Kitabı oku: «Большие надежды. Уровень 2 / Great Expectations», sayfa 2

Chapter 3

It was a rimy morning, and very damp. The mist was heavier yet when I got out upon the marshes. Everything seemed to look at me. The gates and dikes and banks cried, “A boy with somebody’s else’s pork pie! Stop him!” The cattle came upon me. They were staring out of their eyes, and steaming out of their nostrils, “Halloa, young thief!”

All this time, I was getting on towards the river. I crossed a ditch, and scrambled up the mound beyond the ditch. Then I saw the man. He was sitting before me. His back was towards me. His arms were folded, he was nodding forward, heavy with sleep.

I went forward softly and touched him on the shoulder. He instantly jumped up. It was not the same man, but another man!

And yet this man was dressed in coarse gray, too, and had a great iron on his leg. All this I saw in a moment. I had only a moment to see it in. He ran into the mist, and I lost him.

Soon I saw the right Man, who was waiting for me. He was awfully cold. His eyes looked so awfully hungry too.

“What’s in the bottle, boy?” said he.

“Brandy,” said I. “I think you have got the ague,” said I.

“Sure, boy,” said he.

“It’s bad about here,” I told him. “You’re lying out on the meshes, and they’re dreadful aguish. Rheumatic too.”

“You’re not a deceiving imp? You brought no one with you?”

“No, sir! No!”

“Well,” said he, “I believe you.”

Something clicked in his throat. He smeared his ragged rough sleeve over his eyes.

“I am glad you enjoy the food,” said I

“What?”

“I said I was glad you enjoyed it.”

“Thank you, my boy. I do.”

He was eating like a large dog of ours. The man took strong sharp sudden bites, just like the dog.

“I am afraid you won’t leave any food for him,” said I, timidly.

“Leave for him? Who’s him?” said my friend.

“The man. That you spoke of¹¹.”

“Oh ah!” he said, with something like a gruff laugh. “Him? Yes, yes! He doesn’t want any food.”

“I thought he looked as if he did,” said I.

The man stopped eating. He regarded me with the keenest scrutiny and the greatest surprise.

“Looked? When?”

“Just now.”

“Where?”

“Yonder,” said I, and pointed; “over there, where I found him. He was sleeping, and I thought it was you.”

He held me by the collar and stared at me. I began to think his first idea to cut my throat revived again.

“Dressed like you, you know, only with a hat,” I explained. I was trembling. “Didn’t you hear the cannon last night?”

“Then there was firing!” he said to himself.

“He had a badly bruised face,” said I.

“Not here?” exclaimed the man. He stroke his left cheek mercilessly, with the flat of his hand.

“Yes, there!”

“Where is he?” He crammed little food into the breast of his gray jacket. “Show me the way he went. I’ll pull him down¹², like a bloodhound. But first give me the file, boy.”

I indicated the direction. He looked at me for an instant. But then he sat on the wet grass and began to file his iron like a madman. I told him I must go, but he took no notice.

Chapter 4

I expected to find a Constable in the kitchen. I was ready to go to the prison. But Mrs. Joe was prodigiously busy in the house. She was preparing for the festivities of the day.

We were going to have a superb dinner of a leg of pickled pork and greens, and a pair of roast stuffed fowls. A handsome mince-pie was made yesterday morning. The pudding was already on the boil.

We were waiting for Mr. Wopsle, the clerk at church, and Mr. Hubble¹³ the wheelwright and Mrs. Hubble; and Uncle Pumblechook (Joe’s uncle), who was a cornchandler in the nearest town, and drove his own chaise-cart. The dinner hour was half-past one. Everything was most splendid. I heard not a word of the robbery.

The time came, and the company arrived. I opened the door to the company. I opened it first to Mr. Wopsle, next to Mr. and Mrs. Hubble, and last of all to Uncle Pumblechook.

“Mrs. Joe,” said Uncle Pumblechook, a large middle-aged slow man, with dull staring eyes, and sandy hair, “Mum, I have a bottle of sherry wine, and I have a bottle of port wine, too.”

Every Christmas Day he presented himself with exactly the same words.

We dined on these occasions in the kitchen. My sister was uncommonly lively on the present occasion. Indeed she was generally more gracious in the society of Mrs. Hubble than in other company.

Soon we sat down to dinner. Mr. Wopsle said a prayer: we must be truly grateful. My sister said, in a low reproachful voice,

“Do you hear that? Be grateful.”

“Especially,” said Mr. Pumblechook, “be grateful, boy, to them which brought you up¹⁴.”

Mrs. Hubble shook her head and asked,

“Why are the young boys never grateful?”

Mr. Hubble answered,

“They are just vicious.”

Everybody then murmured “True!” and looked at me in a particularly unpleasant and personal manner.

“Listen to this!” said my sister to me, in a severe parenthesis.

“You must taste,” said my sister, addressing the guests with her best grace, “you must taste such a delightful and delicious present of Uncle Pumblechook’s! You must know, it’s a pie; a savory pork pie.”

My sister went out to get it. I heard her steps. She went to the pantry. Mr. Pumblechook balanced his knife. I wanted to run away. I stood up. But I ran no farther than the house door. There stood a party of soldiers with their muskets.