第80章

`Dread him,' said Wemmick. `I believe you they dread him. Not but what he's artful, even in his defiance of them. No silver, sir. Britannia metal, every spoon.'

`So they wouldn't have much,' I observed, `even if they--'

`Ah! But he would have much,' said Wemmick, cutting me short, `and they know it. He'd have their lives, and the lives of scores of 'em.

He'd have all he could get. And it's impossible to say what he couldn't get, if he gave his mind to it.'

I was falling into meditation on my guardian's greatness, when Wemmick remarked:

`As to the absence of plate, that's only his natural depth, you know.

A river's its natural depth, and he's his natural depth. Look at his watch-chain.

That's real enough.'

`It's very massive,' said I.

`Massive?' repeated Wemmick. `I think so. And his watch is a gold repeater, and worth a hundred pound if it's worth a penny. Mr Pip, there are about seven hundred thieves in this town who know all about that watch; there's not a man, a woman, or a child, among them, who wouldn't identify the smallest link in that chain, and drop it as if it was red-hot, if inveigled into touching it.'

At first with such discourse, and afterwards with conversation of a more general nature, did Mr Wemmick and I beguile the time and the road, until he gave me to understand that we had arrived in the district of Walworth.

It appeared to be a collection of back lanes, ditches, and little gardens, and to present the aspect of a rather dull retirement. Wemmick's house was a little wooden cottage in the midst of plots of garden, and the top of it was cut out and painted like a battery mounted with guns.

`My own doing,' said Wemmick. `Looks pretty; don't it?'

I highly commended it, I think it was the smallest house I ever saw;with the queerest gothic windows (by far the greater part of them sham), and a gothic door, almost too small to get in at.

`That's a real flagstaff, you see,' said Wemmick, `and on Sundays Irun up a real flag. Then look here. After I have crossed this bridge, Ihoist it up - so - and cut off the communication.'

The bridge was a plank, and it crossed a chasm about four feet wide and two deep. But it was very pleasant to see the pride with which he hoisted it up and made it fast; smiling as he did so, with a relish and not merely mechanically.

`At nine o'clock every night, Greenwich time,' said Wemmick, `the gun fires. There he is, you see! And when you hear him go, I think you'll say he's a Stinger.'

The piece of ordnance referred to, was mounted in a separate fortress, constructed of lattice-work. It was protected from the weather by an ingenious little tarpaulin contrivance in the nature of an umbrella.

`Then, at the back,' said Wemmick, `out of sight, so as not to impede the idea of fortifications - for it's a principle with me, if you have an idea, carry it out and keep it up - I don't know whether that's your opinion--'

I said, decidedly.

` - At the back, there's a pig, and there are fowls and rabbits; then, I knock together my own little frame, you see, and grow cucumbers; and you'll judge at supper what sort of a salad I can raise. So, sir,' said Wemmick, smiling again, but seriously too, as he shook his head, `if you can suppose the little place besieged, it would hold out a devil of a time in point of provisions.'

Then, he conducted me to a bower about a dozen yards off, but which was approached by such ingenious twists of path that it took quite a long time to get at; and in this retreat our glasses were already set forth.

Our punch was cooling in an ornamental lake, on whose margin the bower was raised. This piece of water (with an island in the middle which might have been the salad for supper) was of a circular form, and he had constructed a fountain in it, which, when you set a little mill going and took a cork out of a pipe, played to that powerful extent that it made the back of your hand quite wet.

`I am my own engineer, and my own carpenter, and my own plumber, and my own gardener, and my own Jack of all Trades,' said Wemmick, in acknowledging my compliments. `Well; it's a good thing, you know. It brushes the Newgate cobwebs away, and pleases the Aged. You wouldn't mind being at once introduced to the Aged, would you? It wouldn't put you out?'

I expressed the readiness I felt, and we went into the castle. There, we found, sitting by a fire, a very old man in a flannel coat: clean, cheerful, comfortable, and well cared for, but intensely deaf.

`Well aged parent,' said Wemmick, shaking hands with him in a cordial and jocose way, `how am you?'

`All right, John; all right!' replied the old man.

`Here's Mr Pip, aged parent,' said Wemmick, `and I wish you could hear his name. Nod away at him, Mr Pip; that's what he likes. Nod away at him, if you please, like winking!'