My father’s family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my 1)infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more 2)explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip.
I give Pirrip as my father’s family name, on the authority of his 3)tombstone and my sister - Mrs. Joe Gargery, who married the 4)blacksmith. 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).
Ours was the 5)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 6)memorable raw afternoon towards evening near my parents’ graves in the 7)churchyard.
“Hold your noise!” came a terrible voice, as a man started up from among the graves at the side of the church 8)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 9)soaked in water, and 10)smothered in mud, and 11)lamed by stones, and cut by 12)flints, and stung by 13)nettles, and torn by 14)briars; who limped, and shivered, and glared and 15)growled; and whose teeth chattered in his head as he seized me by the chin.
“Tell us your name!” said the man. “Quick!”
“Pip, sir.”
“Show us where you live,” said the man. “Point out the place!”
I pointed to where our village lay, on the flat in-shore among the 16)alder-trees and 17)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.
“You young dog,” said the man, licking his lips, “18)what fat cheeks you ha” got. Darn me if I couldn’t eat em, and if I han’t half a mind to’t!”
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 then 19)lookee 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, pointed to the tombstone. “That’s my mother.”
“Oh!” said he, coming back. “And is that your father 20)alonger your mother?”
“Yes, sir,” said I; “him too; late of this 21)parish.”
“Ha!” he muttered then, considering. “22)Who d’ye live with – supposin’ you’re kindly let to live, which I han’t made up my mind about?”
“My sister, sir - Mrs Joe Gargery - wife of Joe Gargery, the blacksmith, sir.”
“Blacksmith, eh? Now lookee here,” he said, “the question being whether you’re to be let to live. You know what a file is?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you know what 23)wittles is?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You get me a file.” He tilted me again. “And you get me wittles.” He tilted me again. “You bring ’em both to me.” He tilted me again. “Or I’ll have your heart and liver out.” He tilted me again.
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 24)pursued, “you remember what you’ve undertook, and you remember that 25)young man, get home!”
When he came to the low church wall, he got over it, like a man whose legs were 26)numbed and stiff, and then turned round to look for me. When I saw him turning, I set my face towards home, and made the best use of my legs.
