and Pip imagined that all the cattle stared
at him, as if to say, "Halloa, young thief!" and one black ox with a
white cravat on, that made Pip think of a clergyman, looked so
accusingly at him, that Pip blubbered out, "I couldn't help it, sir! It
wasn't for myself I took it."

Upon which the ox put down his head, blew a cloud of smoke out of his
nose, and vanished with a kick-up of his hind legs and a flourish of his
tail.

Pip was soon at the place of meeting after that, and there was the
man--hugging himself and limping to and fro, as if he had never all
night left off hugging and limping. He was awfully cold, to be sure. Pip
half expected to see him drop down before his face and die of cold. His
eyes looked so awfully hungry, too, that when Pip handed him the file it
occurred to him he would have tried to eat it, if he had not seen the
bundle. He did not turn Pip upside down, this time, to get at what he
had, but left him right side upward while he opened the bundle and
emptied his pockets.

"What's in the bottle, boy?" said he.

"Brandy," said Pip.

He was already handing mince-pie down his throat in the most curious
manner, more like a man who was putting it away somewhere in a violent
hurry than a man who was eating it--but he left off to take some of the
liquor, shivering all the while so violently that it was quite as much
as he could do to keep the neck of the bottle between his teeth.

"I think you have got the chills," said Pip.

"I'm much of your opinion, boy," said he.

"It's bad about here. You've been lying out on the marshes, and they're
dreadful for the chills. Rheumatic, too."

"I'll eat my breakfast before they're the death of me," said he. "I'd do
that, if I was going to be strung up to that there gallows as there is
over there directly arterward. I'll beat the shivers so far, I'll bet
you a guinea."

He was gobbling mince-meat, meat-bone, bread, cheese, and pork-pie all
at once, staring distrustfully while he did so at the mist all round,
and often stopping--even stopping his jaws--to listen. Some real or
fancied sound, some clink upon the river or breathing of beasts upon
the marsh, now gave him a start, and he said, suddenly:

"You're not a false imp? You brought no one with you?"

"No, sir! No!"

"Nor told nobody to follow you?"

"No!"

"Well," said he, "I believe you. You'd be but a fierce young hound
indeed, if at your time of life you should help to hunt a wretched
warmi