period, when she was much younger than he.

I remember Mr Hubble as a tough, high shouldered, stooping old man of a sawdusty fragrance, with his legs extraordinarily wide apart, so that in my short days I always saw some miles of open country between them.

When I met him coming up the lane among this good company, I should have felt myself even if I hadn't robbed the pantry in a false position.

Not because I was squeezed in at an acute angle of the tablecloth with a table in my chest and the pumbled chuckian elbow in my eye nor because I was not allowed to speak.

I did not want to speak, nor because I was regaled with the scaly tips of the drumsticks of the fowls, and with those obscure corners of pork of which the pig, when living, had had the least reason to be vain.

No, I should not have minded that if they would only have left me alone.

But they wouldn't leave me alone.

They seemed to think the opportunity lost if they failed to point the conversation at me every now and then and stick the point into me, I might have been an unfortunate little bull in a Spanish arena.

I got so smartingly touched up by these moral goads.

It began the moment we sat down to dinner.

Mr.

Wapsel said grace with a theatrical declamation as it now appears to me something like a religious cross of the ghost and Hamlet with Richard II and ended with the very proper aspiration that we might be truly grateful upon which my sister fixed me with her eye and said in a low, reproachful voice do you hear that?

Be grateful.

Especially, said Mr Pumblechuk.

Be grateful, boy, to them which brought you up by hand.

Mrs Hubble shook her head, and, contemplating me with a mournful presentiment, that I should come to no good, asked, Why is it that the young are never grateful?

This moral mystery seemed too much for the company until Mr.

Hubble tersely solved it by saying, naturally wishes everybody, then murmured, True.

And looked at me in a particularly unpleasant and personal manner.

Joe's station and influence were something feebler, if possible when there was company than when there was none.

But he always aided and comforted me when he could in some way of his own, and he always did so at dinner time by giving me gravy, if there were any.

There being plenty of gravy today.

Joe spooned into my plate.

At this point, about half a pint.

A little later on in the dinner, Mr.

Wapsel reviewed the sermon with some severity and intimated in the usual hypothetical case of the church being thrown open, what kind of sermon he would have given them after favoring them with some heads of that discourse.

He remarked that he considered the subject of the day's homily ill chosen.

Which was the less excusable, he added, when there were so many subjects going about.

True again, said Uncle Pumblechuk.

You've hit it, sir.

Plenty of subjects going about for them that know how to put salt upon their tails.

That's what's wanted.

A man needn't go far to find a subject if he's ready with this salt box, Mr.

Pumblechuk added after a short interval of reflection, look at pork alone.

There's a subject.

If you want a subject, look at pork.

True, sir.

Many immoral for the young, returned Mr.

Wapsel, and I knew that he was going to lunge me in before he.

Said it might be deduced from that text.

You listen to this, said my sister to me in a severe parenthesis.

Joe gave me some more gravy.

Swine, pursued Mr.

Wapsel in his deepest voice and pointing his fork at my blushes as if he were mentioning my Christian name.

Swine were the companions of the prodigal.

The gluttony of swine is put before us as an example to the young.

I thought this pretty well in him, who had been praising up the pork for being so plump and juicy.

What is detestable in a pig is more detestable in a boy.

Or girl, suggested Mr.

Hubble.

Of course, or girl, mr.

Hubble, assented.

Mr.

Wapsel rather irritably.

But there is no girl present.

Besides, said Mr.

Pumblechuk, turning sharp on me, think what you've got to be grateful for if you'd been born.

A squeaker he was, if ever a child was, said my sister most emphatically.

Joe gave me some more gravy.

Well, but I mean a four footed squeaker, said Mr.

Pumblechuk.

If you had been born such, would you have been here now.

Not you, unless in that form, said Mr.

Wapsel, nodding towards the dish.

But I don't mean in that form, sir, returned Mr.

Pumblechuk, who had an objection to being interrupted.

I mean enjoying himself with his elders.

And betters and improving himself with their conversation and rolling in the lap of luxury.

Would he have been doing that?

No, he wouldn't.

And what would have been your destination?

Turning on me again.

You would have been disposed of for so many shillings, according to the market price of the article.

And Dunstable the butcher would have come up to you as you lay in your straw, and he would have whipped you under his left arm and with his right he would have tucked up his frock to get a penknife from out of his waistcoat pocket, and he would have shed your blood and had your life.

No bringing up by hand, then?

Not a bit of it.

Joe offered me more gravy, which I was afraid to take.

He was a world of trouble to you, ma'am, said Mrs Hubble, commiserating.

My sister trouble echoed my sister trouble and then entered on a fearful catalog of all the illnesses I had been guilty of and all the acts of sleeplessness I had committed and all the high places I had tumbled from and all the low places I had tumbled into and all the injuries I had done myself and all the time she had wished me in my grave and I had to contemporiously refuse to go there.

I think the Romans must have aggravated one another very much with their noses.

Perhaps they became the restless people they were in consequence.

Anyhow, Mr Wapsel's Roman nose so aggravated me during the recital of my misdemeanors that I should have liked to pull it until he howled.

But all I had endured up to this time was nothing in comparison with the awful feelings that took possession of me when the pause was broken which ensued upon my sister's recital, and in which pause everybody had looked at me, as I felt painfully conscious, with indignation and abhorrence.

Yet, said Mr Pumblechuk, leading the company gently back to the theme from which they had strayed, pork, regarded as wild, is rich too, ain't it?

Have a little brandy, uncle, said my sister.

Oh, heavens.

It had come at last.

He would find it was weak.

He would say it was weak and I was lost.

I held tight to the leg of the table under the cloth with both hands, and awaited my fate.

My sister went for the stone bottle, came back with the stone bottle and poured his brandy out, no one else taking any.

The wretched man Trifled, with his glasses, took it up, looked at it through the light, put it down, prolonged my misery.

All this time Mrs Joe and Joe were briskly clearing the table for the pie and pudding.

I couldn't keep my eyes off him.

Always holding tight by the leg of the table with my hands and feet, I saw the miserable creature finger his glass playfully take it up, smile, throw his head back and drink the brandy off instantly.

Afterwards, the company were seized with unspeakable consternation owing to his springing to his feet, turning round several times in an appalling spasmodic, whooping cough, dance and rushing out at the door, he then became visible through the window, violently plunging and expectorating, making the most hideous faces and apparently out of his mind.

I held on tight while Mrs.

Joe and Joe ran to him.

I didn't know how I had done it, but I had no doubt I had murdered him somehow in my dreadful situation.

It was a relief when he was brought back and, surveying the company all round as if they had disagreed with him, sank down into his chair with one significant gasp tar.

I had filled up the bottle from the Tar water jug.

I knew he would be worse.

By and by I moved the table like a medium of the present day, by the vigor of my unseen hold upon it.

Tar.

Cried my sister in amazement.

Why, however, could Tar come there?

But Uncle Pumblechuk, who was omnipotent in that kitchen, wouldn't hear the word, wouldn't hear of the subject, imperiously waved it all away with his hand and asked for hot gin and water.

My sister, who'd begun to be alarmingly meditative, had to employ herself actively in getting the gin, the hot water, the sugar and the lemon peel and mixing them.

For the time being, at least, I was saved.

I still held onto the leg of the table, but clutched it now with the fervor of gratitude.

By degrees I became calm enough to release my grasp and partake of pudding, Mr.

Pumblechuk.

Partook of pudding.

All partook of pudding.

The course terminated, and Mr.

Pumblechuk had begun to beam under the genial influence of gin and water.

I began to think I should get over the day when my sister said to Joe, clean plates cold.

I clutched the leg of the table again immediately and pressed it to my bosom as if it had been the companion of my youth and friend of my soul.

I foresaw what was coming, and I felt that this time I really was gone.

You must taste, said my sister, addressing the guests with her best grace.

You must taste to finish with such a delightful and delicious present of Uncle Pumblechuks.

Must they let them not hope to taste it?

You must know, said my sister, rising.

It's a pie, a savory pork pie.

The company murmured their compliments.

Uncle Pumblechuck, sensible of having deserved well of his fellow creatures, said, quite vivaciously, all things considered.

Well, Mrs.

Joe, we'll do our best endeavors.

Let us have a cut at this same pie.

My sister went out to get it.

I heard her steps proceed to the pantry.

I saw Mr.

Pumblechuk balance his knife.

I saw reawakening appetite in the Roman nostrils of Mr.

Wapsel.

I heard Mr.

Hubble remark that a bit of savory pork pie would lay atop of anything you could mention and do no harm and I heard Joe say, you shall have some pip.

I've never been absolutely certain whether I uttered a shrill yell of terror merely in spirit or in the bodily hearing of the company.

I felt that I could bear no more and that I must run away.

I released the leg of the table and ran for my life.

But I ran no further than the house door, for there I ran head for most into a party of soldiers with their muskets, one of whom held out a pair of handcuffs to me, saying, here you are.

Look sharp.

Come on.

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

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