He sat down on a chair that stood before the fire, and covered his forehead with his large brown hands.
"You acted nobly, my boy," said he.
I told him that I hoped he had mended his way of life, and was doing well.
"I've done wonderful well," he said. And then he asked me if I was doing well. And when I mentioned that I had been chosen to succeed to some property, he asked whose property? And, after that, if my lawyer-guardian's name began with "J."
All the truth of my position came flashing on me, and quickly I understood that Miss Havisham's intentions towards me were all a mere dream.
"Yes, Pip, dear boy, I've made a gentleman on you. It's me wot has done it! I swore that time, sure as ever I earned a guinea, that guinea should go to you. I swore afterwards, sure as ever I spec'lated and got rich, that you should get rich. Look 'ee here, Pip. I'm your second father. You're my son--more to me nor any son. I've put away money, only for you to spend. You ain't looked slowly forward to this as I have. You wasn't prepared for this as I wos. It warn't easy, Pip, for me to leave them parts, nor it wasn't safe. Look 'ee here, dear boy; caution is necessary."
"How do you mean?" I said. "Caution?"
"I was sent for life. It's death to come back. There's been overmuch coming back of late years, and I should of a certainty be hanged if took."
As Herbert was away, I put the man in the spare room, and gave out that he was my uncle.
He told me something of his story next day, and when Herbert came back and we had found a bed-room for our visitor in Essex Street, he told us all of it. His name was Magwitch--Abel Magwitch--he called himself Provis now--and he had been left by a travelling tinker to grow up alone. "In jail and out of jail, in jail and out of jail--that's my life pretty much, down to such times as I got shipped off, arter Pip stood my friend." But there was a man who "set up fur a gentleman, named Compeyson," and this Compeyson's business was swindling, forging, and stolen banknote passing. Magwitch became his servant, and when both men were arrested, Compeyson turned round on the man whom he had employed, and got off with seven years to Magwitch's fourteen. Compeyson was the second convict of my childhood.