“He set up fur a gentleman, this Compeyson,and he’d been to a public boarding-school and had learning.He was a smooth one to talk,and was a dab at the ways of gentlefolks.He was good-looking too.It was the night afore the great race,when I found him on the heath,in a booth that I know’d on.Him and some more was a sitting among the tables when I went in,and the landlord (which had a knowledge of me,and was a sporting one) called him out, and said,‘I think this is a man that might suit you, ’—meaning I was.
“Compeyson, he looks at me very noticing,and I look at him. He has a watch and a chain and a ring and a breast-pin and a handsome suit of clothes.
“‘To judge from appearances, you’re out of luck,’ says Compeyson to me.
“‘Yes, master, and I’ve never been in it much.’ (I had come out of Kingston Jail last on a vagrancy committal.Not but what it might have been for something else; but it warn’t.)
“‘Luck changes,’ says Compeyson;‘perhaps yours is going to change.’
“I says, ‘I hope it may be so. There’s room.’
“‘What can you do?’ says Compeyson.
“‘Eat and drink,’ I says; ‘if you’ll find the materials. ’
“Compeyson laughed, looked at me again very noticing,giv me five shillings, and appointed me for next night. Same place.
“I went to Compeyson next night, same place,and Compeyson took me on to be his man and pardner.And what was Compeyson’s business in which we was to go pardners?Compeyson’s business was the swindling,handwriting forging, stolen bank-note passing,and such-like. All sorts of traps as Compeyson could set with his head,and keep his own legs out of and get the profits from and let another man in for, was Compeyson’s business. He’d no more heart than a iron file, he was as cold as death, and he had the head of the Devil afore mentioned.
“There was another in with Compeyson,as was called Arthur,—not as being so chrisen’d,but as a surname. He was in a Decline,and was a shadow to look at.Him and Compeyson had been in a bad thing with a rich lady some years afore,and they’d made a pot of money by it;but Compeyson betted and gamed,and he’d have run through the king’s taxes. So,Arthur was a dying,and a dying poor and with the horrors on him,and Compeyson’s wife (which Compeyson kicked mostly) was a having pity on him when she could, and Compeyson was a having pity on nothing and nobody.
“I might a took warning by Arthur, but I didn’t;and I won’t pretend I was partick’ler—for where ’ud be the good on it,dear boy and comrade?So I begun wi’ Compeyson,and a poor tool I was in his hands.Arthur lived at the top of Compeyson’s house (over nigh Brentford it was),and Compeyson kept a careful account agen him for board and lodging,in case he should ever get better to work it out.But Arthur soon settled the account.The second or third time as ever I see him,he come a tearing down into Compeyson’s parlour late at night,in only a flannel gown, with his hair all in a sweat,and he says to Compeyson’s wife, ‘Sally,she really is upstairs alonger me, now,and I can’t get rid of her. She’s all in white,’ he says, ‘wi’ white flowers in her hair,and she’s awful mad,and she’s got a shroud hanging over her arm,and she says she’ll put it on me at five in the morning. ’
“Says Compeyson: ‘Why, you fool,don’t you know she’s got a living body?And how should she be up there,without coming through the door, or in at the window, and up the stairs?’
“‘I don’t know how she’s there,’ says Arthur,shivering dreadful with the horrors,‘but she’s standing in the corner at the foot of the bed,awful mad. And over where her heart’s broke—_you_ broke it!—there’s drops of blood.’
“Compeyson spoke hardy, but he was always a coward.‘Go up alonger this drivelling sick man,’ he says to his wife, ‘and Magwitch, lend her a hand, will you?’ But he never come nigh himself.
“Compeyson’s wife and me took him up to bed agen,and he raved most dreadful. ‘Why look at her!’ he cries out. ‘She’s a shaking the shroud at me!Don’t you see her?Look at her eyes!Ain’t it awful to see her so mad?’ Next he cries, ‘She’ll put it on me,and then I’m done for!Take it away from her, take it away!’ And then he catched hold of us,and kep on a talking to her, and answering of her,till I half believed I see her myself.
“Compeyson’s wife, being used to him,giv him some liquor to get the horrors off,and by and by he quieted. ‘O, she’s gone!Has her keeper been for her?’ he says. ‘Yes,’ says Compeyson’s wife.‘Did you tell him to lock her and bar her in?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘And to take that ugly thing away from her?’ ‘Yes, yes, all right.’ ‘You’re a good creetur,’ he says, ‘don’t leave me, whatever you do, and thank you!’
“He rested pretty quiet till it might want a few minutes of five,and then he starts up with a scream, and screams out, ‘Here she is!She’s got the shroud again. She’s unfolding it.She’s coming out of the corner.She’s coming to the bed. Hold me,both on you—one of each side—don’t let her touch me with it. Hah!she missed me that time.Don’t let her throw it over my shoulders.Don’t let her lift me up to get it round me.She’s lifting me up. Keep me down!’ Then he lifted himself up hard, and was dead.
“Compeyson took it easy as a good riddance for both sides.Him and me was soon busy,and first he swore me (being ever artful) on my own book,—this here little black book, dear boy,what I swore your comrade on.
“Not to go into the things that Compeyson planned,and I done—which ’ud take a week—I’ll simply say to you,dear boy, and Pip’s comrade,that that man got me into such nets as made me his black slave.I was always in debt to him, always under his thumb,always a working, always a getting into danger.He was younger than me, but he’d got craft,and he’d got learning,and he overmatched me five hundred times told and no mercy.My Missis as I had the hard time wi’—Stop though!I ain’t brought _her_ in—”
He looked about him in a confused way,as if he had lost his place in the book of his remembrance;and he turned his face to the fire,and spread his hands broader on his knees,and lifted them off and put them on again.
“There ain’t no need to go into it,” he said,looking round once more.“The time wi’ Compeyson was a’most as hard a time as ever I had;that said, all’s said. Did I tell you as I was tried,alone, for misdemeanor, while with Compeyson?”
I answered, No.