Great Expectations Chapter Fifteen Summary

When Pip has learned about all he can from Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt, he begs Biddy to teach him everything she knows, which she willingly does. Pip wants to be a sponge for knowledge.
He also tries to teach Joe everything that he learns in a way of helping Joe become more educated, and, thus, more worthy of Pip’s company.
Pip and Joe go to the old Battery on the marshes for their lessons on Sundays, but Joe is not the most attentive student. Pip, too, spends most of his time looking at the sails on the horizon and dreaming of Estella and Satis House. He sees, hears, and feels Estella in everything around him. He can’t go a minute without her running through his mind. He is one lovesick puppy.
One Sunday, when Pip and Joe are hanging out at the battery, Pip asks Joe if he can take half a day off of work so that he can go visit Miss Havisham.
Joe doesn’t think this is a good idea. He remembers Miss Havisham’s last words warning Joe never to ask for more money than she has already given. Joe is worried that if Pip visits her, she will feel like he has returned to butter her up for more dough.
After they go back and forth, Joe finally agrees to give Pip take a half day.
Joe employs a burly, gruff looking man named Orlick. Orlick hits things with his hammer in the smithy, and he is not too friendly. He’s been jealous of Pip every since Pip started his apprenticeship, and he worries that Pip will someday replace him.
When Orlick catches wind that Pip gets to take half a day off of work, Orlick has a conniption, extolling the inherent injustice of giving only one employee such a privilege.
Joe is befuddled, but then decides to give everybody a holiday in order to make everybody happy.
Mrs. Joe, however, overhears this ruling and bursts in upon the scene yelling and shouting at Joe for being such a fool as to let his employees walk all over him.
She calls Orlick names.
This makes Orlick M-A-D. He calls Mrs. Joe names and threatens her with violence.
She rages at him some more, and she rages at Joe for not defending her honor.
Joe finally has to challenge Orlick to a fight to satisfy Mrs. Joe, and he knocks Orlick down faster than you can say "smithy."
Mrs. Joe faints, and Orlick slouches away with a bloody nose. Good times, good times.
When Pip first arrives at Miss Havisham’s, Sarah Pocket lets him in. She is very cold and almost tells him to go home.
Miss Havisham can’t understand why he’s returned and tells him she won’t give any more money, but Pip assures her he has just come to thank her for helping secure his apprenticeship.
Miss Havisham catches Pip looking around the room for signs of Estella. She tells him that Estella is in France learning to be a beautiful, educated woman way out of his reach. She asks him if he misses her and if he feels he has lost her, but she dismisses him before he can reply.
As Pip is ejected onto the street, he feels even worse than he did before. We could have called that one, Pip.
He walks around the main street of town, looking at all of the shop windows and thinking about what he would buy for himself if he were a gentleman.
Pip runs into Mr. Wopsle, who has just come out of the bookstore with a copy of the tragedy of George Barnwell, a play. He invites Pip to come over to Mr. Pumblechook’s house where they will read the play aloud.
Under normal circumstances, Pip would never, ever hang out with Pumblechook, but since he’s feeling so SAD, he decides to accept the invitation.
The play reading doesn’t end until 9:30 at night. He and Mr. Wopsle walk home together, and on their way they find Orlick crouching on the side of the road. It’s a really misty night, so they can’t tell what he’s doing.
Orlick tells them that convicts have escaped from the prison ships, and that the prison ships are firing cannons to warn the local area. Orlick seems a little strange.
The three men walk past the Three Jolly Bargemen, where there is mass chaos going on. They soon discover that something is wrong at Pip’s house.
When he gets home, the whole town is huddle around his house. The commotion seems to be centered in the kitchen and, when he walks in, he finds his sister lying unconscious on the ground. She has been hit hard on the back of her head.

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