Great Expectations - Chapters 1 & 2

This is a relaxing narration of, as well as a voiced interpretation of Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. While my narration is of course geared toward a relaxing, more laid back read, I do give character voices to several characters, including two that some may find grating, ominous and not as relaxing. However, my intent was to read another classic book, so I sincerely hope you find it enjoyable as a relaxing audiobook.

Transcript

Good evening.

My name is Bill Larson.

From time to time,

I read children's stories and from time to time,

A few motivational things.

But tonight,

I was in a different kind of mood.

A mood for one of the classics.

You know,

Those books that we read in either grammar school and high school.

We get a grade and then we put away in our library or push down into the bottom of our backpacks and forget about until it's time to empty out the school year.

So I was searching through and one of the books that I know I've never read was Great Expectations.

And I thought,

Why haven't I read Great Expectations?

It's been around for a really long time.

But very much like almost all the classics,

You take it for granted that it's always going to be there,

So there's no urgency.

But tonight,

There is.

So sit back or lie down and relax as I read Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.

Also,

In the reading of this,

I did add some vocalizations to a few of the characters in Great Expectations.

So I hope that you are entertained as well as relaxed when you listen to it.

But I just wanted to warn you that a couple of the characters are not as sleepy as sometimes we would like.

Chapter 1 My father's family name being Pirip 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 Pirip as my father's family name on the authority of his tombstone and my sister,

Mrs.

Jo 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 grave gave me an odd idea that he was a square stout dark man with curly black hair.

From the character in 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 entertain 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 Pirip,

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 grey,

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 lam'd 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,

"'point out the place.

' I pointed to where our village lay,

On the flat inshore 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 got.

' I believed they were fat,

Though I was at the time undersized for my years and not strong.

"'Dawn me if I couldn't eat them,

' said the man,

With a threatening shake of his head,

"'and if I hadn't half a mind to it.

' 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 looky 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 longer your mother?

' "'Yes,

Sir,

' said I.

Him too,

Late of this parish.

"'Ha,

' he muttered then,

Considering,

"'who'd ye live with?

Supposing you're kindly led to live,

Which I hadn't made up my mind about.

' "'My mistress,

Sir,

Mrs.

Jo Godgery,

Wife of Jo Godgery,

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 looky here,

' he said,

The question being whether you're to be led to live.

"'You know what a file is?

' "'Yes,

Sir.

' "'And you know what Whittles 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 Whittles,

' he tilted me again.

"'You bring him 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 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,

Tomorrow morning,

Early,

That file in them wheels.

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 some ever,

And you shall be let to live.

You fail,

Or you go from my words in any particular,

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 an angel.

That young man hears the words I speak.

That young man has a secret way peculiar to himself,

Of getting at a boy,

And his heart,

And at his liver.

It is in vain 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 keeping that young man from arming you at the present moment,

With great difficulty.

I find it very 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.

'" "'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 an eel.

" At the same time,

He hugged his shuddering body in both his arms,

Clasping himself as if to hold himself together and limped toward 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 toward home and made the best use of my legs.

But presently,

I looked over my shoulder and saw him going on again toward 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 tides were 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 ladder,

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 around for the horrible young man and could see no signs of him,

But now I was frightened again and ran home without stopping.

Chapter 2 My sister,

Mrs.

Jo Gargery,

Was more than twenty years older than I,

And had established a great reputation with herself and the neighbours 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 Jo 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 Jo Gargery marry her by hand.

Jo 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.

Jo,

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 Jo 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.

Jo'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 Jo was sitting alone in the kitchen.

Jo and I being fellow sufferers,

And having confidences as such,

Jo 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.

Jo 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 Jo,

And what's worse,

She's got Tickla 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.

Tickla was a waxed-ended piece of cane,

Worn smooth by collision with my tickled frame.

She sought down,

Said Jo,

And she got up,

And she made a grab at Tickla,

And she rampaged out.

That's what she did,

' said Jo,

Slowly clearing the fire between the lower bars with the poker and looking at it.

She rampaged out,

Pip.

"'Has she been gone long,

Jo?

' I always treated him as a larger species of child,

And as no more than my equal.

"'Well,

' said Jo,

Glancing up at the Dutch clock,

"'she's been on the rampage 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.

Jo,

Throwing the door wide open and finding an obstruction behind it,

Immediately divined the cause,

And applied Tickla to its further investigation.

She concluded by throwing me.

I often served as a connubial missal at Jo,

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.

Jo,

Stamping her foot.

"'Tell me directly what you've been doing to wear me away with fret and fright and warret,

For I'd have you out of that corner if you were fifty pips and he was five hundred gargeries.

' "'I have only been to the churchyard,

' said I,

From my stool,

Crying and rubbing myself.

"'Churchyard?

' repeated my sister.

"'If it weren'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 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 disconsonantly 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.

"'Ha,

' 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 oh,

And precious 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 molding 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.

Tonight,

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 charred 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.

"'Manas is manas,

But still your elfs your elf.

'" 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 stock 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 too 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 uncommon bolt is that!

' "'Been bolting his food,

Has he?

' cried my sister.

"'You know,

Old chap,

' said Joe,

Looking at me,

And nodded,

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 you 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 cooperates 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 tomorrow,

But must be fed now.

At other times,

I thought,

What if the young man who was with so much difficulty restrained from imbrewing 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 tonight instead of tomorrow.

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 7 to 8 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 unimaginable.

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 convict off.

What does that mean,

Joe?

Said I.

Mrs.

Joe,

Who always took explanations upon herself,

Said snappishly,

Escaped!

Escaped!

Escaped!

Escaped!

Administering the definition like tar water.

While Mrs.

Joe sat with her head bending over at 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 elaborative answer that I could make out nothing of it but the single word,

PIP.

There was a convict off last night,

Said Joe aloud,

After sunset gun,

And they fired warning of him,

And now it appears they're firing warnings of another.

Who's firing?

Said I.

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,

Huh?

But Joe wouldn't hear of it 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 mind much,

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 Alks.

Oh,

Said I,

Looking at Joe.

Alks.

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 the merches.

We always use 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,

She said.

I didn't bring you up by hand to badger people's lives out.

That would be blamed 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 upstairs 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 alight 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 grey,

I got up and went downstairs.

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 a 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 licorice 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 earthenware 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.

Reviews

Thankyou Bill. What happened next, to Pip? Do you have other chapters in the story?

I can’t begin to express how much I enjoy all of your narrations! You’ve a very clear, deep, and well paced voice and I enjoy everything you add on insighttimer. I especially enjoy your varied voices on this one!
Thanks so much for helping me get to sleep w/ such great stories told perfectly!
Looking for further chapters in this book! Are there any? Please finish this great story!

Thanks for sharing, and I’d love to
Listen to the rest of the book narrated by you. 😊 you have a wonderful reading voice and this is a great book!

I don't know if it was good or not because I always fall asleep when I listen to it. I will give it five stars because it's a classic and, if it comes from Bill Larson, it must be good. I hope he will continue to provide stories for us to listen to.

Thank you for narrating this great classic! I can’t wait for the next installment. 🙏

Love this! When will we see more?

Bill … you have hit another home run with this reading!! Great choice of Dickens and your accents are perfect. This is from one of your long-time listeners when you were still recording The Wizard of Oz. Thank you for sharing your gift with us!! 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

Wonderful voice. Thank you for sharing