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Lord strike you dead on the spot, if ever you split in any way sumever! Kiss it!" "Do so, as he wishes it," I said to Herbert. So, Herbert, looking at me with a friendly uneasiness and amazement, complied, and Provis immediately shaking hands with him, said, "Now you're on your oath, you know. And never believe me on mine, if Pip shan't make a gentleman on you!"
As far as the picture, which he said the carpenter pointed out to him in his parlour as the portrait of his father, was concerned, and which, when produced, bore the inscription, "Hugh Smyth, Esq., son of Thomas Smyth, Esq., of Stapleton, county of Gloucester, 1796," he indignantly repudiated the idea that it was a likeness of John Provis the younger, although he reluctantly admitted that the old carpenter sometimes entertained the delusion that the painting represented his son John, and that the inscription had not been perceivable until he washed it with tartaric acid, which, he declared, was excellent for restoring faded writings.
"He hopes I am, if he's alive, you may be sure," with a fierce look. "I never heerd no more of him." Herbert had been writing with his pencil in the cover of a book. He softly pushed the book over to me, as Provis stood smoking with his eyes on the fire, and I read in it: "Young Havisham's name was Arthur. Compeyson is the man who professed to be Miss Havisham's lover."
Let him suppose it a mere freak, but a secret one, until the morning comes: then let him know that there is urgent reason for your getting Provis aboard and away. You go with him?" "No doubt." "Where?"
That, Compeyson stood in mortal fear of him, neither of the two could know much better than I; and that any such man as that man had been described to be would hesitate to release himself for good from a dreaded enemy by the safe means of becoming an informer was scarcely to be imagined. Never had I breathed, and never would I breathe or so I resolved a word of Estella to Provis.
The chair that Provis had occupied still remaining where it had Stood, for he had a barrack way with him of hanging about one spot, in one unsettled manner, and going through one round of observances with his pipe and his negro-head and his jackknife and his pack of cards, and what not, as if it were all put down for him on a slate, I say his chair remaining where it had stood, Herbert unconsciously took it, but next moment started out of it, pushed it away, and took another.
He guided himself by it, no doubt." "No doubt," said I. "I have been informed by Wemmick," pursued Mr. Jaggers, still looking hard at me, "that he has received a letter, under date Portsmouth, from a colonist of the name of Purvis, or " "Or Provis," I suggested. "Or Provis thank you, Pip. Perhaps it is Provis? Perhaps you know it's Provis?" "Yes," said I. "You know it's Provis.
Provis, who had brought him up, was the only person whom he met, and with him he had some words for obstinately refusing to give him any information respecting his mother. The interview was a very stormy one; but old Provis, who was so angry with him at first that he struck him with his stick, quickly relented, and gave him the Bible, the jewellery, and the heir-looms which he possessed.
Both Herbert and I noticed how quickly Provis had become softened, and on the night when we were to take him on board a Hamburg steamer he was very gentle.
Thus all the hopes of the real heir were dashed to the ground, for it was not to be expected that the next-of-kin, who knew nothing of the supposed Provis, or of Sir Hugh's marriage, would yield up the estates to an utter stranger, without a severe struggle and a desperate litigation.
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