About this story
A man in leg irons comes over the wall and keeps one hand near your collar while he asks who you live with. A blacksmith, you tell him, which means a file, and he wants it and food at the old Battery before daylight. Six chapters carry you through a stolen pie and a Christmas dinner, a hunt across the marsh, Miss Havisham's stopped clocks, and a lawyer at the forge with a secret benefactor.
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.