FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   358   359   360   361   362   363   364   365   366   367   368   369   370   371   372   373   374   375   376   377   378   379   380   381   382  
383   384   385   386   387   388   389   390   391   392   393   394   395   396   397   398   399   400   401   402   403   404   405   406   407   >>   >|  
ks's Basin, and the Old Green Copper Ropewalk, all so clear and plain! Provis in his rooms, the signal whose use was over, pretty Clara, the good motherly woman, old Bill Barley on his back, all drifting by, as on the swift stream of my life fast running out to sea! "You with a uncle too! Why, I know'd you at Gargery's when you was so small a wolf that I could have took your weazen betwixt this finger and thumb and chucked you away dead (as I'd thoughts o' doing, odd times, when I see you loitering amongst the pollards on a Sunday), and you hadn't found no uncles then. No, not you! But when Old Orlick come for to hear that your uncle Provis had most like wore the leg-iron wot Old Orlick had picked up, filed asunder, on these meshes ever so many year ago, and wot he kep by him till he dropped your sister with it, like a bullock, as he means to drop you--hey?--when he come for to hear that--hey?" In his savage taunting, he flared the candle so close at me that I turned my face aside to save it from the flame. "Ah!" he cried, laughing, after doing it again, "the burnt child dreads the fire! Old Orlick knowed you was burnt, Old Orlick knowed you was smuggling your uncle Provis away, Old Orlick's a match for you and know'd you'd come to-night! Now I'll tell you something more, wolf, and this ends it. There's them that's as good a match for your uncle Provis as Old Orlick has been for you. Let him 'ware them, when he's lost his nevvy! Let him 'ware them, when no man can't find a rag of his dear relation's clothes, nor yet a bone of his body. There's them that can't and that won't have Magwitch,--yes, I know the name!--alive in the same land with them, and that's had such sure information of him when he was alive in another land, as that he couldn't and shouldn't leave it unbeknown and put them in danger. P'raps it's them that writes fifty hands, and that's not like sneaking you as writes but one. 'Ware Compeyson, Magwitch, and the gallows!" He flared the candle at me again, smoking my face and hair, and for an instant blinding me, and turned his powerful back as he replaced the light on the table. I had thought a prayer, and had been with Joe and Biddy and Herbert, before he turned towards me again. There was a clear space of a few feet between the table and the opposite wall. Within this space, he now slouched backwards and forwards. His great strength seemed to sit stronger upon him than ever before, as he did th
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   358   359   360   361   362   363   364   365   366   367   368   369   370   371   372   373   374   375   376   377   378   379   380   381   382  
383   384   385   386   387   388   389   390   391   392   393   394   395   396   397   398   399   400   401   402   403   404   405   406   407   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Orlick

 

Provis

 
turned
 

writes

 

Magwitch

 

flared

 

knowed

 

candle

 

couldn

 

information


shouldn

 
relation
 
clothes
 

opposite

 
Within
 

slouched

 

Herbert

 

backwards

 

forwards

 

stronger


strength

 

prayer

 

sneaking

 

unbeknown

 
danger
 

Compeyson

 
gallows
 

powerful

 

replaced

 

thought


blinding

 
instant
 

smoking

 

finger

 

chucked

 
betwixt
 

weazen

 
Gargery
 

thoughts

 

pollards


Sunday

 

Ropewalk

 
loitering
 

Barley

 

motherly

 
signal
 

pretty

 
drifting
 

running

 

stream