About this story
A leg-iron drags at a convict in the churchyard, and one like it later fells Mrs Joe. On a storm night the man it was struck from returns as Provis, your benefactor, and sheltering him means a rope in the sluice-house and a run down the Thames. Thirty-six chapters carry Pip from five small gravestones to Estella's hand in a ruined garden.
Who you’ll meet
Abel Magwitch, the escaped convict who rises out of the marsh graves and makes the bargain that runs the whole serial, with the forge doorway of the home he wants robbed burning a mile behind him.
How it opens
Cold marsh wind crossed the churchyard and flattened the coarse grass.
You traced the letters on five small stones that supplied your family's history.
You there among the graves, hold still and make no sound.
Hold your noise, or I will silence it for you.
Choose
Please do not hurt me, sir.
Who are you, and why are you hiding here?
Someone from the village will hear us.