Learn English – What does this sentence really mean

Wind up: to bring to a state of great tension; excite (usually used in the past participle)

I believe that the derivation is from an old pocket-watch; they had to be kept wound up (otherwise they would stop ticking) but not wound too tightly (otherwise the internal mechanisms would break.) I never had a pocketwatch, but my grandfather did, and he left us a choice phrase: "That boy is wound tighter than an idiot's watch."

There is also an expression "to get/put the wind up (somebody)" (to scare someone or make them feel anxious - probably originally a hunting term, from the way small game reacts to a sudden wind), which is superficially similar to "to wind up (a watch, or someone's nerves)".

Note on pronunciation (pace @PLL):

• wind up - IPA waɪnd - rhymes with "find"
• put the wind up - IPA wɪnd - rhymes with "finned"
• wound up - IPA waʊnd - rhymes with "found"

How about this:

Damnation [...] 3. In profane use: [...] b. as adj. or adv. = 'Damned'.

Their first example is from 1757:

"The wit with metaphors makes bold, And tells you he's damnation cold."

There are two more examples: Damn'd old puns over damnation hot tea in Cambridge (1772), and a damned Frenchman with his damnation horse (1843).

(Source: OED)

PS: In these three examples, damnation clearly was chosen instead of damn for somewhat technical reasons: In the first so that the line scans, and in the other two for variety. In Dickens' case I can see no such reason.

At first I found oerkelens' hypothesis convincing: avoiding censorship through creative abbreviation of a less commonly used variant. But the same chapter also has this: "So, then One more pull and you're at the top and be damned to you [...]". Incidentally, we can see another instance of unusual (to us) capitalisation here - again on a word that's likely to be emphasised.