Redeeming Time
Pip Pirrip never misses a moment of visiting time with Abel Magwitch, the convict who made him into a gentleman, in the prison hospital.
Set in 1828
Pip Pirrip never misses a moment of visiting time with Abel Magwitch, the convict who made him into a gentleman, in the prison hospital.
Set in 1828
Pip Pirrip has finally met the anonymous benefactor who made him a gentleman – a transported felon, Abel Magwitch, illegally back in Britain just to see him. But shock and disgust have given way to pity and respect; and now Abel lies in a prison hospital, unlikely to trouble the hangman, Pip never misses a minute of visiting hour.
“DEAR boy,” he said, as I sat down by his bed: “I thought you was late. But I knowed you couldn’t be that. God bless you! You’ve never deserted me, dear boy.”
I pressed his hand in silence, for I could not forget that I had once meant to desert him.
“And what’s the best of all,” he said, “you’ve been more comfortable alonger me, since I was under a dark cloud, than when the sun shone. That’s best of all.”
He lay on his back, breathing with great difficulty. Do what he would, and love me though he did, the light left his face ever and again, and a film came over the placid look at the white ceiling.
“Are you in much pain to-day?”
“I don’t complain of none, dear boy.”
“You never do complain.”
He had spoken his last words. He smiled, and I understood his touch to mean that he wished to lift my hand, and lay it on his breast. I laid it there, and he smiled again, and put both his hands upon it.
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
Why is Pip a little ashamed when does Magwitch thanks him for his loyalty?
Because Pip once planned to abandon him.